The Scott Thomas Beauchamp brouhaha: There's no market for first novels these days, but there's a big market for memoirs, so a variety of autobiographical fiction manuscripts have been relabeled as autobiographies: most notoriously, "A Million Little Pieces," but also, perhaps more relevantly, "Jarhead," a first Gulf War novel that got sold to the public as autobiography and made into a based-on-a-true-story movie, even though it contains a lot of old Marine lore passed off as actually happening to the narrator. (Here's my American Conservative review of "Jarhead.")
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
It's interesting to see how stupid Liberals are.
ReplyDeleteGlass wrote about a Church that worshipped G HW Bush and forbad the eating of broccoli. TNR ran it because they believed it to be true. Liberals are stupid because they are elitists, with a great social gulf between themselves and ordinary people who work for a living. Liberals have no clue about the plumber, electrician, or carpenter they hire.
I suspect the clueless Beauchamp wrote his pack of lies for a number of reasons (and it was accepted as the truth for the same): it confirmed the bigotry of the anti-Military, anti-working class elites, their social and "moral" superiority, and their desire for status.
The casual cruelty he made up (mocking the burned woman which never happened of course) probably went over like gold with his wife. Women and particularly liberal women eat that stuff up: the cruelty confirms the social status of the man in question. It's the bad-boy syndrome, women love it.
What's shocking is the lack of care the guy showed in making up his lies:
*Ignorance of firearms, Glocks are common in Iraq, everyone, terrorists, militias, IA, Police, civilians of all stripes have them, and of course there are no "square backed" ammo casings in existence. The firing pin on SOME older Glocks will make a square impression on the primer, but newer ones have round firing pins.
*Stuff that can be checked: the "mass grave" would of course be cataloged since the Military had that as a mission and you don't disobey a direct order from the Theater Commander. The burned woman (all IED injuries are medevaced ASAP out to Germany and thence the US). The Bradleys (you can't see outside the driver's view on the right because of the engine housing and vent). Humvees except in the boonies in Afghanistan and Iraq have no spares, they have run-flat tires that run 50 miles and soldiers don't change tires out in the open much less sewage, they go back to base and have a mechanic who knows what they're doing change it. [Humvees have adjustable air pressure in tires, it's really neat you can lower it for sand or mud where you need the extra traction, but it makes changing the thing a bear]
What stands out is how LAZY the guy was in making up lies. He didn't even BOTHER to make stuff up that could not be disproven, and there's plenty of colorful stuff around.
What I suspect was the guy wanted to cater to the anti-working class/military prejudice of TNR, and also get his wife and/or girlfriend hot for him all over again with tales of cruelty.
TNR is still sticking by their story, but they are screwed. At this point, it is just getting ridiculous. TNR is running out of oxygen.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Beauchamp and Frey, check out these two photoshop from Ace's (you have to see the first to get the second):
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