THINKING WHERE I STAND

18 March 2008

The New York Times has two frequent Op-Ed Columnists: William Kristol, leading neoconservative intellectual and founder and editor of conservative periodical The Weekly Standard; and David Brooks, a self-proclaimed conservative in the tradition of William F. Buckly, Jr. So to all you who call the NYT a bastion of liberalism: HA!

The NYT is a politically moderate, capitalist newspaper. I find it frighteningly ironic that the blow-hard propaganda artists on Fox "News" Network call themselves balanced because they have some half-twit like Colmes on as their token liberal and then at the same time call the NYT, which has leading conservative intellectuals as columnists, a liberal paper (spoken as though "liberal" was the quality of Satan that makes him so). Makes you wonder how far to the right the Fox blow-hards have to be to call "liberal" a paper that includes Kristol or Brooks three days a week, doesn't it?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: yo, uh, not to be a wet blanket or anything, but you evidently don't actually READ brooks and kristol.

i don't think anyone is going to confuse the new york times with "volksischer beobachter" or "pravda" anytime soon, but come the fuck on. if you can't stop being such a titty baby and actually appreciate these ninnies who decided at way too young an age to apply marxist dialectic to roman history for what they actually are, you're really missing out. because, in actuality, they're fucking hilarious. that, or they're an rcp fifth column just waiting for china to yank on american testicles a little. either way, it's pretty amusing.; 23 April, 2008 23:21
Julay said...: I'm not really sure what a titty baby is, but I appreciate the intellectual rigor with which you place you place your point. Just dropping terms like "Marxist dialectic" isn't going to win you any points for me. How is it that anything you said contributes to, in assent or criticism, to the point I was made in this post? If you actually read Kristol and Brooks, maybe you'd like to say something intelligent about their thought. How should I appreciate them "for what they are"? What, indeed, are they? And would you really put Brooks and Kristol in the same camp? My understanding is that they come from two very different intellectual traditions. Furtheremore, I think what you mean to say is “Hegelian dialectic”, because that’s the type of historical thinking Marx used. And your implications that because some of the neoconservatives (certainly not the tradition of Buckley) – or at least some of them – are ex-Marxists does not imply that they are applying Marxist dialectics to Roman history (what does it even mean to apply Marxist dialectics to Roman history?). Hegel applied dialectical thinking to all of history (including the Roman era), and neoconservatives are more rightly call right-Hegelians. They are not Marxists (Marx was a left Hegelian). These specific neocons merely shifted their Hegelian analysis to one that agrees with the Marxist tradition to one that disagrees with it. The fact that you are unable to recognize these traditions as serious forces to contend with and merely dismiss them as amusing and ridiculous only demonstrates your superficial understanding. So, I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but I suggest *you* do your reading before dropping terms you obviously don’t understand and making analysis that is nothing short of nonsense.; 24 April, 2008 11:51
Julay said...: And by the way, just a word of advice: if you want others to take you seriously, you might want to think about taking them seriously first if you are making first contact. Otherwise, expect the same shitty treatment you dish out. I mean, come the fuck on. Not only do YOU need to do some reading, but you need to learn somethings about interpersonal relations and stop acting like a 10-year old who learned some big words, titty baby.; 24 April, 2008 12:10