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Norma Odiaga's avatar

We owe all you truth tellers an awful lot. Thank you.

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Lekimball's avatar

Ha, no one has ever thanked me before! Thank YOU. It was hard being cancelled from the literary community in MI but there was no other choice. I also got worked out of an adjunct queue at NMU for trumped up reasons. I don't regret it at all, but it was quite a shock at first. You don't cross leftists. They do not appreciate debate or listen to you because you've been one of them. You tow the line or you're out. And I was only taking a NEUTRAL position. Ha.

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Steve Geo's avatar

And that's why the left wins most of the time. Like a good military, they are well disciplined. Individualism is punished without hesitation.

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Lekimball's avatar

You'd think that would cause people to abandon them, but doesn't seem to. Odd.

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Cooper Raymond's avatar

They're called lemmings for a reason.

When given the choice of a Blue pill or Red pill..most people will choose "ignorance is bliss" until 20 years from now they're breaking into the local zoo to find some fresh meat for their family while using 3 wheelbarrows of US $ to pay for a loaf of bread.

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Katie Andraski's avatar

I was an adjunct who believed her students could do college work and caught a lot of hell. You know FAIR is interested in publishing stories like yours? And they have the FAIR in the Arts group. (Maybe you know that but in case you donтАЩt.)

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James Roberts's avatar

which FAIR are you referring to? I can find at least 3.

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Katie Andraski's avatar

This one. Here's the announcement inviting artists to tell their stories of being cancelled.https://news.fairforall.org/p/make-them-hear-you-stories-from-fair

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Lekimball's avatar

Yes, there are several of these, I think, so I'll look into this one.

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James Roberts's avatar

they're good, their CEO writes here in substack, very sensible and approachable

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Lekimball's avatar

FAIR, or FIRE?

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James Roberts's avatar

I think FIRE is also worth looking into

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James Roberts's avatar

Monica Harris, The Bigger Picture

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James Roberts's avatar

FAIR Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, they're not as left as their name sounds, but they're certainly not right either.

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Lekimball's avatar

ps, Thanks for the thought!

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Lekimball's avatar

Yes, they seemed kind of interesting to me at first, but it looks like they are pretty left. They like the DEI thing and are criticizing the Times for saying Shapiro wasn't chosen because he was Jewish, though it seems pretty obvious that's true. I thought they were championing people no matter what party, which would be ok, but not sure. I get some of their newsletters. So...

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Katie Andraski's avatar

That surprises me as I think they are fighting against the DEI thing because of how unfair it is. I know they are suing some literary magazines for their discriminatory reading process. But I could be wrong.

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Lekimball's avatar

Well, I think there is a thing called FIRE that might do this better yet. But I'll look into this. I see that ding dong that couldn't read the thread deleted all his posts. He wasn't reading any of this with comprehension. No apologies. Of course. But thanks so much for thinking of this. And I'll look into it.

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James Roberts's avatar

will now I'm curious to hear your story @Lekimball !

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Roger Hoffmann's avatar

I doubt they were 'leftists'. And I think it's time we move beyond the left-right labels. They're used so subjectively as to now be virtually meaningless.

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Cooper Raymond's avatar

Spot on.

Media and Establishment want the left vs right narrative to continue.

2007\2008 subprime mortgage collapse tlted this on its axis.

It's now top vs bottom battle seen through a hierarchical lens.

The 3E's vs We The People.

Elites. Experts. Establishment.

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Lekimball's avatar

and ps, Roger, I thought they were in business solely to champion free speech --everyone's. Yet they seem to have an agenda that goes beyond that. I was disappointed.

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Lekimball's avatar

Oh PLEASE. That was my point. Call it anything you want and quibbling over whether leftists are socialists or democrats or whatever is ludicrous. Which is your point. People have to be able to use LANGUAGE to describe things. I'm sure you'd like to be arbiter of that. My POINT is that they seem to have a BIAS I didn't expect and it seems to lean left, not that that is the point --and I didn't want one EITHER WAY. You scolds are so annoying and superior. Get off it.

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Cooper Raymond's avatar

In 2011 I met with an OWS protest group in Boston. I'd met with. Tea Party Group in MN the year before.

Though both were Populists....one was more nationalist and willing to defend the ideals in the US Constitution. They wanted power taken from DC and handed back to state and local governments.

The other was more interested in creating a powerful State that gave them power instead of Wall Street.

Both agreed that deconstruction of DC was necessary to achieve their goals....but one group had more libertarian views about whst's next while the others could quote Das Kapital better than a Sociology Professor at Oberlin.

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Roger Hoffmann's avatar

It's too bad that you see others' disagreements with you as scolding and also that they project to you, "superiority". I'll write things as I see them and you can ignore or bristle however you like. It seems that you are in fact illustrating my point, which is that the use of these labels is subjective and also often therefore mistaken.

It's also likely that you're missing the main point: which is that the "they" (to whom I think you're referring, which is those running the security state as well as the political elites atop the two sides of the duopoly, aren't left nor right. They represent the corporate and oligarchic interests of those who control both. Maintenance of the status quo in which the Wall Street and Washington-centered Empire expands (or at least hangs on to) its hegemony (which is enabled by the dollar in its de facto role of global exchange currency), IS the consensus agenda of both parties. This is why there is almost no debate and no hesitation about funding proxy wars against those States that do not consent to this hegemony and who are seen as possible competitors; little hesitation to start color revolutions or otherwise support coups, anywhere a leader or government resists this imperial colonialism, etc.

The established powers are at once neoliberal in economic policy and neoconservative in foreign policy; in fact, neoliberalism and neoconservatism have effectively married because they both serve that singular agenda of maintaining the power and profits of those at the top in an economic order defined by U.S. interests.

So, left and right mean little to them. More, they are used by the policy makers to define the other side, i.e. as pejoratives; and the culture-war issues that they deliberately use to keep attention off the most important topics such as I've alluded to here.

I observe that, while they've been wildly successful in keeping the little people barking at each other through such manipulations, there is a growing number of people who are seeing this game / system for what it is.

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Lekimball's avatar

This has nothing to do with the media we are discussing and whether they demonstrate bias. No idea what you are going on about.

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