In 2007, Barrett Brown published Flock of Dodos, a comic critique of creationism and intelligent design. This activity coincided with Brown’s skepticism and advocacy on behalf of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which led to an appearance on Fox News in 2009.
Brown had been writing fervently and spouting opinions since he was a teenager, and his work is as varied as his freelance publication history. Most of this earlier work goes unexamined by the public, his association with Anonymous and current predicament having eclipsed it. But his talent and abilities are definitely on display in his current regular column with D Magazine.
Now, for the first time we can read as he takes aim and executes a blistering takedown of America’s media pundits and columnists, people such as Thomas Friedman, William Bennett, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Cohen, and Martin Peretz, whose incompetence he proves beyond any doubt.
When Brown was writing this book between 2006 and 2010, he had set out to be a political humorist and satirist. To that end, his style is as ever witty and hilarious and hyperbolic.
The concept of the book concurs with a larger theme of Brown’s work, that is the overwhelming failure of the traditional, establishment or mainstream media to perform anything near its duty to the public. In the epilogue we can learn what Brown thinks constitutes an important shift: the potential of the internet for collaboration and amplifying critical voices.
Although this material dates from the previous decade, Barrett Brown’s incisive commentary and analysis is needed now more than ever, as an emerging apparatus based in secrecy and state-corporate alliances wields the capability to neutralize journalists and activists, while dominating the internet and media landscape with sophisticated propaganda and information operations.
If we are to dismantle this broken system and reverse the propagation of uninformed opinions that are anathema to progress and critical thinking, we might start by disregarding those who are written about in this book. Brown has helpfully done most of the work for us and pointed out the way forward.
Download Keep Rootin’ For Putin: Establishment Pundits and the Twilight of American Competence with a donation of any amount to the defense fund. Our goal is to cover all of his legal costs through sentencing to his freedom and re-establishment in society.
