Please stay on topic. Please don't be asses.
You got it right, Digby. Unfortunately, this slightly sneering attitude toward those she feels are not as intelligent/well-educated/enlightened as herself and her friends is Rachel's greatest weakness. It came out in her coverage of 'tea-baggers (snigger snigger)" as well. She seems to project contempt for the commoners at times. Also unfortunately, the snotty snobbishness is picked up on and exploited by conservatives.
Rachel was right on the money, on this issue. I went to an earlier version of this seminar, involving Giuliani. It's a gigantic con game, designed to separate a roomful of suckers of thousands of dollars each, for a get-rich-quick "investment seminar". Bush and the other speakers are taking part in a gigantic swindle. They deserve the public spanking they got.
Meh. Rachel isn't always catering to the middle ground here. This was a deliberate hit piece on Bush's first public appearance, and it was intended to mock and vilify everyone involved. It is, ultimately, right out of the GOP playbook.
She probably could have reported on the event better and set her wedge a little higher on the line, but she's new to delivering wedge-issue politics and she's got a bit of a learning curve ahead of her.
I'd have a hard time defending a bunch of small businesses all looking to kick in a couple thousand dollars each for another round of Wingnut Welfare.
Would a Republican chastise Rush this way? Hell no. Therein lies a problem with progressives. We eat our own.
Sorry Digby, I can't agree with you on this. Bush and those who (pay to!) lick his boots deserve all the scorn we can dish out, and more.
That said, you write a hell of a fine blog.
It's not "classism". Do you think Maddow really sees herself as a social/financial elite (even if she is)? It's intellectual elitism maybe but given the intellectual condition of the country who can really blame her?
MaryLou--
You hit it on the head about Maddow. There's definitely a contemptuous snobbery on her part towards people who aren't as urbane or educated as her and her cohort.
I was a big fan of Maddow from the moment Air America started up until the primary campaign last year. Despite her vehement claims to the contrary, she was a shill for the Obama campaign, and she engaged in all sorts of dishonest behavior on its behalf, including the promotion of that vile RFK assassination smear against Hillary Clinton.
Once the election was past, I decided to give her another chance. Sometimes she was good, and sometimes she was bad, usually because she hadn't done her homework on a topic. (Domestic policy is not her forte.) When she and Ana Marie Cox started that repulsive teabagging mocking of people, I gave up on her once and for all.
don,
it's tristero, not digby.
shep,
yes, i think it's classism.
Don't agree.
A former president of the United States, no matter how pathetic he was as president, should not be associating himself with these hucksters.
I agree with Rachel.
You don't go from the most powerful man in the world to giving "motivational speeches" to a bunch of Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker wannabes & Vegas-type grifters.
I'm glad Maddow framed it the way she did.
Maddow framed Bush as a fake president who is determined to be even more of a fake during his post- president years.
And I don't agree with the "please leave the regular people alone" meme.
These are not "regular people" Bush is going to be speaking to. They are mostly wingnut fundie Fixed News junkies who take Glenn Beck seriously. More to the point, they take George W. Bush seriously.
I watched the late version and was too tired to notice but will say that I have noticed her bias showing up more regularly and wonder why she feels a need to go there as I've found much of her reporting being fair and balanced (no pun intended). I'm also finding myself annoyed at her attempts to set up a guest to agree with her and when they don't she resorts to over the top flattery, i.e. last week telling Ron Suskind: "This is why I invited you on Ron, you're a smart guy!" and the uncomfortable look Suskind had after hearing this is telling. The teachable moment is lost if that's what she's going for, and I would hope that's her intention with any story she airs, 'cause that's why I watch.
Don't forget, just this summer, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow snickering and giggling and sneering about the "Teabaggers" who, while deserving of enormous scorn also might possibly have some legitimate concers about the way The Federal Reserve/Treasury just printed a couple trillion and Goldman Sachs is making record profits and handing out taxpayer money for bonuses (while a 29 yr Deloitte and Touche intern was just made Head of the SEC enforcement division)
Meanwhile, Rachel and Keith just kept scornfully giggling away all summer at the silly rubes....
Tristero missed the boat on this one. What makes anyone think it's a "false dichotomy" between us - i.e. liberals - and them - i.e. anyone who would pay money to be in the same room with Bush - unless it was a courtroom where he and Cheney were in the dock for war crimes? I hate to be the one to break to everyone but distain would be the mildest feeling I could describe for the footsoldiers of the right - the enablers that are responsible not only for inflicting Bush on the nation and the world but the rest of the troglodytes in the GOP. If you want to call it elitism to have distain for the anti-intellectual, theocratic fascist morons who make up Limbaugh and Beck's listeners, then yeah, I'm an elitist - and proud of it.
Tristero, I think that's a fair and perceptive swing to take at Maddow, whom I, too, admire and respect.
We need to be very careful about putting out the idea that we are such humane and brilliant beings that we're a species apart from the people who voted for Bush and the GOP.
You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that Iraq was going to be a quagmire, and, so long as Bush went there with the idea of remaking the country into some bastion of democracy, so was Afghanistan.
The conservatives HAVE gotten practically all of it wrong, and from time to time, we need to get up on our hind legs and remind them of that, but doing it from an elitist pulpit is going to put off a lot of people.
I hope Maddow reads this. She's doing great work for our side, but she got out of her shorts some, on this one.
Also-
Us Progressives/Dems/Liberals sure are good at paying attention to Rush, Fox, Beck and giving them a nice fat reaction... evry time.
Meanwhile they're on to the next scheme/button-pusher/outrage sure to make at least one segment on Maddow/ Olbermann....
jt
Given tickets by a sponsor, I took my 16 - year - old son to one of these in 2007 when the names were Colin Powell and Rudy. I hoped it would be educational for him on many levels. We will see on that. The interesting part was the introduction of Guiliani with fireworks and standing ovation, followed by a horrible speech (9/11,9/11,9/11) and a subdued applause as he exited. I told my son he was running for President and he said, "Who would vote for him?" Not many.
Tanbark: Those people you're worried about putting off are put off already. Get a clue. We've been in a fight for 40 years and up to now they've been the only ones throwing any punches. Way past time to call a spade a spade.
Or an idiot an idiot.
One more thing-
Dear Rachel-
Please stop rolling your eyes like my 14yr. old nephew......
A Fan
I'm in favor of sneering.
bob somerby covers the condescending and smirking and belittling in depth - it has turned me off both RM and KO. When they start the sarcasm and sniggering, I change the channel.
The American people are stupid. That's what we have been hearing from the Left as far back as I can remember, and it's a sentiment uttered by some Lefty every six seconds in America according to surveys. Maddow was just expressing what 86% percent of Liberals, Lefties, and Progressives feel about their fellow Americans not on the Left. Not her best moment? Not her best moment? Care to name even ONE LEFTY LIVING IN MANHATTAN who doesn't feel exactly the same?
I haven't watched the video yet so I don't know what I will end up thinking about Maddow's performance. But in the wider scope, I can't pretend to feel any respect for stupid people. And only vicious militant stupidites support/supported Bush. Oh, and upper class chiselers. They supported Bush for their own very good reasons.
There's nothing wrong with sneering and rolling your eyes at dishonesty, stupidity and ignorance. "Stupid" isn't a class, it's an intellectual defect.
The people who voted for Bush share responsibility for "his failure to protect the country, his egregious foreign policy blunders, his enthusiastic embrace of torture, his corruption of the Department of Justice, and on and on..."
And I would wager that the great majority of attendees voted for him twice.
They deserve our scorn and owe the world an apology.
My office here in DFW went en masse the last time this roadshow came through. I believe there was a very large discount for groups. I didn't go, it's just not anything I'm interested in. I guess I'm already motivated, have goals, but dance to my own tune. The killer for me was Rudy Giuliani and Colin Powell on the bill. Screw that. This time, there is no question about going with "the worst ever" showing up to lie some more.
FWIW, I did not sense any lingering effects from the afternoon of "inspiration" in my office, no increases in productivity or fulfillment.
There are a lot of people on the left who need to learn that you don't get people to agree with you by insulting, humiliating, and embarrassing them. And no matter how stupid, militant, or vicious a person is, his or her vote is worth as much as a person on the left. That isn't going to change.
Eh, I didn't find the segment to be ridiculous. I find "motivational speeches" like Bush & Company are making money off extremely off-putting. I don't know why people even attend these things. People who are sent by their workplaces are one thing, I assume they're not paying for it out of their pockets. Those who go of their own free will...um, why? If there isn't anything in their own lives that hasn't inspired/motivated them, then I doubt they're suddenly going to find something where the speaker is earning 5 figures or so just for showing up.
I did find Rachel's comment to Suskind last week ("You're a smart guy.") to be ridiculous though.
What do you want Rachel to do, cry like Glenn Beck for God's sake?!
I like Maddow and can see where some of you are coming from, but I think she is obviously on the side of the motivation industry suckers in this case and in the case of teabaggers as well.
Her scorn is heaped upon the organizers and how they condescend toward their audience, at how phony and sleazy they are in their appeal and their patronizing of that audience, and how sad it all really is that the suckers are drawn in by desperation and superficial appeal.
What you perceive as arrogance or elitist tendencies may be in the eye of the beholder here, and you might shouldn't attribute your tendency to spot an "elitist" to the masses, as would David Brooks or any of the official D.C. punditry Village that has the same habit of ascribing their perceptions to the great "flyover" territory where Real Americans live.
I appreciate your concern for the impression given to those not necessarily supporters of progressive issues, but we need Rachel exactly as she is, giving hell to those who deserve it in exactly the way she does it: Giving names and kicking ass. What we don't need is concern trolling.
Of course, I could be wrong. Could you be as well?
Tristero,
Thanks for the reply and count me as practicing classism as well (without a cable show or two nickels to rub together). I also think people who pay to hear these hucksters are fools and wouldn't try to hide my contempt either.
J.S. Mill -
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. - Letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March 1866)
Jose Chung has made an appearance. I was wondering where that smell was coming from.
I saw the segment... twice. Neither time did I identify with tristero's perception of a slam to the "little people." I _live_ in Texas; I live with the folks who would pay to see these shysters. If you don't realize that they're a different species, totally unreachable from a centrist or progressive or reality-based position, then you haven't been among 'em long enough. Let 'em spend their corporate or private dollars on this hucksterism. It's OK to call something what it is AND to remind people that there are mindless drones born every minute. Rachel may get a little too cute sometimes, but she also has a fine ear for indefensible bulls**t.
Tristero, of course they deserve to be sneered at - they eat at McDonalds!
Whatever one thinks of last night's segment, this class condescension was a gigantic problem for liberalism the last time around (the 1960s and beyond). Liberals gave up and went away for several decades after that. Now we're back, often with the same self-defeating, less-than-intelligent attitudes.
"There but for fortune" ain't one of our theme songs. Or maybe Tristero's limbic brain isn't working correctly today! Someone should ask Dr. Garofalo.
I was more saddened last night by the way Wayne Slater, Maddow's guest, keeps dumbing himself down to become a liberal pundit. For many years, he was a straight, reliable reporter on all things Bush-and-Texas. He provided much better service that way.
Also check last night's closing segment, about how to throw spitballs. Maddow's guest, Bill Wolff, is the head of MSNBC prime-time programming. On the level of the suits, this is a very low-brow network, made up of people who came to news from sports, rather late in life at that. Whatever you think of the on-air people, this network's executive leadership is extremely unimpressive. Always has been, even in the good old days when the network was slaughtering Clinton and Gore and sending Bush to the White House.
There are a lot of people on the left who need to learn that you don't get people to agree with you by insulting, humiliating, and embarrassing them.
Maybe not but they're not going to agree anyway. And frankly, they should be humiliated and embarrassed.
Just another round of progressives arguing amongst themselves "Were we too mean? Maybe we should try harder to reach out to these people?".
Do you think Republicans self-flagellate like this? Those attending a Bush seminar, Mr. 22% himself, are lost to anything resembling reasonable efforts to meet them half way. I say sneer away.
The only advice I'd pay to hear Bush give, if he were capable of giving it, would be how to get yourself born into such a rich family that no matter how badly you screw up, you're set for life.
Lee and JSlamen - exactly.
There are a lot of people on the left who need to learn that you don't get people to agree with you by insulting, humiliating, and embarrassing them.
Really? Isn't this what the conservatives do when they say libruls hate America & etc?
I don't watch Rachel or Keith or any of the others. But I am pretty shocked to find so many readers of this blog who take the teabaggers so seriously. They are asses. We've all got a few in our family, and we know perfectly well their concerns are not legitimate. They are reactionary asses who will whine and carp about whatever Fox News tells them to. They are worthy of contempt and more.
I never really thought of myself as an elitist -- born and raised in Mississippi, public school education, the son of a truck driver -- but here's what I think of the tea baggers:
They're sub-human.
They have, through their bile, pettiness and willful pig-ignorance, forfeited any right to be considered part of the brotherhood of man. If the fantasies of WingNutDaily ever came to pass and our military leaders staged a coup against Obama and began herding liberals into death camps, these are the people who would cheer the loudest. They are the enemies of every decent thing this country has ever stood for. They will kill us all if they can. Stop fucking coddling them.
Can't wait to hear Tristero on HL Mencken.
Lee asks:
"Do you think Republicans self-flagellate like this?"
No. But Republican leaders have spent the past fifty years finding ways to sell their party to the people we are discussing.
They pander to this group; we insult them, often foolishly.
Who get the votes?
Who get the votes?
Last time I checked, in the last two elections, we did. Maybe if you stopped hopping in that time machine to 2000 you'd be aware of that.
Sorry, tristero, these events are silly and tacky and large-scale cons to separate people from their money, along with most of the rest of the "self-help" industry.
If you can't mock these stupid events, then you're just falling into the stereotype of the "politically correct" liberal who's afraid to stand for anything.
Rachel 1
Tristero 0
If you treat conserviatives with respect, you'll wake up in a motel missing your watch, wallet, and kidney. They are barbarians who, if they could, would torture children to death if they were paid well enough. Go Rachel, you are one of the few voices of reason and intelligence on TV today.
Conservative propaganda, like all propaganda, is made from a morsel of truth.
Progressivism will not be successful if it does not challenge the New Establishment. This establishment grew out of the 20th century meritocracy and middle class institutions, like pubic universities, but, with the coming of the neoliberal/ conservative supply side revolution, it became an overclass. It pulled the ladder up behind it and the middle class stagnated while the lower class fell behind. The New Establishment is mostly layers of professionals and politicians who maintain something of the old lost upward mobility by serving the wealth accumulation schemes of the very very rich.
The New Establishment functions like colonials in a foreign country that believes itself to be more civilized than the locals (or, if you like, more educated). By its own lights governs by right of natural merit. And as the rest fall behind, as their incomes stagnate, as their communities decline, the right of colonials to govern becomes more self-evident.
The locals think the game is rigged in favor of those that have already arrived. By inside deals, and regulation, access to education and jobs that have a future. This is why the right-wing authoritarians have become eliminationists.
Yeah, I'm gonna pay to get some solid advice from George Fucking Bush, yeah, that's the ticket. A man whose sole job in life has been performing the work of a son born into vast wealth.
Teabaggers, people whose understanding of political, social and communal interaction comes down to doing what they are told and doing it quickly.
Look, a negro/commie/Marxist/liberal/Democrat is in the White House, let's take our country back!
It5 wasn't their fucking country in the first place, and when you want to see classism and elitism, look no further than the likes of Bush, men and women who, solely on the basis and accident of their birth, act as if they are owed their positions in life.
We saw what happened to folks who lived for centuries with that sort of mindset, many lost their heads and if I'm not mistaken, this country was founded by men and women who thought that noblesse oblige bullshit was just that, bullshit.
But yeah, let's be kind to people like the teabaggers who, by their own actions and statements, will never view anything or anyone to the left of Goldwater as legitimate.
Poor sods, I'm glad tristero is sticking up for their willful ignorance, poor put upon victims.
The people that pay for these seminars, if not "losers", are at the very least out twenty bucks. And if that is in part going to pay to hear Dubya, I think the appellation hangs a bit better.
Cheers,
I grew up with this crap. I love and respect my family members and office cohorts who are into self-help and motivational speakers, but I don't respect that they are into it. I think it's bullshit. And when adults you respect do stupid things you say so. These people aren't children. Laughing at foolishness and thumbing your nose at hucksters isn't the same as sneering at bumkins.
Tristero, I think you're wrong.
I agree with JustMe........these people deserve to be mocked for being foolish enough to part with their money for petty greed of the "motivators" and even more so for being stupid enough to think that George Bush could motivate ANYBODY. He got where he is by being born with a silver foot in his mouth (thanks, Molly Ivins) and never worked an honest day in his life to support himself. He's the kind of huckster who can put something over on all the little people...that's how he transferred the middle class weatlh to his rich buddies and left the "little people" jobless and homeless.
I saw Rachel at the Applebee's salad bar last week and she was nice as could be.
Fortunately the audience that would be really offended by this was watching FOX.
Keep "rolling your eyes" Rachel...
Works for me....
"Fortunately the audience that would be really offended by this was watching FOX.
Asinistra"
Ding Ding Ding...we have a winner!!!
"But Republican leaders have spent the past fifty years finding ways to sell their party to the people we are discussing."
Yes, by lying to them and stoking, manipulating and pretending to be sympathetic to their fears and paranoia. Who's being more condescending to the rubes than country-club Republicans and their high-paid minions, pretending to care what they think?
I think some of us learned the wrong lesson from the GOP's successful play for Everyman circa 1980-2004: They didn't succeed because they "respected" the little guy -- they have nothing but contempt for him!
They won because they succeeded in making the other side look like effete losers with whom no self-respecting Merkin would want to associate. They won by sneering at liberals and succeeded in making the very word a pejorative.
Bush helpfully framed himself as a loser of such proportions that even Fox viewers could no longer delude themselves, which was a chink in the armor. The barking mad birfer loons, Glenn Beck and teabaggers are performing a similar self-immolation.
I say bravo to Maddow for standing by with a can of gasoline. The key point is that the teabaggers and people who would pony-up to hear a silver-spoon failure like GWB spin Horatio Alger tales aren't ever going to be on our side. What matters is the unaffiliated. And painting the opposite side as losers is a winning strategy.
So to say, Bush was probably in the right place for his talents. He is a hyped up, substance-fueled huckster with pedigree who was easily positioned by people like Rove to capture power and revenue for a designated group. Under Bush, USA lost it's last vestige of governance as a realm for sober, thoughtful deliberation.
That said, I over my longish left-liberal life I have too attended expensive 'business conferences' or 'lifestyle events' and listened to motivation tapes. They all had a parade of Positive Speaking You Too Can Be Rich types as keynoters.
These hoo-hah tenters disproportioanlly attract home business folks, New Agers, multi-level marketers and that old USA standby Jesus Want You to Be Rich (by Tithing to the proprietor). They draw relatively fewer folks in well-paying, degreed professions like Law, Medicine or Academia. There is a lot of money on the table if you are market-minded and quick to overextend on crapola. A lot.
Classism? Sure - raw marketing, not informed (ahem) discourse. Rachel might be surprised to see how many of her listeners travel in althealth-left-liberal-911 circles. And we even await UFOs and 2012.
Sorry, Tristero. I hadn't seen this piece until I read yours so I went to see it with a slightly jaundiced eye toward Rachel's coverage. In my opinion, you are seeing ghosts.
Rachel always has that sort of sickeningly sweet delivery unless she is really pissed. That's not a criticism, you just have to accept that she has that bouncy, cheerful delivery; something us crotchety old guys sometimes find gets on our nerves.
Anyway, I think the big question here is: Have you ever been to one of these charades? I have. With Zig Ziegler no less. He is a charlatan and soaks up money out of desparate people and wingnut businessmen (who really deserve to have more money soaked out of them, but through the tax code) delivering a frothy, empty message that nutritionally equivalent to a bowl of sugar puffs.
It all seemed a bit much. Report it, sure, but not at such great length. When something is so pathetic in itself, why push it? I'd rather see Maddow reign it in sometimes because she has great moral and intellectual strengths, and would do better being perceived as the basically nice person she is.
At least, you KNOW there'll be tight security and no AR-15's will be let in, nor will fat gasbags on TV go on about how patriotic it is to bring assault weapons to meet the President.
However, I'm not quite comfortable with "it's not just impolite to sneer at big groups of voters; it's actually bad for PR, fellas!"
Yes, it's bad manners to openly sneer at and mock people.
But you have to admit: If you voted for Bush, possibly in 2000 but assuredly in 2004, then there is a very good possibility that yes, you are very, very stupid.
Among people paying money to see "motivational speakers," let's be honest and accept there's also a bankable fraction there that are idiots. It's like a rube's convention.
And on top of that...paying to see George W. Bush speak? Can you imagine it? "Yes, folks, all you gotta do is be born rich, get it? Then when you screw up the baseball team Daddy gave you to run, you get an oil job and turn the tap on that "financial services," he he, right? Heck, you just all gave me your money too! Oh, and then you get made President and Decider, and the sky's the limit!"
I think if you pay to sit through that, by God please tell me you're doing your Shaun of the Dead routine, because one could get the idea that you are a halfwit.
No, not all conservatives are dumb, and no, "we all liberals" don't all say that 87% of the time. But it's true - there are lots of conservatives who are truly dumb. The attitude of being haughty or supercilious when right or smart does not equate to "classism" or "class warfare" or "hate speech" or whatever.
Here's the rub - Maddow's critics are going to interpret her tone as "condescending" whether it is or not, so perhaps it is YOU who are enabling them?
I felt that Tweety allowing a Teabagger on Monday's show to openly proclaim that 2,000,000+ were out on the streets in DC in an anti-healtcare march without correcting the madman to be more insulting.
Waitaminit... Is "tristero" Bob Somerby?
Rachel is who she is. She (and Keith) obviously feel a certain smugness to those lower down on the intellect/educational/socio-economic ladder. Rachel does a better job of suppressing it. I suspect she would agree with Tristero's overall thrust: showing any condescension or disrespect to those who attend and value events like these is wrong and counter-productive.
Her ability to win some hearts and minds depends on her unwavering commitment to treating even the dreadful teabaggers with basic human respect.
For several of us commenters, it might be wise to withhold our vitriol towards these kinds of events until we've been to a couple. It might also be wise to consider that even dumb people are entitled to respect.
Anyone who pays money to go hear Mr 9/11 or Mr. Secretary of Lies motivate them is an idiot and deserves to be called out about it. That particular motivational tour as a real scam and it is pure poetry that Bush is part of it. I have no sympathy for the people who buy into it.
Why do so many liberals get weak in the knees when it comes calling a spade a spade. Are they afraid someone might notice?
showing any condescension or disrespect to those who attend and value events like these is wrong and counter-productive
It just might drive people into the arms of Republicans! Because one thing's for sure: _they_ never show condescension or disrespect to people who don't share their political views.
For several of us commenters, it might be wise to withhold our vitriol towards these kinds of events until we've been to a couple. It might also be wise to consider that even dumb people are entitled to respect.
OK, Emo. I'll give them some respect when that respect is earned and returned. Until then, they deserve mockery and any vitriol I can muster. These are the people who equate good government and those who choose and support good government to nazis. Now, I don't know about you, but I served in the infantry and we didn't sing the fucking Horst Wessel song while marching.
These are the people who consider me a traitor, a subversive influence and an enemy of the country of my origin. They get no respect. They're fear-mongering, war-cheerleading assholes who get nothing but contempt, smug assholish attitude and hearty laughter from me.
They deserve to be marginalized, we just endured eight years of what damage these folks and the people they support can do to our nation and other nations around the world. Unless, of course, killing Iraqis is considered a virtue in your world.
"Liberals gave up and went away for several decades after that."
Horseshit of the most pure and unadulterated variety -- unless by "liberal," you mean "privileged white guys from the Sixties who crave attention." News Flash, Mr. Somerby -- a lot of advances in civil rights (esp. women's rights and gay rights) happened AFTER the white boys in SDS gave up the ghost. Ever heard of a little thing called ACT UP? Maybe Maddow could tell you about it, since she spent a lot of time in the AIDS activism world: http://www.thenation.com/doc/200...080818/
traister
Where were you and what were you doing back then that you somehow think you have the right to pronounce judgment on her liberal bona fides?
I suspect that what you can't stand, Mr. Somerby, is that the progressive movement is no longer the exclusive province of the self-regarding straight white Boomer male generation. I can tell you that, at least in the gay rights and women's movements, liberalism never died. It kept on fighting, even if the old-guard radical wannabes whined about how "the dream was dead, MAN!" If you want to discuss condescension, I suggest you start by examining your own blind spots in that regard. How dare you erase the contributions of gay rights and AIDS activists over the last 25 years?
Jim Pharo - see
Alan | 10.21.09 - 1:45 pm | #
drb; YOU get a clue. Sometime, it's about tone and style. These people ARE, in many ways, stupid and ignorant, but going Marie Antoinette on them isn't going to help us. Maddow needs to remember that there is the right kind of snark to lay on them, and the wrong kind. If she comes on as a teacher making fun of slow-learning-class adults, no matter how close to the truth that may be, it will piss OTHER people off, and it should. We're in process of slowly but surely isolating the conservatives with their batshit-crazy worldview, but if it becomes really vicious and mean-spirited it will do nothing but generate sympathy for them and their lunacy.
There's your clue.
He got where he is by being born with a silver foot in his mouth (thanks, Molly Ivins).
IIRC, that was Texas Gov. Ann Richards at the '88 Democratic Nat'l Convention talking about Poppy (George H.W. Bush) being born on 3rd base and thinking he'd hit a triple.
Similarly, I tried to get the meme started that W was born sliding across home and thought he'd hit a home run. Somehow, it never took off.... :-(
It is sad to think of these unfortunate people paying good money hear Bush mouth platitudes about free enterprise, etc. Apparently the dignity of the office means little to this shit.
Sometimes, you have to sing out, "Hey rube!" and you better have people to back you up.
They are not my fucking tribe and they're not going to get anything but vitriol from me.
The people attending this thing are people who enabled Bush. I have a hard time not wishing them ill but I'm trying not to. But rubes they are, at the very very least.
Anyone who pays money to go hear Mr 9/11 or Mr. Secretary of Lies motivate them is an idiot and deserves to be called out about it.
I completely agree, with the exception being the poor souls forced to attend this scam by their employers. As for the rest, anyone at this point in history who willingly pays good money to see these charlatans deserves to be relentlessly mocked. Any sentient being who can look back at the last eight years at the staggering incompetence and colossal failures of both of these hucksters and yet still pay money to hear them give a pre-written, hackneyed generic speech deserves the condemnation. These are, very likely, the same types of people who voted these cretins into office.
I didn't see the Maddow show, so can't comment directly. I write to add my voice to those who think the left needs to overcome the tendency to sneer. Tristero's right. The hucksters who conceive and promote these empty conferences may deserve some contempt, but our fellow citizens who attend in good faith and with some hope of doing better for themselves don't. The kind of snobbery that Maddow and others sometimes transmit is built from privilege and is a relative of the silly socio-cultural profiling that folks like David Brooks indulge.
My parents worked as servants for most of their lives in this country; not because they were stupid, but because they didn't have the education they needed to get middle-class work. And you couldn't possibly have characterized their politics on the basis of their work or their personal style. While I'm pretty far to the left of many of my friends -- and perhaps many posting to this thread -- I'm deeply offended by the sneering and class snobbery that sometimes leak out of the liberal/progressive media. It's ugly, and it's certainly counterproductive to building a strong and vital progressive movement.
Can't disagree more with you on this one, Tristero.
Her entire perspective was the appropriateness of this type of event for a former president no matter how incompetent (corrupt, arrogant...) the man was/is. I think her interviewee was correct in intimating that this farcical nonsense was entirely fitting for Bush.
Secondly, though I don't believe Rachel intimated this, anyone who attends any event put on by this group (based on their web site and event mastheads) of their own volition deserves derision (IMO). How do you think Bush was involved in two close enough to steal elections in the first place?
Hm, ever been to one of these "motivational seminars", Tristero?
I ask, because you sound like a guy with a shelfload of self-help books who thinks he's being made fun of.
This is a worthless post. How about getting onto something worth while and leave the poor little tread upon business people attending a motivational speech by a pathetic war criminal alooone...whaaaaa! Fire up, get a clue
wrong wrong wrong
The idea that those among us who choose to not be intellectually curious about the world they live in are some sort of class that we need to be concerned about offending is ludicrous. I am tired of this bigoted attitude about people who have worked hard to actually know a thing or two being called smug. Maddow and KO are almost always being ironic, if you cant tell the difference thats what gets people like Reagan elected. You want smug? Check out 8 years of President George "Ok you've covered your ass" Bush.
Well Triestero, I find myself in an odd position. I agree that one of the knocks against the left side of the political spectrum--that a lot of us are a bunch of elitist snobs who drive folk into the arms of Republicans--is all too often true and allow me to congratulate you for being one of the prominent voices on our side for noticing and saying so. And believe you me I would really really like to agree with you here. Problem is, it isn't like George Bush's failure as president is some sort of state secret. The grand, perhaps permanently catastrophic, clusterfuck that was his presidency really has to make you wonder how anyone could be so infinitely stupid as to go and look to him for inspiration and advice on success. I would also suggest that since GWB is person non grata these days in his own party, that anyone who would go to one of these things, must be a subset of the 20% of crackbrains in this country who still run around calling themselves Republicans. So, we're really not offending anything like a majority of Mom and Pop America.
Allow me to conclude with one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes: "There are times when one would like to hang the entire human race and end the farce." Amen, brother.
Uh, I kinda get your point about Maddow but honestly I enjoyed the segment alot, and I am one of the unfortunates that has had to see one of these damn things in person. This sleazy roadshow came to our town back in March, and with so little work to do company bosses were practically shooshing employees out the door all over town to go to this damn thing.
It would have been hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. Every fifteen minutes they were hawking some vile DVD from the stage, which was presumably a DVD of pretty much what you were seeing right there in real time. The "spiritual motivation" part was just plain old right wing fundamentalism dressed up as amway salesman. The lobby was full of rip off "opportunities" that used to be outlawed in pre-Reagan times. Anyone that feels "motivated" by any of this is long lost.
I missed a word in the above post. Rats. It should read "...for being one of the few prominent voices on our side..."
Of course a recomendation from me isn't exactly something that one is apt to boast about.
I understand your take on this and respect your opinion. There certainly are times that I cringe somewhat while watching Maddow, because the attitude which raises your concerns here is occasionally present, I think, in how she conveys a story. However, I just don't see the overwhelmingly egregious attitude which you highlight in this instance. I do see some snarkiness at the irony which Maddow finds with this group throwing Bush in with a collection of "winners" and I think that is her main point here. I just don't sense a significant tone of elitism or scorn toward "ordinary people".
I think your concern here is misplaced.
Bartcopfan @2:54
You're right about the quote attribution but Jim Hightower (another Texan) also beat you to the baseball analogy (though like Richard's comment it was about Poppy Bush). He said, George Bush was a man who was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple.
Why does Maddow insult the stupid, incurious, and gullible? It's a mystery. The temptation has to be incredibly hard to resist. But are we really saying that she could be a more effective propagandist to the less sentient? And is that her purpose?
Some comments on the lineup:
Belluzo is another "fail upwards" guy. Once HP's heir apparent, his ego drove him to leave in order to destroy SGI. Then he signed on at Microsoft where he was made COO before being forced out (with a nice golden parachute, I'm sure).
I have a small sad, cuz I kind of liked Tony Parker. I guess I can't blame him for taking the easy money for shucking a few rubes, but doesn't he and the wife make enough already?
I know what you mean about Rachel Maddow. Mainly I think her juvenile jeering gets in the way of subtler forms of venom and contempt we could spill on these lowlives. Um...
Oh, that's probably not what you meant at all. Sorry, I'm too busy dealing with lots of mandatory unpaid overtime and scary economic uncertainty for myself and my family to care about hurting the feelings of the people who went all in for Sarah Palin last election. The same ones who put the parasitic Mr. Bush in a position to loot the economy for his corrupt cronies fo 8 years.
By the way, the 8 years of Bush? Pretty much put the kibosh on any faith I might ever have had in the American system of Democracy. George W. Bush was elected President. Twice. That's pretty much the epithet on the tombstone of the American experiment.
Liberals were far pleasanter during that time than the hate-filled, jeering Republicans, know what it translated into? 8 years of George W. Bush.
Go ahead, reach out to these people. Maybe, when you draw back a bloody stump, you'll realize this isn't being played with the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
I understand your point Tristero, and agree with it - up to a point. Here's where I think it falls down. Many of the comments here have made the assumption that people on the left drive people in the middle to the right through elitism. But really, is that what does it? Listen to how the wingnuts characterize the left, and you'll see that the elitism they talk about goes hand-in-hand with an attitude of "more left than thou", such as driving a fuel-efficient car - Wait! That's not good enough! Drive a Prius - Wait! That's not good enough! Only take mass transportation - Wait! That's not good enough! Ride a bicycle only! etc. Too often discussions on liberal blogs turn into one-upsmanship overkill, and that drives everyone crazy as it turns into an exercise in public masturbation. That, and the preachiness of some who engage in this kind of argument really are what drive most people away in my opinion. Most undecided people are annoyed at having to receive a 20 minute lecture on why Action A, which they have done for a good deal of their lives, is Completely Destroying The World And Killing Everything We Hold Dear.
Of course, neither of these traits are exclusive to the left, far from it. The difference seems to be that the left is much more willing to distance itself from its extremes, whereas the right has embraced them totally.
Tristero's right that it sucked: It was too long, and really lame. Kinda cringe-inducing, like a junior high cool table putdown. Trying to be funny, and ... not. It was a Republican idea of funny. And she doesn't even know who Robert Schuller is. C'mon, do some homework, Rach, ya Rhodes Scholar, ya. Couldn't even make it through the whole thing. So I changed to something intentionally cringe-inducing and funny--"Curb Your Enthusiasm."
Some other Middle Americans:
Paul Wellstone.
Russ Feingold.
George McGovern.
Gene McCarthy.
you get the idea.
Actually, Rachel should leave it to the pros:
http://www.theonion.com/content/
...h_on_washington
I love Tristero's writing, but only a self-loathing closet classist could find Maddow's report "classist." The sneer of "class" elitism is not in the broadcast narrative, but in Tristero's sheepish admonition that we should restrain the impulse to mock "the people who attend these kinds of events," a designation which itself drips with condescending assumptions about the homogeneous caste inferiority of "those people."
Sorry, but -- as Hello Dolly Lama noted -- "stupid" is not a class, neither is it a party-specific demographic, nor a proprietary attribute of the less educated or the income-challenged.
If sneering at insecure, greedy, delusional, wannabees who think a quick fix of inspiration can change their lives is classist, what do you call intentionally cultivating the respect of people you think are lower than shit, just to get their votes?
If you think people who eagerly sign up to watch motivational speeches lack a college education or are "anti-education" (whatever that means), then you haven't spent much time on a collge campus. I teach at one. Most of our divisions offer these self-empowerment lectures.
I dunno, re-watching the clip, it looks to me like Maddow is getting a smidge full of herself, and feels that she has the right to talk of all this as if it were a bunch of retarded children circling up to learn how to ride the merry-go-round. I feel like it's a bit like she's shooting fish in a barrel.
What else is Bush going to do besides give speeches to the aspiring Babbits? He sure as shit can't extoll the virtues of his two wars. Nor can he brag about his expertise in managing our economy into the shitter. He might as WELL get up and reprise Michael Douglas's "Greed is good" speech.
Rachel has been building her fan base for some time now. I'm delighted, but she needs to stay a little hongry and careful, and maybe work up the subject matter on her show and then let it sit for 24 hours or so, before she runs with it. Sometimes that will tell you whether or not your stuff is right.
What she doesn't need to do is come across as some cocky, condescending, Martha Stewart maven ranting and giggling about how really stupid is the republican choice of doily placement. We all know that the getting and spending/hoarding of ever-increasing sums of money is the be-all and end-all of these people's existence. That Bush and intellectual giants like Terry Bradsher are pimping the how-to mechanics of doing that, is old news.
Of course, it's a chance for Bush to get out amongst 'em and pretend that his term in office was just another 8 years of upward prosperity and nemmind the fucking of the clusters that he left us holding on to. In that respect Maddow is right to scorn him, but she just needs to be a bit less condescending when she does it, my 2c.
Excuse me: Terry BRADSHAW. I should know that. I respect his toughness and talent as a football player...as a motivational coach/financial adviser?
Not so much. :o)
First of all, you're imagining it. She was justifiably condescending to anyone being willing to sign up to pay for overpriced snake oil, especially that with W as spokesmodel. Those people deserve scorn.
Second, the right has done very well out of shaming people for being liberal. The Liberal word itself has become something of a dirty one as a result. The MSM will walk a mile out of their way to avoid the label. They will invite the hackiest of right-wingers on to avoid it. So shaming and mockery works very nicely, thanks. It was uncool to be a conservative in the 70s, and by ceding the rude ground to the tories in the 80s, we let them intimidate the perception and admitted political leanings of the whole country to the right, like feminists who reject the label but enjoy the benefits.
Third, I'm amazed at your Harry Reid-iness here, tristero. Your flutterings at the perception of insufficient deference and respect for loons who hate you. Obviously you can think what you want, but it's a waste of time and column inches to pile on a perceived slight by Maddow, who has been Grayson-like before Grayson in stiffening the resolve and spine and avowed liberalism of liberals across the country.
...
Any of you folks read Nixonland? I didn't see Maddow's report last night, but Tristero's general comments and Somerby's comment are right on the money.
And I went to one of those motivational events in the late '90s, out of curiosity -- hey, it was 19 bucks for a day's entertainment. Saw Colin Powell and Deborah Norville, woo. Speeches by media celebs aside, many of the segments are run by motivational gurus like Zig Ziglar and others who are trying to sell motivational books and tapes -- most of the audience is made up of salespeople, who are looking to find anything to charge them up with enthusiasm each morning when they have to face another day of asking people to buy stuff. Most salesfolk have to put up with rejection all day long -- they'll glom onto any advice and positive reinforcement they can find. I cut 'em a little slack for that.
Boy are you off base.
Contrast W as he works on his 'legacy project" (and does he ever need it) being associated with hucksters, making tons of money on how to sell (sic) with the work that Jimmy Carter is doing with Habitate for Humanity or the work that Clinton and even HW Bush are involved on dealing with humitarian causes.
Irony police take note: isn't W a master at selling (no, lying about) the senseless Iraq War and attempting to sell (no, lie about) his assault on Social Security? So it really is funny to think of W talking about lying as a means of salesmanship. What else does he know how to do and getting paid well in the process.
Don't you see the difference bewteen W on the one hand the other other ex-presidents?? Is there a different tone at work here???
The Maddow report was all about tone. About how W is associated with hoopla, sales, hucksters and money making when other presidents (even Nixon for crissake) took a higher path. When did the left get so touchy-feely and sensitive about criticism of Bush and right? I didn't get any whiff at all of attacks on "losers", the "middle class" and whatall in the Maddow report. I found it very informative
I worked for many years in a field that required me to sell my services. It is hard. But, in this effort (as in all efforts) there are people to be listened to and there are hucksters. And believe me, there are plenty of hucksters with nothing to offer but their ability to make money on people who may ( I said MAY) be very desperate.
There are plenty of things to learn from books on the subject and NOTHING to learn from the failure that is George W Bush.
The answer to the FAQ quoted by Meddow gives the game away. So calm down all you sensitive souls out there. That was a great Maddow report.
I understand that a lot of people do not like snarky humor and sarcasm. But I strongly believe that without the contributions of SNL, The Daily Show, and other programs using such humor, including KO and Rachel, Obama would not have won by such a large margin.
The point is this sort of sarcasm works to convince some people. Not everyone, of course, but there's always the Lehrer report or another "straight" news show if that's your preference. KO and RM both have a refreshing, progressive point of view, with humor, and don't pretend to be otherwise. Given what's on much of the rest of cable "news," it's about time we had their point of view, imo.
Yeah, I too have to say -- any moron who not only voted for W in 2004, but who voted for Palin in 2008, and God forbid would hand over money to hear W speak in 2009 ... that moron and all his moron friends deserve savage, heartless, endless mocking.
I don't think I'll lose any sleep over mocking the kind of people who enabled W in the first place.
And as Kevin points out, we WON last year Bob, and rather convicingly at that. Stop trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Snark and ridicule put Obama in the WH?
yes, yes it did.
Just like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Mike SavageWeiner, O'Reilly, Hannity and the rest of these fine citizens make reasonable accommodations for the opinions of the audiences of Olbermann, Maddow, et al. After all, if we're commie nazi fascist atheist dirty hippies for watching The Daily Show, why shouldn't we just prostrate ourselves for whatever causes our future gauleiters have for us?
You aren't doing stupid people a favor by pretending they aren't stupid.
I've got 19 dollars, and I've got some old shoes I don't wear anymore.
Maybe I should attend.
I really can't see Bush doing this any place but a time or two in Texas. Away from there, the security problem would be overwhelming. He'll drop out of this quick.
What's wrong with classism? Classism makes explicit the nature of the game. People are encouraged to identify with the right by thinking of themselves as productive, prestigious John Galts victimized by idle low-class parasites through socialist coercion. You have to short-circuit those pretensions.
The attendees criticized by Maddow are not ordinary attendees of this type of event,,, having said that - there does seem to be something a bit pathetic about them.
Regardless,,,They were Advertised To and Drawn In by the presence of The Bush at the event.
They want to learn from the Master hoe To Sell shit nobody wants to people who don't want their shit.
Maddow may (or not) exhibit some of the characteristics you say, but what you said here is a bum rap.
Rachel Maddow too often falls into the more-harm-than-good category. I sometimes wonder if her program isn't secretly funded by the Coors family or something...
wow, if this wasn't one of the...wow!
...and an appearance by Super WATB bob somerby, natch! ...psst bob, we're all fucking sad that the media destroyed Gore and allowed Bush to torture his way to the end of the world, but is playing nice with loons the way you Gore folks did to such great success back in 2000 really the way to go ya think?
tristero, i am usually a fan (fight Big Food man, take it to 'em!) but wow, this was textbook case of liberal-emo blogospheric navel-gazing. what is the point of this bleeding heart tripe about not being "condescending" to the nutbugs who have an entire "news" network and cottage industries and ARMED MILITIAS set up around themselves that preach on a 24/7 basis that we leftists are destroying real America and capitalism and apple pie (it's got high fructose corn syrup in it, libs hate it!)?
liberalism ate itself in the 1970s because the far left, the left, and the center-leftists fought amongst ourselves in intellectual language over how to market our policies to the folks out there, not because we had solved the problems of the common man, but because some thought the left in general needed to get cozier with big business, and with all the squabbling, St. Ronnie got there first, and we've never gotten back to selling our plans in language people understand, until Obama, who co-opted the inspirational language of the far left and seems to be using it for centrist purposes.
the people against us are not rational actors, as any glance at the comments section of any political news article out there will tell you. these people believe every thing the FOXholes tell them, every word from Boss Limbaugh (sorry ko, any fan of Dukes of Hazzard who is from the South made that connection years ago when we were forced to watch Boss's TV Show everywere we went down here in the 90s), who ROOT for American failure in all things attached to "the left" in all the ways that they accused us of doing earlier in this decade when we were doing no such thing, who call us and our President a Socia!ist-Facist (wtf!? they deserve the condescension we give them just because they use words they don't understand, and if I were Maddow with my PhD, I'd be pissed about stupid people having an outsized voice in our national dialogue as well).
the snark works against these people because it's the one thing that they can't project back. their comedians and commenators have no sense of humor and everyone hates being laughed at.
man up, tristero. we may be peaceniks at heart, but the right is at war with us, and kisses aren't going to work.
So, the same man who spent several posts last week lecturing on how Nutella and Cheerios are bad for you compared to a homecooked bowl of whole oats (that you surely have time to make) is now saying that it's elitist to point out that there is a group of people DUMB ENOUGH anywhere on the planet to pay any money whatsoever to see GW Bush talk?
This isn't about class or wealth. It's about having the basic level of sentience to be aware of the catastrophic stupidity of one GW Bush. To have been aware, on some basic level, of the last 9 years of human existence.
If anything, it's elitist to assume that these people deserve a Get Of Rube Free Card, because... what? They're not rich? They're from Texas? Molly Ivins would be spinning in her grave.
I for one won't hold them to a lower standard.
How many people here think that Bush's little rehab tour, sink or swim, has the capability of making or breaking Obama/us?
Uh-huh...
Now, how many people here think that Afghanistan/Iraq has that capability?
Rachel Maddow too often falls into the more-harm-than-good category. I sometimes wonder if her program isn't secretly funded by the Coors family or something...
Yeah, having a smart, likable, witty liberal woman, who also happens to be an out lesbian, host a successful cable news program and occasionally appear on MTP is horribly damaging to the progressive movement. I see Richard Mellon Scaife's fingerprints all over this.
Jesus christ. There's so much clutching going on I think the pearls have become diamonds.
@Kevin K.
She is the living embodiment of all things they hate about the left: a pompous, overeducated, coastal-centric, liberal-elitist dyke who spends a good deal of her program smirking in silence at her awesome cleverness.
Mary and Joseph. Her show sucks.
John J Sears: So, the same man who spent several posts last week lecturing on how Nutella and Cheerios are bad for you compared to a homecooked bowl of whole oats (that you surely have time to make) is now saying that it's elitist to point out that there is a group of people DUMB ENOUGH anywhere on the planet to pay any money whatsoever to see GW Bush talk?
Ooh, well played.
Know what I've noticed? When somebody tells me that I've offended them by being "arrogant" or "smug" they're almost always from the south.
Southerners seem to have a certain chip on their shoulders when it comes to their perception that others think they're stupid.
The funny thing is that I was raised by the northern version of a classic trailer trash family. Ton of kids, no books in the house, tv running 24/7, nobody expected to do anything in particular, nobody ever quite clean.
So I know from stupid . . . and I can't speak about certain things in any way that doesn't make those folks get their backs up and think I'm dissing them. Does that mean I should keep my mouth shut? God knows Digby never does; it's part of why I read her.
The 12 apostles, Noone: Perhaps MSNBC should cancel Maddow and give her slot to a straight, Midwestern man (white, of course) since he wouldn't embody "all the things they hate about the left."
You know what? Fuck "them."
Noone said:
"She is the living embodiment of all things they hate about the left: a pompous, overeducated, coastal-centric, liberal-elitist dyke who spends a good deal of her program smirking in silence at her awesome cleverness."
Good point! We should endeavor in the future to ensure that our only nationally visible spokespeople are "some-college" educated blue-dogs from Oklahoma, whose sexual preferences have been thoroughly vetted for mass market approval.
Noone, you're a genius!
Shorter Noone: "Back in the closet, dykes!"
If I took Maddow's attitude that way, I'm pretty darn sure a lot of other folks did as well.
Yes, but maybe it's just Shtick or even a Tic & you are hallucinating attitude where there is none or not much?
Also, Who really gives a fuck or can complain.
Whether she has an attitude or not, she has sure earned and deserves the right to one.
Yes, Maddow does more harm than good.
And mocking Sarah Palin's stupidity really backfired last fall. Maybe if the left had been more respectful of her small-town populist Christianist roots, instead of gleefully noting her inability to identify the Bush doctrine or a major print publication, Obama would have won with over 50% of the popular vote, a huge landslide in the electoral college, and turned former Bush states such as Indiana, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia blue. Heck, he may have even won an electoral vote from Nebraska!
Whenever will we learn, o Lord?
After reading this post and some comments (and many others like it anymore) I dare say that I'm much more likely to kick the shit out of a "liberal" or "progressive" over the next 3-7 years rather than a tea-bagging, Beck-watching, Limbaugh-humper.
Why? because the oaf winger doesn't know any better. We just spent the better part of two years ridding the party of the its lowest common denominator. Why do we want it back?
The best thing bright liberals do is to dismiss idiocy and educate intelligently. Rachel can roll her eyes and mock 'til the cows come home.
I will believe that Rachel Maddow has crossed the line to my side when she opines about getting religion out of American politics entirely. That ought to get some howling going from the o Lord folk.
'man up, tristero.'
Ummmmm?
I think that ends today's lesson?
No?
(Wow)
Also, Tristero, as I puzzled over your concerns about a supposed "elitist tone" in Rachel's piece-- which I couldn't discern-- I wondered how far back I'd have to go to find this, this attitude that you're so bent out of shape about-- in your own writing.
Not far at all, it turns out. This is from your post of a week ago:
Tristero wrote: I'm not gonna defend my claim that fast food tastes awful if you disagree. If you like to eat burgers laced with ground-up cow noses and traces of fecal matter, hey, go for it!
I'm hearing a pretty hefty sneer there. Is it just me?
Incidentally, you do your readers no good with the claim that they are safe from fecal matter in ground beef by stearing clear of fast-food joints; it's dangerously irresponsible in fact.
Where you got the crazy stuff about noses in ground beef I haven't a clue. Help me out with a link here, anyone?
Sweet Jesus, is there any more demoralizing or cringe-enducing sight than otherwise intellgent people refusing to protect themselves and blubbering that "we" oughtn't to be such gosh-darned meanies to a group of extremist mouth-frothers who want to, oh, kill us? Is it any wonder so many view liberals as being the most worthless creatures on the face of the planet when their natural reaction to adversity is to start rolling aound in puddles of their own piss, sobbing and boo hooing that they simply daresn't fight back?
Tristero, you're an intelligent guy, and I normally enjoy reading your contributions here, but my God, are you off base on this one. Frankly, I'm horrified at the sheer, shocking level of stupidity you're displaying in this post. You should hang your head in shame.
Stay tuned for the inevitable follow up post about how everybody missed the point!
Disagree adamantly. They voluntarily attended the event; they knew who they were getting; they went anyway. They deserve contempt. As for Maddow alienating them, they don't watch her, and those who've even heard of her are no doubt as contemptuous of her as they would have been without the report. Nothing lost, while she and her viewers had a frustration-reducing commiserating experience. I certainly enjoyed it.
Also, I second John D. No doubt many others I didn't have time to read.
I'm all for mocking people who deserve it, regardless of class. Michael Moore does it expertly. Thing was, Rachel tried, really hard, to be funny.
But she wasn't.
God bless her, but there's a tin ear there sometimes that thinks Kent Jones is hi-larious.
Aside from whether Rachel Maddow's rolling her eyes and smirking sends who knows how many middle-of-the-roaders straight for their cupboards for the Lipton (which I very much doubt), it might be worthwhile to note something. The people such as Somerby who are calling "Classist!" and "Elitism!" the loudest are hardly salt-of-the-earth. In this case, they are disparaging a genuinely self-made woman for mocking followers of a cosseted, insulated, trust-fund booby who wrecked the country and has the temerity to speechify about motivation. Followers who are not necessarily salt-of-the-earth themselves; that's an assumption on the part of the elite anti-elitists.
What can be deduced from those who voluntarily attend Bush seminars is 1.that they wouldn't be swayed by Maddow in any case, and 2. They are dumber than hand cream and much less useful. Why cater to them?
Rachel Maddow may offend the tastes of the anti-bouncy in the course of her daily, hour-long show, but she provides an invaluable service as an unapologetic liberal on a national network that isn't PBS.
She certainly gets up Mr. Somerby's nose. Anybody reading a Somerby Maddow essay who does not register how much of his blog is devoted to dissecting the most minute micro-expression of "our Rhodes Scholar" is missing part of the narrative. Talk about elitism, eye-rolling and smirking.
There's so much clutching going on I think the pearls have become diamonds.
Good one, if scientifically questionable. Are pearls made of carbon? Must google it...
When somebody tells me that I've offended them by being "arrogant" or "smug" they're almost always from the south.
Not always from the south, just people who think you're trying to one up them for knowing...things. And talking about 'em. Nothing'll get a civility card slapped on the pile faster than someone who believes you're trying to make them look dumb. And the more you try to get down to their level, the more they believe you're being arrogant. So fuck 'em.
*rolls eyes in a condescending way*
I most certainly don't want Rachel taken off the air; she's highly intelligent and a wicked debater. I was merely pointing out that the perception of her out there in Real Merka isn't exactly the same as it is here in Digbyland. I'm not wrong when I say that she reinforces the smug, effete liberal stereotype. Disagree? Talk to someone who works for a living.
And I think her show sucks ass. 85% of it is comprised of stuff Olbermann and everyone else has already covered (usually better) and 15% is lame shit like 'Cocktail Moment' or 'Holy Mackerel Story Of The Day' or 'I Totally Loves Me Some Metallica'…. Hurrr Durrrrr.
It's worth remembering that Maddow IS a gay woman. You know, the kind of person whose death and damnation has been prayed for early and often by the fundie Bushie set for decades. I know that's a fart in the wind compared to the unimaginable suffering of non-Rhodes Scholar Bob "Did I ever tell you that Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones were my roommates at Harvard" Somerby NOT getting a cable pundit gig. (Haven't they looked at the Incomparable Archives?!?!?!) One must keep these things in perspective, lord knows.
But it might provide some insight into why somebody like Maddow doesn't feel particularly inclined to bend over backwards for the benefit of the dumbass snake-oil Christianist set. Once somebody has prayed for your death, the chances of winning them over with fake empathy (itself condescending and elitist, as Mrs. Polly points out), are pretty much nil.
In all seriousness, progressives don't win when they get nice. And it's doubly mystifying when the leftie blogosophere, which has been tearing into Obama on a regular basis for his failure to be sufficiently bare-fanged then turns around and scolds another up-from-the-grassroots type like Maddow for mocking Dubya and his acolytes.
Yeah. It's just a fucking mystery why anyone with the administration might have made a statement dismissive of the netroots.
Noone, me, my friends, and every member of my family "works for a living" and we all love Maddow. Where is this mythical "real America" where people work with antlike intensity while we smug elitist liberals just tear through the fat of the land with grasshopper-like short-sighted bonhomie?
Way to reinforce bullshit right-wing framing.
But if you really dislike her show, there is this handy device called a "remote." Has that made its way to your Real America Mayberry yet?
Tristero's right. Rachel should try to be more like Alan Colmes.
Where is this mythical "real America" where people work with antlike intensity while we smug elitist liberals just tear through the fat of the land with grasshopper-like short-sighted bonhomie?
Yeah, I'd like the GPS coordinates to that place too. The implication that Maddow fans don't "work for a living" is insulting bullshit.
Betty, perhaps it's where the "hardworking Americans, white Americans" hang out.
Watching the brief excerpts from the "meetings" I couldn't help but think it sure looked one hell of a lot like an Amway convention.
Damn, so many people seem to assume that everyone who attends these events is mightily overjoyed to have done so. Maybe they went and came out thinking, "Huh. That sucked. I should have stayed home and cleaned the grout." But what? We're supposed to think that Maddow thinks they're contemptible no matter what?
I have a friend who has spent a fortune over the years, going to motivational seminars and signing on to pyramid schemes and fake medicine scams. No one forces her to do this, and I've long since abandoned even talking with her on what she may have gotten out of these things, because it became clear that no matter how dispassionately and non-judgmentally I would inquire, she nearly always perceived my questions as judgmental. I'm serious. I tried because I was curious to know what she'd experienced, not to make myself look cool and classist, which I could hardly do anyway since she's the one with the B.A. and the management job and I'm the drop-out house-boi dog-walker odd-job doer.
I have no respect for hucksterism like that. It's a crass demonstration of magical thinking that the hucksters themselves don't even believe. I'm sure the attendees run the gamut from hopeful to desperate to gullible to curious (not to mention sometimes coerced when attendance is proffered instead of a real severance benefit). But the panelists are just greedy and cynical.
And when did Maddow have to hit every target every time, or get crucified?
No, wait. I quit. If this is Left Blogistan, include me the hell out.
"And when did Maddow have to hit every target every time, or get crucified?"
Larkspur, Left Blogistan decided this around the same time they decided that if Obama didn't fulfill every campaign pledge (even ones he didn't make -- like supporting single-payer) within a couple of months, he was an abject failure and a sell-out at best, "as bad as Bush" at worst.
C'mon, the Leftie Blogosphere has places to go, people to scold, concerns to troll. They can't possibly be expected to wait for incremental moves (pushed for years and years by people who actually ARE the grassroots -- http://tinyurl.com/ykqz8xf) to add up to transformative change in the long run. That may be okay for black civil rights activists and such, who had to work for decades to see their efforts bear fruit. But the Instant Gratification Entitled Blogger set wants it all NOW! I mean, they single-handedly got Obama elected, to hear some of them talk.
I have to disagree with you on this one, Tristero. There was nothing classist about Maddow's sneering. She was sneering at hucksters who deserve to be sneered at. If potential attendees want to take offense, oh well. I don't think her attitude hurts anything.
I was offended by the John Kerry Purple Heart bandaids worn by the stupids at the Republican National Convention. However, had they not worn those bandaids, I still wouldn't have voted for Bush. You can be quite sure that the feeling on their side is mutual.
The attendees may or may not be stupid an the promoters are hucksters but this was the worst segment we have ever seen rachel do & we are big fans. What the heck was the point? "you try to push sell expensive additional seminars" So what? Exactly what part of that whole scene is objectionable, R. never made a single valid point imho.
Rachel has a huge platform & imo she should be more careful. She is mostly quite articulate and to the point but we were unable to tell what point she was trying to make and from what we could tell there wasn't any. it was quite painful to watch this segment.
The attendees may or may not be stupid and the promoters are hucksters but this was the worst segment we have ever seen rachel do & we are big fans. What the heck was the point?
Traditionally, Presidents of these United States, once out of office, move on to elder statesmen careers as ambassadors of the US, but Dubya's carnival midway gig somewhat breaks that mold.
See, it's unusual and worth commenting on. The fact that it also rubs the Republican party's nose in the fact that their former standard bearer can't get a proper speaking engagement to save his life, because no one is interested- well, that's just gravy.
Any other questions, fire away.
Just want to add, after reading all the prior comments. If Rachel wants to point out the irony to her viewers in considering GWB as able to motivate anybody with more than 10 grams of brain matter then yes i agree it's ironic and she could have made that point with clear irony.
But she didn't. She had no legit argument with the guest and she did not score a single point. If she wanted to mock GWB great, but don't invite a guest unless you have real questions or good points to make vs them. What was R. thinking, let's invite the organizer so we can mock her? The organizor lady was 100% professional and R. looked like a fool. AND I NEVER DISLIKE R. (much), i think at her best she is much better than the average keith. i watch both every night.
Chris Vosburg -- as to your point, the guest hit that one back past R and out of the park when she replied that 6 ex-presidents have been speakers. Hey everybody in the world knows GWB is a dickhead, but if he can get $100k for a 40 minute talk then boy has he got the laugh on you.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to denouncing class snobbery but is it really a winning political strategy?
The right is all hate, all the time, and they don’t allow for liberals or leftists to be so much as human beings, let alone have genuine concerns. The single-minded ‘destroy the enemy’ mindset among their followers is largely the result. Meanwhile, liberals like everybody and want to believe that even the most venomous, hateful, ignorant bastard has a good heart, one merely clouded by insecurity, fears, and ignorance.
Which is nice enough, I don’t disparage empathy, but I’m not sure such a loving approach has a chance against the scorched earth politics of our enemies. Ridicule remains the left’s best weapon and I’m not sure we should temper it because, gosh, some everyday Republicans are probably nice people just with some wrong opinions. Those are the very same people who think we’re American hating terrorist sympathizers who want to burn down their church and force every woman to have an abortion.
You worry about hurting their feelings. Meanwhile, they worry about how best to destroy us utterly, and are not above waving guns around and talking of coup d’etats as examples.
Compassion may actually be weakness when one side is determined to fight to the death.
(Besides, any halfway intelligent person who gets sent to one of these things by their employers, probably laugh at and ridicule it among their friends themselves. The rest are GOP zombies and f-'em for their hateful stupidity.)
PPSS sorry, i was writing about the weds show with the female guest, tristero's post was about the tuesday show i guess, i forgot she had already mentioned it with a liberal male guest. which is all the more reason to pan the weds show since she had already made her point. the only point of revising it on weds was that she got one of the organizers to show up.
The wing nuts are losing membership for the repub party *because* they are stupid jerks. We *REALLY* should be above inviting somebody to a show to mentally F**k them the way Bill O does. That is neither in good taste nor interesting to me and does not positively influence anybody who has the potential to be influenced. Jon Stewart does his thing in great taste but that is so far from R's style. R. is an intellectual & is great at intellegent rational argument. She did not have any argument or discussion with her female guest, only asked questions which the guest very, very politely and smilying answered. No real loss for R. except that the whole exercise was an incredible waste of time esp in that it was a *revisit* of what she mentioned yesterday. Made zero sense to me.
Again, we on the 'left' need more charismatic spokespeople with different arrows in their qivers.
R is all about going on meet the press and talking real sense to Dick Armey et als. nonsense with a super cool and professional demeanor which the neutral viewer will respect and go 'repubs == talk nonsense', 'dems = 'understand the country and bring actual policy to the table'. R's arrow is that she can very logically eviscerate the repubs talking point. That is incredibly, incredibly valuable on national TV and all the more reason to rue the wasted time on an exercise which was pointless at best and at worst just made R look rather stupid for inviting a guest to a national TV platform without being perpared to score a single point against her. Again the guest was very very nice and *zero* nastiness or stupidity, so apparently R had no back up plan when the guest did not completely fall on her face, IMHO.
"@Kevin K.
She is the living embodiment of all things they hate about the left: a pompous, overeducated, coastal-centric, liberal-elitist dyke who spends a good deal of her program smirking in silence at her awesome cleverness.
Mary and Joseph. Her show sucks.
Noone"
Wow! That's not what I see when I watch the show!
Again, we on the 'left' need more charismatic spokespeople with different arrows in their qivers.
This is your takeaway, after going on and on about how much you like Maddow. So lemme get this straight: we can't afford to have one segment on the best left-leaning show in any medium fall kinda flat in the eyes of a minority of its viewers (not to mention the people tristero's so worried about, the ones who don't even know when it's on) lest the Republicans return to power?
Liberals have this weird tendency to think that just because a show speaks to them, they get to be assistant producers (see McCaughey on Stewart and associated shitstorm), which would be unseemly enough in and of itself, but it's sorely compounded by the fact that we're such a bunch of micromanaging screwheads who demand the line be toed yet NO TWO OF US CAN AGREE ON WHERE THE GODDAMN LINE IS.
Man, sometimes I wish I wasn't so fond of Keynesian economics and gays. Then I could get outta this chickenshit outfit.
This is Tristero projecting, then regretting, his own elitist reaction to this news.
...So lemme get this straight: we can't afford to have one segment on the best left-leaning show in any medium fall kinda flat in the eyes of a minority of its viewers (not to mention the people tristero's so worried about, the ones who don't even know when it's on) lest the Republicans return to power?...."
Yup. Oh noes! And yet Rachel keeps wasting time on stuff we assistant producers are convinced will only harm Teh Cause! It's like, jeebus, it's like sometimes she isn't even 100% serious. It's almost as if she's intermittently goofy! Remember the video a few weeks ago, the rare exotic huge parrot who hopped onto the filmmaker's head and commenced to try and beget offspring? Thwap thwap thwap, y'all.
She coulda been denouncing ConAgra or Rupert Murdoch or something. Nope. Thwap. She has got to go.
...as to your point, the guest hit that one back past R and out of the park when she replied that 6 ex-presidents have been speakers.
Why stop at six? Pretty much any and all Presidents have taken speaking engagements after leaving office, Steve; it's expected of them, you might say.
The difference here is the cheesiness of the venue Dubya has chosen to speak in-- presumably for lack of more prestigious offers-- and again, that is Rachel's point-- that the brightest lights in last year's Republican party are shining so dimly now.
Pretty much any and all Presidents have taken speaking engagements after leaving office
Well, okay, not Lincoln.
Those that survive the Presidency, nevertheless, do.
'that the brightest lights in last year's Republican party are shining so dimly now.'
THAT was her "point"?
LOL
Okay...
now what?
So we should be careful not to offend people who are impervious to logic and reason so they will hear our arguments and be converted? Nonsense.
Mock them at every opportunity, I say. They are incapable of rational thought and cannot reconsider their positions. Showing them respect works in their favor, not ours. They deserve maximum disrespect.
Did all you snark hounds catch the Maddow show last night where she backed away from her ridicule and guested the organizer of the Bush motivational gig? Not that I'm endorsing this thing, by any means, but you (Maddow) should do your homework and know what you're talking about before you mount those high horses and go all over snotty about "notus".
Chris, i was talking about the weds segment when the organizer lady came on. Rachel implied it was a bit wierd that an ex-president would be on the motivational speakers panel and the comeback was "we've had 6 ex-presidents speak at these events".
IMO that is a crushing reply to 'haha bush is getting really cheezy'. In fact i doubt there are 6 ex repub presidents in the time this outfit has been running events so perhaps carter or clinton have even been a speaker. Anyway your line was rachels
trump card and the reply trumped her pretty completely the way i heard it.
gil mann and Larkspur, are you saying we had better not critique R? If we say that even one of her segments sucks then we are in favor of getting rid of her? That's nuts.
Also i fail to understand why we cannot have a reasonable discussion about what exactly we see as the aim and audience of the show and of r's career on TV. I agree there may be difference views about that, and in order to judge how snarky she ought to get, we really need to define who we think is listening and what we think her basic purpose is and ought to be. gil man, if that makes you feel like we are chickenshit, well just what is your model for how the left should interact? Should we become stalinist so that we can avoid chickenshit disagreements? Even tho we we can violently agree on who the enemy is, our pov's can still differ widely.
"I agree there may be difference views about that, and in order to judge how snarky she ought to get, we really need to define who we think is listening and what we think her basic purpose is and ought to be."
Gil, what was that you were saying about people in Leftie Blogistan thinking they get to be assistant producers? I don't think Mr. Schmandt got your point.
So here it is again: It's the Rachel Maddow Show. HER fucking show. She and her actual producers -- you know, the people who work at MSNBC? They're the ones who get to decide what's on it -- who "judge," if you will. Don't like what you see? Write an email. Change the channel. But you don't get a vote as to what her "tone" is or who she has on as guests or what she "ought" to be doing. Why would anyone besides Tired Resentful Narcissistic Old Fart Somerby think they have the right to tell her how to run her show? Pay attention, because this gets tricky -- you don't fucking work for the outfit. And she is not an elected official. We are not her constituents. We don't pay her bills.
None of us got her the fucking job in the first place. She earned it on her own, and she will keep it or lose it on her own.
And FYI, "Stalinist" is in fact a very chickenshit strawman to toss into the mix. Particularly when it's coming from someone who seems to think he should have the right to dictate to Maddow "what we think her basic purpose is and ought to be." Pardon the dead-horse bludgeoning, but you're not her boss, and neither am I.
Her basic purpose is to put on a show for her network bosses and to draw enough viewers that she stays on the air. If you don't want to be one of those viewers, fair enough. Be a disgruntled former viewer. But please don't conflate that as being a kulak. (Or a Fran, or an Ollie.)
Kerry, i guess i knew i would get that response wrt the term 'stalinist'. WRT your other remarks where in the heck did you get the impression that i thought i was R's boss? We all writing on this blog or commenting on any other are ALL armchair whatever. You did not seem to get my point which is who appointed you or anybody else to decide what we should or should not discuss on this forum?
You obviously have very different ideas about how to conduct a dialogue than i do since you think it's cool to randomly throw f-bombs at me and decide that i think i'm R's boss just because i think it might be interesting to share my critique of one of her segments on this board and exchange views about what her show is doing. *** I AM NOT UNDER THE DELUSION THAT R OR ANYBODY FROM HER SHOW READS THESE COMMENTS OR CARES EVEN IF THEY DO ***. Probably even that is not clear enough for you, but whatever.
You are the one who created the strawman in the first place along with gil deciding that i am chickenshit or f-this or that.
By "Stalinist" i mean leftwing and not tolerating dissent. ie you guys who belittle somebody for expressing their views when they don't conform to your party line (in this case that anybody on the left who critizes R is a douche bag pretending to be her producer).
I could go on, but i'm not even sure you are not just a troll calling other posters 'chickenshit' and f-whatever'. I don't know what your problem is but i will not respond further since i totally disagree with your sense of how to talk to people you don't know. Go ahead and f-bomb me as much as you want, as far as i'm concerned your trash talk goes directly in the trash with all the rest of the garbage.
Rather than the meta-argument, Mr. Schmidt, let's get back to the argument.
plaindave's comment, "So we should be careful not to offend people who are impervious to logic and reason so they will hear our arguments and be converted? Nonsense." makes sense to me. Here we have an unequivocal and unashamed champion of liberalism, one of the few, and liberals fretting that she should be careful not to offend the more enthusiastic "hard working" attendees of this Welfare program for Well-off Presidential Has-Beens? (Or in this case, a Never-Was)
There is a virtue in preaching to the converted. It's good for morale, gives them ammunition when arguing with the unconverted. KO's rants are often hard to watch, but consolidate good points which read remarkably well, when the INDEED, SIRs are removed.
I do think that everyone has a right to critique our own, but I recommend you consider that this post was engendered by a post at Somerby's eternal temple of sour, where he devotes so much time to hermeneutics of Rachel Facial Expressions that I fear he has an effigy of her somewhere in the sub-basement, with about a thousand wax candle stubs and some wrought-iron doodads.
Consider it considered but while we are back to the meta-argument if somebody replies to my post i assume they are replying to *me*, is that not reasonable? And is it not reasonable to wish for a forum which is not polluted by total disrespect?
Maybe you or those other folks have a long running feud going but pls don't dump a bucket of shit on my head for the crime of posting my $.02 *about a single specific RM segment*.
My problem with the follow-up Weds segments was that it was really boring, R had nothing to add, she had an extended interview with the lady and found imo zero points to score. Can you tell me what you found compelling or even worth the time in that interview?
As i had mentioned, i love R to death i was amazed enough to be moved to want to discuss a segment which i found way, way below R's normal standards. So again, Ms P, could you please reply wrt the weds interview, what point(s) do you think R scored? and btw, if you address me directly perhaps you could do me the courtesy of calling me by my correct name? TIA for that minimal effort at respect.
That would be MRS. Polly, Mr. Schmandt.
Frankly, I assigned the segment to "Rachel's enjoying herself" category, and paid it little mind. There are the deeply serious and important topics, the light stuff, cocktails--which my husband thinks an utter waste of time--and it is to me a mix that is not meant to please all tastes, but rather a broader segment than the Democracy Now crowd.
If you want to see someone having an off day quite unexpectedly, google Amy Goodman and Lou Dobbs. She was unprepared, with only her general idea of his anti-immigrant beliefs. He creamed her.
"...I do think that everyone has a right to critique our own, but I recommend you consider that this post was engendered by a post at Somerby's eternal temple of sour, where he devotes so much time to hermeneutics of Rachel Facial Expressions that I fear he has an effigy of her somewhere in the sub-basement, with about a thousand wax candle stubs and some wrought-iron doodads."
Mrs. Polly, that is hilarious.
Steve. "...gil mann and Larkspur, are you saying we had better not critique R? If we say that even one of her segments sucks then we are in favor of getting rid of her? That's nuts...."
Of course that's nuts. But why do we have to load so much other crap onto the critique? This wasn't about a Maddow segment that fell flat or was off-target. That's the point. We don't seem to be able to say, "That fell flat; that was off-target" without summoning up all the gods of leftist hubris and calling in some kind of epic philosophical air strike against our own selves.
That's being woefully hypersensitive. Remember Betty Brown, the congresscritter who was mocked when she lectured a constituent with an Asian name, telling him he should simple it up for Americans? That is totally mockable. But in no way should we infer (the way we lefties seem so prone to do) that we think people who don't know how to pronounce unusual names are stoopid and wingnutty and beneath us.
The point was that Betty Brown was just wrong and intolerant. What sensible Americans do when encountering a person whose name is unusual to them, or really long, and they don't know how to pronounce it, is they ask the person how to pronounce it, and then ask them to repeat it, and then make a note to remind themselves, and then feel kinda happy because they learned something new that day.
So mocking Betty Brown doesn't automatically mean we're calling each other stupid.
And I am totally okay with you saying that you thought Maddow's segment fell flat. But I am not okay with anyone implying that this segment - which I do not find particularly offensive - is emblematic of how we lefties suck so much and so inevitably, and that's why we should hate us.
PS: I finally taught myself how to pronounce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's surname by imagining my dismay at an over-cooked supper: "Ach! My Dinner's charred!"
PPS: Steve, I will never ever tell you to shut up. But if I ever do, don't shut up.
Jeepers. I can't believe I felt I had to say that.
Steve Schmandt writes: Chris, i was talking about the weds segment when the organizer lady came on. Rachel implied it was a bit wierd that an ex-president would be on the motivational speakers panel and the comeback was "we've had 6 ex-presidents speak at these events".
Thanks, and boy is my face red. Sorry about that, Steve, and my deepest apologies for not having checked out the second interview before commenting.
You're quite right, of course: Tamara says that Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bush Senior, and Bill Clinton have graced her stage (and Bush Junior makes six).
Huh.
Also, Benjamin Netanyahu.
And Margaret Thatcher.
And Mikhail Gorbachev.
I'm starting to smell a tuna here, Steve: Why are these people standing shoulder to shoulder with "investment toolkit" vendors and bible bangers?
Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I hear the sound of a distant shoe dropping here.
Incidentally, be sure to attend my two-day seminar on how to make a graceful apology, at the Airport Sheraton, this weekend.
willyjsimmons writes: now what?
You are hereby granted the luxurious self-indulgence of a brief chuckle.
Okay that's enough. Now return to your previous grimness until further notice.
Steve, to return the favor, let me show you something about human behavior and lying.
There's two easy lies in Tamara's interview, and I urge you to watch again to see how her face alters when she is doing it.
First lie is the response to Maddow's question about use of farmed email addresses, second is the response to Maddow's question about an underlying religious agenda.
It ain't that tough; just watch her face.
Steve, for a guy who is worried about Stalinism and the ability of people to talk honestly about their reactions without being silenced, you sure do enjoy playing the FUCKING language police.
"Kerry, i guess i knew i would get that response wrt the term 'stalinist'. [Is this an apology for a strawman? I can't tell. FWIW, I think implying that someone is Stalinist is rather trashier talk than a few time-honored Anglo-Saxon expletives.] "WRT your other remarks where in the heck did you get the impression that i thought i was R's boss?"
Gee, I think I got that impression -- and indicated as much -- from your comment: "in order to judge how snarky she ought to get, we really need to define who we think is listening and what we think her basic purpose is and ought to be."
See, it's that magic word "ought" that kind of clued me in to the fact that you felt there was some Magic Yardstick of Snark by which Maddow should be measured, some purpose that she "ought" to fulfill, and that some magic amorphous group known as "we" were the ones who "need to define" what those standards are.
Who is "we," kemosabe? And why is it necessary for us to agree on what Maddow's show "ought to be," since none of us (as far as I know) owns any part of her network or works for her show? Again, that doesn't mean anyone who is unhappy with her doesn't have a perfect right to vent that, either in an email or in public. But you vent in public, people vent back.
Does she knock every segment out of the park? No. I don't think anyone who has a nightly program can do that, frankly. Is she a threat to our ability to reach out to whatever condescending Middle-America Bible Readin', Sunday-Go-To-Meetin', Just Plain Folks stereotype Tristero (and Somerby, and Noone) were putting out here? Of course not. And calling her segment "seriously, gut-wrenchingly horrible" is a comment of such unsustainable hyperbole that it deserves to be called out as BS. Obviously, I'm not the only one on this thread who thought so.
You know, more than anything else, the sheer comedic value of ex-presidents at Amway-style venues ought to set a few comedy writers off.
The Infomercial void left by the passing of Billy Mays-- come on, comedy writers, where are you?
HI, DUBYA HERE, WITH AN AMAZING SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM YOU MAY NOT EVEN HAVE KNOWN EXISTED!
Chris, Dubya already has the "Sham" part down cold. I think he needs to work on the "Wow" factor, however.
Kerry, sorry i jumped in the middle of your rage and caused you to go off again. I had no idea i was trying to communicate with a bunch of crazed foul mouth idiot blogger types (not even bloggers, this is not a blog buy only comments to a blog) who respond to reason with foul smelling crap.
WRT language police, i posted for the first time and got called f-ing this and that. Obviously you have never had a job or you would have learned that to have any credibility at all in the corporate or public sphere you are not expected to throw f-bombs on anybody and everybody you meet and instantly disagree with. If you don't even know that then you have *no idea* how anybody can or cannot be effective on TV, so it's clearly an incredible waste of my time to pay any attention to you.
You sure need a sense of humor as well as a clue about communication. If you are a high school student, I apologize for being so hard on you.
Kerry, has it never occurred to you how ironic it is that your 'trying to control' what tristero blogs about R is to do *exectly* what you are rabidly blasing tristero for doing to R, only several orders of magnitude less significant? To me that is quite humorous, but i guess you might not get that.
Steve, you are acting silly.
Steve, has it never occurred to you that language-policing progressive women (I am a woman, BTW) is kind of a dick move for guys who consider themselves to be progressives? As is accusing them of being filled with "rage" simply because they refuse to swallow your bullshit or accept your "yardsticks" of acceptable dialogue and snark? Control freak, much?
But of course, since you are incapable of dealing with the substance of my comments -- i.e., the fact that I have TWICE now pointed out that you laid out the fatuous and risible notion that "we ought" to establish some sort of amorphous guidelines for what Rachel Maddow's show "ought" to be, though none of us works there, of course you have to resort to the lame-o "well, you CURSED! My stars and garters!"
And somehow, call me crazy (and I think you did so fuck you very much, sideways and twice on Sundays), but I think equating someone who calls you on your bullshit "Stalinist" is somewhat more offensive than a few f-bombs. Of course, I know a lot of right-wingers who might disagree. Many of them hang out at tea parties with signs equating Obama with Stalin, Mao, Hitler, etc.
"Obviously you have never had a job or you would have learned that to have any credibility at all in the corporate or public sphere you are not expected to throw f-bombs on anybody and everybody you meet and instantly disagree with."
Oh yes, that's obvious. Not that it's any of your motherfucking business, but I'm a freelance writer who owns her own home. Totally. Free and clear. Paid off. No debt whatsoever, no bosses, no corporate structure. And somehow, none of the editors I've interacted with in my 16-plus years on the job at twenty-plus publications has ever given two shits about my language in interpersonal communication. When you're good enough at writing about a subject matter to get paid for it, that's how it works. That's your credibility. In the "real world." But hey, keep on making your unsupportable assumptions about me. You know what they say. When you assume, you make an ass out of -- well, in your case, yourself.
Is that the problem, Steve? Are you jealous that Maddow has a job where she can apparently say whatever the fuck she wants? Too bad. She earned it. And for the benefit of anyone following Noone's nonsense about "people who work for a living" (which Steverino here seems to be endorsing with his notion that only corporate work counts as "real work") -- what Maddow does is real work. She works for a living. Hard. And she's good at it.
You jumped in and accused people of Stalinism (you know, that mass-murderer dude) because they took some strenuous objection to a public post, and then fell prostrate over the fainting couch, smelling salts in one hand and pearls in the other, because somebody used LANGUAGE! On the Internets! First time at the rodeo, cowboy?
Where did you get that I was trying to "control" what Tristero blogs about? It's not my place. He can blog about whatever he wants. And if the comments are open, I can tell him that what he's blogging is idiotic. And he can respond in kind. That's not "control." That's spirited discourse. It's how it works in Grown-Up Land, which doesn't come with an MPAA rating. Check into it!
are you saying we had better not critique R?
Yeah, or else. NO, for crying out loud, you can express your opinion all you want, just don't act like it matters more than it does (not much, judging from my experience having opinions) unless you want to really grate on the nerves of those who disagree. This is entry-level human communication stuff, man, I shouldn't have to tell you this.
Plus I've seen the segments, and I just don't know how you get "dripping with contempt" from any of it. I suspect you're just not into spunk. The wingnut target-practice she invites on seems to like her just fine, even that astroturf guy she demolished.
And by the way, she's not on our team, she doesn't have to wargame her longterm effects on Democrats' electoral viability. She's a journalist. A real live one! The fact that the potential allies you're so concerned about probably aren't reachable and definitely aren't watching is incidental.
Oh, and Steve, "chickenshit outfit," it's a thing. Pretty sure it refers to military desertion. You're Sully Sullenberger for all I know.
D'oh
Hmm, comedians have not attended. Lazy bastards. Again, the topic is infomercials with major political figures. Here, let me get you started:
"Hi. Is old friend Mikhail Gorbachev with new exciting product: "
Kerry help me out - were you calling me a dick for considering you a woman or for not considering you a woman or for not not knowing or caring whether you are a man or a woman?
WRT Stalin: being so literary i guess you know Stalin is also famous for murdering all other leftists, esp in the Spanish civil war. I was not call you a mass murder, only for attacking a leftist for daring to use the words 'we ought' "without permission from the cominterm".
You attacked me for saying that to discuss R we ought to understand what criteria for judgement we should use, ie what we hope to see her achieve on her show. you trashed me for that, but you proved my point by asserting so strongly that you think she can do whatever she wants and nobody has any basis for expecting anything.
you seem to have no sense of irony in that you seem to be constantly attacking me for the very behavior your words demonstrate, eg making assumptions about who the other is, what they are thinging etc. it seems to me you love to dish it out but you can't take it. Maybe you have a lot more irony and less anger that i perceive - you are way too complicated for me to try to understand.
I sincerely congratulate you for being successful indeed since you have gone so far in the world without feeling any constraint about using gutter language anywhere and everywhere. I do mean that entirely free of irony. In my business experience only the top 1% were good enough to curse and insult with no negative consequences.
Steve, for what it's worth, I think your points have been well taken and there probably isn't any need to parse the responses for stuff that isn't there.
We cool. You cool.
Motherfucker [laughing].
gil, wrt R being a journalist who is 'not on our team', are you kidding me? You really think she does not have a adgenda and does not think about what influence she can have?
I really hate margaret carlson et al not just because they are stupid, but because if they had just been neutral, Gore would almost certainly been elected and the world would have been spared GWB. The folks whose opinions i take most seriously agree that there are consequences in the real world to whether or not the journalists are dickheads. If R has no agenda why does she keep saying 'yea! [for our side]?
I don't know how many people watch R's show, it may be a closed circle but i at least hope that she and keith and jon s and colbert are helping folks move to the left from all kinds of starting points. On MTP, all kinds are watching for sure. The fact that R gets on MTP and on 'influencial comentators' lists shows that lots more than those at or as far left as she is are paying attention to her.
When she is 'on' she demolishes the fools. That is exactly why i cheer for her for moan when she is not on her game. Yeah, she just an ordinary human being but she is one of the most effective journalists for moving opinion back to the left whom i have seen in 40 years. I have been suffering and depressed for so long, pls allow me to get overworked about GG RM KO JS and SC finally coming up and starting to move opinion away from the far right place which has become over years 'the middle'. Please, please, please give them power to influence elections. They have great jobs but are only as good as they are because they do care.
Chris, thanks! Other than yours i did not get white flags from some others who attacked me so i wasn't sure if my points were getting across. I am way obsessive, too. So a thousand thanks for the great advice. I live in a tiny town called North Fork. I have started my own gang i call the NoFoMoFo's and you are definitely an honorary member, dude.
In my business experience only the top 1% were good enough to curse and insult with no negative consequences.
steve schmandt | 10.23.09 - 2:52 am
Yeah, I remember my first job as a Santa Claus at the mall.
*
Well Steve, since clearly no one here has suppressed your right to free speech (criticism is not the same as suppression -- were you absent the day they discussed the First Amendment?) your use of "Stalinist" is still moronic and hyperbolic -- and it's right from the current (and past, and future) wingnut playbook to boot, so it's even more ridiculous and worthy of scorn.
In your "business experience," how far would somebody get who called a co-worker "Hitler" and then said "Oh, it's not because he wants to kill all the Jews. It's just because he told me that last memo I sent made a lot of stupid assumptions."
And you're still a dick. That's not an "assumption." That's a demonstrable fact. Now go cry in the mane of your Persecution Complex Pony.
(And "NoFoMoFos?" My stars. Do they allow such gutter language in those parts? However will you succeed in business?)
Steve writes: I live in a tiny town called North Fork.
Uh, have you looked out the window lately? I think you're under water.
As an aside to you all, "Northfork" is a rare and precious low-budget gem of a movie, and highly recommended for your next Netflixing. For what it's worth, and I can't agree more, Roger Ebert said simply that "there has never been a movie like 'Northfork'".
In your "business experience," how far would somebody get who called a co-worker "Hitler" and then said "Oh, it's not because he wants to kill all the Jews. It's just because he told me that last memo I sent made a lot of stupid assumptions."
At the electronics supermarket "Fry's Electronics", there is an employee stationed at the exit door who examines the baggage and store receipt of anyone leaving.
He is referred to by both his employers and his co-workers as "the door nazi".
Chris, same guy works at Toys Backwards R Us. His job is to make sure no one walks out without paying for the Klaus Barbie dolls.
Kerry, you grossly misread my 'stalin' remark from the getgo.
I did NOT in fact call anybody 'stalin' or 'stalinist' (at least not until you misread me and attacked me for it).
Exactly what i wrote was this:
"if that makes you feel like we are chickenshit, well just what is your model for how the left should interact? Should we become stalinist so that we can avoid chickenshit disagreements? Even tho we we can violently agree on who the enemy is, our pov's can still differ widely."
This was a response to gil's lament about the left wasting so much time arguing. Which is historically ever so true and even now frustrating. i recently read a book review on bio of a US couple who went to Barcelona to organize just before the civil war started. Just from the review i learned new very sad details. That the left was divided and fragmented. That the communists ended up taking power of the Catalan government and then quickly arrested and killed in custody most of the leadership of the other left groups.
The american couple, friends with G. Orwell barely managed to escape with their lives. etc. etc.
With that in mind I said 'well yes, we can spent a ridiculous amount of time arguing amongst ourselves about trivia. painful as that is, the only alternative to consensus building or finding common ground on the left between different philosophies is a quick and forced alignment of all on the left under a single party, i.e that would be 'Stalinist' because that is actually exactly what happened in Russia, in Spain and elsewhere.
Somehow you got that i called somebody here a stalinist, or exactly what you thought i said i can't fathom because i know what i was thinking and what i wrote, and i don't really see how anybody, without jumping to a false reading, has a lot of room to equate what i wrote to teaparty or palin idiocy or whatever you imagine it was,
I take everything very seriously but politics is deadly serious. (not that this chatting is directly connected to the real world in any way, but we're all here because of our politics and ideas are we not)? Facism and Bushism has killed a lot of people. And internectine leftwing politics killed a lot too, just within and among the left.
Sorry, I guess I'm a total idiot for assuming anything of the above level of depth could be alluded to on a thread like this without leading to sudden excalation of heat via absurd misinterpretation.
Clearly I was wrong for dropping into a thread of vigorous argument with neither regard nor understanding of the internal context. I have been reading Hullabloo, GG, watching R and Keith for years without ever discussing with anybody. I always read the main blog but never had time to spent writing anything till i was laid off. So i blunder in like a stupid eager puppy. Thanks for the reality check you gave me Kerry by proceeding to kick me as hard as you could.
You were way over the top aggressive at me from the start Kerry. I did go back and reread the whole thread and i only a very clear level of agression in every way only after my post. eg no f-bombs on anybody else before or after. Say what ever you want but yes "Fuck you" has always been the most agressive phrase in the language.
Kerry, i don't want a flame war with you and i did not start it, no way.
Steve, nothing you're saying makes any difference in the fundamental and historical meaning of the term "Stalinist" and in your hyperbolic application of it. I didn't misrepresent you -- you chose the term inadvisedly, and I called you on it. In fact, you initially seemed to flirt with the idea that you knew you'd get called on it.
Gil was, in no way, advocating that people not disagree with each other, and you deliberately misrepresented him as saying that. Here's the replay:
Gil: "So lemme get this straight: we can't afford to have one segment on the best left-leaning show in any medium fall kinda flat in the eyes of a minority of its viewers (not to mention the people tristero's so worried about, the ones who don't even know when it's on) lest the Republicans return to power?
Liberals have this weird tendency to think that just because a show speaks to them, they get to be assistant producers (see McCaughey on Stewart and associated shitstorm), which would be unseemly enough in and of itself, but it's sorely compounded by the fact that we're such a bunch of micromanaging screwheads who demand the line be toed yet NO TWO OF US CAN AGREE ON WHERE THE GODDAMN LINE IS."
Your response?"gil mann and Larkspur, are you saying we had better not critique R? If we say that even one of her segments sucks then we are in favor of getting rid of her? That's nuts."
And indeed, if that's what Gil had said, it would be nuts. But as anyone with reading comprehension skills can discern from the above, that's NOT what he said.
More from you:
"Also i fail to understand why we cannot have a reasonable discussion about what exactly we see as the aim and audience of the show and of r's career on TV. I agree there may be difference views about that, and in order to judge how snarky she ought to get, we really need to define who we think is listening and what we think her basic purpose is and ought to be. gil man, if that makes you feel like we are chickenshit, well just what is your model for how the left should interact? Should we become stalinist so that we can avoid chickenshit disagreements?"
So -- you started by GROSSLY misrepresenting Gil's argument, and using right-wing framing like "Stalinist" (popular among the Fox News set!) to boot. And then you went right into the assistant-producer-without-portfolio role that Gil identified.
I called you on it, using expletives as modifiers, as is my sometimes-wont on the intertoobz. But at no point in my initial response to you did I call you "chickenshit" or say you were a "fucker." But you went immediately into "MOM! She swore!" mode (hilarious, considering your "I didn't start it!" whine in your last comment), and decided to ignore the substance of my comments. And then you decided, absent any FUCKING proof or knowledge of me whatsoever, to assume that I'm an unemployable high school screw-head, when I am in fact quite the opposite. (Your assumption that I swear all the time is about as intellectually supportable, btw, as assuming that Jeremiah Wright did nothing but denounce Whitey for 20 years.)
So let me understand you: if somebody swears, they are BAD! Did you go to Jesus Camp? I'm serious.
You seem to enjoy feeling sorry for yourself, and that's cool. The Pity Party isn't my favorite way to spend time, but whatever. But if you really don't want to start a flame war, you might want to keep your powder dry and not haul out bullshit adjectives like "Stalinist" to describe "people disagreeing with me on the internet" (much less equating those disagreements with the murders of the Franco regime -- shame on you!) And if you cast aspersions on the employability and lifestyle of people you don't know based on the fact that they enjoy using f-bombs once in a while, chances are good they'll toss it back at you. When you start calling people "crazed foul mouth idiot blogger types," how on earth do you expect NOT to be told to fuck yourself sideways and hard in return?
See, I'm not one of those spineless liberals who crawls into a hole and feels sorry for myself when somebody I don't know says something bad about me. Someone tosses me bullshit, I toss it back.
See, I'm not one of those spineless liberals who crawls into a hole and feels sorry for myself when somebody I don't know says something bad about me.
Boy, I'll say.
Kerry, OK I unilaterally surrender! I was trying to back out of the flame war. I tried hard to back off the personal attacks and move to where we might be able to reach a truce. It's just not possible to back off in one step but I've made my honest best effort.
I walked into an ongoing discussion without being aware of the context and made what i intended as philosophical comments. I had no intention of denouncing anybody. I keep trying to tell you that and yet you remain unconvinced and unforgiving. I've run out of words.
Once i had butted in with some wrong words from the start, well maybe i was just stupid, or maybe i was on the wrong side of a pecking order or like a mid-term entrant to middle school. Whatever the root cause, sorry for all the harsh words, for whatever my sincere apology is worth to you.
Don't be such a pussy, Steve, the 200 comment mark is so close!
Steve, I actually don't have any negative feelings toward you. I don't particularly care one way or another what you think about me, since you're not a person of influence in my life or career -- but given how easily the "Stalinist" framing has been thrown around by the fReichtards this year, I'm perhaps a bit sensitive to that framing being easily adopted by people who are putatively on "our" side. (And yes, making assumptions that people are bad and evil and stupid and unemployable in "corporate America" because they like tossing the f-bomb around in online communiques every once in a while is kinda fatuous and right-wingy, but whatev.)
There is no pecking order here as far as I know. I don't know Digby or Tristero or most leftie/progressive bloggers, for that matter, and I'd be shocked if they give two shits what I think. Which is as it should be. Just as Maddow shouldn't give two shits what we think. Which is, I think, the ultimate point we were trying to make: we're not her producers, bosses, advertisers, or sponsors, so why we think we should have some special influence over what she does or doesn't do on her show is mystifying.
Chris, i was done but i do have one question i'd like to ask you off this forum. If you don't mind, pls email me at schmandt@hotmail.com so i can ask you. TIA.
I'm sorry if anybody got a lot of email they did not want because of me! I'm new to haloscan comments and just realized that it's possible that every post i wrote might have caused emails to be broadcast.
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