If you want to know why this country is in the sad state in which we find ourselves, you can start with the intense pressure in this country to shut the hell up.
Still, while Mr. Geffen hardly needs the money, you can understand why a lot of people here wish he still had a day job. (Mr. Geffen declined to elaborate on his remarks to Ms. Dowd.)
“I don’t think that all of this is productive,” said Warren Beatty, reached on his cellphone. “I think the media is looking for a big political story, and I think it is much more important to talk about the issues.”
The mixture of revulsion and fascination with this episode mirrors Mr. Geffen’s career. He combines a gift for market timing — this is the guy who brought you the Eagles in the ’70s, Guns N’ Roses in the ’80s and Nirvana in the ’90s — with a guerrilla’s touch for instigation.
A “guerrilla’s touch”? Now, far be from me to champion a guy with far more influence than I will EVER have, but the constant and troubling demands by people like Mr. Carr and Mr. Beatty that people should remain quiet rather than upset the cozy status quo is the source of so much that is wrong with American politics.
This pressure comes from the right, it comes from the left, and it especially comes from the mushy middle that is desperately afraid of conflict. It comes from the business community, from religious figures and from the hoi polloi that has hated the outspoken since that kid in class wouldn’t stop raising his damned hand. 
There can be no political change, no adjustment to shifting problems, if conflict is stifled. Boisterous debate is necessary … without it there will be real conflict, bloody conflict. Societies that bully the nonconformists, the free thinkers and the dissenters slide inexorably toward social breakdown.
Of course, no matter how much Beatty and others whine, it’s a pretty safe bet that Geffen isn’t going to shut up. He certainly doesn’t need this banned from kos blogger to champion his fortune-fueled speech. Geffen isn’t the point (though I am grateful that he raised the political imprisonment of Leonard Peltier). Mr. Carr might have meant that Geffen was out of line because he’s so wealthy, but I don’t see any sign that the real funders of Clinton’s zealous championing of American and corporate imperialism are going to “shut up” anytime soon … in fact, as she’s cut loose her campaign from public financing, their voices will only get louder.
What is at issue here isn’t the inside-baseball conflicts like the one between Geffen and the Clintons, or the frequent claims by partisans and scolds that comments like his “distract us from the issues”. What actually distracts us from the issues is that there is … no … discussion. Not about anything. In order for the entrenched to maintain control, they have to drive the debate, stifle the debate, restrain it to limited and safe areas that focus groups, polling and their own discomfort tell them are advantageous to maintaining power and influence. Mr. Geffen’s outburst called into question Senator Clinton’s real interest in having a conversation with America, which is no more real than anything else she says. She lies like she breathes, like most of the rest of them, and Geffen, a former supporter, bringing that vital issue up was a public service. Making vague promises to respond to constituent demands is the method used by the Donklephant leadership in their fake “work” toward ending the criminal war in Iraq. It is the method used so much by the political parties, especially the Vichy Donks, to seem to respond to voters and calls and letters and protests and emails while in the long run doing nothing but cashing in for their big campaign contributors.
What this country needs is more dissent, more shouting, more boisterous and angry and confrontational debate. We need to become more furious, more engaged, more passionate and ugly in our politics. For too long, only the right was fighting. For too long, only one party played to win, and thus reduced the “other” party to nothing more than rubber stamps. We need raised voices, we need red faces, we need to put EVERYTHING on the table. Citizens need to start giving a damn, to stop ceding the debate to the fringe right. We are in such great danger, pursuing two disasterous wars and being led by madmen toward a third, more dangerous conflict. We have more and more people sinking into poverty. If Reid and the others had been in the Continental Congress, we wouldn’t have a United States of America … we’d be proud servants of the Crown. Reid and the rest of them are proud servants of this era’s mad King George. They aren’t fit to hold their offices.
We can’t fight the fascists destroying this country until we reawaken a spirit of political conflict. Politics IS conflict, not “bipartisanship” or “centrism” or any of the other idiotic nostrums that come out of the nation’s press. Fight the right by fighting the centrist conservatives like Senator Clinton. The only hope we have is for more of us to raise our voices in disgust just as Mr. Geffen did.
We can’t fight the fascists destroying this country until we reawaken a spirit of political conflict. Politics IS conflict, not “bipartisanship” or “centrism” or any of the other idiotic nostrums that come out of the nation’s press.
Pretty good post, Madman, although the lack of great debate about real issues today might also indicate that you misjudge the political leanings of the real majority of Americans. On that note, let’s think why so many might be satisfied with the status quo. Either they are living better lives than they believe they would otherwise, or their intellectual objectivity is nil, stiffed, and/or brainwashed.
I often think about the fall of the Roman Empire and what the GAMES in the Colleseum might have had to do with it. Were the masses unaware of their failing social system because their base instincts were being rewarded by irrelevancies in the Colleseum that postponed their awareness of their situation until it was too late???
In America, our useless media harps on Anne Nicole Smith, and Hollywood ideals every move, and unrealistic threats to our children, but never really talks about shrinking attractive jobs, less security of life’s needs everywhere, failing healthcare system, and a dying earth. Are these our irrelevant distractions similar to the Colleseum in Rome which are postponing the real issues until maybe it is too late, OR are people really wise enough to realize this is the best they can have?? If the former, who is responsible for this danger, and can we find a similarity to their thinking in Roman times that led to the Colleseum games??
the problem is that anybody who tries to point any of this out gets vilified or driven off broad media. Look at the way EVERYONE, right or left, goes after Michaal Moore, just to give one high-profile example. Right wing media figures actively lie, spread hatred, misrepresent their targets, yet it is his shadings and careful editing to present his polemics that get tagged as “lying”. Bill O’Reilly lies and distorts more in one week than Moore has in his entire career.
Look at the way the thugs at Little Orange Footballs relentlessly bully and troll genuine leftists, look at the way they harrass One Pissed Of Liberal, despite how popular and passionate his diaries are. It’s a problem endemic EVERYWHERE in this country. I’m one of MANY leftists who’ve been banned from that supposedly “liberal” site for unwelcome political speech.
Or, to use a non celebrity, non blogosphere example, look at the kerfuffle when Durbin quoted a federal report about prisoner abuse, said quite reasonably that he was appalled to read about behavior that you would expect not from our country but from a “regime like the Nazis”, and HIS OWN PARTY TURNED ON HIM.
When you press people, they want universal healthcare. They like OSHA laws and they want polluters controlled. They want to make their own decisions about their own medical crises. They want LIBERAL things, but the distorted debate has left them w/ no means to express it.
We need bare-knuckled debate. Everyone who screams at activists that they shouldn’t be “purists” or that they should be careful about what they say and how they say it betrays a serious ignorance of how politics works. The right is where it is BECAUSE THEIR ACTIVISTS WERE PROTECTED AND ENCOURAGED TO SPEAK, no matter how extreme. Fire needs to be fought with fire.
The comparison to Rome’s bread and circuses is spot on.
In the quote, he is critical of the media, not Geffen.
Warren Beatty made Bulworth, a satire the theme of which is that in our system, speaking the truth destroys a politician. And in 2005, he was one of the main opponents of four regressive ballot measures pushed by Schwarzenegger, giving speeches throughout California that helped get the measures defeated.
Beatty is on our side. He is a consistent, vocal liberal. How can you lump him together with a hack like David Carr?
every bit of coverage I read seemed to indicate that he was critical not only of the coverage, but of what Geffen said. Of course, the quotes could be incomplete or out-of-context, but someone who’s been around as long as Beatty should know better than to answer hacks like Carr when they come a’callin’.