#Subsistence cheats series#

And we've let them know.Īnd you know, the only factory in my city, in west Baltimore or in east Baltimore that was working, that was viable was the drug corner. And if part of America is validated to the extent that they are predominant in all of the luxury that the country can afford and part of the country is utterly irrelevant to the economic structure, you know, those factories are all gone. And it's relevance and it's our place in society-is dictated to us by what we contribute and what we're paid to do. Yeah, without work they have no value, no worth to society? That's an economic system that is throwing away and doesn't need 10 to 15 percent of its population. That's not an economic system that is having a bad go of it, that's something that doesn't actually work. And if you look at the city where I live and you look at Baltimore, Maryland, half of the adult male African American residents have no work. You know, listen, a lot of this falls on people of color because, you know, they're the last in through the door in the economic ladder.

two Americas and the people in one of those Americas has been “utterly divorced from the American experience” that you, David Simon. So you weren't using hyperbole in Australia? That wasn't just to try to drive a point home when you talked about. We are becoming two Americas in every fundamental sense. It's not only unproved, the opposite has occurred if you're looking at the divergence in the economic health of middle class families or the working class, what's left of the working class -certainly the underclass - and you're looking at where the wealth of the country is going and how fast. Yeah, I think supply-side economics has been shown to be bankrupt as an intellectual concept. And ultimately that aspect of capitalism hasn't been dealt with in any way.Įvery president from Kennedy to Obama has insisted that the rising tide will lift all boats, but it hasn't happened. You know, they’ve paid for it to be inert. If this is the way we're going to do business, we're not going to do business. That's the aspect of government that's broken.Īnd it doesn't matter whether it's Obama or Clinton or Bush or anybody at this point. The Supreme Court has walked away from any sort of responsibility to maintain democracy at that level. And the capital's been at it a long time and the rules have been relaxed. I mean, that's the part of the government that has been purchased. And I think the break has come at the legislative level. I don't think that you can call the American government anything other than broken at this point. But I kept listening and thinking about that speech you had made last fall in Australia where you said what's happening here in America is 'a horror show.' And I wonder, how do you reconcile those two visions of our country? Watching the president's speech the other night- he was hopeful, he was upbeat, he was encouraging and inclusive and what he said. He came to New York to receive a career achievement award from the Writers Guild of America, East. A federal f-k up of epic proportions.įor David Simon, the State of the Union begins with the lives and stories of these people - which is why he told an audience at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Australia last November that what's happening in America is “a horror show.” His remarks reverberated through cyberspace, so we asked him here to tell us more. The flooding of New Orleans was a man made catastrophe.

What hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast was a natural disaster, a hurricane pure and simple.

But you start to follow the money, and you don’t know where the f-k it’s gonna take you.Īnd “Treme,” about the people of New Orleans grappling with a new and painful reality in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers.

#Subsistence cheats series#

Instead, we have a reality check from someone who artfully uses television drama to report on the state of America from an entirely different perspective: from the bottom up.ĭavid Simon was a crime reporter for the “Baltimore Sun” whose journalism became the material for two non-fiction books, 'Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets,' and 'The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood.' Each became a TV series and led Simon to leave daily journalism to create two unforgettable shows for HBO: 'The Wire,' about the precincts of Baltimore and the corruption of its institutions. So as we say here in New York, enough already. Greek chorus already have been extensively vetted by the media. President Obama’s State of the Union address and the rebuttals from the Republican