by liberal japonicus
A very minimal post to discuss whether the NYT is propaganda or not, which popped up in the open thread here and here. To reference my comment, propaganda has to partake of Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit. This is not to say that the NYT can be full of crap, but the intentionality that is needed for propaganda is not there. Take it away.
if the NYT is propaganda, then all newspapers must be.
all media outlets must be.
ObWi must be.
i must be.
Not to mention synagogues, churches, mosques, temples, etc.
–TP
durig the bill keller / judith miller days, arguably propaganda, although i’d say that was more a matter of the mix of personalities making them vulnerable to being exploited by others.
a propaganda organ, rather than a source.
these days, not really. they have a point of view, and they operate within a particular ethos and culture, like everybody else. not the same as propaganda.
also fwiw, usa today is actually a not-bad source of news. the writing style is pitched to a different audience than that of the NYT, but I find them reasonably accurate and even-handed.
This was about my contention, but I am going to pop in and out.
My contention is that the NYT on foreign policy has a centrist liberal bias and it permeates what they write, both in the news and in the opinion section and in that nebulous category of analysis (which is basically an editorial masquerading as analysis.) I have thought this for decades. My guess is that there is an ethos at the NYT and people know how stories are supposed to be written. They just do it automatically. In some cases I think they have to be conscious of what they are doing, but it is generally going to be impossible to say for sure. Certainly in the internet era they receive a lot of pushback from readers (some from me), so they know what some of us think about what they do. (In one case, on the I-P conflict, I even think I saw a tiny effect of something I complained about in a story. But it wasn’t lasting.)
Here is an example of bias–
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/americas/what-happens-when-you-fight-a-deep-state-that-doesnt-exist.html?_r=0
I think the “deep state” concept is oversimplified and lends itself to caricature, but the NYT in this piece mixes everything into the pot, just as Bannon would do but from the opposite viewpoint. It is one thing to accuse judges and regulators at the EPA of being part of a “Deep State”–that’s idiotic. It is not so obviously crazy to see the intelligence agencies in the same way. Just a few years ago they were spying on Democrats who were doing an investigation into the torture policies of the CIA. Somebody, maybe Clapper, but I forget, lied to Congress about it. Apparently the NYT doesn’t think this is relevant to mention. Instead, because the story is meant to prove a thesis, we get the mirror image of what the Trumpists would say.
And it is also clear that people within the Beltway are pushing back hard against Trump in favor of a new Cold War with Russia. You don’t have to trust Trump or his motives to think this. His motives could easily be due to some form of corruption or some bizarre Putin worship or a combination of things or he might really believe it is important to ally with Russia against ISIS or all of the above. But many people in both parties wanted us to be more involved in Syria than we already were, trying to topple Assad and bleed Russia and Iran and as part of that we were constantly told that Obama stood by and did nothing, when in fact we poured billions of dollars into that war. I wouldn’t know what Michael Morell said on Charlie Rose if I didn’t read the far lefty sites.
The New Yorker did a piece on Trump and Russia a couple of weeks ago which I finally got around to reading. Yes, this is the New Yorker, not the NYT, but same sort of bias. Early in the piece they do a token acknowledgment of the sorts of interference the US used to do in other countries during the Cold War. They report Putin’s accusation that the US is trying to topple him, saying there is no evidence of this. True AFAIK. They then report a Russian at a think tank saying that there was a real fear in Russia that a Clinton victory would lead to an American policy of trying to turn Syria into a new Afghanistan for Russia, of trying to kill Russians there. Nothing is said of where he might have gotten such a notion. The casual reader would think this is yet more Russian paranoia based on the sorts of things both sides used to do in the Cold War. A bit later in the article Michael Morell is cited as an expert. No mention that he had advocated exactly that policy on Charlie Rose a few days after endorsing Clinton. In other words, the Russians had a former acting CIA director who had endorsed Clinton advocating covert assassinations on national TV a few days later and the New Yorker didn’t think that was relevant to mention. I don’t think the NYT has ever mentioned it either. But somehow, those devious Russians got wind of it. The article also fails to mention that TIME magazine claimed the US interfered in the 1996 Russian elections.
On Syria, the New Yorker mentions the Russian intervention, not ours. It doesn’t mention that Kerry explicitly said that Russia came in more directly when it feared that ISIS would take Damascus.
Now you have to be kind of an obsessive lefty blogreader to notice this crap. Which is sort of the point. The NYT and the New Yorker are both rather similar in their outlooks and I think they write what they write to tell their affluent liberal readers what they are supposed to think about the world. Is it conscious bullshit? In some cases, probably. But it’s also probably natural if you are in a certain environment to pick up the “right” way to think about certain issues.
And then there is this “moral authority” story–
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/europe/in-trumps-america-a-toned-down-voice-for-human-rights.html?_r=0
Basically this was a reporter calling up ” experts” and getting them to say things which she could use to write an editorial about America’s real or imaginary history as a moral leader, now being ruined by Trump. The actual news in the piece is better reported in other stories–the fact that Trump’s policies have many people morally outraged is true, but the same was true during the Iraq War and before that with our support for death squads in Latin America and before that was Vietnam. Large parts of the world never took America’s self image as a moral exemplar very seriously.
I link to this piece not because I fully agree, but because it is a nice compilation of what liberals were saying about Bush just ten years ago. Most of what they are saying seems right to me. Yet now we are losing our moral authority?
https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/scholarly-double-standards-and-the-american-presidency/
What is different about Trump is that he is boorish–hypocrisy really is the tribute vice pays to virtue and Trump doesn’t pay it. That matters. But the difference can be exaggerated.
I also meant to reply to sapient’s link about Yemen on the other thread, but maybe later.
It might be useful to mention the Herman/Chomsky propaganda model here as it describes much better (despite some shortcomings) what’s going on today in “the west” than say traditional concepts of propaganda (eg Soviet style)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
It seems to me that the participant formerly known as cleek’s initial post is right on the money: there has to be intentionality a la 1. and 2. in the definition for it to qualify as propaganda. Sure, Donald’s point about subconscious bias because part of the dominant intellectual grouping is valid, but you’d have to believe they would consciously suppress dissenting opinion for them to be considered propaganda. Someone, maybe Donald, has complained about American hypocrisy in vociferously complaining about recent Russian interference in the election, when America has done the same thing, but I think this misses the main point: sure, they condemn Russia, but this is obviously and mainly for form’s sake, the real (and fully justified) complaint and outrage is about the possibility that American traitors may have colluded in the inteference.
novakant’s link looks very interesting indeed, and might replace or at least provide an important qualifier to the normal definition of propaganda, thus rendering my first couple of sentences semi-invalid, but I don’t have time to read the whole thing now, so the first part of my post hovers in the “subject to revision” category.
So, assuming the existence of the New York Times and many other publications, who is trying to manipulate whom, and on whose behalf?
Donald says this: My contention is that the NYT on foreign policy has a centrist liberal bias and it permeates what they write
Okay, but back to cleek’s comment, everyone has some kind of bias. So if you think the NYTimes is not reporting the whole truth, can’t you find something else to read? That’s what I do. I don’t expect it to be possible for any news source to be completely unbiased. That’s different than propaganda.
Obviously, the term propaganda is subject to discussion. The NYTimes represents whom? The Democratic Party establishment? Why did they undermine Hillary Clinton then with all of the over-hyped email stories? It’s all very confusing as to what their “agenda” is.
Also, I’m curious what Donald means by “And it is also clear that people within the Beltway are pushing back hard against Trump in favor of a new Cold War with Russia.”
What does he mean by “people within the Beltway”? And what does he mean by a new Cold War? Does it mean that there are people who don’t like Putin? I don’t like Putin. Putin represents a white nationalist authoritarian movement, one that he apparently is interested in spreading throughout the West, that I find horrifying. Is it somehow bad to object to that? Does that make me a “new Cold Warrior”?
My contention is that the NYT on foreign policy has a centrist liberal bias and it permeates what they write
I think this is exactly right, and I think it’s about the extent of it.
A point of view is not propaganda.
Like sapient, I read a lot of stuff to get a lot of perspectives.
What I do appreciate about the NYT is that they invest in more thorough reporting than an organization like, for example, the AP, which is more of a headlines-oriented news service.
Eat the meat and spit out the bones.
….he apparently is interested in spreading throughout the West…
I would opine that the above is an example of where the line from critical assessment to propaganda is crossed.
danged italics
I would opine that the above is an example of where the line from critical assessment to propaganda is crossed.
Propaganda or inference?
There has definitely been intentionality with some propaganda from the NYT – the push to the Iraq Way foremost. There’s no other way to explain their nutso anti-Clinton bias either. The fact that there’s probably no propagandistic intent with their crossword puzzle doesn’t undo episodes like that.
Pravda
They will mislead you on every important issue.
From weapons of mass destruction to the importance of Hillary’s emails you will end up knowing less than if you had never read it at all.
My fault for only just canceling my subscription last year.
A few links:
From Time re: Le Pen.
From re: Germany.
From Newsweek re: Brexit.
From NYT re: alt-right.
From Mother Jones re: Europe.
Okay, lots of people are apparently on the anti-Putin propaganda bandwagon. Who’ve you got – The Intercept and The Nation?
In case it wasn’t clear, my 4:38 was in answer to bobbyp’s 4:03.
After Bernays, novakant listed Chomsky, so here is classic in between them that I have read. Jacques Ellul This article longer and more technical than novakant’s.
Ellul was a French Christian anarchist, Protestant in France I think. What I remember quickly from the book is a) Goebbels often kept to the truth in his releases, and b) propaganda happens in the street, the living room, the kitchen table. BS doesn’t matter if no one is listening, or no one cares, or no one does anything about it. Propaganda is not top down, but bottom up. Trump wins on facebook likes and twitter storms. And c) the point of propaganda is to get people to act, to do something.
A short but dense and difficult book, that I was led to by The Last Psychiatrist, if anyone remembers that contrarian site.
I seem to be making an HTML error. Promise to preview and look next time
fixed — wj
In case it wasn’t clear, my 4:38 was in answer to bobbyp’s 4:03.
The fact that Russia is messing in other nations’ domestic affairs as part of their efforts to acheive their foreign policy goals does not logically demand that spreading white nationalist authoritarianism “throughout the West” is one of them.
Not propaganda you say? Let’s settle for hysteria, OK?
They will mislead you on every important issue.
The noise to signal ratio on “free trade” is also very high at the Times.
I didn’t like communism, sapient, but I also didn’t like supporting death squads or bombing Vietnam, so it is possible to disapprove of a country like China or Saudi Arabia or Israel or the Soviet Union in te old days or various others because of their behavior — it is also possible to disapprove oone’s own country’s actions– and still not want a new Cold War. Morell wanted Syria to be a new Afghanistan and there are plenty of people in DC who complained that we weren’t intervening in Syria, I don’t trust the people in DC who think America needs to intervene in every conflict.
As it happens many people in the Trump Administration are as hawkish towards Russia as some of Trump’s critics. I think some of the push against Trump is meant to pressure him in this direction.
As for reading the NYT, I do it too, but on some issues they are full of it. I would probably watch Russia Today in part because the mainstream press here demonizes it, but there are only so many hours in the day. However, some of the best clips of John Kirby lying about Yemen on YouTube were put there by RT.
As for conscious vs. unconscious bias, it is pointless to get into that because you would in most cases have to mindread. It doesn’t matter much. They are trying to position themselves so that they are taken seriously in DC circles and that means they are not going to stray too far from whatever current Beltway opinion happens to be. On something like the bombing of civilians, the NYT leans over backwards to give the bomber’s rationalizations and excuses if the US or an ally like Israel does it. They do not do this with Russia or Syria. Phrases like ” moderate rebels” are used for people we arm, though Hamas would be considered moderate in a Syrian context. So yeah, I do see the NYT as propaganda, in Chomsky’s sense. People learn to fit in or they don’t last. As for other mainstream magazines and papers, it would work the same for the most part.
The fact that Russia is messing in other nations’ domestic affairs as part of their efforts to acheive their foreign policy goals does not logically demand that spreading white nationalist authoritarianism “throughout the West” is one of them.
Guess you haven’t noticed who Russia supports, and who supports Russia. Okay, fine. Nothing to see …
However, some of the best clips of John Kirby lying about Yemen on YouTube were put there by RT.
You don’t seem to have a problem taking things out of context, and cherrypicking embarrassing tidbits, in order to spread a narrative. Hmmm. There’s a word for that? Or is it just your point of view?
The context was that the US supported the Saudis as they bombed civilians in Yemen, so Kirby couldn’t very well admit that the strikes were deliberate as it would be an open admission of complicity in state terrorism. This isn’t exactly a unique circumstance in human history or American history. I wouldn’t expect him to do anything but pretend that the Saudi bombing was very different from what what the Russians were doing in Aleppo.
It’s ugly, but pretending there was some context here doesn’t make it less so.
I wouldn’t expect him to do anything but pretend that the Saudi bombing was very different from what what the Russians were doing in Aleppo.
Let’s say you’re right, which I deny, but I’m too busy to reargue the circumstances. Your undermining Clinton (although saving your credibility by voting for her) hasn’t really helped any of the people you’ve championed, and her loss of the election has harmed incalculable numbers of people.
Hope you feel better as you, now that Trump has won, sort through history, ignoring Republicans who committed the most horrific foreign policy outrages, and pretending same same with Democrats, the party that worked for peace. All of this instead of daily missives criticizing Trump. Why have you stopped criticizing the current administration to “try to move them to left” or whatever that
ployscamform of activism was.No more daily reports on Yemen?
It doesn’t matter that you deny it. It’s open and shut. Kirby was in a position where he had to pretend two similar things were different.
As for Yemen, I take If for granted people here know Trump is awful. I comment a bit at Larison,s blog sometimes, pointing out to Trump supporters there that it was obvious that Trump was an arrogant ignorant blowhard who would be a disaster in foreign policy. Larison does that himself, but there are. Few people over there who supported Trump hoping that some of his random comments criticizing Clinton’s record meant he would be less of an interventionist. In fact he has hired people who are both anti Russian and anti Iranian hawks. Even the supposedly sane Mattis wanted to stop an Iranian ship and search it for weapons. And yes, Trump is also worrseon Yemen. That will be the aspect which finally means Yemen will become a mainstream issue. So long as some sort of contrast can be drawn between Obama and Trump, it will make it easier for Democrats in general to denounce or involvement. That FP piece you linked was of that genre. It is true that Trump is worse, but it whitewashed Obamas role a bit. Still, if that brings the issue into the mainstream, good.
As for here, I have one foot out the door anyway. I did see a local Indivisible group. They aren’t doing Yemen yet and we have a local representative who is not good on that or other Mideast issues.
Lots of typos there. Hopefully people can figure out what I meant. That’s enough ranting for the night.
fwiw, i stopped reading the NYT after the judith miller episode. that was just such an egregious breach of basic public trust that i lost all confidence in theior editorial quality.
i know they’ve tried to repair that, but in the interim i’ve found other sources.
once in a while i’ll read vsomething there, but in general not.
hey aren’t doing Yemen yet and we have a local representative who is not good on that or other Mideast issues.
Looks like you’ll have to take on Donald Trump by yourself. Or start a movement! Good luck.
once in a while i’ll read vsomething there, but in general not.
The Washington Post is my first stop. There’s still a lot in the NYT to read. I have my quibbles with their editors, but there’s a lot to that paper, and I still read it. And I read the New Yorker religiously, even though I don’t love some of the writers (because I do love others).
I think “criticism” is important, but so is support.
my thing with the NYT is not really about their editorial position, it is with the profoundly arrogant and condescending attitude they displayed toward their readership during the miller BS.
i found bill keller and daniel okrent in particular to be really just obnoxious.
they are without question a serious and well written newspaper, and i don’t share the sense here that they are some kind of propaganda organ, they have a point of view and a sensibility, like pretty much everyone else.
they simply lost me as a reader. i doubt anyone there is losing sleep over it. 🙂
they simply lost me as a reader.
I get it. I’ve been tempted to cancel my subscription, most recently over the email stories.
There are things about the NYT that are indispensable to me though: the book reviews foremost. A lot of the reporters are excellent (even heroic).
Dean Banquet and the headline writers, not so much. I hate rewarding them, but what about the food writers, and everyone else who works there.
Institutions. They’re a thing. They’re majestic and terrible. I guess I’m a true constituent of the liberal establishment, because I don’t want to get rid of them. They’ve failed us in some ways, and they shouldn’t take us for granted. But we shouldn’t take them for granted either.
I think “criticism” is important, but so is support.
I think just about everything that could be said about all you’ve said in this thread can be summed up by your decision to put criticism in quotes, but not support.
Guess you haven’t noticed who Russia supports, and who supports Russia. Okay, fine. Nothing to see …
So US unconditional support for Israel is support for the oppression of the Palestinian people?
So US arms sales to Saudi Arabia are implicit support for the spread of radical Whahabism?
Two can play that stupid game. So I ask, when will you stop being stupid?
“I think just about everything that could be said about all you’ve said in this thread can be summed up by your decision to put criticism in quotes, but not support.
That’s fair. I think criticism of treasured institutions is the exception, and support is the rule.
It’s interesting that you would have taken this as a moment of controversy, rather than so many more significant issues that have been raised.
By the way, NV, no need to explain, but aren’t you the one who wants WWIII in order to bring whatever good things WWII brought our way?
Watch this again, and then complain about Yemen.
http://www.fallen.io/ww2/
Two can play that stupid game. So I ask, when will you stop being stupid?
Supporting Israel is the same as supporting Nazis in each country in Europe? Same same?
bobbyp, you’re smarter than this.
By the way, have you ever noticed what the Iran deal was and how hard it was to negotiate how to NOT bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran?
Go ahead, be a purist. Join Donald’s movement. Good luck to you both. That’s sincere.
Supporting Israel is the same as supporting Nazis in each country in Europe? Same same?
So we should just turn a blind eye to our policy toward Israel? Thanks for playing.
I support the Iran deal.
I am not a purist. You are, sad to say.
Supporting Israel is the same as supporting Nazis in each country in Europe? Same same?
You are arguing like a 5th grader. Just stop. Please, just stop.
And I do not mean to infer that I disparage 5th graders. I support and send money to the 5th Grader Liberation Movement.
So we should just turn a blind eye to our policy toward Israel? Thanks for playing.
Please quote where I said that I support Israel. Also, whatever our “policy” to Israel is now, as opposed to where it was with Obama, no.
I don’t support Trump. I gave Obama a pass, believing that he had a comprehensive foreign policy that included reluctant support for Israel. I don’t trust or support Trump, or any of his foreign policy.
Tribal? Whatever you say.
I hear they break kneecaps.
Hmmm. Pretty soon that will be our politics, sad to say.
Donald, next time you are on Larison’s site ask him about him membership in The League of the South,
“The “godly” nation envisioned by the League should be run by an “Anglo-Celtic” (read: white) elite that would establish a Christian theocratic state and politically dominate blacks and other minorities. “https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/league-south
I gave Obama a pass…
I kinda’ think that’s the point. The idea that we cannot criticize “our tribal leaders” when they are in power is, frankly, reprehensible to me.
It should be reprehensible to any American.
Lyndon Johnson did great things for racial justice and economic equality..but I still marched in the streets against his policies in Viet Nam.
Obama rode a wave election in ’08 and worked to pass a reasonable start at a rational health care system.
Good on him.
But he did some not so great things as well. I don’t think pointing them out and asking our “tribal leaders” to get off their ‘effing asses and do better is some kind of terrible thing.
It’s what we are supposed to do.
I am late to this discussion, as I have been a lot lately, but I was trying to find if it somehow started with this: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-russia-story-is-a-minefield-for-democrats-and-the-media-w471074
which I will just say is a fairly good summary of what I think on the NYT inching into the propaganda game.
As for who I read, most of my life I read the local paper, the NY Times, Wall Street Journal and, of course the Washington Post. Then I listened to NPR and read the Christian Science Monitor when I had time.
Of those, today I will not read the Washington Post, except for an occasional oped from one of the guys on the right, their news is as close to the Democratic house paper as George Stephanopoulos is.
I read the Journal occasionally but it is inconsistent in its news/opinion presentation.
I read the Christian Science Monitor when I get the chance and listen to NPR occasionally.
The Times is the hard one. It can, and has in this election cycle, present balanced and insightful factual reporting. Unfortunately less and less of that makes the front page or the section leads. You really have to scan through the on line and sample enough to find those solid news stories. The leads have become less fact and a clear presentation of the days events/issues written in a way to sensationally support the editorial board. Or maybe just sell a few more papers. Who knows?
In addition other papers like the Tribune are just selling clickbait on the verge of bankruptcy. It makes it hard to get a handle on the facts and make good decisions when neither parties talking points are complete enough to inform us.
As far as Russia goes, I don’t know if Putin’s really that interested in spreading traditionalist white authoritarianism throughout Europe, or if he just sees NATO as a threat and wants to fnck it up by whatever means is handy.
I don’t know if he wants to reduce Syria to rubble to keep Tartus in place, or if he wants to flood his regional rivals with burdensome refugees by the millions. Maybe both.
Who knows what goes throuh his mind? We only know what he does.
The guy is a freaking brute. A kleptocratic authoritarian murderous thug. Regardless of how good bad or indifferent we are, by comparison or otherwise.
The guy is a freaking brute. A kleptocratic authoritarian murderous thug. Regardless of how good bad or indifferent we are, by comparison or otherwise.
Yes. Unfortunately, Russian history is full of them. I posted a link for the millionth time to NV. Russian people have suffered hugely because they are brave. But also because of their crap leaders.
We’ve done way better – sorry – is that American Exceptionalist? We’ve done better until now.
Mike Furlan: Donald, next time you are on Larison’s site ask him about him membership in The League of the South,
Thanks for this. Donald is crazy tolerant of JD Vance and the racist argument.
Of those, today I will not read the Washington Post, except for (lunatic George Will, or worse, Charlie Krauthammer?) their news is as close to the Democratic house paper as George Stephanopoulos is.
Their news is pretty much standard stuff, but they sneak in really misleading economic stuff and right wing economic memes all the time…cf Dean Baker (endlessly) on this very topic.
And Robert Samuelson is a Peterson Foundation lickspittle. Paul Ryan with a mustache and glasses.
So to assert they are just like George Stephanopoulos (I guess implying he is some kind of Democrat, which is debatable), well, this is really a stretch.
Go Zags.
Thanks for this. Donald is crazy tolerant of JD Vance and the racist argument.
I don’t read Vance and didn’t know that. I have no truck with Xhristo-fundy right wing isolationism (just in case you were wondering).
Thanks.
Sorry to go, but the 5th Graders’ Liberation Front bagman is at my step demanding cookies.
As for conscious vs. unconscious bias, it is pointless to get into that because you would in most cases have to mindread. It doesn’t matter much.
I’ve used the mindreading hammer to twack people from time to time, but this is bizarre. You have to try to and understand where people are coming from and what they believe in order to persuade them, or at least decide if you are wasting your time. Every time someone explains how Trump did or didn’t win because of racism/economics/populism/sexism/etc is mind reading, the difference is that there is not a person to say ‘hey, I wasn’t thinking that’.
Mind reading is problematic when people try and create positions that someone else doesn’t hold by making lots of inferences about what they say or don’t say. It’s fair to look at the NYT and see how the pattern of their decision reveal hidden biases. But to claim that those hidden biases are the same as the ones that are full on display when Steve King quotes Wilders really misses the boat. I really think you should rethink this.
Predictably the return of sapient has lowered the level of discourse again immensely, but hey whatever – I just wish he/she could just have the decency to use the humanitarian disaster in Yemen to score points, it’s disgusting.
I just wish he/she could just have the decency to stop using the humanitarian disaster in Yemen to score points, it’s disgusting.
Yemen:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/feb/08/yemen-food-crisis-we-are-broken-bombing-hunger
Thanks for the link, novakant. The situation there is heartbreaking. Trump hasn’t helped it; in fact, he now prohibits refugees from entering the US, and wants to deport people already here.
Using Yemen to claim cruelty and hypocrisy in the Obama administration isn’t “scoring points”? Kerry worked on a ceasefire there. What is Tillerson’s plan?
If anyone cares to donate, MSF is there.
novakant, your 5:14 AM note is getting over the line into a personal attack. Time to dial it back a bit.
Thanks, wj. I’ve said what i want to in this thread, and will take a break. I’m sure novakant will not react similarly to others here.
i mostly like reuters and the beeb for breaking news.
ap will usually get it out there first, but they can be a little shouty.
if i want analysis, i don’t look to a news organization.
i don’t know where that leaves me, propaganda wise.
we all do our best to understand wtf is going on.
fair enough, wj, that was over the line (but let’s apply that kind of scrutiny to everybody, please, no matter how superficially friendly the tone)
what bothers me the most is that, as Donald has argued elsewhere, it seems impossible to argue the issues here anymore without getting dragged into either some partisan mud fight or being brushed off with the world-weary shrugs of lesser evilism
Mike Furlan– I have heard secondhand about Larison’s other views. In the year or two I have been reading him he has never once strayed off foreign policy, where I agree with him. In that area he is Chomsky without the baggage, meaning that he criticizes US policy without ever falling into the trap that lefties ( and centrists and righties) fall into, where they project virtues and ideals onto some guerilla group which in real life probably isn’t that wonderful, if Larison has some romanticized view of what the Civil War was about he has had the good sense to keep it out of his column.
If pointing out the cruelty of Obama’s policy is scoring points, then it is also point scoring to point out that Trump is worse. Actually, both things are true. Obama’s policy was an incoherent mess in both Syria and Yemen. The lie Kirby told was to claim the Saudis weren’t on the same moral level as the Russians in Aleppo. Some liberals in the US now use the same arguments I used to see in Commentary in the 80’s, where it was a terrible sin to compare the atrocities committed by our allies with those committed by the Russians. Though I won’t say all liberals. Some in Congress are critical of the war in Yemen.
LJ, I was talking about the NYT and personally on some issues I think they consciously choose to leave out facts, but you never know for sure. I have a good friend who is very far right and it is weird arguing with him on evolution, climate change, Islam, or foreign policy, because on one level he is sincere and yet his views are dependent on filtering out things he doesn’t want to hear. Is he consciously lying? No. If I weren’t his friend, but instead if he were a politician would I care that much? No, because the the arguments he makes on certain subjects would be the same whether he is consciously lying or not.
In the case of the NYT, I think it is the same thing. If you want your readers to understand an issue in a certain way, you present some facts and downplay others. In the case of the NYT this happens constantly. Dean Baker often writes about how they mangle their reporting on ” free trade” issues and they have been doing this for decades. Chomsky wrote book after book on their hypocrisy on various human rights issues. Over the years I have written them numerous emails complaining about what I have seen. I think it is more than a little arrogant for you to write one paragraph with one example telling me to ” rethink” an issue I have been thinking about for as long as I have read the paper, which started in the mid 80’s. In some cases I strongly suspect that the NYT deliberately spins its stories and leaves out facts that go against the storyline they have on a given issue and in other cases it might be a subconscious bias that people who work for the corporation have to adopt. With the Internet I think they get much more pushback than they used to get. In the old days I think they could bank on the fact that critics to their left were confined to a few marginal leftwing magazines and they only worried about people to their right.
I usually avoid citing Chomsky because of his own baggage– when people cite him almost invariably people bring up his own mistakes. But I see the sense in how he writes about media bias. He generally avoids questions of personal intent and just points out the patterns and end results. He assumes people aren’t necessarily personally dishonest, but only the people who think a certain way and filter out inconvenient facts will survive in the MSM or in a given think tank. And there is no reason to think this wouldn’t apply to one’s political opponents or people overseas. In many cases they may believe their own BS. Does my friend believe the nonsense he spouts? Yes. If I refut
I accidentally deleted the last part of that overly long rant. It was actually interesting, sort of. It is a pattern of behavior in my friend that you see in others, so here is the longer version. Yes, longer. I will shut up after this.
One thing my friend is passionate about as a Christian Zionist Islamophobes is Israel, so he has repeatedly made the claim first stated by the Israelis long ago and dutifully repeated by many supporters until the late 80’s that the Palestinians only fled in 1948 because their leaders told them to leave while the Arab armies drove the Jews out and the Palestinians could then come back and loot their neighbors. I point out that Israeli historians using Israeli records have shown that many Palestinians were deliberately forced out in a process that included some massacres. One such historian, Benny Morris, even wishes the process had been more thorough.
Now you would think that a rational person upon hearing this would ask for sources or google or go to the library or something. What does my friend do? He repeats the same argument the next time the subject comes up. He brings it up, btw, as an example of Muslim perfidy.
Is he lying? No. Filters.
If you want your readers to understand an issue in a certain way, you present some facts and downplay others. In the case of the NYT this happens constantly.
in all communication, this happens, constantly.
people cannot (and will not) mention every aspect of every situation, all the time. all people have agendas: reporters, editors, readers and random internet blowhards, all of us.
as David Byrne once sang: facts all come with points of view.
it’s not (necessarily) dishonesty. reporters know people don’t want to read 50 page theses on every subject they cover. so they cover the things that they think readers will find interesting/useful/important. that doesn’t always fit every reader.
pick any source you like, and they will exhibit blind spots, intentional downplaying of things someone finds important, and plenty of plain old ignorance.
When a newspaper with a slant covers an issue with that same slant over and over again, they aren’t doing that for the benefit of their readers, except in the sense that the readers of that given newspaper may want that particular slant. Readers who dislike the slant may hate read the paper or be driven away.
On so called free trade issues the NYT has long had a Tom Friedmanesque slant in its coverage. In covering economics in Western Europe they have long written about it in terms of sclerotic economies overburdened by excessive regulations that hamper business so the economies are on the verge of collapse. They were writing that way back in the 90’s. I vaguely remember reading parodies of the typical NYT story on this subject.
Saying that we should consume our sources critically is fine. But part of that includes pointing out biases when we see them.
As it happens, a friend of mine just sent me this:
http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/incredible-animation-summarises-noam-chomskys-5-filters-of-the-mass-media-machine/
This Dean Baker piece illustrates the point. He has written a lot of similar posts about the NYT.
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/it-s-hard-to-get-good-help-danish-edition
tell me who is presenting information for public consumption that does so without being influenced in any way by their social and cultural position, assumptions, and beliefs.
I’d really like to know. It’s surely not me, and it’s surely not anyone commenting here, and it’s surely not any public organ of news or analysis that I have ever read or heard of.
If there’s someone out there who is, somehow, pristinely objective, I’d love to read them.
Donald and novakant, if you think you are immune from the things you accuse others of here, you need to go out to CVS and get yourself a mirror.
Everyone is influenced by their personal history, and the history of the environment they live in. No-one is immune.
We all try to do our best to overcome our biases. None of us succeeds completely. That’s just a given.
If you want to talk about Yemen, talk about Yemen. If you want to say there is some weird plot to not talk about Yemen, I doubt that is so, and to the degree it is so, it can be addressed by talking about Yemen.
You will be more successful in raising the issue if you eschew yelling at other people because they aren’t talking about Yemen.
novakant, your 5:14 AM note is getting over the line into a personal attack. Time to dial it back a bit.
Okay, I have a problem with this. novakant is actually correct here, wj. sapient is abusing other commenters and engaging in personal attacks, but not getting called out for it because they’ve raised the bar for what behavior gets them in particular warned. Over the last 8-12 months they’ve repeatedly gone through a cycle where they grow increasingly abusive until they finally manage to cross the line in the eyes of a front-pager, express mild contrition (I recall once maybe 3-4 months ago one of their shows of contrition was literally something as patronizing as “I know, I’m bad”), dial it back for a day or so, then resume abusive posting at the same level of escalation they were at before, and escalate from there. The only reason this cycle broke in the past was because they got cocky and were flip and insulting directly to lj rather than their normal pattern of making a show of repentance to the people with keys, then resuming attacking everyone else who didn’t take their side.
Pointedly in this thread, sapient has a history of personal attacks on Donald which have crossed the line to the point where they have been warned multiple times, but no one batted an eye yesterday when they posted the following:
(Emphasis added.)
The personal attack that I would call clearly over the line is emphasized, but its context is included to 1) show it’s not taken out of context, and 2) point out how much very-thinly-veiled mindreading and accusation of malice and bad faith has been normalized here over the last year – not just by sapient, but their posts have probably contributed more to it than anyone else. This is not meant as an attack on sapient, though I expect it will construed as one. It’s meant to point to the degeneration of tone on this blog due to increasingly lax adherence to – and enforcement of – the posting rules. That’s a problem, and it’s a far more serious problem than novakant pointing out that one of the main catalysts for tone-shift is shifting the tone… again.
We need to have a conversation about what is and is not acceptable here. ObWi isn’t LGM or Balloon Juice, and the reason it isn’t shouldn’t only be “because there’s fewer commenters”. Like DJ, I have one foot out the door (and I’m sure there are more than a few regulars that would not miss me one jot), but I still am invested in the community here because I’ve been a member for… um… 13 years now? Non-lurking member for 11? With a couple of exasperated or work-related hiatuses, but still. The tone on here has changed more dramatically in the last year than over any other similar period, and IMO it hasn’t been for the better. We really need to consider why, and if we are willing to continue down this path.
Russell, since you are getting personal, I will point out that you regularly get up on a soapbox and vent, usually at people who aren’t here or are badly outnumbered in a crowd where most will agree with you. Political blogs are a funny place for one participant to lecture another on self righteousness.. It doesn’t make you wrong on the issues you rant about.
Something like Yemen happens in US foreign policy on a regular basis and people ignore it for whatever set of reasons. With most people, it is because they don’t hear about it. They don’t hear about it because the press doesn’t make it a major focus of concern. Why not? Probably for a number of reasons, none of them good. And people are tribal. When people do hear about it, some get upset, but it is confusing because they don’t see it as a major issue in the media that they normally consume. The natural thing to do is to shrug. I don’t blame people for this– there are lots of issues and nobody can do all of them. I do blame people who become apologists. And I don’t understand the defensiveness about the NYT.
The fact is, though, I am sick to death of centrist liberals. Much of that talk about Bush’s war crimes was partisan BS. Yes, Bush was awful. So was Obama on Yemen. Bush was worse.
Am I just as blind? No doubt. It doesn’t make me wrong, any more than you are necessarily wrong about the people you rant about.
This is actually why I have one foot out the door here. I write emails and letters, which is the weakest form of activism. Almost useless, though I do think the NYT is less bad than it was in the past because of the Internet pushback. But this blog is a time sink, basically, a place to vent. I need to cut way back or go cold turkey.
When a newspaper with a slant covers an issue with that same slant over and over again, they aren’t doing that for the benefit of their readers, except in the sense that the readers of that given newspaper may want that particular slant.
then why are they doing it?
is it some kind of conspiracy?
What is or is not acceptable?
Whatever the owner of this site decides.
I am a guest here and will accept without argument what ever the house rules are.
Russell, since you are getting personal, I will point out that you regularly get up on a soapbox and vent, usually at people who aren’t here or are badly outnumbered in a crowd where most will agree with you.
Yeah, it’s mostly liberals here now, and I use the place to get stuff off my chest. Guilty as charged. I appreciate everybody’s willingness to let me blab away. So, thanks everyone.
I first got into political blogging with the Patriot Act stuff. I started on Free Republic, where I did not spend a lot of time, then went to RedState, where I spent a few years.
That place stopped being open to people with other points of view, so I came here. When I got here, it was not so liberal-leaning, now it is.
I’ve been here a long time now, it’s kind of my water cooler. It’s where I hang out and talk to people about stuff. I should probably spend less time here, I’d get more done.
Centrist liberals bug me, too. I live in a centrist liberal bubble, it can get pretty precious sometimes. It can be annoying.
My only point in getting personal was to point out that we all have biases. So, arguing the point that someone, or some news outlet, is influenced by their biases is almost a tautology.
I appreciate that the hypocritical aspects of US foreign policy disturb you, and I also appreciate that folks here often jump all over you when you bring them up. I’m sure that’s frustrating.
Peace out.
More and more I think slarti has it right.
Get out in the country around some family, raise some goats and pigs, and just do your thing. Leave the pissing matches to folks who need a hobby.
We were talking about John Prine in the other thread, slarti’s living the Spanish Pipedream.
Other than blogging I have intermittently put some serious time and effort into low-level political stuff. Like, in real life. I’m not sure it’s made much of a dent. There’s too much fucking money in the pipeline, we’re barely a republic anymore, let alone a democracy.
I’m 60, based on family history I’ll probably make more or less 80, my wife and I are probably in an OK position to get through it all, no matter who is president. My step-sons a hippie, he lives in OR, even with the measly income he makes as a musician he’s probably gonna be OK. We don’t see grand-kids on the horizon.
So as far as my immediate concerns, it most likely isn’t gonna matter what the country does. Plus I live in MA, the place is a bureaucratic clusterfnck, but we mostly muddle through without damaging each other too much.
Lucky, lucky me.
Lots of other folks aren’t so lucky, I plan on doing stuff to help them out if and when I can.
But the big picture stuff is so far over my head that it’s all kind of academic.
So yeah, I come here and vent, but I don’t really expect much to come of it.
Don’t make the mistake of taking me at all seriously, I’m just a guy on the internet, yelling at clouds.
I appreciate everybody’s willingness to let me blab away.
Yeah, but you’re damned good at it.
No problem Russell. I have been thinking I am here too much when I should be doing something useful.
Cleek–
Bluntly, yes, in some cases I suspect the editors or reporters or somebody decides to spin the story a certain way. I have specific examples in mind too, but that would mean yet more very long comments, so I won’t go there.
. Most of the time it is probably just the surrounding ethos. You know all the Serious People have opinions that range from A to B, so you conform. People who think there might be something really fundamentally screwed up about our policies or the way they are framed will probably not last long in the mainstream press unless they learn to suppress it. They write for some fringe rag or internet site. People in the Serious Press either always believed A to B or gradually adopted the viewpoint in their stories.
And now, finally, I am going to shut up for the day and cut way back in the future.
The tone on here has changed more dramatically in the last year than over any other similar period, and IMO it hasn’t been for the better. We really need to consider why, and if we are willing to continue down this path.
I hope that the fact that I have been willing to tackle sapient on a couple of occasions, most recently for trying to dictate to novakant how he should respond, entitles me to comment on this. If NV is right about the change in tone (and I think she is at least partly right) I believe it is because of first the campaign and now the presidency of Trump. It seems to me that sapient, and others of us, perceive the current situation to be not just a quantitative change from business as usual, but a qualitative change. NV and Donald and maybe bobbyp might disagree, but to most of us (and certainly to me as I have said at tiresomely repetitive length) the success of Trump represents the crossing of a threshold, from where the general, complicated political ecology can be argued about, and parsed for all its different issues, to a situation where the very existence of the democracy (faulty though it may be) is at unprecedented risk. I understand that NV, and Donald and bobbyp or others may disagree, but this perception explains the passion and undoubtedly inappropriate descent into even more hyperpartisan argument, often verging on implied or explicit insult. I’m not making excuses, and I’m not just talking about sapient either. But I think what you are seeing is the agonised thrashing of people who perceive something precious edging closer to extinction. Anybody can argue if it is precious, and even whether the threat of extinction is worse than usual, but I do generally think tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner, even if (I fully see) just asking for understanding is not going to cut it.
, I didn’t see sapient’s crazy tolerant of JDVannce aand the racist argument.
Amazing to see so much crap compressed to neutron star densities without the benefit of a gravitational field.
So someone point out where Vance was a white supremacist. And then point out where I tolerated Vance being a white supremacist. I have not yet checked up on Larison’s alleged nasty views because on foreign policy I agree with him and if he holds those other views he hasn’t let them pollute his blog. For sapient that is enough to confuse Vance and Larison and to conflate liking Larison’s foreign policy views with crazy tolerance for white racism. I probably will look into what Larison has said on the South, but will continue to quote him on FP so long as he makes sense there.
And yes, I keep lying about leaving.
I looked up Larison’s views. Briefly, he is wrong. He sees the Civil War as aggression against the South and disapproves of itbecause it killed hundreds of thousands, but he agrees ( thank God) that slavery was morally repugnant.
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/46573
This is wrong on the merits, the South started the war and so he obviously has a huge blind spot. If this came into his writing on foreign policy I would probably stop reading, but he praised Obama on the Iran deal and is a very strong critic of Trump. I will link his latest post here or in the next ( sigh) one.
Larison’s post on what label best makes sense of Trump’s approach to foreign policy.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trump-the-militarist/
Having left for a good long time in 2011 (after a very specific, very characteristic last straw example of gratuitous sneering from a regular commenter), I don’t necessarily agree that the tone here is worse than it once was. Then again, I spent several years barely ever peeking at Obsidian Wings, so I don’t know how the conversation went on in the meantime.
Maybe the fact that the commenting community is smaller, more like a group of friends who have by now “known” each other for a long time, makes the conflict and stridency more potent *and* more upsetting. But this happens IRL too, as groups of friends morph from one phase to another.
In coming back more regularly, I felt some admiration for this group for sticking with an often contentious conversation for so long. At the same time, I would agree with GftNC that things got darker after the election.
I can’t go on right now because I’ve got work obligations that I can’t postpone today, but I’ve had a post in mind for a while about the dynamics of blog communities. I might actually get something coherent ready to post in a day or two, so if anyone is interested in a conversation about conversations, don’t walk out the door yet! I’ll be curious to see what people have to say.
And I should have added to my 01.51, in all fairness, that although the tone she does it in is different, NV (despite her undoubted talents and interesting take on things) has also at times contributed to a more personally unpleasant atmosphere, as when she accused cleek of threats of violence – an absurd accusation as became clear when she provided her “proof”. I mention this in the interests of fairness, given that it is NV complaining about “personal attacks”.
JanieM: very much looking forward to your piece.
JanieM: me too.
russel and cleek:
I really don’t need a lecture on how there’s no objective point of view, it is blatantly obvious. In fact I am arguing that US propaganda is trying to sell us their version of the world as the objective and righteous view and that such a notion is incredibly dangerous, especially combined with a historically unparalleled political, economical and military dominance.
There is no uniform “US propaganda”.
Lots of folks who live here understand this country’s flaws, historical and current, quite well.
All of that is not by way of “giving you a lecture”, it’s by way of saying we understand your point.
also, two el’s in russell.
This is a topic that always comes up among guys named russell. Oddly, perhaps, I’ve sometimes been in conversations with three or four of us at a time. Less uncommon a name than one might suppose, I guess.
Two esses, two ells. I don’t know any exceptions.
novakant,
again, the key word there is ‘propaganda’. You say ‘US propaganda’, obscuring the agent. Propaganda isn’t really an agent, someone has to sell it. Though I am sympathetic to what you (and Donald) say, this is where you fall down a hole because you have to try and figure out who the agent is. Chomsky and Herman call their model the ‘propaganda model’, but their explanation seeks to explain why the agent is not ‘the deep state’ or some circle of nameless CEOs, but the populace itself. But even that falls apart. There is a moment in the moving Manufacturing Consent here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWpY7ZhhvS0
where they put Chomsky on a jumbotron screen inside a football stadium to lecture on the ‘irrational jingoism’ and ‘submission to authority’ that a focus on sports brings. That scene is wonderful because it simultaneously supports Chomsky’s notions but also demonstrates how much it is ‘we are not the cool kids, but are actually cooler than them, but no one realizes it’ that drives his arguments. Donald knows I have my own issues with Chomsky, but a lot of the force of Chomsky’s rhetoric is precisely the same, trying to make one group cool. It’s Nietzsche’s point about christianity being a slave morality, with their small numbers (at the beginning of the clip, Chomsky talks disdainfully about the ‘80%’) providing proof for the rightness of their views.
Identifying a problem which lies in human nature does not necessarily recommend a solution. Yet when people point this out, they get dismissed by you because we don’t hew to your black and white view of what is right and wrong, generating the same cycle over and over. We try to keep this place open to allow people to talk, but it is also up to everybody individually to try and keep the tensions down. I hope that is not too much to ask.
GftNC,
The tonal shift started well before election day. Trying to write it off as shocked reaction to a sea change only works if you avoid looking at how far things had gone before then.
As to cleek and threats of violence – there were literally an endless number of ways cleek could have said “I don’t want to hear a particular sort of speech”; they chose stating they’d hunt down and drown anyone who spoke thusly. I don’t think my life was ever in danger, but that’s rarely the case with online threats and rhetoric. Their statement was a fairly deliberate decision from someone who has for years been the most hostile and combative of the regulars, and it’s the kind of thing that likely wouldn’t have been tolerated from someone who is not as well-liked as them. I know you two are tight, but cleek has for as long as I remember “commented angry”, and been quick to get nasty. It’s who they are in this venue, and I suspect they’re like that for reasons similar to why I go dog-latched-onto-someone’s-leg at times – I’ve been online too long, and I picked up bad habits in online contexts that are long gone. For my part, I learned how to “have conversations online” on the UseNet, and if you know what that entails I mean I learned that in the worst possible way. I’ve gotten a lot better since then, but old habits ingrain themselves. Dunno about them, though; I can only observe how they act. And how they act is not typical of the rest of the commentariat… and frankly I really have trouble seeing no malice in a promise to drown people who say things you don’t want to hear even if it doesn’t mean I think they’re actually going to… how was it? Track down and drown anyone who behaved like they clearly thought I’d behave absent their threat?
cleek wants a bubble – they’ve said so themself repeatedly since they came back, to say nothing of loudly breaking out their pie filter after years of it going unmentioned – and that’s not conducive to dialogue if you don’t conform to the bubble. Making “jk, but really… no, jk, but really” threats of violence to shut up people you disagree with is profoundly disrespectful, but it also normalizes the idea that abuse and threats of violence (to shut people up or otherwise) are appropriate. There’s a reason the posting rules forbid them, and for the most part any such speech (except for the Count, who against all reason gets a pass on this as well as everything up to calling for the rape of serving politicians – or little better, making lolrape jokes… but that’s a whole ‘nother bag of worms) would be quickly called out… for good cause. It’s hostile to open communication. If you want a bubble, open communication is not something you want, but do we collectively want a bubble?
—
Anyway, JanieM, yeah, make that post.
NV, thanks for a substantive reply. I’ve been commenting here for a couple of years, and was lurking long before that – back to hilzoy’s time. I think the tone changed not after the election, but gradually after it became clear that Trump was going to get the nomination, and went into overdrive after the election. It’s a sliding scale, so there was no sudden shift, but I think it started last year, certainly at the Republican convention if not before (I would say it started before).
I don’t know why you say cleek and I are “tight”. I appreciate his comments, and definitely missed his voice when he absented himself after your accusation (in all fairness I think he was also sick of political wrangling generally, particularly after the election result), but that’s as far as it goes. What you call cleek’s threat was so very clearly a (over-exaggerated for semi-comic effect) rhetorical device, aimed at a theoretical, abstract character as opposed to a real person, that I think any attempt to paint it as “abuse and threats of violence” is truly crazy. However, I don’t think you’re crazy. Your explanation:
I’ve been online too long, and I picked up bad habits in online contexts that are long gone. For my part, I learned how to “have conversations online” on the UseNet, and if you know what that entails I mean I learned that in the worst possible way.
is very interesting, and makes a lot of sense (of course I had no idea what it entails, but supplied the missing “if you don’t know what that entails”). sapient thinks I’m some kind of flower-child who only sees the good in people, but I assure you that is absolutely incorrect. I think the ecosystem here benefits tremendously from such different points of view as are represented, and actually I think most commenters think so too. Furthermore, FWIW, I do not think there is any actual malice in any of the regular commenters, just occasional greater or lesser spurts of annoyance. Of course I do not expect to convert you, or anyone else, to my viewpoint, more’s the pity!
About GftNC and Cleek being tight, I recall when someone whose name is lost to my memory discovered (the now defunct) hocb and said that they had discovered the secret meeting place of all the cool kids at ObWi where they plotted against the common folk with commonsensical views. Any attempt to convince him was brushed off.
Cleek makes a pie filter, that becomes evidence against him being open minded? Really? If being open minded means you need to take in everyone’s point of view all the time, count me out.
I do think there is a ‘bubble’, but why the hell would anyone want to place themselves somewhere where _everyone_ is disagreeing with everyone else? There’s a bubble because when there isn’t, people are willing to use rhetorical tricks to gain the upper hand rather than saying ‘gee, you’ve been here for 10 years, I don’t think you really mean that’. I want a place where I can talk to people. If I’m constantly on my guard, trying to score points and ginning up support for my views, I’m going to be stressed out. If you want to be dismissive and call that a bubble, that’s your choice, but there are a ton of things I can talk about here that I can’t talk about anywhere else.
this from GftNC
I do not think there is any actual malice in any of the regular commenters, just occasional greater or lesser spurts of annoyance
is precisely my view. The range of experiences and activities of the people here is astonishing, but this group is self selected. In the world but not of it in the Christian formula. That’s why accusations of ‘well, what are you doing to save [x]’ really don’t work. If we were really committed, we probably wouldn’t have time to thrash things out on a blog.
LJ– I think the coolness factor is real. Almost every political faction group either takes pride in being the popular mainstream one or thinking it is or if that isn’t possible, then people often take pride in being part of the group which understands what is really going on. Some people do both– that is, they manage to be cool in their own minds and mainstream. I used to be both evangelical and a Chomsky reader. I was cool in two dimensions. Now that I am an enlightened liberal Christian, my coolness beggars belief.
But thinking one is part of some inner circle of understanding is irrelevant to Chomsky’s point, which Is so obvious it is banal. He says that you would expect the upper classes in any society to feel basically good about a system which produced them, though they might not be fully happy about all the details and favor various reforms. ( Personally I too just want reforms– not sure what a full scale revolution would produce.). The mainstream press will reflect this. If there are any serious wrongs committed by the government, they will be, if acknowledged, portrayed as tragic mistakes or at worst as the actions of some horrible individuals like the one currently in the WH. Looking at how the MSM functions in the US this seems pretty much on the mark.
Let me assure lj that any coolness I might have left is not derived from posting at ObWi … 🙂
What drives me up the wall is a seemingly high tolerance for killing brown people in faraway countries among some posters here that is incongruous with their entirely justified sensitivity towards any sort of sexism, racism of homophobia etc.
But thinking one is part of some inner circle of understanding is irrelevant to Chomsky’s point
I don’t think you watched the clip. Chomsky creates his own “inner circle of understanding”. Here’s the transcript,
Now there are other media too whose basic social role is quite different: it’s diversion. There’s the real mass media-the kinds that are aimed at, you know, Joe Six Pack — that kind. The purpose of those media is just to dull people’s brains.
This is an oversimplification, but for the eighty percent or whatever they are, the main thing is to divert them. To get them to watch National Football League. And to worry about “Mother With Child With Six Heads,” or whatever you pick up on the supermarket stands and so on. Or look at astrology. Or get involved in fundamentalist stuff or something or other. Just get them away. Get them away from things that matter. And for that it’s important to reduce their capacity to think.
Take, say, sports — that’s another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it — you know, it offers people something to pay attention to that’s of no importance. [audience laughs] That keeps them from worrying about — [applause] keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it’s striking to see the intelligence that’s used by ordinary people in [discussions of] sports [as opposed to political and social issues]. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in — they have the most exotic information [more laughter] and understanding about all kind of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this.
You know, I remember in high school, already I was pretty old. I suddenly asked myself at one point, why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? [laugbter] I mean, I don’t know anybody on the team, you know? [audience roars] I mean, they have nothing to do with me, I mean, why I am cheering for my team? It doesn’t mean any — it doesn’t make sense. But the point is, it does make sense: it’s a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements — in fact, it’s training in irrational jingoism. That’s also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that’s why energy is devoted to supporting them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on.
Chomsky is someone who has taken rhetoric to the level of a competitive bloodsport, but more important, note how he uses these various tropes to create a group of people more discerning than the ordinary, and they lap it up. Recall that HRC got hammered for the ‘basket of deplorables’ Why is it that HRC gets dinged (and I’m not going to look it up, but there were several people here who complained about her saying that) which was half of the Trump supporters, so we are talking about maybe 20%? Yet Chomsky is happy to consign 80% to the dumb sheep category. Why? Because he knows his audience…
I could just as easily interpret Chomsky as saying that the “other media” simply aren’t bothering to target the most politically engaged 20% of people, and even that as number he’s admittedly (“or whatever they are”) pulling out of his a$$.
Now that I am an enlightened liberal Christian, my coolness beggars belief.
Dude, you’re not really happening until you’re in the Unitarian Jihad.
Cleek makes a pie filter, that becomes evidence against him being open minded? Really? If being open minded means you need to take in everyone’s point of view all the time, count me out.
i suspect everybody here is happier that they no longer have to sift through the pointless exchanges of fundamentally incompatible points of view.
regardless, i reserve the right to stop listening to people who add nothing to my life. if i feel that a person only divides and subtracts, i have ways of shutting that down. after how many years (?) i don’t need any more of that shit in my mind so if you like, consider that particular entry point closed.
and just FYI, i wrote the original ObWi pie filter a decade ago, when ObWi was attacked by a particularly annoying troll.
I’m reminded of this.
What drives me up the wall is a seemingly high tolerance for killing brown people in faraway countries among some posters here that is incongruous with their entirely justified sensitivity towards any sort of sexism, racism of homophobia etc.
I’m not sure about here (not having kept a mental tally). But my sense is that a lot of those who exhibit a high tolerance for killing brown people in faraway countries have an equally high tolerance for killing white people in faraway countries.
I submit that, if Russia did not have nuclear weapons, they would be beating the drums like mad for sending US forces into Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion. And probably pushing on, at least with raids, into Russia itself, in order to attack base areas. Probably would have done the same over Georgia a decade or so ago. Do you doubt it?
Along the lines of tolerance, bubbles, etc.
I am a (recovering?) anti-religious bigot, maliciously attributing religious views to right wing nuts. I have mostly changed my mind (or at least toned it down) due to, surprisingly, the internet. I am pretty sure it was reading Donald that helped me out there.
So thanks, Donald. I hope you stick around.
You make a good point, wj. It looks like much or the US loss of restraint was simply due to the end of the (old) cold war, when it became possible to throw ones weight around without risking armageddon.
Then again:
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2017/03/13
I agree with lj about Chomsky, I don’t read him. In general I have an attitude toward anarchists, Graeber for instance, that sees them in practice as elitists and authoritarian, and projecting that onto their Marxian opposition.
Anyway, just dropped in to drop a hopefully pertinent quote from current reading, something I do to excess. From James Elkins, Theorizing Visual Studies, article by Vivian Li about Song Dong’s performance art in Tiananmen Square, she quotes Rosalyn Deutsche from her book Evictions (whew)
“Democracy and its corollary, public space,” she argues, “are brought into existence when
the idea that the social is founded on a substantial basis, a positivity, is abandoned”
The question remains as to whether a group wants to create a democratic or public space or a closed but nurturing and supportive community. And whether I want to intrude.
all i gotta say is that if chomsky’s getting some visibility, I guess we’re not totally in the crapper quite yet.
not that i’m any kind of chomsky-ite, i’m just saying.
I’ve read similar things by Chomsky, LJ. What exactly was supposed to shock me there? Chomsky wasn’t running for President. In general he takes the view that ordinary people are not to be blamed for not knowing about the ugliness of our foreign policy. Personally I am not sure. You’d have to almost be omniscient to know what individual people should or should not have known.
He has been criticized for that bit. I am failing to understand how it invalidates his claims about how the MSM functions because it doesn’t. If you want to get into his personality, he is a lot like Greenwald. Very argumentative. Obviously he thinks people are misled by the press, so if you read him you become one of the enlightened ones. So what? I remember the thrill I got reading him for the first time– that’s just natural.
This is why I almost always avoid mentioning him. He doesn’t have a copyright on the notion that the MSM is full of crap and the basic idea is pretty easy to understand. There are a zillion people online saying the same things. But mention him and the conversation always becomes about his flaws and not the idea of a dishonest media establishment. With the internet people don’t have to read Chomsky books to get an alternative view. I think it has been 15 years since I bought a political Chomsky book.
Yama– thanks. I will almost certainly pop up now and then, but I really need to do things more useful than argue with people online.
Russell, that Unitarian jihadism is some scary sh@@. They have nothing on the Episcopalians though. You never know where we are coming from.
Wj, ‘brown’ is not necessarily the operative word here, but I do maintain that it helps with dehumanizing the victims alongside cultural and ideological stereotypes.
Lj, as Donald pointed out, Chomsky is an intellectual, Clinton was running for prez
There’s a bubble because when there isn’t, people are willing to use rhetorical tricks to gain the upper hand rather than saying ‘gee, you’ve been here for 10 years, I don’t think you really mean that’.
I walked out of this thread for a reason, so I should probably let this lie, but… It’s nice this doesn’t happen to you, lj. However, people who aren’t in ObWi’s ideological (and not entirely unrelatedly, social) in-group get it all the time even if they’ve been here as long or longer than their accusers. This exact sort of bs is why cleek and I got so bloodthirsty last year, and it’s one of the main reasons I have precisely zero tolerance for the constant accusations of bad faith and incessant rhetorical shenanigans sapient deploys (and has deployed to lesser but monotonically increasing degrees since… 2009? 2010?).
For the record, the reason I say cleek wants a bubble – and not just here – is because cleek has said the same thing, in the past and recently. I’m not saying ObWi is a bubble – one of its distinguishing characteristic is that it’s less ideologically homogenous than other left-leaning blogs of similar stature, so ObWi is a very bad place to go to make your bubble. And for the record, I agree with cleek’s last comment here: it’s for the greater good that we don’t interact directly, as there’s very little historic positive engagement between us and a whole lot of very recent, very negative engagement. I actually considered getting cleek’s old pie filter and using it against them last fall before wrestling through the issue and deciding it ran counter to my individual values. IMO the best solution is to not censor but also not engage, but I can understand not even wanting to touch the matter. But it still represents a symptom (in this case, among many, to include fairly explicit declarations) of wanting to exist in a political bubble. That’s never been an option for me, though, and it’s why I don’t read most “normal” liberal blogs.
But anyway. Bubbles don’t simply exist to ensure good faith and civility. They also exist to perpetuate and reinforce the same “cool kids” mentality you’re decrying from Chomsky. By avoiding people that contradict broad (demeaning) stereotypes of them prevalent in the group, and by avoiding putting a human face on them that risks inducing empathy, it becomes easier to maintain simple, clean, consistent (typically we’re-good-consistent-and-selfless-they’re-bad-inconsistent-and-selfish) narratives. And that’s as relevant to conversation here as to a discussion of Chomsky.
—
GftNC: I said you and cleek are tight because of how you two interact. Both of you adopt a different tone with each other than you do with other blog participants. Nothing more, nothing less.
NV – there’s merit in what you’re saying here. ObWi is not the most diverse place.
Not saying that’s a good or bad thing, just saying IMO your observation is fair.
What I really wanted to chime to say is that as far as I can tell GFTNC adopts pretty much the same tone with everyone that she does with cleek. Which is to say, polite and respectful engagement.
I suspect it’s because GFTNC is actually a very nice person.
Thanks russell.
What’s so extremely funny about this is that NV posted this comment about me and cleek conversing with each other in a different tone to the way we converse with anybody else just three minutes after I posted the following remark in the ACA thread:
I seriously don’t think what you’re saying about me is true NV. I feel respectful and pretty much affectionate towards most of the posters here, and in some cases (including but not limited to cleek) grateful for help they’ve given me on HTML matters etc. The reason why I deal the way I do with people, or try to is simple. I think it affirms values I hold dear, and try to abide by. In my opinion, almost everyone (with the exception of such deplorables as racists and homophobes, although there can even be exceptions for certain of them) is worthy of a respectful hearing, and that that is the way you make some kind of progress, however that can be defined. Acknowledging the humanity, with all the good and bad that that implies, of another person, is a way to demonstrate how one thinks relationships and the world should be run, and also is an attempt to shed more light than heat.
But to dispel the idea of my saintliness forever, let me say this about you NV. I think you are a remarkably intelligent and talented woman, with an extremely highly developed capacity for close analytical thinking. Your views are interesting, but you undercut much serious consideration of them by your intense prickliness and tendency to go on the offensive. You yourself have referred to a possible reason for this, when you described your original “training” on the net, and that made sense. I think it is a great shame, and that you do yourself an injustice thereby.
And for the record, IRL I am judgemental, critical and with a tendency to be controlling which infuriates even my most loving and devoted friends and family. I think there are good reasons for these qualities, but then (in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies) I would, wouldn’t I?
Sorry, I missed the comments asking me about Chomsky and I’ve not paid attention to this thread so apologies if I’m not understanding the questions, but to address Donald, when we are discussing what needs to be done, I don’t think we get to say ‘well, he’s an intellectual’ as a get out of jail free card.
And NV, when you write
It’s nice this doesn’t happen to you, lj.
I can assure you that this does happen to me, and rather often. I live in a country that simultaneously lauds and dismisses my viewpoint as a foreigner. I can take advantage of the white male privilege that imbues so much of the globe, but simultaneously be dismissed because I don’t “understand how things work”. And I will, on occasion, deploy that white male privilege if I think the outcome is something worthwhile (which is remarkably small peanuts in the whole scheme of things, but is important in my world).
imo, zero tolerance for bad faith doesn’t work because you just don’t know. People are adept at fooling themselves into believing things and continually occupying a position and, like Vonnegut says in Mother Night, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” (quoting that will probably have you and others think ‘what a self-satisfied prig who thinks he is well read’, and I am aware of that, but I don’t want to claim a thought that I read from someone else. But I’m sure part of that is to show you that I’ve read a lot. What’s the truth? HellifIknow.)
That this is a defense of my position and apparently an attack on yours shouldn’t be surprising, I want to construct a narrative where I’m, at least partially, in the right. And I’m happy to admit that there are times when zero tolerance has to be practiced. Every so often a troll who shall not be named pops up and I dutifully go in and modify the block list.
But your zero tolerance seems to be an excuse to rage at someone and I assume that you wouldn’t want me to follow up by blocking the people who you display zero tolerance with. Yet if I try to clean up in aisle 4, I’m somehow tainted. Which seems to me like you want to be able to express your rage and let others clean up. Fair enough, there are times that I want to break all the crockery, but in a sense, I live here, so I don’t have that chance. Which makes me get a slight insight into the shitpie that other people, who have to deal with this crap every day, have to swallow every day. And I should say, as I told sapient in a different thread, that I don’t mind people expressing rage. But when they turn on people posting here, that just isn’t going to fly.
In this, I think it is remarkably like Chomsky, in that he wants to express how disgusted he is with the system, yet, fails to understand how systemic change works. Chomsky is a person who can never, ever admit they are wrong. It is not a good look on anyone.
And going back, I see that novakant was the one who says Chomsky is an intellectual, not Donald. Sorry about that. To answer Donald’s questions, I feel like we would actually have to have a back and forth and talk about stances Chomsky has taken, but that would be difficult. No, Chomsky’s stances don’t invalidate what he says about the MSM, but what he says about the MSM is not a function of the people therein, but the way MSM connects with the people. The fact that the MSM has broken down and is replaced by facebook and twitter suggests that Chomsky’s suggestions of malice and control are not really conscious means that Chomsky is identifying a flaw in human nature, not a flaw in the MSM. I don’t know (and I’m not going back to find out) who cited Chomsky. But if his name is popping up in the discussion, someone must have thought that he has some significant insight. If so, someone should tell us how that insight is unique, because , as you said, zillions of people make similar complaints.
I spent far more time writing a reply to this than I probably should have, but in trying to tidy up my long-winded mess before hitting post, I went back to make sure I wasn’t misrepresenting what you said, and I saw again you’d referred to my stated “zero tolerance for bad faith”, and something clicked. That’s… not what I said:
(Emphasis added.)
It occurs to me before dropping a 1000-word response to a comment that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, it might be best to make sure you didn’t make that comment based on a fairly-significant omission of those two words. Because that might explain why it seemed like you were suggesting I was arguing the opposite point that I thought I was.
GftNC, I’m not sure what you think I’m saying about you (I mean that literally, not defensively).
However, those seven words added little (if anything) to the original comment, while making it have an edge I really hadn’t intended. Please accept my apologies.
(I initially tried to clarify what I meant, but decided it really didn’t matter and deleted most of my comment. The above is what’s left as needing said.)
Lj, intellectuals tend to be elitist, that’s all. You are personalizing the issues: when I mention Chomsky I don’t really care if he’s annoying or not, I also don’t care what he has said about each and every subject under the sun and I don’t even care if the theory in question is 100% watertight or unique. He is an interesting thinker insofar as he challenges aspects of our political system that after decades of indoctrination most seem to view as simply a given and does so intelligently and publicly, thus giving a voice to the tiny minority on the left that questions the liberal consensus in the US. There are others who do similar things but usually nobody has heard of them never mind read them, so it’s a bit futile to mention them.
NV, I apologize for not seeing that, my eye skipped over the mention of sapient and since the comments started addressed to me, I hope you can see why that might happen. I note that you don’t address any other part of my comment, which certainly reminds me of the bad old days of usenet, but if that’s what you want to do, that’s your call. But, as you seem to admit, it isn’t really helpful. I’m not really sure why you would bring sapient into a comment that starts with an accusation that I have no appreciation for the privilege you assume that I have, and I’m not sure if you want me to do something about sapient or not. If you want me to do something else regarding sapient or the list in general, you can tell me, either here or thru the kitty.
novakant, you are right, as I think I’ve mentioned on several occasions, I have my own issues with Chomsky. I think the way he deploys rhetoric is problematic, creating rifts in my field of linguistics. There is a lot of stuff about the recent kerfluffle between Dan Everett and him, but this discussion of a lecture by Chomsky, written by Geoff Pullum before all the Everett stuff came up, kind of gets at why I don’t have much time for him.
http://linguistlist.org/issues/22/22-4631.html
I don’t think this invalidates his points about society, but I don’t think it is possible to separate what he says that is true and what he says that is simply for rhetorical effect. That bleeds over into my opinion of him as an ‘intellectual’, which may or may not be fair, but if Chomsky is, as Donald says, simply saying what a zillion people have observed, then I don’t see why he needs to be cited as an authority. I think that he, like a lot of thinkers on the left, wants to elevate the suffering of being in the minority as some sort of proof that the left is correct. It’s not something that is solely the domain of the left, it’s the stuff of ‘The war on Christmas’ and any number of other right wing memes, but if accepted, it means that you are always fighting a guerilla war against whatever the status quo happens to be. It can be successful, (hence Trump) but it means that you are always in a state of conflict.
GftNC, I’m not sure what you think I’m saying about you (I mean that literally, not defensively).
However, those seven words added little (if anything) to the original comment, while making it have an edge I really hadn’t intended. Please accept my apologies
NV, I thought you were saying that the reason I claimed that your accusation that cleek had been making threats of violence against you was nonsense, was that I was prejudiced in his favour because we were “tight”, or had some other special relationship. All I want to say, in a conversation that is spiralling so far from its beginnings as to be tedious (this is not aimed at you), is that the reason I came to cleek’s defence is that I thought your accusation was patently unfair, and misrepresented the reality of the situation. I regretted cleek’s absence because he is one of the voices which I think make up a pretty valuable forum of various shades of opinion, speaking to each other (on the whole) in rational conversation. The fact that we can converse here from rightwing through liberal to far-ish left seems to me a valuable blow against the Empire, in a time of increased and mad polarisation and splintering. I was also trying to show that I regard you and your opinions with as much appreciation and respect as anyone else’s.
My attempt at destruction of a rep for saintliness was directed at a) people who think I am some blindly benevolent flower-child and b) russell, who had just given me a testimonial to which I was unsure I was entitled. However, I realised afterwards that my attempt to show myself in my true colours was unsuccessful; put it down to an unbreakable habit (here and elsewhere) of at least attempting to put both sides.
In any case, you have nothing to apologise for, and neither do I.
lj, I didn’t mention anything else in your comment because I was not being rhetorical when I said I refrained from posting an already-written a 1000-word comment pending clarification that could make large portions of it irrelevant. I’ll revise and post the portions that are still relevant. That should also clarify a few other things you’re mentioning (especially with revision).
I’m not really sure why you would bring sapient into a comment that starts with an accusation that I have no appreciation for the privilege you assume that I have
Because the comment was not about you. Some of that misunderstanding seems like it was ignoring the context of the running conversation (which was never about you in particular; looking back, that still seems clear given my comment included your quote that I was directly responding to), and some can be attributed to the following:
‘It’s nice this doesn’t happen to you, lj.’
I can assure you that this does happen to me, and rather often.
The implicit meaning of my statement (which, again, I thought and think was clear in context, and followed directly from the comment it had quoted and was responding to) was “It’s nice it doesn’t happen to you here“. And that was all it was meant to mean; it was not making assumptions about you in your personal life, it was about directly observable interactions on this blog.
So let me be clear: it’s nice that your statements here enjoy a general assumption of good faith. And by everything I have ever seen, they absolutely do. That’s not true for all of us. And that you don’t see that – which is exactly what is implied when you talk about how good it is that it doesn’t happen here – is more than a little of the problem that I was trying to point to.
That this is a defense of my position and apparently an attack on yours shouldn’t be surprising, I want to construct a narrative where I’m, at least partially, in the right.
You had my position fairly close to backwards, as mentioned in the clarifying comment. The problem that I see is that there is tolerance for dismissive assumptions of bad faith towards some, but not others. Why was Brett banned? My memory, which may be flawed, was that the ultimate “banning offense” was persistently posting “straight-up lying links”, or words to that effect. WTH was this if not an absolute refusal to do anything but assume bad faith?
Compare and contrast e.g. Brick Oven Bill’s banning back towards the end of the hilzoy era – in ’08, I think? An enormous amount of disagreement, derailing, and a pattern of linking to outrageous nonsense. Suggestions of bad faith and statements almost certainly advanced in bad faith (but dutifully addressed by the commentariat, to most certainly include myself, as being advanced sincerely). It was a one-word, obscure, alluding personal attack that got them banned.
Now compare those two prior examples of banned commenters to sapient – who I have viewed as a troll pretty much ever since they first arrived ~8y ago. There’s a tolerance for hostility, derailing, personal attacks, constant accusations of bad faith to all those who disagree with them. A perfect example touching on all of these was given in the other thread when they called novakant a sociopath for rejecting Clinton because she’s a hawk. When called on by novakant, you did warn sapient, but did so in the context of chastizing novakant for not fixing the issue themself. That hasn’t worked with sapient in the past. Donald repeatedly addressed abusive behavior directly, and sapient did not change their behavior at all until a third party intervened.
As an aside, I’d observe out that on the non-political conversations, those two now-banned individuals interacted and sought to be part of the community to a degree sapient never has, which I’ll admit is one reason among many I find sapient’s conduct as trollish as I do. I’m not sure that should matter – it absolutely shouldn’t in BOB’s case given why they were banned – but it seems worth mentioning given the recent metaconversation about community.
[delete “zero tolerance” discussion, as it’s been clarified]
Let me be clear, since we may have been waxing obtuse. I firmly believe – based on eight-ish (?) years of observing fairly consistent behavior and comportment, less two of those years when I was AFK – sapient is a troll who disrupts and degrades conversation on this blog. I absolutely think something should be done about sapient, and I personally would suggest outright banning. The period when sapient had a short ban recently saw conversations become more focused and less heated, and I’d emphatically argue that was causation, not correlation. sapient derails many if not most conversations into discussions of partisan purity, loyalty, and name-calling (oblique and otherwise). They are consistently abusive towards other blog members, though significantly and probably importantly, not to the frontpagers (their flip response to you that got them a short ban was actually quite surprising and out of character). They almost incessantly accuse those they disagree with of acting in bad faith. They’ve even insulted and patronized those who didn’t agree with them enough. They deploy more rhetoric than large chunks of the commentariat combined. Etc. etc. etc. And they’ve been this way for years, though it’s gradually gotten worse, and generally hasn’t been quite as bad during the midterm periods. They were better for a bit when they came back, but they’re very quickly moving back towards the norms of behavior they’d established for themself prior to being temp-banned. They display a lack of respect for non-front-page commenters, which suggests even then they’re not respecting the person, but the authority (which would make sense as to why peer-to-peer moderating hasn’t worked in the past).
In sum, yes, I think sapient is a problem, and no, I don’t think can or will be a resolution without direct intervention from keyholders.
[delete further discussion which appears to have been at least partially based on misunderstandings]
But when they turn on people posting here, that just isn’t going to fly.
The bar for “turn[ing] on people posting here” is different for different people. That’s a problem. That’s very possibly THE problem from where I stand. If we have posting rules, they need to be for everyone, evenly. It’s bad enough that we have a whole slew of “unless it’s JT/Count” exceptions. Those are problematic, but at least it’s been explicitly acknowledged. We don’t need more unstated ones.
…and my comment is in the spam trap. If you don’t want to publicly address it, leave it there – we can take this to email if you prefer. Otherwise, if you want to leave the discussion out in the open (which is my preference, but I’m not wedded to it, nor is my opinion necessarily important here), please fish it out for me.
Move back up, and your spambinned comment is there, as per your preference. I can see what you are saying now, but when you open your comment with “It’s nice that this doesn’t happen to you” and you italicize the ‘you’, how do I avoid thinking it is not about me? Why use me as an object lesson? Why not say
I walked out of this thread for a reason, and what disturbs me is that some people are granted foreberance…
This thread started as a specific request from Donald and so I put up a minimal post to get the conversation started. I participated in that conversation. I address your comment and then you come back with complaints about me dropping a 1000 word comment (really? You have read my other comments, right?)
Yes sapient and Donald spent some time banging heads in this thread, but I open up the second page of the comments to see what GftNC has to say after a long absence (you did see that I said “Sorry, I missed the comments asking me about Chomsky and I’ve not paid attention to this thread” I’m supposed to process everything in your comment, but reciprocity is optional?) I responded. So I don’t think it is at all helpful to complain about long comments, especially looking at the length of your spam binned comment.
But your comment was not calling me out, it was calling sapient out. OK, let’s put this out here. I believe that many of the things you say about sapient are true. But I also feel that he doesn’t do this alone, you and Donald get in this pattern of poking back to see if you can get the other side angry enough to overstep. I would say this is bizarre, but I see it so often in online discussions that it seems to be the norm. The snide backhand, bury the name in the middle of the comment so the group sees it, ginning up a sense of frustration but not taking responsibility for it.
We had conversations, and we will probably continue to have conversations about sapient and it looks like we might be going down the path again. (but I don’t know if he will read this which is the other thing about the internet, you never know what people see or don’t see, so holding them to account for something that you see is problematic)
But if every commenter comes running to the ‘moderators’ to say ‘kick that one out’, we then end up adjudicating every fucking argument. Don’t believe me? Right after I replied to the comment that gets up your nose, I go over to see that novakant is invoking the mystic aura of the moderators to deal with sapient. But it’s just sapient, right? Well, the reason you seemed to get into here is because GftNC defended cleek, to which you adduced her tone was different with him. There have been lots of fights here, and if people could run to the moderators to solve things, that would happen. Or the moderators would get sick of doing this and leave. Either way does not seem like a good option to me.
About BOB, I came on to the back side of the blog in 2011, I was a commenter for all of the things you said, but I didn’t participate in any of those decisions. I remember Brick Oven Bill and I remember any number of attempts to rein him in. If you want to see his side of the story
http://brickoven.blogspot.jp/2008/08/banished.html
If you want to see the last thread and the discussion, it’s here
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/07/i-came-as-a-rat.html
Basically, none of the people who are posting now (with the exception of Sebastian?) were there. Obviously, we are part of the ObWi ‘Deep State’, but really?
The bar for “turn[ing] on people posting here” is different for different people. That’s a problem.
No, that is life. We can try to treat everyone equally, but we are going to respond to people differently. We all use rhetoric. I would prefer that people would rein it in sometimes, and I occasionally say so. It would help if some other people might ask others to take a step back instead of escalating to the point where they feel they need to ask the moderators to step in. Or simply take a break. When I see three or four comments in quick succession, each striving for a snide backhanded insult, I know that things are getting out of hand. Honestly, when I see people screwing up italics, I wonder if passions are getting too high. But you and everyone else here, I assume are adults. I realize that the political scene doesn’t support this, but it is possible for adults to find adult-like solutions. I’d appreciate it if you’d try.
how do I avoid thinking it is not about me?
By reading the context of the statement within the comment where it occurs. Which leads us directly to…
I address your comment and then you come back with complaints about me dropping a 1000 word comment (really? You have read my other comments, right?)
I never, EVER said this. You’re accusing me of attacking you by pointing to something I said about myself. There have been precisely three mentions of 1000-word comments prior to now. First, me stating that I’d refrained from posting a 1000-word comment because it appeared you’d misread a comment of mine badly enough that you understood it precisely backward. Next, I stated that I hadn’t been hyperbolic when I said I had a 1000-word comment lurking in the wings, which was why so little of your comment was addressed in my terse “did you totally misread my prior comment?” comment. And finally, when you accused me of attacking you for writing a 1000-word comment. Which, again, I never did. Note also that the first assignment of a pejorative character to long comments was in your accusation.
This gets tiresome. Particularly when your chastisement includes barbs like:
you did see that I said “Sorry, I missed the comments asking me about Chomsky and I’ve not paid attention to this thread” I’m supposed to process everything in your comment, but reciprocity is optional?
If you’re going to respond to comments, then yes, you should read the comments you’re directly responding to closely enough that you do not take them to mean the opposite of what they do. Repeatedly. To multiple comments in succession. While calling out the other party for not reading your comments closely enough and for not responding to everything you said in your comments.
I know you’re busy, but reading what you’re responding to before you respond is about as basic as you can get for showing basic adult respect online. I frankly would prefer you (and everyone else) ignore me than respond to comments I did not make, and I’m fairly certain you feel the same towards me (and everyone else).
I’d also prefer if you do not try quite so hard to turn every comment I make into a personal attack directed at you. Again, good faith vs. bad faith.
I believe that many of the things you say about sapient are true. But I also feel that he doesn’t do this alone, you and Donald get in this pattern of poking back to see if you can get the other side angry enough to overstep.
I don’t see this, certainly not with the motivations your mindreading and assumption of bad faith (and there we are back to that) are ascribing to Donald and me. I can’t ever think of any instance of Donald doing anything that even resembled this. For myself, I’ve done the cleek-style* snide not-really-engaging jab a few times, yes. Not often, though, and sure as hell not with the motives you’ve neatly ascribed to me. When I’ve done that it’s because someone’s (pretty much always sapient’s) comments seem like they should be challenged because they’re derailing conversation or pushing a toxic narrative, but I don’t have the energy to actually engage with them – because that really, truly is taxing. I absolutely do not enjoy it; it’s stressful and aggravating.
I would say this is bizarre, but I see it so often in online discussions that it seems to be the norm.
So should I assume norms I see elsewhere on the Internet apply to the actions of long-time posters here absent actual evidence that they do? This is not what you said before. The goal of having an online community is respecting each other and assuming good faith. Right?
The snide backhand, bury the name in the middle of the comment so the group sees it, ginning up a sense of frustration but not taking responsibility for it.
Like so?
I don’t see either myself or Donald doing anything of this sort**. We’ve both been pretty damned clear when we’ve addressed sapient, and if I’ve spoke about sapient other than to their face it’s always been as a direct subject of conversation, typically with multiple lines addressing them. It’s rather hard to get from direct and verbose discussion to the sly drive-by negative association you describe.
Well, the reason you seemed to get into here is because GftNC defended cleek, to which you adduced her tone was different with him.
No. Although since it wasn’t address to you, nor involving you, I don’t expect you to have followed this particular discussion closely. That whole sidetrack came down to me pointing out that cleek can and often does – if I may retroactively borrow bobbyp’s lovely turn of phrase – “gratuitously hand out snide brickbats”, and my uncharitable assumption that since in my experience cleek has noticeably adopted a friendlier tone with GftNC than with the rest of the commentariat (and, yes, vice-versa), this might not have been readily apparent to them. Which again, was not at all a reasonable assumption to make, because it’s been a staple of cleek’s commenting repertoire pretty much forever. However, my vague allusion to that unstated line of thought added next to nothing to the conversation except presumption and a lot of ill-will and confusion.
About BOB
I’m actually a lot more curious about Brett, because my memory – which again, may not be perfect here – was that you personally instigated his banning (so you would be well-placed to clarify what in particular he did that crossed the line, because right now it looks more like there was no unique behavior or even combination of behaviors that hasn’t been deemed acceptable from others), you delivered the final ban rather suddenly with little sign of public warnings leading up to it, and it looked a lot like you did it for reasons involving the sort of assumptions of bad faith you’ve been lecturing me about in this thread.
Obviously, we are part of the ObWi ‘Deep State’, but really?
On the subject of acting like an adult and not making petty barbs, was this necessary? You’re not telling me anything I didn’t know and didn’t include in my reference to BOB’s banning (although perhaps referring to the hilzoy era was too cryptic, but given how long we’ve both been here, it seemed pretty safe to assume that as common knowledge, and as something the other party would likewise assume as common knowledge). The ‘Deep State’ jab is just that: a personal jab, based on political disagreements between us that we both recognize, but carrying nastier implications.
It would help if some other people might ask others to take a step back instead of escalating to the point where they feel they need to ask the moderators to step in. Or simply take a break.
The latter is what I very typically do in lieu of commenting at all. I self-censor a lot. I’ll admit one or two things you said upthread seemed to suggest to me that you viewed walking out of an argument as making a mess then leaving someone else to clean it up (obviously, when I disengage after getting into a dispute, not when I refrain from commenting because I figure a pointless dispute is inevitable, and someone else can or is making a counterpoint while avoiding getting heated). But if that’s not what you meant, I’ll continue to use this form of deescalation if I don’t think metaconversation would be productive. And for the most part, I’ll just keep my mouth shut in the first place.
For the record: the reason I responded to this at such tedious length is because “we will probably continue to have conversations [about this sort of thing]” and if so, it’s better to actually finish the conversation so we’re all operating under the same set of facts rather than holding onto conflicting views of what this discussion was about.
Let’s see how it goes…
*/** No, this (*) is not a good example of that (**). Because here’s a footnote drawing attention to it, and because it’s referring to them to cite an example of inconsistent application of standards: you are denouncing this sort of comment, but another commenter does this liberally, has done so for years, and remains utterly free of any sort of rebuke… so again, what actually is the norm being violated here?
OK, I see where some disconnects are happening and I’m sorry that they happened. Some are similar to the situation that occurred with I said something to Bob McManus that I thought was innocent and he took great offense at it. Other places, I disagree. And I’m not perfect, so examples for me not living up to my ideals are not all that surprising. I will forgo any more explanation except for this
About Brett, we did a short term ban and I wrote this
Dear Brett (bcc to the front pagers)
As you have probably guessed, you’ve been blocked from the blog. Apologies for not informing you sooner, but I got distracted after blocking you. We’re planning on letting you back in on 8 June (Japan time) You are welcome to either remind me before that time or tell me I forgot. One of the front pagers suggested that your current challenges in real life are stressing you out and we all extend our sympathy to you in this time. We hope that this will help you rather than feel like something added to your stress.
We are all generally opposed to banning folks. However, you are pretty much taking up all the air in the room and that really was not acceptable.
With that, we’ll plan on seeing you 8 June some time
That took place, but later that month, things got bad again and I wrote
Dear Brett (bcc to front pagers)
We’ve hashed this over again, and the conclusion is that you are engaged in too much thread jacking and it is preventing others who might want to participate. It is not a particular comment or statement you made, it is a general pattern of behavior that we find problematic. The last straw is that the fact that *** (as *** ***) has rejoined us and will also be bounced shortly until he uses another false IP to try and sneak around. While you may argue that it is unfair to hold you responsible for what someone else says, the fact is that we are all responsible for the type of conversation and the atmosphere of the blog, so we, as the front pagers, have decided to take this step.
So, we would like you to rethink your participation at ObWi, and in order to try and make that possible, we are going to institute a series of bans. The first one will be 24 hours (or so), following ones will be increasing longer until we reach the point where it is not worthwhile to keep track of the time.
The previous time we did this, I don’t think we made a formal announcement but this time we will.
I realise that this message has the vibe of a teacher lecturing a bad student, which is the last thing I need (since that’s what I seem to do in real life all the time), but it seems that you really aren’t picking up what is problematic about your participation and this is basically our final effort to try and have you see this.
I appreciate you writing at length to make sure we are operating under the same set of facts. But actually, we are never going to be operating under the same set of facts. There is no way you can know the sum of the experiences that lead me or sapient or russell or anyone else to
write and we can only get a glimpse of them if that person decides to relay them. That goes for us knowing about you as well. That is all.
So, um, anybody heard any good jokes lately?
Is this a good moment to attack Chomsky?
I like lj’s suggestion that propaganda has to be indifferent to truth. By this definition, Chomsky is a propagandist and some of the media he attacks are not.
I am thinking in particular of the Faurisson affair.
“Is this a good moment to attack Chomsky?”
will somebody please buy the man a comb?
So, um, anybody heard any good jokes lately?
BrettB, bobbyp, NV, Sapient, McManus,and Donald walked into a bar. Countme-in, the bartender, asked, “How could any of you have not seen that bar? Was it set too low for you?”
baddaboom, baddabing.
So, um, anybody heard any good jokes lately?
Have you seen that new pirate movie? The one that’s rated Arrrr!
World’s shortest joke:
“Beautiful clean coal.”
–TP
Does this qualify as a joke?
Yes. Just not a good one.
On a slightly lighter note:
lj made mention of only responding to part of a comment as being “UseNet-y”, which struck me as odd given that this seems more like modern, blog-standard behavior than what I recall about the UseNet, but that may just be a matter of cutting our teeth in different heirarchies. alt.atheism was (and presumably still is) a special sort of perpetually flaming cesspool, after all. I have such, um, let’s call them “fond” memories of three-paragraph posts getting the line-by-line quote-reply-quote-reply treatment and turning into thirty paragraph reply threads in the space of only three or four replies.
I halfway wonder if that might not have come down to the formulaic nature of a lot of proselytizing/anti-proselytizing, where both sides essentially knew all the arguments and counters being offered up, so there was little to gain by ignoring part of a comment (since it was almost certainly not really presenting a novel idea), and more to lose by being perceived as not being able to respond (which was really the only way to “score points” aside from simply outlasting your interlocutor’s patience and/or attention span). It was a sort of kabuki, where presumably both sides were just reinforcing their pre-existing beliefs, honing their repertoire of pat responses, and enjoying a sense of catharsis from telling themselves they’d methodically out-reasoned a stubbornly irrational opponent…
I thought this comment thread was dead. In fact, I didn’t go back for a day or two and just assumed it.
LJ–On Chomsky, he comes up in this context (MSM bias) because he wrote a lot about it in connection with US atrocities for literally decades, so he is representative of the anti-interventionist critique of US foreign policy and how it is discussed in mainstream circles. Then the internet came along and all sorts of people now do the same thing. They are still marginalized in the “respectable” circles, but there are a lot of us now. For me, 20 to 30 years ago, buying a Chomsky book every few years was the modern equivalent of going online and reading on a leftwing (or even in some cases rightwing) blog about the atrocities the mainstream media is misreporting or ignoring. In the bad old days if you brought up some horrible US policy in Central America or East Timor or Israel and mainstream hypocrisy on those subjects and mentioned Chomsky inevitably the conversation would be turned into a discussion of Chomsky’s real or alleged sins. It seemed to many people that if they could show that Chomsky is an asshole it somehow meant that US involvement in this or that atrocity really wasn’t happening. With so many different sources now this kind of distraction doesn’t matter. You don’t need any particular person to cite to discuss the general nastiness of US foreign policy or the ongoing hypocrisy on that subject.
This for all of you who told me to use private (incognito) mode in order to see Washington Post without getting hassled for subscriptions!
Hi Donald,
Yes, it doesn’t matter what Chomsky actually says (and by no means is he always correct), it’s all about getting the Chomsky doll out and stabbing it some more.
Mine is literally in shreds, but you oughta’ see my Billy Kristol doll!
Now that was quite funny, bobbyp.
I am imagining Chomsky as Chucky (I am referring to “Child’s Play”, 1988, for those who don’t know what I’m talking about).
Donald makes a good point.
Donald, that’s true, but I believe, for the most part, that almost everyone on this blog acknowledges the deep hypocrisies in US foreign policy, so bringing up Chomsky tends to be a distraction. The few who don’t, Chomsky isn’t really going to convince them.
As I mentioned before, I have my own issues with Chomsky, but there is something about Chomsky that also afflicts the far (far?) left more generally, I think. The most recent thing that you may have read about is Dan Everett’s research that takes issue with some of the principles that Chomsky has put forth.
In 2007, Everett heard reports of a letter signed by Cilene Rodrigues, who is Brazilian, and who co-wrote the paper with Pesetsky and Nevins, that accuses him of racism. According to Everett, he got a call from a source informing him that Rodrigues, an honorary research fellow at University College London, had sent a letter to the organization in Brazil that grants permission for researchers to visit indigenous groups like the Pirahã. He then discovered that the organization, called FUNAI, the National Indian Foundation, would no longer grant him permission to visit the Pirahã, whom he had known for most of his adult life and who remain the focus of his research.
He still hasn’t been able to return. Rodrigues would not respond directly to questions about whether she had signed such a letter, nor would Nevins. Rodrigues forwarded an e-mail from another linguist who has worked in Brazil, which speculates that Everett was denied access to the Pirahã because he did not obtain the proper permits and flouted the law, accusations Everett calls “completely false” and “amazingly nasty lies.”
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Angry-Words/131260
This article details some of the other stuff
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003837.html
One can say that you can’t blame Chomsky for the behavior of people who want to follow him, but substitute the name of the POTUS there and I hope you see what disturbs me.
Even LJ couldn’t resist stabbing the Chomsky doll.
It has amazing recursive powers!
Academic battles in general often seem ugly. I know diddident economists, for instance, complain about how they are treated. Has Chomsky done something underhanded to Everett? If he didn’t, then no, he isn’t responsible. I don’t think this is the far left so much as any group of people with power who are tempted to misuse it.. I used to follow these side issues, like the one about Faurisson mentioned upthread, but it has nothing to do with what interests me in Chomsky’s writings. I would read about them simply because they invariably would come up. Peoplle can be admirable and worth reading on some subjects and be assholes in other respects. Not saying Chomsky is, just that I don’t care that much. I have heard Einstein was a lousy husband. This probably doesn’t mean much regarding his views on GR, QM, or even his politics.
On Everett, I am not a linguist, but did follow that issue slightly. Here is a view from a Chomskyite. But it’s not my field. I did see that ludicrous Tom Wolfe article in Harper’s last year, which seemed like absolutely the worst possible way to cover a legitimate scientific debate. Chomsky attracts that sort of deranged critic and this mostly isn’t his fault.
http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.com/2017/01/tragedy-farce-pathos.html
here’s why Chomsky get eye-rolls from a lot of people:
And then what happens becomes significant. In order to maintain his popularity, the Trump administration will have to try to find some means of rallying the support and changing the discourse from the policies that they are carrying out, which are basically a wrecking ball to something else. Maybe scapegoating, saying, “Well, I’m sorry, I can’t bring your jobs back because these bad people are preventing it.” And the typical scapegoating goes to vulnerable people: immigrants, terrorists, Muslims and elitists, whoever it may be. And that can turn out to be very ugly.
I think that we shouldn’t put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly.
paranoia is damaging whether it comes from Alex Jones, Breitbart, or from the darling of the left.
(blockquote fail)
‘”I think that we shouldn’t put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly.”
paranoia is damaging whether it comes from Alex Jones, Breitbart, or from the darling of the left.’
Well, since the hot, heavy breathing of Alex Jones’ and Brietbart’s paranoia now resides right up against the ears of brazen idiots at the very highest levels of the most powerful government in the world in palpable, physical form, perhaps Chomsky’s ravings (who needs his, when mine are available right here for the asking?) have finally found their match.
It’s not like we’re dealing with Gerald Ford here.
We now live a bizarro national political life wherein headlines from the Onion and The National Enquirer (the latter now amplifies White House talking points) signal more believed reality to tens of millions of the so-called citizenry than the hapless mainstream media offerings.
Fake news is real news if believed by a plurality.
It’s as though the trump/republican phenomenon was designed to mimic and express the phantasms lurking in Chomsky’s imagination these many decades.
There are malign, dangerous types, at the very least, in the White House and Congress who could read this:
“I think that we shouldn’t put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly.”
…. and forward it to each other bullet-pointed as a lightbulb-going-on-over-the-head moment in policy formulation.
I’ve listened to trump and spicer, as no doubt all of us have.
ANYTHING will come out of their mouths.
So, why doubt that ANYTHING can happen?
Besides, speaking for my own self, if my paranoia in this small corner of the world leads in any way to damage to this thing that calls itself the republican party, as in burning it to the ground and sowing its ashes with salt … killing it … then damage is my middle name.
And what happens to the Democratic Party is irrelevant to their demise.
Of course the United States would never … oh wait:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
Seriously, all it takes is an Iranian speedboat not staying in lane and thereby ‘threatening the lives of American soldiers’ so I fail to see how this is irresponsible conspiracy mongering. Don’t believe me? Lest we forget:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
so I fail to see how this is irresponsible conspiracy mongering
we live in an era when literally every tragedy becomes a sinister false flag operation in the minds of the Infowars set. 9/11, Sandy Hook, the Quebec mosque attack, etc.. John Bolton is claiming that the Russian hacks on our election was a false flag operation.
it’s fake news. and like all fake news, it erodes faith in actual news. it erodes faith in democracy. it’s poison.
in this instance Chomsky is – exactly like Sean Hannity – bad for America.
Yeah, sure, but the point is that fake news have been used to deflect attention and justify anything from curtailing civil liberties to fighting bloody wars throughout history – the whole Iraq war was based on fake news. So why is it so unthinkable that Trump, who has a proven track record of lying shamelessly in public, should resort to such tactics?
the point is that Chomsky is feeding conspiracy theorists. he is cultivating the environment where actual news can’t be trusted.
Trump hasn’t actually ‘resorted to such tactics’. and yet here’s Chomsky, making sure that if something does happen, and even if Trump hasn’t ‘resorted to such tactics’ that Chomsky’s followers will be ready to leap to the conspiracy theory. the truth is already at a disadvantage.
it’s plain demagoguery.
“it’s fake news. and like all fake news, it erodes faith in actual news. it erodes faith in democracy. it’s poison.”
True.
But fake news is here to stay because that has been the expressed goal of the conservative movement since Weyrich and company started the jihad against legitimate news.
Yes, yes, I know legitimate news has always had its problems, John Foster Kane.
Actually, it’s been the expressed goal of the conservative movement since 1845.
And novakant is correct, but now fake news IS the news. Just as fake reality entertainment has now displaced nearly all other entertainment and we have a reality TV President.
On any issue before us, what comes out of ryan spicer trump’s mouth is the Gulf of Tonkin.
So my prescription for fighting fake news is even faker news.
The corpse is already turning blue from the belladonna poisoning administered via slow drip over the past 40 to 50 years by Sean Hannity and company.
I say the antidote is cyanide poisoning until the patient goes into a deep coma state and can be purged of republican/trump toxins.
It’s touch and go.
“in this instance Chomsky is – exactly like Sean Hannity – bad for America.”
Things will get worse until they get better. I have no particular adherence to Chomsky, but if I could fashion a gun and bullets from his bones, a good start on saving the Republic would be shooting Hannity (substitute any number of right-wing names) in the head.
You can have a country or you can have Hannity et al in it.
Having both is not an option.
Abraham Lincoln agrees with me.
He died of lead poisoning at the hands of the conservative movement.
Things will get worse until they get better.
no doubt.
but i don’t think it’s a one way street. or if it is, it’s probably a long meandering loop and we’ll end up back on the high ground eventually. for a while.
I like an optimist.
Here’s the best headline writer for a legitimate news item I’ve seen in awhile.
George W. Bush, boy journalist:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/george-bush-that-was-some-weird-shit
Nothing fake about that.
Now I must go and have an expensive dental deep cleaning procedure done.
That screaming you will hear is me.
Sigh. Yes, my eyes rolled a little at that Chomsky quote, cleek. When I read him in the old days I never saw Chomsky push the classic sort of conspiracy theory. And no, that’s not why Chomsky gets eye rolls in the mainstream, because you see that sort of speculation about Trump everywhere. What is all the Hitler talk about if not exactly that sort of thing? People who think there is a real danger we could lose our democracy or who say that Trump poses a real danger of fascism or mention the Sinclair Lewis novel are saying that we might become a police state, yet you tell me this example from Chomsky is why people roll their eyes. Frankly, I am a little surprised to see Chomsky doing it–he sounds almost mainstream. As for false flags, if he means within the US that seems a bit nuts to me, but overseas it is pretty much bog standard to claim things which aren’t true about real atrocities. The Gulf of Tonkin comes to mind. And often when an atrocity or massacre is committed, there is an immediate attempt to either deny it or say that the other side did it. The entire argument for the Iraq War was a massive collection of BS and conspiracy theorizing engaged in by the mainstream.
Martha Gessen has been writing about conspiratorial thinking lately. She pretty clearly isn’t talking about Chomsky. She is talking about Democrats.
When I followed Chomsky regularly, he would talk about bias on human rights issues. That was his main, overwhelming focus. For instance, why are the crimes of the people we oppose called “terrorism” and so forth when similar language is rarely used for our allies? Reagan supported genocidal (literal genocide) killers in Guatemala. It wasn’t labeled as such at the time. East Timor was largely ignored for twenty years while we armed Indonesia. Israel was and is treated as a sacred cow by most politicians–the Nakba was almost totally unknown here. We supported terrorist figures in Central America and Africa. A typical Chomsky claim in the 80’s and 90’s would be something like the following–The US is the leading supporter of terror in the world today, yet the mainstream press largely sticks to the usual circle jerk of experts and politicians who talk about the US as fighting against terrorism. By following the convenient framing of our Beltway types, the press was functioning as a propaganda organ. If you had said during the Reagan era that the US was a leading supporter of both state terror and terror by nongovernmental groups there is no chance you’d have been having discussions on the PBS Newshour. Ordinary people were being shot or mutiliated by the literal hundreds of thousands by groups that we armed, yet it was regarded as beyond the pale or crackpot to talk about US supported terror or genocide in that era. If you think about this for even one second, this is morally insane. It’s also what you’d expect in most societies.
I haven’t read him lately, but I assume he would point to the rather glaringly obvious difference in how Aleppo was discussed last fall vs. how Yemen was discussed. Or how people discuss the bombing of Gaza vs. Aleppo. Human shields are mentioned in any article where the US or one of its allies kills civilians. That excuse is invariably trotted out and taken seriously when our side bombs civilians. Nobody took it seriously with the Russians in Aleppo, though Al Qaeda was there and there were in fact claims that they prevented civilians from leaving.
If Chomsky focuses on hypothetical false flag attacks within the US–he never used to do that–then it is time for him to retire. I am not sure if he meant that, but maybe he did. His strength in his heyday was that he focused on the awful things the US actually did, not on some hypothetical thing it hadn’t ever done before.
“things which aren’t true about real atrocities. The Gulf of Tonkin comes to mind. ”
Um, as an example of a lie with gigantic consequences. It wasn’t an atrocity, of course.
Frankly, I am a little surprised to see Chomsky doing it-
and yet i’m not surprised at all.
disclaimer: i am not a student of Chomsky’s, i don’t own any of his books and i’ve never attended a speech.
but i have read things of his here and there, enough to form an opinion. and, in my opinion, this is exactly the kind of thing that has kept me from reading more of what he writes. he’s a conspiracy theorist – a smarter, more intellectual conspiracy theorist than Alex Jones, for sure. and he’s not as acute – his theories are bigger, broader, more subtle than Jones’. but, Chomsky’s p.o.v. (again, based on what i’ve read) is that there are conspiracies of elites running everything and that he’ll connect the dots for us.
i don’t subscribe.
Well, as Donald has pointed out already, you don’t have to read Chomsky, there are plenty of others writing very eloquently on the subject matters he covers.
Play the ball, not the man.
Actually, it’s not that there are conspiracies of elites. It’s that elites act according to their own interests rather than selflessly serving the greater good, and as a consequence and without conspiring they: present facts from their own perspective; downplay, omit, or misrepresent facts that paint themselves and those they empathize with in a poor light; resolve ambiguity in their favor; and treat groups that act in ways that interfere with their interests as adversaries. Again, all without conspiring. A large portion of his point is that people with similar and shared interests act in ways that benefit themselves and others with like interests, and that there need not be conspiracy for this to occur.
Chomskites are very frequently conspiracy theorists. Chomsky himself – at least historically, as I have never been an avid follower and certainly don’t keep up – was not.
you don’t have to read Chomsky
really? i had no idea! i thought i was breaking the law this whole time.
drat.
so much for being a rebel.
You seem to be more interested in hippie punching than anything else.
Donald Trump broke some real news to America yesterday:
“Around we’ve had leaders like Susan B. Anthony. Have you heard of Susan B. Anthony? I’m shocked that you’ve heard of her — who dreamed of a much more fair and equal future and an America where women themselves as she said helped to make laws and elect the lawmakers, and that’s what’s happening more and more.”
He added: “She had hooters out to here. I’m not saying she’s some kind beauty queen, but she comes out of a cake unlike anything you’ve ever seen. I need to have her and Fred Douglas down to Mar-A-Largo for lunch one day, when they are free. Kelly Ann, hold up that book I said I read last year about the two of them, and make sure you hold it right end up this time.”
That Trump. Such a class act! Not to mention right on top of obscure bits of American history. Simply awesome.
You seem to be more interested in hippie punching than anything else.
the topic was Chomsky, and i offered an opinion on Chomsky, as many others here have already done. that’s how conversations work.
go troll someone else.
Well, no, in most of his writings he is not a conspiracy theorist and most of his writings in the 60’s through the early 00’s (when I stopped reading him regularly) are not conspiracy theories at all. His writings are as I described them. It’s a little frustrating hearing you tell me about someone you admit you have barely read, when I would have to stop and think about how many of his books I have actually read, along with a large number of articles.
I am going to give an outline of a typical Chomsky book or article. Here it is.
A) Describe atrocity X being committed in some distant place by a US ally or the US itself. Give some historical background. Supply copious footnotes, generally to sources like Amnesty International or the like. In the days before the internet you would have to write to AI to get these and pay money. He would also cite mainstream sources, but articles that don’t get much play, or foreign news sources or books or papers. Yes, people write scholarly books on East Timor, for instance. No, they don’t get much coverage in the MSM. I bought a couple at a UN bookstore almost 30 years ago, one by Ramos Horta and one by James Dunn, which I learned about from Chomsky first and a few years later in a New York Review of Books piece. I loaned them to a skeptical liberal friend who couldn’t believe what I was telling him and never got them back. (Note to self–never loan books if you want to keep them.) If you are interested in something Chomsky wrote about, you never stop with him. I first learned about the dark side of Israel’s history from “The Fateful Triangle” and was then surprised when it was news we were supplying weapons to Iran, because he already had mentioned it there. (From some mainstream articles that were quickly forgotten.) I then went on to read many others, including some Israeli historians. I wouldn’t bother with Chomsky now, but he was the gateway for me on that subject. Okay, back to the outline.
B) Cite articles and editorials in the US MSM showing how it was covered.
C) Compare this to the coverage given to atrocity Y committed by a US enemy.
D) Repeat A through C. Over and over and over and over and over….
E) Theorize about why the coverage is the way it is. This part actually never interested me much, because any human being on the planet already knows. People in power are hypocritical about their own crimes. The details of how that works will vary depending on the society.
Once you read one or two of his books it’s easy to see what he is talking about. It’s sort of a constant background to foreign policy discussions in the US. You just expect the sort of nonsensical posturing and double standards where people are outraged about Russian bombing in Aleppo and say nothing about the very same sorts of things in Yemen. It’s US foreign policy. Rancid, soul-destroying monstrous inexcusable bullshit is what one should expect.
If Chomsky now sounds like some liberal Democrat writing a paranoid comment about what Trump might do to become a dictator, well, I never would have wasted two cents buying books containing that sort of crap. But it doesn’t matter now, as I said before, since there are any number of people online pointing out the sorts of things he spent half his life writing about.
It’s a little frustrating hearing you tell me about someone you admit you have barely read, when I would have to stop and think about how many of his books I have actually read, along with a large number of articles.
i totally understand. but if you’ve read a lot of him, you probably like what he has to say. i’ve only read a little because i don’t like what he has to say. few people would spend much time reading someone they don’t enjoy reading.
i don’t eat mayo, but i’ve had enough to know i don’t like it.
E) Theorize about why the coverage is the way it is.
this is probably, i think, the part i get stuck on.
That was his main, overwhelming focus.
I disagree, his main, overwhelming focus was on the bad behavior of Western governments, particularly on the US government. That’s why he took such a beating when he dismissed criticisms of Pol Pot. His opponents want to paint him as a Pol Pot supporter, but he’s not, he just wanted to get in a shot at Western governments and dismissed the early reportage coming out of Cambodia and then spent the rest of the time trying to reparse his comments. I don’t believe he has ever participated in the discussion of how one crafts a legal basis for human rights. He’s never accepted that any step is a good first step. He’s never dealt with the realities of that. He’s an intellectual, damnit, why should he do that kind of work?
I understand that heroes often have feet of clay. I also understand that people can find themselves in situations where they become more than themselves. Lincoln, Churchill come to mind. Our best heroes are the ones who die (or are killed) at the height of the struggle because we get to keep them in that pristine state where what they did was clear and just. Lincoln, MLK, Gandhi. Just look at how the luster around Aung San Suu Kyi has vanished. That we like our heroes dead tells us something, and I don’t know if I like what it tells us.
A typical Chomsky claim in the 80’s and 90’s would be something like the following–The US is the leading supporter of terror in the world today, yet the mainstream press largely sticks to the usual circle jerk of experts and politicians who talk about the US as fighting against terrorism.
Sure, and that is as much rhetorical as it is factual. Get your opponent off balance with a huge claim and then have them try to present an equally powerful counter claim and get them to overstate. It’s fun to watch when no one gets hurt but I am increasingly wondering how we move anything forward if we keep arguing like that.
His big claim about East Timor is that Moynihan had a comment that apparently took pride in what happened. However, this is a misrepresentation of what Moynihan said, and when you look at the quote, you’ll see that it is actually something that was stitched together, with Moynihan discussing his efforts as UN rep to block aspect of Soviet aggression rather than happiness at the plight of the East Timorese. It’s not unsurprising and he does the same thing with linguistic arguments. If he gets on the right side of the argument, it’s great but if he gets on the wrong side, he will never admit and will never take a step back. You can search all of Chomsky’s oeuvre and you will never find that he admits doubt, or says that he misunderstood an argument or that his opinion changed. Or even that it is too early to judge. We laugh (or cry) about Trump never being able to admit he was wrong, but it is the same kind of behavior.
My academic “grandmother” – who got her linguistics PhD at MIT in the 80s – was always fairly emphatic that you essentially can’t win an argument with Chomsky. So, yeah.
“that’s how conversation work”
Lol
by your own admission you don’t really know what you’re talking about and despite the efforts of Donald and NV, who are infinitely more patient than me, you seem completely uninterested in changing that, so yeah, let’s call it a dat
Way to play the ball, novakant…
lj, please tell me how one is supposed to engage constructively with cleek in this context, thank you
For the record, novakant, my statement was for the peanut gallery, not cleek, as cleek’s browser script will re-word it and anything else I say to “I like pie” or words to that effect. So it was only you and Donald who were trying to engage with him.
my statement was for the peanut gallery, not cleek
Soon, the peanut gallery will be you, novakant and Donald, just as you have hoped.
please tell me how one is supposed to engage constructively with cleek in this context,
i’ll just point out that, while he and i certainly disagree about this stuff, Donald and i are having a polite exchange.
by your own admission you don’t really know what you’re talking about
you’re perilously close to asserting that it’s necessary to have read everything that someone has published in order to come to an opinion about whether or not you want to read more.
but that would be colossally stupid. for a bunch of reasons.
novakant, imitate Donald. You could do a lot worse. Anyway, I looked back and you brought up Chomsky, so it seems like you are the one not willing to entertain the fact that others may have different opinions.
What exactly did your clever little barb add to the discussion, sapient? Why did you choose to address me when all you sought to do was belittle or irritate me? Cut it out, and act like an adult.
On NV’s last point, which may be worth considering, I’m going to close the comments here. I think we’ve done enough recursion. (linguistic history tidbit, Chomsky initially called one of his early theories, Standard Theory, which was then renamed Extended Standard Theory, which was then called Revised Extended Standard Theory, which prompted some who didn’t agree with the analysis to ask the question ‘Why don’t you give it a REST?’)
No one has been kicked off, and no one is currently on any black list, just to be clear, but it would really be nice if everyone could get along a little better and if everyone would try a bit harder. There is a great post coming up this evening Japan time from JanieM, so I’d like all of you to be on your best behavior, myself included. That is all.