Re: recruiting nonderanged bloggers for your project
Subject: Re: recruiting nonderanged bloggers for your project
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 1/23/10, 20:19
To: Thomas Wictor <twictor@earthlink.net>

I know you have no reason to give me the benefit of the doubt as you don't know me and I'm clearly not on the same page as a lot of the people you probably respect, but, seriously, I don't think everyone who happens to be involved with Pajamas Media or conservatism is deranged or even wrong. I'm not a liberal, for one thing. I'm also not out to make new enemies. Believe it or not, I'm also not some nihilist who's out to get kicks. My life's goal is to do something about this ridiculous situation that has developed whereby the amoral producers and publishers up here in NYC simply don't give a fuck about the accuracy of the information that gets peddled by Thomas Friedman and these other folks who have risen to their positions simply due to the structural flaws of the system. I'm of the opinion that the next 40 years are going to be the most dangerous in the history of humanity, and I'll be making the case for that in my upcoming book and elsewhere. Perhaps that sounds ostentatious or naive or something. That's fine. I think that the nation needs better commentators of whatever ideology lest the citizenry continue to be distracted, as it was in the '90s. Not just that it would be better if we had more competent commenators, but rather that it is necessary. What I'm doing now - and of course, only some of the basics have been mentioned so far - is the only thing I know how to do in response to this situation. 

Calling this project Operation Fuck You has a purpose. That purpose is to get it noticed. I've been working in media since I was 15, and professionally so since I was 18, on all ends of the industry, and I know what works. Calling this The Civic Virtue Project of Informational Betterment Clusterfuck or whatever will not work. Calling it Operation Fuck You has already gotten the attention of a number of people, which is what I need if I am to have a chance to make my case to a sufficient number of people. 

You may not think this project will be successful. That's fine. You may be entirely right, in fact. If you have a better idea on how to solve this problem, good. Otherwise, I hope that you will at least give consideration to the details of what I'll be proposing over the next several months, as well as to my argument to the effect that the information age is too dangerous for this country to accept anything less than the most capable of mainstream commentators.

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 6:40 PM, Thomas Wictor <twictor@earthlink.net> wrote:
 "My phrasing regarding 'deranged' did not indicate that I consider all of those associated with Pajamas Media to be deranged;"

I know.  It all depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.  Got it.

Operation Fuck Everyone will be a rousing success.  I can tell already.

Cheers,
Tom W. 

On Jan 23, 2010, at 3:33 PM, Barrett Brown wrote:

As I mentioned to you a couple e-mails ago, I linked to my case against the various conservative bloggers in the article; I've written nearly a dozen pieces to that effect, all of which are linked together originating from the VF piece. My phrasing regarding "deranged" did not indicate that I consider all of those associated with Pajamas Media to be deranged; I don't think Hanson is deranged, for instance, even if I don't agree with him on certain things.

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Thomas Wictor <twictor@earthlink.net> wrote:
Oh, it won't.  It's been more than 30 years since I was fifteen.  I enjoyed it, but I've moved on.  Being a prick doesn't have the same allure it had when I was in high school.  But that's just me.  

I'll overlook your inability to make the case that Hanson, Whittle, et al. are completely deranged, since we both know you misspoke.  It doesn't bode well for the content and quality of Operation Fuck Everyone, though, does it?

"Yer all completely deranged! Cuz I say so!"  Not much of an argument, is it?

Oh, well.  Maybe it'll succeed, and maybe Obama will pull his head out of his butt and start making really good decisions.

Cheers,
TW     

On Jan 23, 2010, at 3:12 PM, Barrett Brown wrote:

Don't let it happen again.

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Thomas Wictor <twictor@earthlink.net> wrote:
My bad.  I didn't realize that the working title of your Johnson project was "Operation Fuck Everyone."  In other words, you're just another eternal fifteen-year-old stirring shit because it's fun!  I apologize for wasting both our time.

Cheers,
TW