I never heard of the guy before yesterday and I have no idea why he thinks "Russian Pimp" is a good look for him. But he is arguing with a teenager, so the ass-handing is richly deserved.
Ah, but we've all heard of him now, so big win for him, I guess? Desperate-for-Attention Andrew probably doesn't distinguish between positive attention and negative attention, just like George Santos, who's saying this morning, "Wow, everybody's talking about ME!"
Kinda like crypto is the coin (con) of the realm in the Attention Economy: something that doesn't actually exist yet uses masses of energy that could be better used elsewhere.
And now that I think about it, I’m thinking that what a conservative refers to as Big Dick Energy is just what can be called male hysterical ravings, just performative BS.
I do like that his response is basically: "I know you are, but what am I?" I think my 10 year old self might have responded that way, my 12 year old self would have been more sophisticated.
Wait, his response to a young woman saying, in effect, "You have a small dick" is "No, YOU are the one with a small dick"? I mean, I know gender confusion is supposed to be a thing with The Kids These Days, but that's now it works, Andy.
Tate is basically the Rod Dreher of Kickboxing. He was raised Christian, converted to Romanian Orthodox and then to Islam. He also was investigated for human trafficking in Romania
The Romanian police found out he was back in Romania because of a tweet he sent out related to the Thunberg tweet. He had a Jerry's Pizza (evidently a big Romanian brand) in front of him with the box showing
It all boils down to what we’ve seen repeated many times over: conservatives define freedom of speech not as being allowed to speak their minds, but as never facing any consequences or pushback for doing so, because that is cancel culture. In it’s most crude form, it’s like having a friend who punches you in the face and then complains you are being unfair to them when you end the friendship.
And “a phrase that conservatives reflexively block out, like Civil Rights Act” is a gem.
As I like to rant these days, those people believe in freedom to spread the 'rona thereby causing deaths and stuff, while opposing the freedom to push for living wages for all full time workers. Indefensible in my book but I'm old and an awful person.
It is sometimes said conservatives are incapable of learning, but this is not true. They have learned that their ideas WOULD be wildly popular if only they could completely suppress everyone else's ideas. And this is the driving force behind their push to enforce "free speech" on private platforms and their rage against the world at large. People should be FORCED to see/hear/read the conservative point of view, and GODDAMNIT why are those libs even allowed to be on twitter/book of faces/youtube?
Meanwhile, the real world just keeps stomping on them despite the playing field now being tilted 45 degrees in their favor. (I note that YouTube constantly recommends an endless stream of Rightwing and far-Rightwing videos for me despite my never ever having watched anything more political than railfan videos, and despite my spending 10 minutes every day clicking the "DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS CHANNEL" button. Apparently the only way to achieve the "balance" that conservatives demand is to constantly avalanche only recommendations for conservative media.)
If "Honey Bunches O'Grievance" was the ONLY cereal in the stores it'd be MASSIVELY popular, says the group that routinely shows pictures of empty shelves (in US grocery stores of course) as evidence that Venezuela is a "failed nation."
Related: Americans value their privacy. Which is why we have now purchased more than 200 million devices explicitly designed and advertised to constantly monitor everything that goes on in our homes and report the results back to corporate HQ.
"Western Civ" is functionally the equivalent of "white": i.e. something that does not actually exist until the need arises to historically, socially, & politically exclude the outside world & the peoples that live there. That we all use the term basically concedes to white supremacy (sort of like how "Judeo-Christian" concedes to a supersessionist & antisemitic worldview...).
ETA: This isn't a call-out -- the term is very common.
I know about the western European honky angle, but outside of improvements in health, maybe, and material advances starting with the Industrial Revolution, dunno exactly what’s hot shit about it other than the white Xian chauvinism stuff. Development of the idea of races and businesses based there on as well as capitalism in general, I dunno…
I’m working my way through Horne’s The Counter-Revolution of 1776 which spends no little time on the birth struggles of the concept of whiteness.
Well, since it's a performative c*nt, dunno that it's an ur-Tweet or just another turd from someone lacking the intellectual equivalent of sphincter control. Or maybe someone far from as smart as his fawning press.
I, for one, relish the prospect of a "big, lush alternate universe" (2 marks, BTW) in which we conserve what's left of the biota of THIS planet before traipsing off to SOME OTHER planet in the hideously mistaken belief that such action would be a better use for someone else's money.
"I’m telling the Secretary of Defense to his face to suck my dick —"
"well, that’s not, as logic and law would suggest, tough titty, that’s censorship, see- "
Two $ 7 phrases in a couple of inches column space! What a value!
The first in just laugh out loud funny and the second is part of this whole huge wonderful acrobatic construct of a sentence that really kind of takes your breath away.
Dunno that there's any actual cyber problem so much as right wing performative crap. Also dunno that's any real problem as opposed to the GOP coming up with some BS claims to excite the base, shake down lobbyists, intimidate social platforms. Whole lotta sizzle, so little steak. Too, I can't see any legislation becoming law that actually does anything. Probably get something strengthening the big established companies, maybe. You know, does as little to address any problem there may be as the John Cornyn Gun Control law passed earlier this year. That is, precious little that precludes any action for a long time to come.
Here's a law skool-type hypothetical: Anything done to legislate social media into being open to all comers no matter want, explicitly or implicitly has to strengthened the allegedly despised §230; discuss.
BTW: The awful scandals (sarcasm) revealed by the Twitter files is nothing compared to what Facebook allows and enables. Magnitudes of difference, all for the worse. (For those correctly ignoring this mishugas, Twitter's base is a fraction of Facebook's and the former does not force literal crap into feeds unlike the latter and YouTube.)
Maybe I'm just old and don't see any more problem than chronic whiners about nothing whining about nothing.
Oh, they are SO confused. Section 230 absolves social media platforms of responsibility for statements made on the platform, if you abolish it (which many right-wingers SAY they want to do) that means Twitter is now legally responsible for every statement made on Twitter? The natural response to that being, 1) Go immediately out of business, or 2) Institute a regime of content moderation that makes North Korea look liberal.
But I suppose the smarter ones (like their Country-Boy Senators who all went to Harvard Law) know that, "Abolish Section 230" is just another form of Walla*
*Thanks, Roy, for that Wikipedia link, fascinating to learn that the correct response to "natter natter" is "grommish grommish".
I'd say it's essential to their plan that nothing be done, they want the complaint more than they'd ever want a solution. You know, like with immigration and crime.
The day’s barely begun and I’ve already learned a new phrase - “walla walla” - that I thought only meant a city in Washington! Also, Frank Wilhoit, the composer not the social scientist, is smarter and more articulate than I’ll ever be. Always good to get a heaping helping of humility first thing, it keeps me balanced. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the reaction of Long Island Republicans to the realization that they fell for the greatest fabulist since Baron von Munchausen. But if he’s out, does Hochul get to appoint a Democrat? That would be justice.
One can hope, but if Hochul's nominee for Chief Judge of State Court of Appeals is any indication, I wouldn't be surprised if they have something like "D'Amato" in their name.
I feel for poor Wilhoit the social scientist, who must by now have resigned himself to the realization that he will never make a social-science observation as pithy and relevant as the one that damn composer made. Must be hard to go through life constantly saying "Sorry, wish I had, but I didn't."
Just excellent. This is a great series. Can't wait for Suck #1. As for the "free speech for me not you" advocates, and one more example of the "Nothing Is Ever New In Conservatism" department, you can find all today's hyper-hypocritical right-wing blather about "censorship" in the writings of Robert Bork. For example, Bork thought unregulated right-wing talk radio was the bee's knees because it owned the libs: "The effectiveness of talk radio may be gauged by the hysteria it generates in the liberal press and among liberal politicians." But when it came to speech he didn't like, specifically that found on the Internet, he argued for a revival of government censorship to suppress "the obscene prose and pictures available on the Internet, motion pictures that are mere rhapsodies to violence, and the more degenerate lyrics of rap music," among a slew of other things contrary to "conservative and traditional ideas and attitudes." He actually called what he wanted "censorship", and was a big fan of "the right of the majority to live in an environment free of the worst insults to decency," which were anything he didn't like.
I'm assuming Bannon quoting Stalin is either "Doesn't matter who votes, what matters is who counts the votes" or "One death is a tragedy, a million are a statistic."
Facebook wants my life story? If that’s the price of admission to a world where I can know what my far-flung relatives are up to without actually having to talk to them, it’s worth it.
I have a friend who's on Facebook for exactly that reason.
When I was a kid and we went to visit The Relatives, all the kids were sent out into the back yard to play while the olds sat in the kitchen and talked about who just had an operation and how they were doing. In modern terms, Tik Tok and Facebook.
Look, let's just set aside this nonsense about investigating Big Tech (or even Small Tech, in the form of Hunter's laptop). Can't we all, as Americans, unite in bipartisan agreement against our common enemy, Southwest Airlines?
Geez Roy, you farm this out to a techbro buddy we didn't know about? I mean, "the benefits of this big, lush alternate universe were found to outweigh the downsides?" "Having gotten everything they asked for from technology, and having given next to nothing in return?" Shit, man.
Online information has also transformed obituaries into rich sources of information for identity-thieving ghouls to data mine. All those familial relations and significant dates sitting there to be pieced together…
This column is extra relevant today, considering that Andrew Tate was dumb enough to pick a fight with Greta Thunberg on Twitter and is currently getting his ass handed to him. Sorry Andrew, but actions have consequences, even for you. https://occupydemocrats.com/2022/12/28/you-go-greta-thunberg-owns-tiny-andrew-tate-over-braggy-car-tweet/
I never heard of the guy before yesterday and I have no idea why he thinks "Russian Pimp" is a good look for him. But he is arguing with a teenager, so the ass-handing is richly deserved.
No, Tate's a moron trying to score a point with someone a couple times smarter than he and (watch me go there) his low dick energy.
Ah, but we've all heard of him now, so big win for him, I guess? Desperate-for-Attention Andrew probably doesn't distinguish between positive attention and negative attention, just like George Santos, who's saying this morning, "Wow, everybody's talking about ME!"
And his small Dick energy, shlonged by a young woman. He thinks it’s a win, I’m sure, while opinions differ.
Kinda like crypto is the coin (con) of the realm in the Attention Economy: something that doesn't actually exist yet uses masses of energy that could be better used elsewhere.
I dunno, who doesn't look up to retired uneducated MME fighters or whatever Tate is for insight and stuff?
And I completely endorse Thunberg's response.
Oh, the marvelous wonderful manosphere, where Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson are the great thinkers. 🤮
Small dick energy, all.
And now that I think about it, I’m thinking that what a conservative refers to as Big Dick Energy is just what can be called male hysterical ravings, just performative BS.
I do like that his response is basically: "I know you are, but what am I?" I think my 10 year old self might have responded that way, my 12 year old self would have been more sophisticated.
Wait, his response to a young woman saying, in effect, "You have a small dick" is "No, YOU are the one with a small dick"? I mean, I know gender confusion is supposed to be a thing with The Kids These Days, but that's now it works, Andy.
For many men, the clitoris remains a complete mystery . . . shrouded as it is in what seems to be mythology.
Yeah, everybody knows to push the mythology out of the way with your tongue.
I think he was repeating Thunberg's climate catchphrase back at her
Tate is basically the Rod Dreher of Kickboxing. He was raised Christian, converted to Romanian Orthodox and then to Islam. He also was investigated for human trafficking in Romania
That’s some real small dick energy there.
"Wait, there's a religion where the conservative wing is even MORE repressive of women than the one I'm in now? Sign me up!"
So just now I'm reading that the dude has been arrested for human trafficking by the Romanian cops. If this is true could his week get any worse?
The Romanian police found out he was back in Romania because of a tweet he sent out related to the Thunberg tweet. He had a Jerry's Pizza (evidently a big Romanian brand) in front of him with the box showing
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/andrew-tate-brother-tristan-arrested-amid-human-trafficking-probe/news-story/248458ec593bf1bc76ce70f8250abf88
Good one, Roy. 'nuff said.
It all boils down to what we’ve seen repeated many times over: conservatives define freedom of speech not as being allowed to speak their minds, but as never facing any consequences or pushback for doing so, because that is cancel culture. In it’s most crude form, it’s like having a friend who punches you in the face and then complains you are being unfair to them when you end the friendship.
And “a phrase that conservatives reflexively block out, like Civil Rights Act” is a gem.
As I like to rant these days, those people believe in freedom to spread the 'rona thereby causing deaths and stuff, while opposing the freedom to push for living wages for all full time workers. Indefensible in my book but I'm old and an awful person.
Old & Awful 2024!
Trump's new slogan!
Only if he wins the primaries and then takes DeSantis as his running mate.
c'mon, there are many awful Republicans
True, "Old & Awful 2024!" needs to be replaced by "Awful & Awful every four years until we're all dead."
It is sometimes said conservatives are incapable of learning, but this is not true. They have learned that their ideas WOULD be wildly popular if only they could completely suppress everyone else's ideas. And this is the driving force behind their push to enforce "free speech" on private platforms and their rage against the world at large. People should be FORCED to see/hear/read the conservative point of view, and GODDAMNIT why are those libs even allowed to be on twitter/book of faces/youtube?
Meanwhile, the real world just keeps stomping on them despite the playing field now being tilted 45 degrees in their favor. (I note that YouTube constantly recommends an endless stream of Rightwing and far-Rightwing videos for me despite my never ever having watched anything more political than railfan videos, and despite my spending 10 minutes every day clicking the "DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS CHANNEL" button. Apparently the only way to achieve the "balance" that conservatives demand is to constantly avalanche only recommendations for conservative media.)
Hearted for the railfan videos. My kink is "Will it run again?" Spoiler alert: Yes.
Maybe a lot of railfans are RWNJs?
If "Honey Bunches O'Grievance" was the ONLY cereal in the stores it'd be MASSIVELY popular, says the group that routinely shows pictures of empty shelves (in US grocery stores of course) as evidence that Venezuela is a "failed nation."
“Honey Bunches O'Grievance”
Now 50% more bilious!
Is Railfan related to the old NBC series Supertrain?
"Arbeit macht frei sprechen"
Likely something you watch has a legion of right wing fans. I used to get many right wing rec's when I watched a lot of Skyrim videos
Must be something like that. YouTube has been pushing Rightwing shit for years.
Related: Americans value their privacy. Which is why we have now purchased more than 200 million devices explicitly designed and advertised to constantly monitor everything that goes on in our homes and report the results back to corporate HQ.
We're going to die of stupid.
I've been pondering whether western civilization has wrought, so to speak, all that much good.
"Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western civilization?"
I think it is a good idea that should be tried.
😂
I remember that!
I made a Tiktok awhile back about what "Western Civ" really is:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRbR4wWX/
"Western Civ" is functionally the equivalent of "white": i.e. something that does not actually exist until the need arises to historically, socially, & politically exclude the outside world & the peoples that live there. That we all use the term basically concedes to white supremacy (sort of like how "Judeo-Christian" concedes to a supersessionist & antisemitic worldview...).
ETA: This isn't a call-out -- the term is very common.
I know about the western European honky angle, but outside of improvements in health, maybe, and material advances starting with the Industrial Revolution, dunno exactly what’s hot shit about it other than the white Xian chauvinism stuff. Development of the idea of races and businesses based there on as well as capitalism in general, I dunno…
I’m working my way through Horne’s The Counter-Revolution of 1776 which spends no little time on the birth struggles of the concept of whiteness.
It sounds like you have something to hide, Derelict.
Actual conversation I had with one of my sister's employees a couple of years ago:
Her: I love Alexa! I have one in every room of the house, including the kids' rooms.
Me: Doesn't it bother you to have devices listening to everything that goes on in your home?
Her: Oh, it doesn't listen until you say "Alexa."
Me: And how does it know when you say "Alexa?" It has to listen constantly to hear that.
Her: [3-second blank stare] No, it doesn't listen until you tell it to.
The Elon Musk ur-Tweet: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1607584023932719104
Well, since it's a performative c*nt, dunno that it's an ur-Tweet or just another turd from someone lacking the intellectual equivalent of sphincter control. Or maybe someone far from as smart as his fawning press.
Using the Constitution for a kitsch stand is spot on.
Dude, if you want us to believe you actually read it, you might want to take it out of the slipcase first.
But it's such a fancy and expensive-looking slipcase, which means what lies within is ever more treasured.
So much more valuable if it's in the original packaging! None of the collectors want an already-read constitution.
American Constitution MINT IN PACKAGING NEVER USED
The Constitution, the Bible, MLK Jr's speeches. Three things Americans refer to and "quote" without ever having read.
Upvoted for the horror the link reveals, not the nausea it induces.
I, for one, relish the prospect of a "big, lush alternate universe" (2 marks, BTW) in which we conserve what's left of the biota of THIS planet before traipsing off to SOME OTHER planet in the hideously mistaken belief that such action would be a better use for someone else's money.
"I’m telling the Secretary of Defense to his face to suck my dick —"
"well, that’s not, as logic and law would suggest, tough titty, that’s censorship, see- "
Two $ 7 phrases in a couple of inches column space! What a value!
The first in just laugh out loud funny and the second is part of this whole huge wonderful acrobatic construct of a sentence that really kind of takes your breath away.
Godspeed Wordsmith !
The writin', he does it... um... real good.
Dunno that there's any actual cyber problem so much as right wing performative crap. Also dunno that's any real problem as opposed to the GOP coming up with some BS claims to excite the base, shake down lobbyists, intimidate social platforms. Whole lotta sizzle, so little steak. Too, I can't see any legislation becoming law that actually does anything. Probably get something strengthening the big established companies, maybe. You know, does as little to address any problem there may be as the John Cornyn Gun Control law passed earlier this year. That is, precious little that precludes any action for a long time to come.
Here's a law skool-type hypothetical: Anything done to legislate social media into being open to all comers no matter want, explicitly or implicitly has to strengthened the allegedly despised §230; discuss.
BTW: The awful scandals (sarcasm) revealed by the Twitter files is nothing compared to what Facebook allows and enables. Magnitudes of difference, all for the worse. (For those correctly ignoring this mishugas, Twitter's base is a fraction of Facebook's and the former does not force literal crap into feeds unlike the latter and YouTube.)
Maybe I'm just old and don't see any more problem than chronic whiners about nothing whining about nothing.
Oh, they are SO confused. Section 230 absolves social media platforms of responsibility for statements made on the platform, if you abolish it (which many right-wingers SAY they want to do) that means Twitter is now legally responsible for every statement made on Twitter? The natural response to that being, 1) Go immediately out of business, or 2) Institute a regime of content moderation that makes North Korea look liberal.
But I suppose the smarter ones (like their Country-Boy Senators who all went to Harvard Law) know that, "Abolish Section 230" is just another form of Walla*
*Thanks, Roy, for that Wikipedia link, fascinating to learn that the correct response to "natter natter" is "grommish grommish".
I'm holding out for artisanally grown, range-fed organic rutabaga.
I say it's rhubarb and I say to hell with it.
Call any vegetable, call it by name!
But respect its pronouns.
How DARE you assume my gender, says the zucchini.
Yes, a quandary, the kind of quandary people create when they refuse to think things through.
Still have faith Congress will fail to act in any substantive way.
I'd say it's essential to their plan that nothing be done, they want the complaint more than they'd ever want a solution. You know, like with immigration and crime.
Dobbs gave them what they wanted and the price was big in the last cycle and may get yet bigger.
The day’s barely begun and I’ve already learned a new phrase - “walla walla” - that I thought only meant a city in Washington! Also, Frank Wilhoit, the composer not the social scientist, is smarter and more articulate than I’ll ever be. Always good to get a heaping helping of humility first thing, it keeps me balanced. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the reaction of Long Island Republicans to the realization that they fell for the greatest fabulist since Baron von Munchausen. But if he’s out, does Hochul get to appoint a Democrat? That would be justice.
One can hope, but if Hochul's nominee for Chief Judge of State Court of Appeals is any indication, I wouldn't be surprised if they have something like "D'Amato" in their name.
I feel for poor Wilhoit the social scientist, who must by now have resigned himself to the realization that he will never make a social-science observation as pithy and relevant as the one that damn composer made. Must be hard to go through life constantly saying "Sorry, wish I had, but I didn't."
Being dead the past 12 years probably mitigates that disappointment.
LOL, died of a broken heart, I assume.
Wilde: I wish I’d said that.
Whistler: You will, Oscar. You will.
Just excellent. This is a great series. Can't wait for Suck #1. As for the "free speech for me not you" advocates, and one more example of the "Nothing Is Ever New In Conservatism" department, you can find all today's hyper-hypocritical right-wing blather about "censorship" in the writings of Robert Bork. For example, Bork thought unregulated right-wing talk radio was the bee's knees because it owned the libs: "The effectiveness of talk radio may be gauged by the hysteria it generates in the liberal press and among liberal politicians." But when it came to speech he didn't like, specifically that found on the Internet, he argued for a revival of government censorship to suppress "the obscene prose and pictures available on the Internet, motion pictures that are mere rhapsodies to violence, and the more degenerate lyrics of rap music," among a slew of other things contrary to "conservative and traditional ideas and attitudes." He actually called what he wanted "censorship", and was a big fan of "the right of the majority to live in an environment free of the worst insults to decency," which were anything he didn't like.
Trump, antiwar. Republican kids – Cool!
Eugene Debs would like a word from beyond the grave...
They really did envy the USSR’s firm control of the media.
Of course they do — Steve Bannon often cites Stalin approvingly...
I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised.
Dick Cheney didn't, out loud, anyway, but I'm sure he thought of old Joe as an exemplary unitary executive.
I'm assuming Bannon quoting Stalin is either "Doesn't matter who votes, what matters is who counts the votes" or "One death is a tragedy, a million are a statistic."
Arrest that statistician!
Let's face it the American ruling class has a much more firm control than the old Soviet Union could ever hope to have.
Facebook wants my life story? If that’s the price of admission to a world where I can know what my far-flung relatives are up to without actually having to talk to them, it’s worth it.
I have a friend who's on Facebook for exactly that reason.
When I was a kid and we went to visit The Relatives, all the kids were sent out into the back yard to play while the olds sat in the kitchen and talked about who just had an operation and how they were doing. In modern terms, Tik Tok and Facebook.
Look, let's just set aside this nonsense about investigating Big Tech (or even Small Tech, in the form of Hunter's laptop). Can't we all, as Americans, unite in bipartisan agreement against our common enemy, Southwest Airlines?
Gooder than most !
Geez Roy, you farm this out to a techbro buddy we didn't know about? I mean, "the benefits of this big, lush alternate universe were found to outweigh the downsides?" "Having gotten everything they asked for from technology, and having given next to nothing in return?" Shit, man.
Online information has also transformed obituaries into rich sources of information for identity-thieving ghouls to data mine. All those familial relations and significant dates sitting there to be pieced together…