De-constructing Imus Nation
(warning to anonymous: I will be criticizing stupid white males again. If you find this painful, Im sorry.Repeat after me “Im a guy, but I can change.”)
First, I have never listened to a Don Imus show, so I’m basing this whole piece on hearsay, innuendo, personal speculation and what I hear on the news! In this sense, I have myself joined Imus Nation. How many listeners DID Mr. Imus have? 5 million ,30 million, whatever, it was enough to create a 150 million dollar revenue stream for giant media corporations.And what were these advertisers so sure Don would do to bring in listeners? That’s right, be “edgy”, maybe “shock” or titillate or be outrageous. We all remember that sense of weightlessness when the class clown would say something sure to get him sent to the principles office, that’s what Don did for big money every day. He certainly is not alone in this genre, America loves it’s class clowns, America is the little pack of wanna-be’s who follow the schoolyard bully around, who in fact give him their lunch money for the privilege of doing so.Whether it’s Howard Stern or Savage or Rush or O Reily, when they invite Jesse Jackson on their show, Imus Nation shows up to hear the Big Mouth say in public what they think in private.Or might dare to say amongst a closed circle of bigoted confederates. They listen in hopes the high paid clown will directly challenge the “politically correct” conventions which have restricted their GOD GIVEN RIGHT to express their homophobic, racist, and sexist views, and they will smirk and guffaw whenever the “nappy headed hoes” get a thumpin. Is this strictly a right-wing psycho-socio phenomenon? . Probably not, but can i have the illusion?Please? "When I am paricularly depressed," Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote in a NY Times op-ed ,"I ascribe our behavor to stupidity- the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture.."
Columnist David Brooks was compelled to issue a flimsy mea culpa for being a guest on the Don Imus show so many times (probably knowing he would run into Gwen Ifil on the Newshour) by saying it was a kick for pundit intellectuals to go slumming every once in a while, buy a sixer of Budlight and head on down to the NASCAR track. Of course every nerd wants protection from the bully, but deep down he wants association, he wants the left-overs (did I mention the little flock of girls that are also in sexual awe of the “badboy”?).
So the shareholders got nervous,(maybe they’re invested in sub-prime lenders as well) and pulled the plug but Don has his defenders. Blogger sonia-belle points out Don’s free-speech rights are being infringed upon and that he is being subjected to a “McCarthy Trial” witch-hunt. I think those are terrible arguments and analogies (Don can go scream racist insults from any soapbox in the public sphere he wants) and I’m a little surprised to hear her defend commie bastard Arthur Miller. In terms of culture critique ,I don’t know if this is just more of “what’s wrong with Kansas” or in line with Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” thesis but something is obviously out of whack and perhaps all shock radio listeners should be picked up and taken to re-education camps. Just kidding, anonymous! I have compassion for the mentally oppressed as well as the physically, and will work to nurture their own compassion. "Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child." Cicero Shoot, we all have compassion for children! "Once the running of the state involves a permanent and massive shortage of historical knowledge, that state can no longer be run strategically." Guy Debord
Labels: cheap beer, kulturecritique, right-thinking
posted by troutsky @ 10:03 AM
29 comments
29 Comments:
The politicians who preach family values, and monitoring TV, are Imus's best friends (McCain and Lieberman).
Yes but the key fact this was a failed attempt at comedy. Rosie O'Dumbell started hateful talk about 9-11 conspiracy talk on The View.
Yes hateful conspiracy theories that are almost always anti-semitic are peachy. Sorry there Troutsky but the left has been in Marcuse fascist mode for decades. Censoring all speech that is considered repressive or racist is peachy.
What can I say other than what have already been said: I think would he have spoken anything bit unorthodox about, say, Jews, he would have been kicked in the crotch a century ago. Only conclusion I get to is that he's on the payroll of these same "Jews lovers" calling themselves "Born-again Christians" instigating against anyting that isn't part of them and who love anythng but Jews. Or humanity, for instance.
The insulting Africans part is bad, yes, but did you read what he stated about Palestinians? Or Iraqis? As if it weren't enough that his arse of a president annihilated their country.
jHe fell on the sword, end of Spectacle. Let that be warning to all un-funny pundits!
That "anti-semite" card gets a lot of play on your site Beak, any worries about calling wolf a little to often?
I totally agree the 9/11 conspiricy is wacky and diverts people from meaningful action. But it's a wacky world and Ive been wrong before (Dec. 1966) Ive also never heard anyone refer to Marcuse as a fascist. Opaque, unintelligible, yes.
By the way, I want to thank cringinginamzement-cring2 for researching the Dr.Lindzen connection in the "global warming" discussion a couple posts back. I was to busy/lazy but he did the necessary work.More of that is needed.
Troutsky
I point to the comments above as a perfect example of the anti-semitism that is a far left staple. What would you call a white guy that talks about " black lovers".
I could point to the anti semitic content of Renegade's blog who posts on the subject of Jews and Israel more than I do. Did we really learn anything from the political views of Nina Hartley.
Moreover, would you even make that comment at a Black,Muslim or gay objecting to naked bigotry at their site. I haven't even started on the blame America first bit.
As far as Marcuse goes where do speech codes in Universities and government come from. You need to brush up on your left wing facism.
I totally agree the 9/11 conspiricy is wacky and diverts people from meaningful action.
I do not agree with but will not argue your definition of the "911 was an inside jobbers" as wacky, but I would like to point to the actions of the US administration being the epitome of opportunism in regard to the event. No other political group agenda has benefited more from it, or have proven themselves more capable of such a heinous act since, than Bush's Chickenhawk packed administration.
But calling the "911 truth movement" a diversion from meaningful action sounds like you think there has been some, hell, any, meaningful action to stop the juggernaut. It is more likely that they will destroy themselves through incompetence and ignorant arrogance than be unseated by people who dare not believe the evil agenda they follow. If we ever survive them, the last thing to come to light will be their first move: complicity in or sole perpetrators of the tragedy that launched this whole mess.
If you want to point to the real diversions, take a look at the pc debate about just about everything, look at the belief that we still have a two party system, look at otherwise wise people looking the other way
I also think that calling the 9/11 theorists "wacky" is unfair. The truly wacky ones are held up as representative of the whole as a kind of public strawman to discredit the greater number that simply don't believe the official version of events, which is a pefectly rational position to take.
It is better to compartmentalise it as a historic event that has been surpassed by the events that had their catalyst within it. But we should hold it in the corner of our minds in my view because it was the catalyst for the hoax known as the war on terror, which really is turning the world order upside down and by design.
That those designs were in print before 9/11 should give pause for thought.
Beakerkin is trying his wife beater psychology here I see. Manachaen paranoia is such a drag. Possibly incurable without an extreme intervention.
What anti-semitic content at my blog?
Beakerkin thinks everything is anti-semitic. I am sure that he thinks me thinking that he thinks everything is anti-semtic is anti-semitic. It is quite pathetic.
Great analysis too Troutsky. Stuff like this gives people a false sense of equality among the races.
Lets start our way with the appologists for class genocide with some social skills. Renegade, your blog has more content about Jews than my blog does. What did we learn that has any meaningful impact on your famous post of the political views of Nina Hartley. We learned that G thinks a porno actress who brags she is no "Zionist" is a visionary. This speaks vollumes about the mono focused Elmer Fudd like obsession your kind has had with dem Joooos since their inception. Maybe you can make a sequel to the Duetcher idiocy with the non Brazilian Brazil nuts.
I will also point to the Imus like comments of the puppeteer about "Jew Lovers". The problem with you commie dolts is that you don't realize how bigoted you appear. I guess a redneck talking smack about N lovers or F hags just has another context.
Now onto the mental defectives out of touch with reality. Even Art Bell has described the hateful anti-semitic out of touch with reality 9-11 conspiracy nuts. Conspiracy nuts take an irrelevant fact and add their bigotry to form an assinine theory.
As someone who was blown up in 93 and an eye witness on 9-11 I have my own theories about conspiracy cranks. Conspiracy cranks are mental defectives of the lowest order and should be medicated.
One more thing to the amatuer shrink. I have more than likely taken more classes than you have.
Your mental mastubation theories about conspiracies are the product
of stupidity and mental illness. You don't know jack and cant differentiate between Manachean and MD 20-20.
Troutsky
I want to thank your readers for demonstrating my points about mental illness and bigotry on the far left are 100% correct.
G
Your anti-semitic as well as flat earth comments speak for themselves.
see!!!
Well, that little experiment(engaging beakerkin) didn't work out so good.I thought we could get him to drop the hostile tone and join the movement for universal emancipation! (just joking)I guess it's just another demonstration of The Great Divide but for the first time in decades I am optimistic the politics of spittle is losing steam.
I understand your comment,Gregrandgar, about "diversion from what", but I see signs of awakening.I don't want to see any energy diverted from a forward moving politics.
Tom Freidman thinks the earth is flat, not me.
I like your term, "politics of spittle" as demonstrated by your test case, Beakerkin: "Rosie O Dumbell," "anti-semitism is a far left staple," "…who post more on Jews and Israel than I do," "mono focused Elmer Fudd like obsession your kind has had with dem Joooos since their inception," "The problem with you commie dolts is that you don't realize how bigoted you appear." talk about mistaking one's mirror for the image of others "Conspiracy nuts take an irrelevant fact and add their bigotry to form an assinine theory … are mental defectives of the lowest order and should be medicated." "One more thing to the amatuer shrink. I have more than likely taken more classes than you have." indicating what?
"Your mental mastubationthe word he was groping for is masturbation, which belies his assumption of more classes leading to superiority theories about conspiracies are the product
of stupidity and mental illness. You don't know jack and cant differentiate between Manachean and MD 20-20.
Could someone point out any points this spittle flecked hate monger made other than his total reliance on ad hominem attacks being a sense of righteousness. Where'd you find this guy, Trout?
retinlipShould I point out that Israel was probably the only truely Marxist state on the planet for 40 odd years?
Probably not.
I definitely won't mention that the major struggle between the dominant Israeli elite factions was between marxists and admirers of Mussolini's corporatavist model.
20/20 revisionism would take care of that, I'm sure.
I guess I don't see what the big deal is. My column for next week's paper addresses the Imus thing, but mostly I can't help but believe it's much ado about nothing.
I think Socialists tend to be historically ignorant (though this is certainly true of many non-Socialists and also false of some of them). Based on my limited observations, when someone disagrees with a Socialist's views on history they don't explain why the fellow who disagrees has gotten things wrong. They call him a stupid capitalist, which, while possibly true, does not contribute to the dialog in a meaningful manner.
And yes, folks on the right do this too, but there is a definite tendency to wish to supress certain speech within member of the left that I, as a libertarian, find meddlesome.
A Wiser Man Than I said...
I guess I don't see what the big deal is. My column for next week's paper addresses the Imus thing, but mostly I can't help but believe it's much ado about nothing.
Given the level of (mostly uncriticized) muslim bashing going on, and not just in or by the media, the comments were not particularly vitriolic in comparison I guess.
As someone who doesn't like to label himself I see the tendency to revise history on both extremes of the debate, but the extreme right has the reins of power and is making their revisionism almost official.
The tendency on the right is to argue about the rhetoric rather than the reality. Try convincing the average right winger that the US is not seeking empire. 100 years of factual evidence is dismissed because it doesn't fit the "freedom and democracy" propaganda.
A few words from an extremist islamic ex(maybe)CIA agent running around the hills of Waziristan is concrete evidence of a huge western world ending muslim conspiracy that needs to be fought with armies, nuclear weapons and trillions of dollars.
The obvious impossibility of a plot like this ever gaining followers let alone being put into action seems irrelevant to the average right winger.
Sorry that should be IS seeking empire.
Our relentless pursuit of empire is but one of the reasons I no longer consider the Republican Party my home. As Pat Buchanan, that much maligned conservative, put it, we are a republic, not an empire.
I guess I'm not your average right-winger.
Wiser, not having a go at you. I have no animus with conservatives.
The right wing now, are anything but conservative.
I read Pat Buchanan's site from time to time and it offends me less than most of the right wing fare available.
The neoconservatives are as far from he as I am though.
Which, I'm sure, will bring Beakerkin back into the argument. Oh treasure!
Oh, and Trout, you didn't complete the man's prayer: I'm a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess.
Goodness I love Red Green.
Not quite crybaby. You do not have the faculties to take seriously.
Leave the thinking to those more suited to the task. When you rise above the IQ of a turnip I might dignify you with a response.
Beakerkin,
By what extreme stretch of your overly-educated imagination do you suppose your response dignifies anything?
No arguement here. It was a stupid comment.
BTW It is "hos" not "hoes"; the latter would be coifed garden implements.
And after the list of negative descriptors you used to describe average people, I dont think your kidding about the re-ed camp.
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