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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Later on, we’ll conspire

Later on, we’ll conspire

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I’m not sure it’s possible to parody right-wingers anymore, given that all they want to do is troll. But I’m open to ideas.

Charles Johnson does the honors on NRA’s latest:

Wonderland

National Review is not the worst conservative rag out there — they’re like the Daily Caller after it aged ten years, bought a suit, stopped doing coke, and had to live through an uncomfortable coming-out conversation with its college buddy. But it sure prints some dumb BS (I’m just dying to hear what the editors say about “Marriage and the Court,” NOT). Still, this is the first time I’ve seen the magazine run a cover that literally looks like a Photoshop someone mocked up to make everyone on the masthead look like assholes.

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  6. 6.

    danimal

    That photo has shaken off some of my ambivalence about Canadian Tar Sands.

    And not in the way National Review intended.

  7. 7.

    gnomedad

    @Soonergrunt:

    Seriously. The entire conservative movement has become one giant real time enactment of Poe’s Law.

    And Cleek’s Law (is it a Law? – it deserved to be).

  8. 8.

    JGabriel

    Jess Zimmerman:

    Still, this is the first time I’ve seen the [National Review] run a cover that literally looks like a Photoshop someone mocked up to make everyone on the masthead look like assholes.

    Oh, I don’t know about first time. Has Johnson forgotten the Soviet Realism depiction of Romney & Ryan that graced NatRev’s cover back in September?

    I’m never quite sure whether it’s self-awareness the staff of NatRev lacks, or they just have no awareness of what they (and their covers) look like to people outside of their Conservative bubble.

    But then, why choose? No reason it can’t be both.

    (Edited to fix misattributed quote.)

    .

  9. 9.

    srv

    Oh, good, segway from the last thread of the near-dead… Doug, I think you FP’ers need to have a discussion on attracting younger crowds because the current one may not be allowed laptops at the old folks home.

    Now on to important things – what’s the current fashion trend in Paris, should I shave or keep my 2-week beard?

  14. 14.

    burnspbesq

    @danimal:

    That photo has shaken off some of my ambivalence about Canadian Tar Sands

    Excellent. The oil extracted from that mess is going to get to market, one way or another, but we don’t have to be complicit in it by allowing the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline at huge risk to the Ogalalla Aquifer.

  15. 15.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @srv:

    Now on to important things – what’s the current fashion trend in Paris, should I shave or keep my 2-week beard?

    Perhaps you may find this helpful.

  17. 17.

    The Dangerman

    @Anoniminous:

    I thought being an asshole was a job requirement at National Review.

    This applies to most Rightwing Media; yesterday, I was watching some Talking Head Asshole show and intervention in Syria was advocated even though it was stated up front that intervention would likely be calamitous (presumably, if it WAS a calamity, that would be Obama’s fault for following these Asshole’s advice).

  19. 19.

    jl

    Nice cover. I guess the reactionaries in the GOP have decided to include environmentalists in their outreach marketing effort.

    But, in spirit of stirring up trouble on this here miserable lefty blog, I came across a blog post by an economist (who at least on macro) is a reasonable evidence based person. He presents an argument that while there are serious problems with fracking and tar sands, worrying about global warming is not one of them.

    His reasoning is that energy from tar sands and fracking based natural gase is reducing the use of coal. He says that is good for two reasons. One, use of coal causes more global warming, even given all the awfulness of fracking and tar sand mining, Two, it will reduce the number of coal plants built, which reduces coal-friendly stock of capital.

    I really don’t know how good his argument is, but thought it was interesting, and maybe some knowledgeable folks here might send some light. Well, at least he wants fracking highly regulated (like public disclosure of fracking fluid ingredients).

    Fear of fracking, the problem with the precautionary principle
    Jeff Frankels Weblog
    content.ksg.harvard.edu/blog/jeff_frankels_weblog/2013/04/18/fear-of-fracking-the-problem-with-the-p…

    Edit: forgot to mention that he advertises the post as a comment on the precautionary principle. I ignored that part, because, in all due respect to the distinguished economist, I don’t think his discussion of the PP is serous enough to pay any attention to (like Yglesias, I started as a philosophy major, and I am appalled, appalled (I say!) at the sad state of philosophical discussion today!). So, I am ignoring that aspect of the post.

  21. 21.

    jl

    @John M. Burt:

    I know some mining and geological engineers, who are pretty conservative Dems and they like them some mining. But they readily admit that mining looks very nasty, wrecks up the place in a very nasty way, and can do very nasty stuff if done carelessly.

    So I thought likely no photoshop needed. But, come to think of it, given the attitude of these people, why didn’t they photoshop it to make it look even worse. Maybe put some flaming rain in there, just to outrage the liberals?

  22. 22.

    Librarian

    These people are not only assholes, they’re proud of it. They revel in it. This cover is the equivalent of waving their dicks and bragging about what total dicks they are. It is them saying that they hate environmentalists and want to destroy the environment for spite. Pissing off liberals- that’s all it ever is for them.

  24. 24.

    Calouste

    @jl:

    It looks like a photoshop because the perspective seems off, but other than that, this is what an open pit mine looks like. It ain’t pretty.

  25. 25.

    Seanly

    Actually, LGF just linked & block-quoted the first paragraph from Grist – original link

    Not that it changes the parody.

    Does Goldberg have an article in the magazine about how his researchers found that ugliness is the real beauty?

  27. 27.

    jim filyaw

    explains a lot. mention ‘wonderland’ or ‘paradise’ to me and the thought that comes resembles a sierra club poster. mention it to one of these birds and…

    this is why there is such a unbridgeable gulf in politics today. reality depends on who is talking about it.

  28. 28.

    Melissa

    Joel @23 If you were an out of work from Newfoundland’s depleted fisheries you’d go to the Alberta Tar Sands, like thousands of others.

  29. 29.

    Citizen_X

    @Melissa: Yup. That’s why they say: Newfoundland’s second biggest city, after St. John’s, is Fort McMurray, Alberta.

    I don’t even think that’s an exaggeration.

  30. 30.

    jl

    I have to admit that the visual ugliness is the part of mining that bothers me the least. In fact, it doesn’t bother me much at all, compared to the pollution it causes.

    But, that cover is just trolling. I decided to read the article, but NRO has it behind a paywall (This damn rag will pay for itself, dammit, somehow or other!).

    So, 99 percent of people will just see the pic and slogan, and notice the dumb trolling.

    I saw zero evidence of an objective or informative article from the blurb and the free teaser.

    Excellent. Good work National Review, keep it up.

  31. 31.

    jl

    Also, glad I went to the NRO site. Click on the recent articles for a good chuckle. Man, those dudes are out to lunch. For example “Obama’s misfire on gun control” Really, a misfire? Maybe in terms of not getting a bill passed right now, but politically, how was it a misfire? His proposals got unheard of public support.

    Whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad. And maybe that is what is happening here: madness and hubris on the part of the reactionaries. The shut down of gun control was too ‘in-your-face” to the public.

    The politically smart thing for the NRA and allies to do would have been to water it down a little bit more, add a few more loopholes, and pass something symbolic that did nothing or maybe would make things worse (rather than doing very little). I wonder why they did not do that?

    This kind of cover with ‘Wonderland’, the jackass insouciance of the article blurb and intro that I could see for free, shows the same kind of madness and hubris.

    So, keep it up NR, I like it.

  32. 32.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @burnspbesq:

    Aquifer? You’re worried about some aquifer when there’s tons of money to be made by exporting all that tar sands derived petroleum to China and India? What kind of a fucking communist dupe are you?

    There isn’t nearly as much money in food production as their is in petroleum production. The ROI sucks for food production. So an aquifer gets trashed? Who fucking cares? The Galtian overlords have no time to worry about food production when there is lucre to be had from tar sands!

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @jl:

    But they readily admit that mining looks very nasty, wrecks up the place in a very nasty way, and can do very nasty stuff if done carelessly with short term ROI in mind.

    Corrected to reflect the Ferengi mindset of the XL advocates.

  35. 35.

    West of the Rockies

    For some reason I am reminded of the old Weyerhaeuser commercials from the 1980’s where they show some guy claiming to be an arborist walking around a gigantic field of twiglets while some voice-over describes Weyerhaeuser as “the tree-growing company”… Yeah, after Weyerhaeuser went in and clear-cut ten-thousand acres of old growth Redwoods, they were decent enough to plant some saplings. I know that I find a field of 6-inch saplings to be every bit as inspiring as an old-growth forest!

  36. 36.

    West of the Rockies

    Maybe the image depicted on the cover IS the conservative idea of what a Wonderland would look like — busy worker drones extracting resources from the who-gives-a-shit-about-it-anyway environment so that the “job creators” can profit.

  37. 37.

    fuckwit

    Strip-mining FTW!

    And, it’s not workers doing the work, it’s machines.

    Indeed, their reality has lapped our satire.

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