Amon Drool:

I’ll risk it with a worn out cliche: “You only have one chance to make a first impression.”

What would you think of some right wing wacko’s intellectual capacity if he started off criticizing “Carl Marks” or “cimminisum of Russa?” I can bet nothing he would say afterward would matter to you.

“Venquela” and “Nicuarga” ar so offputting to me. I’ll take your word for it that folktruther has a very well developed political philosophy. I just can’t understand a word of it. As I said before, butchering the common structure of English is everyone’s right as a free thinking revolutionary trying to break free of the dominant power structure. But the risk he takes is reaching only a very limited and like-minded audience, like the readership of Truthdig.

P.S. I’ll be 61 next week.

I like a nice, roll-your-own phrase like “truth tradition”, whereas “dominant paradigm” sounds like part of a satire on academic language.  The peculiarity of Folktruther’s language indicates to me that he has done some actual thinking, and it might provoke thought in others, which of course is going to annoy a lot of people.

anar…why say something like truth tradition when u could use a phrase like dominant paradigm and then use as a referent american banker/finance capitalism as the present dominant (and hopefully crumbling)paradigm?  most would understand that point of view…i think truth tradition (especially the adjectival truth) clouds what folk is trying to get across.

and homeland values doesn’t resonate very well either.  homeland brings to mind nazism and the recent bush/cheney-led cabal.  i think what folk is trying to say with that phrase is that a universal perspective has to be integrated with the more immediate national perspective.  i don’t think the way he uses homeland values gets that point across very well.

and earthperson popuation hadda leave even a sympathetic reader like u muttering what the ef.

but hey, like i’ve noted before, folk has a thick skin and is able to deal with the mockery that his amorphous phrasing brings on.  different strokes for different folks and so on and so on and doobie doobie doo doo…

Amon Drool:
’... i’ll just say your phraseology (“truth tradition” “homeland values” “earthperson population”) sometimes gets in the way of what you’re trying to convey.  i pretty much know what u mean, but it all may come off as a bit pretentious to some. ...’

What else is he going to say?  Regardless of whatever phraseology he uses, if he says anything that hasn’t been taught in school and recited by the media, it’s going provoke incomprehension, resistance and resentment in a lot of people.

folk…damn, i got knocked off-line during a longish post to u and when i got back online and finished the post and then hit preview, pffftt..the post went bye bye.  thought it was a good one, but i don’t wanna go through doing it all again.  i’ll just say your phraseology (“truth tradition” “homeland values” “earthperson population”) sometimes gets in the way of what you’re trying to convey.  i pretty much know what u mean, but it all may come off as a bit pretentious to some. (rfidler,nefesh) and i’m hoping you’re not thinking you’re unique in adding “homeland” values to class-based ones…lukacs and gramsci did this after WW1.  and a lot of us of a certain age have felt the need to develop a world historical perspective to get beyond a class-based homeland perspective.  pictures of the earth from the moon coupled with a deteriorating ecological situation have had an effect on most.  hell, it’s 5:30 in the morning…better get some sleep

Thank you for your comment, Amon.  I found your comment about my coherence valuable.  the issues you mention are the outcome of a citique that the truth traditions of polities are formulated from the basis of class and homeland values.  class based power structures that rule hoemlands produce truth traditions that serve their power interests rather than those of the population.  And this has influenced the scientific tradition and especially Wesstern social science.

the US homeland values are being promoted by Zionists who primaily identify with Israli homeland values.  But they are subsumed by a Eltist US ruling class that uses them for its own purposes.  My view is highly coherent, and expands marxist social theory to include homeland as well as class values.  It is highly coherent, as marxism is, but subverts the Western worldview that has legitiamted Capitalist Democarcies the past few centuries and the predatory imperialism of the White Man.

Because it is formulated from a world historical perspective of the earhtperson population rather than from a class-based homeland perspective.

I have edited this as thanks for your comment.

By rfidler, July 6 at 2:54 pm #

He “reads both sides too”, but only from one side, “the perspective of the ‘population’ against the ‘deception of power’”, whatever the fuck THAT means.

I have asked FT to define his favorite memes, several times, in fact, and he is unable to do so. What does that tell you?

“pseudo-Prgressive (sic) mainstream truthers”

“truth system”

and my favorite FTism - it’s downright Orwellian - “truth consensus”

rfidler..i’m not quite sure what u are thanking me for.  but, what the hell, smoke ‘em whenever u get ‘em.

i post infrequently at TD.  i’ve had my say on the political and economic reforms that i think this country needs, and i just don’t wanna go on repeating myself.

i do post when i feel someone gets “outa line”...and i do feel you’ve gotten outa line on this thread.  skmasksk’s well-written post is easily understandable, but u feel the need to take a shot at TD’ers telling them that only about 10% of them can understand it.  u take a shot at folk for lack of a coherent framework.  to me, his framework seems to be an amalgam of western marxism, skepticism of scientific values that sprung forth from the “enlightenment”, and anti-zionism.  and i think he makes that framework cohere as well as it can.  i do wish he would proof-read his stuff, but that’s his choice.

i don’t exactly know how to end this post.  u seem a little too ready to poke fun at what u perceive to be liberal/progressive inanities.  maybe, my disagreement with u is an age thing.  i’m 61 and i only feel the need to flame at people online when i feel they are mean or intellectually dishonest…2 things that folk is not.  i guess we just pick our spots (to flame)differently.

Amon Drool: Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it. Ok, I’ll give you fifty percent.

Actually, I’ve only been watching TD for about six months. Folktruther stands out because, no matter what the original piece, he always manages to get back to his same tired old bogie-men harangues. He displays absolutely no coherence in his thinking and defends his, shall we say, creative destruction of the English language as a statement of anti-bourgeoise revolutionary solidarity.

I am all over Jeffersonian democracy. He’s one of my political heroes.

Getting back to the thread of this article- I think newspapers are dying solely because of the internet. It’s not content, it’s advertising dollars. I picked up a Washington Post the other day for the first time since leaving the DC area a few years ago. It was anorexic!! I couldn’t believe it. The business section was completely missing- the stock tables are no longer being printed. It’s not because there’s no business news, It’s just that the Post realized people were getting that info on line, so why waste paper.

rfidler sez—skmasksk: Very nice piece. I doubt however that more than ten percent of the posters her on Truthdig will have understood a word of it.

LOLOL…your arrogance is just breath-taking
______
rfidler sez to Folktruther: You’re one of the New Puritans, who is worried that someone, somewhere might just have the bad taste to be having a good time while an innocent child somewhere in the world is being murdered by corrupt US policies.

i don’t know how long you’ve been reading here at TD, but folk is known for his thick skin and sense of humor.  and, yeah, i agree with u, his western marxist lukacs/gramsci framework can be a bit tedious.  but i sense what he is trying to convey when he refers to “population power” is something that americans like jefferson and john dewey would have been very comfortable with…democratising political and economic institutions that are in need of democratising.

folktruther: Jump over to the Hedges piece.

Please excuse me, Fidler, I forgot to add that you are also a disgusting racist, as recently exemplified from your post on Hedges thread.  We need more Zionists like you from the gutter.  It gives zionism the odor it deseraves.

folktruther:
Well, your pselling si a litle better. Is it reactionary of me though to expect you to spell Daniel Ortega’s home country “Nicaragua” and not “Nicuarga”? Do you honestly think your new buddy Hugo would take you seriously if he saw your “Venquela” in print. Those aren’t mere typos made in haste. You’re not displaying your revolutionary bona fides against the hetero-normative hegemonic white corporate power structure with your creative spelling, you’re displaying your abject illiteracy, pure and simple.

Now to get you out of that tiny nihilist box you call a philosophy. I don’t claim that you’re ignorant politically or philosophically. I just disagree wholeheartedly with almost all of your positions. If that makes me “ignorant” and “vulgar” in your eyes, so be it. But of course, that’s not debating, that’s name calling.

You rail against the MSM for ignoring the real stories and the real “truth”. What will happen if you win the argument and the MSM starts reporting things the way you’d like? Will you become a fan of the MSM?

Of course not! Your lot in life is to be a permanent outsider, bitching about the way things are, and offering up nothing but tired old platitudes about “population power.” You’re one of the New Puritans, who is so worried that someone, somewhere might just have the bad taste to be having a good time while an innocent child somewhere in the world is being murdered by corrupt US policies.

Of course you agree with PSmith and Anarcissie: You’re all clones. You tell each other what you want to hear. (Do you really believe PSmith’s claim that 500,000 kids under five have been murdered by the US since 2001?)

You’re posts are hilarious and very easy to satirize, but I worry that your anger and negativism are driving you to an early grave.

You wound me deeply, fidler, by your brutal comments om ny lack of mastery of spelling.  My more formal stuff is edited by a really good speller, but here I don’t have the time or patience to focus on literacy, being interested in the ideas of truthers less ignorant and vulgar than yourself.  I an striking a blow, with my ideological brother Trith, aganist the rigid dogmatism that there is only one right way to spell a word.

Long ago I realized the distinction between people like Anarcissie and PSmith, who are sincerely interested in truth, and ignorant cyncis like you whose intent is simply to muddy the waters.  I don’t respond to them, but your attack on my spelling hurt so I could not repress a cry of anugish.

Anarcissie:

Thank you very much for the insight. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately, Folktruther lacks three things: your “coherent framework”, the ability usefully to translate thoughts not his own, and any semblance of mastery of spelling. He may in fact have some useful things to say, but his illiteracy is extremely offputting.

rfidler:
’... He “reads both sides too”, but only from one side, “the perspective of the ‘population’ against the ‘deception of power’”, whatever the fuck THAT means. ...’

In order to understand abstract ideas (and communicate your understanding), you have to have some sort of coherent framework in which to order and evaluate your perceptions and concepts.  If a differing but coherent framework is being used by someone else, but is truthfully professed or can be accurately determined, what is communicated can often be usefully translated into one’s own.

jackpine: Folktruther is right! Quit filling your mind up with someone else’s take on reality. Do what he does- read the same closed loop, self-congratulatory, self-perpetuating loony tunes mush. You’ll sleep much better at night if you don’t cloud your thinking with strange ideas.

He “reads both sides too”, but only from one side, “the perspective of the ‘population’ against the ‘deception of power’”, whatever the fuck THAT means.

What, Jackpine, has reading both the left and right made you?  It has made you confused.  I like reading your comments because you grasp the central power relations and see through the bullshit, but sometimes you support oppressive power and sometimes the people oppressed by power. What side are you on?  You waver, as Marx said of the petite bourgeois, your ancestors.

As is obvious by now, I read both sides too, but from the perspective of the population and against the deception of power.  I suggest you meditate, on those unexpectedly long visits to the toilet as Skamacksk puts it, on the destructiveness of oppressive power not only in the US, but in the world history of earthpeople.

But I have to say that I perfer your views to the mush of sentemental liberalism.

skmacksk: Very nice piece. I doubt however that more than ten percent of the posters here on Truthdig will have understood a word of it.

Mr. Hirschorn’s reportorial observations on the Economist are peppered with neologisms,the latest lingo, and apt foreign phrases, that render his comments, ‘assured’,‘smart’, even a point. He of the breezy kitsch style: an amalgam of Time Magazine under Henry Luce, and Cosmopolitan Magazine, under the able leadership of that American nonpareil, Helen Gurley Brown. The Economist represents respectable right wing opinion of the Professionals that are its subscribers,hardly a surprise, and they pay handsomely, to see that respectable opinion ‘objectively’ verified in print. Mr. Hirschorn’s piece, and by implication, his magazine are the more respectable intellectual choice for those unexpectedly long visits to the toilet, and for those whose self-respect make ‘People’ an ill advised choice. Mr. Hirschorn writes magazine articles, and is, quite rightly,concerned about the demise of ‘Print,’ but he is posted here, and is, rest assured, guaranteed a place in the New Pantheon of Opinion and Reportage, the Internet. This new environment more freewheeling and probably ,at the moment, less profitable, is nonetheless,the future of all the opinionators,whose once secure hold on the Media has been rendered moot. Causing intermittent waves of panic, in those dwellers of a Stratosphere that is losing altitude at alarming velocity.

jackpine: Bravo.

psmith: Listen to jackpine. Also- shorten up your posts. Lose the links. Even the most ardent communists’ eyes start to glaze over.

Jackpine Savage:

You have a point about only reading publications you agree with. In defense of progressives, I read quite some time ago that liberals are more likely to read or view opposing points of views than conservatives are. That seems to make some sort of sense given the definition of liberal vs. conservative. I think you need to sort out the views of publications like the Economists who at least have the ability to present their reasoning with intelligence and wit versus publications like the Weekly Standard and the Washington Times who can only spout conservative ideoloogy without much thought behind it. Same goes for commentators like George Will versus extremists like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. I can listen to the former and disagree with him but won’t waste my time with the latter two. Will has the intelligence to state the obvious, that Sarah Palin wasn’t ready for prime time and never will be, whereas Hannity and Limbaugh could never reach that conclusion.

Well, yes, The Economist is right wing…i think i said that at least twice. I also read Counterpunch which is hardly right wing. So what does that say about me? PSmith is (and i have no idea where PSmith lives) making the classic, American intellectual mistake of reading only things that s/he already agrees with. That’s a bigger damned problem than the right wing leaning of The Economist.

I’ve spent my fair share of time being made visibly angry by pieces in The Economist. It ran with the bullshit story about the Russia-Georgia War in the same way that the NYT did…for example. (oh, wait, that was one where the liberal blogosphere mostly jumped on the poor little Georgia, bastion of Democracy, getting beat up by big bad Russia too. Shit, who am i supposed to believe now?)

My apologies for being able to read multiple sources and come to my own conclusions…i must be part of the problem. I should probably become more free with my use of the caps lock button too, because that really shows intellectual vigor.

PSmith, i’ll try to do a better job of reading only pre-approved media outlets…i wouldn’t want to sully myself with reading the banned publication list. I should have known better than to run afoul of the reactionaries. That sort of shit will get you sent to the gulag.

Le carre seems to be repenting in his old age, PSmith.  He’s a unique novelist and I’ve read all but a few of his novels, but as to his speaking truth to power, no.

He is a Cold War spy with a marvelous talent for narrative, but he remains one after the Cold War is over.  He doesn’t like the new War on Terrorism because 1. he can’t write it and 2. it is a degneration of the Western tradition which he treasures. 

His best novel: A PERFECT SPY, largely authobiographical about his father.  Second Best:  THE HONORABLE SCHOOBOY Third; his most famous novel, TINKER, TAILOR

PSmith is quite right, Jackpine.  The ECONOMIST is a right wing view, as yours tends to be off and on, that gives sharp realistic digests of what is happening all over the world.  It is unique, which is why I subscribed to it for a time, and still read it in the library.  It tends to subvert the economic fabrications of the American midbrow media, especially about foreign economices, like China.

But it repeats Western Big Lies like the Iran Stolen Election, and invasions, like Iraq and the Malvinas.  It is why I canceled my sub; I couldn’t stand supporting this militarism.

What is needed is a sharp digest like the ECONOIST writen from the populations perspective.  But there is no ad money to support it.  IF cooperatives started adveertising the way profit corps do, they could fund a real alternative to the midbrow media.

I agree, Jackpine, that, nevertheless, it is worth reading in the midst of the fabrications and trivia of the mainstream news.

If you’re a liberal, then surely you take the “Progressive Populist”.
It covers all the bases, and isn’t just opinions.
It is real news and not propaganda. And it is real paper, comes in my mailbox twice a month.
Lots of plusses there.

I like the Economist but only read it occasionally. I don’t always agree with them but they do their homework for the most part. For my liberal fix though I need “The Nation” which really does it’s homework and makes no apologies about its progressive views. Most of the mainstream magazines are way too “white bread” middle class for my tastes - small amounts of intelligent discourse sandwiched between massive slices of pop culture.

Oh come on, PSmith. You’ve never read The Economist regularly, have you?

Or maybe you’d like to explain why the publication regularly takes a more progressive stance than the Democratic Party on a great many issues: drugs, the environment, etc.

Yes, it has a slant, but the slant is open and honest. It’s rather easy to remove the facts from the opinion because, unlike in the US media, the opinion isn’t dressed up as fact. What you’re really trying to say is that the only news worth reading is the news/opinion that you agree with. I guess you’re cut out for sticking to the blogs where there is no fact, only opinion and you never have to deal with the opposing point of view.

As for the condescension, perhaps…but it’s rather refreshing to read a newspaper not written at a 6th grade reading level.

I know, i’m wasting my time discussing this with someone who cries about objectivity and then backs up his statements with “Chomsky says…”

I can tell you why. It takes the news seriously; it is engaged in the whole world (arts and culture included); and while it has a defined, editorial stance it also makes that stance clear.

That is, no bullshit about being fair and balanced or objective. It’s fiscally conservative and socially liberal; it makes no apologies for that. It will, however, admit to mistakes and apologize for them. Eg: it supported the Iraq war, apologized, and regularly reminds readers that it wrongly supported the war initially.

And some people think that reading it makes them look highbrow because it’s English…but having a native English but outside the US voice is worth being lumped in with the “Look at me, i’m reading The Economist” crowd.