Out of all the on-air personalities I've worked with only a few had a political agenda. Most on-air staff could care less about the political climate and are often more concerned with getting that 6-pack after work.

For some fucker to come along and assume that any on-air staff are political operatives for whomever - well, that's flat out ignorant/paranoid.

I worked directly with Jessie Ventura, on his radio show, and I'm willing to bet that half way through his term even he wasn't interested in talking politics off-air. I was smart enough to talk wrestling and Mexico.

Most people just aren't interested.

Who cares? Lumpen was lame.

Doesn't change the fact that it was lame, as lame as the guy who published it.

steve wrote:Of course Russert was a part of the complicit media during a volatile period when he could maybe have put up some resistance. Of course he was. So was your paperboy. The debate about that function is an important one and it is sidetracked by gloating over the death of a regular guy. A regular normal guy who wasn't a diligent media watchdog. Who didn't shake the very foundations of a corrupt administration. A regular normal guy.

But the main problem with Russert is that not only did he merely fail to play defense against the corrupt administration, he willingly played offense for them. All that "regular normal guy" stuff is just a front, an image not unlike the one people bought into when they said Bush was a guy they would like to have a beer with.

In the end, it probably is a futile act to be glad he's not around to do any more damage as he'll most likely be replaced with somebody just like him.

Rick Reuben wrote:

tmidgett wrote:It's awful form to piss on someone's grave.

It should be personal choice, no? People are allowed to have enemies, right?

Yeah, you are right about this one exact thing.

I thought about this a bit more.

I think when people knowingly appeal to the base instincts of others and knowingly contribute to making the lives of other people much worse, in service of whatever selfish desires drive them, then you can piss on their graves.

I don't recall being exactly happy when Jerry Falwell died, but I didn't begrudge anyone their joy at the occasion. I will feel the same way about Dick Cheney. I felt the same way about Saddam Hussein. Any serial killer. Etc.

Heads of state in general, I think things are much more complicated. Being president of the United States, for example, is probably the most difficult job on the planet, and it's tough for me to hold a serious grudge against someone who screws it up, even President Bush II. Even Nixon.

And Tim Russert? You're gonna draw the line somewhere south of Tim Russert?

This is the enemies list of someone with a widespread grudge against most of humanity.

Good luck with that.

Thanks, Tim, for serving the elites so you could join the elites.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

If by serving the elites, you mean disagreeing with you and your myriad conspiracy theories most of the time, then guilty as charged.

Joining the elites? I have no extra power to speak of. If you mean in a financial sense, well, I have a long way to go, but I can only hope.

What about that guy who danced on Reagan's grave? I think that's the only time I've taken a perverse pleasure in this sort of thing.

Ace wrote:What about that guy who danced on Reagan's grave? I think that's the only time I've taken a perverse pleasure in this sort of thing.

Did he literally dance on his grave?

That's kind of funny.

Do you know what kind of dance it was?
The charleston?
Ubangi Stomp?
The Swingin' Hully Gully?

Tom wrote:

Ace wrote:What about that guy who danced on Reagan's grave? I think that's the only time I've taken a perverse pleasure in this sort of thing.

Did he literally dance on his grave?

That's kind of funny.

Do you know what kind of dance it was?
The charleston?
Ubangi Stomp?
The Swingin' Hully Gully?

It was a jig...


Here's the news report

Rick Reuben wrote:

caix wrote:Doesn't change the fact that it was lame, as lame as the guy who published it.

Steve can think what he wants about the content, and so can you. I'm just pointing out that it was never funded by phone sex ads. The Reader and New City have had a lot more phone sex and hooker ads, and I never see Steve gripe when those papers call him an indie legend or put him in their Music 45 every year.

I only thought to mention it because I remember being surprised when I saw it that a supposedly anti-establishment paper had dedicated its last couple of pages to phone sex ads. I know this was true because I held it in my hands. Maybe that was later in its run, after its regular ad base had abandoned it for being lame.

tmidgett wrote:I think when people knowingly appeal to the base instincts of others and knowingly contribute to making the lives of other people much worse, in service of whatever selfish desires drive them, then you can piss on their graves.

This is a pretty good standard. If somebody has an agenda that directly causes suffering and follows that agenda out of self-interest (especially in the interest of accretion of power and money), then I'm fine with gloating over his death or misfortune.

If somebody is a passive stooge, I more likely just think of him as a slack-ass regular guy like you'd meet at the ballpark. I've met and had amicable discussions with tens of thousands of those people. I don't really stop to consider their politics, probably because they don't give it much thought either.

They aren't diligent defenders of the rest of us, but they're also not evil.

Radical groups like the Baader Meinhof, Red Brigade, Maoists during the Cultural Revolution, the IRA, the Weather Underground, the Klan, etc. think that being a passive, complicit part of the system is as bad (or as subject to punishment anyway) as being an engineer of the system of opression. I think there is a distinction, just as there is a difference between the guy delivering pizzas and the guy who owns the franchise.

The delivery guy probably doesn't give a shit how the franchise is doing, because his job doesn't define him and he can always get another one. Likewise, his boss higher up doesn't care if this particular delivery guy is working for him or somebody else. The owner, however, is heavily vested in the franchise's success, and will probably go to some lengths to further it. He should be accountable for those steps.

If you have a beef with the top, taking it out on the footmen is pointless, as is gloating over their death.