MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2023
David Brooks imagines: Way back in 1962, on his Freewheelin' album, the extremely young Bob Dylan reported a troubling dream:
One time ago a crazy dream came to me
I dreamt I was walkin' through World War III!
I went to the doctor the very next day
To see what kinda words he could say
He said it was a bad dream...
So said the extremely young Dylan, as part of his breakout album.
On the day of the album's release, Dylan had just turned 21. To hear his full account of his dream, you can just click here.
Over the weekend, we ourselves kept having a dream, or perhaps a type of vision, one we can't quite expel. We keep imagining that Donald J. Trump is going to win next year's presidential election!
Yes, his behavior is nutty, disordered, deranged, proto-crazy. But we the people are strongly inclined to get in line behind the pugilist, and it seems to us that President Biden's entanglement with his formerly crack-addicted son may prove to have a lot more resonance than is imagined on blue tribe TV.
Is Donald Trump going to win next year? On a purely rational basis, we have no way of knowing.
Still and all, we have that dream. Then too, there's the thought experiment which appeared in Friday's New York Times.
We refer to the thought experiment published by David Brooks. Brooks is thoroughly anti-Trump, but it sounds like he's been having a bit of a crazy dream too.
As reported in Friday's column, with headline included, the crazy dream of David Brooks starts out exactly like this:
What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?
Donald Trump seems to get indicted on a weekly basis. Yet he is utterly dominating his Republican rivals in the polls, and he is tied with Joe Biden in the general election surveys. Trump’s poll numbers are stronger against Biden now than at any time in 2020.
What’s going on here? Why is this guy still politically viable, after all he’s done?
We anti-Trumpers often tell a story to explain that. It was encapsulated in a quote the University of North Carolina political scientist Marc Hetherington gave to my colleague Thomas B. Edsall recently: “Republicans see a world changing around them uncomfortably fast, and they want it to slow down, maybe even take a step backward. But if you are a person of color, a woman who values gender equality or an L.G.B.T. person, would you want to go back to 1963? I doubt it.”
In this story, we anti-Trumpers are the good guys, the forces of progress and enlightenment. The Trumpers are reactionary bigots and authoritarians. Many Republicans support Trump no matter what, according to this story, because at the end of the day, he’s still the bigot in chief, the embodiment of their resentments and that’s what matters to them most.
I partly agree with this story, but it’s also a monument to elite self-satisfaction.
So let me try another story on you. I ask you to try on a vantage point in which we anti-Trumpers are not the eternal good guys. In fact, we’re the bad guys.
"What if we're the bad guys here?" How crazy can a crazy dream get?
We've shown you the way last Friday's column started. As Brooks continues, he lists various ways in which our own "self-satisfied" blue tribe may have paved the way for Trump over the past sixty years.
In some respects, Brooks' column is a thought experiment. In some ways, it's a bad dream.
In various ways, it echoes warnings we've long given, starting with the "self-satisfaction" which may be blinding our tribe.
Way back when the world was still young, Bob Dylan's crazy dream was a crazy dream about nuclear war. Sixty years later, that war hasn't happened, but we keep having a scary dream about next year's election.
Millions of our friends and neighbors are eager to vote for Trump. We think his election would be a disaster, but they are American citizens too—and just as we disagree with them, they disagree with us!
Is our blue tribe still doing things that could lead to defeat next year? It's too late to turn the ship around, but in our view, the answer is clearly yes.
"How am I losing to this guy?" Way back in 1988, Saturday Night Live, in a famous sketch, showed Candidate Dukakis asking that question as he debated a tongue-tied Candidate Bush.
Today, Candidate Trump is running even with President Biden. As you know, the mathematics of our creaking electoral college rather plainly suggests that a tie goes to the Republican.
Brooks has been having a very bad dream. We'll ponder its structure all week.
Tomorrow: "This story begins in the 1960s," David Brooks says of his dream
I'm sure if there was any way to tie our own "self-satisfied" blue tribe having paved the way for Trump over the past sixty years, Somerby (or Brooks) would have cited it. Instead? Bupkis.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, sun spots may have led to the 2008 financial crisis.
ReplyDelete"Is our blue tribe still doing things that could lead to defeat next year? It's too late to turn the ship around, but in our view, the answer is clearly yes."
ReplyDeleteSomerby seems to be saying that there will be people in 2024 who will not vote for Biden but will vote for Trump (or some Republican) instead. Of course that is true, but so what? There has never been a unanimous election for our presidency -- when there is one, we will be in the land of third world elections with dictators.
The real question is how many people will vote for Trump. I won't worry about whether we are causing them to do that, because even if we are, I prefer not to abandon the principles, programs and values of the Democratic Party, no matter who on the right disapproves.
Half of Republicans said recently that they would not vote for a presidential candidate who had been convicted of a crime. Trump cannot win if he loses half of the Republican vote (the half that are not MAGA cult members). Meanwhile, anything is possilbe because Biden and Trump are both old men and neither party has nominated a candidate yet.
But Somerby has started early telling us that we are inherently unlikeable and that no one will vote for us liberals if we keep being us. This dire warning didn't turn out to be anywhere near true in 2020 or 2022. Why should it be true now, just because Somerby has low tribal self-esteem (assuming he is not with the other tribe these days)?
Brooks is a Republican, but this is supposedly a liberal blog. Why do we need to use our imagination to see ourselves through the others' eyes when they are telling us daily what they dislike about us? Of course they think of us as the bad guys. Brooks is shocked to think about that because his is a member of the red tribe, a Republican, and there is now a deepening schism within his own party, his own tribe.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't concern those of us who are Democrats and Somerby is supposedly a liberal, so why is he addressing us as if we were red tribe members? I think his perspective has slipped a bit and may be revealing his true persona. It takes Brooksian mental effort to maintain a false face here while carrying water for Trump-loving right wingers as a self-described liberal. No wonder Somerby identifies with Brooks' identity confusion!
"Millions of our friends and neighbors are eager to vote for Trump. We think his election would be a disaster, but they are American citizens too—and just as we disagree with them, they disagree with us!"
ReplyDeleteGood Lord! Even a child understands that in a disputed election there are two sides and they may disagree with each other. So what?
Why is Trump matching Biden in the polls? One reason is that Biden is a dreadful candidate. He's a man of no accomplishments. He was never terribly smart. Now, he has obviously lost a step. Sworn testimony from whistle-blowers shows that he is corrupt.
ReplyDelete.
Be honest, David.
DeleteCan you ever see yourself forgiving Joe Biden for the lowest unemployment rate in over half a century?
Every Republican who has a problem with corruption, has sued Biden in a court of law, and won their case.
DeleteEvery. Single. One.
Now, you may have noticed, not one Republican has sued Biden in a curt of law, which shows how true my first statement really is.
Those supposed whistle-blowers had no evidence. That made the Republican committee hearings a farce.
DeleteHunter Biden is today's equivalent to Kerry's swift boating, Clinton's Whitewater, Hillary's Benghazi. There is no substance to made up right wing accusations and hearings only make that clearer.
In contrast, the impeachment hearings against Trump have provided the meat for the current Grand Jury indictment that will likely convict Trump of major crimes, if the various other trials don't get there first.
Trump has been behind Biden in most of the polls. I don't call that "matching," but Somerby and David think it means Trump will win. Barbie says "math is hard!"
DeleteBiden's unconditional love for his own son, is like Trump wanting to fuck his own daughter.
DeleteBoth sides!
I might make the effort to post a list of Biden's accomplishments in the three years he's been in office, and perhaps compared them to Trump's, but it is so obvious that David is just spewing partisan propaganda, that why bother?
DeleteRepublicans like Trump because he lowered taxes on the rich and installed a few hard-cord conservative Supreme Court justices who are now doing the right's dirty work. And he sold out to Russia and allowed Putin to try to annex Ukraine -- how is that going?
Biden was so inept as Obama's VP that he only won the 2020 popular vote by massive amounts, yet Somerby thinks Trump will win in 2024? The American people aren't stupid, just the ones on the right who think, as David does, that a speech impediment impairs thinking or that becoming old worsens speaking ability, or some such.
I personally prefer to select my presidential candidate based on his wardrobe, not his ideas and accomplishments, so I'm going to go to the polls and vote for whoever wears a tan suit. But David prefers to base his vote on whose tie is longest, I guess. He clearly hasn't been paying any attention to what Biden has done for the country in his 2-1/2 years in office, while Trump has been playing with his stolen classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
"Way back in 1988, Saturday Night Live, in a famous sketch, showed Candidate Dukakis asking that question as he debated a tongue-tied Candidate Bush."
ReplyDeleteFor those who are not old as dirt, it is helpful to point out that Dukakis ran against George H.W. Bush. Recall that Dukakis got Willy-Hortoned, was himself a poor candidate. Bush was a one-term president who came in on Reagan's coat tails and then lost to a nobody upstart, Bill Clinton, immediately afterward.
Wikipedia says: "Bush lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton following an economic recession, his turnaround on his tax promise, and the decreased emphasis of foreign policy in a post–Cold War political climate."
"Dukakis received 45% of the popular vote to Bush's 53%. Many commentators blamed Dukakis' loss on the embarrassing photograph of him in a tank taken on September 13, 1988, which subsequently formed the basis of a successful Republican attack ad."
How is any of this relevant to today, when Biden overwhelmingly won the popular vote against Trump in 2020 and is riding the wave of very positive economic gains and several legislative accomplishments (infrastructure act, recovery act) including dealing with the now waning pandemic? Biden does not have the liabilities of Bush or Dukakis.
Somerby will no doubt start talking about Biden's age as the election nears. As false equivalences go, does being old (Trump is old too) balance Trump's problem of being a convicted sexual abuser (now) and someone who may be convicted of several more crimes by the time people must vote? And notice that Somerby ignores all reports of softening support for Trump among his current base. He cannot get elected by Q-Anon alone.
But the drumbeat of negativity will get louder as Somerby ramps up his anti-left campaign in support of someone he regularly says would be a disaster in office. Why? Does Somerby think this is how to help us keep Trump out of office? And if he doesn't think that, why does he keep doing it?
Bob's "economic anxiousness" is making it too difficult for him to quit Trump.
DeleteHere is the perfect encapsulation of David Brooks. He says that he partly agrees with the story that Trumpers are “reactionary bigots and authoritarians”, and yet, he wishes to examine how the “anti-Trumpers” are the real bad guys.
ReplyDeleteIt isn’t clear how a group can be reactionary bigots and authoritarians and yet not at fault for being reactionary bigots and authoritarians.
I’d also like to know exactly who Brooks means by “anti-Trumpers.” Since he doesn’t say “liberals”, one assumes he is including Republicans like himself who oppose Trump, else he would have said “liberal.” But his remnant Republicanism places him in a category that would normally exclude him from being amongst “the forces of progress and enlightenment”, as he puts it. Republicans have not been in favor of those things for a long time.
And, by the way, is Brooks saying he is going to dispense with his own elite self-satisfaction, since he seems to be copping to it here?
ReplyDeleteThere is no Donald Trump without the David Brookses of the world.
ReplyDeleteThis is something, Trump, David Brooks, and myself all know to be true. I'm the one who will say it out loud.
anon 12:05, ah, a voice in the wilderness willing to say some meaningless gibberish out loud.
DeleteDavid Brooks is kindly asking us all to not blame him for Donald Trump.
DeleteFuck that shit.
What gave us Donald Trump? The moral decay of the MSM which became not about accurate journalism and detailed discussion of policy, but sensationalist stories which were selected so as to not impact corporate profits and keep voters talking about safe topics. But the commenters on here could never admit that and still continue to defend the MSM. So it's David Brooks' fault.
Delete3:48 were your argument to hold a scintilla of credibility or evidence, it would be delight, since the solution would be within our grasp.
DeleteWay back in 2018 Somerby started a two year long process of regularly warning us that it was a good possibility that Trump would win in 2020. How’d that turn out?
When you keep getting things wrong, it shouldn’t be surprising that your credibility wanes.
@3:48, I would propose instead that the Russians in collusion with the Republicans gave us Trump. They starting grooming him back in 2011, apprenticed him by having him accuse Obama of being born in Kenya, put him in their debt by funding his projects when mainstream banks started turning down his loan requests, and then compromising him when he was in Russia for a beauty pageant and Trump Tower Moscow negotiations. Trumps business is so intertwined with Russian oligarch financing that he was eager to say yes when they flattered him into becoming a candidate. Along with sidekicks Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and the help of white supremacists, dark money and other freaks. This has been the plundering of America using a political grift on a scale unlike anything previously attempted.
DeleteSo, what does it mean when Somerby predicts that Trump will win in 2024? It puts Somerby in bed with some very unsavory people in a mob-style theft of our democracy. All the piddling comments Somerby previously made about the media being against Gore pale when he could have unmasked such a large scale perversion of American democracy.
My only question is whether Somerby is senile or compromised himself. There is no way to support Trump and maintain any integrity at this point in history.
“ the forces of progress and enlightenment” have always engendered a reaction of bigotry and authoritarianism, throughout history. It has nothing to do with whether some of the proponents of progress and enlightenment exhibit elite self-satisfaction. This lunatic view is itself reactionary.
ReplyDeleteExpect trans kids to grow-up and rule the country, since Right-wingers are alienating them by looking down at them, and thinking they are superior.
ReplyDeleteExactly!
DeleteMy niece wants a trans for Christmas, but I’m hearing there’s a major supply issue.
DeleteTranswomen are needed for the U.S. Women’s soccer team.
DeleteThey could have gotten the job done.
Why is the right wing targeting women’s soccer? It seems mean-spirited.
DeleteYet another example of the need for manning-up women’s soccer.
DeleteMegan Rapinoe is not trans. She hardly played at all and did not lose to Sweden as Trump suggested. It is ugly to not stand behind our national team and make a sport into a partisan issue like this. Megan Rapinoe is 38 and that is old for a soccer player at her level. It makes a lot more sense to call for younger players on the team, than to think it has to do with trans vs non-trans players.
DeleteAnd yes, it is mean to target her, simply because Trump doesn't like gays or women who express their opinions publicly (Trump does it himself so why can't Megan?).
Cecelia, a trans-woman is not someone who is manly. Just the opposite. If you want women to man up, you want a woman who is taking testosterone, which would be a biologically female trans-man in the game. But that is illegal (T is forbidden by the rules, but estrogen is not because it doesn't help performance). Your ignorance about how even transitioning works makes you the last person who should post stupid comments online -- even with a verified (whatever that means) nym.
I doubt anyone here thinks you make your hateful comments up yourself. The right-wing choir master says sing and you post ugly hate against trans people online, just like big daddy Trump. Sing birdie sing. And then fly away.
You'd have to be asleep to not realize the Right hates the USA.
DeleteCould there be some sort of subatomic something in the world that anonymices don’t take too seriously?
DeleteYou started it
DeleteIn the words of the great PeeWee Herman, “Well excuuuuse me!”
DeleteAs an extension of my comment at 12:10, i would note that it is convenient for people like Brooks (who claims to support progress and enlightenment) or Somerby (who claims to be a liberal) to believe that Trump voters reject progress and enlightenment because liberals (and anti-Trumpers) are bad people, ie “self-satisfied elites”. It would be dispiriting for them to realize that Trump voters might be rejecting the idea of progress and enlightenment per se.
ReplyDelete“it seems to us that President Biden's entanglement with his formerly crack-addicted son may prove to have a lot more resonance than is imagined on blue tribe TV.”
ReplyDeleteIn the late 1990’s, when Somerby started this blog, he wrote post after post debunking and correcting the record about the media reporting of the Lewinsky matter. He became, in effect, an advocate for Clinton.
Now, he simply drops this reference to Hunter Biden without having once examined the story or how it’s being reported, from either “blue” or “red” TV. Of course it motivates the partisan Biden-haters, despite it having no substance. Will it motivate swing voters?
Since the “people are strongly inclined to get in line behind the pugilist”, is Somerby suggesting that Biden and the Democrats counterattack and go after Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law, who was installed in the White House with a security clearance, and who is now richer to the tune of billions of Saudi dollars?
Of course, then Biden would be accused of trying to “put the Others in jail” and politicize the DOJ, which he is already being falsely accused of.
There has been pushback and discussion of the facts of the Hunter Biden issue recently on MSNBC and in the newspapers, but not so as Somerby, the “media critic”, noticed.
The Hunter story may have more substance than you think.
DeleteIs that what you “think”, 1:22?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHunter Biden has been a topic amongst Republicans since Biden ran 3 years ago. I have seen nothing to suggest Joe Biden did anything illegal. Also, why won’t Somerby talk about it? As a media critic, it might concern him to examine all of the claims being made by the right wing media (many false or debunked), just as he examined the mainstream media claims about Lewinsky. Instead, he has no interest in the truth of the allegations. His reaction is like a mainstream pundit: “these Hunter allegations will resonate with voters. (No idea if they’re true, and I certainly won’t step in to correct the record or even examine them the way I did with Clinton.”)
DeleteNone of this is going to turn out well for you.
DeleteBut surely even you agree 1:42 that Kushner must be examined, and that that story would resonate with voters. Amirite?
DeleteThe next witness that the Republicans call to testify in Congress who doesn’t debunk Republican talking points about Joe Biden will be the first.
DeleteYes, of course, investigate the shit out of him! The Biden scandal may resonate more as though it's becoming obvious Joe Biden participated and profited himself on the corruption.
DeleteThey have to try Joe Biden in the media. Free speech doesn't negate perjury in a court of law.
Delete3:09 You're not clever, smart or interesting.
DeleteHowever 3:09 is correct. No evidence against Biden has been presented. Just the usual right wing smear campaign and dirtytricks (dick pics).
DeleteNo, they are wrong about that. You'll see. Sorry.
DeleteI've been paying attention to the congressional hearings and they have so far come up with absolutely nothing. Imaginary whistleblowers who cannot be found (giving rise to murder conspiracy theories) and accusations with no evidence or substance when people have to testify under oath. It is like Benghazi or any of the other smear hearings against other Democrats. Nothing there at all.
DeleteRepublicans aren’t turned off by corruption, which they couldn’t even find with the Bidens; apparently what triggers them about Hunter is the size of his manhood.
DeleteBob Dylan was born a Jew but later transitioned to a born again Christian, the chutzpah of this guy!
This shift parallels the various times Dylan was rightfully criticized as a sell out, and similarly parallels Somerby’s shift from defending liberals against attacks in right wing media to straight up defending right wingers while attacking liberals. Meshuggeneh!
Alternatively, Albert King was born Black, and stayed that way. At some point he sang:
They call me the Hunter, that's my name
A pretty woman like you, is my only game
I bought me a love gun, just the other day
And I aim to aim it your way
Ain't no use to hide, ain't no use to run
'Cause I've got you in the sights of my love gun
I prefer LZ’s version (which PF nicked for Money), but either trumps the weak crap Dylan produced.
Hunter Biden is the Clarence Thomas of presidential sons. With a bigger dick.
DeleteHey 5:50, Dylan rox and u suk
DeleteI can easily understand why some people will vote for Biden over Trump. And, I can understand why some people will vote Democratic regardless of who the candidates are. But, I cannot understand why anybody thinks Biden is a desirable candidate. C'mon Democrats. Wouldn't you rather have a better candidate?
ReplyDeleteSome people I spoke with recently didn't realize he is one of the most unpopular presidents in history.
DeletePropaganda has overtaken our information systems and a ton of us simply are not exposed to anything negative about him at all.
Unfortunately we are seduced by propaganda memes.of him ordering ice cream.
Biden has been doing a great job. That’s what counts most.
DeleteSince David is a Republican, it’s telling how Biden has him quaking in his boots.
DeleteBiden doesn’t have to be a desirable candidate in order to be orders of magnitude more desirable than anything the Republican Party has had to footer in literally years. And incidentally he has done more for this country than the once every three days orange stain on a golf course that you voted for David.
DeleteI can't stand Biden. We should get someone else in there.
Delete8:11,
DeleteWrite-in candidate Dylan Mulvaney, will save your soul.
Hunter Biden is so corrupt, he's jealous of Clarence Thomas.
DeleteHunter Biden is a victim of a right wing smear campaign.
DeleteBob's obvious delight in the struggles of Hunter Biden, who it is now obvious has received extra legal condemnation for his notoriety, says quite a bit about the twisted Mr. Somerby. The Bidens obviously went through a long dark night of cruel loss, and one Son fell to addiction. To his credit, his father stood with him as best he could. In the perverse world of Sad Somerby, cruelty is good, decency is weakness. This is what ties him to Trump here. At least he could keep his dirty hands off Bob Dylan.
ReplyDeleteThis will be Bob's mantra, encouraging you to embrace this ugliness out of fear Trump potential to win. Trump has lost, by votes, any contest he has entered, from the Emmys, to the Iowa Republican Primary, to both elections. Could he turn it around next time? There's no real reason to think that is likely, however much Bob hopes for it, but of course it could happen. The Sun could explode tomorrow too. Only those who want to live in terrible fear need dwell there.
I am confident Bidenwill win. Who could possibly believe that Hunter and Joe Biden combined are more corrupt than Trump after his many indictments, all that evidence from Republicans and eventual convictions. “But Hunter’s laptop…”is going to sound like the lame smear is obviously is.
ReplyDeleteThe hype surrounding Hunter Biden is moronic, just like the people spreading it:
Delete"Former President Donald Trump seemed confused on Monday about the name of a business associate of President Joe Biden's son Hunter.
In a rant on his Truth Social platform, Trump referred to someone named "Keven Archer" instead of Devon Archer, who recently gave a deposition to the House Oversight Committee.
"They just found a letter from Crooked Joe Biden directly to Keven Archer," he wrote. "Oh well, so much for "Joe" not knowing anything about all of the money he extorted."
"At some point the LameStream Media will have to cover this story, perhaps the biggest scandal in U.S. history. When they do, our Country will start to heal!" he added.
According to Fox News, Biden did not mention his son's business in the 2011 note thanking Archer for attending a luncheon."
These guys are clowns.
"Is our blue tribe still doing things that could lead to defeat next year?"
ReplyDeleteActually, our blue tribe is doing the things that led to victory in 2020. That should do the trick.
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
DeleteThe blue tribe did not exactly win in 2020. It was a " well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information."
The lowest war mongering neocons now support Biden. So you have a lot of elements coming in supporting him from elite, entrenched, corrupt governmental institutions that don't want any of their entrenched corruption molested or touched in any way.
Really Republican Democrats are not proper labels for what is going on now. We are really kind of in a one-party system.. The one big party that represents insider Washington and Trump and trumpsters are on the outside, kind of like a third party. It's populism on their part and the stage where we are in our country right now, populism is simply not tolerated. So what was formerly the two parties have joined forces to become one party against trump. Not that there's anything wrong with it. It's just not really blue or red. It's really the deep State blob versus populace that support a really crazy piece of crap.
So it's kind of hard to be a Democrat right now cuz you have to welcome in these ultra powerful right-wing war criminals and you have to listen to them supporting our candidate which is bizarre and weird. I hate those guys so much and I hate endless war which Biden has not been able to stop unfortunately.
DeleteNo, we are not in a one-party system but this is a good example of the kind of disinformation used on social media to lure left voters such as Bernie bros away from Hillary and over to Jill Stein or staying home in 2016. Watch out for the phrase neo liberal. It means a Republican is trying to trick you into throwing your vote away instead of using it to defeat Trump.
DeleteThey are flooding these blog comments with shi, like good little paid trolls.
DeleteIt's a one party system made up of a blob of entrenched managerial class technocrats and all sorts of money grabbing , warmongering grifters that have, because of Trump, banded together to keep the grift going.
DeleteThat's our only choice. That or Trump.
I'm not saying there are no differences between the two parties as they exist now, which is just one big party. There's some differences between them but not when it comes to the marriage of corporations and government and our country's dedication to eternal war. You can't deny that our country is not engaged in eternal war.l supported by both parties, I.e the blob.
DeleteDon’t be fooled by this crap.
DeleteYes, everyone do your own research and draw your own conclusions. Always.
DeleteThis is a long but interesting article of how we have evolved into a one party corporate war machine. It's very serious. I encourage everyone to take the time to read it and engage on its substance.
Delete"Since 2016, the federal government has spent billions of dollars on turning the counter-disinformation complex into one of the most powerful forces in the modern world: a sprawling leviathan with tentacles reaching into both the public and private sector, which the government uses to direct a “whole of society” effort that aims to seize total control over the internet and achieve nothing less than the eradication of human error."
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation
Anonymous 7:50pm, I commend you on your reading material.
DeleteGet a verified, consistent, accountable nym,
The Table Magazine purports to be "a Jewish magazine about the world." As you read the articles, the right wing slant is obvious. When the right wing tells you that the left and the right are one, the same, because globalists and corporations are united to subvert individual freedom, hold on to your wallet. This is conservative disinformation pretending to be something else, even a way to "identify" disinformation.
DeleteThis must be enormously confusing to someone who is new to politics or who "doesn't know the players without a scorecard". How do I know it is right wing? For one thing, I glanced through a few articles and they were all hostile toward Obama. One portrayed him as a lying racist. Balanced media don't do that. Nor do liberal or centrist publications. That is right wing, from top to bottom.
So, enjoy. This has Cecelia's approval. That too should tell you all you need to know about the motives of whoever wrote this and the guy who posted it. And no liberal believes that government efforts to deal with foreign interference in our social media, via control of disinformation, is the same as Big Brother interfering in free speech. Conspiracy theories-R-Us is pushing this load of crap.
correction: Tablet Magazine
DeleteOne needs to check their wallets when one attacks not the substance of an article criticizing our world's most powerful institutions but the person and people responsible for it.
DeleteThat should tell you all you need to know about the value of their criticisms.
I'm tempted to vote for Trump, because of his outright contempt for Republican voters (the enemy of my enemies being my friend), but I can't pull the lever for anyone who is Putin's bitch.
Delete@8:33 The articles attacked Obama.
Delete"One time ago a crazy dream came to me
ReplyDeleteI dreamt I was walkin' through World War III!
I went to the doctor the very next day
To see what kinda words he could say
He said it was a bad dream..."
This was written in 1962. That was before the Vietnam War was drafting young men. It was after the Korean War and during the Cold War. Dylan probably grew up with drop drills and fallout shelters. Republicans were in power during his youth. JFK was President but he was shortly to be shot, which led to different kinds of songs. The Bay of Pigs with Castro allowing Russia to install missiles in Cuba had just happened, with the genuine fear that a nuke might result in war between the US and Russia.
That is what the song was about to Dylan and his audiences. Somerby generalizes it to talk about partisan violence within the USA between the right and left, not world war at all, and not instigated by the left, but by the right, as a continuation of the Civil War (they call it Civil War 2.0). It isn't the same thing at all. But it has the word "war" in the song, and that is all that Somerby needs.
My new theory is that Somerby doesn't listen to the lyrics when he hears a song. Many people don't. It would explain why his song lyric quotes never seem to fit the situations he keeps trying to jam them into. Details and context matter, except to Somerby. How much sense can someone make when their associations are so loose and they think in such an odd manner?
Easily, the best thing about Donald Trump is his outright disdain for Republican voters. That's something we should all aspire to.
ReplyDeleteif Trump didn't hate Republican voters, he'd be 100% useless.
ReplyDeleteThe only difference between Clarence Thomas and Hunter Biden is the color of their skin.
ReplyDeleteIt's over for the Right. Even our country and western stars are singing pro-Socialism songs.
ReplyDeleteGoogle "self-own."
Delete