the media

You’re a Sad Scab, Mr. Chait

Is there a German word for when a presumptive scab confirms your lowest expectations? The writers and editorial staff at New York Magazine have formed a union, joining a veritable organizing wave in digital and traditional news media. Nearly 80 percent of the workers have signed union cards and are asking management to voluntarily recognize their union. Longtime columnist Jonathan Chait did not sign a union card, and rushed to Twitter this week to lick management’s boots, because of course he did. The liberal-in-his-own-mind columnist has spent the last few years—before Fox News inevitably invites him to be one of its resident “liberals,” where he can ride out his shambles of a career—lazily defending neoliberalism and Nazis’ rights to free speech. Less than 24 hours after throwing his colleagues under the bus, Chait took again to Twitter to whine that only three scorching hot takes had published about his profile […]

That Time I Was (Willingly) on Fox News

On a slow news day in March of 2002, I was the token socialist for a roundtable segment on the “O’Reilly Factor.” I think they destroyed the tape, because I haven’t been able to find it on any transcription service. When Fox News still handled this stuff themselves, they claimed there was 12 hours of missing footage from the day – conveniently including the live show and its late-night re-run. Anyway, with some help I was able to dig up this transcript. What’s interesting is how much has – and hasn’t – changed. What hasn’t changed is that Bill O’Reilly has always been a full-of-shit asshole. Even when we went to commercial, he continued to be a sanctimonious prick. What has changed is that nobody could get away with denying the very existence of poverty in America today. And it would be hard to dismissively say “there aren’t a lot […]

What Will It Take To Wake Up the ‘Sleeping Giant’ of the New Working Class?

The American working class has been dissed and dismissed. Our unions busted, our wages slashed, our homes foreclosed and our rents raised. We’re blamed for the rise of Trump, but otherwise do not exist in the media landscape. But the working class is a sleeping giant that is beginning to stir and will soon instigate a great campaign for racial and economic justice, according to a new book by Tamara Draut. A vice president of the liberal think tank Demos, Draut’s previous book, Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30- Somethings Can’t Get Ahead, explored the how the high cost of college, housing and health insurance, combined with stagnant wages and made the usual milestones of adulthood increasingly out of reach for millennials. Her new book, Sleeping Giant: How the New Working Class Will Transform America, attempts to connect the dots between the struggles of those millennials and the politics of […]

A New Low in Social Media

In my never-ending quest to figure what the hell is going on in the social media world and how we can use it to organize for a better world, I’ve been kicking around on Tumblr. I first discovered this thanks to my 17-year-old cousin, whose tumblr (I won’t link to it; you can’t make me) is a mesmerizing mess of “will you date me?” quizzes, Megaman fan art, Topless Tuesday feminist critiques, Topless Tuesday reposts, animated porn gifs, animated Tyler the Creator gifs, animated “SLC Punk” gifs, “open this pit up” memes and other various and sundry glimpses into our younger generation and decaying society. It’s an animated train wreck that’s hard to look away from. Thankfully, Kate is mesmerized, so I have an excuse to continue to troll my cousin’s tumblr. We’ve actually created our own tumblr, but that’s a secret so you can’t see it. I’ve discovered that […]

The Reds in the Bleachers

Bill Mardo, sportswriter for the Daily Worker newspaper, died last week. His NY Times obituary notes his column’s crusading role in pressing for the racial integration of Major League Baseball in the 1940’s. “In the years before the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson as the first black player in modern organized baseball, Mr. Mardo was a leading voice in a campaign by The Daily Worker against racism in the game, a battle it had begun in 1936 when Lester Rodney became its first sports editor. … The Daily Worker asked fans to write to the New York City baseball teams urging them to sign Negro league players at a time when the major leagues had lost much of their talent to military service. A milestone in baseball history and the civil rights movement arrived in October 1945 when Robinson signed a contract with the Dodgers’ organization, having reached an agreement […]

Something Pointless About Generation X

It’s been a while since we Gen X’ers had a good, long stare at our collective navels. The occasion of the 20th anniversary of our invention by the media is begging for more of this “are we becoming them?” kind of nonsense. Count me in! Nirvana marks this auspicious anniversary with a reissue of “Nevermind” so bloated with extras and marked up in price that even Mick Jagger would blush. Pearl Jam team with Cameron Crowe for a career-retrospective documentary that makes a compelling argument that Eddie Vedder did the right thing by not blowing his brains out too. And R.E.M. trumps everybody by quietly, gracefully calling it a career, provoking pangs of nostalgia in, well, just about everyone I know. Here and there, you see the media-bait question, “Wait, aren’t all these Generation X people waxing nostalgic about the rock-n-roll of their youth just doing what they angrily accused […]

My Greatest Hits

Maybe it’s because I was recently badly quoted in the press that I’m revisiting some of my dark sarcastic hits from the past. I mean, I could claim that I was misquoted, but, no, I said it. I could quibble with context and editing, but anyone who deals with the press seriously knows the importance of staying on message. I could complain that I’m out of practice – and I may be – and that’s why I was too flip. But, flip used to be the point, back in my bad old Socialist Party days. Throwing out a little red meat is important if you’re the Socialist Party and nobody will pay attention to you otherwise. Things are different now. But I am, perhaps, too clever – and certainly too sarcastic – for my own good. Case in point, about which I am currently cackling to myself: my too-brief stint […]