I’m sure it comes as a great surprise to you that even the liberal New Republic is trashing the #OWS protests this week.
Although I will say it is kind of amusing listening to people who published the vile, racist, and insane rambling of Marty Peretz for decades worrying about “radicals.”
Loneoak
That was some supreme concern trolling. Although I do have to agree with them that Zizek is (usually) full of shit.
Craig
Now that Chait’s gone I have cut that rag out of my life entirely, and I feel like I’m a better person for it.
geg6
No fucking way, Cole, you’ll ever get me to click on a link to TNR. Fuck them. Marty Peretz, who supposedly stepped down, was spewing racist shit there just the other day. I only know because I went against my better instincts and clicked over to Sully’s place the other day.
Dougerhead
That is amazingly wankerish post (I mean TNR, obviously, not John). When it started off with the stuff about how liberals need to grapple with blah blah, it made me happy that they were against the protests.
If they’d grappled and puzzled things through and consulted with their inner Niebuhr and Rawls, then come out in favor of the protests, it would have me sorry they were agreeing with me.
BGinCHI
@Loneoak: In which one of his books? He’s crazy and over the top sometimes, but smart as hell. And he knows more about philosophy, psychoanalysis, and film then you will if you live to be a thousand.
Jay B.
Yeah, that idiotic article reads like the Balloon Juice commentariat from two weeks ago. They are so behind the curve.
techno
If you know the history of the New Republic, the very idea that a rag founded and funded for decades by JP Morgan money would bash #OWS will not come as such a shock. In fact, that is what TNR exists to do,
Zifnab
I love the way TNR talks about liberals and uses the term “We”.
To quote Tonto, of Lone Ranger fame: “What do you mean ‘we’, white man?”
qwerty42
Well, courtesy Sullivan, Jon Chait seems to describe the situation well enough. Maybe that is why he isn’t at TNR anymore.
rikryah
Like this is a shock..not
Menzies
A friend of mine who’s very lefty (but hates the OWS protests) sent me this.
My repeated thought is: How nice for you. Now go get hit by a bus and we’ll see what you think.
fasteddie9318
@Zifnab: It’s especially awesome in this case as they take it upon themselves to define what liberalism is. Uh, yeah, sure thing.
BGinCHI
@Menzies: I love that line of attack. “Nothing handed to me.” How about your state education? How about the roads you went to school on or the public servants who made it all safe and secure? Our taxes paid for that.
This Lone Wolf shit is about right for a 17-year-old, but grown-ups ought to know better.
ruemara
@Menzies:
I sure hope he/she are not planning to tweet that or post it anywhere except to friends. The avalanche of scorn could bring down the intertubes.
Zifnab
@Menzies: Yeah, I saw that posted on Facebook.
Scholarship = Student Welfare
Top-of-my-Class != Something everyone can achieve (pretty much by definition)
Ergo, the premise that this person did it all him/herself and anyone else could do the same just by trying harder is… flawed.
Bruce S
That’s disgusting. There have been signs of redemption periodically at TNR, despite Peretz bigoted columnizing. Wouldn’t have been surprised to see this as a Peretz column, but the editors have shamed themselves. Without Ackerman and now Chait, the place truly stinks.
That said, I did read one article at TNR this week that was valuable – evidence that Obama’s turn to populism is standing him in good stead with “moderates.” Validates what some of us have been suggesting and, of course, got slammed and slimed for by certain usual suspects commenting on certain predictable posts here.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/95939/obama-2012-jobs-bill-millionaire-surtax-base-independent-swing-voters
But, if you want a real “Dog bites man” moment, check out this column, from Forbes, by the guy who wrote the “Inside Wall Street” column for Business Week – pleading with the Congressional leadership to meet with and respond legislatevely to OWS!
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-view-from-wall.html
cathyx
@Menzies: I would love to know more about this person. No one can say this person is ever real. I could write even more impressive stuff and take a picture of it and no one would know if it’s true.
cathyx
@Menzies: I agree with the sentiment about getting into an accident or have a serious illness with no insurance. Everything in that note would change over night.
fasteddie9318
@Menzies: Awesome. Not a bit of reflection as to why that in-state public tuition was so moderate. Head firmly inserted up ass.
Rafer Janders
@Menzies:
So I’m assuming that guy will never take out a mortgage to buy a house? Because to do so would be to take on debt, right? And he’d no longer be master of his fate, captain of his soul?
Bruce S
#16 – sorry, that should have read “man bites dog” re Forbes printing a pro-OWS piece, not “dog bites man” – duh!
Loneoak
@BGinCHI:
No doubt. But I would never use that knowledge in such a convoluted manner. What the hell is his argument there? That the US (who in the US? our Hollywood overlords?) is comparable to, and worse than, the cultural censors in China because we have science fiction movies but no movies that are about overthrowing capitalism? Were you able to tease something more comprehensible out that? (Granted, TNR may be making it seem more incoherent.) If one of my intro to philosophy students made that claim I would flunk them.
Maybe we would have a better chance of imagining the end of capitalism if it didn’t look like a million Zizeks practicing consensus decision making.
gocart mozart
Best description of David Brooks ever
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/#ixzz1abcJXJYw
daveNYC
So he’s made it all on his own as long as you don’t count,
1) Public State College
2) Public High School
3) Scholarships (assuming from the school)
4) Goverment mandated minimum wage
What a shitcamel.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Menzies: At the risk of repeating myself, I’m still waiting for Megan McCardle’s sign saying that she’s part of the 5300%
Jonathan
Over at his new digs, ex TNR-er, Jon Chait, actually has a pretty good article supporting OWS
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Menzies:
God, I fucking hate the Alger-esque rugged individualist myth so goddamn much.
There’s a reason they say ‘no man is an island’. Whether you want to admit it or not, you got helped. Unless you’re a freakin’ live-off-the-land hermit hundreds of miles out of civilization and crafting your own wood and stone spears, face it, your stupid ass got helped. Stop acting like you were so goddamn sainted that you succeeded off your own personal hard work and nothing else and everyone else around you not successful were just lazy ass leeches.
So…yeah. Plz hit your friend with a clue-by-four for us.
lamh34
ok, so i posted a comment but it disappeared and when I tried to post it again i was told it was a duplicate comment…hmmm
Bill E Pilgrim
@lamh34: You said that already.
jl
How should I feel about OWS?
I dunno. How should I feel about creepy snide superficial Ivy League brats who play word games and double bind tricks telling me how to feel?
Does it portend an infinite regress of ‘shoulds’? How ironical! Oh heavens forfend.
Yeah, the crowd megaphone technique is creepy, but what are they supposed to do, if the local fuzz makes stupid rules?
A protester who gets pepper sprayed while standing in a ‘free speech zone’ pen looks stupid. I guess these protesters are either stupid if they stand there and wait to get sprayed or they are lawless if they don’t. Hark, does this whole public assembly thing threaten messy logical inconsistencies? Fie, let us wash our hands of them.
This dismal rag can go to hell.
Enough people turn out, for long enough, and the crooked polls will pay attention. And if they can keep it up to the next election, we may bet more less crooked pols.
Was walking down by Fed in SF this Saturday, and decided to spend half an hour with the crowd yelling their slogan of the morning. I guess I would scare the NR. I’m sorry. I apologize to those arrogant snot nosed punks.
gocart mozart
More Pierce
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/#ixzz1abeQMUxB
Menzies
@BGinCHI: @ruemara: @Zifnab: @cathyx: @fasteddie9318:
What y’all said. It’s difficult to notice the problems around you when all you can see is your own ass.
Menzies
Got trapped in moderation for trying to reply to five people at once – very, very newbie mistake.
Point is, what y’all said. I notice that people who are like this tend to be the same people who completely miss how the world around them currently works and how interconnected we all are. You have to have a very serious case of rectal-cranial loopback to not notice.
BGinCHI
@Loneoak: His forays into politics are sometimes cringe-worthy like that, but it doesn’t obviate his work otherwise, and especially in other fields. Just wanted to respond to your generalization about him. He’s full of shit in specific ways, not in general.
When he’s brilliant, he’s fucking brilliant. And when he’s not, I agree, he needs to just shut it down.
Ps. He’d do OK in your Intro to Philosophy. His stuff on Schelling would be mind-blowingly smart, but it would be late, written in an illegible hand, and 100 pages over the limit.
BGinCHI
@gocart mozart: I like the part best where Brooks makes the pansies grow.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Menzies:
Yep, FYWP decides to have a shitfit if you try and make more than 2 links in any one post, even if they’re internal comment links.
BGinCHI
@Bill E Pilgrim: Win.
lamh31
ugh fuck it. i’m done trying to post the comment.
there is an alleged poll on NYMAG website of the OWS movement in NYC. Maybe someone else can find it and post it. Is NYMag cosidered a tabloid or legitimate news source? I really don’t know if this is parody, an actual hit piece or reasl sentiment.
BTW, I hate to comment and run, but I’m off to the movies. I love Hugh Jackman so much that I’m gonna go see Real Steel…lol.
David in NY
@Bruce S: I was going to complain about dog bites man, and you self-corrected! See, the Internets work!
Roger Moore
@Menzies:
Assuming, of course, that this person is telling the truth. I assume that some subset of the people writing their stories- both pro- and anti- 99%ers- are either making them up out of whole cloth or at the very least stretching the truth. I’m quite confident there are wingnuts writing stories about how they’re self-made that would collapse under any kind of scrutiny, and then circulating them to all their friends as things they found somewhere on the tubes.
Menzies
@Roger Moore:
I was considering that possibility, but then, a full-bore wingnut would write exactly the kind of story that ended up on that card. So I’m not sure what to say about it.
poco
“When someone speaks, he or she pauses every few words and the crowd repeats what the person has just said in unison. The idea was apparently logistical—to project speeches across a wide area—but the effect when captured on video is genuinely creepy.”
Maybe, the problem with the Editors at TNR is that they are watching it on video. Being there, participating in a General assembly is an amazing experience–most of us focus on one person who is amplifying more clearly and their expressions (as they are amplifying for the sake of those of us too far to hear) are priceless!
WTF am I doing, trying to respond to these fuckers with reason and experience?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@poco: Sort of reminds me of the Rainbow Push approach.
David in NY
@poco: Particularly dumb. I bet they’re not allowed to use amplifiers.
Menzies
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
I guess it thinks we should work our asses off by posting multiple comments.
Lit3Bolt
OT sorta, but the position of David Brooks, Doug Mataconis, Erik, son of Erik and other assholes has been perfectly captured by the Onion.
poco
@David in NY: You are right, any microphones are forbidden by the NYPD, and the protesters have sworn to be lawful. (For the most part–I mean, we have discussed civil disobedience occasionally.)
poco
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Hmmm…the Rainbow Push approach? I am not familiar with it, perhaps you can tell me more.
Amir Khalid
This “The Editors” guy at The New Republic (I tell you, I’ve seen much better nyms here) goes in for the usual concern-trolling about Occupy Wall Street lacking specific goals. I guess he’s concerned that the OWS people are Not Proper Liberals like, you know, TNR editors. Here’s my answer to him:
Demonstrations in themselves aren’t direct action. They serve to attract attention and, if the organizers are lucky, wider support for their cause. And in that, I think, OWS has been successful. Its further success isn’t going to become apparent during the occupation of Zuccotti Park, but elsewhere and afterward. Will attention to the issues of economic injustice it raises outlast the protest itself? Will it provide a lasting impetus to the people and groups who are already fighting for the 99% ?
TNR puts scare quotes around the elements of OWS’ consensus process — “general assemblies”, “communiqués” and “consensus” and the “human microphone” technique. it says these things look creepy and smack of “group-think” that liberals should find troubling. TNR doesn’t say what’s wrong with the group organizing itself, or why it should be troubling to have a consensus.
TNR misses (or disregards) that OWS doesn’t seek to be ideological or partisan. Its issues cut across such divides. OWS is wary of association with political figures, even the revered John Lewis, lest it become so-opted. Lewis himself respects that, no doubt out of his own experience in such movements.
Bruce S
#37 – David in NY
I also know how one really spells “legislatively” …. I think!
handsmile
To those who still harbor doubts about whether the “Occupy Wall Street” protest will make any difference, I suggest we now have a definitive answer with this TNR screed.
I cannot imagine a more perfect distillation of present-day Babbitry. From its high-handed dismissal of Slavoj Zizek, its umbrage over John Lewis, its great alarm that the human microphone is “genuinely creepy,” the benighted perspective of TNR’s editors concludes with this self-righteous plaint:
“These are not just substantive complaints. They also beg the strategic question of whether the protesters will help or hurt the cause of liberalism.”
I would submit that such a concern should be addressed to the recent archive and current contents of this now-shabby publication.
I am profoundly relieved to learn that OWS is “a movement out of sync with [TNR] values.”
Shinobi
Sounds to me like The New Republicans dislike a movement whose actions and opinions they cannot dictate from on high. Good thing I don’t care what they think.
ChristianPinko
@Shinobi: This. The essence of TNR is that they like liberalism as long as it is entirely conceived and implemented by Harvard alumnni, and not any actual liberals. Union members, feminist activists, environmentalists — their input is not welcome, thankyouverymuch.
arguingwithsignposts
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, if only there were other “groups” of “like-minded people” who “gathered together” to agree upon “common interests” and work to put them into action. It would be great if some people like that could, I don’t know, form a new country or something…
AA+ Bonds
Well, they’re attempting to divide liberals from the left, so The New Republic clearly wants the Democrats to lose.
My guess is that this is over our Israel policy, as in, Obama is really friendly to Israel but SOMETIMES SAYS THINGS OUT LOUD
PeakVT
QFT.
Paul in KY
@gocart mozart: That site is banned at work, but the description of Brooks had to come from Mr. Wolcott, right?
Bruce S
Judis and Cohn published a piece in support of OWS – I guess they’re the last signs of intelligent life at TNR.