A new US Republican thread 2016

[seebart]

Do you really believe only the right does propaganda? How naive. It has been and is a filthy propaganda war.

No I don't believe that and I did not say that. I do believe that as a reader I get more objective news out of the New York Times compared to Fox News. Just to be clear, personally I read neither, although I don't think one can "read" Fox news.

[fohat]

I was not saying that Jane Mayer is an academic or award winner. I was referring in general terms to months or years of your comments, of which some criticisms were of lower grade and some higher. The pertinence and validity of the ghost writer article stands, however, and the important observations in it were made by Schwartz.

And yes, Fox is a TV station. There is no reading involved anywhere in the vicinity from what I have seen.

[webwit]

Let's focus on that email. First of all the Democrats confirmed the emails are real. That email shows that Mayer is an informant of the Democrats, and to be precise, she reported to a very shady person involved in war-profiteering. WTF. And somehow you want to turn this into the question why I am not gullible to immediately believe this obvious propaganda piece from this oh-so respectable source.

So, relevant news enters the New Yorker, and she secretly leaks it to her favorite people in a political party. The New Yorker didn't fire her, so that's the New Yorker. I don't think she has pals in the Trump camp, so that makes her partisan, and also the New Yorker, as they did not fire her. They even allowed her to write this essay about Trump.

Does she do this because she really likes those Democrats people? Or does she get something in return? Like valuable information. Which she uses in her career of "journalism". Would Mayer ever write an article about war-profiteering? Or something bad about her favorite people? How does she like the power shift, her career is no longer advanced, and she loses the inside information. Which she gets from her buddy into war-profiteering. Those people like more war. The defense budget is not spent, it's money transferred from tax payers to other people. Mayer would have liked that to continue, to continue her relationship.

No, don't answer all those questions. It's not even relevant. What's relevant is that I checked the source, the source is partisan and corrupted, and it is ridiculous that this source writes an article about Trump as "respected" journalism. And you attack me for not being gullible and eat what is served because Nobel prize winners (which is somehow, deliciously cynically, fitting, as they like to award war mongers). Perhaps you should follow my shining example and not eat what is served and remain critical and think by yourself.

[fohat]

You usually object to ad hominem arguments, but seem to be frantically focused on a person who you do not like.

All I did was to call attention to an article about a book and its writer, who had very clear and insightful observations of a man he had spent hundreds of hours with and had come to know intimately well. Very few others have ever been able to do that, because Trump has never had any close friends or associates.

Now that that man (who is a mystery to 99%+ of the people on the Earth (~61M of whom do not realize it)) is in a position of power, those observations become far more relevant and important. This is "content" which is vital and necessary today. Who it was that actually assembled the magazine article itself is of little importance to me, although you seem obsessed about it.

[webwit]

Yeah it's a book from 1987 about a business narcissist by an author who likes Amazon commissions on 30 year old books, who uses the "journalist" for that, while the journalist happily creates the filter to use the author for her message, that Trump is a baddy, and you should vote otherwise. It is not vital information, we all know Trump is a pussy grabbing orange business ape.

[fohat]

we all know Trump is a pussy

Not necessarily. ~61M American voters may or may not have understood that.

The magazine article detailed that Trump is an amoral moron with a 15-second attention span. "We" (being intelligent adults) have known this for decades.

I think that you fail to grasp the unimaginable stupidity of a large block of voters, and the unimaginable apathy of an even larger block.

The reality is that his election has enabled a foaming-at-the-mouth ultra-ultra-ultra-radical right-wing cabal of lackeys to the "moneyed elite" in the US to have near-unlimited power for at least 2 years.

I don't give a rat's ass who actually pens the articles themselves, as long as the content gets across to the readers.

[webwit]

So your side are the superior, intelligent people, with superior moral standards such as bombing weddings and mass espionage, and the other side are the amoral stupid inferior people. Oh dear. Have you considered starting to measure skull sizes?

And someone with a 15-second attention span, like a fish, just beat the entirety of the apparatus of the Republican and Democratic parties, the rulers of your country.

Right.

[fohat]

And someone with a 15-second attention span, like a fish, just beat the entirety of the apparatus of the Republican and Democratic parties, the rulers of your country.

Precisely.

As my daughter said: "Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you through experience."

[webwit]

Start measuring those skulls, man.

I just wonder, as you learn your daughter to hate people with different political views, as immoral, inferior, bad people - as the enemy, as designed to be your behaviour by the Democrats, proven by the email leaks (where the strategy to polarize was laid out).

Do you also tell her that's it's ok to murder innocent people in far away countries? To mass-spy on people? That you should never mention such issues and look away? Because those murdered people are inferior people or something and it hurts your rhetoric. That you vote for that to continue, because otherwise, the other cunt gets in? I bet you don't.

[vivalarevolución]

Boys, put your respective bottles down, sober up, and keep your children out of this. That's a low blow.

[webwit]

Don't bring your brainwashed little snowflake into this, and I won't attack that.

[fohat]

Wow.

[webwit]

Yeah. Keep ignoring those murders.

Let me try your cheap rhetoric about your daughter in a different form, and play on feeling, instead of using argument.

Over half my family tree was killed in WOII. Now I'm the morally superior.

Cheap, isn't it?

[vivalarevolución]

Well, that's it. Might check back in at the mid-terms in 2018. See you all later.

[webwit]

Yeah. Fuck the collateral damage. Those are not real people.

Time to get to the point. I'm not in either of the ideological camps. But how does it feel if I treat you the same way as you treat the opposite camp? You're victims of polarization by your respective camps who use you to get into power, to not serve your interests. Stop being their puppets, parroting their propaganda.

[fohat]

Webwit, this seems to have devolved into an intractable bickering match and I am very disappointed.

For the purposes of clarity and simplification, allow me to express my understanding of the situation:

My stated position is that there are huge differences between the policies and platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties in the US, and that the Republican policies and platform are dramatically and demonstrably more repressive and damaging to the needs and the will of the American people, as well as to the rest of the world.

I have read your posts, and considered them. From that, my impression is that your position is that there is no substantive difference between Republican and Democratic policy in the US government.

Have I understood you correctly, or have I misinterpreted something?

[webwit]

You understand me correctly, there is no substantive difference. You're worse than the former Soviet Union and their votes. They use subjects such as abortion, gun control or health insurance to create the illusion of a difference, while these issues (while important on a personal emotional level, that's the trick) don't matter on a bigger scale, and no matter who you vote, the shit and the clientelism for the 1% continues. It's not a secret or something, have you even read the Clinton emails how she works for the 1% and the rest is rhetoric to get the vote? Isn't Joe Biden your latest advertised hero and victim? He's a corrupted cock sucker who was bought into government by the copyright and war industries. Check his sponsors. Aaron Swartz sends his greetings, from the grave. Did you vote for it? Because your opinion about abortion or health insurance?

[jacobolus]

Webwit: You clearly don’t care anything about your own stated moral standard.

Jane Mayer is a hero, indefatigably investigating torture, war crimes, and all manner of abuses of the public trust, and consistently speaking truth to power throughout a long and distinguished career in journalism. You slandering her here is shameful.

As for Aaron Swartz, he was a friend of mine. Don’t tarnish his name with your horseshit. Aaron spent much of his last few years working on the same cause as Jane Mayer: namely, trying to understand how the Koch Brothers and other billionaires and their dirty political machine operated. Jane Mayer has been doing it so she could expose the whole evil conspiracy. Aaron was doing it so he could figure out how to build countervailing institutions that could fight back. Both are on the same side as world citizens fighting the oligarchs.

You are putting yourself on the side of the authoritarians, war profiteers, torturers, child murderers, and planet destroyers on this one. I’m starting to think you’re some kind of oil company stooge.

> health insurance

You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Without the ACA, I have personal friends who would literally be dead or dying right now. This is not a joke sideshow distraction. Millions of lives are at stake here.

[chuckdee]

Without the ACA, I have personal friends who would literally be dead or dying right now. This is not a joke sideshow distraction. Millions of lives are at stake here.

Same here.

[webwit]

Keep ignoring the collateral damage you voted on, because those people are inferior anyway. Keep looking the other way, and call the people who support that heroes, while other people who were not into power, are child murderers. How wonderfully hypocritically racist. I did not bomb the children, Trump did also not bomb the children. Guess who did. Waiting for your link to a Mayer story about war-profiteering by her Democratic contacts.

[jacobolus]

Yeah okay.

I’m sure Jane Mayer, Sy Hersh, Samantha Power, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, MSF, the Dalai Lama, John Lewis, and a collection of jailed dissidents around the world are part of a grand conspiracy to hurt Webwit’s feelings by convincing people they care about human rights, which will make Webwit look like a clueless idiot when he tries to reveal the dirty secret truth (i.e. that they don’t really, and their whole careers are just a front),

while on the flip side, the Koch Brothers, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, (and Rick Perry, Jeff Sessions, &c.), Vladimir Putin, Recep Erdoğan, Bibi Netanyahu, the family that runs Equatorial Guinea, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, the Saudis, and so on are just misunderstood little puppies who would never hurt anyone.

[jacobolus]

[webwit]

When the document was leaked which detailed the Clinton team's strategy (the document was identified as real), it talked about how to polarize the people and how to do it, among others by getting "opinion makers" in the media on their team to spread the hate talk and to demonize the opposition or even anyone critical. Great fun and games.

Hmm opinion makers huh? Like Miss Mayer who in return gets thrown little bones. The email leak proves she's on the team. Aren't these leaks wonderful? That's a game over for Mayer as a "journalist", caught in the act selling her soul and setting people up against each other for personal win. Although not really, she's shameless now, and continues.

The child killers are the republicans and the democrats, and the people who vote them into power. Not me. That's a 180 degree turn. You cannot also point at one party, and look away when your own party does it. It's all or nothing. They're both fascists, or they are both not. Would you like me to list the countries where Obama raged war, or the mass spying laws, or the ridiculous penalties for copyright violations (thanks, Joe, how nice of him to do something back to the sponsors of his career)?

So, according to the strategy, you, the voter, had to be polarized and set up against each other. And look what you're doing, like a good little pawn, calling a critical independent thinker who dares to criticize your child killing side, a child killer, while voting for the killing to continue. You're perfectly brainwashed.

[jacobolus]

Webwit: you’re not a US voter.

You’re also a totally clueless conspiracy theorist and internet troll who badmouths other internet commenters’ children and tries to discredit journalistic heroes based on the transparently ridiculous scribblings of political hacks at the Weekly Standard.

So Jane Mayer sent an email to Sidney Blumenthal (note, Blumenthal is also a career journalist, former New Yorker writer etc.) in 2012 teasing him that a NYT story might come out revealing who tipped the FBI off about Petraeus’s affair. How is this evidence of anything nefarious?

Here’s the NYT story, which came out right after that: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/ci ... ector.html

You think Jane Mayer telling a journalist friend that “you’re going to like tomorrow’s NYT story” without sharing any of its concrete details makes her part of a vast evil conspiracy? Oy vey.

A decade ago, I was fortunate to sit with a small group and listen to Jane Mayer talk about her work investigating the abuses of the US “war on terror”. She was and is amazing. For everyone else reading, I highly recommend all of Jane Mayer’s work at the New Yorker and in books, though reading it can get quite depressing.

* * *

Overall I’d recommend you give up on US politics. You are lacking basic knowledge about the context, which means you cannot reasonably interpret what you read, and end up getting led around by the nose by conspiracy sites. It’s not healthy for you, and it’s totally useless for any discussion you join.

The people who want to discredit Jane Mayer are the torturers, child murderers, and dirty political tricksters. That you have allowed yourself to become their unwitting minion is sad.

[webwit]

How nice of you to prove my point. No substance, demonize the critic.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

The tone and attitude of this discussion is so low, I can scarcely believe that this is actually Deskthority. These discussions used to be mildly entertaining in the same way that I figure that soap operas are to the masses, but this has descended to the point that it's not even entertaining — it's just a truly sad situation that people have actually sunk this low.

I think the only option left is for everyone to simply step away and disentangle themselves from this awful mess and forget that it ever happened.

[chuckdee]

The tone and attitude of this discussion is so low, I can scarcely believe that this is actually Deskthority. These discussions used to be mildly entertaining in the same way that I figure that soap operas are to the masses, but this has descended to the point that it's not even entertaining — it's just a truly sad situation that people have actually sunk this low.

I think the only option left is for everyone to simply step away and disentangle themselves from this awful mess and forget that it ever happened.

Agreed. I thought it would have died off by now, but it seems to be spiraling.

[002]

This thread isn't too bad lol. By DT standards maybe but compared to the embarrassing and prolonged tantrum that is clearly still visible on most of reddit, it's pretty tame.

[seebart]

Regardless of what we post here 002 it's going to be above reddit niveau! If that wasn't the case I'd be gone...probably.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

This thread isn't too bad lol. By DT standards maybe but compared to the embarrassing and prolonged tantrum that is clearly still visible on most of reddit, it's pretty tame.

I will pretend you didn't say that either.

I wish jacobolus in particular would do something useful with his time — I've asked him at least twice now for the keyboard part number from his Canon typewriter (the one that should give us the series name for plate spring) and he's utterly ignored me as if I don't exist.