“Do you think politics is only about winning the argument? That whoever has the right fact at the right moment wins? Clinton had facts. Kennedy had facts, yeah. But Reagan? He couldn’t have summoned a fact if his life depended on it.” -- Theresa D’Agostino, The Wire
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One of the listeners to "The Professional Left" has written us with some feedback. Since he gave us permission to use his email complete and unexpurgated, here it is:
Subject: Feedback from a real liberal.
Hello - I looked up and listened completely to the two most recent episodes you have posted. I agreed completely with your politics however I will NOT be listening to you any more because the male podcaster cannot and will not stop cussing and using F-bombs. You may do that all you like but let me therefore tell you not just something but several things as a podcaster myself and a former reporter on television.
1. HOW DARE you call yourself a professional. You aren't. Professional podcasters don't do this. Ever. Period.
2. The reason they don't do this is it shows ACTIVE DISRESPECT for ANYONE listening. Didn't your MOTHER teach you not to swear in public? Whether she or your dad did or not, I'm sure teachers did along the way and this just shows what a loser you are out of the gate. Also did it not occur to you that liberals might have kids nearby? So you want to teach their kids cuss words? You are putting out a PUBLIC product...kids listen.
3. It distracts from your message and does it a disservice. You might think your GUTTER MOUTH gives you a common touch, but no, not really. It just makes people wish they were there to punch you.
4. It also makes me infuriated that you are putting yourself out there as an example of how liberals are or should be. I would correctly be humiliated if listening to your show with a conservative objecting to you as a low grade degenerate and I'd have to agree.
5. If you aren't going to change the name of your show to the guttermouth left, at least be PROFESSIONAL podcasters and bleep him or edit his f bombs out and AGAIN, RESPECT your listeners. I am certain you have lost MANY other listeners because of this and will continue to and you should be ashamed of putting this otherwise good message in an unfit filthy package on the internet.
6. There is NO WAY IN HELL you deserve any money for this obscene, low grade production, so STOP ASKING.
And yes by all means read my FULL UNEDITED email in context on your show you foul mouth piece of crap I'd love to hear you defend that behavior and discredit yourself EVEN MORE than you already have.
Quite Sincerely,
...
First, for those not familiar with how The Internet works, here is link to an explanation of the "Not Safe For Work" warning with which we begin every episode of "The Professional Left":
Typically, the NSFW tag is used in e-mail, videos, and on interactive discussion areas (such as Internet forums, blogs, or community websites) to mark URLs or hyperlinks which contain material such as pornography or profanity, which the viewer may not want to be seen accessing in a public or formal setting such as at work.
Second, when choosing to enjoy recorded or transmitted words or music which they also may not wish to share with those around them, many humans use "headphones". Here is a link to a search engine called "Google" which may help you to find some reasonably priced "headphones" which can either be purchased in your local area or which can be ordered through the mail.
Cussin’: Turns out it’s like Water for Mutha@&$!#ing Chocolate!
...
This is about ownership and responsibility.
Because you, personally, own the entire English language.
Every motherfucking word of it.
And so do I. So do we all. And every day we raze it, build it, break it and birth it, because it is a living thing.
It is our inalienable birthright, and will be our most versatile legacy to little fuckers not yet born, but as with driving the Big Rigs, or operating a band saw with your toes, the tool itself demands a certain level of responsibility and respect.
When used correctly, language not only feels like a mouthful of velvet rubies and chocolate mousse, it can reformat the world, heal a scalded heart, and get her to shed those pesky pants!
Used incompetently it is an embarrassment. A rusting dumpster in a reeking alley behind which the ignorant, the bigoted and the irrational believe they can pass out, occluded from scrutiny in shit-stained imbecile safety, but which turns out, by dawn's early light, to be a mini-bus full of liberals with digital cameras.
....
In the end, the second most dishonorable and demeaning thing you can do to this fine, fierce, sinewy, blunt, flensing bazooka you have been granted is to cower in the corner, making a mighty, scowling fortress out of your “Impactfuls”, “Synergies”, “Paradigms” and the other 181 officially approved units of lifeless bizzpeak buzztwaddle.
The most insulting thing is demanding that others do likewise.
Last, here is Malcolm Tucker, putting me to shame. It's not safe for work.
It was, as I recall, a senior manager at the Very Large Insurance Company for which I was hacking code in the 1980s.
He was an up-and-comer, very aggressive and barely literate outside of the mandatory 500-word corporate buzzspeak vocabulary. He could not wrap his head around the difference between "affect" and "effect" and so gave up altogether and went with "impact, "impactful", "impactfulness".
h/t to reader "Liam" for the reminder that none of our contemporary concerns about the debased, denuded, deflective language with which we are daily strafed are especially new:
George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written. ...
