Thursday, June 25, 2009

DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: Is America Economically Doomed?

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Wed., July 1 (8pm): “Is America Economically Doomed?” with:

Managing editor of TakiMag Richard Spencer arguing yes.

Journalist and political author Bryan Harris arguing no.

Hosted by Todd Seavey and moderated by Michel Evanchik.

Free admission, cash bar.  Basement level of Lolita Bar at 266 Broome St. at the corner of Allen St. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, one block south and three west of the Delancey St. F, J, M, Z subway stop.

With a trillion being spent on banks, another trillion or so on healthcare (per Obama’s big plans from yesterday), and the usual 3 trillion or so on old people, sick people, foreign foes, and miscellaneous ludicrous projects — plus a national debt about the size of the GDP, a financial sector about as trustworthy as a Survivor contestant, and more sclerotic institutions than you can shake a calcified index finger-bone at — you might be a bit worried about the economy.  But is it hopeless?

“No,” says Bryan Harris.  “Yes,” says Richard Spencer.  “I had better attend and find out for myself,” says you.

•••

And if you’re also saying to yourself, “I do worry that we’re doomed, but I’m not sure I want to attend a debate about it featuring someone from that radical right-wing TakiMag,” let me just observe that even the most left-wing and hippie-like among you would probably be comfortable joining me tonight (Thursday the 25th, 7pm at Bowery Poetry Club) for a completely unrelated event, a set of dueling readings by writers affiliated with Opium magazine, featuring famed writer and performance artist weirdo Lisa “Suckdog” Carver, right?  (She knows Pagan Kennedy and Dame Darcy, after all, and they’re nice and liberal.)

Yet Carver’s been linked romantically to purported fascist, Satanist, and all-around scary political extremist Boyd Rice — and maybe my friends out in Colorado ought to hang around with him, now that I think about it, just to keep things interesting.  Compared to him, both our Lolita debaters will seem downright respectable — likewise, the positively mainstream (almost centrist, really) folks at this coming weekend’s New York reunion, which I’m lucky enough to be attending with Helen, of Yale’s Party of the Right.  (And I say that even though one of their members claims to be a traditionalist-conservative convert to Hawaiian paganism.)

Look, you never know who might be useful when you’re organizing a small band to navigate the wastelands and hunt squirrels after the whole system falls apart — if it does, I mean.  But to find out whether it will: join us next Wednesday.

4 comments:

Todd Seavey said...

[...] The man was a monster but was beloved by peaceniks and enlightened capitalism-bashers everywhere — much like his contemporary Mao Tse-Tung (which reminds me: don’t forget our debate on economic doom, July 1).  Perhaps, like so many politicians (see: Mark Sanford), he felt the need to preach in favor of the things that he lacked in his own private life (sexual self-discipline in Sanford’s case, kindness and love in Lennon’s — we’ve seen these sorts of public/private compensatory patterns too many times now to consider them mere ironic aberrations). [...]

Todd Seavey said...

[...] (It’s a wonder I didn’t end up a lesbian myself — or did I? Al Franken, who may yet be a senator, joked long ago that he thought of himself as “a lesbian trapped in a man’s body.” Whether that means he should have been in the Gay Pride Parade making its way through Manhattan yesterday is debatable — and if you want to see Bryan Harris, who wrote a gay-friendly book mocking sexually-hypocritically politicians, debating the fate of the American economy against paleocon Richard Spencer, remember to join us this Wednesday at Lolita Bar.) [...]

Todd Seavey said...

[...] With tonight (and perhaps you) seeing both a massive Tea Party rally in Times Square against government spending (which is where I think the bulk of our ire and activism has to be focused at this juncture in history, regardless of prior philosophical allegiances and emphases) at 6:30pm — and shortly thereafter at 8pm our Debate at Lolita Bar on the related question “Is America Economically Doomed?” — today is a perfect breakpoint for this necessary stylistic transition. [...]

Todd Seavey said...

[...] Well, yesterday we learned that America is in fact economically doomed, according to a narrow vote by our audience at Lolita Bar.  It’s a harsh message to receive just before Independence Day but perhaps a fitting one for Canada Day, which was yesterday. [...]