Max Boot is a turd, one of the IYI fools who constantly explain how stupid ordinary people are while never actually ever knowing anything themselves. Today he coughs up this hairball: In the 1980s, “most people got news from a newspaper or 3 TV networks.”
Hilariously, when I first heard of Max Boot about 15 years ago my boss at the time explained him alternately as "a conservative apologist" and "the Times' pet pussy conservative."
I thought I was a pretty big lefty at the time and I couldn't see anything allegedly conservative about him. He sounded more like some of my solidly leftist friends who were overeducated and incapable of socializing without talking about politics, where they would assume the persona of a condescending assistant professor. A lot of them would probably have been called "beta cucks" today.
Anyway, that's literally all I can think of every time I see that "aren't I charming " avatar of Boot's that hasn't changed in 20 years.
We are all stupider now, just from reading that idiotic tweet. There were over 50 separate news outlets in the 1980’s. All “news” did not come out of six corporations as it does now. If Max Boot was my son, I would publicly disown him.
Apr 14, 2022·edited Apr 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bray
Boot is a neo-con who lost his mind during Covid - assuming he ever had one.
I grew up in the 80s as well and Montreal was no different from L.A. and NYC albeit on a smaller scale. We had all sorts of underground papers - in two languages no less. I visited NYC a few times pre-Giuliani and used to pick up the Village Voice or any of the other papers. 42nd street still had a Lou Reed vibe back then.
I wasn't naturally partial to anything left-wing but I read those papers. We used to get our hands on everything from National Lampoon's to John Birch. Well, me and my buddies actively sought that stuff and we were teenagers.
I went to university and few of us Alex P. Keaton types were a precious minority so we infused with the crowd. I dated but eccentric (which turns out I was as well), left-wing, and outspoken feminist women (I'm still friends with one to this day. She introduced me to Billie Holiday) in college. Society back then was just as divided but we seemed to let common sense and general overall respect prevail. We never let politics drive our - ahem - dating escapades or lives in general. It was 'beat the commies in hockey because they're assholes' and then go to the movies and play video games. We knew how to just move on.
Something was lost along the way from, say, Ferris Bueller and Croc Dundee to where we are now. I remember our science department in high school was made up of left-over 60s hippies one of whom was American. They used to tell us stuff like 'America is a fascist country cloaked up in a democracy'. Back then that was 'whoa' stuff.
Now it all appears to be more bitter, jaded, distrustful and without a modicum of how to enjoy life and respect differences.
I love reading your blog, Chris! It's relieving to hear an intelligent voice of reason. I was on the left and thought I was "woke" just a year and a half ago. And yes I am embarrassed because I was ignorant and hadn't actually looked into what I thought I believed.
But over the years there were some things that woke me up. One of them was at the beginning of Covid, I had watched a documentary on amazon about a cartoonist who the FBI was after just for the zines he made. They were violent, sure, but they were only zines with a small circulation. I was really shocked that something like that happened in America (being a cartoonist myself it's something I'm sensitive too!) I ran out wanting to talk about it to meet up with another liberal friend at the dog park, but as soon as I told her there was a cartoonist in the 90s arrested for obscene comics, the first words out of her mouth were, "Good!" And I was just speechless.
I heard there was this saying from the 50s, "Scratch a liberal and you'll find a fascist." I'm not sure that's entirely true, as I think all the sane people on the left have been weeded out, but leaves me wondering was it there brewing all along?
back then people SPOKE TO EACH OTHER without immediately categorizing another for having an opinion. Nuanced opinions were considered and you actually had to INTERACT with them IN PERSON typically, before tossing them in to a box that fit your narrow view point. If I had a dollar for every person who immediately brought up Trump or Qanon (an accusation of affiliation, which is false) the minute I questioned any aspect of the pandemic hysteria, I'd have more money and less anger.
I like the reference to the old newspapers in California. I miss those publications especially the Daily News. I still read the Daily Bulletin, but it's not the same.
Obviously little Max was clueless about media in the 1980’s. In Detroit, you could get your news from ABC, NBC, CBS, and a variety of other channels including 9 (Ontario), 20, 50, 56, and 62. The Detroit News (conservative), Free Press (liberal), and a local daily in just about every county (usually Conservative) provided print news, local radio provided broadcasts, and there were plenty of magazines. Growing up in the 70’s, thanks to my parents, I was able to regularly consume three newspapers and a dozen magazines. Thankfully those were the days before the corporate media cabal dictated the story. There isn’t a shred of authenticity in his dumb argument.
Go ahead! Anyone who makes me laugh by calling someone else a turd gets brownie points. Back to the topic… just go to the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Illinois. There’s an entire “fun house” style room plastered with articles, editorial pieces and cartoons, absolutely skewering Lincoln and his party. Maybe it was easier to tune it out and go about your business at certain times in history but if humans are involved, there’s contention. Some would call it “original sin”.
I wonder if Max boot writes his 'bits' while physically licking garbage off of Jeff Bezos' shoe soles. There is a desperate and self-humiliating string that runs through everything he writes
I grew up in 80s in Czechoslovakia, a full-blown Soviet satellite. We actually had 3 newspapers and 2 channels of TV. The censorship was real, there were even things like state committee on film fairy tales that decided if the particular movie was fitting with the official party line. Fun fact, this committee wasn't under Ministry of Culture as you might think, but under Ministry of Information, which means the movies were deemed as straight propaganda. I did several researchs on newspapers in our history and it always fascinated me how little different were those papers from today. I very much doubt that thing were even remotely similar over the ocean.
Hilariously, when I first heard of Max Boot about 15 years ago my boss at the time explained him alternately as "a conservative apologist" and "the Times' pet pussy conservative."
I thought I was a pretty big lefty at the time and I couldn't see anything allegedly conservative about him. He sounded more like some of my solidly leftist friends who were overeducated and incapable of socializing without talking about politics, where they would assume the persona of a condescending assistant professor. A lot of them would probably have been called "beta cucks" today.
Anyway, that's literally all I can think of every time I see that "aren't I charming " avatar of Boot's that hasn't changed in 20 years.
I love this post!!
We are all stupider now, just from reading that idiotic tweet. There were over 50 separate news outlets in the 1980’s. All “news” did not come out of six corporations as it does now. If Max Boot was my son, I would publicly disown him.
Boot is a neo-con who lost his mind during Covid - assuming he ever had one.
I grew up in the 80s as well and Montreal was no different from L.A. and NYC albeit on a smaller scale. We had all sorts of underground papers - in two languages no less. I visited NYC a few times pre-Giuliani and used to pick up the Village Voice or any of the other papers. 42nd street still had a Lou Reed vibe back then.
I wasn't naturally partial to anything left-wing but I read those papers. We used to get our hands on everything from National Lampoon's to John Birch. Well, me and my buddies actively sought that stuff and we were teenagers.
I went to university and few of us Alex P. Keaton types were a precious minority so we infused with the crowd. I dated but eccentric (which turns out I was as well), left-wing, and outspoken feminist women (I'm still friends with one to this day. She introduced me to Billie Holiday) in college. Society back then was just as divided but we seemed to let common sense and general overall respect prevail. We never let politics drive our - ahem - dating escapades or lives in general. It was 'beat the commies in hockey because they're assholes' and then go to the movies and play video games. We knew how to just move on.
Something was lost along the way from, say, Ferris Bueller and Croc Dundee to where we are now. I remember our science department in high school was made up of left-over 60s hippies one of whom was American. They used to tell us stuff like 'America is a fascist country cloaked up in a democracy'. Back then that was 'whoa' stuff.
Now it all appears to be more bitter, jaded, distrustful and without a modicum of how to enjoy life and respect differences.
I love reading your blog, Chris! It's relieving to hear an intelligent voice of reason. I was on the left and thought I was "woke" just a year and a half ago. And yes I am embarrassed because I was ignorant and hadn't actually looked into what I thought I believed.
But over the years there were some things that woke me up. One of them was at the beginning of Covid, I had watched a documentary on amazon about a cartoonist who the FBI was after just for the zines he made. They were violent, sure, but they were only zines with a small circulation. I was really shocked that something like that happened in America (being a cartoonist myself it's something I'm sensitive too!) I ran out wanting to talk about it to meet up with another liberal friend at the dog park, but as soon as I told her there was a cartoonist in the 90s arrested for obscene comics, the first words out of her mouth were, "Good!" And I was just speechless.
I heard there was this saying from the 50s, "Scratch a liberal and you'll find a fascist." I'm not sure that's entirely true, as I think all the sane people on the left have been weeded out, but leaves me wondering was it there brewing all along?
Free speech was a big thing in America until the Globalist Neo-Fascist Eugenicist Oligarch’s J-6 coup. Since we are now an Oligarchy, not so much.
back then people SPOKE TO EACH OTHER without immediately categorizing another for having an opinion. Nuanced opinions were considered and you actually had to INTERACT with them IN PERSON typically, before tossing them in to a box that fit your narrow view point. If I had a dollar for every person who immediately brought up Trump or Qanon (an accusation of affiliation, which is false) the minute I questioned any aspect of the pandemic hysteria, I'd have more money and less anger.
Yep. Newspapers.com is a treasure trove of information, 21,000 papers. And Mark Twain knew a thing or two about Journalism as well.
To be fair, he's a f*cking moron. You can take the boy out of the USSR, but you apparently can't take the USSR out of the stupid boy.
I was a delivery boy for the Daily Breeze, almost sixty years ago.
I like the reference to the old newspapers in California. I miss those publications especially the Daily News. I still read the Daily Bulletin, but it's not the same.
Obviously little Max was clueless about media in the 1980’s. In Detroit, you could get your news from ABC, NBC, CBS, and a variety of other channels including 9 (Ontario), 20, 50, 56, and 62. The Detroit News (conservative), Free Press (liberal), and a local daily in just about every county (usually Conservative) provided print news, local radio provided broadcasts, and there were plenty of magazines. Growing up in the 70’s, thanks to my parents, I was able to regularly consume three newspapers and a dozen magazines. Thankfully those were the days before the corporate media cabal dictated the story. There isn’t a shred of authenticity in his dumb argument.
THIS! Bravo Chris.
Go ahead! Anyone who makes me laugh by calling someone else a turd gets brownie points. Back to the topic… just go to the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Illinois. There’s an entire “fun house” style room plastered with articles, editorial pieces and cartoons, absolutely skewering Lincoln and his party. Maybe it was easier to tune it out and go about your business at certain times in history but if humans are involved, there’s contention. Some would call it “original sin”.
I wonder if Max boot writes his 'bits' while physically licking garbage off of Jeff Bezos' shoe soles. There is a desperate and self-humiliating string that runs through everything he writes
I grew up in 80s in Czechoslovakia, a full-blown Soviet satellite. We actually had 3 newspapers and 2 channels of TV. The censorship was real, there were even things like state committee on film fairy tales that decided if the particular movie was fitting with the official party line. Fun fact, this committee wasn't under Ministry of Culture as you might think, but under Ministry of Information, which means the movies were deemed as straight propaganda. I did several researchs on newspapers in our history and it always fascinated me how little different were those papers from today. I very much doubt that thing were even remotely similar over the ocean.