Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Punk Almost Rises

That was morality; things that made you disgusted afterward. No, that must be immorality.
-- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises.




Like most people, we ignore Sam Graham-Felsen these days.  But then readers steer us to even more hypocrisy flowing from G-F and there's no way to ignore the train wreck.

sgf


In the blog post currently at the top of the page, he quotes himself declaring, "Nothing is more depoliticizing than being lied to, and a close second is being condescended to.  An exaggeration, oversimplification, or lie is not a persuasion tool; it's a form of coercion."

Really?

We don't disagree but this is certainly a change from the Sam of the past.  As pointed out in "Sam Graham-Felsen stands for what?" back in 2008:

Sam once felt he was all grown up enough to tackle Noam Chomsky and offer this tidbit of 'wisdom': "And if he wants to convince Americans, he's simply got to tone it down." The still wet behind his ears offered, "Chomsky is almost 75 years old and he has a choice to make: he can continue to radically dissent to his heart's delight, or he can try to win a broader audience and actually change things." Now, yes, it is laughable that Sam, who has still accomplished nothing in his life, wants to lecture Noam Chomsky about Chomsky's lifetime of work but grasp the message Sam's sending which is "Tone it down, trick people a little, and you can get them over to your side."

Has Sammy finally seen the light?

Before you get your hopes up, read the post currently second on his blog, where he rages against allowing people to review products at Amazon and elsewhere (sort of the way he raged against democracy).


We're so glad Sammy didn't make it into the White House and so sad Katrina vanden Heuvel didn't take him back as her coffee fetcher.  She found him  -- and his attacks on Alex Cockburn so amusing.