Teh Socials
The ignominy of remaining on Elon Musk’s Twitter is becoming too much. As luck would have it I got an invite for Bluesky on the day that the Chief Twit renamed his hopelessly broken, hilariously over-leveraged former public square, “X.”
John Scalzi wrote a pissed-off and slightly elegiac blog post about the community that many of us have lost through this one idiot billionaire’s “emperor has no clothes” debacle, and how and when to disentangle one’s writerly platform from that dumpster fire.
We could go on about how Musk will be an immediate business school case study for taking the value of a unique, universally-known and globally-appreciated brand and absolutely trashing it in exchange for a symbol best known for porn and/or the button you press on your computer whenever you want to leave something, but… well, actually, I kind of want to talk about the latter! With the switchover in name, I think this is a fine time to start disentangling myself from Musk’s Folly, whatever it is called, and manage my presence there differently than I have over these last 15 years when it was known as Twitter.
Aside from laughing at the Melon Husk for using a domain name he’s had parked on GoDaddy that probably can’t even be trademarked because Microsoft and Unicode beat him to it, there’s the fact that one of the best American punk bands named themselves “X” sometime around 1977. I’ve been a fan since before Napster and Kazaa. In a previous life I actually created the USENET group alt.music.x. Let me tell ya: “X” is surprisingly hard to find on the internet. People eventually settled on making wikis about “X (American Band.)”
It’s been pointed out that many of us have the Twitter bird logo and link to our accounts on our professional homepages. I know I have to redesign this website, but I’m not excited about it. Whatever widget I’m using has corporate-friendly social links on the sidebar for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I hate all of these websites. They suck in numerous, and yet specific-to-them ways, but they’ve been sort-of professionally necessary until Phony Stark and Mark Fuckerberg broke their products (by not understanding what was socially valuable about them) and made so many of us question what we’ve been wasting our time on.
I’m trying the alternatives.
I will not join Threads. I enjoyed Facebook when it was like a year-round Christmas card; a way to engage with far-flung friends and extended family and I even played around with the “Followers” feature when people who read my stuff on In These Times or Jacobin tried to “friend” me (I only really accept friend requests with, well, friends; we’ve met! Maybe shared a meal! Or worked together?). After trashing our democracy, Facebook has rigged its algorithms so badly that when I share links to articles I’ve written it hides them from my mother-in-law and Aunt Regina (both of whom would probably like to know that I got published). It hides my friends who have become conspiracy theorists, which is okay, I guess, but I think I’d prefer to know that’s what happened and unfollow them on my own. More often, the barrenness of my feed is that friends–real friends–have quit, stopped posting, forgotten their passwords. I log in these days and get ads for women’s underwear and Star Trek memes. I’m not even a Star Trek fan, although the women’s underwear is at least worth an occasional peek. In any event, I’m not investing my time in a new product by an out-of-touch, stunted manchild whose track record is breaking his own products and society along with them.
I joined Mastodon. The interface is unnecessarily un-friendly to non-geeks (and I’m saying this as someone who used to propagate USENET forums!). The power users are sort of brittle and defensive about the intentionally un-fun “fediverse” that they’ve designed. I certainly like the concept of the platform becoming a protocol so that politically incompatible instances can put out moats around themselves when another gets a little too fascist-friendly. But having to choose an “instance” on the front-end feels like high-stakes speed-dating. I initially joined the default social account. Then somebody started a “Union Place,” which appealed to me for obvious reasons before I found out there was a DSA-oriented “instance.” Why do I have to choose? And why do I lose all my old toots (or skeets or exes whatever the hell we’re calling our used-to-be tweets)? And why does this website feel like a never-ending continental breakfast at a really boring academic conference? Anyway, I’m @Ess_Dog@union.place.
Bluesky seems to have won more of “Weird Twitter.” It’s funny; many of its users are sweaty for followers and posting unhinged skeets about engaging in oral sex with the Animaniacs and gaining tens of thousands of followers like in the good old days of the bird site. Except, one doesn’t find many journalists or public figures there. Aside from the community of weirdos with similar interests that we found on Twitter, the best feature of the site was the feeling of swimming with the sharks. To hell with the “blue checks,” one could respond to a minor celebrity like Dan Savage or Kathy Lee Gifford and maybe get a response. More importantly, we could instantly roast self-importantly economists, former cabinet members, dipshit op-ed columnists, Senators and even the Presidents of the United States and take them down a peg. And that’s what we’ve probably lost forever, Most of the elites will never lower themselves to share a platform with dirtbags ever again. Anyway, I’m @essdog.bsky.social (until I figure out how to make myself @shaunrichman.org. Come say “hi.”
Back On My Bullshit
Hello, Internet. I’m blogging again. Or possibly not.
I’m starting to re-work my website, in anticipation of my next book. My first website, hosted on a comrade’s server, probably began around 1998. I called it “Why Did Shaun Richman Create This Homepage?” and mostly used it to store pictures, audio files, an occasional written piece for a couple of years.
In 2005, I took a break from union work and revamped the website to try this new-fangled “blogging” thing. I registered a domain name, shaunrichman.org (.org because I’m not running my life at a profit; Ha!) and that same comrade, Don Doumakes, hosted and helped me set up Bloxsom software to host it. For several years, I reviewed books, movies and records. I wrote political pieces, vaguely-biographical journal posts and generally tried to hone my craft with an eye towards eventually publishing.
At some point, I returned to active union work, and publishing had to take a backseat. I wrote so that I wouldn’t get rusty while I mostly wrote memos and campaign plans for union organizing. I switched to WordPress, and kept blogging (a little bit, here and there).
When I left the American Federation of Teachers, I began writing published pieces for In These Times, Jacobin and even scoring spots in the Washington Post and New York Times.
By the year 2020, I was promoting my first book, Tell The Bosses We’re Coming, I turned this into an author’s website–with a color scheme and graphics that matched the book and links emphasizing media appearances, biography, published pieces, newsletter subscription, blah, blah, blah. I let the old blog pieces–which never disappeared–slide into the background. If you searched for that mysteriously missing shoelace licorice or information on your old friend Don Busky, Google would lead you to that post on my website but there was no scrolling link to my old posts.
Now that I’m getting ready to publish a second book, We Always Had a Union, I need a redesign. Something that highlights all published materials and brings the old blog back. So, I’ve added a primary link in the navigation bar to my old blog posts. I’m writing a new blog post so that my top post there isn’t a five-year-old clam chowder recipe. I had decided a while back that if something was worth wiring that it was worth publishing and so I doubled down on pitching ideas and stopped posting thoughts-in-process. But with Twitter going down the drain and all of social media in flux, I might return to posting here every now and again. While drafting We Always Had a Union, I kept a diary of my process (at least for the first two years). Basically I riffed on things I found in the archives, books I read that were great or sucked, controversies in the literature. I blogged, to myself. I don’t know why. At this point it won’t be read, except by whatever weirdo wants to rifle through my papers when they’re deposited at Tamiment.
As I’m working on the next new book, I may bring those stray thoughts and hot takes here. Or not. Who knows?
2018 Year in Review: A Tweet Thread
First, a little cheat. @MosheMarvit & I landed an op-ed in the @nytimes a few days before New Years last year.
American Workers Need Better Job Protections https://t.co/qZwf2VdmSL
— Shaun Richman (@Ess_Dog) December 27, 2018
That Time I Was (Willingly) on Fox News
On a slow news day in March of 2002, I was the token socialist for a roundtable segment on the “O’Reilly Factor.” I think they destroyed the tape, because I haven’t been able to find it on any transcription service. When Fox News still handled this stuff themselves, they claimed there was 12 hours of missing footage from the day – conveniently including the live show and its late-night re-run.
Anyway, with some help I was able to dig up this transcript. What’s interesting is how much has – and hasn’t – changed. What hasn’t changed is that Bill O’Reilly has always been a full-of-shit asshole. Even when we went to commercial, he continued to be a sanctimonious prick.
What has changed is that nobody could get away with denying the very existence of poverty in America today. And it would be hard to dismissively say “there aren’t a lot of you” socialists.
By the way, one of the funnier things that the transcript misses is my response to the writer from Parade magazine (who was also serving as Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee at the time) encouraging me to join the Dems. I laughed and said something like, “I can’t believe you just invited the socialist to join the Democratic party live on Fox News. The internet is going to go nuts tomorrow.”
Anyway, this was much better than the time that Tucker Carlson libeled me on “Fox and Friends.”
Unresolved Problem
Interview With Andrew Tobias and Shaun Richman
Fox News Network THE O’REILLY FACTOR (20:37)
March 1, 2002 Friday
O’REILLY: Thank you for staying with us. I’m Bill O’Reilly.
In the “Unresolved Problem” segment tonight, the money we earn. “Parade” magazine is out Sunday with its annual money edition, listing the salaries of hundreds of Americans. The average American worker makes $31,000 a year.
But some of us make a lot more than that. 20-year-old Britney Spears, for example, made close to $40 million last year. Shaquille O’Neill is in for $24 million. Regis Philbin, $35 million. Question is, is the income gap unfair?
With us now is Andrew Tobias, who wrote the article for Parade magazine and Shaun Richman, the executive director of the American Socialist Foundation. So you say in your essay, after the article, that it is unfair, that the salaries in America aren’t fair?
ANDREW TOBIAS, PARADE MAG PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Well, life is unfair. But I don’t have a problem with celebrities. You know, no one forces you to buy a CD or go to a movie or watch “Friends” or whatever. And Jennifer Aniston made $15 million, you don’t have to watch her on “Friends.” And you don’t have to buy the products. It’s free to watch NBC. And you don’t have to buy the products that are advertised.
O’REILLY: But what about these CEO weasles?
TOBIAS: But that’s — exactly, that’s the distinction I draw. Because in the celebrities, it’s the free market. In 1980, the average CEO of a very top company made 42 times as much as the average worker. In 2000, it was 531 times as much as the average worker. And if that’s what you have to pay in a free market to get really good talent…
O’REILLY: I don’t think so.
TOBIAS: But here’s the thing. And I quoted Fortune, so I didn’t put it on me because some people think I’m not far enough to the right. Fortune had a cover story called “The Great CEO Pay Heist.” And they said it’s highway robbery and everybody…
O’REILLY: It is.
TOBIAS: And what it is — and the reason it’s not a free market. I mean, some of course, many executives are worth exactly what they’re paid. And good for them. But at a lot of these huge pay packages are done, there’s this kind of club between I’m a director and you’re a company, you’re a director on my compensation committee. The consultants are all in it together. And if “Fortune” is screaming about it, and saying that it’s highway robbery…
O’REILLY: Yes, I mean look, a guy like Ken Lay making what, $50 million a year or whatever he’s making, he doesn’t know what’s going on? I mean, come on.
Now Mr. Richman, you’re a socialist, right?
SHAUN RICHMAN, AMERICAN SOCIALIST FOUNDATION: Yes.
O’REILLY: OK, and there aren’t too many of you in this country. We’re a capitalistic country, but what is the basic unfairness of somebody like Shaquille O’Neill making $25 million, if he’s worth that kind of money for the free enterprise that he works for?
RICHMAN: I’m not sure — well, I think that it’s certainly fair. If there’s going to be that much money in the system, labor’s entitled to what it produces. So I actually think in the current system, Shaquille O’Neill deserves that money a lot more than whoever owns the team and the people in the back office.
The problem is, again, with the income gap. The top fifth of people in this country, top fifth income earners, own four-fifths of the wealth. And it’s just not a sustainable system. And poverty is actually much worse than you described.
You konw, the average income is $30,000. The median income is much lower. You know, 20 percent of the kids in this country are living in poverty. 60 percent of all people will live in poverty for one year of their life.
O’REILLY: Not in the United States.
RICHMAN: In the United States.
O’REILLY: No, that’s bogus. I mean, that’s a socialist stat. You can believe it if you want to, but it’s not true.
RICHMAN: It comes from Cornell University.
O’REILLY: Well, what more do I have to say? It comes from Cornell University. But what I’m saying to you is, look, in the socialist system, you want to redistribute income. You want to take income from the big companies and give it to people, right?
RICHMAN: Yes.
O’REILLY: But you can’t give stuff to people. I mean, that never works or the Soviet Union would be still here. Wouldn’t it?
RICHMAN: It works in many countries in Europe.
O’REILLY: Like where?
RICHMAN: Like France, for example.
O’REILLY: France doesn’t take it from you. They basically say we’ll give you cradle to grave entitlementments. They don’t send you a check.
RICHMAN: They do, in fact, have family allowances.
O’REILLY: For certain welfare families, but we have that here as well.
RICHMAN: It’s actually, these are universal systems. I’m not as familiar with the various different…
O’REILLY: All right, so you believe…
RICHMAN: These are universal programs.
O’REILLY: …you should give people money, just because they’re in your country? Give them money?
RICHMAN: I think you give people money for having families.
O’REILLY: For having kids?
RICHMAN: For having kids.
O’REILLY: Just give them money for having kids?
RICHMAN: Yes…
O’REILLY: Mr. Tobias, you don’t agree with that, do you?
RICHMAN: We’re certainly not talking $35 million.
TOBIAS: I would like to see, Shaun, whose opinions I respect, I’d like to see him join the Democratic party, where we really do care about the little guy in a more practical way, because this stuff is not likely to happen.
O’REILLY: No, it’s never going to happen.
TOBIAS: But the earned income credit, that the Democrats are for, and the minimum wage and all kinds of the things that our friends in the other party are for, that’s, I think, a very practical way to get at some of this. I’m for the progressive income tax.
O’REILLY: OK, I’m not for that.
TOBIAS: I know.
O’REILLY: But look, I’m paid 50 cents on the dollar. And I make a lot of money, OK?
TOBIAS: Right.
O’REILLY: But I don’t make what it’s printed in the papers. That’s not even close. Are you sure that these salaries are right, that your Parade magazine?
TOBIAS: We low-balled yours.
O’REILLY: What?
TOBIAS: We low-balled yours.
O’REILLY: I’m not even in there. But are you sure they’re right?
TOBIAS: No, I mean, I didn’t do the salaries. But most of them are right. And some of them, for the really high dollar people, it’s hard to figure out what to include.
O’REILLY: OK, but here’s the deal. And you ought to know this, too, Shaun, is that for many years, I didn’t make any money. OK? And I lived in my younger time in a very frugal environment. OK? So I don’t believe that the government has the right, now that I’m successful, due to hard work and some luck, to come into my house and take my money and give it to other people, and they don’t even know what these people are going to do with it. That’s wrong, morally wrong.
TOBIAS: Well, but you know, it’s a balance, isn’t it? I’m sure you wouldn’t know. Or you would correct me if I’m wrong, that everybody should just pay a flat $3,000 a year. You and the poorest people and everybody, you would say, even with a flat tax, obviously…
O’REILLY: You pay more. I don’t mind paying what I pay, 50 percent, if it weren’t wasted. It is.
TOBIAS: Well, wait a second. So you’re saying that you — the progressive income tax is OK, as long as it’s spent well? All right.
O’REILLY: As long — that’s right, as long as it’s responsible, because at war, you wouldn’t need that much money. You could have a fair progressive tax that wouldn’t take as much as it does. But I’m not moaning about it. I just see the corruption in the system.
But you, you want to take my money. You want to come into my house, all right, after I worked hard all these years and did a lot more than you’ll ever do, in the sense that I got shot at, I had to move around. I mean, I went through a lot of abuse.
And so do these athletes. OK? They train themselves, they make a big score, but they blow out their bodies and all that. You want to take our money and give it to somebody who you don’t even know. Doesn’t that bother you?
RICHMAN: Are you living in poverty as a result of this 50 percent?
O’REILLY: Am I living in poverty? No, but what right do you or anybody else have, even in France, to take other peoples’ money and give it to somebody you don’t know? What right do you have, morally?
RICHMAN: It’s a basic system of fairness. Now when you weren’t making that money…
O’REILLY: Yes.
RICHMAN: When you were living in dire straits, wouldn’t it have been nicer to have a system where…
O’REILLY: No, I wouldn’t have taken a dime.
RICHMAN: You wouldn’t have taken a dime?
O’REILLY: No. Absolutely not.
RICHMAN: You would have died of tuberculosis?
O’REILLY: That’s right. And I wouldn’t have kids unless I could support them. That’s right, because I don’t believe in taking other peoples’ stuff and giving it to me. I won’t even take Social Security when I’m older. I’ll give it back or I’ll give it to charity. You see? That’s where you guys are wrong. You’re taking stuff, you’re making value judgments. You’re giving it to other people and you don’t know what those other people are going to do. That’s wrong. Am I wrong?
TOBIAS: No, I — if I dreamed of being on your show, I wouldn’t have expected to be in this nice position. I happen to think that while Shaun’s instincts are great, he’s too far to the left. I happen to have respect for you and a lot of what you’re saying.
O’REILLY: Think about it, though.
TOBIAS: But to the extent, and I’m not saying you’re the Republican leadership, but I think that there is a balance here.
O’REILLY: It has to be done fairly. It has to be done fairly.
TOBIAS: I totally agree with you. I totally agree.
O’REILLY: Not taking it. All right, gentlemen, thanks very much. Always fun to read that Parade piece.
TOBIAS: Thank you.
O’REILLY: Mel Gibson when we come back in a moment.