No Politics, Eh?

[jimjimbo]

8 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

I don't think God looked down on mankind and said, "I will make a breed of liars and call them 'Conservatives.'"  

No, that would have been the Devil.....

[LarryC]

45 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

I really think if you start peeling most news journal articles, layer-by-layer and claim-by-claim, you will find a lot of it is made-up speculation and opinion based on a hodge-podge of facts, some of which are unsubstantiated and merely repeated without citation to a reliable, original source.  

 

Try it yourself when you read articles.  Sentence-by-sentence; claim-by-claim; ask yourself if it is substantiated or speculation mixed with bias.  Pay close attention to each material word and phrase.  Don't just skim for the gist; read carefully for the details.  When facts are cited, look to the cited material and on down the chain.  Watch how the chain stops with nothing reliable.  Watch, too, how facts are distorted and contorted as they are presented from article to article.

 

I don't think God looked down on mankind and said, "I will make a breed of liars and call them 'Conservatives.'"  

 

Human conditioning is a very interesting subject.  I had a conversation related to human conditioning yesterday with some friends, and it was over the latest sports bra controversy.  Curiously, a sports bra is thought to be less provocative than a regular bra, much like a bikini is thought to be less provocative than underwear.  We all know these are virtually the same, so how are we conditioned to perceive them as being vastly different?  If you can enter the court wearing a sports bra, why not a regular bra?  Why are men's nipples okay for public display, but not women's.  WTF????  (lol)  But alas....  

 

When you are told repeatedly by sources you trust that things are "X", you actually start perceiving "X."  I think this applies to news as well.  We are all conditioned to believe things, and the more interesting challenge is not so much finding evidence of conditioning in other people, but to find it in ourselves.  I find it all the time.  I just don't know what to believe anymore when it comes to all the latest hot topics and how they are reported.

 

 

 

Hi Jeff, 

 

That's pretty much the approach I take.  There are any number of articles of which I'm skeptical, and I feel I analyze pretty well the articles from which I draw conclusions.  Many would take too much time to pursue in that kind of depth.  The "conditioning" idea is a good one to think about.  One man's "conditioning" may simply be another's "verification" of what he/she may have been thinking along the lines of.  For the most part, I tend to assemble bits and pieces of information or viewpoints, and draw conclusions.  That's not conditioning in my view, but may represent assessing conclusions along particular lines that others may not agree with. I tend to think that disagreeing individuals are not seeing the same facts that I do.  If I'm doubtful or think I'm on the wrong track, I change my mind.

 

It's easy to see Russian "collusion' and attempts at subversion, IMO.  It's easy to see that Trump must be either deeply in debt or thinking he can get his Trump hotel built in Moscow by overturning Western alliances, or taking down Bruce Ohr, all at Putin's behest.  Let's see if I'm ultimately right.

[Zen Traveler]

3 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

4 hours ago, LarryC said:

I certainly don't agree with that, though I'm amazed how much of Fox News is just propaganda fakery.

I really think if you start peeling most news journal articles, layer-by-layer and claim-by-claim, you will find a lot of it is made-up speculation and opinion based on a hodge-podge of facts, some of which are unsubstantiated and merely repeated without citation to a reliable, original source.  

😨 We did this ALL OF THE TIME in the BS Forum and Larry is correct! Seriously, Jeff, I don't remember anyone effectively doing what you suggested below on the links I posted because I didn't post opinion pieces. In fact, I was continuously pointing out differences in fact-based versed propaganda.

 

Quote

 

Try it yourself when you read articles.  Sentence-by-sentence; claim-by-claim; ask yourself if it is substantiated or speculation mixed with bias.  Pay close attention to each material word and phrase.  Don't just skim for the gist; read carefully for the details.  When facts are cited, look to the cited material and on down the chain.  Watch how the chain stops with nothing reliable.  Watch, too, how facts are distorted and contorted as they are presented from article to article.

 

Ha! I do this several times a week on my FB page using the headlines on FoxNews and the President's twitter feed pointing out the discrepancies. What I found on Fox was that the title or click-bait doesn't always match the factual text in the story. The other thing I found is FoxNews usually downplays certain information that later ends up being important....The other thing I found is that they sensationalize local stories and make it sound like a national deal, when it's not. All of this in the last few months I've documented on my timeline.

[garyrc]

3 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Human conditioning is a very interesting subject.  I had a conversation related to human conditioning yesterday with some friends, and it was over the latest sports bra controversy.  Curiously, a sports bra is thought to be less provocative than a regular bra, much like a bikini is thought to be less provocative than underwear.  We all know these are virtually the same, so how are we conditioned to perceive them as being vastly different?  If you can enter the court wearing a sports bra, why not a regular bra?  Why are men's nipples okay for public display, but not women's.  WTF????  (lol)  But alas....  

 

 

 

... And I have always considered them to be virtually the same.  Also, I agree with Austin, but I would have called the umpire's call "asinine" or "idiotic" or "xssholery of the first order," rather than merely ridiculous.   And, given the usual security, why can't a member of the U.S. Congress go on the floor wearing a "hoodie," especially when it is an efficient political act in the Great Theater of Political Acts? 

 

Our critical faculties should kick in whenever we hear ridiculous statements, or even plausible statements without support, and if they don't, one might suspect that the anti-analytical conditioning occurred very, very early.

 

Teaching children to avoid being thoughtful and analytical is a form of child abuse.  It is one of the ways, as Goodman would have it, that we make ourselves stupid.  But without this mass conditioning, how could Fox News survive?

 

3 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

When you are told repeatedly by sources you trust that things are "X", you actually start perceiving "X." 

 

I'm not sure about this word "trust" in this context.  I have rarely been burdened with it.   When the elephant in the room is trumpeting away, hearing a newscaster call an "X" an "X" is moderately satisfying, but, as you say, there had better be evidence, or at least a reference, presented.  Every once in a while (maybe three times in the last 20 months) I realize that if anyone else, other than that noisy elephant, had said "Y" I might have thought "Y" could have been a useful idea. 

 

I used to watch William F. Buckley, even though I disagreed with him most of the time.  He was articulate, touched on important subjects, and had guests who disagreed with him, and each other, from Allen Ginsberg to Paul Goodman, and a host of others.  The level of discourse has dropped like a rock.  But, I still enjoy Brooks and Shields, who are not given enough time to shine.  Tragic Charley Rose and his guests were often considerably above the bar.

 

[JohnJ]

3 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

I don't think God looked down on mankind and said, "I will make a breed of liars and call them 'Conservatives.'"  

Dude..*%*$

I believe it was "Let there be dims"

 

It goes both ways and this is getting to be like a political ad.

 

@Zen Traveler

I re-labeled my bookmark wasfox a couple of years ago, they're being run from londonstan since.

[Zen Traveler]

On ‎8‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 10:15 PM, Jeff Matthews said:

On ‎8‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 10:12 PM, Zen Traveler said:

This is an absolutely outrageous line given how much time I wasted respectfully arguing against the candidate you supported.....Hippo farts and worshiping sports figures indeed. 

I don't know.  While you might think my vote matters to you, that doesn't mean it has to matter to me.  You just want it to matter to me.  In fact, you want it to matter to me so much that you are convinced I am wrong.  😉

Umm...You articulated support and posted ideas that I contemplated and debated and in the end it did seem to matter more to me than you--Even though you didn't vote for him, your guy won and now you complain about the system while obsessing about sports figures and hippos farting. {EDIT: I also understand that is allowed in the Lounge, whereas other topics aren't, but....}

[Gilbert]

On 8/31/2018 at 8:09 PM, T2K said:

 

I guess the question then is how did the crooks get there? Could that have been avoided? How?

 

Keith

 

 

[Gilbert]

On 9/1/2018 at 2:42 PM, LarryC said:

 If I'm doubtful or think I'm on the wrong track, I change my mind.

 

This is something that demands respect...... how about giving us a.....  For example?????????? 

[LarryC]

No big deal, but at first I liked Julian Assange because I thought he was blowing whistles on gov't secrecy, but belatedly now see him as a Russian stooge.

[Zen Traveler]

8 hours ago, Gilbert said:

 

This is something that demands respect...... how about giving us a.....  For example?????????? 

 

1 hour ago, LarryC said:

No big deal, but at first I liked Julian Assange because I thought he was blowing whistles on gov't secrecy, but belatedly now see him as a Russian stooge.

I never liked what Assange was doing but watched "Snowden" the other day and have gravitated to understanding his POV, but still don't agree with what he did. That said, I also think what he exposed gave us reason to question our government. Otoh, I think what WikiLeaks did this last go 'round is as you describe and what should be learned is how this information was weaponized by Russia and that is something that our government has proven.