Porn Kingpin Larry Flynt Broadcasts Political Fantasies in HuffPo Debut
There’s a certain irony in the promotions of today’s prominent bloggers over at Arianna Huffington’s “progressive” media hub Huffington Post.
The first four “Don’t Miss HuffPost Bloggers”: leftist comedian Bill Maher (whose Friday episode of “Real Time” I’ll blog about over the next few days,) pornographer-turned-free-speech-advocate-turned-polemicist Larry Flynt, leftist congressman and perennial “reparations for slavery” promoter John Conyers, and feminist activist/playwright Eve Ensler.
Isn’t that ironic? A pornographer right up there with a feminist?
I won’t be too hard on Flynt, though. I’ve long been a fan of him ever since I first saw “The People Vs. Larry Flynt” and read his memoir An Unseemly Man. His first amendment stances throughout the years have been exemplary and important. He’s also an entertaining figure very much possessed of the radical spirit
Flynt has always had aggressive libertarian and patriotic streaks in spite of his frequent descents into the Left. Check out his first post at HuffingtonPost and one will likely find points to both applaud and challenge.
The American government — which we once called our government — has been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich. They are the ones who decide our fate. It is this group of powerful elites, the people President Franklin D. Roosevelt called “economic royalists,” who choose our elected officials — indeed, our very form of government. Both Democrats and Republicans dance to the tune of their corporate masters. In America, corporations do not control the government. In America, corporations are the government.
This was never more obvious than with the Wall Street bailout, whereby the very corporations that caused the collapse of our economy were rewarded with taxpayer dollars. So arrogant, so smug were they that, without a moment’s hesitation, they took our money — yours and mine — to pay their executives multimillion-dollar bonuses, something they continue doing to this very day. They have no shame. They don’t care what you and I think about them. Henry Kissinger refers to us as “useless eaters.”
But, you say, we have elected a candidate of change. To which I respond: Do these words of President Obama sound like change?
“A culture of irresponsibility took root, from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street.”
There it is. Right there. We are Main Street. We must, according to our president, share the blame. He went on to say: “And a regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a 20th-century economic crisis — the Great Depression — was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st-century global economy.”
This is nonsense.
Some of these thoughts here might be sympathetic to those on the Right who have clearly seen a violation of free market principles with the culture of “bailouts.”
Of course Flynt’s solution and his class-warfare inspired vision is just as much “nonsense” as the Obama rhetoric he condemns:
I’m calling for a national strike, one designed to close the country down for a day. The intent? Real campaign-finance reform and strong restrictions on lobbying. Because nothing will change until we take corporate money out of politics. Nothing will improve until our politicians are once again answerable to their constituents, not the rich and powerful.
Let’s set a date. No one goes to work. No one buys anything. And if that isn’t effective — if the politicians ignore us — we do it again. And again. And again.
The real war is not between the left and the right. It is between the average American and the ruling class. If we come together on this single issue, everything else will resolve itself. It’s time we took back our government from those who would make us their slaves.
A national date of not working or buying? Yeah, that’ll work. Good luck organizing that, Larry.
That last excerpted sentence just comes off as absurd coming from a media tycoon who’s a multimillionaire. (In 2001 Flynt claimed his net worth was $400 million.) No one is making him a slave anytime soon. The only slaves he’s involved with are those who get paid to pretend to be them in his company’s videos.
What Flynt ultimately falls for is the Left’s illusion of class warfare — the idea that “the rich” are out to screw over the poor. I submit that this notion is a fiction. In America the poor become rich and the rich become poor. Movement between “classes” is fluid. And Larry Flynt is a prime example of this fact. He rose from rural poverty to his multimillionaire lifestyle. So the question for Flynt to consider for his next HuffPost unloading of class warfare: who bears the responsibility for the poverty into which he was born? Are people poor because corporate taskmasters are trying to enslave them? Or because of a combination of bad choices and bad luck? The answer to these questions is one of the key determinants of whether one ends on the Right or the Left. And Flynt’s answers demonstrate why a libertarian/patriotism-oriented fellow such as him would come to blog for Huffington Post.
Obviously, no one has paid attention to Larry, lately, so he wants some attention along with Arianna.
As far as instigating a national strike, rather a sad proposal when in fact it is taking place already, gradually. I am sure his cupboard isn’t bare, either, but that may change if Congress & the White House have its programs implimented.
One of the problems with government is that it impacts on its citizens. When the citizen judges that impact favourably his government is a boom and when that judgement is unfavourable he sees government as tyranny. There is no small irony in a man cloaking himself in centerfolds to champion free speech while decrying lobbyists as a malevolent force after having petitioned the most powerful lobby in Washington, the Supreme Court. If anything, this suggests that one style of lobby is more worthy than another, in this man’s eyes.
Larry Flint’s comments also imply that he is a shallow thinker. What Mr. Flint misses is that his petitions to the Supreme Court would not have been required had government not first taken action to impede his progress to fortune. Corporate Hustlers do not come to the fore in anticipation of some unknown or ill-defined piece of legislation not yet passed. Lobbyists come into being because a government takes, or threatens to take, action destined to interfere with a corporate or private entity. The threat always precedes the actions taken by generally indifferent citizens.
There are many reasons not to take Larry Flint seriously, but the primary reason is his communicating that government has reached decisions that he does not like. All governments disappoint someone or other, indeed, this is a fact of political life where on a good day only 40% of the people hate their political leaders and on a bad day 60% hate their government. A mature political thinker, as opposed to a sophist, knows this. The sophist never looks beyond his personal disaffection. A fool allows his disaffection to metastasize into a national discontent without considering the very real possibility of his being wrong. The fact that the people may, and have through the ballot, express an opinion, does not guarantee that that opinion will be right in that it is the best course of action for the people’s government to follow. The romantic notion that the people are always right is simply that, a romantic notion. Historically the people have been as often right as they have been wrong, one day strikes notwithstanding. What Mr. Flint needs to do is get over himself.
Larry Flynt is a repulsive vulgarian who actually thinks the average American citizen digs his style of entertainment. He’s so stupid he has no idea of how decent mainstream America lives or thinks. All he knows is that “the government has had it’s hand on our crotches long enough” Thats a quote from the half-baked brains of the smut-peddler himself. You can see the way his mind works ; what is he doing in politics ?
And there is nothing creative about him in the world of whiners ; he’s just another hypocrite harping about “corporate wealth ” . Of, course he , as wealthy as he is ,wouldn’t think of himself as one of those who’s rolling in money because of the humble laboring citizen who paid $5.00 or more for his magazine.
I hope he gets nowhere fast.
Who would have thought that guy who pushed “men’s magazine’s” to the level of the graphic, gynecological review would have anything smart to say about politics. Love him or despise his way of making a living, he hit the nail on the head in “Common Sense 2009″. His best quote is “Corporations have become rhe government”. Nothing could be more true. Why we have been asleep at the wheel and keep electing the same ilk to Congress repeatedly that would rather work on their re-election campaigns & collect checks from corporate lobbyists than represent their constituents is a mystery? But then again townhall meetings recently have been packed with small & angry minds that can’t see the forest for the trees. Maybe they need to be reminded that there is a 6:1 ratio of lobbyists to the 525 members of Congress & that they are spending $1.4 million daily to keep their profitable comfort zone afloat. Let’s wake up…….
Thanks Larry for having the courage to say what the bought & paid for mainstream media won’t print. The TRUTH.
I believe most of those angry voices are the same as you are, so on the one, you oppose the disenters while championing Mr. Flint’d statement which I also agree with wholeheartedly. We only question his motives.
Why thank him for saying the same old stuff every other carper says ? Does anybody ever realize that those ‘Greedy” and “ruthless ” coorporations also employ millions of people ?
Whether Flynt is right or wrong he still sucks. We don’t need him to steer us in the right direction or set us straight.
He made magazines we don’t want our children to look at and now he wants people to think he has what it takes to make decisions about how this country should be run? Common sense ? If he had any of that he’d realize we don’t want a porno-peddling pimp like him in office.
By the way–I read that his daughter accused him of molesting her. I believe her .
What we are seeing is liberals contradicting liberals at an alarming rate for they now have awakened to the fact they have boarded a train that will cross a bridge to ‘NOWHERE’.
This is a direct result to our expressing ourselves in a logical manner. There is no argument against truth in the end; subverting it works temporarily, but not permanantly.
The issue here is to separate personal feelings for the man and embrace the thought he projects if it in our best interests to do so.
To have a liberal challenge his own parties agenda such as that made by Howard Dean should be welcomed as a sign that reservations about their own policies should be encouraged with foresight.
Chastize the statement if ill-conceived, not the individual. Name calling resolves nothing and entrenches you on that train about to crash.
Whoa Nelly!
Are you folks actually saying that the rich and powerful do not have excessive influence over governement? That, in a world where a US Senator has to raise about $90,000 per day for re-election , he is more interested in what is right for his constituents and the country than raising money? Does anybody really believe Democrat and Republicans, no matter how sincere their original Intentions, have not been totally corrupted by the immense power and prestige they are afforded?
Can you really say this in a world where the Pentagon requests a single $64 Million Gulfstream and the oversight committee throws in another 3 Gulfstreams, over the protests of the Pentagon, all because Nancy Pelosi couldn’t get a $5,000/hour Gulfstream to ride home last Christmas ? I don’t know much about Larry Flynts politics and I don’t care. I do know that civility and adult supervision is lacking in DC and it is our responsibility as citizens to do insert some controls since our representatives won’t.
Immigrants. Hang them or give them $1 Million dollars and a passport, I am past caring. Nothing could be worse than this limbo of decision avoidance that goes on and on and on. Health Care, Social Security, Wall Street, Budget and the other serious issues of last 20 years…… Nothing ever gets done. Just make the tough decisions and get it behind us; It isn’t going away. Lord of the Flies on Steroids. “Well, if the other guy hadn’t ……….” Bull! If Billy Jack, you remember Billy Jack?, were here he’d suggest hanging one at random and telling them that he was going to be back in 30 days to see how they were doing. That would get some bipartisanship action. The politicians have the ability. They don’t have the will. We need to give them the will or they are going to keep sailing this Ship of State right into the iceberg field.
Count me in for any strike, march or other demonstration that lets them know how frustrated we are and we are not afraid to organize. This has nothing to do with left or right. It is about representative government. I will march shoulder to shoulder with the Devil, if necessary, on this. We can bicker later on how our representatives should represent us …..after they start actually doing so.
In the words of Mark Twain, I would have written a shorter letter but I didn’t have the time.
It all seems to simmer down to pork- commonly known as wasteful spending . Will the day come when we are out of that habit ?
Good leaders is what we need and there ARE many of them out there, but the trouble is, the people always vote for whatever candidate looks most appealing. People vote for the wrong reasons. I doubt that the majority of public knows much about the candidate they choose, but that candidate will get their vote because he’s tall, or attractive, or has nice hair etc. etc. I think Obama got elected because he is black. That is the first reason and the others reasons are just as skin-deep : he is attractive and has charisma. One of the biggest myths ever is that people vote for intelligent and sensible reasons ,and that they are knowledgeable about their candidate.
There are a lot of very intelligent, and good-willed, potential leaders who have what Obama doesn’t have : perspective.
“Representative government ” needs a good government representative. That is where those good leaders come in.
And about immigrants : be very picky, and be very afraid. As I sit here typing, there are terrorist cells all aver America, talking about our destruction….of one kind or the other. Remember a shocking amount of the 9/11 attackers were residing in this country then, and at other times in their lives. Our problem is not how we can avoid offending an immigrant by asking him questions, but how to get the public to realize we DO have to think of certain immigrants as potentialy dangerous. I know one thing for sure , and that is that when they come over here they should be expected to live by OUR rules and laws, not some screwball religious ones. NEVER, never, never let them do the telling- WE tell THEM. Tell them also if they don’t like “The Great Satan” to GET OUT of the Great Satan.
A witty retort Carter, thanks.
Look at it this way: a day of national strike is far more “moderate” of a leftist solution than say armed revolution or trying to seize political power.
Thank You, David for the opportunity you have given us to vent our displeasure and to expose the sad situation within our government.
I believe they are running for cover as we speak. It is quite interesting to watch, too, but it proves that democracy does work.
You’re welcome Carter.
Venting your displeasure is only half of the work, though. Those of you manning the comments section have consistently demonstrated that you can do more than vent. What needs to be done is we need to develop counter-proposals and new ideas to challenge the ideas the Left puts forth.
We have to acknowledge that the health care status quo right now does suck a great deal. The Left is certainly correct in that. Where they’re wrong is thinking that the solutions of single-payer or the public option would necessarily be better or more effective than what we have now. They wouldn’t.
Conservatism cannot just be as Bill Buckley said, “Standing athwart history saying stop.” It cannot run on a platform of “No.” It must acknowledge the problems and try and come up with better solutions that embrace conservatism’s enthusiasm for the free market and understanding of human nature. And that can be applied across the issues, not just when it comes to health care. In other words, my mantra: “Progressive dreams pursued through conservative means.”
The quest to fix the world must be taken from the Left. They have clearly demonstrated over the past few centuries that it’s job they don’t know how to handle. It’s time to give them their pink slip and take up the task ourselves.
Excellent thoughts, Cas.
I still do admire Flynt for various reasons — he’s certainly an entertaining figure — but you’re dead on the money in your judgment of him as a thinker. I still have his Bush-era polemic book “Sex, Lies, and Politics: The Naked Truth” on my shelf. I picked it up years ago at Half Price books for a few bucks. Still haven’t bothered to read it. Guess that shows how much I REALLY think of Larry the Thinker. He’s far more skilled as a pornographer, businessman, entertainer, and professional jackass.
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And of course that vulgar oversimplification, “the people.”
Our founders certainly knew the danger of giving 51% of the people the opportunity to control the other 49%. Hence why we’re not a pure democracy.
“The People” are a hydra with many, many heads constantly snapping at one another.
Obviously, he has quite a few friends in politics who enjoy taking his money and reading his smut.
I don’t believe her. Though how much of whether we believe her or not has to do with whether we like Flynt or not?
Further evidence for why you remain one of my favorite NewsReal commenters, Carter. Passionate patriotism + a level head = success.