SG political contributor David Seaman is in New York this week. When he asked if there was anyone we’d like him to chat to, the first name that came to mind, without hesitation, was Patrick Bruner from Occupy Wall Street. We were first introduced to him last November at NYC’s New School, when he participated in a panel discussion alongside Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, The Nation‘s national affairs correspondent William Greider, and Colorlines publisher Rinku Sen. The event, sponsored by The Nation and moderated by the magazine’s executive editor Richard Kim, was called Occupy Everywhere. It aimed to explore the new political paradigm brought about by Occupy, and the possibilities presented by the movement to redress the overbearing reach of corporate power.
Though the caliber of intellects assembled on the New School stage that evening was undeniably high, we were actually most impressed and inspired by what Bruner had to say. We are therefore thrilled that we got a chance to reconnect with him via Seaman and his video post above (which was produced with the help of Lindsey June Miller). We have a feeling we’ll be seeing and hearing a lot more from Bruner in the future, both as a skilled orator within this proudly leaderless movement, and as someone with great potential as a next generation politician.
During the course of their conversation, Seaman and Bruner discuss the misnomer that Occupy doesn’t have a message, how much of what those in the mainstream know about the movement is framed by just a handful of media conglomerates, and how the real issues are being buried by their propaganda. The pair also talk about the future of Occupy and some of the key agenda items the movement needs to bring to the fore – such as the fact that student loan debt has surpassed credit card debt, or that there are 24 foreclosed homes standing empty for every one homeless person in America.
David Seaman is an independent journalist. He has been a lively guest on CNN Headline News, FOX News, ABC News Digital, among others, and on his humble YouTube channel, DavidSeamanOnline. Some say he was recently censored by a certain large media corporation for posting a little too much truth… For more, find him on G+ and Twitter.
Q:My best friend fucked my ex boyfriend the day we broke up. We weren’t really friends before he and I broke up, and a week later she tried to convince me to have a threesome with her and her boyfriend. When I told her I wasn’t interested she told me that she fucked my ex. Should I be alright with it since we weren’t really friends until the next week after he and I split? Should I be mad? Because I’m fucking furious and I’m not sure if I should be mad at her, but I know I should be at him because he lied to me and told me that he was still in love with me. What should I do? And I’m aware that this doesn’t have much to do with SG, I just don’t have any girlfriends that I can talk to about this and it’s tearing me up.
A: Your friend sounds like kind of a jerk! First off, she tries to ‘convince’ you to have a threesome (instead of just asking and then accepting your answer) and when you say no, she tells you about having sex with your ex. It seems like she did it to hurt you after you turned her down, and that is never cool. Although you said you don’t have many girlfriends, perhaps you should start looking for a best friend who has more respect for you than this current one seems to! It’s worth investing in friends who treat you like gold.
As for the dude, what a total dickbag. It’s emotionally manipulative for him to say ‘I love you’ when he fucked someone else the day you broke up! That kind of behavior is so destructive and because of it he doesn’t belong in your life in any capacity.
Your anger at both of them is completely legitimate. They acted in ways that were completely hurtful! My advice to you is to allow yourself to feel anger from the situation, but then to let it go and move on. If this was just a one-time douchey move for your best friend, then it’s worth discussing with her why her actions were so hurtful to you. Really examine your relationship with her, though: girlfriends are there to support and care for us when we need it, not to have sex with our exes and throw it at us later. It might indicate a long-term pattern of disrespect and that is absolutely not what friendship is about.
“I had been coming up on the comedy scene as we all were and I was friendly with some people at Comedy Central so I guess that’s how I got in…It really was just a standard audition, not much of a story unfortunately. I’ll make up a good one if you want. Yeah, it all started with my heroin addiction.” – Rob Corddry
Rob Corddry is best known as one of the clueless correspondents on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But like many of people involved with that comedy institution, Corddry started out in improv and sketch comedy with roots in the famed Upright Citizens Brigade theatre. Corddry is also a founding member of the sketch group Naked Babies that also includes John Ross Bowie, Brian Huskey and Seth Morris. We spoke with him about The Naked Babies, The Daily Show, and more.
