WHAT WOULD RORSCHACH DO?

Updated


Break one of DD's little fingers for this likeness?
'Can't ignore. Serious business. Slur on reputation.'

DD reads a frontpage story in the Los Angeles Times on whimpering coming from AIG executives and others: "On Wall Street, where outsized pay is a significant attraction, staffers worried that Congress could rewrite a compensation system ... Top executives [scrambled to calm employees and lobby Congress]."

In the 1985 NYC world of the Watchmen, Rorschach only dealt with the city's underbelly. His favorite activity was putting the squeeze on ex-felons at Happy Harry's and beating to death those he ran across in the act of perpetrating violent crime. One scene from the comic shows him readying his cravat for use in strangling someone interrupted while raping a woman in an alley. When Rorschach finally comes to blows with a 'better class' of person, Veidt, he is easily defeated. Refusing to compromise on his black and white sense of right and wrong, he's put to death in the snow at the bottom of the world by Dr. Manhattan.

So it's hard to know what Rorschach would think is right for Wall Street. Because he avidly reads The New Frontiersman, a raggedy-ass newspaper from the extreme right, he would not be sympathetic to over-compensated business executives.

Since Rorschach's sense of morality defined him, compelling him into the streets to destroy the wicked without mercy or hesitation, it is inspiring to think of what he might do to the shadowy bonus recipients of Wall Street. Would he throw one down an elevator? Handcuff another to a stanchion in an apartment, leave a hacksaw within reach, and set the room ablaze with gasoline? Would he "put fourteen in the hospital needlessly" while squeezing the name and address of their boss from them? Would he crush one of their skulls out of sight in the men's room?

In the United States, it has not yet come to that. However, if the men of Wall Street are seen to be beyond punishment and another round of rip-off and malfeasance is allowed to occur, as potentially described by Paul Krugman in the New York Times today, all bets will be off. Many will feel the need for Rorschach's relentlessly logical pursuits.

Update:

On the other hand, Rohrschach had no fondness for liberals or others thought to be soft and morally ambiguous, those he thought equally responsible for the collapse of the alternate history 1985 America in Watchmen. He could be just as likely to take a look at the toxic decay foaming up out of the gutters of Wall Street, threatening to drown everyone not at the top and upon hearing screams for help, just whisper, "No..."

---

'Shut up. Will break arm. Not joking.'

The fatuous piece of the day, courtesy of the New York Times: "AIG Revenge Is All the Rage, But It Isn't Healthy."

Don't get angry. It's bad for you, writes troll Allen Salkin, perhaps hoping many on Wall Street will link to his piece, or Twitter it about, saying: "Finally, someone who's willing to explain why populist rage is misdirected and we shouldn't be torn limb from limb at some point in the near future." And a very successful piece of troll handiwork it was, too.

Quotes:

"Reader mail sent to the NYT in response to articles about these executives' formerly high-flying lives repeatedly mentioned the guillotine and suggested it was 'time to bring back the tumbrel'..."

"There is something a little scary about all this rage -- and not just to those who are on the receiving end, some who have hired security."

"Maybe it's time to take a deep calming breath."

" 'We need to all collectively repent,' said Rabbi Levi Brackman, a co-author of 'Jewish Wisdom for Business Success.'"

"Standing on your head can also help, said Carlos Menjivar, a teacher at the Jivamukti School, where attendance is up 30 percent since November."

"Indulging in rage anchors you in the past, said John Osborne, an instructor of the Apex course, a corporate seminar in stress management and security."

"We should be angry if there's an injustice, but it has to be channeled and dealt with in an appropriate way," said some staff psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic. "[Avoid] drugs and alcohol."

Seriously.

Suggestion: Break little and index fingers. Then drop down elevator shaft. Include you.