Going Postal At The Empire State Building: Jokers, Joshua Foust & Revenge of the Nerds

Going Postal / August 26, 2012

By Mark Ames

From today’s edition of the NSFW Corp:

The early news reports made Jeffrey Johnson out to be a deranged monster: After pumping five bullets into the supervisor who’d fired him from his job at the Empire State Building, Johnson supposedly went on a wild shooting rampage out on 5th Avenue, firing randomly at innocent bystanders, wounding nine before cops took him down using their anti-terrorism training.

In this early, cinematic version of events, the NYPD’s aggressive anti-terrorism training paid off—who knows how many more people Jeffrey Johnson would have shot and killed?

But as the day wore on, the early heroic version of events started to give way to something more complicated and disturbing—as so often happens with these workplace shootings. The gunman, it turned out, didn’t go on a wild shooting spree; all of his bullets were fired into one target, his former boss who downsized him; it was the NYPD who hit the bystanders while trying to get the gunman, who happened to be standing right next to their faces, in what appears to have been a conscious decision to commit suicide-by-cop.

Despite all the Jack Bauer anti-terror training the two cops supposedly received, they couldn’t hit the side of a skyscraper if their lives depended on it—let alone the front of a human being practically pressing his face into the barrels of their guns. In fact the “graphic” CCTV video looks like some desperate middle-aged schlub trying to get himself killed by Mr. Magoo and Magoo’s twin, who empty their handgun clips on every living creature except for the suicidal schlub with the .45 in his hand, doing a tapioca dance right in front of their faces…(to continue reading click here)

To read the rest of this article on the Empire State Building shooting, the Aurora “Joker” massacre, and Joshua Foust, click here (open viewing).

This article was published at Not Safe For Work Corp, where I’m now Senior Editor.

You should subscribe: http://www.nsfwcorp.com/subscribe

Would you like to know more? Read “Failing Up With Joshua Foust: Meet the Evil Genius Massacre-Denier Who Shills For War Profiteers” by Mark Ames.

Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine.

Click the cover & buy the book!

Got something to say to us? Then send us a letter.

Want us to stick around? Donate to The eXiled.

Twitter twerps can follow us at twitter.com/exiledonline

118 Comments

Add your own

1. Alex | August 26th, 2012 at 10:10 am
I’ve been reading this site for a few years now, and that is Mark Ames’ best article yet.
2. Alex II | August 26th, 2012 at 10:19 am
I actually feel really sorry for Foust because my experiences in school were a lot like his. I don’t want to get into them, but I was pretty suicidal for a number of years.
I’d often go online and just torment/insult/harass random strangers at different chat rooms just to hurt their feelings, make them feel pain and to suffer and to allow myself to feel power. It was twisted, but for me it was a chance to make others feel pain the same why I did it- in an environment where I felt like I could get away with it. (I felt too weak to bully my own oppressors.)
So I actually feel really, really sorry for the guy. I pity him more than anything. Yes, what he’s doing is wrong, but he’s doing it not just for money- but also the respect from media tools it gives. But not just that- more than anything else he has a compulsive need to hurt and bully others as he was bullied. To him you’re just a safe target- but after reading your article, he’ll likely realize you’re not one to be trifled with and he’ll move on and find somebody else to bully, just like how I’d move on after being banned from the upteenth chat room to find new people to hate and mock.
So when you read him write something nasty about you Ames, you may despise him but you should also pity him because his current pitiable state is the creation of a corrupt school system with evil children who ruined his life and warped his psyche. He hates you not for any particular reason, just that he needs somebody to bully, dominate and lord it over to make up for what happened to him. He wants others to feel the pain he felt. It’s not logical, but it is how it is….. actually, it is very logical. And it’s very sad.
3. yaph | August 26th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Jeffrey Johnson is a role model for all the downtrodden. Don’t kill yourself, don’t kill random bystanders, kill your abusers.
4. Zog | August 26th, 2012 at 10:57 am
@3
+1
5. crazy_inventor | August 26th, 2012 at 10:58 am
A remarkably black & white view. Completely dismisses how most of the kids who were called nerds mature into well adjusted balanced people, some of who even spend their life doing good, fighting for social justice and other important issues.
‘If you’re one of the lucky ones /or/ like the 99% of contemporary twerps.’
A glaring false dichotomy.
While there is a lack of appreciation and recognition for people who don’t fit into neat little categories the corporate media pounds into our heads –
1.) real artists don’t want or need these psychological crutches, as standing apart from culture is actually a positive attribute for the creative process.
2.) people who fall for the trap of the above false dichotomy and concentrate their attention on such people and way of thinking, feed into such lack of appreciation and recognition and so marginalize the vast majority of ‘twerps’, while indirectly raising the dysfunctional tiny minority who go postal, on a pedestal. A form of sensationalism.
If it bleeds it leads.
If he bleeds I write.
Arthur Silber lays this all out quite nicely :
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/
August 04, 2012
‘To Be Comfortable Is to Die’
I was so impressed with this, I even re-wrote it adapting it to myself, but haven’t published it (I dislike talking about myself)
6. Ronald Reagan | August 26th, 2012 at 11:52 am
Cops shouldn’t have guns.
7. Real Salesman | August 26th, 2012 at 11:58 am
It’s true. If you’re going to go on a rampage, it’s stupid to kill the innocent. Kill the people you have a problem with.
Flying a plane into the IRS building (although not my political bent) makes a lot more sense than into a random tower block. Be an assassin, not an ill-focused loon.
8. vortexgods | August 26th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
I don’t think it’s fair to compare someone like Jeffrey Johnson to these other two.
He reminds me of a hapless Columbo murderer in one of the episodes where the murder victim is a really horrible human being, or maybe an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents like “Lamb to the Slaughter,” where the murderess manages to kill her really awful husband. Now, these are still murderers, so we’ll have Columbo catching the guy, or Alfred Hitchcock assuring us that the murderers in his episodes get caught and punished. (I remember in one episode he didn’t even bother with a story, he was just like, “ah, you know, murder will out, etc” in his little wrap up.) Still, no one writes a story like that without the idea that we’ll all feel sympathetic toward the murderer because we can understand their motives.
On the other hand, James Holmes is a best a lunatic and at worst an evil monster. Gunning down random strangers seeing Batman, including kids? No sympathy at all, except I think he’s probably schizophrenic.
Joshua Foust has a lot in common with Jeffrey Johnson’s victim, in that they were both insufferable pricks. I can see Foust getting the same kind of enjoyment out of making an underling’s life Hell and then firing him that Steven Ercolino seemed to have gotten. Two of a kind, those two.
I liked the article, it’s just that we are talking about three different types. Sure, I could see Foust murdering someone, for kicks even, given the opportunity by one of his dictator clients, “Here, Joshua, you expressed an interest in killing. This man has opposed me, here.”
I may have completely missed the point of your article, but I do thank you for tolerating me in my moment of tardery.
9. Gerard Pierce | August 26th, 2012 at 12:46 pm
It’s an excellent story, but I have the feeling that something in the back-story is missing.
It would be interesting to know if something in Jeffrey Johnson’s life had changed – like for instance, running out of money after two years, or reaching the end of unemployment insurance.
Being a ‘twerp’ is one thing. Being an unemployed homeless twerp explains a lot more. (???)
10. Peter | August 26th, 2012 at 12:46 pm
#5 up there probably comes from where I come from: somewhere where there’s a social space for nerds. In my case, I come from a town where there’s not, but a region (Boston suburbs) where there is, so I know both sides. In places that have a lot of money and education and a culture that allows for (a little) more cultural leeway, you don’t have to pretend to be a Galtoid or a Tuckerbag to get by, though God knows enough people do anyway.
Chances are, most of the creators of “independent” media — whether it’s the filmmakers who make these nerd-diamond-in-the-rough movies over and over again or the journalists who ignore the kind of stuff Ames has been saying all this time — come from the sort of spaces I just described, and that explains a lot.
11. G.G. Allin | August 26th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
That was a great article.
12. Gavine | August 26th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Agreed. Great piece.
13. Notorious P.A.T. | August 26th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Great article, Mark.
14. Fissile | August 26th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
That was really a very good article. I posted links to at several other sites.
As for the reaction of the NYPD cops, no one should be surprised. The NYPD starts off new hires at $41K per year, and it goes up to $90K after 5 years….full medical, dental and vision included. After 25 years they can retire with a defined benefit pension. If they become sick or injured before 25 years, the NYPD provides a very comfortable disability pension.
Take into account our current shitty economy, and the NYPD has a HUGE applicant pool to choose from. They are good at choosing the applicants that will follow orders without asking questions. These people are trained to “neutralize threats” and not worry about “collateral damage”. That’s why you get cops busting caps on a crowded street like gangstas in a rap video.
THE AEC RESPONDS:
What the fuck do decent benefits and middle-class salary have to do with wonton shooting and bad aim? What the fuck is Blackwater’s excuse? What’s the excuse for tobacco industry executives and lobbyists who earn millions? What is the Cato Institute’s excuse for doing propaganda for major polluters and tobacco industry which kills millions every year around the globe?
The disability benefits that NYPD workers gain all sound like good things, totally unrelated to this. You sound like a crypto-union buster troll. Fix that, or fuck off.
15. mookid | August 26th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
great article!
about the photo: did they handcuff a dead person? is this normal?
16. Epsilon | August 26th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Turns out that people don’t just roll over and die when they get screwed by social, sexual and economical Darwinism.
Not that the people that implement said standards could knew that, they all have politicians licking their asses 24/7.
@Fissile
“Sign up to be a blue thug/on the Army or drop dead, I mean, be unemployed”. Your argument fell flat on its ass while you were typing it, so cut your Protestant Work Ethic/fetishization of poverty crap.
17. Alex II | August 26th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
I wonder if Joshua will have a life-changing epiphany and come over to the light side upon reading a reflection of his inner psyche, that young child still screaming and in fear and pain of the cruel world around him.
He’s become what he hates most and I hope he can change back. Fuck the American school system.
18. euro-dude | August 26th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Disturbing episode there in ‘merika, particularly re both police and bystanders.
For one thing, in a video of the NYC shooting, you see a mom-type with shopping bags and a little girl. Shooting starts, mom runs away with bags … doesn’t take the little girl’s hand, leaves child behind near the flying bullets. American family life today.
And the cops, Jesus. The terrorist attitude of American police – ‘spray and pray’ – kill the innocent along with the possibly guilty – ‘Let God sort ’em out’.
America’s terrorist cops, are clearly encouraged that they will not be sanctioned when they kill and maim the innocent. They have the murderer mentality.
But this is also a consequence of the increasing war against a gun culture, avoiding hiring police who are ‘firearms enthusiasts’, and instead hiring idiots who panic and shoot blindly in a tense situation..
Use of firearms, and especially handguns, takes some substantial preparation for the ‘moment of truth’, practice both actual and mental.
Shooting for real is a matter of ‘take your time, fast’. A warrior in deadly danger, with innocents nearby, must take that extra fraction of a second to aim … and must be well enough trained to be able to do that, reflexively … sights on target, trigger pull without a flinch that would push the trajectory of the bullet awry.
And by the way …
Americans tend not to know that we probably have around 100 million privately owned handguns, rifles and shotguns in Continental Europe (It was the crazy Brits that confiscated everyone’s handguns, not us on the Continent.) On the Continent, we know the Nazis can come back, they were here before, we know ‘things can change’. We have seen murderous tyranny, like the US is seeing now.
In Europe we are not noisy about it, but actually
Germany: 25 million civilian privately owned handguns, shotguns, rifles
France: 19 million civilian privately owned handguns, shotguns, rifles
Belgium: 2 million civilian privately owned handguns, shotguns, rifles
Facts of gun ownership and policies in countries around the world:
http://www.gunpolicy.org/
19. Fissile | August 26th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
“The disability benefits that NYPD workers gain all sound like good things, totally unrelated to this. You sound like a crypto-union buster troll. Fix that, or fuck off.”
OK, maybe I expressed myself badly in my original post. It was not my intention to imply that there is anything wrong with paying a fair salary and benefits to cops. The problem is that the job of police officer is one of the LAST blue collar jobs that still pays a fair salary with benefits. That’s why you get cops that act like storm troopers. The members of the NYPD know that it’s “follow orders” or go back to making $10/hr and no benefits. There is something very wrong with a society where cop is the only working class gig that still pays. Ultimately who do these cops serve in this society? The public at large? Their function is now to maintain the status quo. Think there were any 1% types on that sidewalk? Most of those people were tourists and working shlubs. Manhattan’s 1% is flown on private jets into Teterboro Airport across the river in Jersey. From there they pile into armored limos for the trip into Manhattan and into some secure underground parking garage. They are never in any danger of stray cop bullets.
As for union busting, how much solidarity do you think there is between the UAW, or the IBEW, etc and the PBA? When a journeyman union goes on strike, the good union members of the PBA are right there, more than eager to bust heads. I’ve seen it happen.
As for unions in general, they are only a positive force when they are inclusive and strive to give an equitable deal to everyone. When they become exclusionary mired in nepotism, crony-ism, racism and corruption…..like the current PBA…..they need to be reformed. Norman Mailer said just that during his 1969 campaign for mayor of NYC.
20. Flatulissimo | August 26th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
@5 – You are full of shit. Your “real artists don’t want or need these psychological crutches” bullshit is the same thing libertarian “information wants to be free” trolls use to justify never paying a musician for music – they’ll say shit like that a “real artist” will keep creating regardless of whether they make any money at it, because this is what defines a “real artist”.
This is a perfect example of the kind of protected whiteboy bourgeoisie attitude that is easy to have when you have never tried to create anything yourself, or have everything handed to you. It is so easy to be tough in theory. Just like it is easy for libertarian asshats to fancy themselves as rugged individualists and ignore all their privilege.
In reality, “real artists” are not some kind of superheroes and are just are susceptible to all the ills of our society as anybody else. Probably more so, because they aren’t clueless Tucker Max/Galtians, but are instead actually sensitive to their surroundings and to the feelings of others.
21. Zhu Bajie | August 26th, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Another alternative for nerds: born-again protestantism. Small churches can be fairly supportive of their members, like extended families or village communities. Also, speaking in tongues is very satisfying for some. So is fantasizing about the end of the world, when everyone else suffers and you are Raptured away.
Studying/reading obsessively is another alternative. Lots of people in grad programs are nerds and they can avoid the worst of nerdship until they get their final degrees.
In my case, I’ve done both and have ended up living abroad, in a country which is nerd-friendly.
22. crazy_inventor | August 26th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
@10
Actually no. I had to forge my own space in that hotbed of intolerance, Indiana.
By teaching the bullies a lesson, making an example out of one, accomplished by throwing acid on him at school in front of everyone, (after he ignored my repeated warnings) melting his winter parka. (tricky finding an acid that would melt nylon but not him)
I then became the ‘mad scientist’ and was feared.
The article I linked to is only roughly similar, I removed all the referances to gayness in order to adapt it to my situation, and added my own perspectives as a mad scientist insted.
Sorry AEC I intended the link only as a general outline on other people’s experiences with this issue not as a personal allegory, but wanted to clarify Peter’s conception.
23. crazy_inventor | August 26th, 2012 at 6:04 pm
@20
> you have never tried to create anything yourself
hahahhahahahhaa
You DID notice my handle did you not?
Here’s me creating for free : (and notice the timestamps..)
http://hackaday.com/2011/03/18/seeed-looks-for-help-developing-an-open-source-radiation-detector/#comments
And sorry, psychological crutches is not the same thing as getting paid, you’ll have to keep that strawman.
24. Martin Finnucane | August 26th, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Excellent piece. Watch: Welcome to the Dollhouse. Read: Mark Ames.
25. vortexgods | August 26th, 2012 at 6:54 pm
“I may have completely missed the point of your article, but I do thank you for tolerating me in my moment of tardery.”
Ok, duly chastised. I will try reading it again.
26. Anarchy Pony | August 26th, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Those cops were fucking pathetic.
27. gaphenTralskings | August 26th, 2012 at 7:26 pm
Wait so as an unemployed twerp my only 2 options are rampage or getting hired as an “attack monkey?” I’m Buddhist committed to nonviolent attack monkey trolling so how do I guess the choice is made for me already. Do you have Mr. Foust’s contact info so I can go about applying for the attack monkey position?
28. Fischbyne | August 26th, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Chernyshevsky
I just wasted a half hour trying to understand the connection between Ames’ article and (yet another) misreading of Gore Vidal work, cited by #5.
Recommend deletion on grounds of clinical dementia.
29. Peter | August 26th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
@CrazyInventor: if you say so. I think my point still, in general, stands, even if you are some (frankly improbable) exception to the rule.
How long ago was this acid stunt, by the way? Because something tells me that would get your ass in juvie or an asylum now.
30. calripson | August 26th, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Imagine growing up in 1960s America as an unathletic kid who tops out at 5’2″. Alas, times haven’t gotten any better for Twerps -it’s the same Middle School dynamic in effect, reinforced by the current generation of parents…sports are king, if you are a boy you better be athletic and tall, if you’re a girl you better be pretty and popular.
31. gaphenTralskings | August 26th, 2012 at 11:12 pm
Why did the AEC bother censoring my comment? The censored version says the exact same thing the original post did, except with nonsensical syntax. How do I get Foust’s job without the libertard prep-school/College Republican training program? The AEC often accuses me of trolling, that should count for something on my resume. Joshua Foust please pay me something, I don’t even get unemployment.
32. John | August 27th, 2012 at 12:21 am
Wonton shooting? As in those dumplings in soup?
Sounds harmless enough!
33. Maxim Fermi | August 27th, 2012 at 12:58 am
Fucking Bravo!
34. crazy_inventor | August 27th, 2012 at 2:41 am
His dad called my house, demanded to speak to me, told he was a chemist and demanded to know what kind of acid it was. I knew he was lying since if true he would already know, so I told him it was a harmless mixture of organic acids – citric, malic, acetic, and that I had made them by fermentation. All BS but he didn’t know any better, my science teacher (Mr. schaeffer) however did, but being his ‘star pupil’ he kept it to himself. I rinsed out the container while we were in the bathroom so no one would be able to tell – while they were distracted trying to wash the acid off..
I offered to neutralize the acid with some sodium carbonate (washing soda) I had in my pocket, but they didn’t trust me and refused.
That very teacher later ordered me a 5.lb jar of potassium cyanide that I said was needed for an electroplating experiment I was doing in the school lab which I occupied while the rest of the class were in the classroom. I could have made a ‘bomb’ with that – enough to kill everyone in school.
We had to pay for a new coat and I was grounded from my home lab in the basement for a month. (but I had a second lab in the barn, which I then ran power out to by extending from the well pump run, and transfered all my experiments there)
I also got another teacher (Mr. Dwyer) to start an electronics class, and I ordered all the equipment and parts for him, plus donated scrap equipment from Delco. He knew little about electronics so I was the actual teacher, although technically I was the teacher’s assistant.
The time frame was when winter parka coats became popular.
35. bulfinch | August 27th, 2012 at 2:58 am
I spent part of my public school years in Central Florida…don’t ever do that to a kid.
36. WE | August 27th, 2012 at 3:39 am
Thanks for this one Mark, it was truly brilliant, 8 layers deeper than anything anyone else has written on the story, and articulated a pain that many of us can relate to without the knee jerk condemnation from jock Christ culture that espouses morality as an us and them binary and cares nothing for motive, though Schopenhauer taught us long ago that without motive, there is no story; there is no us or them.
37. darthfader | August 27th, 2012 at 5:03 am
@5
It seems unlikely that Ames’s “twerps” – unavoidably the vast majority of American men – will all be able to stand “apart from culture”. Most of them will have to either get jobs or suffer from not having a job. You live a charmed existence, and you can’t project that onto others.
38. casino implosion | August 27th, 2012 at 5:27 am
Outstanding, Ames. This should be the seed of a new book.
39. CensusLouie | August 27th, 2012 at 5:30 am
Wow. The two biggest idiots since “Doug” in a row with #19 and #20. One who thinks the biggest evil is people making above minimum wage, and another idiot who considers himself a “warrior” for owning a gun, exactly the kind of person you DON’T want to have one.
Keep waiting for that “moment of truth”, you needle-dicked Travis Bickle.
40. Whyawannaknow | August 27th, 2012 at 6:01 am
@ #9:
He was out of money after 2 years of unemployment and about to be evicted. Left the keys in an envelope for the landlord, went out to kill his object and suicide by cop.
As a point of information: NYPD buys custom Glock and S&W pistols that have had the trigger pulls modified to be VERY heavy. Supposed to reduce negligent discharges by stressed out cops, definitely ruins potential for accurate shooting.
41. crazy_inventor | August 27th, 2012 at 6:06 am
@ 29 oh, I forgot to add, you are as exceptional as you make yourself.
@ 28
The connection and point is quite simple, the article here is about nerds/twerps, and how they cope – the article from Silber is also about nerds/twerps, and how they cope.
You can characterize Silber’s understanding as ‘misread’ regarding Vidal, but the bulk of his article is about himself, as a nerd, about how he coped.
This underlines the point I commented about, that there are other ways to cope besides just becoming a hired man hating blood money sucking whore or a man hating blood spilling shooter.
Silber, Vidal, myself and countless other nerds provide examples of there being other outcomes of bullying besides those two, the key to the difference is when man hating is removed from the equation.
I realize such bloodless outcomes aren’t as sensational and don’t fit within the pigeonhole the media and public at large would like all nerds to be in.
I attribute this to what lies behind bullying in the first place – the attacker’s own insecurities, IE; man hating.
An ordinary person, can gain social status and page views by bullying, putting down, and ignoring nerds. This anti-intellectualism is a favorite past time of popular culture, and is getting worse.
One might be curious as to who feeds this, who nurtures it and for what reason, or just being willfully ignorant and obtuse may better serve the ordinary mind.
Small minds talk about people; average minds talk about events; great minds talk about ideas.
42. Gerard Pierce | August 27th, 2012 at 6:42 am
In reference to my comment #9, as I suspected there was a back-story beyond the twerp-dom of the shooter.
As reported by the New York Post:
===============
The laid-off designer who executed a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building spent two years blaming his victim for his financial woes — but he finally snapped when he learned he was being evicted from his Upper East Side apartment, The Post has learned.
“This was the final straw that pushed him over the edge,” a police source said yesterday. “He was blaming the victim for being out of work, having no money and now having no apartment.”
========================
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/eviction_was_fatal_trigger_NTBXUwgHs5niN5LumAakYO
43. calripson | August 27th, 2012 at 8:05 am
Two points: Is the hell of Twerpdom a specific American/Western experience ? Are other countries less hostile to teen Twerps or do they simply define “Twerpdom” differently ? For example, in Chinese high schools academics are stressed. I have been told that jocks are not held in the same high regard as in the USA.
Secondly, was the late USSR actually a much more benign and humane culture in its treatment of Twerps than the “free world” ? That is what I have been told by people who grew up in the USSR. One fact is apparent, unlike in the USA, male height did not appear to be a determinant of political success. Lenin, Stalin, Khruschev, Putin, and Medvedev were all 5’7″ or under. The US hasn’t elected a president that short in 150 years. Gagarin was a national hero at 5’3″. Is this a sign of greater tolerance or did the USSR produce “Uber Twerps” who wrought their revenge like Stalin by seizing power ?
44. crazy_inventor | August 27th, 2012 at 9:02 am
@ 37
psychologically apart
What jobs you work (under the table at times) or how you make money (designing building and selling illegal devices) has nothing to do with standing apart from culture.
I’ve done all these, lived outside for a month (homeless – how charming) and didn’t even get a SS number until I was 27. I managed without one for years as a working adult, living mostly alone, sometimes with room mates.
There seems to be a large chasm between what popular culture calls a nerd (anyone who isn’t a jock – IQ having nothing to do with it), and what makes a real nerd (not ordinary).
I’ve found that you can figure out ways to make money, besides the traditional job, and you can keep money making activity apart from creative activity.
Too many people allow their job or ‘career’ to define them. Millions of worker drones have no life outside this role, and allow it to dominate their entire existence, their entire personality, then when their career goes sour, they have nothing left, nothing to lose and lacking other (coping) skills, lacking other aspects to their personality, sometimes resort to extreme measures, as this article highlights.
This is not to discount the present employment situation for young people – it’s extremely bad, the boomers are avoiding retiring hanging on to jobs that younger people used to get.
My grandparents walked into Delco, Chrysler with no education and were immediately hired to high paying union jobs.
My parents needed a HS diploma to do the same, with some further education for a higher pay-scale union job.
(my father took night classes to move up at Chrysler to tool & die)
When I was growing up, a college diploma was the ticket to at least a well paying job, maybe not union.
Since then college graduates went to low paying entry level jobs, then bottom of the barrel min wage service jobs, like McDonalds (which were considered ‘summer’ jobs for minors when I was growing up)
Now college graduates are obtaining NO jobs, the unemployment rate for college graduates is 53%
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/
But no matter what your financial situation, that has nothing to do with being psychologically isolated in the creative sense, unless you allow it to.
I’ve washed dishes, moved bags of sand, cleaned horse stalls, landscaping, spraying, construction, stuffed circuit boards, worked welding machines, plastic injection machines, chicken plant – all sorts of jobs over the years to pay the bills, but have never allowed these menial jobs to intrude into my creative activities or taint my values.
45. Mr. Bad | August 27th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
I think this is Ames at his best. Nobody and I really mean NOBODY knows the excruciating, gnawing agony of cowardice better than Ames! These insights many not be journalistic but the myriad rationalizations for cold blooded, bushwacking, ambush style murder he adduces to justify the bitter, cringing lives his fellow pussy’s lead before their final, pitiful grasp at self respect and the inevitable suicide that follows really limn their character better than I ever could. Keep up the good work Mark!
46. Bosco | August 27th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Has anyone found Mr. Johnson’s website? I would like to read it for myself.
47. Ed | August 27th, 2012 at 4:20 pm
I wonder, is Joshua Foust going to respond to the article at all or simply pretend like it doesn’t exist?
48. the dude | August 27th, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Anyone that gets made fun of in middle/high school, I have some advice for you. Order some anabolic steroids over the internet and become the football teams hookup.
49. Dimitri Ratz | August 27th, 2012 at 6:17 pm
The title should be “Police fire indiscriminately at crowd”.
50. Dimitri Ratz | August 27th, 2012 at 6:32 pm
@15 With bath salts use you can never be too careful about zombies.
51. Dimitri Ratz | August 27th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
@ 17, he will like when Darth Vader turned on his evil deformed boss. Joshua definitely sees himself as a fallen Jedi, so its just a matter of time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a forgotten child with that Iraqi girl from his class that also like so Darth Vaderish.
52. vortexgods | August 27th, 2012 at 6:59 pm
“Is this a sign of greater tolerance or did the USSR produce “Uber Twerps” who wrought their revenge like Stalin by seizing power ?”
Stalin’s desire for revenge was against his intellectual superiors. He was a thug, he could personally break kneecaps with the worst of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Joseph_Stalin
53. adolph hitler | August 27th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
the problem is the cops armament. since the 80s the cops have been moving to high capacity double action autos like glock, berretta and sig. with 15-20 round mags the emphasis has moved from marksmanship to fire power. cops now whip these guns out and start pulling the trigger hoping to hit something. here they hit 9 bystanders. cops should have only 7or 8 rounds before reloading. it will force them to slow down and take aim as well as conserve ammo.when i started shooting an old guy told me if i couldn’t get them with 7 having 15 wasnt going to save me. i think he was right and i bet those 9 bystanders would agree.
54. adolph hitler | August 27th, 2012 at 7:58 pm
i would also point out that the nerd only had 7 shots and he didnt hit anyone he didnt intend to
55. Peter | August 27th, 2012 at 8:26 pm
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, nails the by turns laughable and pathetic nature of jock cunt prose like Mr. Bad! Between the pretending not to give a fuck while obviously boiling over with rage because someone dared to say something he didn’t like, and the poor grasp of grammar, punctuation, and word choice this no-doubt-dyslexic (don’t worry, you EARNED that extra test-taking time, not like those other pussies asking for special favors!) tool displayed whilst fumbling ineptly at meaning, Mr. Bad’s got it all.
Man, between him and the idiotic fantasies of our “mad scientist,” it makes you yearn for Galtic Warrior. Come on, Galty! Ames even threw the holy Galt name around!
56. crazy_inventor | August 28th, 2012 at 12:45 am
> idiotic fantasies
100% true, thanks for your support
57. darthfader | August 28th, 2012 at 1:14 am
@8
Pfffft, Foust like Ercolino? Have you seen any pictures of Ercolino? He could have bench-pressed Foust while kicking his ass at the same time. They have nothing in common.
If someone offered to let Foust kill someone directly, Foust would pee pee himself, refuse and run tell Mommy.
58. helplesscase | August 28th, 2012 at 1:29 am
It’d be funny to watch Ames fight Tucker Max.
59. Mr. Bad | August 28th, 2012 at 6:40 am
@ 55. Peter Puffer
“jock cunt prose” is an Interesting choice of words, would you by chance be a sort of “jock cunt” aficionado? Because that’s the feeling I’m getting. If anyone is “boiling over with rage”, especially of the “impotent fury” variety I’m betting it’s you sunshine.
60. crazy_inventor | August 28th, 2012 at 7:56 am
@ 59
It didn’t escape my attention that what we have in common that seemed to get under his skin was any hint of any reaching for more than the lowest common denominator in character or values, either self-expressed and/or directed at the article.
I am not in the position to judge the author at any deeper level than what the article says or leaves unsaid, so I wouldn’t go as far as relating his own personal values to the subject of the article as you did, however I don’t especially object to you having done so – at least not enough to “turn like snapping rabid mutts on those who dare to” criticize, as Peter has.
“The way we elevate goons and thugs and thieves and liars to quasi religious status, how we happily sit down to consume bowls of our own shit when we are commanded to believe it to be ice cream and then mock those who gag and turn away, how we lavish love upon those who tear our lives apart and turn like snapping rabid mutts on those who dare to resist.”
http://cluborlov.blogspot.se/2012/07/peak-oil-oppositional-disorder-neurosis.html?showComment=1342081123780#c4662399110791478993
As another example, I were to make the fantastic claim that I designed, built and operate three (3) pirate radio stations, I would likely be smeared the same way – as engaging in ‘idiotic fantasy’ – no, Peter ?
lowest common denominator or it didn’t happen
61. Mr. Bad | August 28th, 2012 at 10:59 am
@ 60. crazy_inventor
Look, the phony “pathos” Ames trots out to satiate his gullible, mostly moronic readership of WOW geeks and gay anarchist speed freaks is (was) my real point, obviously.
Most of the comments here seem to misunderstand that this is A.) A Hit Piece on Foust and B.) A Sop To Dorks looking for sympathy. I’m not Tucker Max, I admit I’m a fucking loser who barely gets by and lost a lot of $ in RE because I am an idiot but at least I’m not some psychotic egg timer that goes off and murders another working schmuck who I had a minor problem with.
That’s just cowardly, and an admission of pure self loathing when you’ll destroy your life and the lives of others for nothing. Being a self loathing coward does not make you sympathetic, it makes you a scumbag.
The fey artist who went nuts and resolved the homoerotic tension in his life with a .45 lived in $$$ Manhattan $$$ for many years, apparently had some sort of (weird) artistic talent and a lot of job experience yet all he could do when he got fired was sit up in his pricey pad, vigorously brushing his cats and fondling his gun, “ramping up” to shooting an unarmed man for years over nothing.
Amerika produces psychopaths of all stripes, some are Tucker Max’s and some are Joshua Fousts but neither are admirable in any way.
62. calripson | August 28th, 2012 at 11:58 am
“Stalin’s desire for revenge was against his intellectual superiors. He was a thug, he could personally break kneecaps with the worst of them.”
It has been a common conceit of the Trotskyites that Stalin was intellectually inferior. I would not be so fast in that judgement. Stalin actually met Trotsky in Vienna pre-WWI (they both took and instant dislike to each other). Trotsky half mockingly proposed a chess game which Stalin easily won. Stalin routinely played Lenin in chess and routinely beat him also. Stalin was a thug – his background was one of bank robbery – but he was also extremely intelligent.
63. darthfader | August 28th, 2012 at 1:52 pm
@60
“As another example, I were to make the fantastic claim that I designed, built and operate three (3) pirate radio stations, I would likely be smeared the same way – as engaging in ‘idiotic fantasy’”
Perhaps by people who have never encountered a “pirate radio station” except in movies. I imagine such people are very wowed. Myself, I’m a little perplexed by all these non sequitur digressions into your garage hobbies.
64. darthfader | August 28th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
In any case, can we please get a purge of all these Rugged Individualist twerps?
65. crazy_inventor | August 28th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
> you live a charmed existence
– facing being busted at any time, all equipment and computers confiscated, a huge fine, a year in prison.
How charming
66. crazy_inventor | August 28th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
> can we please get a purge of all these –
do nothing know nothing internet keyboard warriors who only idolize those that are even more useless and dysfunctional than they are
– there, finished that for you
and please post the name of that man standing behind you twisting your arm and using toothpicks to pry your eyelids forcing you to read these comments
I’d like to have a word with him..
after all, I am ‘charmed’ – you said so yourself.
67. Whyawannaknow | August 28th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
NYPD cop gives a description of his department’s weapons condition and training levels. Should make you happy if you’re someone they’re TRYING to shoot…
http://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/yxx0w/nypd_officer_ama_all_questions_regarding_12lb/
68. Yukon King | August 28th, 2012 at 6:00 pm
@15, mookid – Jesus H. Kee-reist! Of course they cuffed the perp, lest he get away.
69. Buttlord GQ | August 28th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
This is a perfect example of the kind of protected whiteboy bourgeoisie attitude that is easy to have when you have never tried to create anything yourself
ok what about this: I don’t have much money at all but I like listening to music because it makes me feel not-shitty
also when I’m writing that attack on “wikileaks” for one of our dissemination nodes, can I use your “libertarian” line, because the higher-ups need an inroad into turning lefties against that kind of thing?
also thanks for combining “whiteboy” and “bourgeois” in such a way that I can’t use either anymore without sounding like a tool
70. darthfader | August 28th, 2012 at 7:28 pm
@66
Nope, I meant you.
71. crazy_inventor | August 28th, 2012 at 7:37 pm
@ 69
I can’t help wondering if a musician as bitter and hateful as #20 comes across as being, would have any music I would care to listen to anyway. (what would it be – death metal?)
My stance on IP is –
any signal, any media, any software, any idea, design, that I can obtain, if the desire strikes me, I’m free to employ any and all means at my ability, hardware, decryption, etc to do as I wish.
It’s my ability against the holder of the IP’s ability – period.
Conversely, anything I create, any signal, hardware design, software, is unrestricted public domain.
Intellectual property is completely meaningless to me in other words.
And I say that as a creator, not just a consumer.
72. Gavine | August 28th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Mr. Bad = Sean Tejaratchi
73. crazy_inventor | August 28th, 2012 at 9:13 pm
@ 70
I’ve reviewed all your posts –
site: exiledonline.com darthfader
I see you’ve got bootlicking down to a fine art.
make a donation and buy the book = paying the piper calls the tunes, backed up by frequent shameless sucking up ?
sorry, that’s not a skill I’ve learned.
I _air_ far more brutally honest material than ever appears on here. maybe a small sample will if it get’s through, I’ve already submitted it.. (it appears that material I air is too obscene for here, because it didn’t say it’s waiting for moderation, though it reported as a duplicate post when I tried to post it again)
I’m being really polite on here compared to what I broadcast..
74. Buttlord GQ | August 28th, 2012 at 9:14 pm
@71
I don’t know about any of that. What I know is that the stuff that keeps me from being miserable and bummed out and dumb all the time is stuff I can’t afford, so I get it in ways that don’t cost money.
Does this fuck over the creators? I have no clue. Maybe. Stuff I can’t get without paying, I don’t bother pursuing, usually.
Fiction people produce for free on the internet is usually shit. Fucking “crowdsourcing” shares the same problem as public funding of the arts: you’re beholden to a group of people, which means that shit might not get produced if it scares them and you have to deal with the constant pressure of their opinions on your work.
This seems, like “inequality” and “power”, to be a problem that is not actually solvable. Things suck because that’s the way they’re made.
75. Dimitri Ratz | August 28th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
@71, first of there is nothing hateful against death metal. As far as intellectual property, is that like spiritual property? Plagiarizing someone’s work is dishonest, but there should be limits on keeping hidden discoveries. Too many conglomerates, behemoths are stifling progress. They owe their success to decades past, and are holding on to it like some religious right without progressing further. I mean would a balanced view of limiting production royalties to say 20 years really undermine theatrical and novel/scientific discoveries? I mean its a bit disgusting how Disney is trying to horde a lot of their old stuff. If a company is so disfunctional that its not coming up with anything worthwhile for decades isn’t fair to say its not exactly leading the world’s progress? Removing religious obsession with holiness of property to intellect and freeing up vastness of knowledge would spur development at levels unseen, would create truly competitive sectors not based on new methods of extracting out of labor while hording knowledge, but based on creative ways themselves, and the balanced system surprisingly would reward more everyone involved so its surprising how a few frat boys that vote at end of class to keep the system the same for others that follow instead of improving it, because they had to go through it and destroying the very humanity itself.
76. required | August 29th, 2012 at 12:08 am
Boy named Sue bullies. “Newt” Gingrich. “Sean” Hannity. “Ollie” North. “Grover” Norquist. “Willard” my name is MITT! MITT! MITT!!! (Seriously, it was just this year that Mitt, age 65, could be seen on TV forcefully insisting that his name is MITT!
It’s an awful hurt these parents inflict on these kids.
Imagine that first day of school when the teacher calls out the roll in each class. Billy? Here. Cindy? Here. Willard? Then the kids start giggling, or worse, chanting Wiiii-llard, Wiiiii-llard. Imagine the fear as summer winds down, pre-living the humiliating scenes. Imagine the years of taunts.
OK, so the Romneys wanted to flatter wealthy fellow Mormon Willard Marriott of hotel fame. Yes, that’s a thought. But still, bad, horrible, damaging move. Do not do this, parents. The kid get absolutely reamed at school, and the eventual blowback on society is terrible.
77. required | August 29th, 2012 at 12:17 am
But then, there’s the name Barack. So maybe I’m making too much of this. Still, any school that can’t control bullying should replace the principal yesterday.
78. wengler | August 29th, 2012 at 1:47 am
I remember that long article that Ames produced about the guy that went to that LA Fitness and shot up one of the exercise classes. I felt absolutely no sympathy for him. But this guy Johnson I understand.
Each one of these situations comes from powerlessness. Power conceded, both given and taken, to the people in control that is then wielded like a hammer to force everyone to submit. You can feel it in small ways every day, but when you are fired, when your possessions are taken from you, that is when the full force of this power is truly realized.
This type of coercive force is rarely directed back at its originators. This time it was. There would have been no article had this fellow decided to direct the violence inward instead of outward. Self-hatred due to lack of opportunity is as American as apple pie.
79. crazy_inventor | August 29th, 2012 at 6:56 am
@ 75
I call metal, and even most (what passes for) ‘classic rock’ angry white men screaming.
As far as the IP argument, where do you draw the line ?
I know you won’t break the rules – there aren’t any.
@ 78
> There would have been no article had this fellow decided to direct the violence inward instead of outward.
Or had he used that energy for social justice issues, environmental issues, health issues or any number of positive things.
I can’t have a proper discussion on here, since even my air playlist (which is where I concentrate most of my creative energy ex-hardware) is too cutting edge to get past the AEC.
This is establishment media wearing black face.
80. Generalfeldmarschall Von Hindenburg | August 29th, 2012 at 8:14 am
Another Ames grandslam!
81. Mr. Bad | August 29th, 2012 at 8:35 am
@78. wengler
Thanks for being honest, faggot, you’ve made my point for me.
I especially love this pathetic coda “Self-hatred due to lack of opportunity is as American as apple pie.”
A WHITE GUY WITH A LACK OF OPPORTUNITY IN THE GOOD OLE US of A, EH? CAN IT BE TRUE?
Oh, BTW, it turns out your geek martyr was actually a died in the wool, red, white and blue Coast Guard Patriot who wanted to depth charge USSR subs and cradled his dieing cat in his best “Fendi” jacket. Yeah, powerless,
totally powerless. Fuck you, just do yourself and leave the rest of us alone, that’s your one noble path – trust me, we’ll ALL understand.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/nyregion/after-empire-state-building-shooting-jeffrey-johnsons-mother-asks-why.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
82. Cedrick Delaney | August 29th, 2012 at 12:05 pm
Fantastic article. Like someone said, it should either become a new book or at least be part of an expanded and revised “Going Postal.”
83. Margo Adler | August 29th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
This article is outstanding, Mr. Ames. Thank you for writing it. It made me think a lot. I subscribed to NSFWcorp.com because this article impressed me. I know $3 is chump change but you deserve something.
I’m an underemployed grad student living in NYC. I juggle 3 different jobs and I faced an eviction scare this summer (my landlord was being a hardass–I was all paid up with the rent, every month). Lemme tell you: I’ve been poor in different cities, and while NY has more social services than an “Eat-the-Poor” backwards fucktard state like Alabama, this is a brutal place to be broke. The cost of living anywhere in the Tri-State area is astronomical. When my landlord declined to renew my lease and started squeezing me for money, I was fucking terrified. No joke. It’s a cold, hard world out there, brother.
@61 Mr. Bad:
“The fey artist who went nuts and resolved the homoerotic tension in his life with a .45 lived in $$$ Manhattan $$$ for many years, apparently had some sort of (weird) artistic talent and a lot of job experience yet all he could do when he got fired was sit up in his pricey pad, vigorously brushing his cats and fondling his gun, “ramping up” to shooting an unarmed man for years over nothing.”
You are being a total asshole. I just can’t tell whether you’re being deliberately provocative, or if you actually believe what you write. Your speculative story about Johnson’s financial situation and his state of mind has holes in it big enough to drive a Mac Truck through.
You make it seem like Johnson was lounging around in some opulent penthouse he irresponsibly clung to after being terminated. You have no idea what his apartment was like, or whether it was rent controlled. He was so old, and lived there so long, that it very well might have been. NOBODY would voluntarily give up a rent-controlled apartment in this town. In any event, I’m sure his apartment was, indeed, a “pricey pad,” even if it was a tiny one-bedroom that would be unacceptably small in almost every other place in America. It is completely feasible that he was paying over $1500 for a shoe box.
It’s rather telling that you find artistic talent “weird,” you meathead. .
What should Johnson have done–relocate to a less expensive place to save $$$ on rent? How’s the job market for artists and designers in, I don’t know, rural (square farm state). Where the hell else was Johnson going to be able to ply his trade?
Losing your very livelihood at age 58, when you work in such a rarefied field, is not “nothing.” Johnson was fucked. Too old to be employable, not old enough to get social security (not that that would have been enough), not eligible for welfare cash assistance, and no wife or kids to live for. He had no future.
His boss sounds like a bully.
And Foust sounds deplorable.
84. Dimitri Ratz | August 29th, 2012 at 1:41 pm
@79, I think its best for countries, local communities to decide on how many years people can charge royalties and as long as each country respects other countries’ decisions it really shouldn’t be a problem. The solution needs to start here, the world can follow if it wants. We should be concerned with ourselves.
85. Mr. Bad | August 29th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
@ 83. Margo Adler
Dear Margo,
You are a fucking tourist. Where do you live? Morningside Heights or some Greenpoint rats nest or is that too far “out” for a whitebread shitheel like yourself? I lived in the city longer than you’ve been alive, you twat. Your story stinks worse than your unwashed bra you filthy hipster wannabe poet. People like you are the reason I left. And if I were your landlord I’d squeeze you to, seeing as you’re so stupid and entitled.
Don’t tell me how “hard it is, brother” you corn fed, fat ass, spread leg for tenure mid west sports fan – you suck and nobody needs what you’re selling. Go back to Ohio. Any real NY’er knows this guys “type” and stays away, very far away. That is why this loser psycho with dream of glory had zero friends and zero contacts and zero prospects in a place where making friends and getting laid is perhaps easier than any other place on earth. I hope you die from West Nile or legitimate rape.
Sincerely,
Mr. Bad
86. Margo Adler | August 29th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
I just read that horseshit NY Times article Mr. Bad linked to at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/nyregion/after-empire-state-building-shooting-jeffrey-johnsons-mother-asks-why.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
What an embarrassing piece of “journalism” that is. If I was a journalist and got an interview as useless as the one with the Johnson’s Mom, I think I’d probably shelve it.
Mom is in her 80s, so maybe she has dementia or is in shock and grief. I hope so. Otherwise, she sounds clueless. Injury in 6th Grade…? Slow death of beloved pet…? For fucking real? Your son doesn’t visit you for 22 years (!!!) and the reporter does not think: “This relationship is severely disturbed and this woman’s opinion is uninformed.”
This is my unsolicited opinion: every adult I know who calls their parents on a clockwork schedule, like Johnson did, is motivated to do so by guilt and harboring resentment, conscious or unconscious, about this “obligation” they feel compelled to fulfill.
87. Dimitri Ratz | August 29th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Bad/Margo. There is no question that it’s still possible to succeed in America. But Rammem quotation that only two percent of Americans with high school diploma and married see poverty in their lifetime somehow now links marriage as an aspect of staying from brink of ruin, and that shouldn’t be the bases of the American dream. People should be able to succeed without being tied down, pinching pennies or living in weird group arrangements. There is no excuse for the systematic degrading of the working class to these conditions same as there is no excuse for the working class passing up weird degrading solutions to get out of their feeble state. Also there were some east Ohio towns with close to 20% unemployment, and many of them are brainwashed that they will be gunned down the second they step into Los Angeles and general misconception of California in general.
88. Margo Adler | August 29th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Hi Mr. Bad;
I live in the East Village and I study poli sci. I’ve taken advanced seminars in quantitative research methodology and statistics. I’m not hip. I do enjoy poetry, though. I like to read.
I am glad that you took the time to respond to my comment in such a vile fashion. Your speculations about my appearance and my class origins are wrong, but I doubt accuracy is one of your more important standards.
The question remains: are you a sincere troll, or are you a character?
89. Mr. Bad | August 29th, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Hey Margo does this totally not “weird” art work get you wet?
http://www.thefrisky.com/2012-08-28/the-creepy-art-work-of-jeffrey-johnson-the-empire-state-building-shooter/
Oh, I bet this guy would jump straight to the top of your must-fuck list. I would def want to jump his gun, especially one one of those old ferraris, minus the chicks with the hot butts. amiright?
90. helpelsscase | August 29th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Two things:
1. Re:the Maryland shooter–The kid was allegedly the victim of bullying. As an alum of the “prestigious” Baltimore Co. Public School system, I can say that the administrations are completely complicit in that bullshit.
2. Apparently James Holmes’s father went to UC-Berkeley in the late 70s. Maybe Dolan ran into him at some point. Also, he works in finance (which has played into a few conspiracy theories).
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-holmes/4/47b/24a
91. Mr. Bad | August 29th, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Also, I doubt you even live in NYC.
Nobody who moved to NYC in the last 50 years has a “rent controlled apt” you dumb, lying cunt, it may have been “rent stabilized” and they are very different. But maybe your google search didn’t turn that up? Once again, fuck off and die.
And as for “His boss sounds like a bully.”
According to who? Ames? Granted, I have applied to be a dancing afghan boy for Ames, that’s how much I love and adore his wisdom.
92. Gavine | August 29th, 2012 at 8:24 pm
I for one like Mr. Bad and encourage him to post here more.
93. wengler | August 29th, 2012 at 9:50 pm
@81
Oh mighty AEC, save us from goatfuckers like Mr. Bad. May he find the peace to fuck goats instead of type internet comments. And may he find a very special goat someday to love him.
94. Galtic Warrior | August 30th, 2012 at 3:09 am
Mark Ames, I find if awfully FUNNY that you fight “bullies” in your books, yet you become one here.
Of course, those bullies you chastise are the guardians of innovation, while YOUR just a wanna be Hunter S. Thompson! If you can’t handle “workplace” bullying, then why don’t you just quit and get another job? Or better yet….CREATE ONE! Kids are told they’re special, until they get a BOSS.
How many jobs have you created? High quality jobs drive the ECONOMY, like a service clerk? People in my generation don’t get jobs because they don’t have what it takes!
Mark Ames, have you ever shopped at Wal-Mart? Target? What about a Schnucks? You ever picked up a meal at Mcdonalds or other fast food establishments? What about picking up shoes? You seem to like books, and you have no problem selling the ones you write on Amazon. Have you heard of how Amazon treats it’s warehouse workers?
IF YOU ANSWER YES TO ANY OF THE ABOVE THAN YOU DON’T HAVE A RIGHT TO COMPLAIN!
95. Margo Adler | August 30th, 2012 at 11:05 am
@94 speak of the devil! Didn’t someone summon him way upstream…?
This comments thread is the gift that keeps on giving.
96. Mr. Bad | August 30th, 2012 at 11:43 am
@ 88. Margo Adler
PolySci? Are you fucking kidding me? No wonder you’re underpaid – who would pay for a pathological liar to collate surveys, which is, btw, what a seminar in “advanced quantitative research methodology” akshully is.
I just love how the insecure “soft science” types love to trot out big words to sound important. As if to say, hey, I can do some math too, I don’t just measure skulls!
They are the people who predicted can’t miss winners like “New Coke” and the “inevitable” victory of Neil Kinnock in the ‘92 UK election (as ably described by Adam Curtis).
Listen sweety, get good and high tonight, get that ass out to ave c – grab the drunkest NYU student you can find. It won’t end like all the other nights I promise. He won’t drag his limp member off of your stubbly FUPA and belchingly whisper “Sorry, I just can’t” before falling asleep like all those times before. You’ve gotta keep trying. But don’t post here anymore, just stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6aKnRnBxM
97. Zhu Bajie | August 30th, 2012 at 4:17 pm
@43 Calripson: “For example, in Chinese high schools academics are stressed. I have been told that jocks are not held in the same high regard as in the USA.”
It’s definitely true for Chinese universities. U. teams exist and the students play sports, but jocks do not dominate socially.
China has long been ruled by nerds — mandarins in the past, engineers today. Everyone is convinced that academics are to road to wealth and power.
98. Dimitri Ratz | August 30th, 2012 at 5:22 pm
@92, me too. The fire in his heart has great potential for a belly dancer. Unless its heartburn…. Either way heard pay at mixed sex parties in the new democratic Afghanistan is great.
99. Dimitri Ratz | August 30th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
@94, darn it! I knew there was something wrong with so much fine print when I went through the Amazon checkout. Not only did I just gave up all my civil liberties, but now I have to send Amazon a pork belly big each year on Amazon’s funding day. Thanks for spreading the word to the poor unsuspecting public.
100. darthfader | August 30th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
@70
Ooh, it seems I’ve got a little fan . . . so, sweetlips, would you mind sucking this dick for me? Not mine, I’ve got some friends over for dinner . . .
101. Trevor | August 31st, 2012 at 5:48 am
Dolan already said it best – “Where’s the nice ape? And who ever said there was one?”
102. Ozinator | August 31st, 2012 at 8:39 am
I know GW is a joke but something he said is the greatest barrier to change and it’s shared by the majority.
Hypocrisy is not illogical but appealing to it is (tu quoque). People are so afraid of being a hypocrite that they often embrace the behavior they cant or are unwilling to change.
Truth is truth and doesn’t change based on who is delivering it
103. Diablo | August 31st, 2012 at 9:08 am
I agree Margo Alder. It is like an Aspie circle jerk…
104. Dimitri Ratz | August 31st, 2012 at 1:08 pm
@96 lol
105. Dimitri Ratz | August 31st, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Ozinator, in individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. – Nietzsche
106. COCKSON | September 1st, 2012 at 10:47 am
THANK U OZONATOR EXILED COMMENTS SECTION LOGICIAN AND MORAL PHILOSOPHER I RLLY HOPE ALMIGHTY AEC WILL DRAPE YOU WITH A LAUREL WREATH YOU RETARDED PIECE OF SHIT AND GW ISNT A JOKE
107. COCKSON | September 1st, 2012 at 10:48 am
yasha man lets get pizza in vb pls
108. COCKSON | September 1st, 2012 at 10:48 am
also yasha make mark say how he got arrested in high desert
109. beenthere | September 1st, 2012 at 10:52 am
Legally, Johnson’s killing of Ercolino does not and should not constitute justifiable homicide. Morally? Well, yeah, it does. I hope Ercolino’s family appreciates that he died for being a bully.
Even though Mark Ames’ article was wonderfully written, I disagree with the implication that people who have been on the receiving end of bullying and social isolation during formative years end up internalizing the values of our persecutors.
Yeah, we are fucked up in all sorts of ways, and revenge fantasies persist even many years later. But most find a way to direct our anger towards deserving targets and our gentleness and quirkiness (qualities that provoked the bullies in the first place) towards the small circle of people whom we manage to trust and like.
110. COCKSON | September 1st, 2012 at 10:53 am
gw is not a joke
this bloke really sucks the koch
pls continue aec & others
111. Zog | September 1st, 2012 at 11:36 am
@Ozinator
I agree totally. But speaking as someone who has been trying to persuade his peers in the degenerate overclass of a middle income country of the ultimately survival imperative neccesity of redistributive social policies and who has failed miserably and absolutely in every single instance, there comes a point where you just say “fuck it”. Living a humble life of integrity conscious of externalities such as labour exploitation, ecocide, racism etc. simply leaves you vulnerable and without resources when the inevitable collapse finally occurs. In the end you sell drugs for seed capital so you can commence a career of socially worthless precious metal and property speculation, build your lifeboat and get laid again for a change.
112. Bub | September 1st, 2012 at 7:54 pm
@97
Here in Murica you’d get your fucking ass kicked with all that fag talk!
Jesus, are you all ruled by queers in China? What kind of a fucked-up country ain’t ruled by the jocks?! Jocks rule the roost here and look how great things are for us!
113. Swapped Bond | September 2nd, 2012 at 7:39 am
Oh, look at big bad Mr. Bad @96. I wonder how the AEC will improve his comment…
114. CB | September 4th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
@ Margo
“You are being a total asshole. I just can’t tell whether you’re being deliberately provocative, or if you actually believe what you write.”
Then something is wrong with your brain. Your first mistake is probably viewing the two choices as mutually exclusive binary factors. Your second mistake is probably assuming Poe’s Law applies, but Poe’s Law is about satire, not trolling. Trolling can be based in part on beliefs that are actually held. That just makes it easier to write the troll.
But let me rephrase the problem and hopefully make it trivial for you to answer: Are their posts predominantly designed to illicit an angry response, or to elucidate and persuade?
115. Dimitri Ratz | September 4th, 2012 at 10:59 pm
@114/CB, I think its people’s perception of what people should be that makes them miss what people truly are… If they took a second to consider that it’s the existance of others that offends them they might reconsider their pre conceived designed views, categories, and other excuses that justify their own actions and explain the difference between their suffering and suffering of others.
116. Margo Adler | September 5th, 2012 at 5:39 am
Good point, CB. Thanks for that.
117. Mr. Bad | September 7th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
@ 116. Margo Adler @ 114. Margo Adler
BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVO!
You’re all so brilliant, I just can’t keep up wit dat “Poe’s Law” stuff. I still be on that printed book 1.0, I don’t know how that applies to me.
Margo, I’m tellin’ you once more sweety, you better stay home and do as you’re told. Get out of the road if you want to grow old.
118. Andrew Roth | September 20th, 2012 at 5:39 pm
@87:
Dimitri, you’re spot on about marriage and group living. Many of the poor end up staying in poisonous marriages rather than seeking divorce (or at least separating) for no other reason than destitution. They can’t afford to live on their own. It’s absurd to contort this state of affairs into a sort of virtue, but that’s exactly what the right wing does. That attitude is also a convenient dodge for unhappily married people who are embarrassed to admit that they’re sticking it out solely for financial reasons, or who hope to improve their circumstances through self-help affirmations.
The amount of weirdness and degradation in the residential rental market is stunning. Established homeowners (i.e., a huge part of the participating electorate) are often completely sheltered from it, but it’s pervasive for those of us who rent or are looking to rent. A huge amount of petty tyranny and sadism, much of it either legally dubious or plainly unlawful, exists in American property management.
Many tenants grovel to their landlords and building managers as if they’re prisoners desperately currying favor with their guards. Others are infuriated at infringements of their rights but don’t have the wherewithal to take appropriate legal action, so they resort to illegal acts out of desperation. One property management company from which I used to rent twice had its office attacked by arsonists. This company was practically unknown among local homeowners but notorious among renters for its shady and downright criminal activities. I would be extremely surprised if the arsonists hadn’t been subjected at least to civil torts, if not criminal acts, by this company.
Recently, I’ve been looking to relocate to the LA area, so I’ve spent a fair amount of time on Craigslist rental and roomshare boards. What I’ve seen there is sadder and more disturbing than I can describe. There’s a lot of groveling, desperation and deception on the part of prospective tenants and roommates, and a lot of openly predatory and capricious behavior on the part of landlords. Frankly, a truly free people would not tolerate such a situation.