The End of the Alternative Media

Sultan Knish ^ | August 21, 2012 | Daniel Greenfield

[expat1000]

Terrific article. The MSM has not printed anything this quality in ages.

[expat1000]

Sultan Knish/Daniel Greenfield Ping List (notification of new articles). FReepmail me to get on or off.

[GlockThe Vote]

This guy writes amazing stuff

[expat1000]

This guy writes amazing stuff.

I wish I had the skills to express how impressed I am with him. I ran out of superlatives ages ago.

[txrefugee]

Greenfield describes Austin perfectly. When everyone has striped hair, the one person in the crowd that doesn’t is the real non-conformist. When everyone thinks the same way, life is pedestrian and predictable and boring. That’s when taking drugs becomes a popular way of coping with the phony world they have created.

[rpierce]

Very good article. I immediately zoomed in on two statements that I try to hammer into my kid's minds:

“In a rebellious culture, rebellion is meaningless.”

“As weirdness has become the norm, the norm is the alternative to weirdness.”

Great find. Thanks for posting it. Freegards.

[N. Theknow]

I never considered myself a non-conformist until I realized that I have no tattoos, no piercings, every other word I speak is not an F-bomb, and I have been married to the same woman for 38 years.

[jocon307]

So the Voice is really dead. That makes me sad. If the NY Times were to die, I’d be overjoyed.

Excellent article, it sums up the past 25 years or so quite well.

I think it was the fear that Bush would become popular after the attacks of 9/11 that drove the MSM over the edge, and Obama has kept them up in the air, legs spinning, like a cartoon character. Romney’s election will absolutely send them crashing into the ravine below.

For that reason alone, I hope he wins, and wins big.

[Liberty Valance]

We are the alternative that they have left behind but cannot escape. We are the alternative to the endless alternative, the alternative to national guilt, national suicide and national armageddon. We are the rebels who rebel against the rebels, the counterrevolution to the revolution, the people, who, when the noise has grown loud enough and there are fires in the streets, step out and show a better way.

[meyer]

I never considered myself a non-conformist until I realized that I have no tattoos, no piercings, every other word I speak is not an F-bomb, and I have been married to the same woman for 38 years.

Radical! :-)

[poobear]

‘New Yorkers can just as easily read shrill rants about the NYPD in the Daily News, pretentious movie reviews for artsy films at The Onion and leftist denunciations of the War on Terror in the New York Times.’

Well, they got what they wanted right? Sort of like watching the OWS crowd protesting Capitalism while complaining there is nowhere to charge their IPhones.

[IronJack]

Way, way overstated. Read it again. Notice that he restates his thesis at least a dozen times, then proceeds to restate his argument — articulately, to be sure — as well. While he makes some cogent points, this is an author who is clearly in love with his own voice.

He could cut this in half and still get his message across.

[holly go-rightly]

One of his best, and that’s a tough category! Thanks for the ping.

[freefdny]

Great article. It made me think of “The Second Coming” by Yeats.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

[Radagast the Fool]

So the Village Voice is no more?

Strange, I haven’t even thought about that rag in years.
I guess that has been the case for lots of other people, too.

[Buckeye McFrog]

We have something called the City Paper here.
They give it away for free (or at least they try to).

Contains nothing but gay propaganda, shrill left-wing rants, concert listings and phone sex ads (along with some that are clearly for prostitutes).

I have to wonder who reads it, and who keeps paying to publish it?

[no-s]

When everyone has striped hair, the one person in the crowd that doesn’t is the real non-conformist.

This is sooo funny to me. I live in the San Francisco bay area. Part of the appeal to me is that I am the non-conformist here. I am the insurgent. I point out the emperor has no clothes. When I challenge liberal orthodoxy, I am the fighting "the man".

However, today I'm writing this from Arizona where I'm enjoying a little recharge....

[no-s]

When everyone has striped hair, the one person in the crowd that doesn’t is the real non-conformist.

This is sooo funny to me. I live in the San Francisco bay area. Part of the appeal to me is that I am the non-conformist here. I am the insurgent. I point out the emperor has no clothes. When I challenge liberal orthodoxy, I am the fighting "the man".

However, today I'm writing this from Arizona where I'm enjoying a little recharge....

[Anima Mundi]

Makes me think of Todd Snider’s Seattle Rock Grunge Blues lyrics...
....now to fit in on the Seattle scene
you’ve gotta do somethin’ they ain’t never seen
we decided to be the only band that wouldn’t play a note
under any circumstances
silence
music’s original alternative
root’s grunge
the record guy came out to see us one day
and just like always we didn’t play
it knocked him out
he said he loved our work but he wasn’t sure if he could sell a record
with nothing on it
I said tell ‘em we’re from Seattle
he advanced us two and a half million dollars
well they made us do a video but that wasn’t tough
‘cuz we just filmed ourselves smashin’ stuff
it was kinda weird ‘cuz there was no music
but mtv said they’d love to use it
the kids went wild, the kids went nuts
rolling stone gave us a five-star review said we played with guts
then we got asked to play mtv unplugged
you should have seen it
we went right out there and refused to do acoustical versions of the
electrical songs we had refused to record in the first place
well we blew ‘em away at the grammy’s show
by refusing to play and refusing to go
and then just when we thought fame would last forever
along come this band that wasn’t even together
now that’s alternative
now that’s alternative to alternative
well our band got dropped and that ain’t funny
‘cuz we’re all hooked on drugs but we’re outta money
so the other day i called up the band
i said boys i’ve taken all i can
shave off your goatees
pack the van
we’re goin’ back to Athens

[arasina]

Way, way overstated. Read it again. Notice that he restates his thesis at least a dozen times, then proceeds to restate his argument — articulately, to be sure — as well. While he makes some cogent points, this is an author who is clearly in love with his own voice.

He could cut this in half and still get his message across.

He could, but some people enjoy reading this prolific author's overstated arguments. I know I do. Just because you're on a word diet doesn't mean others need to cut their intake.