"Alt-conservative"* publisher's purse dog pees on American Sniper for the team
By the way, "alt-conservatism" is the ideological equivalent of hermaphrodism or transgenderism, the gambit that some creature somewhere - a marmot, a penguin - will still be available to date you on Saturday night. Or, as in the case of this and TAC, that at least someone will buy your product.
Anyway, go here for the golden shower. If you don't already know who Chris Kyle is, educate yourself.
As usual, there is a wrapper and a payload.
The wrapper is two "niggling" gripes about the movie: an insufficiently realistic baby and a scene where it appears to be daylight in two distantly separated places simultaneously. The latter of these "goofs" as they are commonly known in IMDB leads to the payload:
If a filmmaker takes that kind of liberty with astronomy, one wonders what other details he has twisted.
Taking that kind of liberty with astronomy. Positively Ptolemaic. Best we flee while we still can.
Well, wonder no more, marmot. Skip the movie and instead either read "Peter [giving] it a B+ over on FrontRow", or better yet, read a story about "strange lies" Chris Kyle allegedly told someone. Alas, no Page 3 girl, penguin.
This is what Chris Kyle's heroic life and tragic murder are to alt-conservatives: product, in this case lipstick for a chihuahua, at best.
Give the purse dog a call, marmots and penguins; he's obviously lonely.
UPDATE (as they say): Contra pursedog (r), Paul Rieckhoff.
Thank you. Oh, manm, from that variety link:
ReplyDeleteAnd “American Sniper” is badly needed at this point in the post-9/11 national dialogue. Especially after a decade-long parade of awful films like “In the Valley of Elah,” “Green Zone,” “Stop-Loss” and “Home of the Brave” (featuring the acting prowess of 50 Cent). For many years, many in Hollywood said that America was not interested in Iraq War movies. They were wrong. Americans just weren’t interested in bad Iraq War movies. Or most other kinds of bad movies.
Tell that.
The only one of these I saw was Green Zone and it was *TERRIBLE*. It was painful watching Matt Damon's talent being utterly wasted.
DeleteThis whining about American Sniper (no doubt motivated primarily by its success) is apparently what all the cool kids are doing these days. It's part and parcel of last year's meme of complaining about honoring servicemen at ball games because standing and cheering is not enough sacrifice by the crowd, or gladiator worship, or whatever.
ReplyDeletePuts the lie to the canard of "I support the troops but not the war" that we heard incessantly ten years ago.
P.S. You forgot Lions for Lambs. I saw the trailer, and could not imagine worse torture than having to sit through that one.
P.P.S. And today I see from the news that you meant what you said about Page 3 being eliminated. Je suis The Sun.
Because nothing gets on his FrontBurner blog without his express approval, here's what "alt-conservative" FrontBurner and TAC publisher Wick Allison really thinks about Chris Kyle the man himself: just another newsy item ripe for D-Empire-promoting buffoonery.
DeleteWe reflexively blame Obama and liberals for all our ills, but we invite these sorts of funny uncles into our homes to fondle our children ourselves.
Except we do not. The various and sundry winglets of the alt right have their indulgent and self-aggrandizing projects. These have not squat to do with a starboard governing program. Pat Buchanan or Steve Sailer might think in such terms on alternate Tuesdays, but the rest are in the business of peeing on their objects of scorn: Israel, the Jews generally, blacks, 'movement conservatives', the military, 'the neocons', the Bush family, &c.
DeleteArt, I agree that Buchanan might be slightly better than the rest, but please don't except him on my account. He's a general irritant in my opinion. And he is really in the bag with the rest. The fact that he has not distanced himself from the insanity gives away the truth--he actually buys it. Most of it.
DeleteArt, I believe you're mistaken, possibly because of wishful thinking. Other than in outposts like EQE, there's no place that I know of that doesn't embrace both TAC and Wick Allison either explicitly or implicitly as fellow conservatives. Ed Driscoll regular links Dreher as an authoritative conservative source. The "alt-conservative" affectation is one that Dreher alone pushes; otherwise, the broad conservative, moderate, and liberal universe alike else sees him, TAC, and Allison as simply conservative, period. And, again, other than here or maybe on T. O. Meehan's site, I never hear anyone of note say, "Wait a minute, those people are only faux-conservative at best."
DeleteMaybe that's just politeness, or not wanting to expose dissension in the ranks liberals might exploit (although liberals like Roy Edroso already regularly exploit Dreher's neurotic goofiness among moderates as an anti-conservative weapon), or cynical prudence anticipating a future back-scratching, but for whatever reason they're not being disavowed as representatively conservative. People by and large might disapprove of uncle diddling his niece, but for the most part they remain disapprovingly silent lest speaking out too loudly or creating active distance produce scandal.
I think you'd have to scrounge quite a bit through old issues of National Review, The Weekly Standard, or The American Spectator or City Journal to find much in the way of references to The American Conservative, Chronicles, Takimag, The Unz Review, or any of their contributors other than Buchanan and Dreher. Just not on their radar screen. (The Weekly Standard, to take one example, has not one reference to Dreher, Wick Allison, or Daniel Larison in 15 years of online publication). Commentary, of course, is the enemy as far as alt-right types are concerned. In particular, John Podhoretz and Steve Sailer despise each other personally.
DeleteNational Review did once devote a feature article to Chronicles, but it was eviscerating. (Kevin Williamson has just issued a slicing critique of the Paulbot nexus as we speak). Years ago, Robert Stacy McCain deigned to notice Dreher (only to cut him to pieces, discussion finished).
Wick Allison was once National Review's associate publisher (a generation ago) and Dreher had a staff job there for a year (2001-02). Dreher has not written a word for the publication in nine years and was rather stung when Maggie Gallagher and others dismissed his Crunchy book. A great deal of water under the bridge in the last 30 years, and a number of people who were congenially regarded then have been forgotten as they went on weird tangents: Paul Craig Roberts, Joseph Sobran, and Jeffrey Hart to name three.
I'm just not seeing much interest there in what the alt-right thinks other than occasional annoyance at one of Ron Paul's latest inane bulletins.
One other thing I'd point out. We're all rubber-necking at a car wreck. The car still has only one hapless person in it. The paid circulation of Chronicles and The American Conservative sums to around 25,000 (last I checked). That of National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, and Commentary exceeds 300,000. The libertarian organs like Reason and The Freeman also exceed the alt-right paid circulation. They're actually not that important in the scheme of things.
DeleteA great deal of water under the bridge in the last 30 years, and a number of people who were congenially regarded then have been forgotten as they went on weird tangents: Paul Craig Roberts, Joseph Sobran, and Jeffrey Hart to name three.
DeleteRoberts went certifiably insane. Hart is, and has been for many years, a very troubled alcoholic--it was only because Buckley was very loyal to his alte kameraden and tried to get them professional help, and keep them nominally in print, for a long time after they'd clearly lost it. That loyalty didn't matter once Buckley stepped back from NR.
Sobran should be a case study in self-destructive behavior: ostensibly an ardent Catholic apologist, but married and divorced twice, and estranged from his children. A promoter of self-reliant restraint, his life was a ghastly mess: lived in a filthy pigsty, drove without bothering to renew his license, would travel forgetting to wear or pack shoes. Invariably a critic of the government, he died in squalor as a ward of the state in a public nursing home.
-The Man From K Street
We may be talking at cross purposes. I'm not arguing that the conservative mainstream holds up Allison, TAC or Dreher as examples of the ideals conservatives should emulate. I'm arguing that when the public at large sees Dreher regularly referred to as a "conservative pundit" rather than as anything else, say "opportunistic, self-promoting writer", or TAC referred to as a "conservative publication", no one in the conservative mainstream regularly corrects them or regularly says otherwise. They then become indiscriminatable referential voices of conservatism to any who hear that they are and don't care or don't know any differently.
DeleteThe inside encyclopedic backstory is really irrelevant. In the public playground perception contest between the ad man and the encyclopedist, the ad man wins every time. Dreher and TAC not only know this, it's their modus operandi, and everyone who passively goes along with it enables it whether they want to or not. EQE is one of the few places that regularly doesn't.
I think your portrait of Sobran is largely accurate, but needs some qualification.
Delete1. Unless standards and practices are dramatically different in Virginia than they are in New York, he was in a nursing home because he was no longer ambulatory or because he was senile. You simply do not qualify for admission otherwise. Sobran was diabetic, so it's a reasonable wager that neuropathy had robbed him of the use of his legs.
2. I'm fairly sure that 'public nursing homes' are non-existant in Upstate New York and doubt there is much of a public nursing home census in Virginia, either. Medicaid financing of long-term care makes it not strictly necessary to provide such care through public agency, and you'll note there census in public asylums is a small fraction of what it was in 1955. Medicaid is part of that story.
3. Sobran IIRC was living in a home in the Virginia Tidewater, near his oldest daughter, her children, and her grandchild. Some of his later columns are about time spent with grandchildren, so if he was estranged from his children it would have been late in the day.
4. The condition of his home was attested to by Jared Taylor, who considered himself a friend. The issue with the driver's license was a subject of one of his columns.
5. Sobran reverted to the Church at some point in his young adult years. Not sure if his first wife or children were ever on board. The divorce does not faze me. The man was always hopelessly impractical. Learning in his obituary that there was a (failed) second marriage did.
Sorry, Keith. Don't think Jonah Goldberg and Emmett Tyrell are obligated to issue disclaimers about whatever it is that Daniel McCarthy and Ron Unz are peddling. They've got other things to write about.
DeleteDon't think Jonah Goldberg and Emmett Tyrell are obligated to issue disclaimers about whatever it is that Daniel McCarthy and Ron Unz are peddling. They've got other things to write about.
DeleteThis is assuredly true. Every once in awhile someone like R. S. McCain will point to some of Dreher's foolishness. Or Marc Adomanis. But it's best that he is most of the time ignored by the big players and it is better that way. This shows him for the over-inflated ankle-biter he is.
Hmmm...well now you've got me questioning my own continual writing about him for the reasons given.
DeleteArt, regarding your comment below on Dreher's view of the Pussy Riot business, I guess you believe that the anti-Putin content of their protest had nothing to do with them being arrested and convicted. Dreher didn't think the anti-Putin angle important enough to mention in his piece (it would have called into question his Putin-worship), and you've skipped over it too.
DeleteI find it difficult to believe that they would have been hauled off if their "show" had been in support of Putin, or even silent regarding Putin.
It would not surprise me if their prosecution was infected with bad motives. The thing is, had the prosecutor been conscientious and professional, they still would have been hauled into court.
DeleteThat P***y Riot protests a Machiavellian toad like Putin does not establish their bona fides or render sweet whatever shizz they're selling.
you've got me questioning my own continual writing about him for the reasons given.
DeleteWell I'm a proud ankle-biting amateur blogger who doesn't make one cent off pointing this stuff out. So I don't feel diminished in the slightest since it has turned into one of the main reasons that people check out my blog.
I've met a number of people -- not a huge number, but a significant number -- who buy into the ideas of Dreherism, paleo-conservatism, alt-con, etc. So I don't think it can be completely reduced to rubber-necking when we point out how these ideas are discreditable, problematic, not-really-conservative, etc.
I neglected the latest from Unzworld: they all want to bottom for Vladimir Putin.
ReplyDeleteEverybody, you have to read the Rolling Stone review of American Sniper. It's like watching a libtard's head exploding in slow motion. The d00d goes over all his favorite moments of the Bush years: Abu Ghraib, no WMDs, etc. He takes a brief foray into why every should have hated Forrest Gump. It's better than the post mid-term Ed Schultz meltdown, honestly.
ReplyDeleteThe author Matt Taibbi has a long history as a vocational juvenile. A bureau chief Taibbi once assaulted in Moscow was asked to comment on the incident for a magazine profile of Taibbi (as he was one of a portfolio of people who got this treatment one day from Taibbi and a sidekick) offered, "Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and the pig likes it".
DeleteYou realize, Rolling Stone not only employs Sabrina Erdely to write fictional pieces about UVa fraternities. They employ Taibbi to write about ... finance. The man's academic and professional background in the subject is nil, but, hey, he can turn in punchy copy on time.
Actually, I pretty much agree with Dreher's opinion there. While we're at it, disrupting a religious service is a class A misdemeanor in New York.
DeleteWhen I read a review that amounts to "the movie failed to make these other points", my only thought is "Make your own damn movie, then."
DeleteJust saw the movie with Mrs. Pik. Outstanding. People are drawn to the movie, I think, because we are human, and because so we appreciate excellence and heroism. The movie today was a remarkable experience: the theater was full for a 4:30 pm show, and after it ended, the crowd filed out in complete silence. Awesome. (Of course we are in Dallas, and there is also much Texas love in the movie.)
I give it full marks.
To your point.
DeleteI want to see it, obviously, but when I showed up at a suburban theater with my 3 youngest sons last night, it was to catch "Night at the Museum 3". They had three makeshift signs taped to the ticket window reading "American Sniper 7:30 Sold Out". I'll bet that doesn't happen on the second weekend of a film very often.
Someone else had the same experience at the end of the film that we had.
Delete