I think it's fine that defamation suits generally do not see a meeting of the minds on court day. I would imagine that those defendants with the most knowledge of the court are the ones who are most likely to be evasive to begin with. The court has to try and penetrate the defendant's use of language to communicate what it has decided.
There is a reason why Jewish (and later Christian) scripture always talks about loving your NEIGHBOR--because the faults and differences and irritations that your neighbor provides are there every day in your face--making it very easy to hate your neighbor.
Those guys on the other side of the ocean? Who cares? They aren't really REAL to the average person. That bastard next door is. His dog barked all night last night Ima kill that thing.
Heretics (or apparent heretics) get shorter shrift than people of a different faith. It is the people that are most like us (but not quite) that are often the most feared and hated. They are seen as traitors or fools.
Ken White identifies the core problem we face. As has been said many times here by JVL, myself, and others, it isn't the politicians, it isn't Trump--they are symptoms, bootlickers, panderers. It is the people who want what they have to sell--the people who were there, waiting for that product, that are the problem.
They are the reason that all of this will end badly... because what do you do about them? You could jail or silence all the politicians and media people and new ones selling the same thing would spring up from the ground. Because there is money to be made. Because there is power to gathered. It is like trying to fight a War on Drugs by targeting the suppliers while ignoring the demand that exists.
In the end, all you do is drive up the stakes and the costs.
I thoroughly enjoyed all three Newsletters today. In fact, despite the fact that I’m now living under a time crunch (3000 unread emails! Yikes!) I enjoyed the first Newsletter so much that I am now a subscriber to The Popehat. Thank you, JVL.
Russia, China, and Iran are very happy about the hate that divides Americans. They use every means possible to foment that hate and we Americans fall for it.
I found Gladwell’s essay very shallow. He has no idea what motivates a person to stay physical active. It could be dancing, swimming, yoga, walking etc. He completely ignores women, disabled or even slightly disabled kids as an important factor for inclusion. Coaches do not make sports fun. Gym teachers do not make movement fun. Kids do not go outside and play enough. The idiotic quest to produce “winners” hurts the vast majority of students. I hated his thesis as being extremely narrow.
I had a different reaction but also was not convinced. I was a bookish child and from 10-14 did little play. But I gradually began to take long walks, so 3 miles plus each night unless dangerour (ice/snow). Wife and I walked for hours in our prime. I don't see the teams issue as the only way. Also don't need a coach.
I know. It’s just a sensitive topic for me. I hate to see any kid excluded and when it comes to sports in general, so many of them are made to feel “not good enough”.
You and Charlie Pierce at Esquire are on the same page today. He quoted JFK’s planned speech in Dallas:
“But today other voices are heard in the land — voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the Sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness. At a time when the national debt is steadily being reduced in terms of its burden on our economy, they see that debt as the greatest single threat to our security. At a time when we are steadily reducing the number of Federal employees serving every thousand citizens, they fear those supposed hordes of civil servants far more than the actual hordes of opposing armies.
“Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country’s security…We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will ‘talk sense to the American people.’ But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense.”
My friends and fellow citizens: I cite these facts and figures to make it clear that America today is stronger than ever before. Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom.
That strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions – it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations – it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.
We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
Interesting how Gladwell calls it a modest proposal to fix high school sports, then goes on to admit that his proposal really only applies to Cross Country and can't be applied to other high school sports. Perhaps he should've called it a modest proposal to fix cross country running.
To the point with Saletan, I have a personal reminiscence that I think is telling. I grew up with a very conservative father who in the early 1990s listened to Rush Limbaugh. So I was exposed to a steady diet of conservative discourse (although even then I thought Rush was an a** and couldn't stand him). And I remember thinking at some point as a pre-teen, probably '91 or '92 or so, that the libs were ruining America and the situation was so desperate, maybe a dictatorship was justified as at least a temporary solution. I also knew this wasn't something you could say publicly.
Obviously, since I'm reading the Bulwark, my views evolved as I grew older and, at least in a few respects, more mature intellectually and emotionally. But I suspect, strongly, that I'm not the only one who had that thought. And that was thirty years ago, and many minds have been marinating in that propaganda sewage for decades at this point, the rhetoric has gotten more extreme, and now the conservative propaganda ecosystem is so well-developed you can stay there and get your existing opinions validated non-stop.
For those who live in that world, in which your political opponents are implacable, hate-filled monsters coming after you because of what you are, it's a lot like living in a sectarian failed state like Lebanon. No matter how corrupt, incompetent, or personally vile your sect's leader is, you have to vote for him because it's zero-sum, and the other sects hate you and will rob you and oppress you because of what you are. Your sect's worst leader is infinitely preferable to another sect's virtuous, best leader. You don't feel like a bad person or an aggressor because you're just acting in self-defense. That's why Fox and co. spend such immense amounts of time creating a sense of victimization and portraying their opponents as relentlessly and mercilessly attacking. Al Qaida and ISIL propaganda was very similar in tone and filled with images of purported Muslim victims of Crusader atrocities, and that's because it works. If you want to convince someone to hate someone they can't be a well-meaning but misguided loyal opposition, they have to be a vessel of evil and malice. If the Dems are eating babies and working for the ChiComs, then what's corruptly monetizing the presidency? It's not like he's a cannibalistic murderer!
I've been known to say that if centuries of democracy ends in America, it will be because Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch are truly world-historical individuals, just like Genghis Khan. No, they weren't sufficient, but they were necessary and the years their platforms spent grooming a big chunk of Americans to accept lies and half-truths, to dehumanize and delegitimize their opponents, paved the road we're on today.
I vividly remember the Clinton years when Rush would open every show with “Day (whatever) of America Held Hostage” and thinking about kids in the car with their dad listening to that and thinking about the damage it could do. Now we know, those kids and their dads stormed the capitol and have destroyed the Republican Party.
I am lucky that back in the day --- a half century ago --- kids could enter high school without playing organized sports other than CYO basketball and Little League that had no championships, just a win/loss record, and be taught a sport.
I learned how to play organized football and lacrosse positions, and run the high hurdles in my sophomore year and became proficient enough in track to be offered a scholie.
I realize that track is the "easiest" sport in which natural ability has a great advantage over technique compared to FB and Lax (a term that didn't exist in the 1960s).
There was an innocence then that is impossible for kids to experience today...playing for the sheer enjoyment of using one's body with skill and being part of a team with others having the same feelings.
By the time my daughter was playing soccer in the early 2000s, I saw how our sports culture had changed. From intra-town teams, to inter-town teams, to travel teams, to elite summer camps.
She was good enough to be offered college placement, but hung up her spikes after her senior year and never played again...until after serving in the Navy, attaining a M.S. degree, and a role in a start-up company. She now plays on a adult-woman's team in her 30s and says she feels the sheer enjoyment of running, kicking, and jostling other players, as in her youth.
My high school had an all comers JV tennis team (at least for girls). Beginning of sophomore year, a friend said she was turning out for tennis and said I should too. I was not good at any sport involving hitting or throwing or catching anything, but I liked the idea of tennis, so I did.
My friend turned out to be an excellent player. I was terrible, but I kept at it for three seasons. JV players got two or three doubles matches each season. After year two, I was given the Most Improved JV award, which I knew was actually for being the most doggedly persistent bad player on the team. In my senior year, my doubles partner & I won a match, and I'll never forget how enthusiastic the best players were in congratulating me.
Maybe it taught me to keep at something that isn't really working very well ... but I'm thankful to the coach who was so encouraging the whole time.
There's a coda: After a long time of avoiding sports involving hand-to-eye coordination, I had occasion to try a bit of softball, then shoot some baskets, go bowling, try tennis again, shoot some pool - and I did much better at all of them than I had previously done. Or at least I did really well once, in some cases. (My basketball story is a little bit insane, but absolutely true.) My first time on a golf course, my brother (who's not given to idle praise) said I did better than most beginners he had seen.
If there's a usable life lesson in all that, I haven't found it yet, beyond "There's no harm in giving it a try."
Today's Triad hits it out of the park. I read every linked newsletter and subscribed to two. I am happier for having read these pieces; it is a start on getting over the unrelenting frustration I've experienced all week which led to shouting at podcasts, drafting and then deleting most comments/replies in the comment threads, etc.
Terry; the main difference between a blogspot and a substack is that Substack is a centrally controlled service that gives writers the opportunity for paid subscriptions, it's what Substack is INTENDED to do. Blogspots writers on the other hand can have paid subscriptions, but blogspots are not necessarily intended for paid subscriptions. That's the difference.
It seems to me that in today's world, if the only way you can read a substack is to pay for it, writers are going to lose a lot of potential readers. A lot times when you click on JVL's advice to "read the whole thing," it is blocked behind a subscription paywall. If somebody subscribed (and thus paid for) every substack that JVL recommends, it could get monetarily out of hand in a hurry.
But that's not actually the way it works. I pay for The Bulwark's Substack, I get full access to everything they publish. It's simple, straightforward, and to me totally worth it for the content they provide. I believe, but am not sure that subscribing also gets you access to the live podcasts they put out. But I do know that for one set price you get access to every newsletter put out by The Bulwark; hope this helps.
Who is "they?" The Bulwark or Substack? It must be the Bulwark. The point of the newsletters? blogs? that JVL recommends is they are not put out by the Bulwark, right?
Okay, I misunderstood what you meant, my mistake. I assumed that it was understood that if it's not The Bulwark your Bulwark subscription doesn't count. That said, every Substack that I've ever seen gives you the option to read at least a few articles BEFORE you have to subscribe. Are you sure you're not overlooking the option to read some articles before subscribing?
You're on Substack. Substack is just a blogging platform, one where most of the blogs are pay-to-subscribe. The author just said "So-and-So has a Substack" in order in indicate that the person's blog is HERE, and not on another platform.
I think it's fine that defamation suits generally do not see a meeting of the minds on court day. I would imagine that those defendants with the most knowledge of the court are the ones who are most likely to be evasive to begin with. The court has to try and penetrate the defendant's use of language to communicate what it has decided.
'I think they are voting on hating other Americans' ... I read years ago these so-called nationalist patriots love America and hate everyone in it.
There is a reason why Jewish (and later Christian) scripture always talks about loving your NEIGHBOR--because the faults and differences and irritations that your neighbor provides are there every day in your face--making it very easy to hate your neighbor.
Those guys on the other side of the ocean? Who cares? They aren't really REAL to the average person. That bastard next door is. His dog barked all night last night Ima kill that thing.
Heretics (or apparent heretics) get shorter shrift than people of a different faith. It is the people that are most like us (but not quite) that are often the most feared and hated. They are seen as traitors or fools.
Ken White identifies the core problem we face. As has been said many times here by JVL, myself, and others, it isn't the politicians, it isn't Trump--they are symptoms, bootlickers, panderers. It is the people who want what they have to sell--the people who were there, waiting for that product, that are the problem.
They are the reason that all of this will end badly... because what do you do about them? You could jail or silence all the politicians and media people and new ones selling the same thing would spring up from the ground. Because there is money to be made. Because there is power to gathered. It is like trying to fight a War on Drugs by targeting the suppliers while ignoring the demand that exists.
In the end, all you do is drive up the stakes and the costs.
I thoroughly enjoyed all three Newsletters today. In fact, despite the fact that I’m now living under a time crunch (3000 unread emails! Yikes!) I enjoyed the first Newsletter so much that I am now a subscriber to The Popehat. Thank you, JVL.
Quite right to recommend Malcolm Gladwell's Substack posts. He's both pithy and humorous and very much in touch with reality. Thanks.
Russia, China, and Iran are very happy about the hate that divides Americans. They use every means possible to foment that hate and we Americans fall for it.
I found Gladwell’s essay very shallow. He has no idea what motivates a person to stay physical active. It could be dancing, swimming, yoga, walking etc. He completely ignores women, disabled or even slightly disabled kids as an important factor for inclusion. Coaches do not make sports fun. Gym teachers do not make movement fun. Kids do not go outside and play enough. The idiotic quest to produce “winners” hurts the vast majority of students. I hated his thesis as being extremely narrow.
I had a different reaction but also was not convinced. I was a bookish child and from 10-14 did little play. But I gradually began to take long walks, so 3 miles plus each night unless dangerour (ice/snow). Wife and I walked for hours in our prime. I don't see the teams issue as the only way. Also don't need a coach.
In his defense, he was writing about how to fix one very specific sport: HS XC.
I know. It’s just a sensitive topic for me. I hate to see any kid excluded and when it comes to sports in general, so many of them are made to feel “not good enough”.
You and Charlie Pierce at Esquire are on the same page today. He quoted JFK’s planned speech in Dallas:
“But today other voices are heard in the land — voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the Sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness. At a time when the national debt is steadily being reduced in terms of its burden on our economy, they see that debt as the greatest single threat to our security. At a time when we are steadily reducing the number of Federal employees serving every thousand citizens, they fear those supposed hordes of civil servants far more than the actual hordes of opposing armies.
“Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country’s security…We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will ‘talk sense to the American people.’ But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense.”
Indeed.
Thank you! Here's the end of that speech:
My friends and fellow citizens: I cite these facts and figures to make it clear that America today is stronger than ever before. Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom.
That strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions – it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations – it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.
We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/dallas-tx-trade-mart-undelivered-19631122
Interesting how Gladwell calls it a modest proposal to fix high school sports, then goes on to admit that his proposal really only applies to Cross Country and can't be applied to other high school sports. Perhaps he should've called it a modest proposal to fix cross country running.
Excellent!
To the point with Saletan, I have a personal reminiscence that I think is telling. I grew up with a very conservative father who in the early 1990s listened to Rush Limbaugh. So I was exposed to a steady diet of conservative discourse (although even then I thought Rush was an a** and couldn't stand him). And I remember thinking at some point as a pre-teen, probably '91 or '92 or so, that the libs were ruining America and the situation was so desperate, maybe a dictatorship was justified as at least a temporary solution. I also knew this wasn't something you could say publicly.
Obviously, since I'm reading the Bulwark, my views evolved as I grew older and, at least in a few respects, more mature intellectually and emotionally. But I suspect, strongly, that I'm not the only one who had that thought. And that was thirty years ago, and many minds have been marinating in that propaganda sewage for decades at this point, the rhetoric has gotten more extreme, and now the conservative propaganda ecosystem is so well-developed you can stay there and get your existing opinions validated non-stop.
For those who live in that world, in which your political opponents are implacable, hate-filled monsters coming after you because of what you are, it's a lot like living in a sectarian failed state like Lebanon. No matter how corrupt, incompetent, or personally vile your sect's leader is, you have to vote for him because it's zero-sum, and the other sects hate you and will rob you and oppress you because of what you are. Your sect's worst leader is infinitely preferable to another sect's virtuous, best leader. You don't feel like a bad person or an aggressor because you're just acting in self-defense. That's why Fox and co. spend such immense amounts of time creating a sense of victimization and portraying their opponents as relentlessly and mercilessly attacking. Al Qaida and ISIL propaganda was very similar in tone and filled with images of purported Muslim victims of Crusader atrocities, and that's because it works. If you want to convince someone to hate someone they can't be a well-meaning but misguided loyal opposition, they have to be a vessel of evil and malice. If the Dems are eating babies and working for the ChiComs, then what's corruptly monetizing the presidency? It's not like he's a cannibalistic murderer!
I've been known to say that if centuries of democracy ends in America, it will be because Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch are truly world-historical individuals, just like Genghis Khan. No, they weren't sufficient, but they were necessary and the years their platforms spent grooming a big chunk of Americans to accept lies and half-truths, to dehumanize and delegitimize their opponents, paved the road we're on today.
I vividly remember the Clinton years when Rush would open every show with “Day (whatever) of America Held Hostage” and thinking about kids in the car with their dad listening to that and thinking about the damage it could do. Now we know, those kids and their dads stormed the capitol and have destroyed the Republican Party.
And if you think that was bad, today’s preteens and teens are being “groomed” with a continuous diet of hate that makes Rush look harmless.
I am lucky that back in the day --- a half century ago --- kids could enter high school without playing organized sports other than CYO basketball and Little League that had no championships, just a win/loss record, and be taught a sport.
I learned how to play organized football and lacrosse positions, and run the high hurdles in my sophomore year and became proficient enough in track to be offered a scholie.
I realize that track is the "easiest" sport in which natural ability has a great advantage over technique compared to FB and Lax (a term that didn't exist in the 1960s).
There was an innocence then that is impossible for kids to experience today...playing for the sheer enjoyment of using one's body with skill and being part of a team with others having the same feelings.
By the time my daughter was playing soccer in the early 2000s, I saw how our sports culture had changed. From intra-town teams, to inter-town teams, to travel teams, to elite summer camps.
She was good enough to be offered college placement, but hung up her spikes after her senior year and never played again...until after serving in the Navy, attaining a M.S. degree, and a role in a start-up company. She now plays on a adult-woman's team in her 30s and says she feels the sheer enjoyment of running, kicking, and jostling other players, as in her youth.
My high school had an all comers JV tennis team (at least for girls). Beginning of sophomore year, a friend said she was turning out for tennis and said I should too. I was not good at any sport involving hitting or throwing or catching anything, but I liked the idea of tennis, so I did.
My friend turned out to be an excellent player. I was terrible, but I kept at it for three seasons. JV players got two or three doubles matches each season. After year two, I was given the Most Improved JV award, which I knew was actually for being the most doggedly persistent bad player on the team. In my senior year, my doubles partner & I won a match, and I'll never forget how enthusiastic the best players were in congratulating me.
Maybe it taught me to keep at something that isn't really working very well ... but I'm thankful to the coach who was so encouraging the whole time.
There's a coda: After a long time of avoiding sports involving hand-to-eye coordination, I had occasion to try a bit of softball, then shoot some baskets, go bowling, try tennis again, shoot some pool - and I did much better at all of them than I had previously done. Or at least I did really well once, in some cases. (My basketball story is a little bit insane, but absolutely true.) My first time on a golf course, my brother (who's not given to idle praise) said I did better than most beginners he had seen.
If there's a usable life lesson in all that, I haven't found it yet, beyond "There's no harm in giving it a try."
Good for you.
Great suggestions this week! I love Ken White's writing. Malcolm Gladwell's idea is FANTASTIC.
Recommending another piece today by Matt Labash who JVL has had in the Triad before and is also a friend of his I believe-
https://mattlabash.substack.com/p/doubting-thomas
Quite moving
Thanks for sharing - great read
Today's Triad hits it out of the park. I read every linked newsletter and subscribed to two. I am happier for having read these pieces; it is a start on getting over the unrelenting frustration I've experienced all week which led to shouting at podcasts, drafting and then deleting most comments/replies in the comment threads, etc.
Okay. What exactly is a substack, and how is it any different from, say, blogspot, wordpress or any other blogging platform?
Terry; the main difference between a blogspot and a substack is that Substack is a centrally controlled service that gives writers the opportunity for paid subscriptions, it's what Substack is INTENDED to do. Blogspots writers on the other hand can have paid subscriptions, but blogspots are not necessarily intended for paid subscriptions. That's the difference.
It seems to me that in today's world, if the only way you can read a substack is to pay for it, writers are going to lose a lot of potential readers. A lot times when you click on JVL's advice to "read the whole thing," it is blocked behind a subscription paywall. If somebody subscribed (and thus paid for) every substack that JVL recommends, it could get monetarily out of hand in a hurry.
Not all Substacks have a subscription fee; for instance, Ken/Popehat’s does not. But it is somewhat occasional, unlike JVL’s tireless clip.
I wouldn't know. I gave up on clicking on "Read the whole thing" a long time ago, after the first couple times took me to a paid subscription wall.
But that's not actually the way it works. I pay for The Bulwark's Substack, I get full access to everything they publish. It's simple, straightforward, and to me totally worth it for the content they provide. I believe, but am not sure that subscribing also gets you access to the live podcasts they put out. But I do know that for one set price you get access to every newsletter put out by The Bulwark; hope this helps.
Who is "they?" The Bulwark or Substack? It must be the Bulwark. The point of the newsletters? blogs? that JVL recommends is they are not put out by the Bulwark, right?
Okay, I misunderstood what you meant, my mistake. I assumed that it was understood that if it's not The Bulwark your Bulwark subscription doesn't count. That said, every Substack that I've ever seen gives you the option to read at least a few articles BEFORE you have to subscribe. Are you sure you're not overlooking the option to read some articles before subscribing?
No, I am not sure of anything. It seems I recall being able to read a couple paragraphs before the text greys out.
You're on Substack. Substack is just a blogging platform, one where most of the blogs are pay-to-subscribe. The author just said "So-and-So has a Substack" in order in indicate that the person's blog is HERE, and not on another platform.