On The Media: Where Do You Get Your News?

[McParadigm]

Any uhh particular reason you're so worried about this? Are you too a former slaveowner who has many buildings, cities, and institutions named after him?

Come on, you know how this works. You paint the speaker as evil so people will accept it when you paint a cherish idea as evil rather than face the shame of being called a supporter of the villain.

“They’re* targeting Washington so they can lull the American public into hating democracy” is QAnon level stupidity.


*”They” in this sentence represents other Americans

Good thing no one is saying that then.

What cherished idea?

[Bi_3]

Which cherished idea do you think is currently imperiled by recognizing that Washington was a slaveowner.

Jefferson's and Madison's

I'd love for you to connect the dots for me here, with specific examples. What is the progression from recognizing Washington as a slaveowner to attacking "Jefferson's and Madison's" ideas? Which ideas? And why are they so contingent on downplaying the history of slavery in this country?

I know you know the history of the Soviets (and have read Orwell) and you are trying to play gotcha, but I'll play along for now. The idea is to "break the myth" of the culture that stand between you and your goal, and the Second Amendment is a good example to start with. It's usually defended with "They wrote it into the Bill of Right because the founding fathers feared..." or "we cannot stop it, it's in the Constitution". But if we see that document not as an imperfectly implemented set of ideals that have lead to the greatest rise in global well-being in history, but a slaver's whip held by the invisible hand, then taking out the pieces that are "problematic" won't be so hard because we can accuse the opponents of change of that most horrid of traits. The difficulty arises in how to break that belief in the ideas in the document, to cast a shadow that hides their goodness, and so we perform a cultural ad hominem. We destroy the speaker. Paint their motives as evil and self-serving. Oppressive. Sexist. Racist. Capitalist. Once we despise the person, dispensing with their ideas becomes automatic. So if we wanted to maximize state power for the goal of redistributing property, and thus need the Second gone so the racist peons can't resist, we do this by de-legitimizing the Constitution into a manifestation of the ideas of a villain that are part of what holds us back from utopian ideal. This same movie has played in China, Russia, Latin America for a long time. Conquering cultures have always attempted it because it works. So it's not about downplaying anything. It's about the motive and as you said politics is all about resources.

[Mickey]

Okay so just to simplify, we're going to call the founding fathers slaveowners whose entire lives were subsidized by human suffering they personally oversaw (true, by the way) not, you know, in order to re-assess the history of racism and oppression on which this country was quite literally founded, but in order to denaturalize the Constitution's noble idealism so that we can then cancel the second amendment in particular, so that after the far-left takes control of state power but (for some reason) retain the original constitution, they can abolish private property without the threat of armed resistance. Yeah man sounds logical and not at all paranoid, a very real threat in the face of which we should be deeply suspicious of any critique of the slaveowners whose noble ideals never quite came into serious conflict with the material basis of their privilege.

[Mickey]

This is all, of course, leaving aside the question of whether perhaps re-assessing the Constitution of 1789--and the second amendment in particular--might in fact be a good thing that needn't be paranoiacally linked to whatever Red Menace you see in every shadow but could encompass all sorts of liberal democratic goals.

[96583UP]

i agree with Bi_3 that we need to save the origin myths because without them the country will just end up some depleted pill-popper junky ripe for the taking into putin or xi's harem

[96583UP]

but the real reason i came into this thread:

Mr. Obama monitors their respective polling numbers closely — he gets privately circulated data from the Democratic National Committee — and takes pride in the fact that he has millions more Twitter followers than a president who relies on the platform far more than he does, people close to him said.

The former president devours online news, scouring The New York Times, The Washington Post and Atlantic sites on his iPad constantly, and keeps to his White House night-owl hours, sending texts and story links to friends between midnight and 2 a.m. Even during the pandemic he does not sleep late, at least on weekdays, and is often on his Peloton bike by 8 a.m., sending off a new round of texts, often about the latest Trump outrage.

[BurtReynolds]

I hate these slimy "interviews", but it's nice to see Carlson turning his dark propagandist powers on fake conservatives. 6:50 is pretty great.

[Mickey]

but the real reason i came into this thread:

Mr. Obama monitors their respective polling numbers closely — he gets privately circulated data from the Democratic National Committee — and takes pride in the fact that he has millions more Twitter followers than a president who relies on the platform far more than he does, people close to him said.

The former president devours online news, scouring The New York Times, The Washington Post and Atlantic sites on his iPad constantly, and keeps to his White House night-owl hours, sending texts and story links to friends between midnight and 2 a.m. Even during the pandemic he does not sleep late, at least on weekdays, and is often on his Peloton bike by 8 a.m., sending off a new round of texts, often about the latest Trump outrage.

Sorry but this is insanely fucking cucked energy.

[96583UP]

he's just letting Biden get first dibs on it, then he will come in with the finishing blow

[elliseamos]

he's just letting Biden get first dibs on it, then he will come in with the finishing blow

But when does he smoke his first cigarette of the day?

[96583UP]

he's just letting Biden get first dibs on it, then he will come in with the finishing blow

But when does he smoke his first cigarette of the day?

while he is riding the peloton

[Mickey]

Of course the real Obama news from today is that he's telling everyone Michelle had a ghostwriter.

[Mickey]

[96583UP]

haha yes i saw that. just couldn't help but still be the best

[BurtReynolds]

Carlson is just too dominant.

[Bi_3]

Speaking of Carlson:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/media/tu ... index.html

[elliseamos]

Is it any wonder that someone writing for his show would behave in such a way?


*previously auto-typed "who"

[blueviper]

I don’t think it’s a bad comment. I don’t think he’s criticizing his wife either. It’s hard to get context from the written word. For all we know he could have been smiling while saying it , like it was more a jest or something.

The one thing that I don’t like is the twitter person’s “dick” comment. Personally, I hate using swear words or other words like “dick” to make comments. I may use them here from time to time but it’s more of a limited forum. If I used twitter I’d use cleaner language to get my point across. It seems like a lot of twitter uses those words to get attention but it looks very immature/amateur in the end. She defeats the whole purpose of her post with it.

Heh, then later in her feed... “blocked that asshole”

IT’s like 1984. Every little thing you do or say is scrutinized. And not by Big Brother, but the people around you.

[Bi_3]

Is it any wonder that someone writing for his show who behave in such a way?

I have never seen a single episode of that program, nor will I, but I assume not.

IT’s like 1984. Every little thing you do or say is scrutinized. And not by Big Brother, but the people around you.

Words are violence. And silence is violence. Basically your existence is violence. Choose accordingly.

[elliseamos]

Is it any wonder that someone writing for his show who behave in such a way?

I have never seen a single episode of that program, nor will I, but I assume not.

IT’s like 1984. Every little thing you do or say is scrutinized. And not by Big Brother, but the people around you.

Words are violence. And silence is violence. Basically your existence is violence. Choose accordingly.

but Bush told me there's no sex in your violence, and without reproduction there's no existence, so...