Their culture goes to eleven

August 27, 2008 10:47 PM

Our editorial slant is big tent right-of-center -- as open-minded about what we publish as The New Republic, The New Yorker or The New York Times Magazine, but on the center-right rather than the center-left. A new conservative online magazine and community, Culture11, quietly debuted on Wednesday.

A job listing for freelance writers appeared in June, giving the magazine's name as "Liberty Wire." Bill Bennett and Steve Forbes are known to be involved, but it appears that CEO David Kuo and managing editor Joe Carter will be doing most of the heavy lifting.

posted by Knappster (60 comments total)

That's a breath of fresh air. Prior to this, the US centre-right could only express itself through it's complete stranglehold on both relevant political parties.
posted by pompomtom at 10:59 PM on August 27, 2008 [61 favorites has favorites]

Maybe it'll be… intelligent right-of-center commentary?

I know that's impossible
posted by shakespeherian at 11:08 PM on August 27, 2008

This thread is brought to you by Massengill.
posted by trondant at 11:09 PM on August 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

More affirmative action for Republicans in the form of ready-made publications with sinecures for people who fail at everything, are wrong about everything, have no idea about anything, except being movement conservatives.

Thomas Frank figured these guys out in his latest book. More of the same.
posted by bardic at 11:17 PM on August 27, 2008 [8 favorites has favorites]

They messed up their site design, it should look more like metafilter with a goatee.

Seriously though, worth checking out if only for some of the site features (although the flash implementation is mildly annoying).
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:19 PM on August 27, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Well, it's not like the right-of-centre doesn't need some respectable commentary.

The question is whether this is going to buck the trend and provide some.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 11:23 PM on August 27, 2008

or what shakespeherian said.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 11:23 PM on August 27, 2008

This is kind of pointless. People only hold right wing views because they aren't smart enough to understand left wing ones.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 11:28 PM on August 27, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

Lil' Jon isn't gangsta rap, it's crunk. Get a brain, morans!
posted by PenDevil at 11:31 PM on August 27, 2008

Holy jeepers, Metafilterman, it's the Dissenting Thought Signal! To the Snarkmobile!
posted by Krrrlson at 11:32 PM on August 27, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Holy jeepers, Metafilterman, it's the Dissenting Thought Signal! To the snarkmobile recruiting office.

Don't walk, run. Both of you.
posted by trondant at 11:36 PM on August 27, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

There is some truly hideous jpeg compression artifacting going on with their text there.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:40 PM on August 27, 2008

Well, no, I was actually being serious. People keep talking about how the neo-cons are not representing, well, paleo-con values. So someone step up and represent, already.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 11:40 PM on August 27, 2008

I don't even know what "center-right" (much less "conservative") means anymore.

Are these the center-rightists who are for (e.g., PNAC) or against (e.g., paleo-cons like Pat Buchanan) Empire?

For unrestricted capitalism, or wary of desecration of "traditional values" for corporate profit?

Libertarian or Communitarian? Racialist or that strain of Fundamentalist Christianity that hates gays but embraces interracial congregations and interracial marriages?

For de-regulation of everything, or for neo-Prohibition and the revival of sumptuary laws in the name of decency?

Ant-abortion but accepting of evolution but hating Hollywood right-wing Bill Donahue Catholicism, or ant-evolution,anti-abortion, pro-death penalty Protestant Fundamentalism? Or pro-Israel Jews uncomfortably aligned with pro-Armageddon evangelicals? Or pro-Armageddon evangelicals eagerly pushing their way into the Air Force Academy and in turn supporting more money for the Defense Industry's latestes super-weapons?


"Center-right" "conservatism" no longer describes a common world-view or coherent philosophy. It has no meaning beyond a a series of payoffs.

It describes a crazy-quilt of quid pro quos, a Rube Goldberg contraption where denying gays their civil rights in Ohio sets off a complicated chain of events that leads to the IDF getting high-tech new anti-personnel cluster bombs and a Lockheed Martin exec buying his third vacation home while kids in Kansas learn that science is lies and kids in Kentucky lose their teeth to rot and no dental care.
posted by orthogonality at 11:47 PM on August 27, 2008 [79 favorites has favorites]

What is with the articles written as first person narratives?
posted by milkrate at 11:53 PM on August 27, 2008

Traditional conservatism of the Goldwater/Buckley variety stood for smaller, less intrusive government, fiscal responsibility, and a general notion that government (any government) cannot cure the world's ills through acts of, say, costly military intervention and occupation, declaring expensive wars on abstract notions like "drug use" or "terror," or completely stamp out huge bugaboos like "evil." We are limited creatures and hence, our governments are similarly limited in both vision and ability.

This is why I'm certain the editors, writers, and readers of this magazine will all be voting for Obama come November.
posted by bardic at 11:58 PM on August 27, 2008 [13 favorites has favorites]

Small sample set, maybe, but there was nothing offensively "center-right media bland" or scary-reactionary about the two articles I read, both of which were quite good.

Goodbye FBI
The Global War Against Baby Girls

They're a little light, maybe, but there's no more offensive politicization in there than any Time or Newsweek or Mother Jones. It's a long way from Fox News.
posted by rokusan at 12:08 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'm personally voting for McKinney.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 12:08 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Ooooh! Looking forward to Bill Bennett (he's Bill now, not William) on The Great Books. Let's see: first up might be Casino Gambling : A Winner's Guide to Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Baccarat, and Casino Poker by Jerry Patterson, Eric Nielsen, Christopher Pawlicki, and Sharpshooter.
I'll bet (heh heh) a high roller like Bill knows "Sharpshooter" personally.

Oh, wait though.... Bill, Author of The Book of Virtues (pick up a copy on Amazon for 75 cents) LOST $8,000,000 gambling. So maybe not.
posted by longsleeves at 12:10 AM on August 28, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

rokusan writes "They're a little light, maybe,"

A little? That FBI article reads like an outline submitted on spec in hopes an editor would fund the real article.
posted by orthogonality at 12:12 AM on August 28, 2008

longsleeves, Jesus wanted Bill Bennett to lose that 8 mil.
posted by bardic at 12:14 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

longsleeves writes "Oh, wait though.... Bill, Author of The Book of Virtues (pick up a copy on Amazon for 75 cents) LOST $8,000,000 gambling. So maybe not."

Different virtues apply when you're not one of the little people who work for a living and send their sons to die for the oil companies' interests.
posted by orthogonality at 12:15 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

orthogonality's post is eponysterical. Or eponynalyis. Or something related to the fact that a single-dimensional political spectrum can't be made to make much sense.
posted by weston at 12:36 AM on August 28, 2008

I'm personally voting for McKinney.

is that hilarious because everyone knows you wouldn't vote for a black person or wouldn't vote for a woman? oh, duh, i'm sure it's both. nm.
posted by Hat Maui at 12:56 AM on August 28, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

I wish them every failure.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:18 AM on August 28, 2008

The diary Confessions of A Teach for America Member seemed interesting, though I'm a bit skeptical of some of it.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:31 AM on August 28, 2008

Rap at weddings?! Moar liek CRAP, mirite doodz!?!?

Devin the Dude and Lil John (shudder) are not fucking gangster, white boy.
posted by paisley henosis at 2:48 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Well, it's still not the Spectator. And by the Spectator, I don't mean that Godforsaken rip-off the American Spectator, I mean the well and good conservative but really just a really good literary review London Spectator.
posted by parmanparman at 3:08 AM on August 28, 2008

Magazine writing as right-wing welfare positions for their otherwise unemployable offspring. kewl.

In America "reasoned right-of-center" is an oxymoron.
posted by hooptycritter at 4:11 AM on August 28, 2008

I was thinking about this question this morning: Is the new XM channel "FoxNews Business" a reliable source of business news?

Does the WSJ have a blind spot in its reporting on business because of its political leanings?

Culture11 doesn't seem to have much business news at all... does that mean its other news is completely unreliable?
posted by ewkpates at 4:18 AM on August 28, 2008

.
posted by TedW at 4:36 AM on August 28, 2008

> Thomas Frank figured these guys out in his latest book. More of the same.

...from Thomas Frank, you mean? I daresay it is. His last was comically wrong from halftitle page to colophon so this one should be at least as amusing as an old Andy Capp collection.


> Well, it's not like the right-of-centre doesn't need some respectable commentary.

Never encountered Arts and Letters Daily, has he?
posted by jfuller at 4:45 AM on August 28, 2008

His last was comically wrong from halftitle page to colophon

because we all know that the working class people who voted for Bush in 2004 for religious/racist reasons have gotten a lot of free health care, economic relief, and cheap gas due to a stable Middle East from the Bush administration, right?

Thought so.
posted by matteo at 6:27 AM on August 28, 2008

is that hilarious because everyone knows you wouldn't vote for a black person or wouldn't vote for a woman? oh, duh, i'm sure it's both. nm.

What on earth? Read my post again. I am voting for McKinney.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 6:53 AM on August 28, 2008

Matt Yglesias had a post about this where he basically argued that a lot of the "center-left" magazines were basically center-right or neoconservative, and I think that's accurate.
posted by delmoi at 7:08 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

shakespeherian writes: There is some truly hideous jpeg compression artifacting going on with their text there.

This is one of those things about which I am never quite certain whether or not it is invoked as a grand MeFi in-joke. Certainly some people get their knickers in a twist over compression artifacts and proceed to get all sanctimonious about it... but then other folks just make fun of those folks.

Here.... I don't see any compression artifacts at all. I don't see any JPG's at all, for that matter; I see CSS text and Flash vector text. Do I need to recalibrate my snark detectors?
posted by kaseijin at 7:15 AM on August 28, 2008

What on earth? Read my post again. I am voting for McKinney.

Dude, he's been dead for, like, a century!
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:25 AM on August 28, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

LOLMcKinley!!!
posted by spicynuts at 7:42 AM on August 28, 2008

I'm voting for Grover Cleveland.
posted by spicynuts at 7:46 AM on August 28, 2008

Don't we already have The Economist? It already dedicates something like 1/5th of every issue to American politics and culture. And I have yet to find a publication to the right of that magazine that bases its editorial stance on anything other than ignorance, triumphalism, and pathetic overcompensation for inadequate masculinity.
posted by xthlc at 8:38 AM on August 28, 2008

"Left" means "liberal" (to those people it does, anyway).

"Liberal" means "fair and balanced".

So, you fail.
posted by Zambrano at 8:40 AM on August 28, 2008

Seriously though, worth checking out if only for some of the site features

Whee, they're using Drupal! I'll sit back and relish the ego boost that comes from center-right market advocates using my dirty hippie open source code to make their web site.
posted by verb at 8:51 AM on August 28, 2008

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has not one but two good articles on this subject.
posted by Critical_Beatdown at 9:04 AM on August 28, 2008

His last was comically wrong from halftitle page to colophon so this one should be at least as amusing as an old Andy Capp collection.

"You suck." "No, you suck."
posted by octobersurprise at 9:24 AM on August 28, 2008

I'm voting for Grover Cleveland.

I'm voting for Super Grover.

Just kidding, I'm Canadian so I have to vote for that polar bear muppet or something
posted by fleetmouse at 9:27 AM on August 28, 2008

"Liberty Wire" is a truly horrible title, but "Culture11" isn't doing them any favors either.

But kudos for them in acknowledging that the National Review has become the print equivalent of talk radio in the last decade or so, and trying to do something about it. I admire the idea more than the execution.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:29 AM on August 28, 2008

When I visited, the front page flash banner included a link to a "satirical" piece about gender differences at the ATM, and a link to an article about the joys and sorrows of owning chicken.

Quietly debuts on Wednesday, and quietly disappears soon after, hopefully.
posted by Weebot at 9:33 AM on August 28, 2008

what is the distinction between online magazine and blog, anywayz? and also, can i play gangsta rap at my wedding!??
posted by yonation at 9:47 AM on August 28, 2008

Meh. One more ell in the right-wing echo chamber building. Center-right in the sense that they are right in the center of the hardcore right wing.
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:55 AM on August 28, 2008

Here.... I don't see any compression artifacts at all.

It's all the text in the Flash rotating-headline-thing.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:01 AM on August 28, 2008

Sidhedevil writes "'Liberty Wire' is a truly horrible title,"

Isn't that the stuff they string around free speech zones, to protect the protesters inside from news cameras?
posted by orthogonality at 10:19 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

The one thing that made clicking through worth it is finding the link to these early kodachrome images on the site's Confabulist blog. They're great.
posted by notashroom at 10:33 AM on August 28, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

This is kind of pointless. People only hold right wing views because they aren't smart enough to understand left wing ones.

Hold that thought. I'm more than cool with it. It finally explains why all those people who voted for Bush once and got screwed - turned around four years later and voted for him again.
posted by notreally at 11:19 AM on August 28, 2008

I'm a bit dismayed at all the "They identify as right-wing? They must be the enemy and we hate's them!" going on here (e.g.), that's a bit disappointing.

Also, I wanted to second Bardic and pompomtom--folks who see McCain as center-right and Obama as center-left might be correct in the context of current American politics, but surely from a historical standpoint they are both well to the right.

There was a time when we had serious Socialist and Communist candidates, didn't we? Heck, Bernie Sanders is still in office...
posted by Squid Voltaire at 11:23 AM on August 28, 2008

Oh great. They have a "women's section" complete with a hi-larious article about those crazy women drivers at the ATM. That's enough for me; I'll never go back.
posted by jokeefe at 11:45 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

The "conservative" movement is about as fractured as the "liberal" movement, perhaps even more so.

We need about 2-3 more viable parties to accurately represent this, along with IRV.
posted by edgeways at 11:50 AM on August 28, 2008

Rated G for Green

How shrill green politicization ended a history of environmental reverence in children’s film

Ah, yes, a nice, little intellectual website to dispassionately discuss center-right ideology and policy issues.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:38 PM on August 28, 2008

The diary Confessions of A Teach for America Member seemed interesting, though I'm a bit skeptical of some of it.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:31 AM on August 28

You're right to be skeptical because it's one hundred percent bullshit.

My better half was a corps member advisor this summer and was literally spending 18 hours a day on her corps members' lesson plans and professional development. There was no time for therapy sessions or whatever nonsense he's peddling to his "hee-hee-just-right-of-center" masters, hoping for a big fat check from the Cato Institute.

Whatever brainwashing Mr. Van Horrick went through, however, he undoubtedly needs, because that dumb motherfucker is going to fail as a teacher. The right-wing cocksucking is his fallback.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 3:56 PM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Dude, he's been dead for, like, a century!

You're confused. Cynthia McKinney is alive (and a woman), and she's the Green Party's candidate for President.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 4:29 PM on August 28, 2008

Dude, he's been dead for, like, a century!

You're confused. Cynthia McKinney is alive (and a woman), and she's the Green Party's candidate for President.

And you obviously need to have your sense of humor surgically re-implanted.
posted by Eekacat at 5:58 PM on August 28, 2008