Tea at Trianon: Opposition from Left Journalism

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Opposition from Left Journalism

From Brownstone Institute:

Within days of the pandemic’s inception, criticism of lockdowns and other restrictions became conflated with right-wing politics. This put lefties in a bind: if they didn’t support the restrictions, they might be mistaken (the horror!) for a conservative—or worse, a soldier in Orange Man’s army. They latched onto the mask, the left-wing answer to the MAGA hat, as a badge of their political allegiance.

In the US, many people admitted as much: I wear a mask outside so people won’t think I’m a Republican. Lindsay Brown, a Canadian woman and prolific Covid tweeter, went a step further:“If you think you’re on the left and you’re not wearing a mask in public indoor spaces, you’re not.”

Despite this enormous social pressure from their ranks, a small cadre of left-wingers stepped up to challenge the orthodoxy. In print, on air, and online, they argued that one-size-fits-all restrictions disproportionately impact working-class communities, who can’t easily retreat to home offices tricked out with stained-glass lamps and WiFi and Alexa. They pointed out that school closures widen the educational gap between the privileged and the working class, who don’t have the resources to hire tutors or speech therapists for their kids. They took issue with the censorship of dissenting views on pandemic policy, conveniently lumped together as “disinformation” by legacy media.

Suppression of dissent is the pandemic hill that Matt Taibbi has chosen to die on. To those who say that free speech does too much damage in a pandemic, he counters that a pandemic makes free speech more important than ever.

One of the most trenchant investigative journalists of his generation, Taibbi began reporting on politics for Rolling Stone in 2004 and received a National Magazine Award for his contributions to the publication. He gained prominence (and displayed his leftist stripes) for his takedowns of Wall Street during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. He has written several books, all colored with rage against the political machine. Politically, Taibbi has described himself as a “run-of-the-mill, old-school ACLU liberal” and unabashed Bernie bro.

Mainstream media being an obviously unsuitable vehicle for exploring censorship by mainstream media, Taibbi took to Substack, an online newsletter platform that allows writers to send posts directly to paying subscribers. The lack of corporate oversight or advertisers limits opportunities to censor the content, making the platform a perfect match for the likes of Taibbi—articulate and well-respected malcontents who can finally say what they damn well please and get paid for it (in Taibbi’s case, rather well). (Read more.)