I wonder if Taibbi has any inkling of how many El Rushbo fans also follow him. What do you say Matt? What's your guess. Rush is, was, and always will be be the first of the anti-establishment.
I wonder if Taibbi has any inkling of how many El Rushbo fans also follow him. What do you say Matt? What's your guess. Rush is, was, and always will be be the first of the anti-establishment.
I’m not going to argue this point in the same way I did with Marcuse, but my response here would be to say I don’t think that Trump was anti-establishment. He funneled a lot of legitimate resentment and alienation into support of a party that was and is a wholly owned corporate subsidiary. That doesn’t mean he was wrong in his criticisms of people like the Clintons but Rush to me was deep into a devil’s bargain, and ultimately betrayed his audience by handing it over to the Bushes of the world.
I'm a liberal and loathed Rush but I also dislike the unimaginative mocking and belittling on the left, especially SNL these days ( in spite of talented performers). This is not wit that enlightens and makes people think. It's lazy sarcasm parading as humor. There's a difference people.
It's becoming harder to forget that SNL is shot in the same building (30 Rockefeller Center) as MSNBC. SNL's take on Gamestop a couple weeks ago was basically identical to MSNBC: to mock the Redditors for making Wall Street "not work right" while giving a pass to the short selling hedge funds whose standard practice is to squeeze a fortune out of the system while contributing nothing. It seems bizarre to call people who take this position "the left", and even more bizarre that some of Rush's last shows attacking Wall Street and praising the Redditors seemed much more like what I would call "liberal" (and I consider myself a liberal too!)
Trump was as anti-establishment as we are likely to ever see in the Whitehouse. Which is: not very much, and even then it is unable to counteract the establishment onslaught.
Many Trump supporters still believe to this day he was anti establishment. It's like corporate dems who still think Obomber was anti war or pro worker.
No, that is definitely not Rush Limbaugh at all or he would have backed the RINO Republicans. Not a perfect human being, at all, but not how you characterize him at all.
Yeah, this piece is a typical shallow hit piece on someone not even buried yet. He spoke three hours a day, five days a week for decades and all Matt does is spew hateful opinions with zero context. If Rush was even close to what Matt describes Conservatives would have slaughtered gays in mass and Trump would have never happened.
"... typical shallow hit piece.." Translated that means if you call out my side for our lies and hypocricy it is a 'shallow hit piece" and if you call out liberals then you are just reporting the truth...
Comm... You just revealed you are a partisan HACK with no interest in TRUTH. Rush got rich and famous pushing lies (Climate Change, Obama is a Muslim, tax cuts grow the economy, Universal Health Care will destroy the economy and on and on...). If you can't see how he lied then don't give your OPINIONS about how liberals LIE. Lies are Lies and they are on the right and left and people that cant call out their own side with out calling it a "shallow hit piece" lose their right to complain.
Lek.... St Augustine said "People Hate the truth for the sake of what ever they love more than the truth" Tiabbi revealed that the MSM was happy to exaggerate Russia and Trump because they liked the profits that came with such exaggerations and liberals that still believe Trump colluded with Russia like HATING Trump more than the Truth
So it is with Rush and his fans. Rush like the ratings and money he got by lying and exaggerating about liberals and his fans liked HATING liberals more than they liked the TRUTH...
That was RUSH.. That was the media reporting on the Mueller investigation. I am repulsed by the media reporting on Mueller as much as I am repulsed by Rush and those that glorify him
Ah, I saw you posted this somewhere else and wasn't going to bother to reply. Rush did not lie or omit the way the left media has been doing. And he warned about just what we are experiencing now -- which like many on here don't want to lay at the foot of the left where it belongs. Now, if the right were controlling people (lockdowns), censoring people, omitting and unfairly covering things, and even trying to control thought, speakers on campuses, you name it, I'd be "warning" people from the other side. Like Rush was doing. If you can't see that, I can't help you. I'd be protesting in the streets regardless of any poliltical position. So that is just not true.
LEK - If you can't admit to yourself that Rush lied to his fans about everything from how tax cuts impact poor and middle class families, to why we should go to war in Iraq, to climate change science to Trump winning the 2019 Presidential election.
If you can't admit that then you have totally lost your right to criticize the left for being fooled by the Mueller report. You exposed yourself on that one.
The evidence to back up Piketty's claim is preserved in Limbaugh's archive of audio and video recordings, Lekimball. Table-poundig with insults wont change the facts.
I may have listened to a double handful of Limbaugh broadcasts over the years. He was unquestionably a pioneer in finding (or having his researchers find) various limousine liberal hypocrisies by Democratic Party elected officials, or proto-Woke nonsense peddled by callow academics, and skewering every tone-deaf misstep he could find, while amplifying awareness of them to a nationwide audience. But on serious matters of policy, Rush was a cliche-ridden non-thinker. Stale answers wrapped in smooth talk, soothing homilies- and above all, flattery of his audience. Rush was a master of massaging his followers egos for their embrace of preconceived notions, unexamined ignorance, and simple-minded trite-wing nostrums, even as their pockets were being picked. That was his secret to making tens of millions of dollars.
There's fudge room for him to be defended against charges of racism; Rush was ostentatiously polite and respectful to black conservatives like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, which at least indicates that he was well to the Left of Josef Goebbels or Bob Grant in that regard. But the guy was a militarist warmonger and a Drug War propagandist, especially when it counted the most: cheerleading the initial charge into the quagmire.
Rush's knee-jerk hostility to anything that he deemed "Left" also had a way of extending his satire of leisure class liberal excesses into blanket generalizations and straw man caricature. Those are both forms of Lying.
Matt: St Augustine said "People hate the truth for the sake of what ever the love more than the truth"
You accurately pointed out how the media lied and exaggerated about Trump and the Mueller report. The media liked the money they made by lying and exaggerating and people that still believe Trump colluded love HATING TRUMP more than the truth.
Rush is the exact same as are his fans.
He loved the money and fame he earned by lying and exaggerating about liberals and his fans have proven that they like HATING LIBERALS more than the truth.
Both can be bad, right? Or are you a dumb terminal that can only respond to 1/0 binary coding?
The worst part about tribalists is that they only think the other tribe has something wrong with it.
Marcuse's philosophical onanism is the basis for some of the worst decision-making in the world today. Rush is responsible for much of the Hate, Inc. that Matt chronicles in his great book.
Neither is a saint, both were mostly in it for the money, and right-minded people can find faults with both of them.
oh come on - Matt has much more bile in his prose for Marcuse than Rush, that's the obvious point here. He also wrote "I’m not going to argue this point in the same way I did with Marcuse...". So I feel kind of non-binary here.
Or, perhaps deep in his bones, Matt agrees with Dunne that his job as a journalists is to “To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
The Ideology of Marcuse is currently in it's ascendance and a guiding ideology in America. Are you really looking for one more journalist to say "me too!"
Matt shows a genuine concern for his fellow American's, even as they choose to follow a pied piper he cannot support.
The easier (and more popular) story would be to lump Rush Limbaugh and his followers together as indistinguishable undesirables. If you want that you have MSNBC. The alternative comforting narrative is that Rush Limbaugh was a freedom fighter for all this is good and decent in America and that all his followers are true Americans on the winning side of history. You have Fox for that.
Matt is something different. It's why me and many others are here.
ok, that makes sense and I agree with the dunne principle - but for the 1000th time - Marcuse is not the reigning ideology of the left, and has nothing in common with idiot wokism. I hate wokism, I've studied and read much of Marcuse's work, and don't even like him much but I react to stupid, pointless analysis of dead intellectuals.
I've not read everything posted on the topic, but I've noticed Matt generally avoids terms like right and left in describing other people's ideas, so I have trouble imaging Matt criticizing Marcuse for being on the left. That does not sound like a model he would use to describe someone, but perhaps I'm wrong.
In the end, Matt could be wrong. Even if he is, he presented a perspective I have never read on a topic I know nothing about. Remember, book club thing is optional. It's certainly not something he needs to do.
I 've never read Marcuse so have nothing to offer on the topic. I will say that early on I really enjoyed reading your perspective on the topic, but at some point it appeared to cross over and become more about you than the topic itself. That you now continue to argue the point within an entirely different article on a different topic appears to support that.
It's something I recognize because I catch myself doing it all the time.
Well, I think there's a fair explanation for why I'd schlepp the dead horse here other than self involvement, but this is really my last bit on this. Rush did so much actual harm in American politics and to juxtapose the two figures and see Matt going somewhat easier on Rush just feels so willfully disingenuous. Marcuse was ultimately ineffectual - changed very little and caused virtually no harm to anyone. Rush on the other hand has harmed mightily. Wokism is obnoxious and it has its dangers and consequences for sure - but nothing like the consequences of Rush's voice and political cataclysm he engendered. Add to that the utter misdiagnosis of the woke moment as caused by Critical Theory and it seems like completely fair point to make. Tilting at windmills is bad strategy when real targets are all around us. I won't say anything further on this.
Hidden in this is the bullshit that all simple minded people and their adherents believe to be true... "This time, it's really different!"
But it isn't. Ever.
The Human Species is ever evolving, yes, but our reactions to our environment are always very similar. We are capable of building better weapons and tools because of our ability to learn from previous generations, but our relatively short life spans means that by the time we learn what we don't really know (experientially), the dirt nap is calling.
It's why 20 year olds tend to think they can change the world... and 70 year olds want the 20 year olds to get off their collective lawn.
One can also think both are bad, but one worse than the other. I would concur with Matt. Show Biz people shouldn't be treated as harshly as academics. Academics, by virtue of their societal influence and appeal to authority, should know better. Rush was a DJ. Marcuse was a 'revered' intellect.
How many of the general population have heard of Marcuse? Granted, he may have influenced society through his work in academia. Anonymity doesn’t give Marcuse a “free pass”... but I’m quite sure Limbaugh had a much greater influence on millions of more people’s political beliefs and attitudes towards others. He was much more than just a DJ.
Perhaps - but at the end of the day, if people can't see past the sequins, that's on them. Keep in mind, Cardi B and Jimmy Kimmel are considered thought leaders on the left today.
If the "best & brightest" can't produce better quality political and concepts and messaging than people whose job it is to sell soap during commercial breaks... what does that really say about society?
Agreed. I’ve always liked to build my perspective of the world and people based off of long dead philosophers, writers..etc. it just seems to take the edge off any personality “defects”, if you will...I guess it’s hard to personalize people who have been dead for centuries or millennia. Hope this makes sense.
It also tends to help make sure the ideas stand the test of time. That's what's so frustrating about the current "movement of woke." Enlightenment concepts (logic, reason, scientific method) have a decent track record. Marxist theory... not so much (especially when put into practice in Moscow and elsewhere).
People still read Shakespeare and listen to Beethoven. Not so much EL James and John Cage.
Again, I agree. Reading the posts in response to Matt’s article about Marcuse kind of convinced me that my suspicions about Marxism MAY be right...many other philosophers were trotted out as explainers for what Marxism “really means”, the elegance of it etc.. If one needs to reference 10 other philosophers to help someone understand an ideology, that’s not a good sign! Although the same could be said for a lot of Kant. I’ve read some philosophers literally saying they could barely understand what the hell he was talking about 😎. Although I’m sure of that is translation. But back to Marx...I just don’t think it’s a good idea to base economic or social norms/policies on ideologies that people have to twist themselves into pretzels to explain to others.
How many of the general populace read books at all? Less than half my friends/acquaintances do, and among them, few read much beyond sports/society/celebrity stuff.
People like Marcuse, whom I've never read, as I avoid philosophers and poets, have some cachet among a select few, but this society is ordered around the mundane material world, while our political elites follow the money, without fail. The center of power is still corporate, while the populace slurps up car chases, kittens in trees, which celeb is being naughty and can't wait until professional sports is open to the public, eager to pay $18 bucks for a beer that would cost $3.50 tops outside the stadium their tax dollars helped finance.
Love prose, can't stand poetry. It's either pretentious or incomprehensible to me. Of course, I didn't mind one poem I saw in a public toilet bathroom stall, "Here I sit broken hearted, came to shit but only farted", so you can see my basic mindset when it comes to certain things.
Thanks for that valuable clarification. i'm sure Matt really believes Rush was less negatively impactful on America than Marcuse. Your principle showman/academic here seems really intelligent.
So you’re not satisfied with this article because Matt didn’t hate on Rush enough to satisfy you? Gimme a fucking break... Rush Limbaugh was a total piece of shit, there’s no denying that. But I already know this. I don’t need Matt Taibbi to illustrate that further for me.
Thanks for pointing out that interview. I hadn't seen it. A much more robust defense of Critical Theory is possible than Eskow was giving which is that Taibbi's love of free speech IS the core principle in most CT (which itself is not some univocal POV). Habermas for example makes freedom of speech the singular axiom of his entire lifetime of work. What does it mean to protect free speech or make the claim that speech is uncoerced? His analysis comes in handy when you have something like The Citizens United decision that "money is speech", or that corporations are individuals with the same speech rights as individuals. I'd be willing to guess that Taibbi doesn't agree with the principle behind the Citizen's United decision. Habermas, the heir of Critical Theory gives us a really valuable framework to critique these political intercesssions on individual rights. Marcuse merely pointed towards that kind of analysis, which wasn't good enough and Matt's right to point to some problems of his work, but the rest of the claims are bogus anti-intellectualism and certainly don't apply to most Critical Theory.
yeah, i argued that same point, but good luck with that. Just how would Matt lock horns with Zizek? - it would be even more pathetic than with Marcuse. Perhaps he should critique Poincare or Heisenberg next, he wouldn't want to drink a beer with them either.
Absolutely right. But people here are convinced that the college brat is the real threat to America and that cancel culture is only on the left, nevermind that supporting BDS is being outlawed in many states. Perhaps the most conspicuous example of free speech being eroded and not by the left.
No shit. Cancel culture, from what I've learned of it, is sort of comically over correct, but it seems less dogmatic, threatening or closed minded than "Love it or leave it" or "So many Hippies so few hand grenades" signs the now anti war right wing used to display at anti war rallies I would attend(and kept doing in the Obama years, something my establishment liberal friends ceased to do) from the early Bush years. Seemingly, we're not supposed to remember those days, or how pro war these people were back in the day. Apparently, wars only become questionable when the right wing belatedly recognizes their pointlessness.
Beyond that, I distinctly remember those on the right correctly pointing out that the 1st Amendment only applied to government not being allowed to restrict free speech. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, and big Media has merged with the corporate Dems(at least for now, and that alliance will surely shift at some point), the problem becomes one needing resolution, with which I agree.
The public is not only comically partisan over two worthless parties who expertly stoke cultural differences to mask their obeisance to their big money masters, which intersect in many places, but also remarkably overly sensitive to any slight or diminishing their right to be heard on one social outlet or another. I was unsubscribed from Google months and haven't missed making comments there, as typically one encounters people whose minds are more closed than Rachel Maddow's legs or Lindsey Graham's zipper at a heterosexual orgy.
Not bad for a modest intellectual. It's not like he deposited his royalties in the ocean or the bank account of a homeless shelter.
For someone opposed to capitalism - and disturbed about how it creates one-dimensional men, he didn't have a problem utilizing it for himself and his family.
Marxists are only against *other* people having more money.
Matt, I think this response was more worthy of exploration versus the original article and its diatribe style. I think it is worth discussing why Rush would support both Bush and Trump, whether the "parties' consists of the same membership then and now, who was and is the establishment and which is residing on the corporate plantation then and now.The divergence/convergence of liberalism and conservatism and where on this cultural space - time continuum Rush fit, and I would guess he moved like culture itself.
I think so, too. It’s not a simple discussion. I was not a fan of The War on Terror or the Patriot Act (or the DHS, the TSA or No ChildLeft Behind) but I still voted for Bush twice (which I regret—should have protest-voted 3rd party).
But despite being lukewarm on the whole Iraq war thing and Gitmo I’ve become much more unhappy with the idea of endless war and the neocon position that now seems to dominate the establishment of both parties.
I don't think there are enough people unified on that to change that trajectory.
C'mon, the McConnells and Romneys of the world hated Rush and still do. We have a two party system. So, Bush vs Gore, Rush was supposed to push Gore? It was more like there weren't any options. The establishment used Rush and his audience, but things look a lot differently looking backwards now. I don't think he was ever establishment. It was always a love-hate relationship. Corporate republicans would have had a much easier job that would have enjoyed a lot more without the influence of Rush Limbaugh.
He was part of that Grand Oversimplification -- I can't fault him for playing the game. (in the abstract, maybe his conservatism was genuine, but in practice it was a gloss. )
I fault everyone who plays the game for playing the game. It's talked about as some kind of inevitability, when in the end maybe all we really have as human beings is our own ability to make moral choices.
I agree, Trump wasn't anti-establishment, he was just spouting stuff the "little" guy wanted to hear. I am not sure he really ever believed that crap, but he knew what to spout to keep the "little" guy in his corner. There would have been no Obama without Bush and no Trump without Obama. We keep going from hot to cold and back every election cycle. At some point we might crack if we keep doing this and don't get some continuity between election cycles.
Wrong. He was used to telling both sides what they wanted to hear to benefit himself for decades and he could have done the same here and probably stayed in office. He is not for this globalist bullshit and he loves America. They couldn't have that. He was appealing to too many people who felt the same and it disrupted their religious crazy agenda.
Marcuse's been dead for a while, and is also one of the many commie literally Hitlers. He's fair game and he got off easy.
As for Rush: who said obituaries had to be nice? Polite people, maybe, but we don't seem to live in polite times. I'm not supposed to agree with Matt with much of what he wrote but I mostly do, and I'm way more Republican than Democrat.
This wasn't your point, but let's agree on it: Matt's better when writing about more current matters.
I am thoroughly in favor of MT in Dostoevsky drag. He could have a long fake beard made out of shredded black craft store felt and Elmer's Glue and belabor a papier-mâché horse with a bullwhip on the next UI episode. Katie can feign mild horror.
I know. I hate it when Matt does a eulogy based on nothing more than the behavior of every single sparrow and their specific flight pattern over an entire Summer.
Well, my politics are center rightish and I can’t stand Rush or any of his ilk. So I really hope for the sake of his integrity that Matt keeps writing as he sees fit and not to please an audience.
Concur. I listened to Rush for many years, believe he was a net-positive and am very glad he didn't stay Jeff Christie, both for him and for his millions of listeners. But I would want Matt to both share his reasoned opinion and for me to disagree with it and for the conversation to continue.
I so agree, this article really got me heated because I love Rush, and I almost unsubscribed, but I really do value people’s opinion that differs from me and decided to continue to support because of this reason. I may have to hold my nose reading some of the content and comments, but it’s truly vital to understand so many different opinions, thoughts and motivations.
This isn't the first time I've heard someone with a conservative perspective say something along this line. I can't recall or can even imagine hearing someone on the left express a thought like this nowadays.
I hazily observe that this seems to be a profound observation, but my understanding of professional sports and fan culture is so poor that I am reluctant to further unpack it.
I'm reading Frederick Exley's "A Fan's Notes" in an effort to catch up. I will still never be a real red-blooded American sports fan, though, and they're basically all aliens to me.
Sports fans are sports fans across the globe-soccer in Scotland or Brazil, hockey in Russia, cricket in India, football in Ohio. It’s really a beautiful thing when you consider it in a larger social context than just the particular object being hurled, struck, or otherwise conveyed toward a goal.
a UK friend of mine went to an American football game (not soccer). Was astounded that the fans of both teams were mixed in the stands together. Sounds like the convo's further down
Well - until recently, being a sports fan was a safe way to participate in tribalism without losing your mind. Proxy for war, as it were. It provided emotional release with little or no risk of bodily injury and/or threat of banishment to the gulag.
But now - the intersectional virus has infected it, too. It's not enough to be a fan of the team, you need an opinion on standing for the anthem. Or whether or not LeBron is the 'GOAT.' Or whether trans girls should compete as girls at the high school level. Answer incorrectly at your own risk.
If you want to see sports at its best (just watch the facial reactions/body language of the players and fans) watch this:
This reminds me of a great observation the great John Madden made.
He was covering a game where a politician appeared in the stadium and on the big screen (I don't recall who).
He pointed out that for most of his coaching career, when any politician appeared at a game there was universal boos and derision from the crowd.
At some point that all changed. Now when a politician arrives at a game the fans either go into rapture if it is someone they approve of, or show an almost violent anger when it is someone they don't approve of. It brings to mind Trump appearing at a Nationals to the chant of "lock him up, lock him up!" Whatever you think of Donald Trump, that chant said so much about where this country is not just when it comes to politicians, but how casual we have become about incarceration as long as it is not us.
A lot of that was based on the feeling that sports was a sanctuary where people fled to get away from politics - you sat in the stands and pulled for your team alongside people you probably disagreed with about other things. Sports was what you watched at home to get away from the news. When politicians arrived at stadiums, they were usually trying to sponge votes off crowd enthusiasm, often by putting on the right hat. So they booed because the politician's arrival was interrupting the overall program. I always liked that fans could tell which politicians were actual sports enthusiasts and which ones were not.
Now however there is a sense that failure to demonstrate a political preference is in itself political. If you're not endorsing a party at all times, if you think there should be no-politics-zones in life, you're aiding fascism or showing privilege. Same with slapstick comedy, which is now thought of as regressive somehow (I think it's the opposite, but whatever). It's all a bummer...
I think it's terribly unedifying to confuse team loyalty in sports with political allegiance.
For one thing, sports contests have a fully outlined, coherent set of rules, and structures exist to apply them consistently, with impartial officiating to judge the contest.
Yes, that effort sometimes fails in practice. There are sometimes judgement calls that are contestable. A few of the fine points may be somewhat laxly enforced. But everyone on the field and every seasoned fan in the stands KNOWS what the rules are. All of them. There are objective standards for straying out of bounds, or for hitting below the belt, or pass interference, or where the strike zone is, and it's understood that no one on the field has dispensation to violate those rules; if that happens, it means that the game is fixed. No one argues a pass interference penalty on the basis of "well, the other side does it, too."
Team loyalty in politics entails something entirely different. The stakes of the activity are much, much higher- sometimes, the outcome of a contest over policy is a matter of life and death. Yet there's no consensus of agreement on what the rules are, much less how they're to be applied. And team loyalty is generally held to hold sway over all other considerations. So we don't have officiating; we have partisan games of "gotcha." I do applaud the rise of "fact-checking" sites and news columns; there wasn't anything similar in the old days of gatekeeper media, because it was a much more cumbersome process. But most of the American press isn't even close to providing impartial officiating when it comes to matters of national and international policy, much less any political matter with partisan implications. Even in the case of obvious transgressions, "the other side does it, too" is still a widely accepted argument. And while there are some similarities between sports contests and election campaigns- motivation, momentum, the role of personal leadership and allegiance by the rank and file, industrious and basic competence at the basics of obtaining name recognition and "messaging"- the background reality of the lack of rules makes the effort entirely different from a playoff series in a team sport. No one gets to run up and spike a ball into the goal in soccer; the fans on both sides would be aghast. But there is no "fan consensus" on disqualifying a team representative for violating rules about exhibiting a modicum of respect for factual accuracy, or for blatant demagoguery. There are no rules about that.
I happen to think that much of the root of the problem is the disdain that Americans have for debate as a sports contest equivalent to an athletic contest. And I single out Americans in that respect, because anyone who's watched the often adversarial proceedings of the UK Prime Minister's Questions in BBC broadcasts ought to be able to realize that the most of the US Congress- and many of our recents Presidents- are squabbling 9-year olds, in comparison. If the First Amendment of the US Constitution is intended to emphasize the imperative of the free expression of political speech, the Prime Minister's Questions provides an incontestably superior example of what that activity actually looks like in practice. The All-American Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones are grotesque parodies of the concept, in comparison.
Formal debate is akin to an athletic sport- there are actual rules to follow, and agreed conventions. Many of the fouls consist of logical fallacies, which the opponents are able to turn to their advantage by calling them out in front of the audience, if they're quick enough to catch them, and sufficiently skilled at pointing out the unscrupulous tactics and the invalidity of the points made as a result. That set of critical thinking skills should not be reserved to be learned in law school, or in classes in "communications" (which often train people for professions in public relations or lobbying, and hence have a tendency to regard logical fallacies as part of the occupational skill set, rather than as unethical manipulation to be disdained and avoided.) But this country plainly has a long way to go, in terms of respecting intellectual skill and its ethical employment. Especially in Politics.
True. The 24 hour news cycle meets the Hunger Games of political contempt. Once a culture reaches point of contempt, it is much harder to reconcile.
Listening to a comedian or a new piece of music is one of the few respites (or playing/watching a sport). These are also places where our biases can get challenged and it does not become an internet keyboard battle to the death.
I would say that chant was a direct in kind response to Trump's having led many a crowd in the same chant for Queen Bee Hillary. Had he never done so, Trump would have just been booed, as have many politicians before and certainly after him will be.
One can say though that Trump was never afraid to play the heel... at least he went to the World Series in DC. Can you imagine Joe Biden making an in-stadium appearance an Alabama/Clemson College Football Championship or Kamala Harris at the Daytona 500?
A few days ago somebody in Glenn's comments told Glenn that he had a moral responsibility to censor his right-wing commenters. (Yeah, I don't get it either.) I wonder if we'll get something like that here.
As I read it, DavidH was complaining about there being too much wrong-think in GG's comments. But there are reasons to moderate blog comments besides censoring the kind of wrong-think he was describing.
I run a service that includes public chat and believe moderation is necessary for several reasons and that there are kinds of moderation that have little to do with what I understand as censorship.
As someone who was reading Glenn Greenwald's original blog Unclaimed Territory even before Salon began hosting it, I'll attest that Glenn has been known to censor posts and block writers in his comment sections. Or to attempt to block them, anyway: anyone seeking proof of the axiom that "the medium of the Internet interprets censorship as noise, and routes around it" can find ample support from observing the tenacity of seriously obsessed Internet trolls, with their ability to conjure sock puppet identities from a bottomless list, and their single-minded I-never-sleep dedication to their mission. The majority of comment trolls can be successfully discouraged, but in some cases that takes a lot of time and diligent effort. I don't think any blog host thinks they've "won" when they depart; they know only too well that their return is always a possibility.
As a result, Glenn tended to only get involved in censorship when it was obvious that a troll was pursuing a personal vendetta against him. Everything else was a free for all.
I don't have the same attitude about trolls as many other Internet comment writers and readers; I view them as foils. Engaging with them is like sparring practice, for me; it's obvious that they're grossly wrong, and sometimes mind-bogglingly dimwitted. But the views they espouse often have some popular currency, so I use their "observations" as a way of clarifying my own objections to the positions they espouse, for further reference. It's ironic, but sometimes sheer simple-mindedness can be more difficult to argue against than skilled sophistry.* So it's a good idea to get some practice in doing it. Unpacking the elements of the fallacies, their factual ignorance, and their deceptions and self-deceptions in detail, like working out a math problem. It's exercise, for me. Exercise can be tedious, but it's also how you get stronger. And sometimes it can even get entertaining, like dancing around and throwing jabs at some palooka in the ring, making their Dummheit obvious. I like to think that at least one lurker is reading the exchange, but I don't require that. I do it for the love of the game. I enjoy it. I think it's groovy.
[*Joseph Heller's novel Good As Gold has a classic set-piece skit about that situation. The "family at the dinner table" scene. The book is worth looking up just for that passage. Although I liked reading it in its totality as a novel, too.)
I remember reading Good AS Gold in the 80s. Can't remember a thing about it, though.
That's great stuff about arguing with trolls but for myself I'm thinking it's not really how I want to spend my time. Sharp argumentative skills are a fine thing but what do I need them for? I do not want to spend my time using such skills so why spend it developing them? I more and more often find myself thinking about Cornel West's exhortation to work on one's art. Blog commentary isn't my art.
I subbed to Matt's Substack blog when he started serializing the drug dealer book because I thought it was the morally right choice for me. I've long been opposed to advertising as the way to fund media and I think it's been catastrophic for the internet. So when Matt opened a subscription blog, I signed up. And when GG quit TI was happy to pledge to that. I didn't do it because I want access to comments.
In 2020, the year of our plague, I did resort to commenting on NC, here, an email list I'm on, and then on GG's as a way of letting out some of the pressure of ideas because, apart from my long suffering wife, I don't have anyone else to talk to about how I understand the world. But now I feel I really out to try to ...
Every read his manifesto? The dude had a point. And reasoned positions. And non-trivial predictive power. The part where he maimed and murdered people was clearly evil, and frankly I'm not clear why he didn't see that. But apparently some personal animus involved in some way, if not with the people than the organizations he felt they represented.
I think the take away would be violence does not help your case. No matter how much you think it does or should.
You may have intended "prescient," but I'll take "omniscient" too.
The Manifesto is one of the clearest cases for me, personally, of terrorism working. I was like, "A guy is willing to kill and maim people just so I can read what he has to say in the New York Times? I'm intrigued, I'll read it."
And I read it and it was long and rambling, but damn. Dude had some good points to make. If Ted K were like 20 years younger he might have just been bitching at the rest of us in this comment section -- which may have been one of his points.
Ted Kaczynski's actions were horrendous, but his manifesto stands as one of the great documents describing human alienation from nature due to the rise of technology that had become our masters rather than our servant, and all before the rise of ios and the current mass surveillance state. Uncanny.
It lead me to read Christian Anarchist Jacques Ellul's "The Technological Society" and "Propoganda," which both had a profound long lasting impact on my thinking. Both well worth the read if you haven't.
I think that was one of his points. I’m guilty of living a lot of his predictions. But the guy was brilliant but also crazy. I want the brilliant without the crazy. If he’d been not antisocial and sociopathic he might have done talk radio. Or at least a podcast.
"If he’d been not antisocial and sociopathic he might have done talk radio."
I would contend that being antisocial and sociopathic are not necessarily barriers to a career in talk radio.
The crazy is what makes it fun, as long as you're not the one getting blown up by a bomb made out of wood.
Would he be allowed to do a podcast from jail? I have no idea; not a lawyer. I'm all but certain he would sneer at the format, so this proposition will most likely remain in the realm of theory.
Ok...way off topic, but let’s talk about” the” OG anti establishment character (no one one mythical or “semi/mythical) “...I’m going to start with Akhenaten ...you get your very likeness removed from everything after your death..you definitely pissed off the establishment!
The most OG anti-establishment figure I know of is probably whoever "historical Jesus" was. Assuming he existed. We're getting into quasi-pre-history there, tho.
The self-declared "disciple" "Paul" was also rabidly anti-establishment, and he definitely existed.
All or most of the the mythologies probably have such anti-establishment figures.
I think he meant the first by reason of having all of the following; an anal cyst, making him 4-A during the Vietnam war, the first to be fat because of his diet and lifestyle, deaf from abusing Oxy and to die from lung cancer from a habit he denied caused illness in others from second hand smoke, and for which he thought he deserved the CMH for providing so much of his tobacco tax dollars to others' health research.
The man died an unimportant death, as most of us will, from a disease he gave himself, the same kind of self created misery he had no problem showing no empathy for in others.
His politics are not the issue; his belittling of those less fortunate is. The best thing this man ever did was not to procreate; amazing that all three of his wives were barren.
I was being sarcastic, as I tend to be. Methinks either Rush's port of entry on his wives was adjacent to that which would occasion a new born, the circumstances being right, or perhaps they were just cover for his real orientation.
Anyway, his death is a non event, as mine will be; I'm waiting for a real cause for celebration; Bush, Cheney, numerous neocons, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Pompeo et al breathing their last. Rush was nothing but a carnival barker, making coin as he sold the joke that is US politics to willing dupes.
I was always much more of G. Gordon Liddy fan on the radio, never really listened to Rush. He was a Top 40 DJ, I preferred indie rock/alternative stations, back when such things existed.
Well, as of tonight, he has one less. I wouldn't expect Matt to be a fan of Rush Limbaugh, but I also would have expected something a little more gracious.
There were about a thousand anti-establishmenters before Rush (Hunter S. Thompson, Jim McMahon, David Bowie, etc, etc, etc) - and I would argue Rush wasn't even anti-establishment. He was on CORPORATE RADIO?! You think he was getting paid by individual listeners? He was a shill.
What difference does it make if a lot of Rush Limbaugh fans are also Matt Taibbi fans? What? So he’s supposed to cater to them and only report on things in a way that makes them feel comfortable? This is the exact opposite of Matt’s entire stance. I wonder if people even hear/read the things they say...
You comment indicates you didn't listen to his show. He didn't "hate" anyone. Poking fun at your political opponents is miles away from hate.
You not liking how he was anti-establishment doesn't mean he wasn't.
The media today being criticized in progressive circles is because now you are affected, 25 years ago when Rush criticized it he was met with guffaws by the likes of you.
I wonder if Taibbi has any inkling of how many El Rushbo fans also follow him. What do you say Matt? What's your guess. Rush is, was, and always will be be the first of the anti-establishment.
I’m not going to argue this point in the same way I did with Marcuse, but my response here would be to say I don’t think that Trump was anti-establishment. He funneled a lot of legitimate resentment and alienation into support of a party that was and is a wholly owned corporate subsidiary. That doesn’t mean he was wrong in his criticisms of people like the Clintons but Rush to me was deep into a devil’s bargain, and ultimately betrayed his audience by handing it over to the Bushes of the world.
Rush fan, and fan of yours. For the same reasons. Make of that what you will, but it's a compliment to you both.
I'm a liberal and loathed Rush but I also dislike the unimaginative mocking and belittling on the left, especially SNL these days ( in spite of talented performers). This is not wit that enlightens and makes people think. It's lazy sarcasm parading as humor. There's a difference people.
It's becoming harder to forget that SNL is shot in the same building (30 Rockefeller Center) as MSNBC. SNL's take on Gamestop a couple weeks ago was basically identical to MSNBC: to mock the Redditors for making Wall Street "not work right" while giving a pass to the short selling hedge funds whose standard practice is to squeeze a fortune out of the system while contributing nothing. It seems bizarre to call people who take this position "the left", and even more bizarre that some of Rush's last shows attacking Wall Street and praising the Redditors seemed much more like what I would call "liberal" (and I consider myself a liberal too!)
Trump was as anti-establishment as we are likely to ever see in the Whitehouse. Which is: not very much, and even then it is unable to counteract the establishment onslaught.
I meant to write Rush there. I agree Trump after a fashion was anti-establishment.
Trump was antiglobalist. Globalism will destroy democracy.
Many Trump supporters still believe to this day he was anti establishment. It's like corporate dems who still think Obomber was anti war or pro worker.
No, that is definitely not Rush Limbaugh at all or he would have backed the RINO Republicans. Not a perfect human being, at all, but not how you characterize him at all.
Yeah, this piece is a typical shallow hit piece on someone not even buried yet. He spoke three hours a day, five days a week for decades and all Matt does is spew hateful opinions with zero context. If Rush was even close to what Matt describes Conservatives would have slaughtered gays in mass and Trump would have never happened.
"... typical shallow hit piece.." Translated that means if you call out my side for our lies and hypocricy it is a 'shallow hit piece" and if you call out liberals then you are just reporting the truth...
Comm... You just revealed you are a partisan HACK with no interest in TRUTH. Rush got rich and famous pushing lies (Climate Change, Obama is a Muslim, tax cuts grow the economy, Universal Health Care will destroy the economy and on and on...). If you can't see how he lied then don't give your OPINIONS about how liberals LIE. Lies are Lies and they are on the right and left and people that cant call out their own side with out calling it a "shallow hit piece" lose their right to complain.
Lek.... St Augustine said "People Hate the truth for the sake of what ever they love more than the truth" Tiabbi revealed that the MSM was happy to exaggerate Russia and Trump because they liked the profits that came with such exaggerations and liberals that still believe Trump colluded with Russia like HATING Trump more than the Truth
So it is with Rush and his fans. Rush like the ratings and money he got by lying and exaggerating about liberals and his fans liked HATING liberals more than they liked the TRUTH...
That was RUSH.. That was the media reporting on the Mueller investigation. I am repulsed by the media reporting on Mueller as much as I am repulsed by Rush and those that glorify him
Ah, I saw you posted this somewhere else and wasn't going to bother to reply. Rush did not lie or omit the way the left media has been doing. And he warned about just what we are experiencing now -- which like many on here don't want to lay at the foot of the left where it belongs. Now, if the right were controlling people (lockdowns), censoring people, omitting and unfairly covering things, and even trying to control thought, speakers on campuses, you name it, I'd be "warning" people from the other side. Like Rush was doing. If you can't see that, I can't help you. I'd be protesting in the streets regardless of any poliltical position. So that is just not true.
LEK - If you can't admit to yourself that Rush lied to his fans about everything from how tax cuts impact poor and middle class families, to why we should go to war in Iraq, to climate change science to Trump winning the 2019 Presidential election.
If you can't admit that then you have totally lost your right to criticize the left for being fooled by the Mueller report. You exposed yourself on that one.
Oh bologne. All garbage. Ridiculous.
The evidence to back up Piketty's claim is preserved in Limbaugh's archive of audio and video recordings, Lekimball. Table-poundig with insults wont change the facts.
I may have listened to a double handful of Limbaugh broadcasts over the years. He was unquestionably a pioneer in finding (or having his researchers find) various limousine liberal hypocrisies by Democratic Party elected officials, or proto-Woke nonsense peddled by callow academics, and skewering every tone-deaf misstep he could find, while amplifying awareness of them to a nationwide audience. But on serious matters of policy, Rush was a cliche-ridden non-thinker. Stale answers wrapped in smooth talk, soothing homilies- and above all, flattery of his audience. Rush was a master of massaging his followers egos for their embrace of preconceived notions, unexamined ignorance, and simple-minded trite-wing nostrums, even as their pockets were being picked. That was his secret to making tens of millions of dollars.
There's fudge room for him to be defended against charges of racism; Rush was ostentatiously polite and respectful to black conservatives like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, which at least indicates that he was well to the Left of Josef Goebbels or Bob Grant in that regard. But the guy was a militarist warmonger and a Drug War propagandist, especially when it counted the most: cheerleading the initial charge into the quagmire.
Rush's knee-jerk hostility to anything that he deemed "Left" also had a way of extending his satire of leisure class liberal excesses into blanket generalizations and straw man caricature. Those are both forms of Lying.
https://theweek.com/articles/967351/how-rush-limbaugh-created-modern-politics
Who was he to hand it over to?
?????
This being the problem, there really aren't two parties.
He trooped along plugging the GOP like a good soldier, mind you often being critical.
We simply aren't represented in DC for some time, and we see what happens when we send an outsider, however imperfect he was.
DC really is it's own world, now a fortified with razor wire castle.
I don't know why they don't add a moat as well, diverting the Potomac would be a shovel ready job.
Matt: St Augustine said "People hate the truth for the sake of what ever the love more than the truth"
You accurately pointed out how the media lied and exaggerated about Trump and the Mueller report. The media liked the money they made by lying and exaggerating and people that still believe Trump colluded love HATING TRUMP more than the truth.
Rush is the exact same as are his fans.
He loved the money and fame he earned by lying and exaggerating about liberals and his fans have proven that they like HATING LIBERALS more than the truth.
Right - Rush was not nearly as big of a cancer on the body politic as Marcuse, that's for sure. Save your firepower for long dead philosophers.
Both can be bad, right? Or are you a dumb terminal that can only respond to 1/0 binary coding?
The worst part about tribalists is that they only think the other tribe has something wrong with it.
Marcuse's philosophical onanism is the basis for some of the worst decision-making in the world today. Rush is responsible for much of the Hate, Inc. that Matt chronicles in his great book.
Neither is a saint, both were mostly in it for the money, and right-minded people can find faults with both of them.
oh come on - Matt has much more bile in his prose for Marcuse than Rush, that's the obvious point here. He also wrote "I’m not going to argue this point in the same way I did with Marcuse...". So I feel kind of non-binary here.
Or, perhaps deep in his bones, Matt agrees with Dunne that his job as a journalists is to “To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
The Ideology of Marcuse is currently in it's ascendance and a guiding ideology in America. Are you really looking for one more journalist to say "me too!"
Matt shows a genuine concern for his fellow American's, even as they choose to follow a pied piper he cannot support.
The easier (and more popular) story would be to lump Rush Limbaugh and his followers together as indistinguishable undesirables. If you want that you have MSNBC. The alternative comforting narrative is that Rush Limbaugh was a freedom fighter for all this is good and decent in America and that all his followers are true Americans on the winning side of history. You have Fox for that.
Matt is something different. It's why me and many others are here.
ok, that makes sense and I agree with the dunne principle - but for the 1000th time - Marcuse is not the reigning ideology of the left, and has nothing in common with idiot wokism. I hate wokism, I've studied and read much of Marcuse's work, and don't even like him much but I react to stupid, pointless analysis of dead intellectuals.
I've not read everything posted on the topic, but I've noticed Matt generally avoids terms like right and left in describing other people's ideas, so I have trouble imaging Matt criticizing Marcuse for being on the left. That does not sound like a model he would use to describe someone, but perhaps I'm wrong.
In the end, Matt could be wrong. Even if he is, he presented a perspective I have never read on a topic I know nothing about. Remember, book club thing is optional. It's certainly not something he needs to do.
I 've never read Marcuse so have nothing to offer on the topic. I will say that early on I really enjoyed reading your perspective on the topic, but at some point it appeared to cross over and become more about you than the topic itself. That you now continue to argue the point within an entirely different article on a different topic appears to support that.
It's something I recognize because I catch myself doing it all the time.
Well, I think there's a fair explanation for why I'd schlepp the dead horse here other than self involvement, but this is really my last bit on this. Rush did so much actual harm in American politics and to juxtapose the two figures and see Matt going somewhat easier on Rush just feels so willfully disingenuous. Marcuse was ultimately ineffectual - changed very little and caused virtually no harm to anyone. Rush on the other hand has harmed mightily. Wokism is obnoxious and it has its dangers and consequences for sure - but nothing like the consequences of Rush's voice and political cataclysm he engendered. Add to that the utter misdiagnosis of the woke moment as caused by Critical Theory and it seems like completely fair point to make. Tilting at windmills is bad strategy when real targets are all around us. I won't say anything further on this.
Hidden in this is the bullshit that all simple minded people and their adherents believe to be true... "This time, it's really different!"
But it isn't. Ever.
The Human Species is ever evolving, yes, but our reactions to our environment are always very similar. We are capable of building better weapons and tools because of our ability to learn from previous generations, but our relatively short life spans means that by the time we learn what we don't really know (experientially), the dirt nap is calling.
It's why 20 year olds tend to think they can change the world... and 70 year olds want the 20 year olds to get off their collective lawn.
It's the ultimate Johari window problem.
One can also think both are bad, but one worse than the other. I would concur with Matt. Show Biz people shouldn't be treated as harshly as academics. Academics, by virtue of their societal influence and appeal to authority, should know better. Rush was a DJ. Marcuse was a 'revered' intellect.
How many of the general population have heard of Marcuse? Granted, he may have influenced society through his work in academia. Anonymity doesn’t give Marcuse a “free pass”... but I’m quite sure Limbaugh had a much greater influence on millions of more people’s political beliefs and attitudes towards others. He was much more than just a DJ.
Perhaps - but at the end of the day, if people can't see past the sequins, that's on them. Keep in mind, Cardi B and Jimmy Kimmel are considered thought leaders on the left today.
If the "best & brightest" can't produce better quality political and concepts and messaging than people whose job it is to sell soap during commercial breaks... what does that really say about society?
George Carlin was right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDUIX2-akuQ
Who on the left considers Cardi B and Jimmy Kimmel "thought leaders"
Agreed. I’ve always liked to build my perspective of the world and people based off of long dead philosophers, writers..etc. it just seems to take the edge off any personality “defects”, if you will...I guess it’s hard to personalize people who have been dead for centuries or millennia. Hope this makes sense.
It also tends to help make sure the ideas stand the test of time. That's what's so frustrating about the current "movement of woke." Enlightenment concepts (logic, reason, scientific method) have a decent track record. Marxist theory... not so much (especially when put into practice in Moscow and elsewhere).
People still read Shakespeare and listen to Beethoven. Not so much EL James and John Cage.
Again, I agree. Reading the posts in response to Matt’s article about Marcuse kind of convinced me that my suspicions about Marxism MAY be right...many other philosophers were trotted out as explainers for what Marxism “really means”, the elegance of it etc.. If one needs to reference 10 other philosophers to help someone understand an ideology, that’s not a good sign! Although the same could be said for a lot of Kant. I’ve read some philosophers literally saying they could barely understand what the hell he was talking about 😎. Although I’m sure of that is translation. But back to Marx...I just don’t think it’s a good idea to base economic or social norms/policies on ideologies that people have to twist themselves into pretzels to explain to others.
E. L. James is makin' bank. Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Cage are all dead.
Send any tips to the John Cage Estate.
Scruton
I always thought Hitchens was pretty conservative in most of his views
How many of the general populace read books at all? Less than half my friends/acquaintances do, and among them, few read much beyond sports/society/celebrity stuff.
People like Marcuse, whom I've never read, as I avoid philosophers and poets, have some cachet among a select few, but this society is ordered around the mundane material world, while our political elites follow the money, without fail. The center of power is still corporate, while the populace slurps up car chases, kittens in trees, which celeb is being naughty and can't wait until professional sports is open to the public, eager to pay $18 bucks for a beer that would cost $3.50 tops outside the stadium their tax dollars helped finance.
You avoid poets? Seriously? I mean, I kind of get avoiding philosophers, but POETS? Really?
Love prose, can't stand poetry. It's either pretentious or incomprehensible to me. Of course, I didn't mind one poem I saw in a public toilet bathroom stall, "Here I sit broken hearted, came to shit but only farted", so you can see my basic mindset when it comes to certain things.
Don't like mimes, either.
Looked it up. The Hobbit sold 100 million. Sadly, I had expected higher volumes
Checked it out, and that is a worldwide total, placing it #9 on the world's best selling books, Don Quixote being #1.
Hey now! I know he’s not he’s not technically in The Hobbit...but I have spent many an hour pondering the meaning of Tom Bombadil..good stuff;)
Thanks for that valuable clarification. i'm sure Matt really believes Rush was less negatively impactful on America than Marcuse. Your principle showman/academic here seems really intelligent.
So you’re not satisfied with this article because Matt didn’t hate on Rush enough to satisfy you? Gimme a fucking break... Rush Limbaugh was a total piece of shit, there’s no denying that. But I already know this. I don’t need Matt Taibbi to illustrate that further for me.
O gimme a break. that's obviously not my point
Thanks for pointing out that interview. I hadn't seen it. A much more robust defense of Critical Theory is possible than Eskow was giving which is that Taibbi's love of free speech IS the core principle in most CT (which itself is not some univocal POV). Habermas for example makes freedom of speech the singular axiom of his entire lifetime of work. What does it mean to protect free speech or make the claim that speech is uncoerced? His analysis comes in handy when you have something like The Citizens United decision that "money is speech", or that corporations are individuals with the same speech rights as individuals. I'd be willing to guess that Taibbi doesn't agree with the principle behind the Citizen's United decision. Habermas, the heir of Critical Theory gives us a really valuable framework to critique these political intercesssions on individual rights. Marcuse merely pointed towards that kind of analysis, which wasn't good enough and Matt's right to point to some problems of his work, but the rest of the claims are bogus anti-intellectualism and certainly don't apply to most Critical Theory.
What’s wrong with zizek?
yeah, i argued that same point, but good luck with that. Just how would Matt lock horns with Zizek? - it would be even more pathetic than with Marcuse. Perhaps he should critique Poincare or Heisenberg next, he wouldn't want to drink a beer with them either.
Absolutely right. But people here are convinced that the college brat is the real threat to America and that cancel culture is only on the left, nevermind that supporting BDS is being outlawed in many states. Perhaps the most conspicuous example of free speech being eroded and not by the left.
No shit. Cancel culture, from what I've learned of it, is sort of comically over correct, but it seems less dogmatic, threatening or closed minded than "Love it or leave it" or "So many Hippies so few hand grenades" signs the now anti war right wing used to display at anti war rallies I would attend(and kept doing in the Obama years, something my establishment liberal friends ceased to do) from the early Bush years. Seemingly, we're not supposed to remember those days, or how pro war these people were back in the day. Apparently, wars only become questionable when the right wing belatedly recognizes their pointlessness.
Beyond that, I distinctly remember those on the right correctly pointing out that the 1st Amendment only applied to government not being allowed to restrict free speech. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, and big Media has merged with the corporate Dems(at least for now, and that alliance will surely shift at some point), the problem becomes one needing resolution, with which I agree.
The public is not only comically partisan over two worthless parties who expertly stoke cultural differences to mask their obeisance to their big money masters, which intersect in many places, but also remarkably overly sensitive to any slight or diminishing their right to be heard on one social outlet or another. I was unsubscribed from Google months and haven't missed making comments there, as typically one encounters people whose minds are more closed than Rachel Maddow's legs or Lindsey Graham's zipper at a heterosexual orgy.
Taken with a grain of salt, as should be everything on the interwebs: https://networthroom.com/case/herbert-marcuse-net-worth-bio/
Not bad for a modest intellectual. It's not like he deposited his royalties in the ocean or the bank account of a homeless shelter.
For someone opposed to capitalism - and disturbed about how it creates one-dimensional men, he didn't have a problem utilizing it for himself and his family.
Marxists are only against *other* people having more money.
"If you think an 8 million dollar net worth is a lot of money you must be very poor indeed...."
Holy shit. What a statement.
I guess all of us who are worth less than 8 mil now know what we're dealing with when we deal with "Zarathustra."
When has socialism ever "made *more* wealthy people" rather than make people *less* wealthy?
Oh great, it's Stephan again.
Aw, he can do his thing. Free speech, right?
Matt, I think this response was more worthy of exploration versus the original article and its diatribe style. I think it is worth discussing why Rush would support both Bush and Trump, whether the "parties' consists of the same membership then and now, who was and is the establishment and which is residing on the corporate plantation then and now.The divergence/convergence of liberalism and conservatism and where on this cultural space - time continuum Rush fit, and I would guess he moved like culture itself.
In other words, provide some context for the hateful accusations and name calling, like a journalist is supposed to do.
I think so, too. It’s not a simple discussion. I was not a fan of The War on Terror or the Patriot Act (or the DHS, the TSA or No ChildLeft Behind) but I still voted for Bush twice (which I regret—should have protest-voted 3rd party).
But despite being lukewarm on the whole Iraq war thing and Gitmo I’ve become much more unhappy with the idea of endless war and the neocon position that now seems to dominate the establishment of both parties.
I don't think there are enough people unified on that to change that trajectory.
C'mon, the McConnells and Romneys of the world hated Rush and still do. We have a two party system. So, Bush vs Gore, Rush was supposed to push Gore? It was more like there weren't any options. The establishment used Rush and his audience, but things look a lot differently looking backwards now. I don't think he was ever establishment. It was always a love-hate relationship. Corporate republicans would have had a much easier job that would have enjoyed a lot more without the influence of Rush Limbaugh.
He was part of that Grand Oversimplification -- I can't fault him for playing the game. (in the abstract, maybe his conservatism was genuine, but in practice it was a gloss. )
I fault everyone who plays the game for playing the game. It's talked about as some kind of inevitability, when in the end maybe all we really have as human beings is our own ability to make moral choices.
I say: fuck the game.
Then hate the fuckers who started it! JFK knew - https://youtu.be/3NbQkyvbw18
Underneath the chilly gray November sky
We can make believe that Kennedy is still alive
We're shootin for the moon, and smiling Jackie's driving by
They say: Good try.
Tomorrow Wendy is gonna die.
––A. Prieboy
I agree, Trump wasn't anti-establishment, he was just spouting stuff the "little" guy wanted to hear. I am not sure he really ever believed that crap, but he knew what to spout to keep the "little" guy in his corner. There would have been no Obama without Bush and no Trump without Obama. We keep going from hot to cold and back every election cycle. At some point we might crack if we keep doing this and don't get some continuity between election cycles.
Wrong. He was used to telling both sides what they wanted to hear to benefit himself for decades and he could have done the same here and probably stayed in office. He is not for this globalist bullshit and he loves America. They couldn't have that. He was appealing to too many people who felt the same and it disrupted their religious crazy agenda.
Marcuse's been dead for a while, and is also one of the many commie literally Hitlers. He's fair game and he got off easy.
As for Rush: who said obituaries had to be nice? Polite people, maybe, but we don't seem to live in polite times. I'm not supposed to agree with Matt with much of what he wrote but I mostly do, and I'm way more Republican than Democrat.
This wasn't your point, but let's agree on it: Matt's better when writing about more current matters.
I meant Matt's EVEN better when writing about more current matters.
I am thoroughly in favor of MT in Dostoevsky drag. He could have a long fake beard made out of shredded black craft store felt and Elmer's Glue and belabor a papier-mâché horse with a bullwhip on the next UI episode. Katie can feign mild horror.
I know. I hate it when Matt does a eulogy based on nothing more than the behavior of every single sparrow and their specific flight pattern over an entire Summer.
Yea this is a bit too quick. Class Matt.
Pssyt. That's what my dog hears when she needs correction.
I’m conservative, I’m not interested in a self righteous feel good news feed. I suspect his larger audience is similar
Well, my politics are center rightish and I can’t stand Rush or any of his ilk. So I really hope for the sake of his integrity that Matt keeps writing as he sees fit and not to please an audience.
Concur. I listened to Rush for many years, believe he was a net-positive and am very glad he didn't stay Jeff Christie, both for him and for his millions of listeners. But I would want Matt to both share his reasoned opinion and for me to disagree with it and for the conversation to continue.
reading thru the commenters arguing below, its clear Matt has achieved a cross team-blue and team-red set of subscribers. We need more of that.
We need fewer "teams."
I so agree, this article really got me heated because I love Rush, and I almost unsubscribed, but I really do value people’s opinion that differs from me and decided to continue to support because of this reason. I may have to hold my nose reading some of the content and comments, but it’s truly vital to understand so many different opinions, thoughts and motivations.
This isn't the first time I've heard someone with a conservative perspective say something along this line. I can't recall or can even imagine hearing someone on the left express a thought like this nowadays.
Talk about virtue signaling.
Take it outside!
Thank you. As you said earlier, life is not a game, but in this mysterious journey all we have is our moral compass...fuck the game!
Agreed-a real team knows what it’s ultimate goal is and can put aside differences to achieve it. Fans of a team are NOT part of a team.
"Fans of a team are NOT part of a team."
I hazily observe that this seems to be a profound observation, but my understanding of professional sports and fan culture is so poor that I am reluctant to further unpack it.
I'm reading Frederick Exley's "A Fan's Notes" in an effort to catch up. I will still never be a real red-blooded American sports fan, though, and they're basically all aliens to me.
Sports fans are sports fans across the globe-soccer in Scotland or Brazil, hockey in Russia, cricket in India, football in Ohio. It’s really a beautiful thing when you consider it in a larger social context than just the particular object being hurled, struck, or otherwise conveyed toward a goal.
a UK friend of mine went to an American football game (not soccer). Was astounded that the fans of both teams were mixed in the stands together. Sounds like the convo's further down
I don't disagree. I think there's some part of my spirit missing that makes me unappreciative of sports and unable to participate in religion.
Well - until recently, being a sports fan was a safe way to participate in tribalism without losing your mind. Proxy for war, as it were. It provided emotional release with little or no risk of bodily injury and/or threat of banishment to the gulag.
But now - the intersectional virus has infected it, too. It's not enough to be a fan of the team, you need an opinion on standing for the anthem. Or whether or not LeBron is the 'GOAT.' Or whether trans girls should compete as girls at the high school level. Answer incorrectly at your own risk.
If you want to see sports at its best (just watch the facial reactions/body language of the players and fans) watch this:
https://youtu.be/jabeNKO4w_o
This reminds me of a great observation the great John Madden made.
He was covering a game where a politician appeared in the stadium and on the big screen (I don't recall who).
He pointed out that for most of his coaching career, when any politician appeared at a game there was universal boos and derision from the crowd.
At some point that all changed. Now when a politician arrives at a game the fans either go into rapture if it is someone they approve of, or show an almost violent anger when it is someone they don't approve of. It brings to mind Trump appearing at a Nationals to the chant of "lock him up, lock him up!" Whatever you think of Donald Trump, that chant said so much about where this country is not just when it comes to politicians, but how casual we have become about incarceration as long as it is not us.
A lot of that was based on the feeling that sports was a sanctuary where people fled to get away from politics - you sat in the stands and pulled for your team alongside people you probably disagreed with about other things. Sports was what you watched at home to get away from the news. When politicians arrived at stadiums, they were usually trying to sponge votes off crowd enthusiasm, often by putting on the right hat. So they booed because the politician's arrival was interrupting the overall program. I always liked that fans could tell which politicians were actual sports enthusiasts and which ones were not.
Now however there is a sense that failure to demonstrate a political preference is in itself political. If you're not endorsing a party at all times, if you think there should be no-politics-zones in life, you're aiding fascism or showing privilege. Same with slapstick comedy, which is now thought of as regressive somehow (I think it's the opposite, but whatever). It's all a bummer...
I think it's terribly unedifying to confuse team loyalty in sports with political allegiance.
For one thing, sports contests have a fully outlined, coherent set of rules, and structures exist to apply them consistently, with impartial officiating to judge the contest.
Yes, that effort sometimes fails in practice. There are sometimes judgement calls that are contestable. A few of the fine points may be somewhat laxly enforced. But everyone on the field and every seasoned fan in the stands KNOWS what the rules are. All of them. There are objective standards for straying out of bounds, or for hitting below the belt, or pass interference, or where the strike zone is, and it's understood that no one on the field has dispensation to violate those rules; if that happens, it means that the game is fixed. No one argues a pass interference penalty on the basis of "well, the other side does it, too."
Team loyalty in politics entails something entirely different. The stakes of the activity are much, much higher- sometimes, the outcome of a contest over policy is a matter of life and death. Yet there's no consensus of agreement on what the rules are, much less how they're to be applied. And team loyalty is generally held to hold sway over all other considerations. So we don't have officiating; we have partisan games of "gotcha." I do applaud the rise of "fact-checking" sites and news columns; there wasn't anything similar in the old days of gatekeeper media, because it was a much more cumbersome process. But most of the American press isn't even close to providing impartial officiating when it comes to matters of national and international policy, much less any political matter with partisan implications. Even in the case of obvious transgressions, "the other side does it, too" is still a widely accepted argument. And while there are some similarities between sports contests and election campaigns- motivation, momentum, the role of personal leadership and allegiance by the rank and file, industrious and basic competence at the basics of obtaining name recognition and "messaging"- the background reality of the lack of rules makes the effort entirely different from a playoff series in a team sport. No one gets to run up and spike a ball into the goal in soccer; the fans on both sides would be aghast. But there is no "fan consensus" on disqualifying a team representative for violating rules about exhibiting a modicum of respect for factual accuracy, or for blatant demagoguery. There are no rules about that.
I happen to think that much of the root of the problem is the disdain that Americans have for debate as a sports contest equivalent to an athletic contest. And I single out Americans in that respect, because anyone who's watched the often adversarial proceedings of the UK Prime Minister's Questions in BBC broadcasts ought to be able to realize that the most of the US Congress- and many of our recents Presidents- are squabbling 9-year olds, in comparison. If the First Amendment of the US Constitution is intended to emphasize the imperative of the free expression of political speech, the Prime Minister's Questions provides an incontestably superior example of what that activity actually looks like in practice. The All-American Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones are grotesque parodies of the concept, in comparison.
Formal debate is akin to an athletic sport- there are actual rules to follow, and agreed conventions. Many of the fouls consist of logical fallacies, which the opponents are able to turn to their advantage by calling them out in front of the audience, if they're quick enough to catch them, and sufficiently skilled at pointing out the unscrupulous tactics and the invalidity of the points made as a result. That set of critical thinking skills should not be reserved to be learned in law school, or in classes in "communications" (which often train people for professions in public relations or lobbying, and hence have a tendency to regard logical fallacies as part of the occupational skill set, rather than as unethical manipulation to be disdained and avoided.) But this country plainly has a long way to go, in terms of respecting intellectual skill and its ethical employment. Especially in Politics.
True. The 24 hour news cycle meets the Hunger Games of political contempt. Once a culture reaches point of contempt, it is much harder to reconcile.
Listening to a comedian or a new piece of music is one of the few respites (or playing/watching a sport). These are also places where our biases can get challenged and it does not become an internet keyboard battle to the death.
I would say that chant was a direct in kind response to Trump's having led many a crowd in the same chant for Queen Bee Hillary. Had he never done so, Trump would have just been booed, as have many politicians before and certainly after him will be.
One can say though that Trump was never afraid to play the heel... at least he went to the World Series in DC. Can you imagine Joe Biden making an in-stadium appearance an Alabama/Clemson College Football Championship or Kamala Harris at the Daytona 500?
It's called evolution.
I for one appreciate that you don't play games....
Let's find out...
A few days ago somebody in Glenn's comments told Glenn that he had a moral responsibility to censor his right-wing commenters. (Yeah, I don't get it either.) I wonder if we'll get something like that here.
Censorship not needed, we're all smart enough to weed out the wackos from those willing to engage on our own...
Right. It was such a weird thing to say to, of all people, Glenn Greenwald. I hope this link works.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-claims/comments#comment-1285869
As I read it, DavidH was complaining about there being too much wrong-think in GG's comments. But there are reasons to moderate blog comments besides censoring the kind of wrong-think he was describing.
For example, I would not describe Naked Capitalism's rigorous comment moderation as censorship. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/restoring-comments.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/another-warning-about-comments.html
I run a service that includes public chat and believe moderation is necessary for several reasons and that there are kinds of moderation that have little to do with what I understand as censorship.
As someone who was reading Glenn Greenwald's original blog Unclaimed Territory even before Salon began hosting it, I'll attest that Glenn has been known to censor posts and block writers in his comment sections. Or to attempt to block them, anyway: anyone seeking proof of the axiom that "the medium of the Internet interprets censorship as noise, and routes around it" can find ample support from observing the tenacity of seriously obsessed Internet trolls, with their ability to conjure sock puppet identities from a bottomless list, and their single-minded I-never-sleep dedication to their mission. The majority of comment trolls can be successfully discouraged, but in some cases that takes a lot of time and diligent effort. I don't think any blog host thinks they've "won" when they depart; they know only too well that their return is always a possibility.
As a result, Glenn tended to only get involved in censorship when it was obvious that a troll was pursuing a personal vendetta against him. Everything else was a free for all.
I don't have the same attitude about trolls as many other Internet comment writers and readers; I view them as foils. Engaging with them is like sparring practice, for me; it's obvious that they're grossly wrong, and sometimes mind-bogglingly dimwitted. But the views they espouse often have some popular currency, so I use their "observations" as a way of clarifying my own objections to the positions they espouse, for further reference. It's ironic, but sometimes sheer simple-mindedness can be more difficult to argue against than skilled sophistry.* So it's a good idea to get some practice in doing it. Unpacking the elements of the fallacies, their factual ignorance, and their deceptions and self-deceptions in detail, like working out a math problem. It's exercise, for me. Exercise can be tedious, but it's also how you get stronger. And sometimes it can even get entertaining, like dancing around and throwing jabs at some palooka in the ring, making their Dummheit obvious. I like to think that at least one lurker is reading the exchange, but I don't require that. I do it for the love of the game. I enjoy it. I think it's groovy.
[*Joseph Heller's novel Good As Gold has a classic set-piece skit about that situation. The "family at the dinner table" scene. The book is worth looking up just for that passage. Although I liked reading it in its totality as a novel, too.)
I remember reading Good AS Gold in the 80s. Can't remember a thing about it, though.
That's great stuff about arguing with trolls but for myself I'm thinking it's not really how I want to spend my time. Sharp argumentative skills are a fine thing but what do I need them for? I do not want to spend my time using such skills so why spend it developing them? I more and more often find myself thinking about Cornel West's exhortation to work on one's art. Blog commentary isn't my art.
I subbed to Matt's Substack blog when he started serializing the drug dealer book because I thought it was the morally right choice for me. I've long been opposed to advertising as the way to fund media and I think it's been catastrophic for the internet. So when Matt opened a subscription blog, I signed up. And when GG quit TI was happy to pledge to that. I didn't do it because I want access to comments.
In 2020, the year of our plague, I did resort to commenting on NC, here, an email list I'm on, and then on GG's as a way of letting out some of the pressure of ideas because, apart from my long suffering wife, I don't have anyone else to talk to about how I understand the world. But now I feel I really out to try to ...
quit.
I am certain everyone who writes eventually will.
Matt knows.
Also, lots of anti-establishment figures predated Rush. Ted Kaczynski comes to mind.
Every read his manifesto? The dude had a point. And reasoned positions. And non-trivial predictive power. The part where he maimed and murdered people was clearly evil, and frankly I'm not clear why he didn't see that. But apparently some personal animus involved in some way, if not with the people than the organizations he felt they represented.
I think the take away would be violence does not help your case. No matter how much you think it does or should.
Ted's manifesto was creepily omniscient and reasoned. Thought I was crazy for reading it!
You may have intended "prescient," but I'll take "omniscient" too.
The Manifesto is one of the clearest cases for me, personally, of terrorism working. I was like, "A guy is willing to kill and maim people just so I can read what he has to say in the New York Times? I'm intrigued, I'll read it."
And I read it and it was long and rambling, but damn. Dude had some good points to make. If Ted K were like 20 years younger he might have just been bitching at the rest of us in this comment section -- which may have been one of his points.
Ted Kaczynski's actions were horrendous, but his manifesto stands as one of the great documents describing human alienation from nature due to the rise of technology that had become our masters rather than our servant, and all before the rise of ios and the current mass surveillance state. Uncanny.
It lead me to read Christian Anarchist Jacques Ellul's "The Technological Society" and "Propoganda," which both had a profound long lasting impact on my thinking. Both well worth the read if you haven't.
While not incorrect, prescient was the word I was looking for.
The Netflix series got me intrigued to read it, but again, the Manifesto proved prescient!
I think that was one of his points. I’m guilty of living a lot of his predictions. But the guy was brilliant but also crazy. I want the brilliant without the crazy. If he’d been not antisocial and sociopathic he might have done talk radio. Or at least a podcast.
"If he’d been not antisocial and sociopathic he might have done talk radio."
I would contend that being antisocial and sociopathic are not necessarily barriers to a career in talk radio.
The crazy is what makes it fun, as long as you're not the one getting blown up by a bomb made out of wood.
Would he be allowed to do a podcast from jail? I have no idea; not a lawyer. I'm all but certain he would sneer at the format, so this proposition will most likely remain in the realm of theory.
Ok...way off topic, but let’s talk about” the” OG anti establishment character (no one one mythical or “semi/mythical) “...I’m going to start with Akhenaten ...you get your very likeness removed from everything after your death..you definitely pissed off the establishment!
The most OG anti-establishment figure I know of is probably whoever "historical Jesus" was. Assuming he existed. We're getting into quasi-pre-history there, tho.
The self-declared "disciple" "Paul" was also rabidly anti-establishment, and he definitely existed.
All or most of the the mythologies probably have such anti-establishment figures.
I think he meant the first by reason of having all of the following; an anal cyst, making him 4-A during the Vietnam war, the first to be fat because of his diet and lifestyle, deaf from abusing Oxy and to die from lung cancer from a habit he denied caused illness in others from second hand smoke, and for which he thought he deserved the CMH for providing so much of his tobacco tax dollars to others' health research.
The man died an unimportant death, as most of us will, from a disease he gave himself, the same kind of self created misery he had no problem showing no empathy for in others.
His politics are not the issue; his belittling of those less fortunate is. The best thing this man ever did was not to procreate; amazing that all three of his wives were barren.
"His politics are not the issue; his belittling of those less fortunate is."
word.
"The best thing this man ever did was not to procreate; amazing that all three of his wives were barren."
Somehow don't think the wives were the issue here.
I was being sarcastic, as I tend to be. Methinks either Rush's port of entry on his wives was adjacent to that which would occasion a new born, the circumstances being right, or perhaps they were just cover for his real orientation.
Anyway, his death is a non event, as mine will be; I'm waiting for a real cause for celebration; Bush, Cheney, numerous neocons, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Pompeo et al breathing their last. Rush was nothing but a carnival barker, making coin as he sold the joke that is US politics to willing dupes.
Jusging by the tyranny of big tech today, Ted got a lot of things correct.
Bullshit. Rush was the infrastructure of the Republican Establishment...
I was always much more of G. Gordon Liddy fan on the radio, never really listened to Rush. He was a Top 40 DJ, I preferred indie rock/alternative stations, back when such things existed.
Rush never killed anybody by pushing a sharp #2 pencil into their ear canal.
Maybe so, but let's not push in the Pro-ear canal cabal just yet. Plenty a bundle of stereocilia have been known to be whimpering at his bombast. :)
"Put Rush in the" - sorry wish I had an editing function.
Well, as of tonight, he has one less. I wouldn't expect Matt to be a fan of Rush Limbaugh, but I also would have expected something a little more gracious.
I hope things go better for you over at Fox News. All the news you want you hear.
There were about a thousand anti-establishmenters before Rush (Hunter S. Thompson, Jim McMahon, David Bowie, etc, etc, etc) - and I would argue Rush wasn't even anti-establishment. He was on CORPORATE RADIO?! You think he was getting paid by individual listeners? He was a shill.
What difference does it make if a lot of Rush Limbaugh fans are also Matt Taibbi fans? What? So he’s supposed to cater to them and only report on things in a way that makes them feel comfortable? This is the exact opposite of Matt’s entire stance. I wonder if people even hear/read the things they say...
LMAOOOoo
You comment indicates you didn't listen to his show. He didn't "hate" anyone. Poking fun at your political opponents is miles away from hate.
You not liking how he was anti-establishment doesn't mean he wasn't.
The media today being criticized in progressive circles is because now you are affected, 25 years ago when Rush criticized it he was met with guffaws by the likes of you.
turns out he was right the whole time.
LOL