MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2024
In our view, they're just people people: If we believed in terrible people, they would plainly be terrible people.
Luckily, we don't believe in terrible people! We would suggest that you stop believing in such fever dreams too.
Hegseth and Kilmeade and Campos-Duffy? The pure, undisguised imitations of life we saw them engage in yesterday morning, then again today, starting at 6 a.m.?
We refer to imitations of journalistic life—imitations of rational life, even of so-called human life. Beyond that, we refer to imitations of the types of programming you might expect to find on an actual "cable news" channel.
What we saw was an imitation of life. On Fox, the tools were deeply involved in such conduct starting at 6 o'clock yesterday morning. Right there on Easter Sunday, starting at 6 o'clock sharp!
If we thought they were capable of something different, we'd describe them as terrible people. In all honesty, we don't really think they are.
We think this is the best they can do. We think this is all they actually have. For one especially grisly example, consider this:
Yesterday morning, Campos-Duffy added "pagan" to "Communist" and "Marxist" on her list of all-purpose terms of invective. She criticized the pagan behavior again and again and again!
We can think of a few cable news segments over the past twenty-five years which were equally awful, but we can't necessarily think of one which was worse. That said, we'll remind you of this one key point:
Everything You Really Need to Know You Can See On Display in The Iliad
The fury, the rage, the devotion to the honor of the clan? This is what we humans are actually like. We actually aren't "the rational animal," and we never have been.
(For the record: We believe in tribal people, some of whom may also be [severely] mentally ill.)
More on this dangerous conduct tomorrow. For an overview of one topic concerning which the children raged, you can start with this overview from Kevin Drum.
For the record, that wasn't the only topic at issue. At any rate, the imitations of journalistic life went gruesomely downhill from there.
Donald Trump seems to be out of his mind, but you won't hear about that problem on Fox. The channel is clogged with true people people.
As when men fought on the plains outside Troy, they're in thrall to the ways of the clan.
"we don't believe in terrible people"
ReplyDeleteexclaims Somerby, who is not inclined to disparage the Hitlers and slavers in the world as "terrible".
Sure, more power to Somerby, but what's the point in that? Rolling over for those that harm society seems weird and counterproductive, and it is almost certainly not what Somerby actually believes. He's just saying nonsense to push his empty goal.
Of manufacturing ignorance.
"we don't believe in terrible people" does not equal "Rolling over for those that harm society"
DeleteThat's your contrivance and your issue.
Hitler brought about economic recovery in his country, and the condition of the working class improved markedly. On the other hand …
DeleteYes and Ted Bundy was charming and had a lot of intellectual curiousity. On the other hand...
Delete12:39 you lack reading comprehension and you are mocking your own moniker with your poorly reasoned comment.
DeleteMust be....a day of the week.
Reading comprehension is overrated.
DeleteI'm game.
DeleteSo if you open with a quote ""we don't believe in terrible people"
And then go on to write "...but what's the point in that? Rolling over for those that harm society seems weird and counterproductive..."
Elaborate on why that isn't a characterization or consequence of not labeling people terrible.
"If we thought they were capable of something different, we'd describe them as terrible people."
DeleteThis is a stupid construct, in my opinion, because people who harm others should be prevented from doing so, not forgiven because they can't help it.
This is equivalent to "rolling over" and this is what Somerby said, not any words I am putting in his mouth.
Rationalist, on a scale of one to ten, in terms of being a quality human being, what do you give Hitler.
DeletePronouncements like Bob’s, claiming that horrible people is a “fever dream” displays an indifference to the murdered, the raped, victims of all crime. The only place Bob seems to find outrageous, damaging behavior is among highly paid broadcasters at MSNBC.
Bob is a very insensitive asshat, and his pomposity rivals Trump’s.
How do we end this ramping up of political extremism, besides the ideas of proportional representation / ranked choice voting? Or getting less sensational and more nuanced media coverage?
ReplyDeleteHow many of you out there build information bubbles in which you only see things that reinforce your prior biases, with an algorithm constantly feeding you more extreme versions of things you already believe?
And how many expressly look for things that disagree with your current beliefs?
Obviously the former is probably not quite as prevalent amongst those that read blogs but still an issue.
Free pornography would help people blow off some steam.
DeleteCumbaya!
DeleteThis idea of information bubbles makes no sense. There is no need or reason to pay attention to weird conspiracy theories, ugly insults launched at political opponents, disinformation originating from Russia spread via the right wing, hate speech (including what comes from Donald Trump), and so on. Being discriminating in what one chooses to listen to is not building an information bubble but is self-protection from wasting one's time and being infected with filth.
DeleteThe problem with Somerby is that it is unclear whether he knows how to tell what is worth the time and effort and what is harmful to everyone. I never see him express critical thinking over right wing talking points and memes, other than to disparage Gutfeld (who he seems to have a professional jealousy against). Somerby doesn't complain about the right things and his idea of what should be watched to be outside of a bubble or silo, doesn't impress me at all.
That's why today's accusation that people are not consuming opposing views strikes me as specious.
I do not need an "opposing view" to apply critical thinking to what I read. I can evaluate sources instead. Donald Trump is an opposing view to everything I hold sacred, but listening to him would be entirely unhelpful, destructive even. His opposing views are lies, disinformation, self-serving whining, nothing with any substance or merit. A complete and total waste of time.
So, this is a wild goose chase.
Believe in terrible people? I believe in David and Cecelia.
ReplyDeleteDavid lies about who he is related to (he is not Lizzie's cousin) and Cecelia pretends to be a woman, whatever! But the way they try to shut down coherent discourse does make them relatively terrible.
DeleteDavid is a woman, and Cecelia is Lizzie’s cousin.
DeleteAnonymouse 1:06pm, “relatively terrible”. I like it.
DeleteWho is this?
Deletehttps://www.casact.org/about/leadership-and-staff/elections/meet-candidates/meet-candidates-david-skurnick
Yeah "relatively terrible." That is a surprise, are the dogmatic belief systems softening up? A kink in the armor?!
DeleteNot a kink. A chink.
DeleteCecelia: It's better than being terribly relative. So, there's that.
DeleteIlya, good point.
DeleteCecelia is a terrible relative. I'm her hundredth cousin, and she has never reached out to me.
DeleteBarbara Rush has died.
ReplyDeletePeace out, Babs.
DeleteAOC is more beautiful than Taylor Swift.
ReplyDeleteMehdi Hassan has been killing it lately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyiG6FJegUk
ReplyDeleteTrump has posted his $175M bond in the New York civil fraud case, so the state won’t seize his assets.
ReplyDeleteKnight Insurance Group provided the money.
DeleteIn 1995 at a major indoor track event in Switzerland, a fart occurred so loud that spectators thought a trackside loudspeaker had blown. The fart has been estimated at over 100 decibels – about the volume of a chainsaw. The woman responsible was never identified.
DeleteWhen people say "I don't necessarily like Trump but I will vote for him because I like his policies." , the question that arises is "So which one of his policies did Ron DeSantis not espouse?". DeSantis tried to make a go of it by being a younger version of a right wing candidate who embraced all the Trump talking points, but with the street cred of having served in the armed forces and non of the baggage of paying off a porn star, idolatry of dictators, ties to Russian money, stealing from charity, bad marks from prior cabinet members, etc. And there is a lot of etc. So no, when a Trump supporter makes that claim, he/she is disingenuous, because he/she had at least one other choice that did not require exposing their warped values to the public, but chose instead to assume that their fabrication would clear them of criticism for being a Trump MAGA.
ReplyDeleteTrump probably would have won no matter what, but the anti-Trump law fare allowed Trump to dominate the news. It made him an easy winner of the primary elections.
DeleteSo, David, did you prefer DeSantis over Trump?
DeleteWhat allowed Trump to dominate the news in 2016, David? Was it all the felony charges he was facing, or was it that the NY Times and the rest of the Right-wing media in the USA thought it was fun to have a moron run for President, because it was good for their businesses?
DeleteAhh yes. The corporate-owned media, who hate Trump and his passion for giving corporations HUGE tax breaks. Now, pull David and the media's other finger.
DeleteDavid is a flawed human being, but he's a better human being than Thomas or Alito.
DeleteDiC has phenomenal political instincts and jumped on the DeSantis bandwagon before most. And who could blame. Ron was a fascist's dream candidate without the annoying distractions of trump tweets.
DeleteIf Newsome (rather than some obscure Minnesota congressman)had primaried Biden on age alone, agreeing with his policies, he undoubtedly would have managed to acquire more than 7% of Democratic primary votes. I conjecture that on the basis of age, he would have won or come close. Republican voters, on the other hand, had that same opportunity with DeSantis and failed to budge from Trump. This is a cult following, not one whose motivation is policy driven, no matter how they would shirk from the embarrassment of that fact by stating otherwise.
ReplyDeleteNewsom
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