Kulturkampf

[filler]

[Ribosome]

Amazing things happening on X, the Everything App.

[HaughtyFrank]

Epstein smiling from Heaven Hell

[Ethan]

Maybe all the girls on Epstein's island were actually 10 000-year-old dragons...

[HaughtyFrank]

It's hilarious how often these illustrations happen

[Uncle]

It's hilarious how often these illustrations happen

[Potato]

Just listened to an interesting take from Jimmy Carr on American communism (Western really): https://youtube.com/shorts/zMmjKRettxA?si=uuF1KiWlpd5Vnj_k

I'm paraphrasing here, but basically, "Instead of trying to redistribute wealth, which is admirable, American communism is about redistributing status, which is fucking madness."

[Nintex]

Jimmy Carr is a hero 

tax dodging hero but still a hero.

[benji]

tax dodging hero but still a hero.

Redundant.

[HaughtyFrank]

[Polident]

In a broad sense, does it not raise any red flags that you have the most mainstream of mainstream media outlets pushing figures who claim to be punk and transgressive and not part of the establishment.

[Nintex]

“Gal Gadot serves an important role in normalizing Israel as not a fascist ethno-state, but instead a place where a lot of beautiful women come from. And those beautiful women happen to serve in the IDF, because there’s also this weird sexualization of the forces as well that takes place, and it plays another role in normalizing Israel and its activities and actions, and whitewashing it.”

They are gods chosen people for a reason  

Too bad you can't trust 'em

[Ethan]

When our waiter arrives, Piker turns to the 20-something hipster. “Can I ask you a question? Who is the most likely person that killed Charlie Kirk?” he asks. “I think it was Israel. It seems like an inside job,” the server replies hesitantly before heading back to the kitchen for Piker’s cold brew.

[...]

With our waiter out of earshot, Piker drops his voice discreetly. “Israel did not kill Charlie Kirk. That is insane!” he says. “I did that for you because you were shocked.” When the waiter returns with our order, he tells Piker that he is comping the cold brew. “Wait, why?” Piker asks. “I just like your vibe,” the server says.

“I make it a point not to have bodyguards when I’m around the people,” he says. “I think it was, was it Fidel Castro or Che Guevara who said, ‘I have a moral vest’?”

It was Castro.

So brave 

I'm starting to like these Hasan profile pieces. Rolling Stone should be next.  A few more like that and people might realize it's always the exact conversation, i.e. him shitting on a dozen or so people and not saying anything of substance. Oh and basketball, working out and being the left Joe Rogan.

[HaughtyFrank]

When our waiter arrives, Piker turns to the 20-something hipster. “Can I ask you a question? Who is the most likely person that killed Charlie Kirk?” he asks. “I think it was Israel. It seems like an inside job,” the server replies hesitantly before heading back to the kitchen for Piker’s cold brew.

[...]

With our waiter out of earshot, Piker drops his voice discreetly. “Israel did not kill Charlie Kirk. That is insane!” he says. “I did that for you because you were shocked.” When the waiter returns with our order, he tells Piker that he is comping the cold brew. “Wait, why?” Piker asks. “I just like your vibe,” the server says.

“I make it a point not to have bodyguards when I’m around the people,” he says. “I think it was, was it Fidel Castro or Che Guevara who said, ‘I have a moral vest’?”

It was Castro.

So brave 

I'm starting to like these Hasan profile pieces. Rolling Stone should be next.  A few more like that and people might realize it's always the exact conversation, i.e. him shitting on a dozen or so people and not saying anything of substance. Oh and basketball, working out and being the left Joe Rogan.

“These last two years, I’ve been called antisemitic. I abhor antisemitism, and I’ve spent my entire professional media career combating it. I just happen to be anti-Israel, and that makes me a far greater threat than the likes of Nick Fuentes because they know he’s a Nazi,” he says, referring to yet another polarizing figure in the ongoing schism within the far right. “I don’t find kinship with the right because I think there are some on the right that just use Israel as a new opportunity to cut through the noise.”

So brave to say that he doesn't find kinship with "some" of the right because he thinks their Israel hate isn't in good faith.

Variety also gave Taylor Lorenz a ring which gives us this banger

Journalist Taylor Lorenz, a friend of Piker’s who has covered the subject of internet harassment for 15 years, says that he is unique in the breadth of his haters, from Vice President JD Vance to Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres.

“Hasan has a very particular strain of politics, which is leftism that is attacked by both mainstream centrist Democrats, bad-faith left-wing actors, the right.
 wing and just internet trolls,” Lorenz says. “And he’s on the most dramatic platform possible, Twitch, which has the most parasocial fan base of any platform. He gets the entire internet weaponized against him. He is the only straight man I’ve ever seen that has been Gamergated.”

Edit:

truly just a beautiful interview

Apropos of something, Piker then gives a thumbs-up to the actor who suited up as the latest Man of Steel. “David Corenswet, from what I understand, is Jewish, and he’s very cool. He’s not like pro-Israel or anything like that either, as far as I’ve seen,” he notes.

[benji]

What does it mean to be Gamergated?

[benji]

[HaughtyFrank]

and they worry that other races will not show the same moral responsibility and caring for cows.

[benji]

It took way too long to scroll in that thread before anyone pointed out that there are cultures that literally worship them. But he knows better, cows can sense the vibes:

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[Ethan]

Ricardo lazily recycling his own rage-bait tweets. This one is even better:

And Ricardo, you're half puerto rican. We'll never accept you among our "superior race". But thanks for all your hard work on our behalf I guess...

[D3RANG3D]

But the savior of the huite race is Nick the knife Fuentes!

[benji]

A couple days ago Literary Hub, a well-regarded lefty arts publication that often publishes political takes, ran an article by Peter Coviello, the former chair of Africana Studies at Bowdoin College and currently a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago. Coviello’s article is about how, after former Bowdoin African Studies major Zohran Mamdani hit the spotlight, Coviello started getting inquiries from journalists asking what he remembered about him. (Coviello writes that he’s not sure he ever had Mamdani as a student, but might have.)

This part stuck out at me:

Beneath its humdrum requests, every email said more or less the same thing: Can you explain how reading certain things can turn a person into a socialist—and, possibly, a terrorist-sympathizing antisemite? It’s a storied gambit of the right at its most grimly predictable. “People read Foucault,” the redoubtable David Brooks once wrote, in an actual column that I’ve all but committed to memory, “and develop an alienated view of the world.” God, did I love this. An “alienated view of the world”! Not by, like, trying to pay rent or having an insurance claim denied—no, no, it was probably the Foucault you read in 2003. Anyway, it was clearly time to get the elaborate machinery of manufactured bewilderment and sour indignation up and running again. [emphasis in the original]

So I clicked the link to check the context of the quote. The column in question, written amid the heat of the summer of 2020, is about a pessimistic strain in lefty thought, particularly among black intellectuals:

Many conservatives and moderates say these ideas come from campus culture. People read Foucault and develop an alienated view of the world. The blunt facts, however, suggest that, overstated or not, these writers are responding to something real in the world, something real in the world both of the less educated and of the highly educated. People are responding to the failure of the mainstream, moderate, progressive formula for how to create a more equal pluralist America.

So Brooks is arguing against the notion that “People read Foucault and develop an alienated view of the world.” He’s presenting this as a view he disagrees with.

In the comments:

Freddie deBoer
5d

Yeah I look around at the state of the United States and think "the problem is Bowdoin professors"

Karen
A Feminist Changes A Lightbulb
4d

Have you ever read anything written by a right winger? Because if you think the Left has the bigger problem here, I have some news for you.

Resting
5d

Is it at all possible the LitHub piece was actually agreeing and appreciating David Brooks phrasing and making the same point? I can read the selection you quoted that way. It would of course be confusing to a reader unfamiliar with the column.

Bob Eno
4d

Mr. Nicholas, Once again, he did not get the quote wrong. He actually said nothing untrue -- David Brooks did write it, just as Coviello said. What Coviello did was either to misread or misremember Brooks' column and construe Brooks as stating his own idea rather than ascribing it to others and suggesting it was a common response to minimize statements of those reporting experiences of racism, which he'd come to feel was not legitimate.

If you've read the Brooks column I think you might agree that it is one of Brooks' most interesting but most unclear op-eds, and the ascriptive nature of the phrases in question relies entirely on the "however" of the following sentence. Recalling a column like that and mischaracterizing the phrase because of sloppy reading, memory, or self-fact check is the type of error that anyone who is not perfect can make. It is not a "pretty major error." It's an error *anyone of any ideological persuasion* could make, and that used to be the sort of lapse editors routinely saved authors from.

What's a pretty major error in my view is taking this screw-up and inflating it until it's a symptom of intellectual rot over the huge range of an entire side of the political spectrum. It's "gotcha," "pearl clutching," "bothsideism," or whatever stupid meme you want to invoke, and that sort of stuff is destructive -- it can play no role in getting us out of the insanity of the present moment. I read Jesse Singal because I take his project to be precisely getting us out of that insanity, and I think it's a lot more important to call him out on what I see as his error than to pile onto Coviello.

[HaughtyFrank]

Correcting bad sourcing or false quotes is actually white supremacy. I believe we learned that when the Harvard President had to resign

[benji]

https://www.scribd.com/document/742791010/Is-Your-Fav-Author-a-Zionist

Kind of disappointed this isn't still being updated.

[benji]

Incredible discourse:

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[TylenolJones]

[Alpacx]

...

[Uncle]

[NekoFever]

Just listened to an interesting take from Jimmy Carr on American communism (Western really): https://youtube.com/shorts/zMmjKRettxA?si=uuF1KiWlpd5Vnj_k

I'm paraphrasing here, but basically, "Instead of trying to redistribute wealth, which is admirable, American communism is about redistributing status, which is fucking madness."

Of all the comedians to try to get into a political debate with, pick the one with a first class Political Science degree from Cambridge

[Eric Cartman]

I'm starting to like these Hasan profile pieces. Rolling Stone should be next.  A few more like that and people might realize it's always the exact conversation, i.e. him shitting on a dozen or so people and not saying anything of substance. Oh and basketball, working out and being the left Joe Rogan.

There's an extra layer, because he is so desperate to be perceived as some sort of thought leading intellectual for a generation, but they always just end up focussing on what a hunky guy he is and steer well clear of his absolute dogshit stated beliefs

[benji]

Just listened to an interesting take from Jimmy Carr on American communism (Western really): https://youtube.com/shorts/zMmjKRettxA?si=uuF1KiWlpd5Vnj_k

I'm paraphrasing here, but basically, "Instead of trying to redistribute wealth, which is admirable, American communism is about redistributing status, which is fucking madness."

Woof at all the dogwhistles in this. Not surprising that a white cishet male with an elite degree is going mask-off fascist because he's desperate to protect the hoarded value of his land.