History

The Ugly Truth Of Six More Leftist “Heroes”

131 Comments

Earlier I skewered nine dictators, thugs, demagogues, and politicians adored by leftists despite considerable failings in policy, ethics, and hygiene. Here are six more over-hyped figures revered by leftists who always get everything wrong.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

How the world remembers: FDR led America through the Great Depression and WWII, remembered fondly by seniors who heard his inspiring fireside chats.

The ugly truth: Some economists argue that FDR’s measures prolonged the Great Depression. All the New Deal programs were struck down as unconstitutional, except Social Security. He got the Supreme Court to back off by threatening to pack the Court with more members with views to his liking. That restrained their judicial opinion, though the Constitution doesn’t grant Congress the power to create a Federal retirement system.

Social Security works—though it’s slim pickings if it’s a retiree’s only income—and for decades the surplus has been a cash cow offsetting Congressional overspending. However, the aging Baby Boomers who didn’t have enough children might turn the cash cow into an albatross. Further, the Social Security Number is now a de-facto universal ID number; a convenient database field for monitoring citizens. America’s Founding Fathers would have been appalled at today’s domestic spying, and the Soviet dictators of old would have wept with envy.

FDR pledged to keep the USA out of WWII. Meanwhile, he quietly did everything possible to antagonize Japan, a once-friendly nation, such as (among several items) freezing their assets and cutting off their oil supply. When he got intelligence of the upcoming attack on Pearl Harbor, he didn’t order the base to be locked and loaded.

If that wasn’t bad enough: So nearly a quarter million Americans died in battle, but at least the pivotal intervention came just in time to “make the world safe for democracy”, right? Unfortunately, FDR was far too friendly with the USSR, giving them nearly $11 billion in food, weaponry, and other supplies (about $119 billion adjusted for inflation).

At the Yalta conference, FDR agreed to let “Uncle Joe” Stalin take over Eastern Europe. General Patton wanted to press forward at full speed to keep as much territory as possible away from Soviet tyranny, but politics hampered him every step of the way until he got rubbed out. When the Iron Curtain rose and the Cold War began, Winston Churchill said, “We slaughtered the wrong pig.” If only Roosevelt had listened to his generals!

FDR wasn’t a Communist, but many of his appointees and trusted advisers were.  Later, Joseph McCarthy barely scratched the surface trying to get rid of them.

Walter Cronkite

TV OBEY

How the world remembers: He was a long-time CBS anchorman, reporting many triumphs and tragedies. A friendly face on living room TVs for decades, he became everyone’s “Uncle Walter”. According to polls, he was the “most trusted man in America”.

The ugly truth: Although a decent fellow in person, Cronkite was the archetypal big-name liberal journalist, spinning the news for decades. Sometimes it was rather subliminal, including his signature subtle sneer. Most of the public then believed journalists were muckrakers and unbiased truth-tellers; as Cronkite’s tagline went, “And that’s the way it is.”

Until Cronkite’s late career, the mainstream media had a veneer of respectability—perhaps like warped plastic barely sticking to crumbling particleboard, but a veneer nonetheless. There once were only three American corporate TV networks. From Manhattan, they were the public’s information gatekeepers; no other broadcast news (besides shortwave radio) was available. Baby Boomer liberals might get a bit misty-eyed remembering those days. Today, six mega-conglomerates own 90% of the media, but at least the Internet lets us present our own perspectives and call out biased reporters.

If that wasn’t bad enough: His biggest whopper was about the Tet Offensive. The Viet Cong launched a desperate all-out assault, suffered very heavy losses, mostly it was over within a day, and ultimately the VC gained no territory. However, “the most trusted man in America” gave them a propaganda victory, reporting that the Vietnam War was hopeless. Public opinion promptly turned against the war. Ho Chi Minh should’ve given Cronkite a medal, an honorary VC generalship, and a dozen roses.

Many forget that the 1973 Paris Accords brought peace. Two years later, though, the shaky Ford administration couldn’t persuade Congress to respond appropriately to a Shit Test by North Vietnam. Then they invaded, and Saigon fell. All that’s a long story, but public opinion from biased reporting certainly didn’t help. That affected America’s prestige abroad, along with the lives of millions of South Vietnamese killed or sent to “reeducation camps”.

Allen Ginsberg

How the world remembers: He was a pioneer of the beatniks, much beloved by the hippies who followed, and lauded with several literary prizes. Some even credit him with basically starting the 1960s counterculture singlehandedly.

The ugly truth: Ginsberg was neurotic and a degenerate. He wrote a so-called poem about his sphincter (yes, really) but the rest isn’t much better. Anyone considering his bathroom wall ravings as “profound” either is educated beyond his ability to comprehend, believed the hype and didn’t read it, or dropped too much acid.

“Howl”, his best-known poem, begins “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”. A brief excerpt (get some brain bleach) describing these “best minds”:

who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,
who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,
who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may, …

Even overlooking the lunacy, buggery, and butthurt, Ginsberg’s “free verse” is stylistically lazy. Back when poetry meant Keats and Kipling, it rhymed and had meter.

He was a noted critic of the USA, for example:

America, I used to be a communist when I was a kid I’m not sorry

Ginsberg visited several Communist countries, getting himself deported from some of them for immorality. He abandoned his ancestral faith for Buddhism and had a Hare Krishna phase. What people believe is up to them, of course, but adding these two things up—along with his wretched poetry—reveals a tortured soul. Rejecting everything one belongs to is childish rebellion for rebellion’s sake.

Granted, Ginsberg’s popularity was greatest during the screwed-up “kill your parents” 1960s. Still, what were those who promoted his crapulous drivel smoking? Were the literary gatekeepers pushing cultural Marxism running out of talented writers?

If that wasn’t bad enough: Ginsberg joined the North American Man/Boy Love Association, sometimes speaking kindly on their behalf. Explaining in an accurately titled interview—“Politics, Pederasty and Consciousness”—to the Harvard Crimson:

As I get older, having very specialised sexual tastes, it gets harder to make out… I like young boys. Why?… I’d have more chance at making out with younger guys if I were younger, dewier, dewy-limbed.

The media usually portrays pickup artists as reprobates, and screeched about Donald Trump’s years-old private locker room talk, but the presstitutes (likewise the lefty “intelligentsia”) fawningly praised Ginsberg despite his appetite for young boys.

Ted Kennedy

liberalism-or-communism

Best friends forever, east and west

How the world remembers: He was “the Lion of the Senate”, representing Massachusetts from 1962 until his death in 2009. This champion of social justice carried on the Kennedy legacy—hailed as America’s nobility—after his two brothers were tragically slain.

The ugly truth: He was as passionate for booze and adultery as he was for social justice, but the suckers kept reelecting him. His lack of character sank way deeper, though; all the way underwater.

After a night of partying on Chappaquiddick Island, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge. He escaped, but failed to help his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Per one of the investigators, she suffocated slowly in an air pocket for about two hours. If he’d ran to a nearby house for help—rather than waiting nine hours to sober up—she would’ve survived. He got a two month suspended sentence, barely a slap on the wrist for vehicular manslaughter. The judge basically said poor Teddy had suffered enough. (What about how Miss Kopechne suffered?) There’s one set of rules for the elites, and another for us. Shortly thereafter, he tried to spin-doctor it with a “woe is me” shtick. The suckers kept reelecting him, though a Presidential bid was now beyond reach.

As for his many legislative actions, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was the most notorious. He promised the public:

First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same… Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset… Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think… The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.

The “Lion of the Senate” was lyin’ his fat ass off! This population replacement policy threatens America’s future, just as the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan is doing in Europe. Still, the suckers kept reelecting him.

If that wasn’t bad enough: Besides giving away the country to which the Constitution granted “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity“, Lyin’ Ted was in cahoots with the KGB. He proposed to help his Soviet pal Yuri Andropov with tidying up the USSR’s image problem during the Cold War’s endgame. The damning documents suggested that Walter Cronkite (see above) and Barbara Walters might be used for this effort. Conservatives often suspect liberals are soft on Communism; little did they know how cozy Ted Kennedy was in bed with Comrade Andropov.

John Lennon

How the world remembers: He was a talented musician, arguably the most prominent of the Beatles. Their story was an archetypal garage band becoming a bar band and eventually breaking out into great fame. Lennon produced dozens of hits that still get air play. He’s remembered as a wonderful man, an embodiment of the 1960s (the good parts, anyway), and the conscience of the world.

The ugly truth: Despite Lennon’s considerable talents, not all his songs were excellent. Things slipped with the White Album. (“Revolution 9”, really?) After the Beatles broke up, he started a solo career, often featuring songs with sophomoric political poses. His last album produced during his life—after dragging himself out of a long heroin stupor—was Double Fantasy. Critics at first agreed that it sucked. After a nut shot Lennon, they felt sorry for him and declared it brilliant.

Lennon was the archetypal leftist celebrity using fame to push politics. Granted, everyone has a right to their opinion, but being able to sing or act confers no special political expertise. His song “Imagine” is particularly telling. As he put it:

Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,’ is virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I’m not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement.

Being under the shadow of the Berlin Wall back in their bar gig days should’ve precluded sophomoric posturing like this.

If that wasn’t bad enough: His failings are quite troubling, too numerous to fully detail. One item is abandoning his family the way his own father did. A truly wonderful man wouldn’t do that.

Another item was his extensive substance abuse. He spent 1974 guzzling booze, his “lost weekend”. One night, a waitress refused service because he stuck a menstrual pad on his head. Then:

Lennon: “Do you know who I am?”
Waitress: “Yeah, you’re some asshole with a Kotex on his forehead.”

One Lennon biographer asked Timothy Leary, who’d been on hundreds of acid trips, what Lennon’s extreme LSD consumption would do. Leary had no idea! Finally, what kind of inner vacuum caused this highly successful musician, much beloved by the public, to get himself strung out on heroin?

Jimmy Carter

carter-and-castro-in-havana

In this heart-warming scene, Jimmy Carter and Uncle Fidel stand for the Cuban national anthem in Havana

How the world remembers: Carter is praised as a rare honest politician, exemplifying Christian principles and tolerance.

The ugly truth: The economy tanked during the Carter administration: double-digit inflation and high unemployment. Economists are still puzzled by stagflation; normally, unemployment and inflation are inversely correlated. At least Obama gave economists another data point to study.

Carter’s commendably not corrupt, but exemplified bleeding-hearted liberalism. Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush (likewise Al Gore and The Lightworker), Carter was a lackluster embarrassment. He was known for TMI statements, for example about his hemorrhoids and committing adultery in his heart (at least Clinton had the balls to do it for real). He ranked lower than Mr. Whipple on a face recognition survey. The Boston Globe reported on one of his speeches with the headline “More Mush From the Wimp”; finally journalists got something right.

Carter’s shining foreign policy moment was the Camp David Accords, establishing peace between Egypt and Israel. America started giving over a billion annually to each party for making peace, which ironically supplies their military. Why? The USA wasn’t even a combatant, aside from the USS Liberty incident which certainly shouldn’t inspire American tribute money. Taxpayers still fund this absurd protection racket.

Worse, he badly bungled the Iran hostage crisis. One Iranian official later stated they would’ve released the hostages if the USA had threatened force in the beginning. Yep, Carter failed Iran’s Shit Test. Consequentially, the USA lost tons of international prestige, and the ordeal of the hostages dragged on unnecessarily.

If that wasn’t bad enough: Carter is often a little too cordial with notorious dictators. Worse, Clinton trusted him to represent the USA during disarmament talks with North Korea. They gave him the Potemkin village show; he bought it hook, line, and sinker. Yet again, Carter was played for a chump—the USA opened its wallet and gave North Korea aid, and they pinky-swore to stop their nuclear program. Now the Norks have nukes—surprise! Awesome job, Mister Nice Guy!

Read More: The Ugly Truth Of Leftist “Heroes”

131 thoughts on “The Ugly Truth Of Six More Leftist “Heroes””

  4. ww2 was another Rothschild war.
    FDR also allowed for 1.2 million German civilians slaughtered AFTER the war. Watch doc Hellstorm

    1. Wikipedia criticizes the Rothschild involvement in the Napoleanic Wars of the 1800s, but then conveniently skips over their roles in WW1 and WW2. If they indict the Rothschilds in WW1, for example, then WW2 gives the Germans a legitimate grievance.
      Wikipedia cannot be trusted, which many already know.

  5. Off topic but even if you’re not a Yank Happy Thanksgiving! I myself traditionally celebrate the day with turkey and Frank Zappa. Sorry I can’t give you guys turkey over the internet so here’s Frank:

    1. Love Joe’s garage. Funny, just last night I tried to convince GOJ to listen to Bongo Fury…Zappa is the man.
      Meanwhile, it isn’t Christmas until you listen to this

      1. T-shirts, plaques, rubber snacks,
        Poster rolls with matching tacks
        We must show GOJ all that he is missing out on!

        1. I think he is open to it. Poofter froth Wyoming is great. That is one of those perfect albums that you play start to finish. Good night Austin Texas wherever you are

    2. Just learning about Zappa. I have been avoiding him for years. But his live stuff just stops me in my tracks and commands complete attention.
      The tune did go well with my turkey.

      1. The live stuff is almost always better. Especially if it had been several years since the studio versions…usually by then the band had made lineup changes and zappa would rearrange the songs, so you never knew how they were going to sound. The best band youve never heard in your life has some good stuff, also roxy and elsewhere,fz in new york, broadway the hard way…i could go on and on. Read his bio, the real frank zappa book. So many great stories, so much wisdom about the biz and the world in general. Very prescient considering the times we live in today.

    3. I was never a huge fan of his music, but I have always loved to watch him in interviews. I think he is one of the most underrated thinkers and philosophers of the modern era.

  7. John Lennon was an untalented hack who physically abused Yoko & when he wasn’t off drinking or shooting up somewhere, verbally abused his son Sean, (his first son, Julian, he barely had any interaction with). In classic communist hippie figurehead fashion, he pushed the typical minimalist philosophy but lived in a mansion & drove a Rolls Royce.

        3. Yes, really, google “Yoko Hillary Affair”, Yoko blabbed in some interview that “it” happened I think in the ’90s…

        4. Damn. In a conversation with a friend the other day, I was wagering the last decade that Bill & Hill had boned. My guess was early 90’s. Perhaps I was gunning it a bit.

  8. FDR was awful.
    He paved the way for the destruction of our once great country with all of his federal giveaway programs. But…as bad as he was, his foul wife was even worse. Archie Bunker had a great quote on “All in the Family”, and one of the truest quotes in the history of American television: “At least pat Nixon stayed home. Eleanor Roosevelt was always out of the house, running around with the coloreds. It was Eleanor Roosevelt who discovered the coloreds in this country…We never even knew they was there!!!” And boy is that the truth! That ugly pig should have been home making lemonade and baking cookies instead of stirring up trouble with the blacks. She was the second worse traitor in US history after John Brown.

    1. That was a great line but you realize that all in the family was a show that was mocking Archie Bunker and people who thought like him right?

      1. Hahaha!
        Ummm….yeah! I realized that!
        But sometimes lib writers like Norman Lear “f” up, and instead of making their foils look stupid, expose themselves and their own beliefs as the real stupidity.
        Do you remember who Archie directed that lecture towards? It was none other than Edith’s Cousin Maude. Ultra masculine Bea Arthur herself!

        1. I do remember. I think that despite being a lib fag that Norman Lear was, first and foremost, concerned with making good television which he did with aplomb.
          And as dykey and masculine as Bea Arthur was she was funny as hell.
          I feel that politics were less hostile back then. There was more teasing and less vitriol. My feeling is that people have become more and more passionate about politics to the point of it being a knock down drag out fight along with the drop in IQ.
          Both sides seem to me to be equally absurd and moronic. More laughter would probably do well for a lot of people

        2. “More laughter would probably do well for a lot of people”
          Agree 100%.
          Since you seem to be familiar with stuff from the 70s/80s, you must remember the old Dean Martin roasts. Don Rickles going up against Sammy Davis, Muhammad Ali, Wilt Chamberlain…and everyone laughed as it was all in fun.

        3. The dean Martin roasts were amazing. I still watch them. And even older than that the variety shows. If you Google rat pack Johnny Carson there is a full 90 minute recording of a rat pack performance where Carson stands in for Joey bishop. It’s the one where dean picks up Sammy and says “id like to thank the NAACP for this award statue” its brilliant and worth watching

        5. “And as dykey and masculine as Bea Arthur was she was funny as hell”
          Manly females tend to be funny due to their androgyny. How many times I remember her saying “God will get you for that, Walter!”
          I remember we had a friend visiting from Scotland, saw his first show of “Maude” and he asked us if the main character, Maude, was a man or tranny.

        6. Absolutely. Ruth Buzzy too! But the thing is, they knew they were ugly freaks and were using it for a laugh rather than demanding the word see them as beautiful. Just like Charles Nelson Riley was a degenerate fag but used to for comedy. He knew he was a deviant. He allowed it to be a joke not told the world to accept it

        7. One of the great lines from a roast (can’t remember which) was when someone said to Ruth Buzzie “I wouldn’t fuck you wiyh Bea Arthur’s dick”

        9. And cousin Maude was at Archie’s house to help Edith take care of Archie, Gloria and the Meathead who all had the screaming shits.

        10. Hahaha!
          Yeah, she made Archie eat farina and cheese, because as she put it “it’s bland, but it binds”.
          Which Archie later countered with “farina and chees, huh? Wrong again Maude!!!” As he ran to the can.

        12. I laughed so hard at that episode. I thought when Edith gets sick at the end, Archie would send her to “da groinacologist, there”

        14. Hahaha!
          And here’s another:
          “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. You may call me this, and call me that….but I still say THAT BROAD WAS FAT!!!” – Fred G. Sanford

      2. He was the spitting image of my grandfather. That show really tugs on the ol’ nostalgia strings….

    2. After John Brown? Lol you totally forgot (((Jonathan Pollard))) and also the infamous (((Rosenberg))) couple. FDR may be awful but none can beat the awful stupidity of George Bush Jr. Failure on multiple levels. Where shall I begin.
      1. Attacking the wrong country after 9/11
      2. Lied about non-existent WMD’s and destabilized Iraq paving the way for ISIS militants
      3. Inherited a surplus from Bill Clinton and turned that into crushing debt.
      4.Bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. The photo of him looking like an autistic bumfuck while on his posh plane pretty much sums up his presidency.
      5. Neglected the warning from his officers about the impending 9/11 because you know he is too busy clearing bush(!) in his Texas Ranch
      6. Policy of Wall Street deregulation and tax cuts for the ultra rich pretty much drove a stake through America.
      7. And finally Patriot Act! Bye2 Privacy….

      1. Perhaps a follow up article of 6 even bigger assholes from the 60s is in order, hell every decade could be tackled. Lessons of what not to do, human nature, and knowing the enemy amongst others pieces of knowledge can be gleaned…

      2. I agree that Pollard and the Rosenbergs are horrible, but you miss my point. As treasonous as those “Js” were, they were still for their own kind, especially Pollard. JB and ER were against their own kind and for the savages. IMO, there is nothing worse.
        Agree Bush was terrible as well.
        But as bad as he was, Hussein O. was/is MUCH MUCH worse! BTW, while I agree with you regarding Bush and the war, patriot act, and his spending, I STRONGLY disagree with you on Katrina. The savages who were caught in the hurricane have NO ONE TO BLAME BUT THEMSELVES!!! Live on the dole, die on your own.

      3. Regarding your point # 6.
        I disagree vehemently.
        The 2008 recession was caused 100% by FED GOVT social engineering.
        The CRA was put into place by the Carter administration, but was basically unenforced until the Clintons came into office and greatly strengthened it.
        Banks were then forced to give loans to ghetto minorities who had low incomes, no collateral, and most importantly lacked the moral fiber to care about paying back those loans. These are the same people who don’t pay their rent and force landlords to go through the courts and the marshalls to get them put out — which takes many, many months.
        With the FED holding the CRA over the banks to loan to the low lives, they HAD to come up with all kinds of crazy derivative financial products in an attempt to make some kind of a profit off of these bad loans. It was either that or go under. Was it a good thing to do? Not really. But they were forced into it by the ultra left wing FED. Was Bush complicit? Of course he was. He did not repeal the CRA. And why do you think that is? Perhaps the same reason we still have the GROSSLY unconstitutional 64 and 68 (un) civil rights acts. Because the POTUS (or candidate) who would RIGHTLY come out against these abominations would immediately be labeled a “racist”. Of course in reality it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with individual liberty, private property rights, and freedom of association…you know, those things we are supposed to be guaranteed by the same govt who took them away.

    4. Fuck Ted Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The Immigration Act of 1965 is why we have a shit third world country today rampant with Third World immigrants.

  9. Thanks for this. Well written, balanced, and intellectually honest. I especially appreciate the Ginsberg takedown. All you need to do is read his words with without having somebody telling you how great he was, and the mediocrity howls for itself.
    Hippies suck.

    1. I am a big fan of ginsberg’s poetry. I find it sad that people can’t see how great it is without letting anti-intellectualism get in the way

      1. Oh please, as americans say a turd is a turd no matter how you slice it. I hope he is not the best the english language poetry has to offer.
        On a merrier note happy thanksgiving

        1. It makes me very sad and, truthfully ashamed, that people have no ability to look past their pathetic bs political and social opinions which count even less than turd in order to see greatness

        2. My take: Ginsberg was a freak – as he did join an organisation that advocated that men be allowed to have sex with children. That, plus being a commie.
          However, without a doubt, Ginsberg had a talent for aliteration; a really good poet.
          I just wish his subject matter was different and was not such a deviant. When one becomes red pill it is very difficult not to connect them with their politics that conflict with one’s own moral and spiritual values.

        3. It has nothing to do with politics. Most artists are to the left of the political spectrum of their time (I can’t remember any right wing or fascist artist besides maybe Wagner) and one can appreciate the beauty of their ouvres. Ginsberg is not one of those to me and I think I can safely say he seems to represent part of the cult of ugliness we have to endure nowadays where unhealthy is good and fat is awesome, something further reflected in his personal life.

        5. I get it. Some people don’t appreciate / understand what he was doing. I think that falls under “I don’t like it” however, rather than “this is bad” conflating ones subjective taste with objective reality is a very common problem

        6. I pretty much agree with you. However, I never think about a persons personal life. I judge the art without reference to the artist

        8. I wonder, Morrison, what percentage of the war is real and what percentage of it is just paranoia. I do believe some of it is real. Maybe even most of it. But some is also parranoia. The war is good by the way. In an ideal word the left and right would wage the same amount of war against each other and the world work stabilize. Heraclitus 101

      2. Speaking for myself, and based on the passage in the article– if I see a nude commie dude spazzing out with his santorum-crusted junk in one hand and some political leaflets in the other… let us just say it is enough to make me feel the chill of death in my loins.

        1. Has nothing to do with his poetry. He was a shitty sort of guy. That doesn’t make him less of a great poet any more than being a pathetic junky addicted beta loser weirdo doesn’t make Clapton less of a great guitarist. Ginsberg made real, relevant and frankly beautiful art. The fact that he was a commie and a faggot doesn’t play a role in that

        2. I think this conversation is about to lift up off the topic of Ginsberg specifically and fly to the connection between an artist’s individual identity, his/her work, and how people ultimately experience and understand it.
          As postmoderns, we naturally slice apart our encounters with cultural products to take and absorb the parts we resonate with and jettison the rest. If I didn’t do this (literally) all the time, it would be impossible to enjoy or derrive positive inspiration from the movies, music, writing (including academic and professional/research writing), and sports that I love. Hell, I did this at least 50 times browsing the RoK comments, today.
          That having been put out there front and center, I also find it important to recognize that artists’ inspirations and life stories are a baked-in part of the work– and to forget that too much results in distortions of understanding. For example, I think the Soviet Anthem is a beautiful and inspiring piece of music. However, I also know those evil, despicable, murdering Soviet fucks pointed nuclear missiles at me and every person I love every single night of my childhood. So, beautiful or not– the context of that art and I stand on opposite sides of a balance.
          I understand your disillusionment with knee-jerk antiintellectualism. Believe me, if the “masses” ever rise up with torches, I will probably burn somewhere along the line before they are done. But I do feel that a well-rounded cultural literacy will not object to (a) understanding the context of a piece of art, (b) understanding your own locus, and (c) recognizing where you are in the balance. And truly great art will transcend this analysis– and achieve human universality.

        3. Glad to see some reason and truth being spoken here. I am not all on board the fascist train just because Hillary Clinton was defeated. I don’t give a shit if a non-politician is a commie or hippie or vegan or whatever. Yeah, I may poke fun at them for it, but in the end it matters not. Anyway, we all have something we can be criticized for. And we should realize everyone is coming at things from a certain point of view. As much as the left/right paradigm holds true, some of the most hard core right wingers were staunch lefties at some point.
          And given certain assumptions, I could believe in communism. For example, in an AI-driven robotic logical world, it makes perfect sense to have duties doled out to those who are best suited to fulfill them. Which is why the USSR would seek out those who had special talents like ballet dancing or chess or being a professional dickhead bureaucrat at a young age, and hone them to that skill. And it worked very well at the fringes. It does not work well for a whole society. Do I fault or blame someone who thinks about those kinds of questions, and posits what the world should look like? Especially if they are some artist with no power to ever make such a thing happen? Hell no.

        4. You and I are firmly in agreement here. I would add that people who can’t laugh at themselves need to be mocked frequently and the most ardent supporters of any movement, even movements i agree with, and usually sad cases

      3. Well, it’s at least evidence of liberal hypocrisy. A contemporary poet who belonged to The National Association for Man Girl Love would not be required reading for undergraduate English majors.

        1. The one has nothing to do with the other. Who the man was doesn’t make a lick of difference wrt the art he created.

        3. I read it and I understood it and, tbh, my credibility as a worthy conversationalist on the internet is not my concern. There is nothing you said that was wrong. Of course it points out the hipocracy. I am trying to push the importance of the idea that it doesn’t matter. It’s boring and meaningless. If they are fags, if the left are hypocrites, if touching young girls (hell even legal by much younger) is seen as a crime but a boy diddler is praised—it’s simply not a relevant part of the conversation. If I just into a thread on an article about the morality of celebrities I wouldn’t go and start writing about what great artists they are.
          The author, along with a lot of the commentors here, either conflate “I don’t like/understand this” with “this is bad” and others dismiss the art based on the politics, morality or social hypocrscy of the artist.
          This is a very sad error to my lights

        4. Is that really the case with the author? He doesn’t, for instance, totally dismiss Lennon as an artist. The title of the piece implies the author’s intent, which is to expose liberal icons as frauds/failures of various sorts.
          I’m very clear on the facet of all of this that you have chosen to focus on–that one shouldn’t let the artists’ personal life/beliefs impact the value of the art he creates. I tend to agree, but since the arts and media worlds and academia are overwhelmingly controlled by Progressives and political correctness, I think it is very useful to point out the selectivity and hypocrisy of their process of purging artists because of their personal lives/beliefs. If you negate the works of Hemingway because of “misogyny” then you look all the more absurd when you hold up an advocate of boy-rape as an essential poet.

        5. I think this is a good comment. My selective response was wrt the Ginsberg entry. Most of the rest of the article I found to be excellent. I think that FDR entry, while technically correct, left a lot of nuance out but it’s a short article.
          I don’t see anyone negating the works of Hemingway btw. I mean I am sure some 800 pound fem cunt screams about it on some corner of the internet but even in the very liberal NYC public school system hemmingway is still required reading and he is treated like part of the pantheon of American literature (as he should be) and if Ginsberg gets mentioned at all it will be briefly and to honors students (as it should be).

        6. At first I was seriously disagreeing with you however, after thinking about it a minute I can understand it. I always liked listening to Rage Against The Machine even though I am about as far right as you can get and I really disagree with their pussy bitch boy politics they still rocked and I can appreciate that. I just hate that those wannabe commie fuktards get some of my evil capitalist loot when I buy one of their songs.

        7. Yup. This is why I always say never to bother knowing what artists or musicians think. That’s like asking your auto mechanic what brand of jeans he likes — superfluous information. The two things I think are important is
          A) looking st the art (music or literature or poetry or painting) on its own merits in the context of the history of the field without regard to its creator and
          B) remember that “I like this” “I don’t like this” are different from “this is good” and “this is bad”

        8. The 9 bucks a month I fork over to Spotify for their premium service really is the best money I spend.

        9. Well, if you don’t see the negation of Hemingway and the purge of any author that doesn’t conform to the standards of contemporary Progressive orthodoxy, then, with all due respect, you’re out of touch. They are blacklisting the white canon males, and keeping all but the most obsequious quislings out of the game entirely. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about here. Or don’t trust me. ROK ran an excellent article awhile ago . Check it out. If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to ask.

          How New York Killed Male Literature

        10. I have seen the article. I think that it is blown out of proportion. Not a kid graduated high school without being assigned hemmingway in New York…there was recently a huge hemmingway exhibit at a publicly funded museum here. I don’t believe I am out of touch. I believe that the manosphere is just as prone to the hyperbole that gets people riled at huffpo and Jezebel suggesting Trump is going to round up all the gays and have them executed. I think a couple of news stories pop up and they get out into an article and totally blown out of proportion mostly to rile up the passions of the readers. I can’t say how it is other than here…because I know what it’s like here…but this is a very liberal city with a socialist mayor and powerful (evil) teachers union and I don’t see anyway even trying to push hemmingway out of the spotlight.
          I guess what I am trying to say is that f you go to sites like ROK and rooshv and manosphere sites and breibart news and spend a lot of time talking to people with strong passionate opinions who do the same you get the image that there is some really terrible shit going on. The truth is, it’s just not that bad. All this gloom and doom is really starting to turn me off. The world is pretty fucking excellent as far as I can see. Sure I can pull together a bunch of shitty things and tell you about them but they just aren’t indicative of the world i know which is an excellent place filled with opportunity, education, easily available knowledge and all around is pretty swell

        11. Actually, I’m about as much of an insider in the literary world(s) as you could imagine. The article in question was dead on. I know far more about this subject than you, but I am willing to educate you. For starters, the name of the author that you are making anecdotal fallacies about right now is actually “Hemingway.”

        12. Okie dokie. Well im no Alfred Einstein so I bow you your superior knowledge dear stranger on the internet. I will pass on your attempts to educate me as I find you thoroughly rediculius. But good luck!

        13. Yeah, fyi, Einstein probably also knew very little about the literary world. Please continue with your dismissive blathering about subjects you know nothing about.

        17. Wasn’t it you who said here a few days ago,” actors and musicians are people we pay to entertain us, what they think is irrelevant”? I couldn’t agree more. Just because Robert Deniro is a whiny bitchboy doesn’t mean I will never watch another of his movies. I could care less what he thinks as long as it’s a good movie.

        18. Exactly. Deniro is a perfect example. Am I supposed not like taxi driver or Godfather II because Deniro is a fucking tool? Kiefer Southerland and Martin sheen are other obvious ones. As long as they are professionals and do their job, in this case being actors or directors or whatnot, then that is all that should matter.
          This is why I have zero problem with Mel’s work performance. I have liked pretty much everything he has acted in or directed. I’ve never thought it was like the best thing ever but I’ve liked it. But it seems that some people here want to go full cult of celebrity and make the man out to be this great person which is a mistake I think

        19. I’ll admit – Zach de la Rocha is an amazing talented artist. Just tune out their pussy agendas and enjoy the music – that’s what I do.

        20. And Morello can shred.
          I tune out their agenda also, if I like the way it sounds I listen. It’s like Knee says, we pay them to entertain us I care less what they think.

  11. FDR also stole the gold from the American people. The trusting sheeple handed in their $20/ounce gold pieces and FDR turned around and said it was worth $35/ounce. Not even the decency to spare a bit more to the trusting fools. It was illegal to own gold up until the early 70’s.
    Carter says some really dumb stuff over the years, but I don’t think he is inherently evil. But like most presidents he was surrounded by CFR types.

  12. Nice writeup. Ginsberg was a real shit bird. Carter was and is weak, a real embarrassment.

    2. And a grand post-Dadaist fraud was perpetrated against art hacks the world over, who went right ahead and validated her anyway. Warhol snickered and said “Told ya so…you guys’ll fall for anything.”
      Honestly, the creepy guy who said “It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose again” was 10X the artist Yoko Ono ever was!

  14. Arthur Miller was another turd. The Crucible teaches you to hate the Puritans, and Death of a Salesman teaches you to hate the 1950s. His work has been used to subvert the noble edifice of the nation.
    He was properly identified as a traitor during the “Red Scare.”

    1. Joe DiMaggio vs Arthur Miller in the hereafter. Or Joe vs either one of the Kennedy Boys. I would pay anything to see those beatdowns.

      1. Yes, Marilyn’s poor choices were on display in her courtship with that traitor. I would also like to see Joe give him the ol’ left hook.

    2. I read Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” and found his writing to be pure rubbish. Never picked up anything else he wrote, but could easily see him in the light of a subversive leftist hack.

      1. The Donald’s calling Hamilton “overrated” was important. The far left uses art as their primary weapon. They applaud a subversive work via the press/school system, and then let the work slowly poison the souls of the nation’s children. It’s never just “a piece of art” for them. It’s always a vehicle for social-political war.
        These works need to be identified quickly and then properly ridiculed.

        1. Art is subjective as is literature. You can present “2+2=5” as art and try to impose it as reality (gaslighting, manipulation, etc…), but it isn’t true and people know truth when the hear or see it eventually. This is why the left will always lose.

        2. But Mike pence saying that it was an amazing show and everyone should see it if given the chance?

        3. He was trolling, no?
          I think Pence just validated his next four years in office via this move. Opening the door for “Hamilton” to be critiqued (a leftist sacred cow) is yuuuge. I rank it up there with calling Rosie ‘O’ Donnell a fat, disgusting pig. It’s a critical move for the country – calling their idols ugly is something that triggers them to the core.

  15. “…Winston Churchill said, “We slaughtered the wrong pig.””
    the ugly truth: he never said this.

  16. Good article. I disagree about Lenin, though. He apparently said some pretty libertarian/conservative things that don’t get repeated as much. I’ll have to look into that. But I think his solo work hit some very interesting levels, and Double Fantasy has some great songs.
    Anyway… FDR. How the fuck do the SJWs go around trying to strip our forefathers’ names off of buildings, but Roosevelt–the asshole who baited the Japs into a war they didn’t want, and then pushed all of them into concentration camps here–has escaped their idiotic wrath? Let’s spread this around, and hasten their inevitably cannibalistic endgame.

  17. That hack Bob Dylan deserved mention. Got his ass kicked out of Denver for being such a poser in his youth.

    1. We can at least give him credit for being the dominant navel-gazer of his age.
      By sheer coincidence I drew a direct parallel between Dylan and Alan Ginsberg in my post above (just 19 minutes after yours, w/o having read yours first).

    2. What happened in Denver?
      Ultimately though Dylan ended up going “corporate” becoming a poster child for Mustang.

  18. I’ll take a gonzo Hunter S Thompson rant over Alan Ginsberg any day.
    Actually met Ginsberg at University in the 1990s; he surprised us in a Shakespeare class because he knew the professor very well, and did an impromptu reading on the spot. He immediately came across as a homoerotic Bob Dylan character, without the singing. Ginsberg was not trying to be an entertainer, because he conveyed something more intellectual in the foundation of his political agenda. Although I knew I was *supposed* to be dazzled or awed by his prose, the rawness he was famous for felt embarrassingly forced as he tried too hard to be prurient for shock value’s sake (alone). So his central narrative seemed lost in space, not just lost on me. I took it in with an open mind, and was soon pining again for Shakespeare and Marlowe to come back into the room and put Ginsberg out of his misery.
    It was odd to see a venerated and so-called literary genius, one so galvanized by this big movement, sort of come across flat and insubstantial…I was braced for something more profound, but ended up seeing his poetry as “healing words for weirdos and misanthropes.”
    True story.

  19. Even overlooking the lunacy, buggery, and butthurt, Ginsberg’s “free
    verse” is stylistically lazy. Back when poetry meant Keats and Kipling,
    it rhymed and had meter.

    That can’t be said enough.
    Without standards, art rots from within.

  22. Your points on Franklin Roosevelt are utter horseshit, don’t tarnish the reputation of probably the best US presidents.
    The antagonization against Japan was due to their atrocities in their wars in China which were horrific(rape of Nanking ring a bell). He helped defeat twoof the most evil regimes in the 20th century.
    He didn’t let Stalin takeover Eastern Europe as many of those countries were already under red army occupation by the time of Yalta. But I assume you would have wanted him to then confront the Reds right? Well thats another 500,000 American lives thrown away.
    Roosevelt is not a leftist hero, he’s an American hero!

      1. I live in a country which was ran by communists for 41 years. The main reason was Yalta conference. Patton was not allowed to move farther east and because of that more people died.
        By the way, when it comes to Yalta conference. Roosevelt was ill and was few months away from his death. Churchill had pneumonia and Stalin was after cerebrovascual incident.

    2. I just felt my IQ drop by 10 points after reading your FDR Dick Sucking post.
      Take it to HuffPo, they like your kind over there.

      1. I was kind of with him until the part about Stalin. Every time something like this comes up I can’t help but think of the movie Patton- “If you ask me, what we should be doing instead of disarming the Germans, we should be getting them to help us fight the damn Bolsheviks”.
        I don’t know if he really said that or not but I agree with it, sort of.

    3. So you agree with welfare and other social programs?
      I think they are a cancer.
      And FDR was one of the biggest reasons for the downfall of the US. Him and his ugly, traitorous wife.

  23. Great piece. Carter made me laugh even as a kid. You can’t be a Christian and a leftist, they’re simply incompatible.

  24. Good job on the article. Not all hippies were of the same faction just like there are many faction of right, center, and left politics. It always struck me as odd that ginsberg wasnt criticized more for his taste in boys and shittiness in poetry. I dont think he was as big a deal as he is made out to be, and in my assessment he did not have a founding or major role in the beatnik or hippie or whatever names you want to call the various counter cultures that evolved. Lennon made some good music but was flawed and a human. So much of the counter culture movement was co-opted, like feminism, by the CIA or whoever. Cointelpro, anyone? Good job on including ted kennedy as he is relevant to some of the stuff discussed on this site, I didnt know he got off for manslaughter. As ROK and the red pill community are a counter culture, their is much to learn from the successes and failures of various movements, counter cultures, and people of the 60’s. RIP Hunter Thompson, Tim Leary, James Marshall Hendrix. Props to the zappa ref below. Catch Zappa plays zappa if you ever get the chance. They are still doing it, was a great time when I saw them

  25. yeah it’s pretty much like Shimon Peres, hailed as a peace man. The guy is a war criminal just like his brothers. Thanks to whore media propaganda, the plebs buys into it without question.

  26. Japan was a nation run by rabid psychopathic insubordinate military officers who thought they spoke for the emperor. FDR did well to place them in a state of embargo.

  27. I love the beatles, and john had some great songs (song #9, cold turkey); even double fantasy was quite good minus the yoko half ( so yeah, 1/2 of the record was shit). But without paul’s light-heartedness and the rest of the guys to reign him in, lennon got too preachy and idealistic. Maybe the years of churning out pop hits soured him to the old formulas of songwriting, but his navel-gazing piano songs could be pretty boring, and the lyrics were childish…a great talent, but his views on love saving the world are typical hard left notions that don’t apply in the real world. Masculine was about the last thing you could call john post-yoko.

  28. FDR. At lot of those new deal programs had socialism/communism written all over them and some of it probably did help prolong the depression. The Japanese and the Nazis got what they deserved we did the right thing for once. I still can’t understand how the peace and love leftists look up so to FDR after he approved of bombing enemy cities full of civilians. I just look at it as that’s what had to be done to win.

  30. I have no idea if Walter Cronkite was “liberal” or not. More than anything, he just strikes me as a professional journalist, the kind of which is seriously lacking, on both sides today. The only example given, other than calling him bad names, is that he claimed the Vietnam War was hopeless.
    I was unaware that the colossal mistake of spending hundreds of billions and causing the deaths of millions, all ending in a US defeat, had ever been proven to be a good idea.
    To me, the kind of guy who sees through the government’s bullshit and calls out the truth, especially when it is an unpopular one, shows strength and character. By the author’s logic, Judith Miller and the team at the NYT that knew the Iraq war was bullshit, but played propaganda to ramp up jingoism at home for the war, are national heroes. Is that really what you’re saying here?
    Because in my mind, they have blood on their hands of both Americans and millions of citizens of that nation, and are directly responsible for it being a bloody, dangerous warzone today instead of a peaceful secular state run by a right wing leader.

  31. I have to ask, why would you pick my comment way down on the list for your infomercial?
    Would it not have been better to place at the top. And of a much newer article as well?
    Or was there something I said in the comment that made you think I would be conducive to this sort of thing?

  32. It all starts with Wilson…whom you forgot…he was the first scumbag, and set the stage for the rest of them…

  33. Look at all the praising for Fidel. Oh btw, the voice of Minerva during the cremation of care (bohemian grove) ceremony was kronkite

Comments are closed.