The Rise of the Dirtbag Left
I don't listen to podcasts, but I do keep a lookout for those who stick their fingers in the eyes of the political establishment. That's why this article denouncing Chapo Trap House brought them to my attention.
On a recent episode of the popular podcast Chapo Trap House, co-host Will Menaker used a memorable metaphor in addressing calls for unity on the left. “Republicans in control of politics, that’s the problem,” he began. “However, to the pragmatists out there and the people who don’t like purity in politics, yes, let’s come together. But get this through your fucking head: You must bend the knee to us. Not the other way around. You have been proven as failures, and your entire worldview has been discredited. You bend the knee to us and then let’s fucking work together to defeat these things, not with fucking means testing or market-based solutions but with a powerful social democratic message.”
Chapo’s many foes seized on the phrase “bend the knee.” Because the show has often been accused of sexism, the phrase “bend the knee” was interpreted by some listeners as a sexual remark aimed at humiliating Hillary Clinton supporters.
Except "bend the knee" obviously has nothing to do with sexism, and this article even admits it. To put it another way:
-We all agree this is not what Chapo meant, at all.
— However, doesn’t this sound like a bad thing somebody could have said? Couldn’t you imagine that happening?
— So, in conclusion, we have proven Chapo did something terrible.
The New Yorker did the same smear, but in a more subtle way.
Their argument is inextricable from the way in which they make it. But when an ethos of vulgarity is enthusiastically practiced by a group of white men, this will sometimes translate as chauvinism. Particular strains of “Chapo” invective can be hard to take—people are “pussies,” or they’re “retarded.” Botanical gardens are “gay,” Hillary Clinton is “a freak.” The caricature of the “Bernie bro”—an aggressively disaffected white guy who hates Clinton ostensibly because of her neoliberal incrementalism but deep down because of her gender—occasionally seems to apply. The very name of the podcast—as well as its theme song, a vaporwave remix of Gucci Mane—suggests a dismissive attitude toward identity politics. They are, after all, three white guys.
This smear tactic just happens to be exactly the kind of bullsh*t identity politics that has made Chapo Trap House popular to begin with.
And when I say popular, I mean very, very popular.
A given Chapo episode sees the hosts yukking it up at the expense of hacky mainstream media op-eds (New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is a favourite target of the gang’s derision), or critiquing the limp, liberal identity politics of the recent, and much-lauded, Wonder Woman movie. With its bricolage of trenchant political commentary, obscene inside jokes, absurdist comedy, socialist boosterism, and giddy vulgarity, Chapo became a kind of citizen’s band radio frequency for leftists isolated by the pervading online culture that practices sanctimony over solidarity. It currently receives more than US $66,000 a month in listener donations, nearly triple that of other top-earning podcasts fan-funded through Patreon. “I think people are just relieved to know they can be socialists without being humourless, sanctimonious or pious,” says Frost. “We let people have fun in an atmosphere where it’s hard to laugh.
Where more orthodox forms of leftism are marked by defeatism and self-seriousness, Chapo is shot through with irony and self-deprecation. It emboldens the left not only to criticize itself, but to laugh at itself. See, for example, the very embrace of the term “Dirtbag Left.” “[It] speaks to a lot of people who have been dismissed or chided by liberals for embracing vulgarity, eschewing sanctimony or piety, and refusing to be civil to the right wing,” says Frost. “The libs have no principles beyond good manners, so I think ‘Dirtbag Left’ says something positive about what we do believe, and what we’re willing to ruthlessly fight for, regardless of established etiquette.”
Their slogan could be, “When they go low, we go into the gutter.”
-- New Republic
Chapo Trap House has been accused of being the Leftwing Breitbart, despite the fact that they don't invent news.
And then there is this lesser-evilism.
How do you feel about the hatred neoliberals get from the left? Do you think it's justified?
I think it's foolhardy and counterproductive. Trump-ism is a five-alarm fire that everyone on the left (defined broadly) should be uniting to oppose. Chapo Trap House–ism is convincing lefties that their true enemies are the people who agree with them 75 percent instead of the people who disagree with them 100 percent. If fighting Trump can't unite the left, nothing will.
I can think of something better to unite the left: socialism, or fighting for anything rather than against a person.
“If you sleep on a mattress on the floor and fuck in a sleeping bag, then you just might be the dirtbag left! If you’re the only dude at a function not wearing a pocket square in a linen blazer and adulting like a boss, then you’re in the dirtbag left!”
-- Will Menaker
These guys are exactly the sort of people who would get banned on the GOS.
Not that they would have ever gone there to begin with.
However, their real crime isn't being anti-PC. Their crime is not being liberal.
At first blush, the most obvious model for this iteration of the millennial left is the New Left of the 1960s — young activists who attacked the hypocrisy of liberals with similar tactics. And indeed, Chapo could easily be mistaken for the Internet Age version of the Yippies — the Youth International Party, led by 1960s left-wingers Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, famous for theatrical political high-jinks. In 1968, the Yippies playfully advanced a pig for president, “Pigasus the Immortal,” and advocated group joint-rolling and nude “grope-ins” for peace.
But actually, the Chapo left advocates for Old Left socialism.
The hosts are aligned with the Brooklyn arm of the Democratic Socialists of America, who by coincidence has tripled their membership in the past year.
What we are looking at is a leftwing “counter-reaction” against a liberalism that has effectively surrendered to neoliberalism.
“It’s the feeling that the new liberal agenda resulted in a whole generation of young Americans being shafted, locked into a gig economy, loaded down with student debt and no access to healthcare,” he said.
“So there’s been a building a reaction against Democrat politicians of the 90s who tried to make a compromise with corporate capitalism and then defined liberalism around cultural issues of diversity, immigration, women’s rights and so on, while riding along with the shafting of the working class.”
In an interview first drafted for the Harvard Crimson ahead of an appearance at the university in April, Chapo host Christman criticized Ivy League universities for being “perpetuator[s] of privilege, obviously, but also … perpetuator[s] of the fantasy of meritocracy, which is what justifies the privilege”.
Comments
I read the Guardian article a couple of days ago
Polite, choice 'liberals' appear to be worried all round.
Has Kevin Drum chimed in?
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
-@Bollox Ref So 'Left Action' just
- So 'Left Action' just put up a Facebook post in praise of McCain. I couldn't resist. How can anyone on the Left praise the guy who calls the Confederate flag 'heritage' and supports every war he can get his hands on?
Turns out quite a few! For daring to call him out for factually supporting the Confederate flag and wars, I was called numerous names. I wasn't as 'brave', I didn't 'suffer' like him, I was not a 'hero' like him.
I expect that shit from the right, but the left?
What really pissed me off was Bernie. I love me some Bernie. But today he posted that 'Trump' and only 'Trump' should be called out for not fighting big pharma.
Fun Fact:
Congress passed the "School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act" under intense lobbying by Mylar. Obama signed it into law. Mylar then jacked the prices up astronomically. No Trump involved in that back door pay to get fucking rich scheme.
I hate that people are using Trump being an ass to hide their corruption, greed, incompetence.
'
I'm already anticipating the revisionist eulogizing
when McNasty kicks the bucket. Ugh.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
OMG - when they all sound like parrots,
we know it is the latest Democratic Party talking point. Alternet and Ring of Fire are all saying the circular firing squad has to end. Didn't look on DailyKos, but I'll bet it is there too.
They can all go straight to hell. If they think we're going to give up and kiss the ring, they're totally full of it. The establishment Democratic Party will either kiss our ring or die.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Ring of Fire has become progressively more Clintonite.
This change in direction occurring in the post-Trump inauguration has dismayed me. Now I rarely watch the channel because of intensifying bullshit.
Only place I see it is on Facebook....
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
progressively more Clintonite
Oxymoron of the day!
Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.
@dkmich They don't get to kiss
They don't get to kiss our ring. I know where they've been.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Looks like a good show
https://thetrap.fm/
Vids, podcast, and blog
From the blog..
By applying this website and its affiliated content to your life, you will improve your health and fitness, earn more money, and have stronger relationships. Your posture will improve. Your brain chemistry will become pure. You will have more focus.
Pretty convincing.
Thanks.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Criticize Chapo as one would
Just return to this "...get this through your fucking head: You must bend the knee to us. Not the other way around. You have been proven as failures, and your entire worldview has been discredited. You bend the knee to us and then let’s fucking work together to defeat these things,.."
Irrefutable position.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Weren't you on TOP saying the same right after the election?
I think you may be the same poster. Message was you fucked up, you lost, get out the way.
Not me.
Just quoting Chapo.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
@jim p If you embrace his
If you embrace his political assumptions (i.e. that there's still a reason to talk to these people), then yes.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@jim p
I think the term "genuflect" might have been less easily twisted into something it's not.
It's just my opinion. It can't hurt you
Genuflect to me intones religious obedience
Bend the knee intones submission to power. The Corpodems are losing power at alarming rate and don't know it. They're not only arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, they are bringing more chairs to the deck.
It's all about what 25%
If we were just talking about disagreements on trivial matters, they'd be right. The thing they can't chose to ignore is that last 25% happens to be more important than the other 75% and that the Democrats consistently wrap the odious 25% in the other 75% in order to sell it. That destructive 25% of policies are the same as Republicans and the "Dirtbag Left" is correct in taking them to task on it.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
This reminds me of Rahm Emmanuel telling
us that we were fucking retards because we wanted the things that Obama promised us when he was running for the presidency. This is a great article about what the republican's agendas are for us that is "a key to understanding the politics of the past half century."
A Despot in Disguise
Nancy MacLean's new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America.
The democrats are just as complicit in this scheme and this is one of the reasons why they lost 1,000 seats at the federal and state levels and many governorships. The plan is for the republicans to be the ones out front on deregulating so many of the regulatory agencies that will return us to the time before Nixon created the EPA to stop corporations from poisoning our air, water and other things that we need to survive.
After this is achieved, the republicans will be in a position to do a constitutional convention and Gawd only knows much damage they are going to do. Any rights that we think we still have we can kiss goodbye and any restrictions on the banks and corporations will be erased and we are going to be in a world of hurt.
The New Deal will finally be demolished and the corporations are going to be able to do whatever the hell they want.
Fun times. Buckle up, it's going to be a hell of a ride.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Then Trump fucked it
all up. Had Hillary won they - the 1% - would well be on their way to mop up. Game over. But, thanks to the Trumpster - and Repubs not knowing what to do with him - the mop up was put on hold as Trump gave the rank & file and casual political observers time to get a clue what's going on. If not for Trump we might be in Camps already. Well, that might be a stretch, but there's no doubt the mop buckets would be on the floor, the 1% sharpening the stakes. The Trumpster has given time for the Dirtbag Left to rise!
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Amen. n/t
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Two things here I wanted to stand and cheer
1. I can think of something better to unite the left: socialism, or fighting for anything rather than against a person. [Yes! ty, gjohnsit]
2. “It’s the feeling that the new liberal agenda resulted in a whole generation of young Americans being shafted, locked into a gig economy, loaded down with student debt and no access to healthcare,” he said.
“So there’s been a building a reaction against Democrat politicians of the 90s who tried to make a compromise with corporate capitalism and then defined liberalism around cultural issues of diversity, immigration, women’s rights and so on, while riding along with the shafting of the working class.” [Dem pols of 2017, and their social media enforcer swarms, are still doing that.]
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
LOL. Fight club for the left.
Snark and swearing allowed. SIgn me up.
Bend the knee.
Obviously a fan of Game of Thrones. As it happens, season 7 is already airing on HBO on Sundays.
Now, it seems odd that a socialist would use a word which reflects the feudal traditions of the Middle Ages; bending the knee being a vassal swearing fealty to his liege lord. Basically, homage.
Double post arg
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Ravensword Democratic socialists are
Democratic socialists are social democrats, not exactly socialists.
Which you probably already know!
But more to the point, I'm guessing he's taking "bend the knee" as a metaphor because that's what the Democratic Party has become: a place where one person, or faction, "bends the knee" to another. It's definitely feudal. You obey your leadership, or you are a traitor. My guess is that the Republican party works similarly, but with less complete control over their rank and file.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Bend the knee, all you Hillbots and third way dems.
Well, it seems like he's demanding that all the centrists follow him.
He seems to be addressing the third way folks when he mentions "means testing and market-based solutions."
@Ravensword Yeah he is, but I
Yeah he is, but I have no idea why he's talking to them.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Maybe becuz they
are the party.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Is this more of the Sanders supporters vs. Clinton supporters
thing? Is that who Chapo is, the Bernie wing of the democratic party? All these people tied into the duopoly political system are in the fucking way. This is all stupid bullshit.
Everything is fucking bullshit. EVERYTHING!!!
Heh. Ya, pretty much.
But this intellectual liberal bullshit, around since the Vietnam war, is it's own special brand.
Maybe. But probably not.
From the diary:
DSA=good folks.
Alot of good folks are republicans.
"Lawrence Dreyfuss, a spokesman for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), echoed the Democrats’ anti-Russia rhetoric, telling the World Socialist Web Site that the Russians posed the greatest threat to “the autonomy of our country, perhaps in all our history.”
https://www8.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/20/summ-j20.html
@peachcreek My rant about
My rant about democratic socialism below not meant to imply that I think the people at DSA aren't good folks, btw. Just that you can't use democratic means when you don't have a democracy. Or even a republic.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
"$66,000 a month in listener donations"
But it is pure money-making bullshit, lots of it. They will never get out of the way as long as legal bribery is the law, folks will make use of it. "That's the system." Oligarchy, not democracy. The oligarchy is packed full of good Ds don't you know. "We're capitalists." Available soon, new and improved Social Ds, "who by coincidence has tripled their membership in the past year." From 1 to 3? LOL just kidding, I followed a link and saw:
Everybody got a "Trump bump", there's plenty of hamster wheels to go around.
California has the most poverty and homelessness too, last time I checked. Same same. Rodney Stooksbury.
peace
That tripled membership thing came out months ago,
not a peep since then.
And tripled all the way to 19K.
It appears the DSA is Bernie light with a touch of democratic party thrown in.
I doubt that
I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I seriously doubt that.
@gjohnsit The DSA isn't the
The DSA isn't the same thing as Working Families Party, is it?
I don't trust WFP anymore at all. You can't be for working people and Andrew Cuomo.
As for the DSA, why the hell are we fooling around with anything other than straight-up socialism at this point? Socialism is the one thing the establishment seems unwilling to take over, kill from within, and puppet as a zombie version of its former self. And anyway, "democratic socialism" isn't going to do jack or shit with a system like this. You can't have "democratic socialism" when you don't have a democracy.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The DSA
is part of the Socialist International.
Has the DSA sold-out? Someone might make that case, but they certainly start from a good point (i.e. Eugene Debs)
@gjohnsit Oh, so they're
Oh, so they're basically the American part of socialism. Cool beans! I have no idea whether they've been co-opted, but if they're actually socialists, I doubt it. The establishment doesn't like to wear that face.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
You're just envious of the amount of money they're making.
You could pretend like you wouldn't want to be tons of money.
It's real easy to play the man of honor when you're on the outside looking in, but once you start seeing all those zeroes, you'll discover what you're truly made of.
@Ravensword Unfortunately, some
Unfortunately, some of us understand that Thoreau was right when he said:
"What's the point of having a fine house if you don't have a tolerable planet to put it on?"
I wish the libertarians who put his face all over their websites would grasp this.
But anyway, there's no use in letting yourself be corrupted when the corrupters are going to destroy the world while you're still alive.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Swell words and all.
The only way to know if one would turn down a shit-ton of cash if they're in a position to do so. There are other ways to make money that don't involve ripping off the people. An example of that the 60 grand a month that the Chapo Trap House hosts are clearing.
Some users on here want to immediately assume the worse and just say that these guys are charlatans or part of some Democratic conspiracy. For those who may be suffering cognitive dissonance from seeing three guys who talk about democratic socialism, yet are making a combined $720,000 a year need to realize that they're living in the real world, not in the Federation of Planets.
Also, libertarians are just assclowns who haven't outgrown Ayn Rand's pseudophilosophy.
"Some users on here want to immediately assume the worse"?
not me, and thanks for the comments. I thought the other one was being sarcastic, it made me LOL so no harm done.
The ones who "saw those three guys talking" on social media for $66K/month got what they paid for I guess. Agreed they would not make good Federation material. Something more modern perhaps. ;-D
peace
"Got what they paid for."
Now there's a fair response. These are just guys with a wildly successful podcast, and all this free press they're getting is gonna allow more people to know about them and what they're about.
Remember, the only bad publicity is no publicity.
And so:
@Ravensword What that CTH is?
What that CTH is? As I've said, I don't think so. Doesn't have that smell to me. It's possible, of course.
I'm really confused about the $720,000 figure. Is that what CTH is making per year?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
From Patreon contributions.
The article said that they make $60,000 a month from Patreon contributions.
@Ravensword They don't
They don't seem to have that many subscribers, but maybe I'm reading it wrong.
The issue isn't so much: it's bad for those people to make money as it is could this money possibly be coming from the little guy and could this all be just as it seems? Maybe. It would only take 3,000 people giving 20 bucks a month to produce those numbers. But that rarely occurs.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It is.
what alternative would you recommend? This is where we are, where "the party" is, and where we've been for 18 months and more. The Bernie wing finally getting some recognition, feeling our oats, finally pushing back.
Whether any of this amounts to anything of significance over the 2018 election cycle remains to be seen, but the fact that the Bernie wing is Back means, if nothing else, that I can rub in Hillbots faces. And, yes, Markos, I'm looking at you. The hippies are back!
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Did the author pull that number out of his ass?
The "lefties" we are warring against agree with us on 75% of liberal issues? When did that happen? And who in the hell are these "Lefties" he is referring to? The imposters over at TOP? Ah, yes. Well maybe I missed those heart to heart dialogues we had over there about the ungodly war for profit machine being waged in our name and with our tax dollars? Or maybe I forgot about that time we saw eye to eye over the farce that is our electoral process? Or maybe it was the understanding we came to about a media industry that exists to manipulate and lie to us that put me over the edge?
Yeah, right. We agree on 75% of the issues that are consequential to the fate of this planet and life as we know it. What a load of crap.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
The "farce" isn't what you think it is
in case you want to know how the farce of the primary election wasn't rigged against Bernie, this is how they convince themselves that the DNC and Hillary's campaign email topics weren't against Bernie being sabotaged:
I have no idea how this person can pretzelize their thinking to believe this statement, but the echo chamber believed him
This was one of the comments in a diary there that was criticizing Jill Stein for saying that she wasn't the one who sabotaged Bernie's campaign.
Here's one comment that accuses Stein of being a Putin puppet too. The collusion of the Russian's election interference keeps snaring more and more people.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
That kind of "logic" is a textbook example
of what I call the fallacy of their argument. But I suppose pointing out that someone who never dug through the WikiLeaks tranches doesn't get to pontificate with such pseudo-certainty about what is in them is a bit obvious to those of us with brains capable of independent thoughts, eh?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I call them the neoliberal progressives.
They vote their self-interests. They want to privatize, monetize, capitalize, and deregulate government services. They're not real big on creating a healthy, educated society if that means "free" health care and college. Unless their leader believes in something else. Then they will, too.
They usurped the Democratic party from the Left, who remain the party of all the people.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Last I checked
That's what Republicans want to do. But at least they're honest about it.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
@Anja Geitz 75% my white ever-lovin'
75% my white ever-lovin' ass.
Is the 25% where they walk on our faces in Nevada and portray us as thugs across the country in the corporate press?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Good one
Or maybe the 25% is where they lapped up the media's never ending agit prop like an army of toothless Meth heads and then held a gun to our heads and demanded we vote for their Queen?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Another aspect of the meme wars is Kekistan
Kekistan was invented by Sargon of Akkad as a way of trolling the SJW, PC, DNC AND Trump factions.
Now the alt-right has been credited with inventing Kekistan, Norms, Cuckistan when actually they highjacked the concept to represent ing exactly this quote :
The heart of Kekistan is shit-posting (knowingly making stuff up just like the MSM), ridiculing snowflakes and SJWs.
For more on Kekistan see:
Sargon commenting on Kekistan
And
Kekistan being explained to Joe Rogan
While Kekistan is pure bullshit so is American democracy. The difference is that with Kekistan, everyone knows (or should know) it is crap, whereas in the Neoliberal, duopolistic Amerikkkan reality most people don't realize this is bullshit, too.
"Dirtbag Left"--just another way of saying "Dirty Fuckin'
Hippies." Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Keep calling me names, assholes. Lets me know where to aim.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjzYdzHkjec]
When the best the other side has is "You're Uncouth, and I shall criticize thy tone", all I can think is an idiot in a powdered wig attempting to explain that the mob has NO RIGHT TO DO WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!!!!!!!
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
@detroitmechworks Indeed. Let's bring back
Indeed. Let's bring back the Sedition Act.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Dems make it clear
Caitlin Johnstone
The Kekistan Pitchforks Are Coming
From The Daily Beast, a plutocrat channels Obama:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming...
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Nice Jacobin article eviscerating the pushback against CTH
Nobody cares about the discourse
The pushback is completely "inside the bubble" propaganda from increasingly desperate corporate apparatchiks. Outside the corpo-Dem bubble, the nakedness of the emperor is ever more obvious. The millenials do not buy the shit the DNC is selling. The Jacobin article lays it out:
@arendt Excellent analysis in
Excellent analysis in that article.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Gracias
Thanks for the tip off on the Jacobin article. Good one!
made a comment and then decided it should be a diary
thanks for letting us know about this.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I think this is complicated
I think this is complicated stuff and agree that letting the powerbroker neoliberals have an inch will always lead to them trying to guilt you back into "waiting for your turn" that they will make sure never comes.
I like cursing and a fair amount of vulgarity, and I even agree that the particular comment being attacked doesn't literally refer to gender. However, you can't completely divorce language from history and context. Just because the DNC flacks have stolen gender, race, sexual identity, and other legitimate concerns for their own agenda of using people who really care about these things as pretty wallpaper while they do the real dirty deals about patronage and filthy lucre in the most cynical ways possible doesn't make me want to jump on board with a bunch of other people who do like to use gendered insults themselves maybe at least in part because they're tired of being insulted by asshole right-wingers as being effeminate liberals. The irony is deep and rich here in my opinion.
I can still see how that kind of juvenile and ignorant attack language would get really old for men especially in this stupid-ass culture, but I don't think the answer is to call random people pussies and feel all righteous about it as if I as a woman should just be a good sport about that shit myself. As our alt-right brethren will be happy to inform me, women aren't just fully equal now though. We're actually holding the men-folks down from our ill-gotten and undeserved total domination of the world, but why would we do that? Oh, I know, they'd be the first to tell me it's because we're hateful bitches that need to be taken down a peg or two. Fuck that uppity Wonder Woman too. Who does she think she is empowering little girls? They need to get over themselves. Yup.
I can see myself agreeing with the subject group of this post's politics if one of their points is about neoliberals hijacking civil rights issues so they can keep being the greedy fucks they are, but wading through insults to find out what they actually stand for politically is not even slightly appealing though, so I won't be doing it. I do, however, take responsibility for and am speaking only for myself and don't expect other people to react the same way.
The same thing happens to me fairly often as a female sports fan of some men's teams when I forget that I'm not really welcome in the club. I can't relax and enjoy going to message boards to support my team because as I'm laughing along with some pointed humor and what-not, I'm often smacked in the face by some random sexist tirade. I do know that I'm not likely to find "my people" on a sports message board, but I don't go for masochism in my political reading either.
Maybe they don't really do very much of it though, so y'all that enjoy the iconoclasm and irreverence, I don't want to rain too hard on your parade.
@NCExile A nuanced response.
A nuanced response.
The problem is that you can take the following maxim:
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
And apply it to discourse as well.
Here's what they have done over the past 45 years. And "they" includes Clinton Democrats as well as Republicans at this point:
Demolished (and I'm choosing that word advisedly) civic discourse over a course of 45 years by
1) wrecking its foundation stones of
a) education,
b) journalistic standards, and
c) social expectations of how a republican (small-r) citizenry should act toward each other,
2) rearranging American moral culture to embrace the fact that
a) hurting people isn't wrong,
b) sort of like greed isn't wrong, and that
c) in fact being greedy and hurting people proves you're stronger than those people, and that
makes you better than they are, and
3)denying what is left of civic discourse a place to thrive, or even to exist, by
a)driving it off all the airwaves and replacing it with constant
i)character attacks,
ii)misinformation, and even
4)pursuing the few remaining purveyors of civic discourse onto the Internet, where they fled after being driven off the airwaves, and using
a)sockpuppetry
b)shills (paid trolls), and
c)the natural resource of unpaid trolls to
i. commit character assassination upon the people who are still trying to speak the truth
AND be civic, and
ii. destroy the websites where such people congregate, which is part of
5)denying civic discourse any venue, whether digital or physical
a)like Occupy Wall St, whose encampments were destroyed, and
6)turning the politics of the country into a more mendacious 24/7 version of the Howard Stern Show.
When you're living in a political landscape that has had that done to it for over 45 years,
it's not at all surprising that those who value independence of thought and don't want to put up with establishment bullshit sometimes behave in ways that are neither civic nor moral.
I don't know whether or not CTH has been an offender of that sort.
But I certainly understand why there's a backlash that expresses itself in ugly ways. And, in fact, I'm surprised it's not already much, much worse.
And, by the way, in that World's Longest Sentence I wrote up there at the beginning of this comment, I left some things out. Like absorbing other discourses, digesting them, rearranging them to serve the purposes of the establishment, and running them like zombie puppets of their former selves.
It's the zombie apocalypse of the public square. It's amazing people are holding together as well as they are, but, like you, I'm scared of what might be coming. As long as I have a choice, though, I'm going to try to stand with people who use reason and tell the truth. If we end up having a fight about sexist or racist words, well, there's nothing I can do to prevent that. So much cultural damage has already been done and I can't prevent all the consequences of that.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I once got in trouble
at work for asking where someone was from.
That's all. The guy had an accent and I was curious. I thought I was making a human connection.
My boss called it a racist micro-aggression.
I call that bullsh*t.
This is the kind of crap that leads to everyone being afraid of saying anything that might be controversial, and it's everywhere.
The politically correct future is a world of silence.
I know what racism is, and it looks and sounds very different.
I saw it when I was in the Peace Corps.
It looks like a 19-year old dark-skinned kid in a uniform with a machine gun getting on a public bus and looking for the person with darker skin than hiss. Then pulling that person off the bus and telling them to give him all their money or he will smash their teeth in with his rifle butt.
THAT is what racism looks like.
People in this country need to get a grip on reality.
I have lost the ability to give a sh*t about people's personal outrage.
Same here.
I ask that question all the time. "Where you from... ?" This is a 90%-plus white UK / German / western Europe neck of the woods. If someone "looks different" or "sounds different" I ask that question. One, it's a conversation opener, two, I'm curious how they got here. "How did you ever find your way here?"
Some are offended, "what's it to you?!" But, 90% will answer the question, and some will then ask why I ask. I'm amazed at the corners of the earth people hail from that, even for a brief time, find themselves here in NY-21. I look at the chances of that happening near zero. So, I have to ask the question.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
In this case
it was a contractor we were meeting and he was from Nigeria.
In my mind I was guessing west Africa.
I guess my boss expected me to pretend not to notice the obvious. And you are only supposed to ask when the person is white.
Awesome!
We need more like this.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.