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Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 4:28 pm
by moda0306
stuper1 wrote:
moda0306 wrote:And in actual news...

https://theintercept.com/2017/11/13/daz ... ing-spree/
Trump’s failure to criticize the widespread executions in the Philippines was not a surprise, given that a leaked transcript of a phone call between the two men in April showed that the American president said that he was calling his counterpart “to congratulate you, because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem.”
See... this is just another example of the media dog-piling onto Trump. Who really gives a rip how the Philippines deals with their criminals? That's their problem. Is it really our job to tell them how to do it? But the media would have us believe that Trump is a monster, because he hasn't unfriended Duterte from his Facebook account. To me, it's pretty simple. If you don't want to get executed in the Philippines, then don't get involved in drug dealing.
At the very least, apparently Trump "gives a rip." He called the guy to congratulate him on his extra-judicial killings. I didn't see anything about not unfriending him on Facebook. ??? But what else would we expect from someone who bragged about the war-crimes he would commit while in office.

I think who our government chooses to ally itself with is of utmost importance. I also think it's important to identify when Trump is idolizing certain types of foreign leaders.

I don't expect everyone else to have that priority. However, I don't think it's unreasonable for a journalist to highlight these things for those that do. And I would certainly want Hillary's dirty ties (Kissinger, Mubarak, etc) if she were President. This is exactly the type of stuff "the media" should be highlighting, IMO. Many who aren't would be alive today if the American people paid more attention to the despots we've allied ourselves with and why. If anything, there's a dearth of this type of reporting that goes on. This is why Bush II can come on TV and talk about the horrible crimes Saddam committed and have 2/3 of the country support going to war not realizing it was under his dad's watch and support that they were committed.

Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 8:04 pm
by Michellebell
    moda0306 wrote:And in actual news...

    https://theintercept.com/2017/11/13/daz ... ing-spree/
    Trump’s failure to criticize the widespread executions in the Philippines was not a surprise, given that a leaked transcript of a phone call between the two men in April showed that the American president said that he was calling his counterpart “to congratulate you, because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem.”
    I don't consider that article "actual news." Here's why. Look at this exerpt:

    "Still basking in the glow of his reception at the ASEAN gala dinner in Manila on Sunday, where he wore a Barong Tagalog, an embroidered shirt worn at formal events in the Philippines, and was greeted on a red carpet by Duterte, with whom he later shared a toast. Trump told the traveling press that the welcome was “red-carpet like I think probably nobody has ever received.”

    Such an elaborate greeting showed, Trump said, “a sense of respect, perhaps for me a little bit, but really for our country, and I’m very proud of that.”

    Trump neglected to mention that every other world leader who attended the summit received the exact same red-carpet welcome from the Philippine president."

    The article could have simply said that Trump was grateful for the type of welcome and respect he had been shown on his visit. Even if other world leaders were also treated with respect, I don't see anything wrong with him commenting about how appreciative he was about it. If he hadn't been so thankful, I'm sure the media would be criticizing him for that. And Trump DOES often call other world leaders out on corrupt policies and violence, and the media goes nuts over that too.

    He will never be able to win everyone over but I find that the over-the-top criticism he gets actually makes me more sympathetic to him when he does something I disagree with because I know he's not perfect and can't make everyone happy.

    Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

    Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 8:35 pm
    by moda0306
    What do you consider "real journalism" with regards to the executive branch and the presidency right now, Michellebell?

    What are your main priorities for how our media holds our government accountable at this point in history?

    Surely it can't be limited to reporting that some dipshit liberals are building a hotel, right?

    Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

    Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 9:04 pm
    by Michellebell
    moda0306 wrote:What do you consider "real journalism" with regards to the executive branch and the presidency right now, Michellebell?

    What are your main priorities for how our media holds our government accountable at this point in history?

    Surely it can't be limited to reporting that some dipshit liberals are building a hotel, right?

    I would consider "actual news" to be objective reports of international deals, tax reform, laws and court rulings, etc.

    I agree there's a lot of news stories going around right now which are just attacking the other side, and they are so eye-catching that they really can be a distraction.

    Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

    Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 9:41 pm
    by moda0306
    Michellebell wrote:
    moda0306 wrote:What do you consider "real journalism" with regards to the executive branch and the presidency right now, Michellebell?

    What are your main priorities for how our media holds our government accountable at this point in history?

    Surely it can't be limited to reporting that some dipshit liberals are building a hotel, right?

    I would consider "actual news" to be objective reports of international deals, tax reform, laws and court rulings, etc.

    I agree there's a lot of news stories going around right now which are just attacking the other side, and they are so eye-catching that they really can be a distraction.
    After hearing Glenn Greenwald discuss the topic, I lean towards his perspective... that is, nobody is objective. We all have our biases in multiple areas... right or wrong. And it's best to admit it and present your perspective honestly than to feign "objectivity." He does a better job of explaining it than I, but there are an infinite number of "facts" out there... and even more infinite number of "lies."

    That-said, establishing actual facts and dispelling lies is an important aspect of good journalism, and I'd imagine you and I agree with that, irrespective of differences in our analysis on the current president, or perhaps more usefully, what is "important" to focus on.

    And maybe that's my point... what is "important?" It's implied if journalism covers something that it is in some way, right? In which case, the President meeting with an authoritarian murderer after enthusiastically supporting him is (in my opinion), several thousand times more "important" than some liberals building an anti-Trump hotel.

    That is because I distrust centralized systems of power or "authority," or any series of systems that present a catastrophic risk to life. One of these "systems" is centralized state systems with massive military power.

    Hopefully this illustrates why I feel like discussing the executive branch of the most powerful killing force in the history of humanity is more important than a hippie hotel.

    Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

    Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:13 am
    by moda0306
    MangoMan wrote:
    moda0306 wrote: After hearing Glenn Greenwald discuss the topic, I lean towards his perspective... that is, nobody is objective. We all have our biases in multiple areas... right or wrong. And it's best to admit it and present your perspective honestly than to feign "objectivity." He does a better job of explaining it than I, but there are an infinite number of "facts" out there... and even more infinite number of "lies."
    Perhaps, but there are certainly different levels of bias. Your best bet is to go to https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ and choose a news source that is as unbiased as possible, e.g., Reuters.
    moda0306 wrote: And maybe that's my point... what is "important?" It's implied if journalism covers something that it is in some way, right? In which case, the President meeting with an authoritarian murderer after enthusiastically supporting him is (in my opinion), several thousand times more "important" than some liberals building an anti-Trump hotel.
    And you'd be correct, if news sites could only publish one story per day. But since, alas, that is not the case, while the meeting with Duterte may be 'more important', it's good to also know how completely off the rails the left has become.
    The amount of money Americans spend on, say, golf is probably more pertinent to how "off-the-rails" segments of America are than the minuscule number of nauseating liberals that would spend money to stay at an anti-Trump hotel (thereby justifying the investment in it in the first place).

    This is literally an obscure investment/consumption decision discussion. This is as much news as whether a Duck Dynasty themed restaurant is getting built in Alabama.

    Unless of course we're to the idiocratic point of where we will proudly put pop culture on the same par as actual political issues of holding power accountable. Oh wait... that's exactly where we are at.

    Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

    Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2017 11:23 am
    by moda0306

    Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

    Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 5:54 am
    by Mountaineer
    Interesting article. Helps understand why all the screaming is going on.

    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/ ... ssues-etc/

    Excerpt:

    On the way to Houston on Friday evening, I finished Patrick Deneen’s extremely impressive forthcoming book Why Liberalism Failed, which will be published on January 9, 2018. There’s not a wasted sentence in the whole thing. In fact, I think it is certain to be one of the most important political books of the year. There’s material in there to shake up the certainties of both left and right. The understanding that Deneen, a political theorist who teaches at Notre Dame, brings to his analysis of why liberal democracy is careening into crisis, is piercing, even radical.

    I won’t say much more about it here, because I want to wait until the book is out. But Deneen’s argument is so incisive and clarifying that I revised the Benedict Option speech I delivered on Saturday morning, to incorporate some of Deneen’s insights. Why Liberalism Failed helped me understand my own book and project more deeply.

    By “liberalism,” he’s not talking about progressivism, or the politics of the Democratic Party alone. He’s talking about the entire system within which we live, and that has evolved in the modern era to this point. Deneen’s argument is essentially that liberalism failed because it succeeded so well in what it set out to do: liberate the consciousness of individuals from any restraints that inhibit their autonomous choice. To be clear, Deneen does not say that liberalism has been a bad thing; in fact, he says it is simply dishonest to ignore the very good things that have come out of liberalism, and that it is absurd to speak of the pre-liberal past as a golden age to which it would be possible to return. That said, his book interprets the systemic crisis we’re in now, and which he believes (quite correctly) is going to get much worse, because the center cannot hold.
    <snip>

    Re: Screaming helplessly at the sky

    Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 9:19 am
    by Xan
    Mountaineer, that's a fascinating article, and I look forward to the full book.
    Deneen’s basic point is that liberalism has failed because it succeeded so well in liberating individuals from a sense that they have unchosen obligations to the past, the future, or to each other. The trouble is, you cannot run a society that way. If you contemplate why “social media” ends up making us more isolated and abstracted from reality, despite its intention to connect us more closely, you’ll be on to Deneen’s argument about liberalism’s paradoxes. But again, we’ll talk about that in-depth later. I should add too that Deneen fully acknowledges the great goods that liberalism has given us, and he says it’s not possible or even desirable to go back to the pre-liberal past. Still, liberalism has reached, or is at least very close to reaching, a dead end, for reasons he explains in his book.