SCFZ

Unholymanm wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:44 pm"GIVING A VOICE TO [bad/stupid/annoying/racist people]"

yeah, bipartisanship has become an excuse to accept that some people believe 2 + 2 = 5, and that's ok cuz differences of opinion are fun! no different than how freedumb has become an excuse for some to say 'the grass is blue and the sky is green and that's my opinion and the first amendment entitles me to it!' would love to see some gutsy politician get up on a debate stage and just straight up say 'no you're wrong so you're either lying or ignorant or misinformed, and here's decades worth of data that backs me up and proves you wrong'

of course, that never happens, and so we sit around debating trickle down economics like that shit hasn't been debunked for decades...

kanafani wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 8:33 pm This goes way beyond some kind of bias for objective truth and facts. There is an inherent ideological bias in big media. They largely parrot the status quo (and thus preserve it) instead of questioning it. They do it because it is profitable and advances the careers of many. Ambitious people who work in these institutions know what is safe to say and what is unwise to say, what gets you a promotion and a good yearly review and what makes you a pariah. No need for overt censorship, the censorship is internalized. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but I don't think there's any serious way to escape this fact. And to say that none of this matters and we should ignore it (I don't mean you, Flip) is lunacy.

i've read bagdikian, chomsky and herman, postman, etc. i agree with arguments that there is systemic bias in journalism to preserve a status quo in a certain range of policy areas, the ones that ensure corporate owners can profit. as i think chomsky points out though, there's a lot of freedom outside of those areas, and that's important.

but you seem to think there's some inherent issue when cnn or nbc commentators support democrats. especially when the audience is aware of it, there's nothing wrong with journalists having opinions (and the 'alternative media' people gravitate to when they decide the mainstream media is biased is invariably just as opinionated, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone). some opinionated journalists are propagandists. most are not.

it's a fine line i guess

1. i mean, does obama rly support democracy? democracy in the usa is a joke. obama didn't do anything to restore it
2. my argument is that both parties are extremely right-wing. saying "one of the extreme right-wing parties is in favour of letting ppl choose b/w the two extremely right-wing parties" does not convince me of anything
3. democracy sucks anyway, especially when it's a vote of like 330 million ppl? local democracy, ok that could be cool. national democracy in america? nah. anyway trump won democratically

obama is not hitler or mussolini. he is not a dictator, he does not demonize minorities within the country. i accept that he is less fascist than those blokes

however, i don't understand what sending in a national police force to quell protests fighting for racial equality can possibly be considered, if not a fascist act

ok, sure, obama is not a fascist, he just does fascist things sometimes

what's the difference?

SAD_SCROOGE wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:13 pm
however, i don't understand what sending in a national police force to quell protests fighting for racial equality can possibly be considered, if not a fascist act

i'd say that's a pretty classically neo-liberal move, i.e. holding the protection of private property over all other considerations.

flip wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:09 pm but you seem to think there's some inherent issue when cnn or nbc commentators support democrats. especially when the audience is aware of it, there's nothing wrong with journalists having opinions (and the 'alternative media' people gravitate to when they decide the mainstream media is biased is invariably just as opinionated, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone). some opinionated journalists are propagandists. most are not.

The inherent issue is that the range of allowed opinions is restricted and policed. They don’t support just any democrat, they support corporate/mainstream democrats, and are by and large hostile to anything that contests the status quo, even when it comes from people that are generally seen as operating on the left wing of the Democratic Party. See coverage of Bernie sanders for example. And the issue is not restricted to anchors/journalists who formulate opinions/commentary versus those who just ‘report the facts’. This reality permeates both groups. Just watch any five-minute segment from a defense/national security correspondent like Barbara Starr or some one like that - they just report talking points handed to them by the pentagon with no push back or reflection. Pure propaganda.

If these entities (cnn, nytimes, fox, msnbc, but also Twitter, Facebook, etc) were just one player among a wide host or range of possibilities, then fine. But so much money, power and influence is concentrated in their hands that they can effectively close off the range of possibilities. Alternative media (which is not inherently good, not at all, but that’s a different subject) only has a fraction of the power those networks and corporations have.

So just brushing this off as ‘people are entitled to their opinion’ is not convincing. Not when a whole range of opinions is actively silenced.

A lot of hard-hitting journalism from cnn today. This guy is the White House correspondent, so we know what to expect going forward.

https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status ... 3205932032

Mr Obama sent FBI agents along with his attorney general to help Ferguson police quell the unrest and investigate the shooting that sparked it all.

this is not fascism and the democrats wouldnt be considered extremely right-wing or right-wing at all anywhere unless only compared to the most left-wing

kanafani wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:31 amThis guy

i’m confused by his use of > is he saying all the things on the left are greater than the things on the right?

It's not a carat, it'/s part of an arrow. One is being replaced by another.

thoxans wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 1:08 am

kanafani wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:31 amThis guy

i’m confused by his use of > is he saying all the things on the left are greater than the things on the right?

Run it through python, see what you get!

https://twitter.com/rmc031/status/13520 ... 93863?s=20

some not terrible things could happen too

sorry

Who's Rachel Cohen? Does the fact that she considers those people "top sources" (of information, I presume) tell us ANYTHING about their values or policy positions? Is hers a meaningful comment or white noise?

FLABREZU wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 1:06 am

Mr Obama sent FBI agents along with his attorney general to help Ferguson police quell the unrest and investigate the shooting that sparked it all.

this is not fascism and the democrats wouldnt be considered extremely right-wing or right-wing at all anywhere unless only compared to the most left-wing

True. Except for parts of Latin America, Africa, the middle East, and Central and South Asia I guess

nrh wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:19 pm

SAD_SCROOGE wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:13 pm
however, i don't understand what sending in a national police force to quell protests fighting for racial equality can possibly be considered, if not a fascist act

i'd say that's a pretty classically neo-liberal move, i.e. holding the protection of private property over all other considerations.

If you're saying that neoliberal policy is often a conduit for fascism, I agree!

Lencho of the Apes wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:30 am Who's Rachel Cohen? Does the fact that she considers those people "top sources" (of information, I presume) tell us ANYTHING about their values or policy positions? Is hers a meaningful comment or white noise?

dunno but she writes for the intercept, i thought that was leftist lol. https://theintercept.com/staff/rachel-m-cohen/

i give up, everything remains terrible. i forgot we're rooting for collapse here. cognitive dissonance for me. sorry i interfered

https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/135 ... 39201?s=20

even i think putting a bust of cesar chavez behind his desk is kind of cringe and what the fascists call 'virtue signaling.'

i'll try to stop hoping for the best but i may need re education camp or to toss my anti-depressants we might have to go on strike soon if we want to keep our healthcare

How likely is it that Trump starts his own (even more fascist) party?

I know a lot of people would say "great, that'll split the votes and make it harder for Republicans to win an election in their own right for a long time", but don't be too happy about that. It wouldn't make things better, it just makes every party move even further to the right. It happened here in Australia in the 1990s. The conservative party expelled one of its members for making some highly inflammatory racist comments. Well, that expelled member went on to form her own party of looney right wing fringe dwellers. Then, to survive politically, the conservative party that had expelled her quickly began moving further to the right and adopting some of her policies in a struggle to win some of the extreme right wing voters that it had started losing to her new party.

And then, even the centrist (formerly slightly leftist) main opposition party moved a bit more to the right, too, in order to not alienate itself from a political climate that had settled on the nation, all because of the formation of this new racist, looney, conspiracy-theory subscribing party. What the media now considers to be the "centre" is now somewhere in the far right compared to where the centre was 30 years ago.

pabs we don't want things to get better, we're rooting for imminent collapse! get with the program

i solemnly swear to butt out of this doom & gloom thread at midnight on inauguration day (one hour from now)

kanafani wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:28 pm

flip wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:09 pm but you seem to think there's some inherent issue when cnn or nbc commentators support democrats. especially when the audience is aware of it, there's nothing wrong with journalists having opinions (and the 'alternative media' people gravitate to when they decide the mainstream media is biased is invariably just as opinionated, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone). some opinionated journalists are propagandists. most are not.

The inherent issue is that the range of allowed opinions is restricted and policed. They don’t support just any democrat, they support corporate/mainstream democrats, and are by and large hostile to anything that contests the status quo, even when it comes from people that are generally seen as operating on the left wing of the Democratic Party. See coverage of Bernie sanders for example. And the issue is not restricted to anchors/journalists who formulate opinions/commentary versus those who just ‘report the facts’. This reality permeates both groups. Just watch any five-minute segment from a defense/national security correspondent like Barbara Starr or some one like that - they just report talking points handed to them by the pentagon with no push back or reflection. Pure propaganda.

If these entities (cnn, nytimes, fox, msnbc, but also Twitter, Facebook, etc) were just one player among a wide host or range of possibilities, then fine. But so much money, power and influence is concentrated in their hands that they can effectively close off the range of possibilities. Alternative media (which is not inherently good, not at all, but that’s a different subject) only has a fraction of the power those networks and corporations have.

So just brushing this off as ‘people are entitled to their opinion’ is not convincing. Not when a whole range of opinions is actively silenced.

i know i'm dumb but isn't this still 1000 times better than the era of 3 big networks and pbs (the only news i ever watched back in the day)? the internet is giving a platform to every possible viewpoint. that some of them can't get corporate sponsorship isn't ideal i guess but it isn't surprising. being mad about everything all the time isn't something i can sustain for my mental health. i already get mad about politics far too much lol. i guess i'll remain a clueless centrist

my biggest concern now is not turning the page on this and letting Rs distance themselves from trump. we can't expect unity between neo-nazis and the people they want to exterminate. the last couple of weeks revealed just how close to the brink we are and we have to deal with it, first of all by making those motherfuckers pay

https://twitter.com/CarolLeonnig/status ... 97921?s=20

sorry again for having so many feelings today and thx for giving me this space to express them.

You weren't wrong Rischka, it's just that there are like half a dozen different arguments being sorta made in the thread, but not being really pieced together into anything coherent, just different ideas, most of which pretty much everyone here seems to agree on to large degree, being wielded as claims of opposition against something that isn't really being said.

SAD_SCROOGE wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 4:47 am

FLABREZU wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 1:06 am

Mr Obama sent FBI agents along with his attorney general to help Ferguson police quell the unrest and investigate the shooting that sparked it all.

this is not fascism and the democrats wouldnt be considered extremely right-wing or right-wing at all anywhere unless only compared to the most left-wing

True. Except for parts of Latin America, Africa, the middle East, and Central and South Asia I guess

some countries leaning far-left doesnt mean that they consider anything else to be far-right particularly when plenty of other countries around them actually have right-leaning governments

rischka wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:58 am i solemnly swear

pursuing coherence and consistency is an overestimated (testosterone fueled) utopic quest.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems rule!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6de ... s_theorems
The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an effective procedure (i.e., an algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the arithmetic of natural numbers. For any such consistent formal system, there will always be statements about natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the first, shows that the system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.

i hope i won't stay here as the only self-contradicting disruptor.

greg x wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 7:24 am it's just that there are like half a dozen different arguments being sorta made in the thread, but not being really pieced together into anything coherent, just different ideas, most of which pretty much everyone here seems to agree on to large degree, being wielded as claims of opposition against something that isn't really being said.

No idea what this is supposed to mean. It’s an Internet forum, we express ideas on it. What “isn’t really being said”?

You're arguing against no one basically, at best its a matter of slight degrees of difference, not anything seriously substantial. The claims being made in the thread by various people aren't coalescing into anything, so its a constantly shifting back and forth over minimal differences in how things are being expressed primarily, where the biggest distinction appears to be mostly over cynicism vs hope/relief. It's typical leftish stuff, spending time fighting over fine points between purist ideals and constraints of reality.

I don’t know, it sounds like you’re describing an Internet forum. Someone says something, someone else replies. The range of opinions is what it is. My intent is not to argue with anyone per se, I’m just trying to express my opinion. Hell, all I did was post funny CNN shit. Making fun of rich clueless media people is supposed to be a bonding experience. Obviously I disagree with the “cynical” moniker as applied to me, I think it is colored by your own biases and worldview. I could come up with terms less flattering than “hope/relief” to characterize the camp where you largely fall, but let’s drop it!

Stop the politics! Everything is cinema!

Re: Fascism - Neither Trump nor Obama are Fascist in the traditional sense, ie totalitarian nationalism. Trump is closer as he built an image of being a strongman, scapegoated social groups and pushed nationalism/conservatism to a higher degree - including stripping trans people of their rights and attempting to ban Muslims from coming into the country. There is however many ways that Obama is Fascist-adjacent as well (listed above) but he is far more of a traditional hard to far right authoritarian as opposed to overtly pushing nationalism and conservatism - even though he still was an imperialist, American supremacist, etc.

FLABREZU wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 1:06 am

Mr Obama sent FBI agents along with his attorney general to help Ferguson police quell the unrest and investigate the shooting that sparked it all.

this is not fascism and the democrats wouldnt be considered extremely right-wing or right-wing at all anywhere unless only compared to the most left-wing

I have to take a big issue with this last remark. Democrats are, in general, to the right of every large, mainstream Conservative party almost anywhere in the world. Compare them to the Conservatives in the UK (who again are well to the right of our conservatives in Norway) - they even ran on increasing public hospitals within their National Health Service. Not even Bernie Sanders is running on a National Health Service. Bernie Sanders' policies are mostly centre-right policies from Europe - and the large majority of dems are to the right of him, not only opposing a NHS, but even opposing Universal Healthcare as a concept. These people are right wing extremists in essentially every country in the world.

Even basic principles, like codetermination (workers on the board of directors) is only pushed by a select few, like Warren, Sanders.

St. Gloede, welcome to the club of the Cynics!

Matt Dornic, Head of Strategic Comms at CNN worldwide:

https://twitter.com/mdornic/status/1352090555342270466

the people: healthcare pls?

the political class: fireworks go boom!