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1. Allegro con brio
Tempo: 
= 144
The first movement is in sonata form, but with an added orchestral exposition, a cadenza, and a coda. It has a main theme repeated many times, and there are several subordinate themes. The orchestral exposition changes keys many times, but the second exposition is mainly in G major. The development starts in E-flat major, then modulates to C minor, which ends with an octave glissando. The recapitulation is in C major.
There are three options for the cadenza to this movement, all of which vary in length and difficulty and all ending with trills. The coda is played by the orchestra alone. Average performances vary in length from sixteen to eighteen minutes
Keeping with the light blogging schedule, this is a repost from Alter.net about why the people of OWS are so ticked off and why they are protesting. Consider it a primer to help in understanding their positions.
1. Wall Street caused the crash: Unless you are suffering from financial amnesia, you should remember that it was Wall Street’s reckless gambling that did us in. It was Wall Street banks and hedge funds, not home buyers, who created the enormous demand for high-risk mortgages to pool, to securitize, and to turn into Ponzi-like gambling structures with names like CDOs, CDO squared and synthetic CDOs. It was the money-grubbing rating agencies that blessed these pieces of garbage with AAA ratings. As a result, trillions of dollars of worthless toxic assets polluted our financial system. When the bubble they induced burst, our system crashed, causing 8 million working people to lose their jobs in a matter of months due to no fault of their own. Anyone who still blames low-income home buyers, or regulations or Greece — or anyone other than Wall Street — should be checked for dementia.
2. The Wall Street crash directly caused the gravest unemployment crisis since the Great Depression: We’re three years into the worst jobs crisis since 1937. Upwards of 29 million people are out of work or have been forced into part-time jobs. The number of people who have been jobless for more than 26 weeks is at post-WWII record levels. And there’s no end in sight to this misery. Meanwhile, Wall Street’s representatives in Washington want us to focus on cutting public employment and public services to address the debt that Wall Street itself precipitated. WE wouldn’t have a debt crisis were it not for the bailouts, the crash, the lost jobs and the soaring cost of jobless benefits that can be laid at Wall Street’s door. (The debt was also caused by tax cuts for the rich, and the bankers certainly don’t want to talk about that.) For those diversionary debt tactics alone, Wall Street should be occupied until it pays to replace the jobs it destroyed.
3. Wall Street profited from the bailouts and remains unaccountable: Taxpayers provided trillions of dollars in cash and asset guarantees to the wealthiest bankers and hedge fund managers in the world. But nothing was extracted from them in return. Here’s one egregious example: Goldman Sachs paid $550 million in SEC fines for selling mortgage-related securities that were designed to fail so that a large hedge fund could bet against them. The securities failed as planned and the hedge fund pocketed $1 billion in profits. But after we bailed out AIG, Goldman Sachs picked up nearly $12 billion for similar bets that AIG had insured. Goldman Sachs collected 100 cents on the dollar and those dollars were ours.
4. The super-rich are getting richer: When the economy was crashing during 2008, high frequency traders in hedge funds and banks made upwards of $20 billion from the turmoil. This trading scam provided no redeeming value to our economy. Rather, it was a hidden tax on our sorrows — a transfer of funds from the many to the few. In 2010 the top hedge fund managers “earned” over $2 million an HOUR! The top 25 hedge fund managers took in as much as 650,000 teachers. Young people have the right to question these lopsided values. All of us have the duty to do something about it.
5. The super-rich are paying lower and lower taxes: While the government pleads poverty when asked to create a massive jobs program, our financial elites use every loophole available to avoid taxes. In 1995, the 400 wealthiest families paid about 30 percent of their income in taxes (after all deductions). Today their effective rate is less than 16 percent. And for what? What did society gain from their retained wealth? Not jobs, not debt reduction, only more Wall Street gambling.
Thanks to the Alter.net for the commentary on Alan Grayson smacking down conservatives on Real Time with Bill Mahr.
“Prior to O’Rouke’s entry, Grayson was relatively subdued, making occasional jokes. There was not that much need to challenge from Nicolle Wallace, the other conservative on, who weakly employed Tactic No. 4 in the right wing repertoire: “If any Democrat does something questionable, it’s irrelevant that all Republicans do the same thing.” Thus, because four Dem. Senators oppose the jobs bill based on oil subsidies, it’s irrelevant that all the Republicans oppose it for that and worse reasons. Or because Jimmy Carter supports some kind of voter ID, all of the onerous Voter ID laws are OK!
But O’Rourke is capable of sounding authoritative and knowledgeable when he lies. He also is a master of condescension and an expert in Right Wing Tactic No. 5: When you’re losing an argument, just make a joke — even a stupid joke works because the issue goes away. So O’Rourke was mocking the OWS protestors because they supposedly didn’t have specific goals, were just DFH’s playing bongo drums and had no leader:
Grayson said (I’m paraphrasing)
If you want someone who cares about millions of unemployed.
If you want someone who cares about 45 million people without health insurance
If you want someone who cares about millions in poverty. Then I’d be proud to call myself that leader.
The crowd went nuts and O’Rourke was reduced to even more of a blubbering fool. Grayson had cut right through Tactic No. 5 by citing devastating statistics and showing that while he can be funny like he was earlier, he can cut to the heart of problems that prigs like O’Rourke minimize and joke about.
Then the discussion turned to the amounts of cash businesses and banks are sitting on. His mocking tactic lying on the floor in a pool of piss, O’Rourke resorted to Right Wing Tactic No. 1: A simple lie that sounds authoritative. He said that the banks are sitting on cash and not lending because of the capital restrictions of Dodd-Frank.
I yelled at the screen — “Please Alan, call him on that!”
And Alan did not disappoint, saying directly to O’Rourke’s face: “Nonsense,” and explaining that the banks are getting huge interest on their cash and their failure to lend had nothing to do with Dodd.
Once again O’Rourke was reduced to blubbering, nearly falling off his seat onto Maher.
O’Rourke may be smarter than a lot of right wingers, but when challenged with facts and passion, he folds into a pitiful heap of goo.”
[ed. I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome Bleatmop to Dead Wild Roses as a guest columnist. Please welcome him, and I would like to extend my thanks for his time in preparing this post (and hopefully more to come).]
Earlier this year, shortly after Easter, several co-workers and I were sitting around the coffee table and the grandmothers of the group were discussing having Easter with their grandchildren. One of the stories struck me as both being particularly poignant to myself and ironic as to how the teller of the story interpreted the lesson of what happened. Before I can elaborate further first I will outline what happened.
Coworker Grandma (CWG) had a wonderful Easter with her daughter and grandchildren. The eldest grandchild met her at her vehicle and tried to help her bring in her stuff. She was just about to grab one box when CWG told her it was ok and sent her off inside. She did this of course because it was vital that her granddaughter not see inside that box; for inside that box was all the Easter candy that she and her daughter were going to hide that night for her grandchildren to find in the morning. Her eldest grandchild was just at that age where she might know that the Easter bunny wasn’t real, but as of yet she still believed. CWG so wanted to watch the child’s wonder as she discovered all the hidden treasures left by the Easter Bunny just this one last time.
All seemed well though, her granddaughter went inside and no more was said about the contents of the box. That night CWG and her daughter hid candy all around the house and in the morning the children woke up with a SQUEEEE and the race was on to find the best bits of candy. Needless to say a good time was had by all. However, later that day when CWG and her daughter were in the kitchen preparing the evening feast, her granddaughter came in carrying her chocolate bunny, a bunny that just happened to be at the top of the box yesterday afternoon.
“Grandma, isn’t this your chocolate Bunny?”
CWG knew then the jig was up. Granddaughter had indeed saw what was in the box yesterday. She knew CWG had brought the candy. Lying was no longer an option when it came to talking about the Easter Bunny.
“It’s yours now dear”
“But it was yours and I found it hidden with all the other Easter Bunny candy earlier.” As CWG was telling me this story she acted out the confusion on her granddaughters face at that time. Then she acted out the surprise and outrage when she asked “Did the Easter Bunny steal it”
“No Dear” Not wanting to drag this out any further, nor attract the attention of the other younger children she called granddaughter closer and whispered to her “The Easter Bunny isn’t real. It’s been your mom and me that have been hiding all the candy all these years”
CWG then went on to act out the look of shock and described how she could see the gears just grinding behind her eyes, processing what she had just been told.
“Does that mean Santa is fake too”
CWG was so into the acting then that she covered her face with her hand in the staff room as I imagine that she did just a week prior and let out in a gasp.
“Yes”
“Does that mean God is fake too”
CWG continued to be so engrossed with acting out this story that she sat up straight, got a stern look on her face, gave a deliberate shake of her head.
“No dear, God is definitely real”
And this is what I found to be both poignant and ironic. CWG’s granddaughter quickly processed the information that had been given to her. The Easter Bunny, of whom she only had her parents assurances that it was real was suddenly not real. She quickly translated that into other things that she had similar evidence for. The first obviously being Santa, an equally fictitious tale and then to God, an equally fictitious tale. In all three tales, the only evidence for said tales was the assurances of those she loved that said tales exist and man made constructs of its proof (such as candy, presents or a church). It really amazed me how this child could take the lesson learned from one situation and apply to all other similar situations in her life so quickly and easily.
The ironic part is that the CWG had the same evidence and could even understand why her granddaughter put all three of those tales together as the same, but still was convinced that God was real and that Santa and the Easter Bunny were not. One wonders how she made those distinctions.
Haven’t heard much about the protests going on in the financial districts in the US? Are you surprised? When the interests of the elite are challenged getting the mainstream media to notice is like trying iceskate uphill (go see what al jazeera has to say on OWS). I repost this nugget about the OWS demonstration, find the full post on Whatever Works.
“POSTED BY ORHAN
The MSM continues to ridicule #OWS for not having a specific list of demands. The absence of demands, and consequent absence of a divide-and-conquer target, that’s driving the media into such a tizzy is not specifically a “tactic”, but, as far as I can tell, is a byproduct of the radical democratic process being practiced by the General Assemblies (nicely described by Matt Stoller).
Here is the closest thing I’ve found to an “official” statement on demands from The Occupied Wall Street Journal, a paper published and distributed by #OWS:
What are the demands of the protesters?
Ugh—the zillion-dollar question. Again, the original Adbusters call asked, “What is our one demand?” Technically, there isn’t one yet. In the weeks leading up to September 17, the NYC General Assembly seemed to be veering away from the language of “demands” in the first place, largely because government institutions are already so shot through with corporate money that making specific demands would be pointless until the movement grew stronger politically. Instead, to begin with, they opted to make their demand the occupation itself—and the direct democracy taking place there—which in turn may or may not come up with some specific demand. When you think about it, this act is actually a pretty powerful statement against the corruption that Wall Street has come to represent. But since thinking is often too much to ask of the American mass media, the question of demands has turned into a massive PR challenge.
The General Assembly is currently in the midst of determining how it will come to consensus about unifying demands. It’s a really messy and interesting discussion. But don’t hold your breath.
So it appears #OWS is specifically addressing the anger of the majority of Americans at the power, arrogance, and lack of accountability enjoyed by the coterie of the richest 1%, and the marginalization, disempowerment, and impoverishment of the remaining 99%–and doing it in a way that is “horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based”, which most people–let alone members of the political class–find it almost impossible to wrap their heads around.”
The message needs to be disseminated far and wide, and people need to see who is responsible for much of the financial ruin in their lives.
It has been a stressful week here at DWR central. So be prepared for a video heavy/prose light week this upcoming week.
The Disservice today is a short clip from the show Dexter on religion and belief. It’s nice to see television media approaching the question of religion and atheism.
Dr.Goldacre talks about a kilometer per second on this TED talk as he discusses some of the pitfalls of modern science and how bad methodology is hurting people and the profession.
bleatmop
Mystro
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