This blog is dedicated to the memory of David Weintraub, who took on insidious astroturfers and won.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

The Decline of the [Cornel] West and the Illusion of the Black Moses


His attack on Jesse Jackson—a repetition of the tired trope that the civil rights leader is “addicted to the camera”—is not only lazy, but an exercise in the painful hilarity of irony. West’s back of the book biography states, “He appears frequently on Real Time with Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, Democracy Now, CNN, C-SPAN, and other national and international media.”

West’s own affection for the camera and applause leads him to obliviously betray a double standard in his judgments. Bill Maher, who for all his wit and charm, has almost none of the depth of Hitchens, is not a “sophomoric atheist,” but a “prophetic” one, because he, in the words of West, “has played such an important role in giving me tremendous exposure around the country and the world in his TV shows.”

Most public intellectuals have large egos, but West’s is seemingly so out of control that he has no shame in all but admitting that it is what motivates his evaluations. He treats Louis Farrakhan with an amazing sensitivity, because he has had “wonderful dialogues with my dear brother.” West claims to privately “push him” on his anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia, but none of that comes out in the book. Instead West assures readers that Farrakhan “always pushes me in a powerful way.”

The “wonderful dialogue” is a reoccurring reference for West, who is constantly identifying famous people he has met. Throughout the entirety of Black Prophetic Fire, he seems to use his celebrity to make the amateur error of arguing by authority. He criticizes people without offering evidence, he praises people on the basis of knowing them personally, and he even uses his imagination to make wild speculations. There is a long passage in which he gives a fictional exchange that he believes would have taken place if Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had ever met and discussed the future of America.



Translation: Cornel West is a phony who no longer employs academic rigor in either his thinking or writing, substituting instead an outsized regard for his own self-importance while taking potshots at other blacks of accomplishment (in politics, academia, media and business) with whom he regularly finds fault for not being "authentic and true to their skin colour" while himself becoming a caricature and celebrity-drenched cartoon character who has lost whatever credibility he once held as an intellectual gadfly.

One wonders how much the internet itself has dulled West's mind while riling up his vulgar attack methodology which is employed exclusively against black "brothas" but never against white colleagues such as Bill Maher and (noted Obamabot) Paul Krugman.

#BLM, to which West has made recent symbolic attempts to attach himself, is refreshing and vital because it exists outside the black intellectual elite which is whitey funded and media mainstreamed. #BLM female members famously interrupted Bernie presentations and presciently caused the Bern pause to consider that they had a good point. These female interlocutors inarticulately and rudely exposed the great weakness of Bernie Sander's campaign: his lack of connection to the wider minourity electorate, which whatever you think about it, is necessary for the Bern to address and overcome if he wishes to win the Demotardic nomination.

Cornel West has now jumped headfirst into Sander's campaign in South Carolina, the first in a long string of primary/caucus states where minourity voters are key. He has become the warm-up act for the Bernie Sander's Show in the crucial SEC primary states where blacks make a large percentage of the Demotardic vote (fully half in SC).

The big question for me: why did Bernie go with West, a figure who has demeaned himself in recent years by first playing Obama's lapdog then becoming his harshest critic after it became apparent to West (rather belatedly and naively it seems to me for such a great intellectual) that the first black President was going to govern as the politician that he is rather than the Black Messiah of West's dream world or the progressive messiah of white middle class delusionality?

Will the average black voter respond to what appears to be this self-obsessed egomaniac's harsh negativity towards Obama while pimping for Sanders, who has spent fifty years in lily white Vermont effectively ignoring the problems of the black underclass because there isn't one to be represented in the Green Mountain state?

Ostensibly, Bernie turned to West because he couldn't connect with more relevant, current leaders of the street movement that woke him up from his dogmatic slumbers on teh campaign trail. Besides, #BLM is basically leaderless much like #OWS which it emulates in some respects. #OWS resisted party political activities and #BLM to date has done same.

Or maybe Bernie believes he needs celebrity endorsements rather than "real movement people" endorsements. If so, this implies an inconsistency between the reality of his campaign and his rhetoric. Obviously, lack of consistency is a fact of life in electoral politics. However, aren't the facts of political reality the precise cause of West's condemnation of Obama? Can we count that he someday will also turn on the Bern? Or will he give Sanders a pass much like he does Krugman?

Voting for presidit may in fact not matter to the Black Lives matter contingent. They seek justice which by necessity must first be worked out at the local level. And let's face facts, having the right to vote since 1965 hasn't achieved all that much in changing the grey matter behind the blue eyes of Amerikkka. One bit maybe, here or there. But the criminal justice and economic record speaks the real story for African America. With the few celebrity exceptions like West to prove the rule.

What does seem definite, West here sees an opportunity to keep himself relevant (IE, in front of cameras) "by any means necessary" in coming out for Sanders. And there is nothing wrong with that, except that West tied himself to Obama the same way in 2008 and now is busy burning every Obamabotic bridge that he can torch in the most vituperative, nasty way possible, making an udder fool of himself in the process.

This tainted clown, this sad sack minstrel show, this wealthy media celebrity, will now successfully open doors for Bernie Sanders into the black community, a community that still views Obama whatever his shortcomings as an example of outstanding achievement regardless of his failure to become what he never claimed to be, the Black Moses, instead of the actual herstorical accomplishment, becoming the first African-American president?

Yesterday, West opened for Sanders in S Carolina at a herstorically black college and two more stops. Notably, the audiences (beyond the HBC crowd) were largely white.

The good news: Bernie is getting more exposure and seems to be gaining ground, if the WaPo report accurately reflects the situation. Time and polling, especially post-Iowa and New Hampshire, will tell the story.

Tevin Spruill and Christopher Lewis, two students at Benedict College, said that they had not heard much about Sanders prior to his appearance Saturday but that they were leaving the gymnasium prepared to support him.


“Every single thing he said made complete sense,” said Lewis, 20, a junior majoring in social work.


Spruill said he wasn’t concerned about West’s criticism of Obama, saying it is different to criticize a sitting president than someone aspiring to the job. As for Obama, “he hasn’t done a perfect job, but he’s been a good president,” said Spruill, 21, a music major.

Hopefully, West has now grokked the difference between electoral politics and religious prophecy. Sanders needs champions in the minourity community. His message should resonate with the largely untapped youth movement of all colours (much as Obama succeeded in doing during his campaigns).

However, as the music majour astutely remarked in the blockquote above, there is a world of difference between a sitting president and someone aspiring to the job.

West, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, was once a popular thought leader among African Americans, but his standing has been questioned more recently because of his harsh tone in criticizing Obama.

Neither Black Moses nor Hebrew Moses need apply for the White House job. Different qualifications required. A great intellectual should know that. A smart pol definitely knows that.




85 comments:

donkeytale said...

So now I have completed the DFQ2 smack down of every black "thought" leader considered to be important in the whiteysphere. Tavis Smiley is smacked down in another article I read somewhere. Supposedly, the story goes that West and Smiley (business partners) turned on Obama when he didn't attend/address some conference-type event that Smiley puts on each year.

It also occurs to me that West may indeed have gained his initial fame with a lot of help from editors and ghost writers.

His recent, inferiour work has all been co-authored.

donkeytale said...

"Black men could finally stand up and be men because here's Black Moses; he's the epitome of black masculinity. Chains that once represented bondage and slavery now can be a sign of power and strength and sexuality and virility"

--Isaac Hayes

donkeytale said...

Interestingly enough, in researching this masterpiece I came across statements to the effect that #BLM was created mainly by outsiders---formerly hidden in the closets of the black political/intellectual scene.

Gays and women folk.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Yay! I thank you for this, not that I've read it yet.

I fixed your image. Another thing I wanted to tell you is that whenever you edit your entries, there is a Blogger glitch which stops the links from opening in new tabs. To make them do that, right click once on the links in the edit page, then click change, then click on the open up in new tabs option, then on the o.k., I'm done button.

donkeytale said...

Thanks. If nothing else listen to the LP at the bottom....especially when your GF's in the house.

Tokyo Shemp said...

There's a lot of meat and potatoes to this entry. It is going to take time to decipher. I do see that Noam Chomsky is mentioned in the Daily Beast article. That is ironic or a coincidence or wtf because last night late on Twitter I ended up obsessing on him.

I found this interview of Noam by I think a Canadian news show and the Noamster ripped the dude apart.

The interviewer had the same kind of blank look as that porf I told you about who couldn't understand why I was so wary of U.S. military power.

Noam seems to be rising up the charts the less he attempts to enter the mainstream. Maybe he never did make that effort. I am saying Noam doesn't seem to think there is a need to feed the medium.

I then found that Noam while cynical of Bernster having any chance to win loves the guy and thinks it's greatness what he is trying to do.

Chomsky is defying the fake far left posers such as Counterpunch who push the idea that Bernie is a sheep herder.

Bernie has a legitimate chance because masses of people agree with this radical idea to discuss the truth while saying enough is enough. This is why Nate538wtf dot com keeps moving the field goal posts.

Numbnuts who have been mired in the Bern has no chance camp are forced to discuss Bernie! Sure, folks like Charles BlowHard from the NYT's continue to avoid discussing anything of value like say actual issues, at least he is mentioning the man's name.

And while Iowa and NH shouldn't be allowed to hold the rest of the country hostage, neither should South Carolina. And Hillary continues to act creepy and she got eviscerated by Colbert for her lack of authenticity. There was a lot of truthiness to his schtick. Ugh, wait, truthiness means the opposite of sincerity.

I'll need some time to regroup, read your greatness, reflect, have some lunch, do a little cleaning, reread, reflect some more, maybe get in a flamefest or two on Twitter to warm up my schtick, etc., and then humbly attempt to participate in your highly powered and sophisticated, mailed in political analysis.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I saw your comment mixed in to my waking up looksie at this page.

Patricia Bynes, hush between us, agrees with me with the Hal Turner schtick. She's a smart Black woman politician from Missouri. She linked to some troll who got busted pulling a Neal Rauhauser. She said smething about they arrested him only because of something he threatened about 9/11.

I said that perhaps the MIC appreciated the troll's useful idiot free agent provocateur schtick, but that he crossed a line even they couldn't allow.

She tweeted back to me, "I agree."

If she hadn't, she would have ignored my tweet or co-opted Bernie Sanders with an "I Disagree!" response.

The difference between us and the losers at Twitter and elsewhere is we follow-up in the dialectic tradition. We are not out to provide sound bites in the pursuit of meaningless clicks. We are able to say yes I agree or no, I disagree, and here are the reasons why.

As Bernie would say, "Look, ....."

The dots represent an undetermined response and are symbolic in nature. It is from the rhetorical question family.

Before I continue with coffee and waking the fooker up, the beauty of our attacks on the fake Black man cannot be spun as Breitbartian gibbledy-gloobocity. Our aim is true.

Tokyo Shemp said...

porf =prof. oopsies.

donkeytale said...

I find Chomsky a bit too glib for my tastes. Plus, he isn't really all that and a bag of weed.

And another example of a fale lefty demi-God who has no street cred.

Plus he's old and out of date.

This is actually at the heart of the crit against West:

"The difference between us and the losers at Twitter and elsewhere is we follow-up in the dialectic tradition. We are not out to provide sound bites in the pursuit of meaningless clicks. We are able to say yes I agree or no, I disagree, and here are the reasons why."

Corny is too lazy to provide reasoning. He simply twitters or facebooks his outrage and expects us to accept it because he is a great man. And we're snot.

donkeytale said...

I do give Noam his props for appearing on Diane G's internet radio show at least twice, simply because she asked. Maybe we should reach out to him for a mailed-in entry.

Tokyo Shemp said...

This is fun. Every time I think we're gonna get an off-season within the season, say All-Star week or wtf, new info pours out maintaing the heightened excitement that never happens for Presidential elections.

The only thing that comes close is that Obama as a Black man won. That in itself, putting fake left versus real left issues to the side, was goose bump inducing.

New polls have Bernie kicking real arse in NH and now with a substantial lead in Iowa.

In S. Carolina, Hillster is doubling up on Bernie, but if you add Bern and JoJo, it is a tie.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Oh yes, Noam is cool like that. I can't remember if I met him or not. I don't think I did, but maybe. If not, I did write to him or left a note for him in the department office and then got a letter back from him. He is a regular guy, imho.

I do admit he is overrated. His specialty is linguistics or wtf. It's not like he is from a hardcore social science discipline. Maybe I'm wrong.

You have to admit manufactured consent is up there with the medium is the message for an all-encompassing phrase.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I can tell already this is an amazing entry for content. The best part of it is that we are able to move on from sounding arrogant because we were Hank Williams and Lenny Bruce. If we hadn't, folks would be saying, "Ye think you're better than us? Quit it now with the shenanigans!"

Tokyo Shemp said...

The least I can do for now is spam this and the previous reincarnation schticks to the Twitter machine.

donkeytale said...

I'm a cunnilinguist me slef. Especially after rocking that Isaac Hayes double album all morning (1971 was a very great year for popular music--the Stones and J5-D Ross thingies I posted in June were also vintage 1971).

in fact, I'm going down on the very next slice of watermelon that has the pleasure of getting in my face.

(It's high season for watermelon here in Texas)

http://www.chron.com/business/article/Time-is-ripe-to-buy-Texas-watermelons-1710818.php

donkeytale said...

I believe we are both very well-rounded in our arrogance.

And that makes all the difference.

donkeytale said...

It would be cool too if West popped in and said something like: "stop calling me 'Corny'.

I'd have to back off at that point. Surely, the social media executives on the Sander's campaign are closely following this blog in order to keep tabs on the trending lumpen proletariat zeitgeist.

Hey guys, please pass along a link to this masterpiece to ol Cornrow there in the back of the bus....(haha---J/K)

donkeytale said...

Wow, this is weird. Today of all days....the Black Moses RIP

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2015/09/13/moses-malone-dies-age-60/72201802/

donkeytale said...

I'm dunne.

donkeytale said...

"While Clinton maintains the lead, her support has dropped 21 points among Democrats since July. She has lost ground with most demographic groups, but the sharpest drop has come among women and particularly white women. In July, 64 percent of white women said they supported Clinton; today, it is 31 percent, the same level of backing as Sanders, whose support has doubled among this group."

donkeytale said...

"In a 198-page report to be made public in Ferguson, Mo., on Monday afternoon, the commission lays out goals that are ambitious, wide ranging and, in many cases, politically delicate. Among 47 top priorities, the group calls for increasing the minimum wage, expanding eligibility for Medicaid and consolidating the patchwork of 60 police forces and 81 municipal courts that cover St. Louis and its suburbs.

The commission offers a blunt, painful picture of racial inequity in the region. Black motorists were 75 percent more likely to be pulled over for traffic stops in Missouri than whites last year, the report notes. The average life expectancy in one mostly black suburb, Kinloch, is more than three decades less than in the mostly white suburb of Wildwood, the report finds. And 14.3 percent of black elementary students in Missouri were suspended at least once during a recent school year, compared with 1.8 percent of white students.

We know that talking about race makes a lot of people uncomfortable,” says the report, which is titled “Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity.” “But make no mistake: This is about race.”"

donkeytale said...

More Corn:

http://nymag.com/news/features/cornel-west-2012-5/

Tokyo Shemp said...

You are a better man than me because I would refer to Mr. West as CornBall. Corny could be seen as a virtuous quality referring to classical values of piety, goodness, and retro television. CornBall is a form of banal evil. Maybe I am overthinking this. And for the love of the Godhead, you're linking to something on watermelon?

Dave Chappelle loves Lenny Bruce. He understands.

In The Intruder, made in 1962, they are gratuitous with the N word. This African American woman into religion was offended by that. I was left with nowhere to go as YouTube moderator. It was one thing to scrub on sight overt racist comments. Her reaction fell into the freedom of speech category.

The Daily Beast article is amazing. It wasn't written by some poser. It could have been written by either one of us but with better spelling and paragraph construction.

The Daily Beast has shut off all comments. They have a page explaining their decision. They want folks to discuss the schtuff elsewhere, say on Twitter or FaceBook is still popular, but not to me.

The author has no Twitter page. On his own website he says exactly where he is and that anyone else fronting as him is a fake. That is precisely what I was forced to do. My identity was being stolen well before there was any Kimberlin stuff. Even at Pffugee someone mickey moused around with the spaces and was able to create new socrates. You must remember that. And then the losers doing so and others said Laura, that is also free speech. It' snot.

Rocky Balboa pleaded with Mickey, "What about my prime?" Or in the blogospheric vernacular, what about my free speech?

People will always try to bend the rules.

I am so happy with this entry. What I need to research next is whether the t.v. show Newsradio stole Lisa Miller's identity. Maybe you are thinking, wtf?

It was a great show until Phil Hartman's demise. The news lady running the office was Lisa Miller, the same name in your new link on Cornel.

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0025907/

I will probably have to accept that this is a coincidence.

I must say that the Daily Beast is solid for an internet newspaper. I don't read it often, but in my humble opinion it is not too shabby.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Bernie is kicking arse with young people and independents. The big surprise is that he has pried the woman vote from Ms. Clinton.

There is an episode of Seinfeld where George outright lies to his fiance's parents about having a place in The Hamptons. They don't believe him. This is the problem with lying and especially nowadays with the internet. There will always be someone who fact checks and won't let it go, say with myself who got p'ed off at Poppy Harlow and Lamont Hill for the "all lives matter" smear on Bernie.

Costanza wouldn't relent. He said he was taking it up a notch. He doubled down. Women were hungry for their Obama goos bump moment, the first female president. Bernie is a genius because he leaves Hillary with nowhere to go by not smearing her in the traditional, political fashion. She can't attack him on issues, since she has co-opted every progressive idea of his and people can see that.

The zeitgeist has also left Hillary with nowhere to go. She got exposed for being inauthentic. Her response was to do the one day evolving schtick. She went on Ellen to show her warm and spontaneous side. The problem is her evolving towards authenticity has been inauthentic. That her fat knuckled grasp on the woman vote has weakened implies that something is going on that Nate Silver and most medium elites cannot comprehend.

Phew for the new polls and I hope they are accurate. Bernie needs to clobber Hillster in NH based on the home court perspective. He probably also needs to win Iowa and perhaps by ten plus points. The new CBS poll says this is happening and with five months still to go.

Women must be very disappointed that Hillary turned out to be a paid fake politician. It is good to see that they are not going to vote for someone simply for the goose bumps.

donkeytale said...

The NY Mag thingie also gets to the heart of the matter, altho dated 2012.

Corny is or at least was making $25,000 per speech. And he is or was doing one like every day.

But only to glorify God, of course.

It's only pretty funny the pic of West sucking up to Obama after he made those really vicious comments about him publicly. The bos...I mean Barack ran into him at a social affair an dtore him a new one right out in the open. And West could only smile and suck it up. LOL.

Tokyo Shemp said...

My primary beefs with police are their inability to tell the truth, to leave people alone, and with their slippery ways in getting away with breaking the law.

I sincerely believe a Bernie presidency would be historic and not another fake left letdown. He mentions that it will take hiring the best of the best for his cabinet and stuff like that to go with campaigning nationwide on the state levels to bypass gridlock. I think Robert Reich would make a fine Economy Minister or whatever they're called.

I do not have my best stuff for today's blogging game. Hopefully like a Pedro Martinez without the heater, I can get by with my off-speed stuff.

Tokyo Shemp said...

This was excellent. You are a genius at political blogging. I am more of a social issues, social-psychology kind of blogger. I am looking for patterns.

It is one thing to give an opinion such as Cornel West is full of it. It is quite another to expand on that opinion, clarify it, and then back it up.

Tokyo Shemp said...

“I Want to Be Like Jesus.”

Huh? If he said that, he is some very messed up dude. Krishnamurti would tell him to stfu, while recommending to the rest of us to not follow leaders or parking meters.

donkeytale said...

Methinks you are too hard on Silver simply because he speaks truth to which you disagree. He works with a polling model that will adjust over time to reflect the electoral reality but this is still silly season so polls don't matter. But you are basically dissing him because he isn't feeling the Bern and isn't a fanboi.

Not his gig. And the facts are the facts.

Women can help the Bern. So can his bringing in the non-voters, the independents.

The point remains: without significant black and latino share he's toast.

And I say that believing Hillary is already toast. If I didn't grok it exactly before after her interview where she "apologised" for the email schtick it became abundantly clear: she's just not built for this. She's built maybe for the dough-kneading machine, but that's a different story. Personally she will never be able to connect. TV ain't her friend. Insider DC ain't the place to come from in 2016. Being a crooked influence peddling $100 millionaire doesn't help her either

Biden will be a tougher challenge for Bernie, IMHO and I believe he runs. He's an insider, true enough but he connects on a personal level in a way that Hillary (nor Bernie for that matter) connect. Biden oozes charm.

Bernie is right now in the middle of his most crucial to date engagement.

Trying to connect south of the Mason-Dixon. If he can make it here he can make it anywhere. And i'm just talking with Dem primary voters.

Godspeed Bernie.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Malcolm X was the right man for the job since he grew up in a white man town. He said Elijah was not God, that it wasn't a cult, but that he was a messenger.

He had to be crushed to find out that dishonorable Elijah had a concubine or wtf.

I find that fascinating. I find it very interesting that Farrakhan can outright admit to killing him in the early 90's after having outright threatened Malcolm's lif right before it happened. I'd have to fact check, but it appears he has called for the killing of whities.

It looks to be true.

A kid got arrested from tweeting something very similar. Why does Farrakhan get away with it then?

I think Cornel's support of Farrakhan is his worst sin. Throw in Louis' praising of Scientology and UFO nonsense and I sincerely believe that Louis Farrakhan is on the Military-Industrial Complex payroll.

People can spin me as a kook all they want to, but nothing else makes sense to me. Sure, one could say well Farrakhan might be senile. He wasn't senile in 1965 and we all should know at this point how law enforcement and the Spy Factory operate. They will allow a criminal to remain in society in return for services rendered, from the traditional notion of informing to the now exposed demented Hal Turner program of "flushing out the crazies."

donkeytale said...

Biden is authentic I guess is what I'm trying to say, same as Bernie but his authenticity is more charming and appealing to the run-of-the-mill Amerikkkan TV addict. Biden connects with the Oprah crowd.

donkeytale said...

Malcolm's greatness resides more in the rearview mirror than in the social reality of his time. Nothing wrong with that but he was hated and MLK was also hated much more becausehe was more well known. MLK carried the ball a lot farther in real time. And LBJ pushed him across the goal line.

Malcolm X is an internet phenomenon, the George Carlin of 1960's black liberators. MLK is Lenny. Bet on it. And MLK had more than his share of one nighters. Bet on it.

Not completely sure about his relevance to 2015.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I am talking about the social-psychology of the medium having real-life ramifications. I am not as upset with Silver as I am with Harry Enten.

They are turning this into sports. They keep pounding out that Bernie has no chance. There is too much of this preordained nonsense in print. It is undemocratic. If you can show how the medium does not influence votes, then sure, I'll back off.

Women were so ready for Hillary. Now they aren't. The DINOs are whining about the NYT and others "smearing" her.

I do need to talk less and listen (read) more. But so do the elites in media. People do tend to let others think for them. This is why polls keep saying folks want to vote Bernie but still believe he has no chance.

This is like an NBA season where your team is in it from start to finish. Those suckers go from let's say October to July. That's nine or ten months.

Hillary is the Lakers. Bernie is the Celtics.

We don't have to think about Jill Stein, Martin O'Malley, and whether we should tank for a higher draft pick. We are in it to win it.

When is for example blowhard Harry Enten going to admit that the Bernie surge is not over? Why do so many fake intellectuals keep pushing the idea that the coronation is inevitable? That is extremely undemocratic and if it does influence votes, it needs to be stopped.

On the other hand, Bernie still has five innings left to get to the Super Bowl. If the trajectory holds firm, it could be the best political playoffs in modern history. I am talking Boston-NY 2004. I am talking Flutie scrambling with no time left on the clock and somehow finding Gerald Phelan in the end zone.

I am thinking it is inevitable that Bernie has turned this into at least a coin flip. I could see him winning going away. The repubnuts are soon having their second debate, while the DINO's are enforcing some sort of Jordan rules. They are trying to steal the Finals for the Lakers against Sacramento in I think 2002.

Do Silver, Enten, Charles Blow, who else, uhm, even Mark Lamont Hill said Bernie has zero chance. Do these people along with CNN et al influence voting or not? And if they do, is it criminal? Canada has a law against the media lying. We do not.

Yes, media has the right to their opinions. But perhaps as banks need to be broken up, so does the media. Just because something is legal doesn't make it moral.

donkeytale said...

OK, I can see where you are coming from. However, the media as a whole has also helped to create the Bernien phenomenon. He has gotten nothing but great press IMHO.

Yes, you can take issue with individual bloviators. No problem there. And you are correct: it's never over til it's over.

donkeytale said...

Blaming the media puts you very close to Fairleft territory, however.

The media is treating Bernie with kid gloves. They are much harder on Hilliary in fact.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Yes, Malcolm X is overrated until you get to 1964-65 and his disassociation with the NOI. That is the greatness of Malcolm, that he was willing to die for the truth.

And yes, I agree about the rear view mirror. I have been thinking about that idea more and more lately as I have witnessed these things through videotapes now online.

M.L.K. cheating on his wife to me is not the same thing as Elijah Muhammad. The NOI was all about giving Black people a way out from gambling, hustling, to be able to live an honourable life. It is Wizard of Oz 101. It was some loser playing greatness behind a curtain.

Malcolm X never hurt anyone despite all his talk of standing tall and defending by any means necessary, not possible, as I mistakenly slipped into a comment the other day.

Malcolm X was pure when he died. There was no hypocrisy there.

And Cornel, wow, he chastised Malcolm for having exposed the NOI, something about the need for discretion.

I don't grok that. The NOI was a big, fat lie. On a much lesser level, I experienced the same thing with BradBlog. Hypocrisy is America's #1 symptom and why positive social change never happens or at a snail's pace.

And as you shared with us some Bible words, this has been known for over two millenniums.

I am not too interested in the Republican races. I am not too worried of Trump winning the Finals, but that would be dangerous, no?

I don't think Ben Carson has a chance. He's too milquetoast with his presentation, too soft with his voice. Add that he is a respected surgeon or wtf, fine, but he's got zilch for political experience. I think he is a long-term trolling project to show the world that the Republicans are not racist.

I agree with you Bernie needs more respectable Black people to endorse him. Respectable is probably the wrong word. The rapper Lil B seems to be a great guy, but like you said, he like West is not so-called mainstream. Bernie needs the Oprah vote. He needs people like Kareem and say Van Jones(?), my mind is grasping for names that would help Bernie if they came straight out with an endorsement for him.

Hillary can get all the endorsements from Washington insiders she likes and she obviously has them and you are correct 2016 is not the year where that will help with attaining regular guy/gal votes.

The West endorsement does get Bernie some votes, but it probably also loses him the same number of Black votes. Denzel Washington? Perhaps Oprah is outdated or not powerful or as powerful as she was.

What I'm saying is that I think Bernie needs people to step up to the plate and outright back him. Famous people. I suppose we have to play the same game as the medium which pats their crazy uncle on the back, yet also say he has no chance.

Votes are what count, period. I do not follow Nate Silver and I respect what you're saying that he is simply giving an in real time evaluation, like a ranking system that we know can and does change in all sports.

In a legit democracy we would be discussing issues. Unfortunately society as a whole has yet to advance past the politics as sports analogy.

You say Biden is going to run. I go back and forth with it. Hillary is such a fraud. She said she is open to more debates. That's easy to say knowing that her good cop notion is negated by the bad cop DLC DINO cheaters.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I am not the only one attacking the media and masses of whiners just like me have forced the NYT to publish entries addressing this.

I would not put my schtick anywhere near the fairleft one. Have you seen him lately? I am assuming he is going with the Counterpunch/Jill Stein crowd and probably even attacking Bernie as if he is not much different from Hillary, that he is part and parcel of "Empire."

Tokyo Shemp said...

The Biden decision must come soon. I think the first debate is in about a month.

Tokyo Shemp said...

The only reason the media handles Bernie with "kid gloves" is that they portray him as that crazy uncle who will not be winning. Hillary's best odds are with producing the idea that she is being unduly smeared.

There's a reason why by law we have to replace the car's front glass if it gets a little crack in it from a pebble or whatnot. Or there is an analogy I believe about some Danish dude trying to stop a dam breaking by plugging the hole with his pinkie.

It's obvious that Hillary is in deep trouble. I think what was not obvious is how quickly the small crack in the glass has spread. We saw that with her amazing one day evolving. And you deserve credit for reporting that in real time.

Tokyo Shemp said...

You risk entering the territory of covering all the angles. Say, the Mavs are going to win anywhere from 14 to 50 games. So on the one hand you eloquently discuss the medium as conspiracy, but on the other you say that blaming the medium is some form of fake left posturing and delusion.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Hillary is up the creek precisely because the simplistic right versus left narrative is crumbling. If she could spin this as Andrew Breitbart territory, fine, that divide and conquer approach could work in 2016. But she is getting hammered all over the place and not just by right wing wackadoos.

donkeytale said...

Ah, I think we require a fine distinction in our terminology. The media that we are discussing in the political news/oped context is the content. I am not blaming the content for the problems. Caveat emptor.

The Medium is the Conspiracy is the mechanism itself. The Medium in McLuhan's definition was TV. It possesses its own insidious control above and beyond the mere content. The content is bread and circus. The machine is the prison bars.

For my conspiracy schtick the medium is the internet and its even more total control beyond the content. Totalitarian control.

donkeytale said...

Methinks Bernie needs to enlist an army of supporters, mostly youthful of all colours, to fan out into the communities and proselytise their asses off on his behalf.

Is this possible on short notice? Obama did it. He had more money and party apparatus.

Can Bernie run as effective a grass roots campaign as Obama? Preguntas que buscan.

donkeytale said...

Your schtick is far superiour to fairleft. Obvious. Sometimes you are a tad lazy in thought process and tend to take shortcuts, for instance scapegoat or go extremely one way or other rather than analyse from a balanced perspective.

Mostly, I know that you are smarter than that but I know you love the game itself and you tend to wholly support Bernie here.

Fairleft's is an unintllectual, fascist mind in his black/whiteness

You are more into sports analogies and choosing sides above all else. Which makes it funny when you criticise the media wanting a horse race. Racing is a sport too.

donkeytale said...

Troll Wars 3.5 illustrates my views on the internet medium versus content.

"Today, we mythologise the Steven Jobs, the Google and facebook guys, the people who invented, no, marketed the technology itself, rather than celebrate the writers/artists/musicians who use the technology in a creative way. Some see this as a good result because the technology has tended to deflate and flatten the elitism inherent in the message control by the capitalistic ownership of the printing press, the paper, as well as the costly mass marketing of the physically-produced intellectual goods of yesteryear.

However, those old school businesses also employed people of all socio-economic classes, including the proletarians working the presses, stocking the warehouses, stocking the store shelves, clerking the cash registers, driving the trucks, delivering the newspapers, whereas the replacement industry developed through technology employs fewer people who make more money through stock options, tends to be more centralised and noncompetitive until its technology is replaced by even better, more efficient, even less labour-intensive technology, relying much on college and technical school graduates. As we have seen increasingly in our post modern US economy: the working classes need not apply.

So, you tell me, are we truly better off in the internet age? The answer is a qualified yes/no (depending on the historical perspective developed long after we die), but the price has been steep for so many of the less fortunate who are unprotected from the vicissitudes of technological progress. And for the rest of us, even the fortunate beneficiaries, more of our freedoms have been relinquished, while the pain of being human endures."

http://shadowproof.com/2011/12/24/the-troll-wars-3-5/

donkeytale said...

3.5 is actually my personal favourite of the series

donkeytale said...

I see him on the Graun and Moon of Alabama.

I'm guessing he's not that into Bernie.

Tokyo Shemp said...

You said once how you like how I contradict myself. Perhaps my politics as sports schtick is a variation on Lenny Bruce being racist or why Dave Chappelle was inspired by him. It's not really how it seems on the surface. It only seems that I am being a hypocrite.

Chappelle ended up quitting because when he was busy co-opting my schtick, I mean Lenny's, it was a different time and place. The joke was perhaps not funny anymore or at least after the initial burst of watching say Wayne Brady devolve from his Ward Cleaver persona to that which racists define all Black people as being, thugs and whatnot.

It must be seen as satire when even in one sentence I proposed the idea that we should recognise we are in the fifth inning, but soon it will be the Super Bowl. It's the sound of one hand clapping?

I used to have a Coach/Woody Harrelson schtick based on their characters from Cheers. I love playing the dumbass who gets cheap laughs from morns who think they are smarter than me. It is the ultimate rush. It is a form of pool shark. Don't show them your best stuff, get them engaged, then drop the anchor punch.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I took a peek at that entry. Yes, it was interesting. I would never look at the Rauhauser links you posted, but I admit I used to check out Aaron and Patterico. I was not surprised Mandy ratted me out. I knew almost immediately, probably within a few hours, that it could be misinterpreted. I was expressing my feelings, not an actual threat which could be acted on. What surprised me about Mandy most was that even in October 2011, towards the end game, she told Ron that she thought I was working with Neal Rauhauser. Wow.

I was also surprised that I didn't realise I had been totally used by Breitbart, that I had been plagiarised. I was in a bad way. My mom died in 2006 and I went full throttle into internet addiction. I reached my pre-enlightened stage with BradBlog offering me the opportunity to write for him, of course with his editorial right to nix or promote. Around that same time I found out about Brett Kimberlin. It was my Malcolm X moment finding out about Elijah Muhammad.

I thought maybe I would finally catch a break with the Kimberlin scoop, but of course we now know that was never in the cards. No one cared except for the losers you described in your link.

I did hit a good cycle of writing trying to explain my schtick in late 2011 then midway into 2012. Then we know the shite really hit the fan. You were the first to realise when the overall story had gotten beyond lame. I followed soon after. My friend kept interest in Grouchy and that stuff. By then I no longer cared. And indeed the rewards for any extended interest would never see any profit, let alone I never got any credit except from our good buddy Brother Glenn Beck for the Kimberlin schtick.

One part of your series got the scrub brush. Fortunately I was able to fish it out of cache and repost it here. I thought that was your best article probably because it really didn't have anything to do with me.

The Troll Wars 7.77: Across the Great Divide
http://davefromqueens2.blogspot.com/2012/06/troll-wars-777-across-great-divide.html

I like your Troll Wars series and it is much easier to now enjoy the process since it's not really about me anymore or perhaps never was. It is in the rear view mirror.

I suppose Barrett Brown getting arrested, and yes, he was part and parcel of all that nonsense, that his arrest was like the end of Woodstock. The party was over and all that was left was a big, foul mess. Innocence had died.

It's probably for the best that I experienced all that bullshite. I mean from a spiritual perspective. It led me to ask the deepest fundamental questions. Who am I and what am I doing here? Or maybe that was James Stockdale.

I imagine I am lining myself up for a very nice next incarnation.

And yes, we are definitely not narcissists. I don't think we are even arrogant. I think we are simply confident in our beliefs and with our ability to mail them in.

donkeytale said...

Yes, I recognise that too is my schtick, although I call it "parody" versus "satire."

The schtick theft schtick is timeless. It is the glue that holds us alone together, naturally.

In fact, I need to go back and find the first date of my using "dogmatic slumbers" so we can also put that one to bed before the sun also rises.

donkeytale said...

So, that means Barrett Brown is Altamont, correct?

I guess that makes the FBI the Hell's Angels?

Works for me.

Hell's Angels with Haircuts

Tokyo Shemp said...

I tend to disagree with you on a couple points. I don't think the medium has helped Bernie at all. That's like saying the sky is blue or grey or somewhere in between. They have to cover him and its rarely about any actual issues.

Bernie has developed a grassroots campaign where masses of energetic nobodies are propelling his chances. I think that's been going on ever since he entered the race in I suppose around April.

Yes, there is the medium as message, the main vehicle by which all people are connected in regards to social structure. Unfortunately that medium would be perfect if it were called nature. Cornel West is close to the answer with the word love. But he has pushed that splendid truth into the medium machine. The difference between myself and Cornel is that I admit to being a man caught between myth and reality, a walking contradiction. That is a line from Taxi Driver somewhere. So when I contradict myself it is because I am an admitted mystery. I admit we do not always make sense. Cornel has no clue. He is the opposite of Malcolm X who when confronted with hypocrisy and contradiction took action to change. Cornel acts as if there is no there, there. I saw in the second link that he was also kissing Sean Hannity's arse. Wtf?

I gave Mandy the benefit of the doubt. Once I finally saw she was completely nuts and had hurt me, I set out to correct the narrative. What I have improved at is I tend not to go after nobodies or people low down on the food chain. I like to punch upward.

At the time, she was above me, so I felt no guilt going after her, same as Aaron. But now that I see that both have very pitiful lives, I can only feel pity and rarely go after them anymore. In fact, I feel very sad that Mandy had a devastating health crisis. A guy like Rauhauser I probably don't even feel any more anger towards. He is one very deranged individual ad there is no hope for him at all, ever. Maybe in 15 million years he will have a good life. I would bet it is more likely he does not remain human going forward. He will be reincarnated as a pit bull or wtf, and it will only get worse after that.

So while I'll be smoking spliffs and pulling all-nighters with Alan Watts, Hank Williams, Judy Holliday, and Dave Chappelle in the year 2525 in future incarnations, others will not be so fortunate.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Yes, Altamont is a better description. The mess that was left after Woodstock, the original, whoop-de-doo. Altamont said it all. Hippies or I suppose the tough guy hippie edition hires Hell's Angels and someone gets killed. No Kumbaya there.

Tokyo Shemp said...

The killing of G.I. Joe is the kind of story where I say wait a fricken minute, keep covering that mf.

There's a lot of weird stuff with it, but unless one is from Illinois or a loser like me googling the Chicago Tribune, the story is nowhere to be found. What a joke. The national cable news people hammed it up as being the big story, cops being ambushed.

An ex-cop just got arrested for making threats against an assortment of people. He will probably serve time in the clink when he should be given a therapist. He wants the ptb's to rule it a suicide. No, it wasn't that. I think, and this is schtick theft because I saw someone else proffer the idea, that G.I. Joe was accidently killed by another cop or two.

Blogger spell check has turned to garbage. I don't mind that they give me the Johnny Cash for using Brit spelling, but when they claim accidently isn't a word, that is an injustice.

How isn't it?

I was going to link to a G.I. Joe story, but instead I found a different story that included the same police and I believe coroner. Those guys are apparently running their own version of numbnuts versus breitbarts or Hillary versus Trump.

This girl got the Gitmo interrogation routine by the cop who gives all the press conferences on the manhunt for G.I. Joes two whites and one Black dude.

This is from 48 Hours. I doubt it will remain forever, so I think I will watch it now. The young woman apparently railroaded was Melissa Calusinski.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b33X1QA924

Police should not be allowed to lie. It's the same with the military. I repeat two phrases quite often: legitimation crisis and constitutional crisis.

That's what this is. And I believe we can take any one story and it tends to be part and parcel of everything that is wrong, from dumbass police, to your schtick about by any means necessary stay out of the criminal injustice system, to how the media is not doing its job.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Okay, it is not a numbnut versus breitbart story. The coroner is Thomas Rudd and he seems to be extremely competent and into the truth, something police are not known for.

Tokyo Shemp said...

"Dr. Rudd is an unbiased scientist who does not necessarily give the Lake County politicians and dirty cops the diagnosis they want. He gives them the truth. We are honored to spend this hour with Dr. Rudd."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0mGys2WLc

donkeytale said...

Powerful essay in the Atlantic Monthly by Ta-Nehisi Coates

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/

Sad-clown Corny (of course) doesn't like Coates.

West is a joke. Bernie would do himself better to gain Coates' endorsement.

Just sayin

donkeytale said...

Linky thingie to the Sad Clown's spiteful ego tripping

http://observer.com/2015/07/cornel-west-delivers-blistering-takedown-of-ta-nehisi-coates/

donkeytale said...

Mr. Dyson suggested that Mr. West listen to “the great Ludwig Wittgenstein,” who said: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

Tokyo Shemp said...

Hey Mr. Watermelon I mean Reefer Man, I just pimped your schtick over at Twitter while including Mr. Coates in the tweets. I also just watched an amazing interview with Bernie on MSNBC by Andrea Mitchell. He done good.

I also got feedback from Erin Moriarty of CBS News confirming my above reporting on the outstanding coroner performing his duties on a level of Klugman's Quincy, M.E.:

Yes. He did nothing to hurt investigation. He did his job.

Cab Calloway from a W.C. Fritos movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPkPyVYp6ik

donkeytale said...

Very familiar with the Cab Calloway movie schtick, without looking is it the Big Broadcast of 1938?

Don't no bout no reefer because Cab was into the harder stuff, at least from an entertainment perspective.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnt6zCDO73M

Not to mention, Minnie the Moocher and her bf Smokey, who always got a little cokie.

And of course by Watermelon Man you are referring to the late, great Godfrey Cambridge in the Melvin Van Peebles classic? Nice....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_Man_(film)

Tokyo Shemp said...

I know there was a song Watermelon Man because we used to play it for the pep band. I only mentioned that because you first brought up the food item. No, the movie was called International House from 1933.

Aaaah, looksie here....

A Pro-Clinton Super PAC Is Going Negative On Bernie Sanders
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-jeremy-corbyn_55f73339e4b00e2cd5e79e11

Dude, the Clinton Campaign thinks they can pressure me into staying quiet. They think they have left me with nowhere to go.

FRITOS IS NOT AFRAID

This nonsense about Bernie supporters being racist pigs and telling Blacks how to vote is total bullshite.

I am thinking of making an entry on this. They have generated useful idiots to run with this idea. I found an idiot yesterday who no way on earth is the person they claim to be. It is either Neal Rauhauser or might as well be. No, not everyone is Neal. You know what I mean. It's called dirty politics and they are the kind of people you had to have noticed at DKos during previous election cycles.

I smell a rat, dude. I'm channeling James Cagney.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Okay, I don't have to blog on it. This person writing for HuffPo and Salon hates Hillary too. She does think Bernster is the establishment. She is a lazy thinker. She is the Black version of Fairleft, but at least she is dedicated to Black human rights. Though Fairleft I suppose gets some brownie points for sticking up for the Palestinians?

donkeytale said...

Not following all the connections here. I get Slimeball Brock's super PAC doing the Clintonian style dirty work while Hill remains conveniently quiet.

I view this as a positive because it will heap more dirt on Hilliary and is so old school lame. The attack reaches like GOP delusional flimsiness of argument that everbohdee kknow reflects Hill's desperation and being out of touch. Wouldn'tbe surprised if Bill is somehow encouraging this attack. It is so 90s.

Time for the gloves to come off especially as it highlights Clinton dated slime and nothing oozes quite like David Brock.

Plus Bernie already punched back hard without going directly after 3x F HRC herslef.

It's all good from my vantage. Watch her polls sink. Bernie needs to play this one up like Ali with a clean shot at Frazier's melon.

Here comes Biden. Game on.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Biden Yes. Biden no. He can't make up his mind. Today the tea leaves said no. Yesterday or tomorrow it may say yes, then the next day no, on and on. I saw a clip saying he may wait until November to make the decision. That means he would miss the first debate. The analysis said he is waiting to see about the Hillary scandals, to wait to see if Bernie has truly caught fire. There's no way to truly know.

And that's the way it ought to be in a democracy.

Yes, the more Hillary goes old-school and does the evil laugh with the pile of super delegates in her back pocket, the more it backfires.

People at HuffPo figure this was a test run to see how smear tactics might play.

Bernie left her with nowhere to go with his good guy approach to politics.

The political ops and useful idiots then say Bernie is always smearing her and this is fair play.

All Bernie is doing is telling the truth. If that is a smear, then we are playing by MajorFlaw's DKos rules.

Okay, one troll I found yesterday does not seem legit. You are busy, so I won't go nuts trying to prove it. It seems to be a paid fake.

Today, and again I won't link to it, because it is just more of the same. This woman writer seemed to be very similar in attacking Bernie. She thinks Bernie is establishment. She sees no difference between Bernie and Hillary.

But she also hates Hillary and does not hide from the things we say about Hillary being bad for Black people.

It was a false alarm.

I sent Brockiepoo a few tweets and they were not the typical supertroll posts. They were real and raw. As in I am not holding back from letting you know (you = Brock) that you are scum and garbage. It was stereotypical anger, but to me, it was real. I hate him so much and felt the need to tell him.

It wasn't entertaining. It wasn't John McEnroe whining about Tennis calls during his playing days.

It was raw anger.

Dave Brock works at Media Matters. Yes, I see he was also a right wing loser back in the day, maybe smeared Anita Hill.

I hope the vast majority of voters aren't stupid and that everything is finally backfiring on ptb's.

Isn't it interesting that Brock is from Media Matters which is part and parcel of the NetRoots?

Hamsher was part of that but on the fringe and I think she broke off.

I am not talking about the chumps who visit those "unite blue" netroots affiliated websites. I am talking about the creeps at the top.

So perhaps all these years of complaints against fake left by not just us but everyone, our diaspora milieu, has paid off.

It's exciting with much material for us to write, but that takes time and effort which we both don't always have.

And the G.I. Joe cop ambush story is remarkable and I hope you noticed that the CBS reporter agreed with me. Meaning that was probably friendly fire and the reason why the whole week of manhunts and press conferences were old school agitprop or wtf, propaganda.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I'm on fire at Twitter with gems like this:

I'm not grokking donkeytale's take that George Carlin was not funny and stole Lenny's schtick. He forgets that I was there.

donkeytale said...

I'm thinking a Biden run, yes. He's gaining ground too. A three way works best for the Bern, and Hill looks like the full collapse could be on. She doesn;t seem to be having fun. She's not in her element.

Sorry, I'm blank on GI Joe story. Cant keep up. It may get worse for me before better.

I did read up on Coates. His dad was a black Panther who ended up working at the Howard U library so Te-Nehisi got a discount to attend....but never graduated, a non-elite regular guy. I haven't yet determined his feeling about the Bern but West doesn't like him because he won't rake Obama over an open fire. Toni Morrison praised Coates schtick and West even went off on her..

donkeytale said...

Carlin was a semi-funny network TV stand-up schmuck.

Lenny was a groundbreaking genius of the age.

Not even a slight comparison can be made except by people who weren't there. Your bubble boy butt is showing on this one.

donkeytale said...

Although to be honest, I haven't read your twitter in a week or so thus not sure what it is you are trying to express. No doubt something wonderful and groundbreaking in a way that Carlin's ersatz schtick never was.

donkeytale said...

If you google the words Carlin and overrated you will get about 70 million results, mostly on target, such as this:

"I’ve read Albert Goldman’s racist, sexist, and homophobic biography, Ladies and Gentlemen: Lenny Bruce! At one point it mentioned that a young George Carlin was arrested for obscenity along with Lenny Bruce. “Wow,” I thought, “this guy must be really hardcore.” Some of my nerd-snob friends already were talking about George Carlin, quoting lines of social criticism that were quite poignant. I decided to download his discography. This was around 1999.

I started with his first albums from the 70s. The stuff was really tame. It was stoner “observational humour.” Jerry Seinfeld, if he was a hippie. For example, he has a routine about being stoned in a supermarket. I already hated Seinfeld, and hated him more now that I realized that he wasn’t truly a pioneer of that hack brand of comedy. Carlin’s early work is all observational humour. And observational humour tends to suck.

I watched an A&E Biography about George Carlin, and it described how Carlin started his career as a really square kind of comedian. Suit and tie. Playing to middle-aged people from the 60s. Not the cool 60s we remember, but the 60s that still believed they were in the 50s. The biography went on to say eventually Carlin adopted the hippie movement, lost the suit and tie, grew his hair long, and started being a radical. Listening to his albums from the 70s, I can tell you that Carlin was not that much of a radical. Just because he talked about doing drugs doesn’t mean his humour was hardcore. It was silly stoner humour.

Of course his most famous routine from the 70s is “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television.” This bit is better than most of his other bits from the time, but if you get down to it, it is just an excuse to say a lot of dirty words all at once. It is also highly derivitive of a Lenny Bruce routine. Lenny Bruce arguably died to fight censorship. George Carlin didn’t even go to jail. He just got famous."

And no, I don't find Seinfeld funny either

donkeytale said...

linky thingie

http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-george-carlin-%E2%80%94-overrated/

Tokyo Shemp said...

I concede nothing. Nothing is off the table. You're trying to compare DeAndre Jordan to Shaq. It's unfair from the onset.

Yes, everyone can see Carlin in his fancy suits. It was his early Beatles schtick. Carlin evolved. Have you read his books. I had one of them. I forget the name. It was pretty good.

Wny do people feel the need to attack Carlin for not being in Lenny Bruce's league? Weren't they friends? Doesn't it only seem he co-opted Bruce's dirty language schtick?

There was that show Battlestar Gallactica. There was another one I think Space 1999. Of course those were ripoffs of Star Trek which would ironically rip itself off for decades to come.

There are degrees of co-opting.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire did very well. Then Fox with Chuckles Woolery did a show called Greed.

No one's saying Carlin was the greatest thing since sliced bread was invented.

Jesus, there is something about a ninth grader being arrested for bringing in a home made clock. He seems to be some kind of science nerd. I'm not attacking nerds. I am half-nerd. Though also half-hippie. But this is what do they call it, a digression?

Let George rest in peace. And of course there's no word from you about a true Nazi such as Denis Leary completely stealing Bill Hick's schtick in plain site. And Hicks is from Texas. You should be plugging that kid early and often.

I agree with you in regards to Jerry Seinfeld. It's weird funny. You bend over backwards to protect your precious Obama and his capacity to move the football five yards and better field position for before the punt. But a guy like Carlin who if you read his books and listen to his politics, WAS YOUR ALLY, oh my god. WAKE UP, my friend.

Okay, I'm not a big fan of the capital letter schtick.

I have already socratised this. Seinfeld was greatness mostly because of Larry David and Jason Alexander. Jerry deserves credit for improving as a comedic actor over the years, and I suppose racist Kramer too, but overall Jerry would barely make the top ten list for funniest characters on that show.

Jerry turned into a Cal Ripken or Carl Yastrzemski padding stats.

Tokyo Shemp said...

You would know full well about G.I. Joe if the major cable networks didn't stop covering it. It was a huge story. It was entering Eric Frein or those New York prison escapees territory. Or Dorner. Until it turned out it was a fake story being used to propel the idea that cops are being ambushed because of all the rhetoric I mean truth about cops being arseholians.

The fancy CBS reporter I mentioned had done a previous 48 Hours investigation on the big name cop who was front and center for the G.I. story. She grokked what I said about maybe G.I. Joe was killed by another cop. It's an interesting story. I appreciate there are a million stories in the naked country and we can't follow all of them.

And for our purposes anyway, the Super PAC story from yesterday is much more important than either one of us trying to grok the other's personal hobby horses. I feel your pain.

I am pretty sure Trump was drunk off his ass yesterday. I really don't care about him. It's interesting that he still leads the Republican race and apparently there is not one normal Republican to step in his place as a new front runner. That to me is the story of Trump and that the networks are paying him too much attention.

If they gave Bernie the same amount, then Biden possibly entering the race would be like you say. It would probably only hurt Hillary. Now I'm not so sure. Though early on I did say Biden could hurt Hillary most if he enters.

That was then, this is now.

It's weird. I hope Rachel Maddow isn't correct with her prediction there could be a Biden/Warren ticket. I want to believe in Warren. But that would be such a cynical move. Why not join Bernie's ticket? Why can't Biden say you know what, I am not ready to run or I can't just run because Hillary sucks and my son told me to do it. Why can't Biden and Warren support Bernie's candidacy instead?

On the other hand, it would make for a more interesting campaign race. Chafee and Webb might as well drop out now. O'Malley staying in the race might help himself in future elections, like didn't Reagan run four or five times before finally being coronated? Nonetheless, O'Malley is not winning the nomination.

I think the repugnants are debating again tonight. Who cares? Cable news cares. They look like idiots. Everyone with at least a peanut sized brain can see this election is about Hillary versus Bernie. If Hillary is coronated, then yeah, I think it could get ugly for America and she could lose to a Republican. I've seen it before. Romney was Governor of Massachusetts. Scott Brown got Teddy "Ballgame" Kennedy's seat before Liz showed up.

Shite happens and it can be negative shite change. Shite happening can be negative or positive. It's the same with supertrolling. Sometimes it works. Sometime snot.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Some political reporter on MSNBC just used baseball grass for an analogy about tonight's debate. I would have used golf. Maybe just find a lawn mover, cut the grass and make it fair for everyone?

I've known a long time about how ludicrous it is for the mass media to turn politics into a sports analogy. I bet there are a million results for this idea too. Like with hypocrisy and how you cited Jesus or someone claiming to know him. The idea of hypocrisy is not a scoop. Reports on hypocrisy will always be derivative to the original observation.

Jerry Seinfeld was a mediocre hack, imho. It's unfortunate he gets too much credit for that show's success. It was all Larry David. Bet on it.

But I'm repeating myself.

If Ben Carson could get himself a speech coach, he could win that other nomination.

I think the next President is Bernie or Hillary and that it would be a very different outcome for our country depending on which of the two is the winner and who is the loser. I just co-opted Trump.

The Republicans are certified nutjobs. This is why Hillary has been ignoring Bernard until recently. There was a coronation on the schedule and she was already looking forward to the Finals and forgot about the regular season. She ass-u-me(d).

So for examples Bernie says he voted against the Iraq War and for gay marriage and doesn't take Super PAC money. There are many more examples, but those suffice for wrapping up this mailed in comment. The Hillary side calls those smears. They say that Super PACs can say what they want to and it is independent of Hillary. Well, she needs to clarify her position on this new story. Does she say that was wrong? Is she ignoring that it happened? How is Bernie telling the truth smearing Hillary?

As I tweeted another time recently, this election is going to allow us to calculate the numbers of and scope of automatons.

If Bernie can't win this and Hillary does, how can one not be cynical for the future? Wouldn't it be nice to have a political revolution? Is it even possible, as Bernie conceded to Katie Couric a month or so ago?

Yes, we will always need people hitting the streets, etc..

But I do not want to live in a perpetual Fairleft/Counterpunch angry sad sack playing ground. I would love to live in an ideal world or fricken close and would then happily shut down the scorching, seething, mad as heck/not taking it anymore socratisation project.

Tokyo Shemp said...

This is going to sound arrogant and borderline narcissistic, but I truly believe in a sarcastic manner that our collective schtick is the underlying dynamic steering the medium.

Tokyo Shemp said...

"He forgets that I was there."

I'm surprised you didn't grok that I was supplying inside baseball in regards to the incarnation schtick. It wasn't really an attack on your stated platform position that Carlin wasn't funny. Grow up.

Tokyo Shemp said...

All pretentious bloggers including ourselves need to listen to this man's wisdom.

Charles Bukowski on dying and how to write
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTPxWkBgW6U

Tokyo Shemp said...

Don't jump the McGillicuddy shark?

donkeytale said...

This may have been your most cogent series of comments since the earliest era of Vagina Dialogues on the original DFQ. Or maybe I was just incredible moved by the essence of your schtick, which I agree is the fulcrum around which the pulsation of life expands and contracts against the outer limits of the void.

I'm not sure where to start to parse your wit and wisdom but I will say this: give me Bukowski over Lenny or Carlin every day of the week.

Here's the thing: I did grok your allusion to having been Lenny.

Of course, what you must concede is that even if you are the reincarnation of Lenny, which I admit is as possible as anything else in this mirrored funhouse of nothingness which we tend to call "life", the fact of the matter is that "you" were not there. "I" was there or at least I was somewhere on the face of the Earth. I guess Lenny passed through LA at some point, so were probably within at least 20 miles of each other.

Likewise, "I" was not there when Hank claimed the blues for the white man and like a bird over the prison bars had flown but my momma and daddy were there.

My momma even saw Sinatra singing live in a movie theatre during an intermission of a matinee one time. He was singing with some big band before he became a super troll. I forget which one.

The interesting thing to me is that I actually don't give a crap about lenny, or George or Hank, but I give a crap about you.

In this life and only in this life. Our molecules may never combine into a physical mass but our bullshiite will endure for as long as their is electricity.

I am a firm believer that post modern social reality descends directly from the 1920s.

Nothing that may have existed before the 20s is coherent to our frame of reference.

The earth was a dark void and the primordial seas encompassed all being before then.

donkeytale said...

"People my age, I don’t know who they are – I don’t know them, any of them, anymore. But when I get a chance to hang out with the future, I feel pretty good about it."

Garrison Keillor

donkeytale said...

True story. My daddy passed away on my previously deceased momma's birthday.

Why does stuff happen?

The anniversary of that day is coming up soon.

It gets sadder with each passing year.

I listened to a Merle Haggard song on Youtube the other night that got me to thinking about them and bawled like a baby for a good ten minutes.

I'm even getting emotional just typing this comment.

I'm pretty sure I caused both of them more pain than any parent should be made to endure and both died not fully understanding how much I loved them.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I'm currently watching "Bukowski: Born into This," a highly rated 2003 documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuTJB3GbF80

Some people are greatness or good role players whether we accept it or not aesthetically. John Cassavetes fits into this model. This is a topic for young college students pulling all-nighters. What's your favourite music and books? What's the meaning of life? Are you going to smoke it or pass it?

Everyone should be able to go to college or not depending on choice. For the latter, they should be able to pick a trade or something that will allow them to find work and live a dignified life.

Bernie is special in that he doesn't believe in growth for growth's sake. He sees that there is a disconnect between the Dow Jones rising and masses of people struggling.

He has shown that there is a big demographic of voters that transcends race, gender, sexual orientation, nitty-gritty differences in beliefs and culture, etc.. He articulated this in the wayback machine interview concerning Reagan Democrats. He articulated this recently in his guest lecture at Wingnut Liberty University. Now that was funny. That school forces the Ned's and Nellie Flanders matriculating to attend. They can take the Kim Davis exemption once in a while, but I suppose many already took it or figured what the heck; that I am so strong in my evangelical values that Mr. Sanders cannot possibly threaten them.

I may have to quit Twitter or not use it like I have been doing. I mistook David Brock for David Brooks of the NYT. I also ass-u-me(d) the Black writer for Salon/HuffPo was being a useful idiot for the Hillary coronation.

We can write garbage here and then on the same page correct it. One can't do that at Twitter or at least not in a way that truly cleans up the mess. Not everyone is reading someone's tweets in order. Individual tweets are thus extremely susceptible to being taken out of context. This hurts the sincere individual who does not want to scrub potentially embarrassing or otherwise idiotic comments.

Old-school blogging forums such as this one or the soapblox world where we first met allow for such ignorance and then opportunities for redemption.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Many months ago I got this idea for a blogging project. The point of departure was going to be the roots of psychopathy. I think it often boils down to a sensation of being trapped with no chance of redemption. It is akin to the feeling of well, if you are going to label me as a supertroll, I might as well get my money's worth.

It's interesting that you brought up your parents and then mentioned the 20's as the start of a new historic era we are now participating in. I agree. McLuhan seems to have overthought things. Okay, the Gutenberg Press was a huge development. Maybe he didn't dwell on it. I hope not.

Education has become commodified. The good teacher will present such information as a gift and not a burden. I mentioned the Enclosure Acts as a big turning point and it was. The key is to add in the disclaimer that this is not rocket science. Otherwise, students will not comprehend the point the teacher is trying to communicate. They will not realise that sleepwalking through life is not a good option.

There should be a common core of knowledge. This concept has been commodified by Teach for America and the charter/voucher school movement. Inspiring and motivating young people in a democracy should not be serving the interests of big business and military.

The good teacher will make such learning fun and painless. He or she will not force-feed important info concerning such topics as feudalism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the political revolutions. They will not force-feed the impact of railroads and technology such as the telephone and radio. They will give students the room to breathe while covering such topics.

I found your personal blogging above interesting. Today I woke up at 3 a.m.. The Republican debate was so boring, I shut it off for a nap which turned into a decent sleep session. My grandfather used to wake up early like this. He is how I came to learn of Lawrence Welk and warm milk. As the youngest, I was unable to have as much time with him as would have been nice. My folks got divorced when I was ten. I had the kind of dad who was garbage. He pretty much disowned us. So the grandfather was a good role model for a male.

It was not easy growing up with my mom playing both roles. Yet, I was also fortunate to have grown up in an age where the stigma of divorce was waning.

The nitty-gritty of the 20's perhaps being symbolic of a fundamental shift in the medium is the sort of thing I find fascinating. This thought is similar to our agreement that something went wrong for a conclusion of a different era with Altamont.

I should really try to track down exactly what McLuhan meant by the rear view mirror. That might mean going to the library. But none of us should feel obligated to do anything. It may or may not happen. I'll probably, if I get to it, try to see if what's on the internet is sufficient.

I'm thinking of how we were taught about Malcolm X in high school. The kids today are so lucky. I never had the chance to see much of him on film. Through Youtube one can truly witness for themselves who he was and what he was saying and not just what Alex Haley put together. Perhaps this is what McLuhan was trying to share for wisdom and an educated prediction in regards to the rear view mirror thesis lifted from Alan Watts.

Tokyo Shemp said...

David Brock has some serious hair issues. He looks ridiculous. I am on google and google news to be specific. There are a lot of current links. This would be a timely topic to cover. I noticed him a week or so ago whining about the NYT's coverage on Hillary Clinton. Then this Super PAC stuff emerged a couple days ago.

I like what I wrote above in the two comments and will not force-feed anything on this specific topic. I am going to try to read some of the news articles and opinion pieces and maybe even watch some of the Bukowski documentary.

The sun has yet to rise.

I appreciated your linking in real time to the NYT's article on Hillary's email hypocrisy and miraculous one day evolving. I returned the offer by supplying the story of Brock's Super PAC memo smearing Bernie Sanders.

In a perfect blogging world, especially during the heart of the political season, such posts are commendable and helpful.

There are a million easy blog entries to be made. One could cover this story along with a flashback to Markos Moulitsas' similar starving the oxygen/payola controversy. I am speaking of patterns.

Tokyo Shemp said...

There is a big difference between co-optation and social reconstruction.

What Denis Leary did to Bill Hicks was outright theft.

McLuhan didn't steal from Watts. He did what is called an exegesis. One doesn't reinvent wheels. The true scholar outlines and then reflects on what the previous thinker produced. It is called a social reconstruction.

A philosophy professor taught the wheel part. That was for an Irish course covering Descartes, Hume, and Kant. I picked up the other stuff from social theory.

Young students should keep this in mind say when they come across a series of letters from famous people and thinkers. It is a form of the medium. What myself and donkeytale are doing is a variation on that.

And the student's job is not over once they have socially reconstructed a historical person's greatness, i.e., their contribution to herstoric academia.

They must add to it taking it further. They must wake the fock up and stop accepting being told what to think and how to live.