The Phantom Menace, Part I
By Mitch Berg
Last week, Iowahawk did a hilarious send-up of JournoList, the hush-hush list-serve for liberal “deep thinkers”:
JOSH MARSHALL: How about we do something about how wingnut bloggers live in an echo chamber
JESSE SINGAL: sweeet!!!! gmta
MICHAEL COHEN: ya its like those f*****z are in a echo chamber or something
CHRIS HAYES: gmta
JONATHAN CHAIT: ya total echo chamber
BRAD DELONG: echo-o-o-o-o-o-o cha-a-a-a-mber-er-er-er
ISAAC CHOTINER: lols
EZRA KLEIN: ok,,, we agree. Yglesias its your turn to write it
MATTHEW YGLESIAS: cant, I have h/w assignment due for rahm emanuel
OK, that’s a spoof – but I have a hunch I know what one of the recent topics must have been. There’s been such a wide-spread synchronicity of – for lack of a better word – “thought” among so many regional and national leftybloggers, I can’t help but think it’s not only no coincidence, but in fact a symptom of the most caustic initiative on the part of the American left.
———-
Before we get to the story, let’s talk aphorisms. Aphorisms can be taken way too far – but they can be useful memes for categorizing things like human behavior.
One of my favorites I get from watching the odd episode of House. In and among all the glib causticness, House trips upon the odd ingenious bit of human nature.
Many of those bits tie back to his main rule – his Prime Directive, if you will – for human nature; everybody lies. It’s true, really; at some point or another, everyone finds it in their self-interest or sense of emotional self-preservation to bend the truth.
I’m positing that this rule as a corollary when it comes to the left-leaning “alternative” media. Indeed, let’s call this “Berg’s Second Law of Leftyblogging”: whenever liberals toss out defamatory generalizations about conservatives, they are projecting. (Classic example comes about 1:04 into this video).
You can pretty much name your slur; the party that yaps about “fatcats” is the party that owes its soul to plutocrats. The party that whinged about Bush’s record on civil liberties has always been the party that actually did crush civil liberties (see the ’94 Crime Bill, the ’96 Counterterrorism Act, and the various Dem plans on the “Fairness” Doctrine, bank takeovers and the ). The party that complains about violence, corruption, wastrelcy and incompetence is violent, corrupt, spendthrift and incompetent.
It’s a theory, but I’ll stand by it. Indeed, you’ll see why as this piece continues.
There’s one more aphorism. It’s George Orwell’s note that dictators always need enemies to keep the people occupied.
They don’t even need to be dictators!
———-
It’s a running joke among conservatives; if you order a pizza, and a lefty hears about it, it’s an example of extremism. Pushing to liberalize charter-school laws and vacant-housing ordinances? Activism for the Second or Tenth Amendments? Extremism. To paraphrase the old drill sergeant aphorism, “everything you do can get you labelled an extremist, and everything you don’t do can get you labelled an extremist”.
I started seeing little trickles and dribbles around the regional Sorosphere a couple of weeks ago: references to “right-wing extremism” (this in reference to a quip by Michele Bachmann that uses some kind of guerrilla warfare reference to refer to conservatives in Minnesota), usually with more-than-muted warnings about “militancy” and “violence”.
It’s tempting (and in the case of the link above, accurate) to write it all off as examples of intellectual laziness, of the febrile thrashings of inferior minds. Indeed, both of these play into the larger point.
But there is a larger point. The leftybloggers involved in these casual, petty, paranoid defamations are unwitting tools in a long-running campaign to control the English language, if necessary by devaluing it to uselessness.
More tomorrow.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Mitch, you need to be careful talking about right wing extremism. Apparently DHS is listening.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:39 am
That kind of talk is going to make you the subject of an 8:45 call from the “big guy” Mitch.
If you notice Flush’s eyeballs fluttering in their sockets it’s a sign that either you’re the meme of the day, or that Gigi has put too much sugar in the Kool-aid again.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:01 am
“Everyone lies Michael. The innocent lie because they don’t want to be blamed for something they didn’t do, and the guilty lie because they have no other choice. Find out why he’s lying; the rest will take care of itself.” — Commander Sinclair on Babylon 5
April 14th, 2009 at 10:03 am
n-bert; go to your room.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:29 am
“I’m Mitch Berg, and I’ll be your whine steward tonight.”
April 14th, 2009 at 11:36 am
“I’m angryclown, and I’ll be redefining ‘whine’ this evening, all while providing many examples of the old fashioned kind along the way.”
April 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Shiftee, anyone who quotes Babylon 5 on an Internet blog is someone who needs to get out of his room more, not less.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
This coming from a guy who… well, who simply is AC on an Internet blog.
That’s the pot calling the kettle black.
I’m sorry… the pot calling the kettle a water-boiler of color.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
“I’m angryclown and I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your blog-host, and try the veal.”
April 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
“Last week, Iowahawk did a hilarious send-up of JournoList, the hush-hush list-serve for liberal “deep thinkers””
And you guys wonder why you can not produce a Stewart or Colbert
April 14th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Stewart and Colbert? Who?
Oh, are they a couple of assistants to Rush, Hannity or O’Reilly?
April 14th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
And you guys on the left can’t produce a Mark Steyn.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
“And you guys wonder why you can not produce a Stewart or Colbert ”
What we can’t produce is an audience stupid enough to watch a Stewart or Colbert.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
And you guys wonder why you can not produce a Stewart or Colbert
Actually hadn’t given that much thought, but we’ll get right on that.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I produce a nice, healthy Stewart each and every morning at precisely 10:15 am, and every afternoon I scoop up at least two (too often runny) Colbert’s my dogs have left in the yard.
So, what’s the problem?
April 14th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Hey, AssClown. Tell DFLDick what a Stewart tastes like, will ya?
April 14th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
And you guys wonder why you can not produce a Stewart or Colbert
No, we don’t wonder at all.
Liberal political comedy is an exercise in self-adulatory groupthink; think “90 seconds’ Hate” with a laugh track.
Conservatism is more intellectually rigorous than liberalism, and so is our sense of humor.
Oh, and it’s pretty well a given that we have better senses of humor than liberals. Liberals have to travel in packs to laugh at tepid japing like Colbert.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Colbert, Stewart?
Let’s get literary: the Left has also given us Marx, Engels and Stuart Smalley. On the other side of the library, all those stupid liberty-lovers: Rand, Orwell, Nock, Hayek (sadly, not Selma) and Whittaker Chambers, who started out as a lefty until he “witnessed” the machinery and the results up close and personal.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
From the Psychology Today piece:
April 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Mitch:
“Conservatism is more intellectually rigorous than liberalism, and so is our sense of humor.”
Ergo
“I produce a nice, healthy Stewart each and every morning at precisely 10:15 am, and every afternoon I scoop up at least two (too often runny) Colbert’s my dogs have left in the yard.”
Yep. That is some intellectually rigorous humor.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
So, “I know you are but what am I?” is a legitimate argument now?
Rick, if you miss the nuance of swiftee’s poop jokes, I’d stay away from his gay sex jokes until your sense of humor is more sophisticated.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Go Cheney yourself, DickyDFL.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha
April 14th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
until your sense of humor is more sophisticated
or until you acquire one
April 14th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
RickDFL, I think you qualify as the most humorless commenter on SITD. If you ever try and make a joke, put one of them smiley-things at the end of it so we know you are one of them libs that thinks he is funny when he is not.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
one of them libs that thinks he is funny when he is not.
You mean like Stewart and Colbert?
April 14th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Yep. That is some intellectually rigorous humor.
Ah. Well, it’s Swiftee, regional blogger.
But to be fair, it’s more sophisticated than national talk show host Rachel Maddow referring to the Tea Parties as “tea-bagging” and – mirabile dictu – having every leftyblogger wag in the country pounce on the line like it’s a shiny piece of metal on the ground YAAAAAAY.
Hey, she’s a Rhodes Scholar! Did you know that?
April 14th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
“That is some intellectually rigorous humor.”
Oops, sorry; forgot my audience, DFLDick. See, I was comparing your heros to turds. It’s mockery at your expense…I laugh in your direction.
Discostool got it right away…he’s *really* smart.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Ah, liberal humor. Manufacturing lines and inserting them into the mouths of The Enemy. Guf faw!
It’s no surprise that Rick doesn’t “get” conservative humor. It rarely comes with a laugh track.
(That was a joke, Rick.)
April 14th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
…it’s more sophisticated than national talk show host Rachel Maddow referring to the Tea Parties as “tea-bagging”…
Ha, ha, nice punt there Basil but no dice. It was you numbnuts who so enthusiastically adopted that moniker with no help from the left, with hilarious results. Or as fake doctor Melissa Clouthier puts it: “Tea Parties & More: Putting Money, Time & Energy Where Our Mouths Are.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Two peanuts were walking down the street and one was assaulted….peanut.
[Close-captioned for the humor-impaired: A SALTED PEANUT, get it?]
Now, if Michelle Bachmann told that joke the lefty blogs would be all about her preaching hate and violence again.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Rick wants to know if Mitch has Prince Albert in a can. Because that would be torture like Gitmo.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
TiSP,
We mean one thing. The idiot lefties mean another.
And I’d say “you know it”, but it’s entirely possible you do not.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Night Writer, it’s also insensitive to those with peanut allergies.
Discostool got it right away
Oh, did you see what swiftee did there? My name’s DiscordianStooge, and he changed “Stooge” to “Stool.” You know, stool, like poop. Hi-larious!
April 14th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
My name’s DiscordianStooge
Actually, I’m not sure why, but I suspect that’s really a pen name.
Can’t quite place it, but I have a seventh sense for these things.
(My sixth sense is knowing when the executives are leaving sandwiches out after their weekly meeting).
April 15th, 2009 at 3:17 am
I prefer “online moniker” to “pen name.”
April 15th, 2009 at 4:04 am
I realize one of the memes of the left (pre-JornoList) is that conservatives aren’t funny and all get their cues from watching VHS tapes of FOXNews’s “Half a Comedy Hour” or whatever it was called.
Then I read comments from people who vow to stop watching the last seasons of MST3k because they found out Mike Nelson is a conservative. In all honestly, maybe that meme is correct — conservatives have such an easy job it’s hard to understand why they don’t knock it out of the park every time.
“And you guys wonder why you can not produce a Stewart or Colbert.”
Look at it this way. “We’ve” got Mike Nelson. You’ve got that creative genius Seth McFarlane and his three voices, 1.5 scenarios, and lazy animation. You’ve got Paula Poundstone, the deadest of dead weights on “Wait, Wait,” a show that already spends a fair amount of time laughing at its own “clever” digs at conservatives.
As for Stewart:
Play clips of talking heads acting stupid, make a funny face, swear at the Alaskan Governor, make passive/aggressive comments, lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, collect award for news programming, deny being a news show, smirk, repeat.
Even Rush Limbaugh got a fair amount of mileage out a variation of this in syndicated TV airing at 2am at one point.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Terry:
“put one of them smiley-things at the end of it so we know you are one of them libs that thinks he is funny when he is not. ”
You mean like Troy?
April 15th, 2009 at 10:41 am
RickDFL:
Actually, my smiley-things reflect the current expression on my face. 🙂
Feel free to use Terry’s suggestion if you think it will help, RickDFL.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Hey, stool.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one already..
What’s the difference between a Medal of “Valor” and life without parole for a Minneapolis cop?
A key to the evidence locker.
HAHA! Gets me every time.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
Nerdbert, I rather liked the Bab5 reference. I have to admit to a small chuckle at the unfortunate tea bag / tea party reference — the FIRST time. It struck me funny only because I doubt most of the people who were tea-partying had any idea of the alternate reference. The inadvertant aspect of it all was slightly funny, but hardly worth the attention it received.
Scrotal humor, like toilet references, very quickly becomes tedious.
Sheesh, there is amusing, witty commentary across the spectrum. No particular point of view holds an exclusive on wit or humor. I applaud any of it that encourages us to take ourselves less seriously, and which turns a magnifying glass on our own contradictions.
Perhaps I missed something in the tea party coverage. Despite the attempts to hijack the get togethers by FOX, I was not aware that tea parties were uniquely either right politically or conservative. My impression was that it was a very non-homogenous group of dissatisfied people from all over the map politically. I didn’t get the impression that there was any genuine unity of message or purpose other than widespread, sometimes even conflicting, points of view. It also seemed like Fox was trying to promote something that really didn’t have the extensive support they were trying to generate, which raises questions in my mind as to how genuinely wide spread grass roots this is.