New York Magazine has a big day!


William F. Buckley / Black Lives Matter: New York Magazine seems to be having a big day.

On the one hand, Jonathan Chait writes about Matthew Continetti's slashing new history, The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism. 

Chait is surprised by "how heretical and surprising [Continetti's] book has turned out to be." We're somewhat surprised to learn that Chait is surprised. 

We aren't students of Continetti's work—but we have thought, for the past few decades, that he was just about the straightest-shooting conservative out there. It sounds like he has produced a highly unflattering, hundred-year history of the American right.

Chait describes Continetti's unflattering look at the right. At the same time, Sean Campbell has produced an unflattering look at Black Lives Matter, a major institution of the modern left.

What's up with BLM's money? We can't exactly tell you that, but Campbell's report appears beneath these headlines:
Black Lives Matter Secretly Bought a $6 Million House 
Allies and critics alike have questioned where the organization’s money has gone.

Has BLM been mishandling its money? We can't answer that question, but access to money is very dangerous, and this is Campbell's second report on the topic for New York.

(For the first report, click here.)

We live at a time when we're being encouraged to believe in tribalized angels and demons. Generally speaking, human history may not be as simple as that.

Meanwhile: Meanwhile, who the Sam Hill is Sean Campbell?

For his most recent bio, click here.


  1. "Has BLM been mishandling its money? "

    Oh dear... You don't say... Tell us it ain't so...

    By the way, dear Bob, "BLM" is just a 3-letter acronym. Do the race-war-inciting scumbag organizers operate for profit?

    We suspect that in most cases they do indeed, but does it really matter? Greedy tricksters or megalomaniacal sociopaths, the result is the same...

  2. If you read the linked article, there is no substance to the innuendos. There is a lot of speculation about whether a house is improperly used or benefitting leadership of BLM, without any evidence that anything wrong has been done. The group does sound a bit disorganized, but this article comes across as a hostile piece lacking in substance.

    It begins by describing three houses that were bought and perhaps flipped by a supporter of BLM. It doesn't say what funds were used, who lived in them (if anyone) or what the connection to any organization was -- it is stated that it was a "suspicious" transaction of an individual not BLM as an organization. That helps build the assumption that BLM itself may be trafficking in real estate because it bought a large house (6000 sq ft) in CA (which has a very expensive real estate market no matter where you try to buy) that it intends to use for legitimate BLM-related purposes. In the article, it isn't even stated that any BLM member actually lives there -- just vague concerns that someone might.

    This is empty and obviously a hit piece.

    Who is Sean Campbell? A free-lance journalist who teaches a class in journalism, who cannot sell the result of his investigation if he doesn't make it sound like there is some wrongdoing, so he has dressed up a nothing-burger to look like raw meat, taking advantage of the desire to blemish BLM. It would be nice if BLM were a more polished and professional organization, but that is somewhat incompatible with having community roots. Portraying BLM as Donald Trump is ridiculous. Somerby says money is dangerous, as if a bunch of previously poor black people are so blinded by the money passing through their hands that they go out and try to live like kings on donations. Do you hear the same echoes of Reagan's complaints about welfare queens in fancy clothes with bling and cadillacs while on the dole.

    Or is there perhaps some logic to flipping or investing in real estate instead of keeping money in the bank during a time when interest rates are still near zero even on large amounts of cash?

    Neither Campbell nor Somerby knows who is living in that house -- or why it is terrible to buy a house instead of a suite of offices in a similarly expensive building.

    1. Why buy any building? A house makes more sense if you're going to personally misuse a purchase. And why 6 million?

      Some of you people here are just so credulous. Kneejerk so.

  3. Somerby asks "What's up with BLM's money?"

    After decades upon decades of right wing, conservative, neoliberals looting our society of trillions of dollars (which came after enslaving people of color for a few hundred years by the same crowd), Somerby wants to know how an anti-racism organization spends it's money.

    Man! That is some hot media criticism.

    Brother, please.

    What a sad old man Somerby has become.

    1. Sean Campbell's not an old man, you bigot. And it does seem that BLM is corrupt.

  4. As we all know, the Republicans that ended slavery became the modern Dems and the ones that supported slavery became the modern Republicans; take note, the comment did not reference D or R, it referenced right wing, conservative, neoliberals.

  5. The Democrats who were supportive of slavery all left the Democratic party back at the beginning of the civil rights movement. Today, Republicans are no longer the party of Reconstruction. They have assimilated the bigots who want to obstruct progress for black people and they have become the party of white supremacy.

    It is sad to see the legacy of abolitionism and freedom turned into a travesty by today's Republican party of greed, corruption and bigotry. But at least the Democratic party is no longer split between pro- and anti-slavery factions. The relationship of bigotry to politics is now more clearly aligned with party membership: (1) Republicans are pro white supremacy, (2) Democrats are pro multi-culturalism.

    Describing this shift in party alignment in racial terms obscures that the point of slavery was to produce financial prosperity for slave owners. When slaves stopped being slaves, the South found itself without a source of cheap labor, so they used Jim Crow to re-enslave the slaves. Those former slaves then moved North to major cities like Chicago and Detroit and became Democrats. This caused the remaining bigots in the Democratic party to flee to the Republican party, who embraced them enthusiastically. The Republicans, then the party of cheap labor and anti-worker policies, the party of accumulated wealth, embraced bigotry as a means of luring disaffected white working class people to vote for them. Enter Trump. Today, the Democrats are the party of civil rights, pro-union, environmentalism and the Republicans are the party of greed, bigotry and white grievance.

    It is majorly offensive for you to try to confuse people into thinking that today's Republicans had anything to do with the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments to the Constitution, Civil rights, anti-racism or black progress. That is Stolen Valor indeed!

  6. Dave with the fifth grader's "gotcha." Now clean those erasers.

  7. First, did New York Magazine pull that headline, because it now seems to say something else.
    I find no fault with the writer or the article. Part of the problem would seem to be that a lot of people who support the BLM slogan and sentiment don't even know it's a organization. So hustlers are free to use the slogan and rip people off. This is hardly something new and hardly limited to Democratic tied organizations.
    But Bob, predictably, reacts like a gentleman of the old south.
    We should also note the atrocities we are seeing coming out of the Ukraine, from Trump's pal and favorite genius. Oh sorry, he said some bad things about him too.

    1. David the polite troll has been posting some version of this fractured history for years. He forgot to add that President Lincoln was a Republican. I have watched as numerous people have patiently tried to reply showing how silly his statement is and David will politely ignore and come back again to repeat his bullshit in 6 days or 6 months or 6 years. Doesn't matter.

    2. David often assumed the pose of reasonable conservative you could fairly disagree with. Then Trump. He made his choice, as most did, and showed us what he was all about.

  8. A Republican Congressperson tweets yesterday...
    "Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are pro
    pedophophile. They voted for KBJ."

    Bob must be proud.

  9. Finally, an example of voter fraud:

    "Matt Mowers, an official who worked in the Trump administration, and is now running for the House voted twice in two different states in 2016."

    1. Q. How many Right-wing accusations are really confessions?

      A. All of them, Katie.