U.S. Politics: Dining on Doritos with Derrida and Donald

[Rippounet]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Certainly there is.  But NPR reports the news.  These people are news.  

Are they, themselves, the news though? I'd say they aren't.  

Slight digression along those lines... I was wondering if something like Qanon would have been news a few years ago.

I mean it's literally a guy spewing bullshit on the internet and gathering a small crowd of followers. Happens all the time. So why are we hearing about this d'y'a think?

[polishgenius]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Just, please, don’t call them “an enemy of the people”.

I wasn't gonna. That's Daily Mail talk.

Tbh, and this is where I strongly disagree with Bonnot, I think if someone has the patience and wants to engage right wingers they shouldn't be condemned for it, as engagement is how you have a chance of winning anyone over- but it should be done quietly, personally, on a small level. Putting them on TV or radio isn't engagement in any sense helpful in this context.

[Squab]

Only those with the right opinions should be heard from. We really need to move to ban wrongthink from ever entering the public arena.

[Bonnot OG]

 

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You’re dodging the question.  What do you propose to do about it, if anything?

I wasn't dodging anything. I was responding to a question I find to be disingenuous since it's implying that giving nazis a platform through interviews is the same and reporting the news.

I have issues with NPRs white washing on some articles, specifically in the headlines sometimes, but i have no issue with them reporting on white supremacists if they don't fall victim to liberal white washing of their ideology and what they did during the interview.

 

I don't trust them not to fuck you again.

 

they shouldnt be interviewing white supremacists, their position is irrational and doesn't deserve to be heard and legitamized.  

[Bonnot OG]

5 minutes ago, Squab said:

Only those with the right opinions should be heard from. We really need to move to ban wrongthink from ever entering the public arena.

So you're saying that white supremacy and nazism have a legitimate point that should be heard. That's disgusting.   

This is peak fence sitting. 

Sarcastically saying that all opinions deserve to be heard, even ones that are bigoted, oppressive and genocidal. 
 

[SweetPea]

I know that people like to mention 1984 a lot even when it is not relevant, but it sure seems like some people in this thread see it as a guide.

[Rippounet]

2 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

I know that people like to mention 1984 a lot even when it is not relevant, but it sure seems like some people in this thread see it as a guide.

If you think not interviewing neonazis is 1984-esque you've got a reeeal problem pal. 

[Martell Spy]

Anyone genuinely worried that racist viewpoints won't get heard, Rupert Murdoch has gone great lengths to see this feces gets spewed on air  Believe it or not NPR is not the sole media outlet.

Also I am pretty neo-Nazis were not often put television in the 1970's. Apparently it was not the end of America or the 1st amendment.

 

[Martell Spy]

 Unite the Right Sequel in Washington Draws Tiny Crowd of White Nationalists

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/unite-the-right-sequel-in-washington-draws-tiny-crowd.html

Quote

 

One year to the day after a white nationalist rally devolved into deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, a second iteration of the event — this one in Washington, D.C. — drew a fraction of the original event’s crowd. The small number of right-wing marchers who did show up were dwarfed by thousands of counterprotesters, who dominated the landscape in downtown Washington. And the rally, which had expected to begin in the early evening, was already over by late Sunday afternoon, cut short by rain.

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

26 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

 

I wasn't dodging anything. I was responding to a question I find to be disingenuous since it's implying that giving nazis a platform through interviews is the same and reporting the news.

I have issues with NPRs white Washington on some articles, specifically in the headlines sometimes, but i have no issue with them reporting on white supremacists if they don't fall victim to liberal white washing of their ideology and what they did during the interview.

 

I don't trust them not to fuck you again.

 

they shouldnt be interviewing white supremacists, their position is irrational and doesn't deserve to be heard and legitamized.  

I think that I can understand your disagreement with NPR choosing to interview a neo-nazi and broadcast that interview.  What I want to know is if you are advocating action (boycott, seek to cut their funding, etc...) against NPR for choosing to take that action.  Personally, I’ve listened to and trusted NPR for years and plan to continue to do so for years more.

[Squab]

34 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

So you're saying that white supremacy and nazism have a legitimate point that should be heard. That's disgusting.   

This is peak fence sitting. 

Sarcastically saying that all opinions deserve to be heard, even ones that are bigoted, oppressive and genocidal. 
 

Every time someone starts with "so you're saying..." they accurately describe what you've said. Always. Great work.

Its important to have our betters determine what ideas can and can't be heard. Otherwise how will we know what to think...

[Darth Richard II]

Don't feed the trolls guys.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Depends what you mean by 'what should be done'. Obviously they can't be stopped by any legal means, your freedom of speech laws prevent that, but if people were to start avoiding/boycotting NPR I wouldn't be surprised nor condemn the idea.

There was a very similar situation in Australia just this week where Melbourne city governance dropped Sky News from their place on their public transport system because of precisely that.

What NPR and all the other respectable media / news organizations etc. should be doing, is what journalist Shaun King has been doing ever since Charlottesville.  He's been going after the id of every single one of those guys, one-by-one, the ones who committed violence -- only one person was murdered, and that was by accident, that it was only one.  They sure were viciously attacking many more than a single woman in a crowd with a car.  One by one he's been finding out who they are and getting them arrested. What's so hard about understanding that for other journalists -- and especially liburrrrrrral NPR hmmmm?

 

 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Are they, themselves, the news though? I'd say they aren't.  

Slight digression along those lines... I was wondering if something like Qanon would have been news a few years ago.

I mean it's literally a guy spewing bullshit on the internet and gathering a small crowd of followers. Happens all the time. So why are we hearing about this d'y'a think?

As far as journalists are concerned, and NPR ones in particular, that's what they always want to report on and talk about -- themselves.

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You’re dodging the question.  What do you propose to do about it, if anything?

No, see, YOU'RE changing the narrative. What do you propose to do about news media giving hate speech a larger platform? Because 'reporting the news' does NOT require getting a spokesperson for a hate group to talk about things. It does NOT require asking them direct questions. It doesn't require their participation at all.

Imagine if you had said this about the Sandy Hook shooter and them having an interview. Or interviewing Osama Bin Laden on air. 

[Zorral]

Only a fool would trust NPR or even the NY Times. They both been so very very very very wrong and on the wrong side so many times, and all done to not rock the boats of the enemies of the people -- er, their advertisers, corporate sponsors etc.  I've been listening to this as the only alternative in town for decades.  Shyte, I've even been on shows, produced shows, for them.  I know them Damned Well and what they are and just how far they can be trusted.

Here in NYC the host of the #1 prime time talk show was abusive in a variety of ways to very many people, and particularly to women, and particularly to women of color, particularly when they were his colleagues.  Many a listener knew it and told the station and complained.  People at the station complained.  The objects of his terrorism (and it turned out, not the only white male host of popular programs) went through all the hoops, and got fired.  One or two got a buy-out.  They only went when a reporter reported all of it in NY Magazine last fall.

 

[Kalbear]

As to NPR, they're really pissing me off recently. Between the NPR interview and this bullshit tweet about how 'a car' killed Heather Heyer. Where was the car radicalized?

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1027722447766745088

[Darth Richard II]

24 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

As to NPR, they're really pissing me off recently. Between the NPR interview and this bullshit tweet about how 'a car' killed Heather Heyer. Where was the car radicalized?

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1027722447766745088

Texas.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Jesus, I take an afternoon off any you guys go apeshit.

NPR: if you're going to have Neo Nazi's on, make sure they have a strong interviewer prepared to ask some difficult questions or, failing that, a really strong interlocutor to do likewise.  Otherwise, report on them like an environmental phenomenon.  If a tornado kills 50 people in a trailer park, you don't invite it into the studio to clarify its position.

As far as engaging these people, allow your brain to at least entertain the notion that some of these people can't be reached.  And that maybe, just maybe, these people aren't playing the same game you are.  The lunacy that came out of the right during the Obama administration should be proof of that.

 

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Only a fool would trust NPR or even the NY Times. They both been so very very very very wrong and on the wrong side so many times, and all done to not rock the boats of the enemies of the people -- er, their advertisers, corporate sponsors etc.  I've been listening to this as the only alternative in town for decades.  Shyte, I've even been on shows, produced shows, for them.  I know them Damned Well and what they are and just how far they can be trusted.

Again, I see identical sentiments (about the same publications, no less) from right wing posters elsewhere.  Their response is to retreat into a sort of bubble of Fox News and conspiracy theories. 

 

To me, at times, it seems like the hard left posters here are also retreating into a world of polemic and conspiracy theories.  Not nearly as entrenched as is the right.  But cropping up often enough to warrant concern.

 

This brings up my major concern.  We in the US are stuck with BOTH the hard left and hard right for the foreseeable future.  Literally millions or tens of millions of people in both camps, many motivated, and some in positions of authority.  'Final Victory' by either faction without a monumental bloodbath is simply not going to happen.  Legally oppressing the 'other side' is not going to accomplish anything save inspire massive resentment.  A purely confrontational strategy is doomed to failure - especially when the chief purpose of a given faction is to denounce the other.