Matt Taibbi sucks so much he pulls even generally decent brooklyn hot couch dorks into his self-preservation hysteria
He really does. I didn't realize quite how based Katie Halper was until he took a break from their show and got Aaron Mate to fill in
She's definitely much better than Taibbi but her recent "I got cancelled by The Hill" whistle-stop tour of the podcasts is really edging into Matt territory.
Well she was censored for talking about Israel as an apartheid state, which is a lot more true and commonly censored viewpoint than the stuff Matt cares about
As a general rule, you can basically make any (intelligent) criticism you want of "cancel culture" if your cancellation was over support for Palestine. I.e her, Norm Finkelstein
Norm Finkelstein
wasn’t he discredited for being transphobic? his palestine takes were pretty good iirc
Oh yeah no doubt she was in the right, but it's The Hill and she's no dummy - surely she knows its purpose is to peel radlibs off to the new right.
I mean, she was cancelled for saying "Israel Bad". I wish this was the hill Matt was planning to die on.
I suppose I dislike the entire concept of or term "canceling". Every time some chud claims they got canceled it's just self promotion, they immediately get a boost in popularity and get invited into all kinds of right wing spaces. They'll even quit their jobs so they can claim to have been canceled. Claiming to be canceled is just a pivot for most people in the commentariat. Using the term to describe getting fired from a right leaning fake "centrist" media outlet for having the right take on Israel is just.. what happens to leftists and has always happened to leftists.
I wouldn't so casually dismiss the efficacy of blacklisting because conservatives have their own little greenhouse ecosystem of toxic punditry. I see "cancel culture" as a simple consequence of consolidation in media and technology. Access to any kind of audience is predicated on some kind of wealthy patron or political organ backing and promoting you.
Using the term to describe getting fired from a right leaning fake “centrist” media outlet for having the right take on Israel is just… what happens to leftists and has always happened to leftists.
Leftists are definitely a favorite target. But the term applies to pretty much anyone that cuts across the interests of capital. Halper has every right to be pissed at how she was burned by the agency, particularly after they laundered her image to promote their media label as outside the mainstream. But that's also the nature of the game. You can't just stay in your hot house forever. You need to collaborate with other (often fake "centrist") outlets in order to improve the range of your advocacy. They need a diversity of opinions and speakers because they can't cultivate a target audience without it.
In many ways, Getting Cancelled is part of the game. She makes a bigger splash getting fired than she did pissing another op-ed into the river of content. And you've once again got people talking about Israel As An Apartheid State, which was the whole goal of her piece.
She makes a bigger splash getting fired than she did pissing another op-ed into the river of content.
This is what is annoying to me. The pageantry of the cancellation display. If she were straightforward about it I wouldn't find it so distasteful. It's the same kayfabe that the right wing uses, and to me it implies she thinks her readers/viewers are dupes.
This is what is annoying to me. The pageantry of the cancellation display.
The pageantry is what draws people's attention.
It’s the same kayfabe that the right wing uses, and to me it implies she thinks her readers/viewers are dupes.
I wouldn't call it kayfabe. She tested the boundaries and when she hit them she made a big noise. If she'd submitted this post without anyone complaining, she'd have pushed the line farther with her next one. Like someone probing an electric fence to see if its on. She definitely still got shocked. And if she made a bigger fuss about being zapped than you think is appropriate... well... again, that's just how you get attention when you're in the media business. If you don't scream, nobody hears you.
I disagree that she has to pretend to be shocked and blindsided in order to publicize that she was fired for being right. I have no interest in journalists who play-act things for attention. I'm confident she could still do the podcast rounds and talk about how inevitable it was that she would be fired for this and how this kind of opinion is why leftists are locked out of participation in major media outlets, and the effect would be the same without the chud trappings.
I have no interest in journalists who play-act things for attention.
That's fine. You're entitled to your own media diet.
the effect would be the same without the chud trappings
If complaining that you've been blacklisted flags you as a chud, I'm not sure what you think a chud is.
The play acting is the thing I am identifying as chud trappings. She's a journalist, she knows this happens to people with good opinions on Israel, etc and so forth as I've already said. I don't know more about journalism than she does but she doesn't need to pretend to be shocked to get me to sympathize.
The play acting is the thing I am identifying as chud trappings.
There's nothing playful about it.
She really got canned for really writing a real Op-Ed that really called Israel an apartheid state.
she knows this happens to people with good opinions on Israel
Part of the outrage she expressed was in how uncontroversial her statements were. So uncontroversial that Israeli state bureaucracts were here sources.
she doesn’t need to pretend to be shocked
She has every reason to be outraged. What they did to silence her was outrageous.
Then I guess I give her too much credit, and perhaps I do know more about journalism than she does? I'm inclined to be more charitable and assume I don't, so here I am.
I'll be honest, I never listened to the episode because I knew Taibbi had become a raging hot take machine already and didn't want to hear him cry about cancellation
Some people should never be allowed to discuss foreign or economic policies and some people should be exclusive on the subjects.
I guess we shouldn't care what podcasters do then and we should just go live our lives
That’s what I do. Whenever a podcast I enjoy does something to make me not enjoy I stop listening. Cultural/political capital “P” Podcaters are just weird extensions of the self-important stars of the Twitter-verse in my book. Nothing worth caring about comes from cultural/current events Twitter (or cultural sections of any social media platform). The more specific subsections of social media are usually decent.
It’s a free thing. We am free to listen at no cost, and we are free to stop listening for any reason.
yeah, this radlib bootlicking shit was why we changed the site’s name and I retired this account
wait. fuck.
I still don't understand why they did this. As much as they joke I always still thought our Chapo boys were pretty intersectional and not class reductionist trash.
This was right around the time that "cancel culture" was crystallizing into something the mainstream was willing to weaponize as a talking point, and I think some of the Chapo group and their media orbit started getting clammy about getting cancelled around that time. That Harper's Ferry letter, and what have you. IMO, they were trying to contribute their stance to the "discourse" of the time, and their obvious-but-unstated worry about getting cancelled and losing their meal ticket caused them to hew towards views like this.
They seem to have mostly course-corrected in the last year ('they' being the main three of the show, Taibbi is off the deep end lmao), but there was definitely a time period between the BLM protests and the peak of pandemic fatigue in mid-to-late 2021 where they were really starting to lean into their distaste of liberals a bit too mindlessly, and they were popping out some weird fucking takes because of it. Felix all but explicitly turning into an anti-masker and having a meltdown on Twitter about having to wear a mask in the gym, and Christman having that phase where he was giga-braining his way into why lifting the lockdown and giving up on vaccine mandates was fine, actually, was a real fucking low point for the vibes of the show.
Didn't all that stuff come after this? This episode was fairly close to the start of the pandemic. The Riots happened, and they kind of stopped recording consistently for a bit and then ignored it. Then they came out with this take. They also were all offended that some fans wanted them to cover it. It kind of seemed like they too heavily invested in the Bernie thing and didn't really have any imagination left on what to do if it came to be or failed. I don't listen to them and was never a consistent listener.
I've listened to them since they did an episode making fun of the Chuds at Charlottesville and you are right in the respect that they had a lot of hope and faith place in the Bernie campaign. With no real game plan aside from that tbh
It is very much in their class interest to swallow without chewing these bad, inherently right-wing concepts. And once you have done that you are working with the wrong mental building blocks and can only produce trash.
Usually when a leftist says "class reductionist" they mean it explicitly as a criticism of the way someone dismisses other issues beyond class in their analysis, not as a way to say "I hate working class unity"
So focusing on improving the lot of the working class helps all marginalized people specifically
Right, that's true. Imo that's a key point to emphasize as an intersectional Left movement to separate ourselves from lib slackctivism. But fake? Definitely not. There are prominent figures on the left both online and offline who take that idea to its furthest extent, and end up denying support to less class-oriented but still benevolent movements. One example I can think of is when twitter marxists blanket-denounce Landback as "idpol". Not to mention the "leftists" who use extreme class reductionism as a cover for legit racism.
You are speaking from my heart exactly. I have no problem with working class policies and actually prefer them, but I see no problem in lending my support to anti-racist or anti-fascist orgs. These are all my comrades. You and I seem to think on the same wavelength.
This is exactly what I meant lol. I figured I might get some knee jerk flack from using the term, but what else do I call somebody who dismisses anything beyond class issues? Class is always the central tenant to me, but dismissing anything outside that sect is in fact "class reductionist".
That's not what they said. Even if you rachet this headline back a bit, you'd be giving it the worst possible reading.
Want to know how to criticize your comrades without things devolving into struggle sessions and splits? Don't assume the worst intentions, especially when they have a track record of good stuff.
'Not what they said'
bull fucking shit. Their calling card is to be the first ones to champion stupid pol like discourse. They dismiss and ridicule intersectionalism half the time they talk about it. Without ever reading Settlers, they've criticised on the basis of it being 'lib'.
They're not my comrades and what literally is their track record of good stuff?
How did they decry cop hating? Why is whatever they said in this episode definitive, but all their other comments shitting on cops don't matter?
I'm not saying they're your comrades. The point is that it's never good to start inter-leftist shit flinging over misrepresentations and bad-faith interpretations.
do this for Brie Joy and Nina Turner or whoever the fuck, I'm sure you'd be calling them comrades with one or two mishaps.
I'm in favor of criticizing people based on what they actually said, and for considering their track record if they have a bad take, yes.
Why don’t you actually say what they actually said to see if it’s all that different from what I described.
What did they say, then? I already listed what they said ffs. All you did was deny what I wrote.
more like
they said X
they didn’t say anything like that
ok what did they say
The discussion I remember was about the tension between support for defunding police and polls showing that a lot of poor and POC folks did not want police removed from their neighborhoods. I think they mentioned that crime -- real crime, like assaults, burglaries, robberies, and car thefts -- is something people do care about, and that police are basically the only response to this at the moment. They may have mentioned how neighborhoods that have had so much cut from them already are hesitant to see more taken away. They definitely mentioned that work as a cop is one of the last high-paying, secure jobs you can get without a ton of education, that plenty of cops come from poor neighborhoods, and that the loss of "good" jobs is another reason for hesitance.
Other places like :citations-needed: have had better versions of the same conversation, sure. Nothing about this struck me as reactionary, though -- just a bit underdeveloped. You can talk about what groups of people think without endorsing it.
Even if you rachet this headline back a bit, you’d be giving it the worst possible reading.
There's nothing more normal in the world than a bunch of terminally online leftists dissecting a throw-away line in order to prove, once and for all, that the high profile people who openly advocate and campaign for a bunch of legitimately good stuff, are actually all hateful vindictive fascists.
Want to know how to criticize your comrades without things devolving into struggle sessions and splits?
Yes, but only so I can do the exact opposite.
This episode, along with Amber's constant making excuses for reactionaries if not outright sympathizing with them, got me to stop listening for like a year and a half.
Seriously, I know having reactionary family members makes it more personal to call their beliefs reprehensible dogshit, but plenty of people that listen to the show can manage just fine at keeping on good, if at-arms-length, terms with their conservative families without carrying water for their beliefs.
While we're complaining, I feel like every time a blue check mentions ADHD, they have to make 20 minute segment on ableism discourse. I've definitely seen people wealthier than me use mental illness to deflect criticism, but those guys are not equipped to talk about such things.
10-ish episodes ago Felix said something like "sensory overload, isn't that when you're too dumb to understand the things around you?" Which totally owned the OpEd writer who thinks it's ableist to expect people to like babies, but also Shut The Fuck Up
I still listen to that garbage anyways
Stopped listening except for highlight videos of single topics long ago cause for a while it felt like every other episode had a Felix bit mocking people for using "spoon" terminology.
Good to know it isnt worth keeping up with still.
Recently had to mute "ADHD" on twitter, it's just not worth it
:based-department:
honestly having taken adderall why the fuck is everyone not on that shit 24/7
you would think the capitalists would be on it at least for productivity or some shit
I think this was the last time Frost was a semi regular appearance on the pod.
