Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 104

On February 18 2019 12:53 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think any western country is close to being 'there' though.

You don't think initiating a false national emergency for a border wall is fascistic? What is it then? (Without taking the easy way out and calling it mere stupidity.)

What about Orban's Hungary? Erdogan's Turkey? Bolsonaro's Brazil? Not close?

I agree with Drone on this one-the alt right is not seriously big atm. Although it expresses nazi ideology, there are far more violent groups in society, namely our capitalist overlords-their violence just from exploiting the war in congo and the war in Iraq/afghanistan still massively outweighs the alt-right. I agree that it should be dealt with pre-emptively, but through education and offering them more constructive ways to be politically active. If you look at the far right there is actually some sympathy to be had for their members, nothing that they are doing is helping themselves or others, they are a completely self destructive movement from what i can see-right now, a big part of it is a reaction to the rotten system. Many of them identify themselves as 'beta males', basically people who are at the bottom of the heap. We'll i could see at least some of those members taking alternative constructive action in politics if it was offered to them-and they should have a voice in politics. I just don't see the point in using violence right now, particularly since the alt right isn't a very violent movement atm, from what i've seen.

On February 18 2019 19:51 Loco wrote: Show nested quote + On February 18 2019 12:53 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think any western country is close to being 'there' though. You don't think initiating a false national emergency for a border wall is fascistic? What is it then? (Without taking the easy way out and calling it mere stupidity.) What about Orban's Hungary? Erdogan's Turkey? Bolsonaro's Brazil? Not close?

None of those are at all close to nazi germany. Some display strong fascist tendencies. I think it's fair to say that Trump is fascist~ish, but saying he is like Hitler is a wholly different matter - and completely wrong. Also Hungary is the only country out of those I'd define as western.

On February 18 2019 11:41 Spitfiree wrote: We all admire non-violence movements that provoke our thoughts and force society into change, but when you think about it you can't oppose a nazi-like movement without violence. They are just going to slaughter anyone in their way regardless.

I'm perfectly fine with violence as a defense, just not for political reasons, I'll leave that for the Breivicks, Locos and the rest of the deluded maniacs of this world.

I watched that video

The idea that liberal socities allow for people to use free speech for propaganda is true, it is capitalists that have taken advantage of this, edward bernays points this out in his article engineering of consent:

"FREEDOM of speech and its democratic corollary, a free press, have tacitly expanded our Bill of Rights to include the right of persuasion. This development was an inevitable result of the expansion of the media of free speech and persuasion, denned in other articles in this volume. All these media provide open doors to the public mind. Any one of us through these media may influence the attitude.", -edward bernays

the alt right to a much lesser extent have used the media to express their ideas. The idea that liberal societies have a tendency to slip towards facism because of free speech seems ridiculous to me. Yes fascists can get some media support from the capitalists, but I don't think that helps them much, unless it is under certain conditions where no rational answer is given to socities problems. So yes, if the media ignore's everything that is important to ordinary people, virtually everything from the articulate left-, facist ideas will appeal to some, because it's the only answer they are getting. If the New York Times didn't black list Noam Chomsky or sack Chris Hedges for opposing the Iraq War, then there would be very little risk of falling towards facism. The video's assertion that capitalists prefer facists over the left seems very true to me.

The problem is not over freedom of speech, it should be obvious that it should exist as a permanent right. The problem is media ownership and concentration, and power that advertisers have. The political economy of the media in general. There are numerous solutions to this. One is to give $200 to everyone in the country to give to their choice of media outlet-this would give them choice in what to read, another is to simply socialize ownership of the media. But this is treated as some batshit leftist idea, for some reason the bourgousie would rather have rupert murdoch, ect, running it.

I actually kind of agree to a large extent with the economic 'rational person' model. I mean it's uses are for thereotical purposes. For some reason this gets critiqued very harshly, but it makes sense to think of people as at least somewhat rational-after all there is an entire industry (prublic relations) devoted to making people irrational. Without this industry, the model wouldn't be half bad. of course it will always be flawed.

On February 13 2019 18:33 NMcNasty wrote: Seemingly basic moral question to anyone: Say you're pretty sure that a leader of a foreign nation has murdered someone, a civilian. The leader didn't necessarily do the deed themselves but the evidence is pretty damning that they at least ordered it. You can't be 100% sure, but its looking bad, say 97%. Do you still: 1. Shake hands with that leader 2. Trade with that leader's nation 3. provide military assistance to that leader/nation (which is most likely mutually beneficial) 4. allow your country to complete in the Olympics when that leader hosts side questions: 5. Does it matter what type of civilian it is (journalist, prostitute, religious leader) 6. Does it matter where that civilian is actually from ------------- The more I think about it the more I feel like the answer to all six question is no, even though the status quo answer to all six questions seems to be yes. The trickiest one I think is 2 going back to the argument Baal and Loco were having about sanctions essentially causing starvation. If you refuse to trade, there should at least be some sort of secondary plan to ensure an inflow of food/medicine to a country that needs it.

You probably don't realize it since-to me at least-, you seem very brainwashed with the imperialist idea of exceptionalism, but you're basically arguing that no one should shake hands with any US president, and we should bar America from the olympics, and never support their military. nor their economy. Finally we can agree on something.

Of course it does not matter what type of civilian it is or where they are from, if you are liberal.

On February 19 2019 01:06 Stroggoz wrote: I watched that video The idea that liberal socities allow for people to use free speech for propaganda is true, it is capitalists that have taken advantage of this, edward bernays points this out in his article engineering of consent: "FREEDOM of speech and its democratic corollary, a free press, have tacitly expanded our Bill of Rights to include the right of persuasion. This development was an inevitable result of the expansion of the media of free speech and persuasion, denned in other articles in this volume. All these media provide open doors to the public mind. Any one of us through these media may influence the attitude.", -edward bernays the alt right to a much lesser extent have used the media to express their ideas. The idea that liberal societies have a tendency to slip towards facism because of free speech seems ridiculous to me. Yes fascists can get some media support from the capitalists, but I don't think that helps them much, unless it is under certain conditions where no rational answer is given to socities problems. So yes, if the media ignore's everything that is important to ordinary people, virtually everything from the articulate left-, facist ideas will appeal to some, because it's the only answer they are getting. If the New York Times didn't black list Noam Chomsky or sack Chris Hedges for opposing the Iraq War, then there would be very little risk of falling towards facism. The video's assertion that capitalists prefer facists over the left seems very true to me. The problem is not over freedom of speech, it should be obvious that it should exist as a permanent right. The problem is media ownership and concentration, and power that advertisers have. The political economy of the media in general. There are numerous solutions to this. One is to give $200 to everyone in the country to give to their choice of media outlet-this would give them choice in what to read, another is to simply socialize ownership of the media. But this is treated as some batshit leftist idea, for some reason the bourgousie would rather have rupert murdoch, ect, running it. I actually kind of agree to a large extent with the economic 'rational person' model. I mean it's uses are for thereotical purposes. For some reason this gets critiqued very harshly, but it makes sense to think of people as at least somewhat rational-after all there is an entire industry (prublic relations) devoted to making people irrational. Without this industry, the model wouldn't be half bad. of course it will always be flawed.

It's pretty telling to me that for every country I know with public broadcasting, that tends to be one of if not the highest quality outlet. (NRK in norway, BBC in England, SVT in Sweden, and even NPR in the US).

I mean, I wouldn't trust a new, Trump-backed government funded media outlet, and there are a handful of instances of unacceptable errors from the outlets I mentioned as good (which in some ways becomes a bigger problem when government funded than when privately owned as it deteriorates societal 'trust' at a more fundamental level), so in one way, I understand the principles behind opposition. You certainly can't have public broadcasting without good mechanisms for independent/non-partisan evaluation of how it reports on issues. It's just, when media has to compete for viewership or readers, that seems to, on average, corrupt the presentation in much more significant ways. All the aforementioned public broadcasting services are very serious about providing free educational content for its readers/viewers.

Just one more example of desire for profit being a corrupting factor imo. I mean, I by no means want the government to have some form of monopoly, of course, private actors are an important element in keeping public outlets honest, but.. My experience is still that there's a negative relationship between desire for profit / cut-throat margins / production of good, investigative journalism/educational content, and a positive relationship between 'does not have to really care about profit' / production of good, investigative journalism / educational content.

On February 19 2019 01:06 Stroggoz wrote: I actually kind of agree to a large extent with the economic 'rational person' model. I mean it's uses are for thereotical purposes. For some reason this gets critiqued very harshly, but it makes sense to think of people as at least somewhat rational-after all there is an entire industry (prublic relations) devoted to making people irrational. Without this industry, the model wouldn't be half bad. of course it will always be flawed.

They're not making people irrational, as in, they are not transforming rational beings into irrational beings... they are tapping into an irrationality that is built-in, for their own advantage. The field of behavioral economics has served to demonstrate that beyond the shadow of a doubt, we are not 'rational man', largely by looking at an array of biases. Just reading Kahneman would disabuse you of this foolish notion. It's something continental philosophers have known from Schopenhauer onward. Bernays first needed Freud's understanding of the unconscious in order to "get to work", which Freud developed from Schopenhauer. The existentialists knew this too, beginning with Dostoevsky. Edgar Morin developed from Dostoevsky the notion of homo demens (mad man), which is complementary and antagonistic to homo sapiens (rational man). We typically go from one pole to the other, from one moment to the next, and those who stay in either extremes become dangerous. Georges Bataille probably takes it the furthest in "The Accursed Share" with his theory of consumption. The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio also has some very important contributions on this topic.

Speaking of 'mad man' ... Trump randomly announced that he wants a regime change in Nicaragua and Cuba. He presented this like it was just a P.S. at the end of a letter. Like, might as well now that everyone knows we're doing this in Venezuela and the majority doesn't care. Trump said, and I quote, “Socialism by its very nature does not respect borders. It does not respect the boundaries or the sovereign rights of its citizens or its neighbors. It’s always seeking to expand, to encroach, and subjugate others to its will.” ...........

On February 19 2019 09:39 Liquid`Drone wrote: It's pretty telling to me that for every country I know with public broadcasting, that tends to be one of if not the highest quality outlet. (NRK in norway, BBC in England, SVT in Sweden, and even NPR in the US). I mean, I wouldn't trust a new, Trump-backed government funded media outlet, and there are a handful of instances of unacceptable errors from the outlets I mentioned as good (which in some ways becomes a bigger problem when government funded than when privately owned as it deteriorates societal 'trust' at a more fundamental level), so in one way, I understand the principles behind opposition. You certainly can't have public broadcasting without good mechanisms for independent/non-partisan evaluation of how it reports on issues. It's just, when media has to compete for viewership or readers, that seems to, on average, corrupt the presentation in much more significant ways. All the aforementioned public broadcasting services are very serious about providing free educational content for its readers/viewers. Just one more example of desire for profit being a corrupting factor imo. I mean, I by no means want the government to have some form of monopoly, of course, private actors are an important element in keeping public outlets honest, but.. My experience is still that there's a negative relationship between desire for profit / cut-throat margins / production of good, investigative journalism/educational content, and a positive relationship between 'does not have to really care about profit' / production of good, investigative journalism / educational content.

I think media is going through a particularly bad time since old media is slowly dying yet trying to adapt to modern times but it is true that the profit-driven media will try to maximize returns by trying to sell and not inform.

I think those problems are smaller than the problems of state-run media opens, like using it for propaganda or silencing them when it suits their needs like exposing some corruption scandal etc.

The BBC is good (dont know the others you mentioned but ill take your word) but look at countries with totalitarian bad governments, then they monsters, I rather not give the state the potential to use such a weapon and rather deal with the breitbarts and buzzfeeds.



The more we talk about this I think our experiences with our governments shape our positions a lot, obviously you Drone coming from an ultra-civil country you dont share the same deep distrust I have for the state so we both have distorted views of threats and safety.

I slightly misphrased, I see it kinda reads like I also approve of the north korean propaganda channel. meant more like 'countries where I'm familiar with both the public and the private media outlets' rather than 'every country I know with public broadcasting'. Not that it seemed like you misinterpreted me, but worth clarifying.

https://www.out.com/news-opinion/2019...alize-homosexuality-old-racist-tactic

really activates the almonds

On February 14 2019 00:25 Spitfiree wrote: Show nested quote + On February 12 2019 17:24 RiKD wrote: + Show Spoiler +   On February 12 2019 01:14 Loco wrote: That is certainly a definition of Beastmode. Some real life GoT shit. How do you say Go Yellow Jackets in French? Go Yellow Jackets???? How fucking dumb of a statement is that. After my last argument with Loco on the topic, I read about the yellow jacket's origin. They were mostly people that have been fed up with the status quo for years, which is understandable. It also explains why that type of a movement progressed into a complete farce with ridiculous demands led by people that are either clueless or have different agenda. At this point the "yellow jackets" that go protest are mostly "hitchhikers" of the movement that go out for the violence. That police should've beaten the shit out of that guy. There are not many countries that would treat the situation this way, and I'd say France's government has been doing everything in their power to handle it as peacefully as possible. It has been going for months, the violence is completely unjustified. Five hundred kilometers more to the East and those people would've been sprayed with water, gassed or beaten the shit out of. I would not be surprised if Russia has a deep hand in the whole thing And the actually funny part of the whole shit is that Macron was trying to fix the country for them. Except now he s just going to be just another reactive(rather than proactive) president of France that's not gonna do shit. P.S. inbefore someone posts a dumb gif with police brutality, no fucking shit there are rotten apple in the police as well, there are ways to deal with such kind of policemen

"Aller Gilet juanes!" is better than the lower classes sitting at home watching Paris St. Germain cheering on Neymar in Nikes, drinking Coca-Cola, eating McDonalds, losing all their money on Unibet while striving to wear Hugo Boss (all PSG sponsors).

How do you know it's a farce?

Ridiculous demands are typically just an example of good negotiating. Do you have evidence that most of the people going out are "hitchhikers" of the movement looking for violence? No Movement will be perfect. Organizing a bunch of different people can get a bit edgy or even roughhouse at times but if the group is organized around an important primary purpose things will move forward.

....... Here come the Russian conspiracies..........................

I don't know enough about French politics but that is the first I have heard of that Macron was actually trying to fix the country for le classe inférieure. From my perspective it was all a front to pacify le classe inférieure so le élite riche could siphon tout le fric (CAPITAL, all of it). The clueless bourgeoisie holds the fort down by buying le élite riche merde in the form of material items and conventional values/wisdom.

Just the same old right-wing narrative around this piece, which does not have a controversial line in it as far as I can tell.

"They hate him so much they can't see that he can do good things! Look at how far they have to bend reality to suit their narrative! They don't even think that he cares about gay people around the world! They just desperately want to believe that everything he does is self-interested!"


---------------------

"BBC is the highest quality outlet"

I dare you to go watch "The War You Don't See", or at least go to 33:00 mins and watch a couple minutes, and come back and tell me about how great the BBC was leading to and during the Iraq War.






Is the BBC reporting on this right now? Or anything close to it? No, they are doing the same as with the Iraq war, because that's what they do.

By at least one Guardian account, since the exit of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2013, enforcement of anti-gay laws has softened somewhat. Homosexuality, according to the writer, is an “open secret” and most queer people fear homophobic reaction from fellow citizens more than the authorities.

iranian theocracy is a good boy, didn't do anything wrong. the real problem is toxic masculinity, iranians are too macho to treat gay people as equals. drumpf should outlaw that instead.

I read the guardian article. It's convincing, I have no reason to doubt its veracity. From the way that it paints gay life in Iran right now, according to people who live there, it's better than it is in Brasil by a long shot. Remind me what Trump and his administration think of Brasil's homophobic leader again? You know, the place that is reported to have the highest LGBT murder rate in the world? Oh, right, they praise him.

both RT and BBC are massive propaganda agencies. One is favourable to the british establishment, the other is favourable to Putin and the russian establishment.

'Socialized' model means the media is owned and run by it's journalists. Now you can get bad journalists and good ones running their own media. John Pilger is part of a network of dissident intellectuals on the left that have been suppressed from the corporate media throughout their entire lives. Their articles get posted on various independent media outlets like counterpunch, zmag, ect. I probably learn't more about the vietnam war from Pilger than anyone else, it's shocking when you compare his perspective on that war with the one that is taught in school.

As for government owned media, it is not to be trusted but it typically has better standards than the private media if it has a public service role, however a lot of government owned media has a corporate structure similar to privately owned media, meaning they are very similar-they both pursue profit the only difference is profit goes to the government instead of shareholders. And of course if the media is owned by a totalitarian government like Russia Today is, it's going to be blatently biased.

In any case, it's not a choice between private media and government media as you say baal, there is the 3rd choice of socialism; (media run by the journalists and people who work in it), there are plenty examples of good media running on socialistic production methods.

On February 18 2019 21:26 Stroggoz wrote: I agree with Drone on this one-the alt right is not seriously big atm. Although it expresses nazi ideology, there are far more violent groups in society, namely our capitalist overlords-their violence just from exploiting the war in congo and the war in Iraq/afghanistan still massively outweighs the alt-right.

I wasn't going to respond to this post because I feel I've already refuted the relevant points, and because it's just infuriating to me that you fall for this kind of either/or logic. (Chris Hedges does too in his interview with Mark Bray). I'm responding now because I just saw this quote being posted on reddit and I know that you can appreciate it.

“But the point is, if things ever come to a crunch in the United States, this massive part of the population - I think it’s something like a third of the adult population by now - could be the basis for some kind of a fascist movement, readily. For example, if the country sinks deeply into a recession, a depoliticized population could very easily be mobilized into thinking that it’s somebody else’s fault: "Why are our lives collapsing? There have to bad guys out there doing something for things to be going so badly” - and the bad guys can be Jews, or homosexuals, or blacks, or Communists, whatever you pick. If you can whip people into irrational frenzies like that, they can be extremely dangerous: that’s what 1930’s fascism came from, and something like that could very easily happen here."
Understanding Power (1989) - Noam Chomsky

They are not disconnected issues, they co-arise, and they both are not a future threat, but an immediate one. There is a rift between those who have accurately assessed the situation, who understand that the contradictions of capitalism are the root issue, and those who don't and who lash out against an identified scapegoat. These people are not just planning to harm people once they are in power -- they already are, and the harm has been increasing. Their victims have to defend themselves, and we have to support them in however way we can if we have any integrity. It's not by saying "oh these alt-right guys are not a threat, look elsewhere for the real problem" that you do so. First of all, the far-right isn't small, they have a fucking president. Secondly, even if it were, the historical evidence shows that we should nip fascism in the bud, because we can never know what small group will become a large one, and once it happens, it's all too late.

Vaguely talking about education as a solution isn't helpful either. The education system is structured similarly to the media; it serves capital and it will resist the reforms that threaten it. Another thing that Chomsky points out and which should be obvious to everyone is that you don't have time to be informed when you're dealing with precarious job situations or you're a student with a lot of debt. "When you trap people into a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think, and they are unlikely to try to change the system". If people are unlikely to try to change things, then all that's left is to protect the most vulnerable until that changes.

On February 19 2019 19:16 Loco wrote: Show nested quote + On February 19 2019 01:06 Stroggoz wrote: I actually kind of agree to a large extent with the economic 'rational person' model. I mean it's uses are for thereotical purposes. For some reason this gets critiqued very harshly, but it makes sense to think of people as at least somewhat rational-after all there is an entire industry (prublic relations) devoted to making people irrational. Without this industry, the model wouldn't be half bad. of course it will always be flawed. They're not making people irrational, as in, they are not transforming rational beings into irrational beings... they are tapping into an irrationality that is built-in, for their own advantage. The field of behavioral economics has served to demonstrate that beyond the shadow of a doubt, we are not 'rational man', largely by looking at an array of biases. Just reading Kahneman would disabuse you of this foolish notion. It's something continental philosophers have known from Schopenhauer onward. Bernays first needed Freud's understanding of the unconscious in order to "get to work", which Freud developed from Schopenhauer. The existentialists knew this too, beginning with Dostoevsky. Edgar Morin developed from Dostoevsky the notion of homo demens (mad man), which is complementary and antagonistic to homo sapiens (rational man). We typically go from one pole to the other, from one moment to the next, and those who stay in either extremes become dangerous. Georges Bataille probably takes it the furthest in "The Accursed Share" with his theory of consumption. The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio also has some very important contributions on this topic.

That's what i meant when i said 'making people irrational', it's really obnoxious when you point out stuff like that i obviously know about or meant. No, the research doesn't show that people are irrational, just that we are capable of doing irrational things, particularly under certain ciricumstances. The concept in economics is not meant to be taken literally, it's an abstract model. It's like taking concepts in physics like perfectly frictionless slopes literally and saying that's how the world is.

On February 20 2019 20:27 Stroggoz wrote: both RT and BBC are massive propaganda agencies. One is favourable to the british establishment, the other is favourable to Putin and the russian establishment.

For the people who are not too quick, you posting this makes it look like you are discrediting my Pilger clip because it's from RT. So let me point out that I in no way support RT, I don't get any of my news from them, but I support the point that was made by Pilger in that interview. RT has given more freedom to its journalists in the past than the BBC, and there were several good programs, but it's really shit now, they basically only have Hedges and Camp doing good work there.