OUR SILO AND THEIRS: Storyline versus information!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2021

Information versus names: Just to be completely fair, Joy Behar actually asked a (very) good question.

She did so in the course of a pseudo-conversation on this past Monday's The View. This pseudo-discussion typified the way our tribe responded to last Friday's verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

Behar spoke on ABC; millions of people were watching. At the start of the pseudo-discussion, Whoopi Goldberg played tape of Rittenhouse saying this:

"I'm not a racist person. I support the BLM movement. I support peacefully demonstrating."

The videotape ended there; instantly, Behar jumped in. A pseudo-discussion ensued—a pseudo-discussion during which Behar asked a very good question:

BEHAR (11/22/21): Then why did he go there with a gun? Sorry.

GOLDBERG: No, no—I mean, it's the question. It's the question.

BEHAR: If you support them, why did you go there with a gun? 

To watch the fuller pseudo-discussion, you can just click here.

Why did Rittenhouse go where he went, with a gun, on the unfortunate evening in question? 

That's an extremely good question! It's astounding to see how rarely this question has been answered as our failing tribe has pretended, again and again and again and again, to discuss the events which underlay this trial.

Why did Rittenhouse go where he went?  That's a very good question! We're not sure we've ever seen that question answered in the endless pseudo-discussions which have emerged, with stunning regularity, from within our own blue tribe.

It has been answered, again and again, in discussions conducted by the red tribe. For the record, an answer to that basic question doesn't answer this separate question:

Should he have gone there with a gun on the evening in question?

Should he have gone there with a gun? That too is a very good question. Sadly, though, Behar didn't seem to know the answer to the simpler question she was asking.  Neither did the equally clueless Goldberg, Behar's partner in sin. 

The delightfully offbeat corporate stars kicked off a pseudo-discussion. With Behar wonderfully saying, at one point, that she almost called him "Rotten-house," this is the fuller text of their imitation of life:

BEHAR (11/22/21): Then why did he go there with a gun? Sorry.

GOLDBERG: No, no—I mean, it's the question. It's the question.

BEHAR: If you support them, why did you go there with a gun? I mean, this is gonna have serious repercussions, in my opinion. 

I mean, we can talk the legality of it and everything else. But to me, it's like, I can't go and protest now without worrying that some nutcase is gonna have a gun, cross the state line, and come and shoot me. That's the problem. That's what I have to worry about.

I come from a generation—we protested the Vietnam War and all of that. I believe in protest—I really believe in it.…And so, that is my fear now. That he has opened Pandora's Box for some crazies out there.

She almost called him "Rottenhouse," Behar said at one point! In such ways, our failing tribe has pretended to discuss the Rittenhouse verdict and the underlying actions which were under review.

For starters, we'll venture a fairly safe guess. We're prepared to guess that Behar hasn't spent a lot of time at protests lately. 

In that sense, she doesn't have to worry about some nutcase or some crazies "crossing the state line" to shoot her as she engages in the basic right she loves. 

Meanwhile, sure enough! There it was, once again, inserted as if by heavenly mandate—the utterly irrelevant statement that Rittenhouse had "crossed state lines" on his way to Kenosha that day or that night, or whenever the heck it was that he had actually gone there.

That utterly irrelevant point has been stated again and again as the tribunes of our tribe refuse to discuss the actual questions surrounding the events in Kenosha and the subsequent trial. 

This group performance has been unending; its spectacular dumbness defies traditional anthropological belief. It's a good example of "automatic speech," in which tribunes of a tribal group repeat irrelevant points mainly because the last twenty people they saw and heard had said the exact same things.

In truth, Rittenhouse did cross state lines on his way to Kenosha! He did so the day before the day in question, on his way to his lifeguard job in Kenosha County. In fact, he crossed state lines every time he drove to his lifeguard job from his home, which was one mile across the state line.

After performing his lifeguard duties, he spent the night with a friend in Kenosha. For that reason, he didn't have to cross state lines on the day or the evening in question. 

Still, he did cross state lines to get to Kenosha! The point is wholly irrelevant, but it's been recited, as if catechismally, by long lines of our failing tribe's tribunes. 

In fairness, Behar isn't exactly a journalist. At this point, she's more of a network "discussion actor" and a highly-paid network clown.

Behar isn't a journalist. But here was Greg Sargent, embarrassing himself in the Washington Post two days later:

SARGENT (11/24/21): In the days after Rittenhouse, 18, was acquitted of homicide in killing two and wounding a third amid unrest in Kenosha, Wis., two strains of Rittenhouse lionization developed on the right. One was sanitized, mainly treating his acquittal as heroic in that he evaded a would-be injustice at the hands of out-of-control leftism.

The other was darker and more explicit, treating Rittenhouse as a hero for what he did: cross state lines to deliberately place himself in a combustible situation, armed to kill...

Sargent recited the talking-point too. In his presentation, as in Behar's, Rittenhouse "crossed state lines!" 

(During his piece, Sargent cited, and linked to, this earlier piece by the Post's James Hohmann. According to Hohmann, Rittenhouse "crossed state lines from his home in Illinois." By now, reciting this point was required, as if by tribal law.)

According to Sargent, Rittenhouse crossed state lines "to deliberately place himself in a combustible situation." This brings us back to the very good question Behar actually managed to ask during her pseudo-presentation:

"Why did he go there with a gun?" the befuddled network star had asked. 

In theory, Behar is paid a very large salary—you aren't allowed to know how much—to discuss such topics on ABC. But neither she nor the equally clueless Goldberg seemed to be able to answer this very basic question.

In truth, this was an extremely good question. For that reason, it's important to understand why a pair of pseudos like Goldberg and Behar were still unable to answer. 

In fact, Goldberg and Behar were conducting a classic pseudo-discussion—the kind of conversation which used to be restricted to corner saloons. Now, these conversations are routinely conducted on our nation's "cable news" programs, and on network TV shows like The View.

The View is one of the dumbest versions of this cultural artefact. That said, Behar was asking her question on ABC, with millions of people watching.

She didn't seem to know why "Rottenhouse" had gone where he went that night. Goldberg didn't seem to know either—but viewers were allowed to hear that he'd "crossed state lines!"

Why did Rittenhouse go where he went that night? As the trial was being discussed, that question was almost never answered for those of us who get our programming and our talking-points from CNN or MSNBC.

By way of contrast, people watching Fox News were quite likely to hear that question answered, in a fairly straightforward way. 

As noted above, this doesn't answer that other question—Should he have gone there that night? But it constitutes actual information, and in this particular instance, people who were watching Fox News were more likely to be exposed to same.

On the channels and news orgs designed for us, such basic points of information were very rarely provided. Instead, we were subjected to the consummate dumbness of our tribe's talking-points, including the amazingly braindead claim that Rottenhouse—sorry, Rittenhouse—had fiendishly "crossed state lines" on his way to a protest.

By the way—had he actually gone to "a protest?" Is that an informative account of where he went that night?

We'll explore that question next week, along with quite a few others.

Within our tribal silo, we're been told that Rittenhouse "crossed state lines," and that he was "a vigilante." A friend of ours emailed this week to ask us what else we'd call him.

We'd answer that question this way:

We wouldn't necessarily "call him" anything at all! Given the opportunity, we'd try to provide information about what he actually did, and about the events surrounding his actions.

That said, the day is long gone when our "news channels" exist to provide information. Today, our channels exist to churn Storyline, and to guide us in our name-calling.

Personally, we wouldn't be inclined call Rittenhouse a vigilante; we don't think the name fits very well at all. But we're less interested in the calling of names than in the supply of information.

Alas! Concerning this general topic, more information flowed on Fox than on our own "news channels" or within our other "news orgs." We think it's instructive for tribal members to be aware of this fact.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but our vastly self-impressed tribe is currently sinking fast. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but name-calling makes us dumber.

Why did Rittenhouse go there that night? That's a very important question.

We'll start with that first question next week. We'll then move on to other info which our tribe rarely heard.

Next week: Behar's question first