Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

there's also the whole "breast cancer industry" thing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/health/study-adds-new-doubts-about-value-of-mammograms.html

ah word

We have toppled a king. https://t.co/wbjJYFfOaC pic.twitter.com/rBXS74Trcl

— Chapo Trap House (@CHAPOTRAPHOUSE) May 23, 2018

oh hey it's Adam Conover on Citations Needed

In "Ep. 38: The Media’s Bogus Generation Obsession" we discuss how the torrent of hacky "Millennials do X" and "Boomers do Y" stories aren't just stupid, but actually work to obscure discussions of inequality and racism. With guest @adamconover. https://t.co/YACeYIdjdX

— Citations Needed (@CitationsPod) May 23, 2018

The book excerpt they read on the show wasn't bad, although it didn't feel particularly Chapo-esque in style either (maybe because it was the Virgil and Brendan chapter).

I admit I chuckled at the groany puns

Highly recommend this week’s Trillbilly Workers Party for Tom’s voting story about 20 mins in

Felix is on this week's Premium ep of Struggle Session, LLIII left a link pinned on the CTH subreddit.

Adam Johnson has a new criminal justice reform podcast

Announcing The Appeal Podcast: a podcast about criminal justice reform, prison abolition, and everything in between. The Appeal Podcast is hosted by @adamjohnsonNYC. https://t.co/0Y4YBLGD6o Follow @theappealpod

— The Appeal (@theappeal) June 1, 2018

I fell down a ContraPoint rabbit hole to cheer myself up and I can't get out. She's got my Patreon subscription.

finally got around to watching a few contrapoints videos a couple of days ago and yeah she really is as good as advertised huh

I've liked every single one I've watched. Her two-parter on capitalism is a great entry point for budding leftists, I think. Her most recent one on trans discourse and self-loathing was SUPER interesting too.

I liked Amber's reading on the NYPost labor article, diff style than Will's but very illuminating. I think she should do her own podcast on labor politics and organizing or something like that, maybe get away from the chapo schtickiness and more of her own voice

I'm kinda surprised they had PFT Commenter on

I had/have no idea who that is and the sports commentator references mostly flew over my head, but I appreciated the changeup.

I thought this op-ed from a middle-aged fan was rather sweet. (Also touches on how economic disenfranchisement doesn't only hit millenials. among other topics)

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/10/how-linkedin-made-this-failmom-into-a-socialist/

I meant because of barstool's pretty shitty in a couple lot of ways

https://thinkprogress-org.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/thinkprogress.org/barstool-sports-sexism-30cee73eccc4/amp/?amp_js_v=a1&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2Fbarstool-sports-sexism-30cee73eccc4%2F

definitely enjoying the CA pod, it's really good

From that Salon article, did anyone notice this bit:

‘My views have changed enough that I went on a February afternoon to a Communist Manifesto Class held by the Party for Socialism and Liberation.’

It’s an...interesting development to go from sorta disengaged straight to PSL.

Yeah that's intense! Usually it's a Chapo-to-DSA pipeline but maybe they were just handier, locally speaking.

aren’t PSL the trotskyist org that just basically hands oht newspapera

*newspapers

Yeah, probably not bad from a learning standpoint though, I would expect them to be heavy on reading groups

aren’t PSL the trotskyist org that just basically hands oht newspapera

Well, selling them at fifty cents per isn’t exactly handing them out, but yeah, to my limited understanding.

yeah generally just enough to cover printing costs

hey isn't every trot organization all about selling newspapers?

The one I was organizing with for a while was careful to balance that out with a bunch of other activities but that's often the case, yes

newspapers and entryism: the trotskyist story

the most recent premium was really good i thought, most enjoyable episode in a while. amber + will + matt + felix is my favorite chapo configuration

both eps were strong this week, though the Trump segment was a little wearisome just because of the subject matter, even if Roth is one of the only worthwhile writers on the subject

felix has the best twitter

I enjoyed the last two episodes and they’d probably describe me as a “neolib.” 🤷‍♂️ I really like PFT Commenter and David Roth.

I'd prefer PFT Commenter if he just stuck to commenting on Paul F. Tompkins

That Atlantic article about remaking the NY subways was a real find, exactly the kind of thing I come to Chapo for.

His twitter thread on the article is worth a read too:

The subway is a mess. It's time for a radically reimagined underground transportation system, @peterwayner argues. https://t.co/lE7c2Xu66u

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) June 9, 2018

Amazing how many people even find it worthwhile to engage him, as though there is some kind of meaningful and adequately-considered idea here to be debated. Great illustration of (1) my new favorite phrase, which I cribbed from Wild Wild Country: "educated beyond their intelligence," and (2) the fact that a very stupid person can get far in life with the right ideology.

otm the piece itself is somehow ten times dumber than as read on chapo

watching him dig himself deeper and deeper defending it on twitter is just unreal

btw had a dream that the cumtown boys came to my parents' house for rosh hashanah dinner and that Nick Mullen got drunk and "went too far" with the antisemitism and I started beating the shit out of him. Hilarious bc the idea of Mullen "going too far"

haha

realized the other day that unlike nick and stav who regularly plug standup dates in NYC and all over the country, adam never does. then i started cackling remembering the old show description, "hosted by PROFESSIONAL COMEDIANS nick mullen and stavros halkias"

the subway article reminds me of what LA did with the street cars. lets just tear this shit up and be legends! surely traffic will improve once we replace mass transit with individual vehicles.

god the bill clinton book bit killed me

that and the transit article in combination gave me a very eerie feeling like reality has truly ruptured now and will never be recognizable again

The Dennis Miller clip in the new episode is so uncomfortable to listen to. Brain worms jokes aside, my grandma was more coherent in the early stages of Alzheimer's.

Another good(if sporadic) dirtbag leftist pod is Little Beirut, based in Portland:

http://littlebeirutpodcast.com/2018/06/12/little-beirut-ep06-kremlins-2/

Little Beirut - Ep06 – Kremlins 2

This episode features comedian/Russian agent Lee Camp, Portland DSA co-chair/Russian agent Olivia Katbi-Smith, woke Pokémon (Wokémon?), alien sex parties, and Jessie Ventura

the Dennis Miller segment was almost disturbing, wtf is going on with that dude

Sam Seder has been playing Dennis Miller clips for years. DM seems deeply depressed. Just talks about watching Turner Classic Movies all day, afraid to go outside

Just talks about watching Turner Classic Movies all day, afraid to go outside

Godamnit don't make Dennis Miller relateable.

also the Krauthammer reading was great. More vintage reading series pls

Lee Camp pushes a lot of dumb conspiracy shit on his RT show. He’s a worse Joe Rogan basically.