Category: Blogosphere

If you can’t say anything nice

~ susie ~ 18 Comments

There’s an ongoing argument among bloggers about Andrew Breitbart, and whether we’re “stooping to their level” by saying what we actually think about him. Well, here’s what I think.

Wars split families. Benjamin Franklin refused to let his own son out of prison to see his wife while she was dying. What a terrible, unfeeling man. Or not.

This is also a war – of ideologies, class and culture.

Are those who say mean things terrible people for declining to whitewash Breitbart out of respect for his family? The real question is, why is his family more worthy of concern than the families once helped by ACORN? (Hint: It’s the same reason I joke that Apple-loving progressives would be a lot more concerned about Foxcomm workers if we described them as factory-farmed chickens.)

The very problem with the Village – the moneyed, connected, inbred establishment – is that that they value their personal relationships above all else, and use those personal relationships to justify and excuse all kinds of political and economic horrors visited upon the rest of the world, things that have serious ripple effects.

This is why we ridicule them. Isn’t that the point? Their emotional relationships render them incapable of connecting those dots between what they do and the results out in the real world. They live in the bubble.

For example, the top management at the Times loved Judy Miller and, I’m sure, they would have cried at her death. How many Iraqis are dead because of that relationship? Am I a monster if I don’t especially care, or if, even worse, I snicker? I don’t think so. I just use a much broader, more external measure of her worth.
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Virtually Speaking tonight

~ susie

8 pm eastern | 5 pm pacific |Virtually Speaking A-Z: This week in liberalism. | Stuart Zechman and Jay Ackroyd discuss current evens from the perspective of movement liberalism.| Plus What Digby Said. And last week’s post-show notes. Follow @Stuart_Zechman @JayAckroyd Listen live on BTR. Beginning midnight, listen here.

9 pm eastern | 6 pm pacific |Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd | Jay talks with filmmakers Frances Causey and Don Goldmacher about Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? the night before it opens at The Quad Cinema in NYC for a week long run, against the backdrop of a growing worldwide populist democratic movement. @1Basil1 review here. Follow @HeistDoc @FCausey @donnyg1941 @JayAckroyd Listen live and later on BTR.

Virtually speaking tonight

~ susie

8 pm eastern | 5 pm pacific |Virtually Speaking A-Z: This week in liberalism. | Stuart Zechman and Jay Ackroyd discuss current evens from the perspective of movement liberalism.| Plus What Digby Said. And last week’s post-show notes. Follow @Stuart_Zechman @JayAckroyd Listen live on BTR. Beginning midnight, listen here.

9 pm eastern | 6 pm pacific |Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd | Jay talks with filmmakers Frances Causey and Don Goldmacher about Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? the night before it opens at The Quad Cinema in NYC for a week long run, against the backdrop of a growing worldwide populist democratic movement. Follow @HeistDoc @FCausey @donnyg1941 @JayAckroyd Listen live and later on BTR.

Tonight

~ susie

8 pm eastern | 5 pm pacific |Virtually Speaking A-Z: This week in liberalism. | Stuart Zechman and Jay Ackroyd discuss current evens from the perspective of movement liberalism.| Plus What Digby Said. And post-show notes. Follow @Stuart_Zechman @JayAckroyd Listen live on BTR. Beginning midnight, listen here.

9 pm eastern | 6 pm pacific |Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd |Jay talks with Zunguzungu’s Aaron Bady about David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Follow @zunguzungu @JayAckroyd Listen live and later on BTR.