Althouse: "Presumably [Andrew] Sullivan’s editors are frightened that he might make the radically bourgeois point that looting and violence are wrong."

June 6, 2020

"Presumably [Andrew] Sullivan’s editors are frightened that he might make the radically bourgeois point that looting and violence are wrong."

"Cockburn understands that Sullivan is not just forbidden from writing for the New York magazine about the riots; his contract means he cannot write on the topic for another publication. He is therefore legally unable to write anything about the protests without losing his job — at the magazine that, in 1970, published Radical Chic, Tom Wolfe’s brilliant and controversial excoriation of progressive piety. It’s the bonfire of the liberals!... Sullivan, a source close to New York magazine reveals, has to have his work vetted by sensitive junior editors to make sure it doesn’t trigger them."

Writes Cockburn in American Spectator (after Andrew Sullivan tweeted, simply, "Heads up: my column won't be appearing this week").

56 comments:

Narayanan said...: why doesn't Andrew set up a beggingfundme?
and start a blog?

can't be much beneath his current (in)dignity!; 6/6/20, 2:29 PM
mccullough said...: Good to see that he’s honoring his contract. So many people break their word when it’s convenient.; 6/6/20, 2:34 PM
Wince said...: You'd think in those circles free expression would count for more, and an exclusive deal would not go beyond right of first refusal.; 6/6/20, 2:34 PM
JackWayne said...: Gotta make sure that no Lefty tries to escape the Plantation and ride the Underground Railroad. Not that a guy like Sullivan would try that. But attention to every detail helps the Cause.; 6/6/20, 2:37 PM
Narayanan said...: Asking for Ayn Rand : 'Wrong' by what standard?
how do you validate and establish that standard as societal principle?

it is not self-evident any longer if it ever was; 6/6/20, 2:39 PM
Sebastian said...: "the radically bourgeois point that looting and violence are wrong."

This is why conservatism has become so edgy and avant garde.; 6/6/20, 2:44 PM
Wince said...: Sullivan, a source close to New York magazine reveals, has to have his work vetted by sensitive junior editors to make sure it doesn’t trigger them."

Is that to say the junior editors: (1) operate like canaries in a coal mine, hypersensitives put there to prevent more senior editors from exposure to offense, (2) act as a focus group to tell senior editors what the readership reaction might be, or (3) are they delegated full authority as gatekeepers?; 6/6/20, 2:44 PM
Drago said...: In the end, the leftists always "take care of" the liberals.....permanent like.

Once the revolution succeeds, those loyal liberals always find out that the lefty promises were all lies and the liberals find themselves inexplicablty on the wrong side of the "new law"....which is capricious and arbitrary and very Havel-Green Grocer like.

And the stupid liberals are usually dragged away muttering "if only Comrade Stalin knew what was happening he would stop it!"...when in reality it was Comrade Stalin that ordered it.

Or, if you prefer, go with the Maoist struggle session analogy and students harassing all their elders in the street prior to them being drug off for reeducation or the East German/Nazi/Soviet example of getting kids to turn on their parents, something we've seen in recent days on social media in the US with the leftist indoctrinated kids...and being praised publicly for essentially turning on their parents in a public way.

We've seen this all before of course:

'VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY WAY'
By Robert Gerald Livingston
Jan. 3, 1988

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/03/books/violence-is-the-only-way.html

What's different is that these radicals have completed their gramscian march through the institutions and are now in place and in power.

The only wild card remaining?

Their radical nature and taste for violence is no longer a stealth issue. Its out in the open. The test now will be how the US population responds after 3 or 4 generations of marxist indoctrination in our schools and institutions.

Have the leftists established enough of a foundation for their revolution and destruction of the American system? Or did they tip their hands a little early?

We are about to find out.; 6/6/20, 2:48 PM
YoungHegelian said...: What the hell else you expect from a buncha Stalinists?

Sullivan now must make a choice every man of conscience must make -- his pocketbook or his conscience? In Sullivan's case, it probably won't involve too much of a personal loss. He would be picked up by other publishers or could go back to his own web site again and make a go of it with advertisers. It would be work, but he could do it.

I really doubt that his contract is enforceable in a court of law. Employers luuuuuuvvv these sort of contracts. The Courts do not, as many employers find out to their dismay.

Stand & be counted for a free press, Andy!; 6/6/20, 2:52 PM
Achilles said...: The mainstream media is run by fascists.; 6/6/20, 2:53 PM
Blogger Login Procedure is Lame said...: Why wouldn't Sullivan take his act somewhere else then? If I recall, he got tired of running his own independent operation at some point, but it seems like that's going to be the only way forward for non-woke liberals in the future.

Or, you know, stand up to the millennials in your newsroom, tell them they're not in charge, that their peers don't actually pay for anything, and that as a consequence, their voices are less important. Ahahahaha just kidding, that would obviously never happen.; 6/6/20, 2:53 PM
Drago said...: BTW, anybody think its a coincidence the left seeks to abolish private gun ownership at the very same moment they want to abolish the police at the very same moment they are proclaiming their violence "speech" and the speech of conservatives "violence" at the very same moment the left continues instituting hate crime/thought crime measures at the very same time more and more of the radicalized left in the "medical" community are defining conservative/traditional/Christian doctrine "hate speech" and mental illness?

I mean, it must all be one big "coincidence", right?; 6/6/20, 2:53 PM
gilbar said...: serious question
will this guy's judge charge him with perjury? And deny his release?
HaHA! just kidding! OF COURSE NOT!
Walter Ogrod, 55, convinced prosecutors his confession to the murder of Barbara Jean Horn in 1988 had been coerced by cops investigating the homicide; 6/6/20, 2:58 PM
Drago said...: BTW, this is happening all over media. The lefties have achieved critical mass in forcing their uni-polar view across the board and the insufficiently woke liberals are being shown the door everywhere:

"Variety Chief Editor Claudia Eller Takes Leave After Staff Revolt
The move follows backlash over an article she wrote about diversity in newsrooms. Eller said she was taking “a serious moment of reflection”

https://www.thewrap.com/claudia-eller-exits-variety/

The lefties are just beginning to clean house and woe to any liberal who even thinks about going against Woke Wokeness Calvin Ball Lefty Rules.; 6/6/20, 2:59 PM
Mark said...: And people taunt here and elsewhere, "Why won't you post under your own name?"; 6/6/20, 3:01 PM
Clyde said...: We've seen this movie before. In the end, Sullivan must wear a dunce cap as he pleads for mercy from the Red Guards for his forbidden bourgeois thoughts.; 6/6/20, 3:17 PM
Caligula said...: The essence of non-compete: "We don't want you anymore, BUT no one else can have you either!"

I don't understand why non-compete contracts haven't been declared unconscionable and therefore unenforceable already. But as long as they haven't, it would seem prudent to at least demand reciprocity: should you find my work unacceptable then I shall be free to take my talents elsewhere.; 6/6/20, 3:20 PM
narciso said...: ironic since he predicted riots, as noted in these pages, back at the outset of the administration, the details he botched, but being an oracle is dangerous business nowadays,; 6/6/20, 3:22 PM
bagoh20 said...: Doesn't it discredit his cred to have agreed to such a thing just for money.

As Churchill would say: "... now we're haggling about price."

Hey Beavus, That professor lady said "Cock burn".; 6/6/20, 3:24 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: They'll eat you last, Andrew; 6/6/20, 3:25 PM
bagoh20 said...: Is it really true that Sullivan had to agree to such terms to get a good gig? I doubt it. Even if said gig saw slightly less in pay, how much is that worth?; 6/6/20, 3:27 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Goodness after all of Sullivan's groundbreaking gynecological research on Sarah Palin, this is the thanks he gets?

As Antifa scrawled on a Berkeley wall a few years ago: "Liberals get the bullet too."; 6/6/20, 3:29 PM
Lucien said...: Drago:
You’re so last week — your words are no longer violence, you silence is violence.; 6/6/20, 3:46 PM
Howard said...: Okay I get it so now we don't like NDAs or non-compete clauses. Are you allowed to to publicly do or say whatever you want at your job and against your bosses wishes? I mean it's not like he's Colin Kaepernick or anything.; 6/6/20, 3:51 PM
Howard said...: Lady G is introducing a bill to make it a capital offense to violate an NDA.; 6/6/20, 3:52 PM
Narayanan said...: I shall desist discussing intellectual honesty or honor : in present climate is Titanic and furniture on Deck

Q: under non-compete is Sullivan paid salary or by article? whether accepted or rejected? he should be able to outsource to H1B1 for unacceptable article generator

that could be almost paid unemployment heaven if he plays his card right!

I thought Brits knew how to play the game! his government/law degree and all; 6/6/20, 3:57 PM
Pugsley the Pug said...: “Sullivan, a source close to New York magazine reveals, has to have his work vetted by sensitive junior editors to make sure it doesn’t trigger them. If it passes their sniff testing, it can be published.“

I believe the old school term for ‘sensitive junior editors’ is Commissars. Stalin used his commissars to keep everyone in the old Soviet Union in line. Until the Germans were at the front gates of the Kremlin in late 1941, a Red Army unit’s commissar could override the orders issued by the unit’s officers and would order the execution of anyone in the unit who retreated (or ran). Plus, they were responsible for the political indoctrination, err, education of the unit’s soldiers. Sounds to me that most of our “free” press now have commissars vetting free speech. God help us once they become federal judges and Supreme Court justices interpreting the “living, breathing” US Constitution’s First Amendment...; 6/6/20, 3:59 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Am I the only one who finds the slogan "Silence is violence" annoying? The near-rhyme seems to demand that we either make both words disyllabic ("Si-lence is vi-lence") or both words trisyllabic ("Si-o-lence is vi-o-lence") and I don't want to do either of those things.; 6/6/20, 4:00 PM
Inga said...: We don’t need Andrew Sullivan to tell us that looting and violence are wrong. Everyone but the looters and people perpetuating the violence knows, or they know but don’t care, which is even worse. The peaceful protests seem to be continuing.; 6/6/20, 4:04 PM
Narayanan said...: Howard said...
offense to violate an NDA
-----========
I thought under contract law there has to be "consideration" - which is forfeit if breached. is there anymore penalty for breach/violate an NDA?; 6/6/20, 4:06 PM
Amadeus 48 said...: I have a friend whose brother is a staff writer for The Atlantic. He says the senior editorial people are scared of the younger staff: if they are denounced by the kids they are in danger of losing a 25-30 year career, because of a wisecrack or a challenge to a piety.

This has happened before in world history, and it is always ugly. A meme circulating on the right is Vaclav Havel's greengrocer parable.; 6/6/20, 4:09 PM
Drago said...: Lucien: "Drago:
You’re so last week — your words are no longer violence, you silence is violence."

I know.

That thought occurred to me but, what's the use.

The lefty morons here don't even get the Havel-Green Grocer references.; 6/6/20, 4:10 PM
rightguy said...: The progressive punditry lives and writes in an intellectual ghetto, bound in an intellectual straight jacket of progressive dogma.; 6/6/20, 4:14 PM
Howard said...: I must apologize profusely to Drago. He is absolutely right. "Tear gas" was not deployed when did violent mob of police state rioters clear the path for Trump to emerge from cowering in his bunker to waddle over to the church. They instead tenderly deployed (via USA Today) "pepper balls," another chemical irritant that causes people to tear up and cough.

The agency also said it used "smoke canisters."

But the Park Police was only one of the agencies involved. Others, including the Secret Service and the D.C. National Guard, have declined to say what tactics or munitions they deployed to clear the park on Monday night....

Apparently the confusion over the violent police State sweep and clear is exacerbated by propaganda from ChiComs at CDC

What is a pepper ball?
A pepper ball is a projectile that contains chemicals, like pepper spray, that would irritate the eyes and lungs. Such a combination with smoke canisters would create clouds of a chemical irritant that would cause tearing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that "tear gas" and "riot control agents" are terms that can be used interchangeably. On its website, the agency also states that "pepper spray" is a "riot control agent."

"Riot control agents (sometimes referred to as 'tear gas') are chemical compounds that temporarily make people unable to function by causing irritation to the eyes, mouth, throat, lungs, and skin," the CDC's website reads, mentioning pepper spray specifically.

But others point to a technical distinction between the two. Pepper spray is a natural extract from pepper plants. Tear gas is generally what's used to describe a man-made chemical, and is often known to law enforcement as CS gas.

"Some people do use these terms interchangeably, but they are different products," said Dr. Kelly Johnson-Arbor, co-medical director of the National Capital Poison Center.

I'm truly sorry, Drago.; 6/6/20, 4:16 PM
CJinPA said...: "We ban authors and beat political opponents because we're anti-fascists. Duh."; 6/6/20, 4:21 PM
Not Sure said...: Remember when people used to say, "Just wait 'til those precious snowflakes leave college and have to work in the real world"?

Good times.; 6/6/20, 4:57 PM
Howard said...: Narayanan: thanks for asking. I'm not sure what the consideration Lindsey Graham was able to hold over the male escorts who signed the NDA.; 6/6/20, 5:15 PM
Michael K said...: Once the revolution succeeds, those loyal liberals always find out that the lefty promises were all lies and the liberals find themselves inexplicablty on the wrong side of the "new law"....which is capricious and arbitrary and very Havel-Green Grocer like.

And often standing in front of a wall being offered a last cigarette.; 6/6/20, 5:20 PM
tcrosse said...: Maybe Matt Taibbi has something worthwhile to say on the subject, unless Rolling Stone is similarly pussified.; 6/6/20, 5:21 PM
Rick said...: So, ...the world turned out to be exactly like left wing critics described.; 6/6/20, 5:28 PM
Vance said...: I wonder if Howard thinks that any violence from the left would go too far? He's awfully fond of defending violent leftists.

Tell us, Howard: when white Antifa leftists shoot and kill blacks so they can rob and loot said black person's store or small business: why do you support such racist behavior?

Do you think cops or society has any interest in preventing white leftists from robbing, plundering, looting, assaulting, or murdering black people? Because it's happening all over, and the only response seems to be that "As long as you are spouting the correct speech, you can do whatever you want to black people."

That's not really your argument is it? I ask because it sure seems like that is your argument. Inga should answer this one as well.

Is it wrong for the cops to stop white leftists from hurting black people?; 6/6/20, 5:31 PM
Lurker21 said...: Spectator.us is not The American Spectator. It's the US website of the British Magazine, The Spectator (so in a way it is the American Spectator, just not The American Spectator).

"Cockburn," the same last name as a famous family of transatlantic left-wing journalists, is I believe a pseudonym taken from the name of the British officer who ordered Washington burned. Alexander Cockburn used to claim that the War of 1812 figure was one of his ancestors.

In the Carter years, everybody in New York journalism was a liberal but they could be critical of liberal pieties. Magazines like New York and Harper's published articles questioning progressive orthodoxies. The New Republic started publishing its "counterintuitive" articles around the same time and continued into the Nineties, and even later. The Atlantic was doing the same for a while. At some point the liberal media circled the wagons, and curbed its self-critical tendencies. This came earlier for Harper's (maybe during the Reagan years) and later for The Atlantic and The New Republic (maybe some time after Baghdad fell). There's much less diversity of opinion in the old media. Maybe that has something to do with the rise of an alternative conservative media, that does some of the things that the old liberal media once dared do.; 6/6/20, 5:57 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Sullivan could, if he wanted, just release the essay that got quashed to a free blog like this one. Or, he could just put it all in a tweet thread under his own account- no NDA could be enforced on such an act. They could still fire him, of course, for making them look bad, but a man of principle wouldn't take this lying down. Guess we will get to see what Sullivan is actually made of these days.; 6/6/20, 6:05 PM
cubanbob said...: Inga said...
We don’t need Andrew Sullivan to tell us that looting and violence are wrong. Everyone but the looters and people perpetuating the violence knows, or they know but don’t care, which is even worse. The peaceful protests seem to be continuing."

As a nurse you should know that even in patients with terminal cancer most of the body's organs are relatively healthy. But just like your protestors, the cancer continues. If these protestors were really peaceful they would hold the looters, vandal and arsonist until the cops arrive. Since they don't, they are complicit and if someone were to start radical chemotherapy by way of high powered lead, it's cancer therapy on the body politic. They would be called body a politics oncologist.; 6/6/20, 6:07 PM
RichardJohnson said...: Interesting to have a Cockburn writing for the conservative American Spectator. Claude Cockburn (1904-1981) was a prominent journalist and also a Commie who during the Spanish Civil War wrote for the Daily Worker (pseudonym Frank Pitcairn). His three sons also worked as journalists- Alexander being the most lefty of the 3.; 6/6/20, 6:10 PM
jimbino said...: Yet again the same lousy grammar: "Sullivan is not just forbidden from writing for the New York magazine."

In real English, one would say, "Sullivan is not just forbidden to write for the New York magazine."

Check out your Bible. The KJV gets it right.; 6/6/20, 6:10 PM
cubanbob said...: Howard said...
Narayanan: thanks for asking. I'm not sure what the consideration Lindsey Graham was able to hold over the male escorts who signed the NDA."

Howard once again you are displaying your homophobia. What's your closet?; 6/6/20, 6:11 PM
Quaestor said...: Woke culture reminds me of those light beer commercials. Two overweight and overage ex-NFL types bellowing at each other, More taste! Less filling! More taste! Less filling! (Someone with a Harvard MS in sociology thunk that one up. Cogitate on that for a bit.) Then the voiceover assures the tendentious imbibers that they're both right. Of course, light beer missed the mark entirely, producing a libation much more sex-in-a-canoe character yet with only an insignificant reduction in caloric content.

And so the flooding tide of Goths and Vandals chant, No justice! No Peace! And we realize that is the essence -- more horrors of dawning barbarism with fewer of its symbols. More Brownshirts! Fewer swastikas!; 6/6/20, 6:48 PM
narciso said...: Michael ledeen used to write for new york as well as the new republic that would be impossible today.; 6/6/20, 6:55 PM
loudogblog said...: Maybe he can take a page from the blacklisted writers of the 1950s and and have someone else publish his articles under their name.; 6/6/20, 8:18 PM
Amadeus 48 said...: My favorite Cockburn is Olivia Wilde.; 6/6/20, 9:31 PM
Drago said...: Howard: "I must apologize profusely to Drago. He is absolutely right. "Tear gas" was not deployed when did violent mob of police state rioters clear the path for Trump to emerge from cowering in his bunker to waddle over to the church. They instead tenderly deployed (via USA Today) "pepper balls," another chemical irritant that causes people to tear up and cough.

Your apology is warranted.

Not until the Lafayette park clearing did any news outlet or anyone else refer to pepper balls as "tear gas".

Ever.

But you are a dumb lefty, who was embarrassed when your better got caught out, so, like all good lefties, you guys simply went back and changed some definitions so you could be "right"!

Just like across the moron lefty media the term Russia Collusion, after 4 years, is no longer being used. Magically, overnight, in just the last few weeks, the new term is "russia disinformation", as in, the Mueller/Special Counsel Russia Disinformation Probe. A term not used until now.....because all your previous Russia collusion lies have been exposed.

So the left rewrote history. Again. Because that is how you guys roll.

By all means, keep all the fake apologies for your exposed lies coming.; 6/6/20, 11:29 PM
narciso said...: Momma leslie was too moonbat for virginia.; 6/7/20, 12:17 AM
Jamie said...: "Blogger Dr Weevil said...
Am I the only one who finds the slogan "Silence is violence" annoying? The near-rhyme seems to demand that we either make both words disyllabic ("Si-lence is vi-lence") or both words trisyllabic ("Si-o-lence is vi-o-lence") and I don't want to do either of those things."

Well, the point is what you want doesn't matter.; 6/7/20, 3:52 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: Rioting is disquieting.

Looting leads to shooting.

Defacing is debasing.

Stealing to self-revealing.

Broken glass up your ass.

Cops are tops.

Lose your friend is Howard’s end.; 6/7/20, 7:14 AM
Sam L. said...: Sully's being oppressed. Well, it IS NYC.; 6/7/20, 11:15 AM