No, really. What used to be a solid front of benighted, liberal, American self-loathing is turning out to have been a vocal crowd of rich, pufferous proto-Communists with the 'tolerance' of Torquemada along with a select number of closet conservatives who knew that they had to keep their mouth shut if they expected to find work. Not so much anymore. In slow progression, we hear of people like Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammar, & Adam Sandler, & now "playwright, screenwriter, novelist, author, essayist, and filmmaker" David Mamet. Power Line has an
excellent article detailing his slow development into sanity & his coming-out, including the 2008 article in the Village Voice,
"Why I Am No Longer A Brain-Dead Liberal",
He recounted a moment of illumination listening to National Public Radio: "I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the **** up." Mamet explained:
I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been -- rather charmingly, I thought -- referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."
And now explained in
Andrew Furgeson's Weekly Standard article.
Forcing yourself into a new way of thinking about things is a wrenching experience. But first you have to look back and atone. You think, 'Oh my god, what have I done? What was I thinking?' You realize you've been a co-dependent with the herd. And then, when you decide to say what you've discovered, out loud, you take the risk that everyone you know will look on you as a fool."
Read it all.
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