Tom Scocca at Slate poaches on Taibbi territory with a post smacking Tom Friedman’s latest idiocy: “How Will China Reckon with the Freewheeling Opinions of Its (Government-Employed) Netizens?”:
Like the Great Firewall, this mass sock-puppetry campaign is an open secret with a catchy name: the paid apologists are called the “Wu Mao Dang,” or Fifty-Cent Party, after the purported going rate (in Chinese currency) for each pro-government posting.
__
Again, this is not an obscure fact, except to Thomas Friedman. The policy of paying for Internet commentary is so well known that it has backfired, so that writers who express too much enthusiasm for the government are dismissed as paid plants. Fifty-cent banknotes have become a metonym for official deception; earlier this year, during an appearance by a provincial propaganda official at Renmin University, a protester threw 50-cent bills at the stage.
__
Can Friedman be that oblivious? Maybe the best-selling pundit is making a subtle and powerful point here. On first read, there’s no obvious connection between Friedman’s “BEIJING” dateline and the content of the column. More prepacked opinions from the globe-trotter, as usual. But by omitting any mention of the sensitive subject of the Fifty-Cent Party—or of online censorship at all—he’s capturing the authentic tone of the Chinese Internet.
Another area where America is falling behind China in properly utilizing modern technology! Why can’t the failed Obama Administration seize this bold, outside-the-box opportunity to announce a “Full Enough Employment Program” where bold Real American(tm) bloggers will be paid for pro-government posts, comments, and tweets? Just setting the proper market-competitive rates and guidelines for ideological purity would keep many newly-minted MBAs in Starbucks and iPads, not to mention the enormous potential of all those untapped MFA hipsters…
Daddy-O
The Yellow Menace! Don’t they know we have a dozen times more nukes than they do? They’d better tread lightly…or else.
I’m done now.
Amanda in the South Bay
Bringing up Friedman when I’m not even fully +1 is going to make me a +2 pretty fucking quickly.
Omnes Omnibus
Would this be anything like sweet, sweet Soros money? What is the insurance plan? How soon can take my vacation days?
Daddy-O
I mean…this thread is making my head hurt. I jumped from the one directly below, about MASTURBATION…and now I have to come up with a funny, intelligent witticism? About foreign policy and infrastructure?
It’s tough being a liberal these days.
arguingwithsignposts
friedman needs to talk to a few more cab drivers on his way past McDonalds ™.
Ailuridae
Fightin’ Joe Biden is on Rachel right now kicking ass and reminding me why he was my horse in the 08 campaign.’ I’m glad he’s in the White House even if it isn’t quite the amount of influence I had hoped he would have.
El Cid
I’m really glad someone else reads that worthless piece of shit so I don’t have to.
My god, in a nation of 300 million people our billion dollar news have astounding numbers of truly insightful people to draw on; instead, they choose to fill up their pages with lazy, deceitful, pompous hacks.
El Cid
@arguingwithsignposts: The World Is Fat.
MikeJ
@Ailuridae: He certainly is articulate.
scav
@Daddy-O:
Yeah, bit of a stretch, but let’s think a little on what we’ve got available for continuity purposes. We’re good, we can do this. Sock: Sock puppet used before or after their potential use in the more traditional masturbatory practices (note additional bridge to journalistic masturbatory practice). Throwing bills at people and on stages is more tied to stripping and pole dancing, but there may be something to pull in with prostitution and poll-dancing if we’re clever. I don’t have time, I’m out of alcohol in my immediate environs.
Anya
Is anyone watching Rachel Maddow show? VP Biden is kicking butt. I really love Joe Biden. He is fabulous.
jrg
I had no idea what it was like to use wifi to connect to a server in India from a Starbucks in Chicago-O’hare until I read “The World is Flat”.
Friedman is a brilliant man, who in no way parrots conventional wisdom, or comes to realizations that many in the tech industry came to five years before he did. That, and his tremendous mustache is why he gets the big bucks.
arguingwithsignposts
@Daddy-O:
well, to be honest, this one is about a form of intellectual masturbation as well. (friedman’s that is)
4jkb4ia
Today I engaged in phonebanking for the Carnahan campaign. Although Carnahan’s positions are extremely generic and will offend no one, I am mystified that the ability to defeat Roy Blunt has not made people on the national level more enthusiastic. However the Republicans in Congress behaved, Roy Blunt was there. He was the leadership. He was also the K Street liaison when he was deputy whip. And he is boasting about his role in FISA Amendments Act as one of his key legislative achievements (he was the “lead negotiator”. From the FISA document dump I recollect that he got Republicans together and helped them answer questions) All of this should be enough for a contribution from eemom to the race :)
arguingwithsignposts
@jrg:
ftfy
Martin
@Anya: I agree. I love his tendency to be over-honest.
Martin
@4jkb4ia: I think the attitude so far has been any Dem not leading by at least 5 is hosed. Carnahan isn’t trailing by much and Blunt is under 50%.
I don’t think there’s much room for the GOP to get energy into their voters. The Dems have quite a bit more. If that LV model can move in the Dems favor, a lot of these races can really move.
I think the Tea Party has done a remarkably good job at GOTV for the primaries, but at a handful of races at a time concentrated solely on the base, that’s an easier task than doing it in the general. The Dems by comparison are quite good at flooding the zone on the big day.
Thanks for volunteering.
Jess Sane
There’s another nation I know of, that pays people to defend its government on the internet. Thomas Friedman used to live there.
El Cid
Here in Georgia, Republican governor’s race candidate Nathan Deal just revealed to be $2 million in debt, but it was to invest in his daughter’s failed business. (He’s going up against former governor Roy Barnes.)
If this was a Democrat, it would be very harmful, perhaps fatal to the campaign.
With Republicans, I’m sure this will make him look even more like a Real American. The TV anchor just announced that ‘you can’t help to feel sympathy for his position, trying to help out his daughter…’
Republican strategist answers that ‘this is the most American value can you have… We all have problems, it’s just part of being human…’
Barnes has been hammering Deal for avoiding taxes (I guess that’s heroic Galtian defiance of a Stalinist state) and pushing his way into a no-bid contract for auto salvage (offering the government an easy choice with the best possible Real American company?).
Davis X. Machina
Tomorrow or Friday is Constitution Day*. Celebrate appropriately. Our state commissioner of education encourages such observances in an annual circular letter.
As a Latin teacher, it is time for the annual discussion of habeas corpus, its roots in Magna Carta, and — as has been the case since 2002 or so — why the Great Writ applies even to ragheads, hajjis, and other lesser breeds without the law, even those confined at Guantánamo.
Your homework — ask around the dinner table “Why in school do we pledge allegiance to the flag, when we become military officers, or elected officials, we promise to support and defend the Constitution?”
*Skip-a-day block scheduling
Damned Federal mandates: “The Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement announces that, pursuant to legislation passed by Congress, educational institutions receiving Federal funding are required to hold an educational program pertaining to the United States Constitution on September 17 of each year. This notice implements this provision as it applies to educational institutions receiving Federal funding from the Department.”
beltane
One good thing about our current age of crazy is that Tom Friedman is not quite as influential as he used to be. Even among middle-of-the-road, Jim Lehrer watching Democrats, his support of the Iraq war hurt his reputation. I wish the same thing could be said for David Brooks, who is still someone these middle-of-the-roaders listen to.
Warren Terra
Yes. In fact, a superhuman talent for obliviousness may be his only known talent – or at least the only one he’s demonstrated in the last quarter-century.
For sheer obliviousness, this episode can’t hold a candle to the year or two he spent writing columns about how the Iraq invasion would be a grand thing so long as it were done for the right reasons and in the right manner, and then writing alternative-reality columns about how Iraq could still be just dandy as long as we found our way into his alternative universe and did things for the right reasons and in the right manner from now on. With, of course, a six month time window to get things on the right track, a six month time window that rolled over for a year and a half.
Lev
@Martin: Plus there’s the fact that the DCCC is being led by Chris Van Hollen, who did it last time around and did quite a good job. The NRCC is led by Pete Sessions, who won one out of 11 special elections this cycle, and even that one was a loophole.
I like our time better than theirs.
stormhit
Scocca didn’t even once use the word “fuck” in a transparent attempt to prove how edgy, angry, and authentic he is. That post was nothing like Taibbi.
Martin
@Davis X. Machina: Celebrate the Constitution! Firebomb a mosque, because that’s what the guys dressed up like the founding fathers would do!
MikeJ
@Davis X. Machina:
… to explain why the first thing you learn how to say is “the farmer’s daughter is pretty.” A whole language devoted to traveling salesman jokes?
Mike in NC
How long before Tom Friedman gets invited to appear on the Glenn Beck show? Both are legends in their own minds.
Martin
@Lev: Yeah, Van Hollen is a competent guy. I don’t blame Sessions quite so much for those losses, though. If the Dems had anything like the Tea Party going on, I don’t think they’d be faring any better. Special elections are very susceptible to the kind of campaign that the Tea Party is waging.
I don’t know how disruptive the Tea Party will be to the house races. They’ve been quite disruptive to the senate/governor races, so I have to think there’s going to be an effect, but with so many races nobody has been looking any deeper than the generic ballot. I think the Dems have the easier job here, to be honest. I’m encouraged by the prospect of the Dems owning the tax narrative for the next 2 month, DADT possibly getting repealed, and Warren unleashed. It’s going to be interesting.
AhabTRuler
@MikeJ: I’ll give you agricola, agricolae and then shrug.
Lev
@Mike in NC: Out of all the wanker “Burkeans”, I suspect Bobo will be the first to appear on Beck’s show.
Davis X. Machina
@Martin: Nay, nay! Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum, as it says on the Supreme Court building — let justice be done, and
let the sky fallthe polls be damned.Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: They are Classics.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: They are Classics.
Adam C
@Anya:
You’re 50-cent bill is in the mail…
AhabTRuler
@Martin: My only regret about Van Hollen is that we had to get rid of Connie Morella to seat him in. She was one of those moderate Republicans that went by the wayside in the era of hyper-partisan politics.
Actually, Van Hollens’ victory was the bright spot in the otherwise dismal ’02 elections. I voted for him, but I hated not voting for Morella only because she was an R.
MikeJ
@AhabTRuler: We’re looking for genetive here. Agricolae.
puella – girl – accusative.
pulchra est.
But it’s been a looooong time. Romans go home!
Martin
On the issue of polling, the trends on congressional polling is that individual polls (polling on a particular race) tend to skew in favor of the incumbent, and the generic congressional polls skew in favor of the opposition. In a year like this where the Dems have a large incumbent advantage, they should outperform the generic ballot. That’s not a huge consolation with the Dems trailing by about 7 or so since the generic ballot is reasonably accurate, but it suggests the gap may not be quite as bad as it appears.
AhabTRuler
@MikeJ: Hm, I can further puke forth:
vita, vitae and -o -s -t -mus -tis -nt.
Beyond that its spitto, spitare, actui, splatum.
Sad, really, to think of all Mr. Rogers’ hard work for very little.
Davis X. Machina
Teacher: Mr. So-and-so, what is the Latin for ‘remember’? All four principal parts!”
Mr. S. turns to neigbor, sotto voce: “Hey, what’s ‘remember’?”
Neighbor “Damned if I know…”
Mr S: “Damndifinō, damndifināre, damndifināvi, damndifinātum”
Gratias vobis ago. Totam hebdomadam ibi ero – gustate vitulinam! (Thank you, I’ll be here all week — try the veal)
Hey, it’s an open thread — and the alternative is doing my homework….
jl
The online Latin translator spat out:
Agricola filia est pulchellus.
That will come in handy when I visit the Roman Empire.
The online Latin translator also said:
Pulchellus niveus cattus est valde spatiosus,
I have no idea if these make any sense.
JoePo
I’ll have you know that while I have an MFA, I am no hipster. If anything, I’m a pseudo-intellectual.
Ahasuerus
@MikeJ: Mone me si error.
jl
Permissum nos cubo quod vigilo iratus vetus pinguis liberalis crocus.
(Now that I have found a Latin-English translator, I can put very learned sounding headings to my comments. For those of you, ahem, without Latin, that there above says ‘Let us recline and watch the angry old fat gentlement yell’)
Rush Limbaugh Apoplectic Over Rove’s O’Donnell Diss (VIDEO)
Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 15, 2010
‘ Rush said of Rove. “Where was this anger directed at a Democrat ever?”
Limbaugh then freaked out over all the horrible character flaws about Democrats — the late Ted Kennedy and President Obama were mentioned — that Rove has supposedly never pointed out in an interview. ‘
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/rush-limbaugh-apoplectic-over-roves-odonnell-diss-video.php?ref=fpa
freelancer (itouch)
@JoePo:
My BFF is an MFA, they’re all like that. You wouldn’t by any chance have the dating skills of a 12 year old girl, would you? I might be onto something!
JoePo
@freelancer (itouch): No, but I do have the writing skills of a 12 year old girl.
Mark S.
Dems: The Real TARP Is Republicans’ ‘Tax Assistance for Rich People’
Not bad. That’s why I don’t have a public relations job with the Dems. I would have gone with “The Real TARP is ‘Teabagging Asshole Republican Pedophiles.'”
Anya
@Adam C: Sorry, not getting the reference.
jl
The online Latin translator emitted smoke and blew up when I tried out phrases for this one:
Paladino Intros New Dust Cloud Mosque Rule
New York Republicans new gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino rolls out a new mosque standard. Not just no mosque near Ground Zero. But no mosque anywhere within the area of the original 9/11 dust cloud.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/09/paladino_intros_new_dust_cloud_mosque_rule.php?ref=fpblg
The Democrats may get pounded in November, but the campaign will be so crazy, maybe it will keep us from worrying about it.
Carpe diem pro yuks whilus it lastus!
Latin translator sez:
occupo dies pro risus dum nos es validus
Edit: Is Palidino suggesting that the mosque that is there already be torn down?
freelancer
@jl:
the original 9/11 dust cloud. Not Famous Original Ray’s 9/11 dust cloud. That would have been everywhere. And true New Yorkers would have smelled a phony.
jl
@freelancer: That just shows that ‘Original’ Carl is authentic. The press will eat it up.
mr. whipple
From Winston Churchill’s My Early Life, regarding a Latin lesson:
‘This is a Latin grammar.’ [The teacher] opened [the textbook] at a well-thumbed page. ‘You must learn this,’ he said, pointing to a number of words in a frame of lines …
What on earth did it mean? Where was the sense of it? It seemed absolute rigmarole to me. However, there was one thing I could always do: I could learn it by heart …
‘Have you learnt it?’ he asked.
‘I think I can say it, sir,’ I replied; and I gabbled it off.
He seemed so satisfied with this that I was emboldened to ask a question …
‘But,’ I repeated, ‘what does it mean?’
‘Mensa means a table,’ he answered.
‘Then why does mensa also mean O table,’ I enquired, ‘and what does O table mean?’ …
“O table,—you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table.’
‘But I never do,’ I blurted out in honest amazement.
‘If you are impertinent, you will be punished, and punished, let me tell you, very severely,’ was his conclusive rejoinder.
Davis X. Machina
On the back of my business card I have another quote, from Churchill’s A Roving Commission: My Early Life: “Naturally I am biased in favor of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.”
He goes on: “But the only thing I would whip them for is not knowing English, I would whip them hard for that.” With which I heartily concur.
El Cid
@mr. whipple: Such, such were the joys.
ruemara
Thoughts, opinions?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unimultimedia/4994449227/
General Stuck
Somebody remind me again why voters would vote for people they view as worse than the alternative. I feel like Alice seeing upside down through that looking glass.
4jkb4ia
@Davis X. Machina:
And memini is conjugated in the perfect to start with. (Thank you, dictionary)
4jkb4ia
@Davis X. Machina:
I like that, even as a proud student of Mr. Meny in 7th grade English-Latin. He could get English grammar and Latin grammar to feed back on each other.
reality-based
@MikeJ:
personally, I’ve always loved “Sono Porci Questi Romani” – interestingly, SPQR is STILL emblazoned on any lightpost, sewer cover, and mailbox in Rome, of whatever century- every time I saw it, I kept thinking of the graffiti translation!
that said – hey, I’m an unemployed liberal with lots of time on my hands – where do I sign up? I can be really flattering (in a progressive way) if the price is right. +2 or 3, I can be downright obsequious.
If Soros would pay me a living wage, I’d even say something nice about Rahm Emmanuel (which would be a first for me)
Linda Featheringill
@ruemara:
Before I forget it: Volume needs to be adjusted upward. I tried to work the gadgets but it still wasn’t enough.
I like your graphics. The whole thing looks nice. And the numbers and words move with a nice rhythm.
Linda Featheringill
Over on electoral-vote.com, on the actual data on the polls taken on the 31 “hotly contested” House races, found at:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2010/House/house_polls.html
It looks to me that a 5% swing towards the Dems would bring each of that group of House seats into the Blue column.
I guess that could be done by
1. Changing the minds of a few people
2. Getting out the vote
3. Reaching those folks without a land line telephone and getting them to vote
ruemara
@Linda Featheringill:
I got rhythm, I got music. Sorry, I overdosed on musicals as a child.
Thanks for the feedback, I can push the dbs, I’m working out of my home studio, so audio is hilarious to work with sometimes.
Yutsano
@ruemara: Vid is teh awesome. Just aiming for a viral catch-on or something a bit more targeted?
ruemara
@Yutsano:
5 to 7 videos, targeting republican talking points. be nice if they go viral, so I will post it to youtube for easier sharing. when I think everything is perfect.
Yutsano
@ruemara: Seems like a decent idea to link here as well. Hell see if you can’t get a front page guest gig when they’re all ready to go. I’m sure one of our gracious hosts would be amenable to that scenario.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@freelancer: “Original (fill in the blank) dust cloud” sounds like something you would get at the Outback Steakhouse, to eat with your Bloomin’ Onion.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
AH-hahahaha!
The Autotune remix of “Dude, you have no Qur’an”!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HX5-ulcdXc
R-Jud
This was my favorite sentence from the article quoted in the OP:
Why yes, yes he can.
Posts from the 50-cent army used to be quite frequent and obvious on the Guardian’s comment boards. Now those boards are full of Tories and BNP nuts who migrated over after Murdoch put his paywall up on the Times.
Amir_Khalid
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: This might interest you and other fellow commenters. I found it on Time’s Tuned in blog, posted by James Poniewozik:
The Portland Press Herald has apologized to its readers for its “offensive” coverage of Muslims celebrating Eid al-Fitri in Maine — and, especially, for not providing “balance to the story and its prominent position on the front page”.
El Cid
Jimmy Carter is trying to get North Korea to kill us all and doesn’t realize how a more manly foreign policy is always right.
El Cid
@Amir_Khalid: My fucking god.
So, covering local citizens in a religious holiday tradition is offensive because it’s on 9/11 and as we know many people are traumatized because Muslims tried to kill us all therefore a newspaper shouldn’t be showing American Muslims on 9/11.
(Link is incorrect, just edit out the first bit.)
Anne Laurie
@ruemara: If you like, once you’ve got everything “perfect”, send me the Youtube link and I can front-page it here…
asiangrrlMN
I think Joe Biden is hot, and it bothers me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I like his passion and his tendency to speak the truth even when it’s more prudent for him to STFU.
As for Friedman, my brain just slams shut any time I read even a sentence by him. It (my brain) does not want to get contaminated by the stupid.
Paris
Friedman channelling state propaganda? Say it isn’t so!
Adam C
@Anya:
It was a playful reference to the content of the post at the top of the thread.
Also, I misspelled “your” to my eternal embarrassment…