Category Archives: Pseudo-intellectualism

UPDATED: More Reasons to Secede From The Pundit Pantheons of Fox, MSNBC and CNN

America, Israel, Journalism, Media, Pseudo-intellectualism, Russia

Guests who’ve been invited onto the typical American vanity-TV news show must invariably kiss the ring of the ego in the anchor’s chair. The grateful guest will typically offer up platitudes such as, “Only you do so and so,” “Your shows is the only show that, blah, blah,” and, “If not for you, blah, blah.” It seems to be expected—and is a good practice if a commentator seeks membership in the pundit pantheons of Fox, MSNBC and CNN.

Today, in furtherance of freedom (NOT), Freedom Watch featured the “liberventionists” Neal Boortz, who is a “a statist, not a libertarian.” Anything Boortz supports is usually an indication to the contrary. Boortz is also Sean Hannity’s favorite libertarian, a credibility that seems to stand him in good stead with Fox News’ libertarian producers.

So does Stephen Moore of the “War Street Journal” carry the Hannity stamp of approval. He too appeared in furtherance of freedom on Freedom Watch today. No wonder Moore, like Boortz, is Hannity’s in-house freedom fighter. One of Moore’s books was “Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer.” But that’s no indictment among America’s incestuous teletwits. (“Bush’s bailout society” was an instantiation of the principles upon which “Bush’s ownership society” was founded: credit for those who are not creditworthy.)

To continue the theme of “Closing The Door On Closed, Cloistered American Media,” contra American media, RT draws on a large sample of opinion for its commentary; Left, Right, libertarian; orthodox and unorthodox. It seems to achieve this by avoiding the anointing that goes on in American TV studios, where pundits are picked from among powerful, well-funded, mainstream think tanks, editorial newsrooms, Internet sites, or presidential, congressional and other government staff. The TV tarts who flock to DC or New York to hang around the major studios, and in the fullness of time inflict their insufferable stupidity on us—they have agents, no less (or Fortune 500 fathers, or both).

By embracing Skype, RT also reaches out to different, interesting individuals whose mission is not to make their home close to a major TV studio with the hope of being “discovered” by the dumbos on Fox, MSNBC or CNN.

UPDATE (Feb. 8): Sure, Myron; RT has plenty blind spots. The American moron media, by contrast, is one big, banal, unquestioning blind spot, chockablock with unrealistic rah-rah for America.

When last did you hear an interesting, original thought on MSM America? And American journalism has become mostly bad. Take, for example, the segment on Fox Business about the H1-B tiff with Obama. Not a word did the ego in the anchor’s chair devote to the debate (pro and con) surrounding the Visa. All he wanted to extract from his guest was that the Obama exchange on Google Plus was staged. That’s not journalism. It’s a partisan perversion thereof. Repulsive.

And, Myron, do follow some of the links provided, and you’ll see that RT gives voice to some fascinatingly bright Israelis (some generals) with whom you and I would not always agree. But, wow, are they brilliant, original and well-informed in their approach to the disputes and wars in which they have fought so valiantly. Click around RT’s Israel coverage, Myron, and you’ll see that, while it is much like CNN in its pro-Palestinian bent, RT showcases some magnificent Israelis who do Jews proud.

RT journos are intellectually curious—as you naturally are—as opposed their dim counterparts (can you say Dana Perrino?) in the American media.

UPDATE III: Meryl Creep’s ‘Craft’ (Access Hollywood)

Art, Bush, Celebrity, Hollywood, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Pop-Culture, Propaganda, Pseudo-intellectualism

“I gotta thank everybody in England that let me come and trample over their history,’ crowed the pretentious over-actor, Meryl Creep, during the Golden Globes Award ceremony, where Creep was rewarded for a role in trashing The Iron Lady.

The silly bitch, doyenne of American cinema, needed everybody to know that, noble character that she is, she, Meryl, still managed to play (the much-greater) Margaret Thatcher, despite hating the prime minister’s politics—and guts.

So has Hollywood been elevated in the zeitgeist that it can take time off from narrating, entertaining, and telling stories—as it once did—to “educate,” preach, propagandize, and rub our noses in this royal muck.

The deeply stupid inhabitants of Hollywood have been imbued with magical qualities, so much so that they can ditch their jobs as entertainers and devote their lives to trying to improve the plebs who lap their crap up.

But the evidence is in. Activism has now replaced acting, and sermons have supplanted stories. I don’t know about you, but given my own intelligence, I refuse to be lectured by “tards.” Unless these cerebrally compromised egotists can promise me a GOOD STORY sans politics—I do not patronize their “art.”

What will it take for clear-thinking people to quit enriching Hollywood “tards”?

The tarts and “tards” of Hollywood should be made to understand, through their pocketbooks, that they are nothing but public entertainers; glorified circus animals, show critters. Amuse us–if anything, make us think less about our daily political reality—or f-ck off.

Will YOU carry through?

UPDATE I: “… her philo–Semitism, always the mark of excellence in a Gentile,” writes Julie Burchill, in the essay, “Slimeballs always hate a strong woman.”

UPDATE II (July 17): Kids, kids, Hollywood was once great when its men and women reflected the multifaceted soul of America, RIP. Now Hollywood is simply a monolithic, left-liberal automaton, marching in thematic unison. Again and again we see the same theme, the same preachy worldview, the same giant digit wagging above at the captive audience. And the scripts: impoverished and ignorant.

Please, people, give credit where it was once due.

“A Christmas Story,”
Munich

And boy, could the joyless A. Jolie learn a thing or two about acting from the many great performances of her dad Jon Voight. The Odessa File, for one.

Don’t forget the few good TV series, such as Lights Out, Justified, Mad Men, etc.

UPDATE III: ACCESS HOLLYWOOD. Via Laura Ingraham:

Everyone knows President Barack Obama likes a celebrity fix – just ask Johnny Depp.
And today, just a day after pictures emerged of his extravagant 2009 Halloween party at the White House, the most powerful man in America was enjoying more VIP company.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie brought some Hollywood star power to Washington D.C. as they stopped by for a chat with the chief executive at the Oval Office.

Bush was no different.That war criminal was as tight as thieves with Bono.

Freedom Fighters Vs. Freedom Deniers; Truth Vs. Untruth

Conservatism, Journalism, libertarianism, Liberty, Media, Political Philosophy, Propaganda, Pseudo-history, Pseudo-intellectualism

If economic historian Tom Woods and XM radio host Mike Church made it onto Freedom Watch’s often-misnamed Freedom-Fighters panel, I would be inclined to tune in more often. These men have fidelity to truth and reality. It was on display during an appearance on Judge Napoliaton’s Fox Business show.

More often than not, I switch off. Sure, the occasional freedom fighter finds his way onto the segment, but the Freedom Fighters Panel is set-up, in general, in the mold followed by every other cable and network show. It’s positively postmodernist. Present the public with two competing “perspectives” or worldviews. By doing so, you mislead Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber into thinking that indeed there are two realities, and that he may decide which one is more compelling.

The truth is that truth is immutable; it is not relative. There is, moreover, too little truth in media. Truth cannot afford to be diluted or presented by its adherents as dueling with untruth.

Gasbag Gasparino/Nancy Skinner/Caroline Heldman/Tara Dowdell/—these Fox News fixtures no more represent truth or promote it than does your average Holocaust denier.

Except, that—although I know nothing about the Dewey Decimal Classification—I believe that in a library, Holocaust denying literature would not be classified under history. If I am correct in this last assumption, why classify the reality defying bunk spewed by the likes of Nancy Skinner, Caroline Heldman, Tara Dowdell, Carl Jeffers, Joe Sibila, Erika Payne, “Charlie” Rangel, and other assorted TV mouths, as versions of the truth? For that is what the panel format suggests.

Naturally, the dueling “perspectives,” political-panel format is quite compatible with the aims of CNN, MSNBC, and other progressive media outlets.

Neocons Are Second-Handers

Conservatism, libertarianism, Literature, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans, Ron Paul, South-Africa

Readers often conflate popularity with quality. Periodically, a reader who’s recently stumbled upon the commentariat’s dirty little secret—libertarians who’ve been writing predictive op-eds for over a decade—will suggest that this writer petition one of their favorite, famous, thoroughbred neoconservatives for an audience. “Show your latest book,” the well-meaning reader will urge, to this or that NYT best seller neocon, pseudo-conservative, know-nothing.

Take the “portfolio,” goes the well-meaning chap’s advice, and seek a pat on the head from a particular dufus whom my reader, for some reason, considers to be a Delphic oracle.

Of course, in the larger scheme of things, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa” should survive long after the various neocon books.

Liberals this; liberals that; Bush was great; Cheney too, the world is dead without America; Europe sucks; we’ve discovered that debt and big government are bad now that Obama’s in power:

If you don’t already know that these titles and their authors all have precious little to impart for posterity—you should!

Mark Steyn’s freshly presented tired ideas are one of many such examples. Steyn is an entertaining writer and fun to read. However, The “One-Man Global Content Provider’s” epistolary razzmatazz should never be confused with unconventional analysis, as explained, by way of an example, in “Beck, Wilders, and His Boosters’ Blind Spot.”

As for this writer and her relationship with mainstream neoconservatives: Been there done that. I may one day write about the almost-flirtatious sweet nothings some big-name neocon-cum-conservatives whispered in my e-ear when I first appeared on the US scene. There were dinner invitations too, one at least was even attended.

All that was before I registered, on Sept. 19, 2002, the first of many principled objections against their war of choice on Iraq. That was before the neocons discovered I was not an S. E. Cupp, a Margaret Hoover, or a ditzy Dana Perino.

After that fatal date, I became a political persona non grata.

The neocon modus operandi is to ignore and vilify truth-tellers such as Ron Paul, so long as the truth is unpalatable. After a period of time has passed—say five years hence—Ron Paul’s economic and foreign policy prescriptions (or my analysis of the New democratic South Africa and its lessons for America) will become quite kosher because it will no longer be possible to deny reality. Then the usual gasbags will proceed to “borrow” ideas they have not originated.

Seldom will originators be credited, not by neocons, at least.

When it comes to Machiavellian machinations, however, neocons are originators second to none.