I have been asked what I think about this cry from Freddie at L'Hôte, so I have to admit to my bemusement at what seems to me to be the central complaint of the piece:
Many neoliberal bloggers maintain an unspoken but meticulously curated policy of not allowing left-wing criticism to enter their rhetorical space.Is this a plea for belonging? A complaint about link-backs? If you want to get Matthew Yglesias to throw some traffic your way, your best bet is to spend a few posts calling him "an odious, totalitarian, albino squirrel," at which point he will harumph over to twatter and send five thousand liberals nattering off in your direction to tell you that you are a fool, a crank, and a reactionary whose, uh, um, policy preferences will ever come to pass, hosana, eli, hallelujah. Yes, but a very tall and naturally thin reactionary with full and beautiful lips. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. The inclusion of genuine, authentic, bite-it-like-a-golden-coin leftwardishism in the rhetorical condominium association of the rump American liberal-slash-democratic-socialist faction.
Plainly I come to this particular form of writing from a different non-rhetorical space than Freddie; I certainly don't conceive of this sort of thing as some kind of political activism, and although many of my sympathies are with people of the left, or the far-left, or the far-far-left, or wherever one goes before the sidewalk ends, I do not think of myself as a leftist. So to me, the question of how one gets to be included in the conversation, the discourse, what have you, is essentially meaningless. The reason that a conservative militarist like Matthew Yglesias does not spend a great deal of time acknowledging the socialist critique of redistributive economic policies within the context of global capitalism is that there is no viable socialism within the context of global capitalism. Just ask this Eurozone! The idea that rent-seeking careerists within the media apparatus of the American state are somehow allies in a social and economic struggle is completely absurd. Wondering why Matthew Yglesias ended up writing reliably, banally conservative opinion pieces on his blog when he was once a man of the left is like wondering why Joe Blow, Attorney-at-Law ended up creating corporate tax shelters when he was once an undergraduate student of poetry. He did not find new beliefs. He got a job. I am exquisitely doubtful that Matthew Yglesias has any beliefs so to speak. He has an internalized range of opinions which he repeats and rearranges for publication, just as an assembly-line robotic arm has a programmed range of motions that it repeats and rearranges while putting together the latest light truck.
By the way, there are of course plenty of left-wingers and far-right kooks and privileged anarchist faggots and conspiracy theorists and lawd only knows what else writing on the internet.
Update: Empirical proof, by the way.
32 comments:
By the way, there are of course plenty of left-wingers and far-right kooks and privileged anarchist faggots and conspiracy theorists and lawd only knows what else writing on the internet.
That was the weirdest part to me, like, of course if you only read Matt Yglesias and Jane Hamsher you're only going to be reading bland mainstream liberals.
Where the Sidewalk Ends
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
I found it a little whiney too. I mean there is the whole Leninsphere, plenty of anarchists, lots of good stuff out there. Of course it doesn't play in the mainstream, because the mainstream sux.
You are saying fatso just has corn pone opinions, but isn’t that true of just about everyone? Isn’t just about everything everyone “thinks” just a broken recording repeated endlessly through our lives? I agree with you about Yglesias but he isn’t all that unusual. Also, he is a product of our higher education system, LOL, and his only claim to fame is that he went to college where he ran the school paper, he graduated and started writing shit on the internet. If people take him seriously based on those credentials then they are shit eating morons as well.
She kidnapped herself, man
i dabbled in media criticism myself at one point. used to look at this state of affairs and say something to the effect of "leftist views should be presented more in mainstream political discourse. whatarewegonnado?!"
now i look at the same state of affairs and say, "it's obvious why leftist views aren't presented more in mainstream political discourse. it is what it is."
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You can make fun of the way they speak but at least they speak more than one language which is far more than you can say for the average marecun.
vaguely on topic, this is pretty horrible in its own right:
http://azspot.net/post/2811386637/revolt-of-the-elites
Hey, if you wanna call someone a maricon, you should just come right out and say it.
Seems to think that Daily Kos is an example of a "left-wing" voice. ?!?!?
The idea that you HAVE to go through the babblings of partisan blogville to find genuine political opinions, or that you must work to include said political opinions in partisan blogs, doesn't seem like fun. Freddie better have a lot of patience for the kind of weekly bullet-point controversial nonsense animating the mainstream "discussion". Not sure if that would be a good thing.
(A great parody of the controversy-based noise in politics is the web series Get Your War On, if anyone's missed it.)
And anyway, a good thing about blogs (seriously) is that you can pretty much bypass the rent-seekers and go straight to the source, that is, people having done a bit of research on the subject. Biologists, lawyers, investigative journalists, cultural anthropologists, English major dilettantes, you name it.
Does Yglesias have his own URL shortening thing?
privileged anarchist faggots and maricons? What a delicious menu.
rent-seeking careerists within the media apparatus
And have you seen what a 1BR walk-up in Adams Morgan goes for?
(Yes, yes, I know, "rent-seeking." But it was hanging right out there!)
I find it utterly charming that Yglesias thinks there is some contradiction between being a neoliberal and a conservative militarist.
I know, right? "On the one hand he called me a bastard, but on the other, he said I was a son of a bitch. Obviously it can't be both."
Thanks for the update. Who doesn't want a peek at Matty in his power suit?
He's not a whore. He's a high class escort. He works for an agency. Everything's clean. He can produce test results.
I like that a few twats before expressing befuddlement at the idea that he might be considered a conservative militarist, the douchefuck urges people to go out and get the happening new Decemberists album off the Amazon, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians presumably being too "edgy" for him.
That last paragraph begged for some links to said left-wingers, kooks, anarchists and theorists. Anyway, I managed to get through that entire post and the author answered his own query/criticism. He didn't notice, but he copped to giving up blogging awhile back, in part, because he was worried that his views as expressed on his blog would hurt his career in the academy.
If it's the lack of a left-wing he laments, you'd think he'd make his columns narrower.
Seriously, though, Dude, twatter is mine.
Gotta agree with the Decemberists dig, although Edie Brickell? Ouch, harsh.
I similarly read Yglesias and Ezra Klein pumping up Vampire Weekend for months, and when I finally listened to them... weak imitation of latter-day Paul Simon white boy crooning over African polyrythms... let's just say I need a bigger dismissive wanking motion.
...very tall and naturally thin reactionary with full and beautiful lips...privileged anarchist faggots...
Mmmmm. keep going.. don't stop.. Where's a picture?
Definitely made me horny this time. I hope you post more like these...
Yglesias never did understand that advocating a 2% budget cut for the Pentagon means one supports 98% of the Pentagon's budget; i.e. one is a conservative militarist.
I have some serious thoughts, but I also have a simple one, which is this:
I always filed Kos in my "Boring Mainstream Democrat: IGNORE" file in my brain, but now I come to find out he's a full on commie?
Who knew?
He has a waving banner right there in the masthead, and he's not fooling anyone with that orange colour scheme. I knows a commie when I sees one.
Also he's from south America, more or less. Might as well throw him out of a helicopter right now.
And just to finish in triplicate, kos has one good sideshow; the comments on Billmons' postings.
"I like the idea that I'm a "conservative militarist" as well as a neoliberal sellout:" ~MY
Yar, I like that idea a lot, too.
We've been down this road before, of course, but... bitching about the Decemberists as examples of what The Kids are listening to these days? So very 2004. I love you guys, but whenever you talk about anything other than politics you seem determined to give the impression you're mothbitten old men.
... a very tall and naturally thin reactionary with full and beautiful lips.
well, drat. there goes another small fantasy down the drain. here i was, thinking you were the short, gay, bald guy in the bar at that philly fraymeet, and i've been consoling myself all these years with i dun rite so good as ioz, but i'm taller than him, and my hair looks better too.
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