Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!

If you ever watch the news, listen to the radio or check the headlines on msn.com, you must read this book. There is a battle going on for the information gateway of our country: the news media complex.And the great general leading the charge, the brilliant strategist who has been literally on the forefront of this fight and has seen it from the inside-out and the ground-up, who makes it possible for you and I to literally hear "the rest of the story".... is Andrew Breitbart.Anything we know today, about the JournoList, about ACORN, about Pigford is directly because of Andrew Breitbart. (And if you don't know about any of the things I just mentioned, start researching, because this affects YOU)"Righteous Indignation" is part memoir, part treatise, part history lesson. It begins with the infamous ACORN sting investigation, in which James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles went to multiple ACORN offices around the country and asked ACORN to help them find tax breaks for their brothel, in which they claimed to employ underage illegal immigrants. Yes, they explicitly stated that was their business - underage human trafficking.And Breitbart dropped the videos, one by one. Aside from the moral repugnance of the actions of the ACORN offices, the bigger story was that ACORN was doing this using taxpayer dollars. Within weeks, Congress unanimously voted to defund one of the largest community activists groups in the country.All because of some bloggers and a couple of kids with a camera.The next part of the book details how Breitbart became the biggest New Media magnate of our day, the driving force behind the biggest news stories in the last 5 years. Breitbart grew up in Brentwood, LA's upscale suburb, to middle-class, hardworking conservative parents. He then went to a liberal party school for college and wound up tens of thousands of dollars in debt with a degree in American Studies. (Which, by the way, makes me feel a lot better about that Creative Studies degree I got.) He found himself challenging both the values he grew up with and the values he acquired while in college - at polar ends of the spectrum - and having to decide which were really right.The power of the internet was made clear in the 90s. It was the internet - specifically, the Drudge Report - that broke the biggest stories of the decade. Essentially, it was Matt Drudge that exposed not only Bill Clinton's criminal and immoral activities (yes, criminal activities, his impeachment was not about sex, it was about him committing multiple felonies.), Drudge also showed how much the mainstream media was ignoring, covering up and lying about. This is gone over in detail in the book so I won't recount it here.Breitbart also tells about his key involvement in creating what is now the antithesis to his Big sites - The Huffington Post. Yes, The Huffington Post likely would not exist without Andrew Breitbart, and he is proud of it. He and Arianna Huffington, though on opposites side politically, are still friends. Why would he create a venue for people he absolutely disagrees with to be able to express their beliefs - often times hatefully about him? Because, above all, he's a believer in the importance of letting all sides into the conversation, and that when people are able to see all points of view, only then are they able to really decide what is true and what isn't.In the midst of all these personal anecdotes, he drops a very heady chapter on philosophical history for the last 200 years. Wait, what? My brain was not ready for the shift, and at first it was a little jarring. But the history is important, and he is able to expertly articulate, in a very non-stodgy way, the connection between today's media and political personalities and Rousseau, the Frankfurt School, and Saul Alinsky. (Never heard of those people? You will.)The latter part of the book is the treatise, the call to action, the good ol' fashioned Rebel Yell (if he'll pardon the expression) calling you and I to stop being merely observers of the world and be engagers. The communications landscape of our country is changing, not because of what goes in in some elitist J-school or because Jon Stewart shoots his mouth off and hides behind his clown nose, but because people like you and me, bloggers, everyday ordinary people, are doing to it.As Breitbart puts it, it's time to walk toward the fire. It's time to stop being passive and settling for what the official story is from the government and the media. It's time to start engaging our friends and neighbors in conversation and education, to spread the truth and encourage others to seek out information for themselves, rather than being spoon-fed. It's time to start asking questions, holding these people accountable for spreading misinformation, for stoking fear and division. It's time to take up the mantle of responsible citizenship and start holding the 4th Establishment's feet to the fire. We're not gonna take it anymore.Andrew Breitbart is to me what Rupert Murdoch was to my parents. The game-changer in the media conversation, the one person willing to go out and create an avenue for news from an alternate perspective, not just the canned official line of the establishment. The difference is, Breitbart isn't a multimillionaire doing this out of academic interest. This is his life. This is his country. This is our country. And it's time we stepped up and protected it.Walk toward the fire.

There is not much I can add to the other stellar reviews on Righteous Indignation. For the past 15 years a transformation has been taking place; the old media lost ground to the new media. Actually, let me rephrase that. Papers lost ground to radio, radio lost ground to network television, network television lost ground to cable news, and cable news lost ground to Internet news. And eventually Internet news will lose ground to Twitter news...but not much as Twitter will direct people back to Internet posts. There is only so much you can do with 140 characters unless you put all the tweets on one continuously updating page as Fox News has recently done.Andrew Breitbart seized upon an idea and has run with it. Like many others, I marveled from afar at his brilliant drip-drip-drip release of ACORN information, as I had marveled at Drudge's Lewinsky work over a decade ago. The nimbleness of alternative news journalists makes me feel like we have ninjas on the right.I would like to talk about my take away from his book. Perhaps the least sexy part of RI is Breitbart's discussion on the German Marxists who came to Santa Monica after being kicked out of Nazi Germany. Going through this part reminded me of why I rejected a good deal of the doctrine college professors tried to cram into my conservative head...Marxists are yucky. Fascists are yucky. Nazis are yucky. Communists are yucky. Anyone who pushes class envy and 'I have a new improved social plan that fixes the problems IF we only destroy what exists' plan is yucky too. Therefore, it is quite interesting that these miserable people ended up in one of the places I've been to in California, and one of the few places I thought was really beautiful. Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Santa Ana, and San Diego...all beautiful...and all places where cares generally melt away if you can afford to live there. Sun, surf, beaches, smiles...what more does a person need? And yet Breitbart explains that these miserable bastards of Marxist ilk saw only the dark side....no one could be truly happy in their eyes, and no one deserved to be happy because it was likely at the expense of someone else's unhappiness. Now I know Breitbart is giving me a history lesson, but I can't help but transfer this tale of woe onto those other miserable bastards of our time, terrorists. Maybe it is some latent liberalization in my soul, but I always held out hope that maybe if we took those GITMO jerks to Disney World a few times and made them watch that celebrate the world light show, perhaps they would have a change of heart....eventually. Breitbart quashed that. If you can't see the beauty in Southern California, or if you can't find some joy on a beach watching the waves roll in, then you just aren't fully human yet. Perhaps we should designate a patch of Mojave Desert as 'Miserable Bastards Who Hate America Sanctuary'. Sadly, there is no hope for those that see no hope, and have the audacity to think they have a better plan. That these Marxists invaded our institutions of higher learning is no surprise...the for profit business world would reject them outright. That these Marxists also took root in our media...from Hollywood to New York...is no surprise either. It's all about message, and control of that message. What was that line from 'Braveheart'? "If we can't starve them out, we'll breed them out". All I can say is that parents have to teach their children how to discern right from wrong, patriotic from socialist, good from evil, and history from glossed over history. Relate everything to current events, and with a little luck, your children will be armed enough to reject anti-Americanism during the critical ages of 13 - 30. Even if they don't outright reject it, at least teach them how to think and defend their ideas. Facts matter. Truth is on our side nearly every time.The only way to beat the Marxists and all other rabble rousers is to out them publicly and let them know that the right still outnumbers the left in this country. Those that the apolitical are inherently on our side once they know the true end game and score. Even those who think they are on the left might actually be on the right IF they bothered to learn what the right is all about and stopped swallowing the pap provided by the MSM. Keep waking us up, Andrew!BTW - hit the trifecta of reading this summer....Coulter, Breitbart, and Shapiro. And remember and reflect on how Reagan made you feel, and how Palin makes you feel when she sticks it to the media by just being herself.

Definitely not a fictional book.

Nach dem Buch von Milo Yiannopoulos wollte ich auch das Buch von Andrew Breitbart lesen. Während Milos Buch insgesamt spritzig, witzig und kurzweilig geschrieben ist, quält man sich bei Andrew teilweise etwas. Die Stellen, die wohl etwas auflockern sollten, leiden jedoch am Ende eher etwas an Selbstbeweihräucherung.Interessant sind die Ausführungen über die HuffPo und seine Wahrnehmungen zum Thema "Frankfurter Schule", mit den bekannten Vertretern Brecht, Adorno, Gramsci, Marcuse, Horkheimer und weiteren. An dieser Stelle regt das Buch auch durchaus an, weitere Lektüre zu ziehen und noch einmal die ein oder andere Biographie nachzulesen. Breitbart lehnt diese Menschen stark ab, bezeichnet sie als depressive Nihilisten, die "bei Sommerhitze im Anzug über den Strand liefen und nachdachten, wie sie die Gesellschaft zerstören konnten" (Critical Theory). Marx, Marx, Marx - liest man in diesem Zusammenhang auch immer wieder, mit Gegenüberstellung kommunistischer Ideen, die dem amerikanischen Ideal von Freiheit und persönlicher Verantwortung völlig inkompatibel gegenüberstehen. Die Begründung, warum der Kommunismus letztlich immer wieder scheitern muss, wird dann auch noch kurz gegeben und auf einigen Seiten diskutiert: Nach marxistischer Lehre (die auch mehrmals als wirr und verlogen skiziert und beleuchtet wird), und nach dessen Vordenker J. J. Rousseau, ist "der Mensch im Kern gut" und das Kollektiv der Menschen ist wichtiger als die Freiheit des Einzelnen. Das Kollektiv darf dies letztlich, weil es als "gut handelnde Macht" ja auch für alle Individuen daher nur das Beste will und bezweckt. Genau das wird von Breitbart abgelehnt. Es folgt die Negation der Prämisse und die Behauptung, dass die Gründerväter der USA mit dem "First Amendment" auch genau die Gegenposition dazu aufgestellt haben, indem sie die "individuelle Eigenverantwortlichkeit" jedes Bürgers betonten. Ich will an dieser Stelle nur den Inhalt wiedergeben um das durchaus hohe Niveau mancher Gedankengänge zu illustrieren, die Richtigkeit dieser Thesen ist, wenn auch elementar wichtig, letztlich das persönliche Weltbild und kann nur von jedem selbst individuell bewertet werden.Die Kernessenz des Buches dreht sich auch, wie bei Milo, im Folgenden sehr stark um die Feststellung, dass die Rechten heute so schwach sind, weil sie in der Popkultur nur so schwach vertreten sind. Mehrmals wird von Breitbart betont, dass Hollywood bzw. die "linke Hollywood-Elite" in Amerika wohl wichtiger ist und über Beeinflussung der Massen in Filmen und kulturellen Erzeugnissen mehr Einfluss hat, als alle politischen Debattenveranstaltungen, Talkshows und Wahlkampfevents. Meiner Meinung nach ist diese Beobachtung global völlig richtig, selbst Wikipedia ist heute unter der Kontrolle dieser Leute, weshalb politische Artikel in der deutschen Wikipedia mittlerweile stark tendenziös bis unbrauchbar verfälscht sind.Es folgen dann noch Ausführungen, mit welcher Vehemenz und mit welchen unfairen bis kriminellen Methoden die Linke im Politikbetrieb um die Macht kämpft. Breitbart stellt die These auf, dass "persönliche Angriffe" bis hin zur finanziellen Vernichtung und öffentlichen Hinrichtung heute typische (!) linke Taktiken sind, um unliebsame Gegner zu bekämpfen. Ich denke, durch die Geschehnisse während und kurz nach dem Trump-Wahlkampf, aber auch flächendeckend in Europa und Deutschland kann diese These längst als bewiesen angesehen werden. Es ist nur noch einmal wichtig, sich das wirklich so zu verinnerlichen.Was Andrew Breitbart in seinem Buch fordert ist letztlich genau das, was Milo Yinnopoulos impersoniert (wenn auch einen Tick liberaler, und so gar nicht konservativ) - das macht die Sache interessant. Breitbart war kein Intellektueller, aber er war ein Macher und ein Experte im Medienbetrieb, der am Ende seines, leider zu kurzen Lebens, den Durchblick hatte über die Mechanismen, die unsere aktuelle Kultur und Politik beeinflussen. Deutschland ist letztlich nur ein Abbild der USA, darum ist dieses Buch auch hierzulande wichtig.Man muss froh sein über das Lebenswerk eines Andrew Breitbart und jeder Mensch, der politisch etwas bewegen will ist gut beraten, sich mit seinen Einsichten zu beschäftigen.Politischen Erfolg zementiert man in den Medien, zur Not mit eigenen Portalen. Erfolgreiche Politiker sind Medienprofis und sie müssen Plattformen haben, um die Massen zu erreichen. Das ist die Botschaft von Andrew Breitbart und dies sollte jeder verstanden haben. Das muss vor allem die Gegenbewegung zum linken Establishment heute konsequenter berücksichtigen.

Anglophones, ce livre revele les ficelles de la creation du 'fake news' ainsi que la transformation d'un journaliste liberale progressivement degoute pas les media corrumpus. Breitbart (du site web homonyme) est decede tres jeune -- affaire a suivre! Ce livre est une bombe.

Really good book. I kind of liked critical theory while I was university but I knew something about it wasnb't right and I have Andrew Breitbart to thank for showing what an absolute crock it is. If you want sociological insight into how the left has taken over read it.

I was fascinated by this fantastic insight of how Andrew Breitbart came from being a quite lazy, unproducive and sheep-minded young leftist to one of the driving forces behind the creation of the really independent "new media", which does an invaluable service today for the otherwise uneducated and brainwashed masses. I was impressed to read how Breitbart as a valid and highly valuable media outlet bravely countering the leftist/liberal controlled mainstream media of the political and cultural establishment in the Western World. The events leading up to the US presidential election made it quite clear for every sane and aware individual following that disgraceful process that the so called "legacy media" can in no way be trusted anymore - which is true for both sides of the Atlantic - and so I am deeply grateful to Andrew Breitbart's trailblazing work carried on by many committed, forthright and outright brilliant individuals. Thank you, Andrew, for your monumental Legacy, of which this awesome read is definitely part. Rest in Peace, fellow crusader for truth and freedom!!

An extremely insightful examination into the degree of media thought insemination that plagues America. A particularly relevant perspective as Breitbart goes onto discuss the future direction and importance of an ever growing Internet media base.