11 ms·

I used to be wowed by this kind of hypocrisy, but lately I've concluded that these things are happening so frequently because the voters have proved to them suf

I used to be wowed by this kind of hypocrisy, but lately I've concluded that these things are happening so frequently because the voters have proved to them sufficiently that they will take no heed provided it "hurts the other team." Everything on the news looks ironic now because the political class has realized there's almost no limit to what they can get away with.

alasdair_ 6y ago
>Everything on the news looks ironic I was born and grew up in Scotland. I remember the first time I watched Fox News after moving to the states - for almost fifteen minutes I genuinely thought I was watching some (honestly pretty funny) satire.
- jagged-chisel 6y ago
  You were. Satire marketed as news.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    Satire, by definition, aims at the top of the societal ladder. Fox News, Russian state media, "alternative news" blogs? They aim at the very bottom of the societal ladder (i.e. immigrants, Muslims, poor people) instead. That's not satire, that is inciting hatred.
  - kyleblarson 6y ago
    As if CNN, MSNBC are any different.
    - hithereagain 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
    - triceratops 6y ago
      r/enlightenedcentrism
- searchableguy 6y ago
  Wait till you watch Indian news. Fox news will look serious next to it.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    I was quite confused on my first read as I've always really trusted Indian Country Today[1] even though it's a much much more specialized news source. 1. https://indiancountrytoday.com/ https://indiancountrytoday.com/
- justaguyhere 6y ago
  Same here - Fox news is on a whole new level. It is like the onion, except it stops being funny after about 30 seconds. Also wasn't this the same channel that argued that they are allowed to present false news (or something similar)?
- bargl 6y ago
  I get really frustrated when people only mention Fox News and not CNN/MSNBC in the same sentence. There are people on Fox who are good, I.E. Chris Wallace. I mean he's my only example, but Jon Stewart did a skit with him and the quote that got me was, "how many times have you seen your show on my show?" It was a nod to the fact that Chris Wallace does actual news not opinion pieces. I'd actually say he's better and less opinionated than Don Lemon (CNN). This is not me defending FOX. It's more of me railing against other forms of news that I also don't like but sometimes get a presumed pass. I see them as the opposite side of the coin. EDIT: I know this is going to get down-voted. But if you disagree I'd really like to know why. I am someone who listens to others, and am curious why you disagree with this sentiment.
  - untog 6y ago
    > But if you disagree I'd really like to know why. I'll take a stab at it. I agree with you that Fox actually does have some decent news output at various points in the day (dearly departed Shep...), but I simply don't think that CNN has any equivalent to the Fox opinion programming. MSNBC comes closer but it still doesn't have hosts spouting outright disinformation on a regular basis.
    - bargl 6y ago
      Who do you like on CNN? Any specific shows you like over there? I named Don Lemon, but I also really dislike a lot of what Anderson Cooper talks about. Shep was awful. What alternate news sources do you like to go to for unbiased news? What forms of disinformation have you found? And I'd like to classify disinformation as a situation you feel they are being purposeful about misinformation. I believe we're both going from the same definition but it's always good to be clear upfront.
      - alasdair_ 6y ago
        > What forms of disinformation have you found? One example is the remarkably-common “mistake” of putting a “(D)” after the name of an obscure congressman or senator caught committing some crime or other, when the person in question was a Republican. Or the recent coronavirus coverage e.g. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/media/490776-74-journalism-professors-accuse-fox-news-owners-of-spreading-coronavirus%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/media/4907...
- asdff 6y ago
  Fox News is classified as entertainment in Canada, rather than a news agency.
  - artificial 6y ago
    All the big stations are news entertainment state side, mega editorializing everywhere.
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
  Ah there's nothing better than waking up early in some US hotel and watching stupid tv shows at stupid o'clock. I distinctly recall realizing that I had been watching some insanely offensively stupid advertorial for hunting rifles interrupted by advertisements for erectile dysfunction pills every few minutes for the last 20 minutes or so at some point and reflecting on why the hell I was actually watching that. In my defense, I was pretty jet lagged. Later landed in some morning TV show that was clearly targeting early risers even more tired than me looking to get a head start on rush hour. In any case, I stopped watching broadcast TV a decade ago; especially news shows. The signal to noise ratio is just unacceptable to my brain these days. I get more information out of a 5 second glance at my news feed in the morning and magnitudes more information by doing that for a bit longer. They really dumb down everything on tv until even the most retarded vegetable still watching can grasp the basics and that apparently takes ages and endless repeating of things in 3 word sentences. People with a functioning brain stopped being part of the target audience ages ago. In all fairness, people complaining about how retarded the news is is nothing new and was a popular pass time in 16th & 17th century British press as well as in Roman times even. People, like me, complaining about the quality of reporting is as old as the concept of publishing information in pretty much any form. Information is power and manipulating the masses through any of the channels information spreads is part of the game. And knowing that is the game has been the way to move up in society for just as long.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
munk-a 6y ago
There was a comment on: > Absolutely. America is internally fractured enough now to make any resistance movement useless. Most people are content to attack each other while the political/managerial class makes further extractions and the world moves beyond American hegemony. > It's sad, really. This country pulled in generally the same direction for a long time. We don't have that strength anymore. Which was deleted but raised some interesting points about the unification and cohesion of resistance movements and revolutions by my reading and I wanted to delve into movement fracturing even if that comment has been removed. I don't think change movements are ever unified with the possible exception of those against hard force backed governments. Unless someone is literally beheading people to stay in power the revolution (or just political shift) will happen long before there is a unified and majority based embraced of the new order. Revolutions and resistance seemed eternally relegated to the fringe and exposed to excessive fracturing. This may possibly be due to the zealotry of those on the fringes or the academic origins of most political movements, but I'm quite uncertain as to the definite cause. That said most political movements happen in stages where political ideals are embraced over time, in 2016 a 15$ minimum wage was decried as crazy and extremist and universal healthcare was viewed as an albatross, in this election round even Klobuchar had a plan that leaned toward universal healthcare. Lastly, if by resistance movement you meant some sort of armed uprising - that's never going to happen in the US without it being a full blown coup which doesn't seem to fit the framing of "resistance movement" very much. The military far outclasses private individuals - even while the US might be the most armed populace, the US military is even more excessive.
- gruez 6y ago
  >even while the US might be the most armed populace, the US military is even more excessive. that didn't help against insurgents in Afghanistan/Iraq/Vietnam
  - Proziam 6y ago
    Dropping millions of dollars worth of ordnance on a structure built from sticks and clay by hand (or, a tent...)isn't a "sustainable" strategy. Insurgents get several advantages that make asymmetric warfare a truly brutal experience beyond just the cost. 1. Use of women and children as weapon delivery systems, or shields. (Former US Navy Seal Jocko Willink once described a reoccurring situation whereby his team would be clearing homes in a contested territory and the families would act "strange" until they realized that one of the "family members" was not actually a family member at all.) 2. There are no laws. They can deploy whatever weapons and tactics they wish against both our forces and civilians alike. We are bound by rules of engagement (which aren't as obvious or straightforward as they might sound) which severely handicaps our ability to just "go get the bad guys" even if we know exactly where they are. 3. Extremism. Whether it is religiously motivated or not, extremism leads to predictable results. It's easy for propaganda to spread and to vilify anyone, but it's much easier when there's an actual "enemy" you can see. That effect is multiplied further when we inevitably make mistakes. War is hell. War should always be the absolute last resort. Unfortunately, the people who decide when we go to war aren't the people who actually have to put their lives and limbs on the line to fight it.
koheripbal 6y ago
Remote voting for senators and remote voting for the presidential election are very very different animals. Remote voting for senators is an easy fix, probably (hopefully) temporary with a very low risk of foreign interference. Remote voting for the general public is fraught with complexity due to voting being the jurisdiction of the states, as well as rife with opportunity for foreign governments to mess with the results. I mean, we literally saw hacking attempts from the intelligence services of Russia on election reporting servers in 2016. Enabling remote voting for the general public needs EXTREME vetting before going live. Not doable for 2020.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- madhadron 6y ago
  Washington and Oregon only have remote voting. It works extremely well, is less open to voter suppression and tampering, and lets you sit down and research what you're voting for in comfort. A ballot is mailed to you, you fill it out, seal it up, and mail it back or put it in one of the many ballot drop boxes. Electronic voting? Absolutely not. But it's hard to have cyberwarfare campaigns against paper trails.
  - matt_s 6y ago
    Paper by mail voting should be our standard in the US. There is absolutely no need for real-time efficiency when it comes to potentially changing political office seats. There usually is a month or two before the successor takes office so we don't need to know that night, it could be a week later. Sometimes technology introduces more potential problems.
    - asdff 6y ago
      It will be hard to walk back from the election night hysteria we've developed as a populace.
      - 6y ago

alasdair_ 6y ago

>Everything on the news looks ironic I was born and grew up in Scotland. I remember the first time I watched Fox News after moving to the states - for almost fifteen minutes I genuinely thought I was watching some (honestly pretty funny) satire.

jagged-chisel 6y ago
You were. Satire marketed as news.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  Satire, by definition, aims at the top of the societal ladder. Fox News, Russian state media, "alternative news" blogs? They aim at the very bottom of the societal ladder (i.e. immigrants, Muslims, poor people) instead. That's not satire, that is inciting hatred.
- kyleblarson 6y ago
  As if CNN, MSNBC are any different.
  - hithereagain 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - triceratops 6y ago
    r/enlightenedcentrism
searchableguy 6y ago
Wait till you watch Indian news. Fox news will look serious next to it.
- munk-a 6y ago
  I was quite confused on my first read as I've always really trusted Indian Country Today[1] even though it's a much much more specialized news source. 1. https://indiancountrytoday.com/ https://indiancountrytoday.com/
justaguyhere 6y ago
Same here - Fox news is on a whole new level. It is like the onion, except it stops being funny after about 30 seconds. Also wasn't this the same channel that argued that they are allowed to present false news (or something similar)?
bargl 6y ago
I get really frustrated when people only mention Fox News and not CNN/MSNBC in the same sentence. There are people on Fox who are good, I.E. Chris Wallace. I mean he's my only example, but Jon Stewart did a skit with him and the quote that got me was, "how many times have you seen your show on my show?" It was a nod to the fact that Chris Wallace does actual news not opinion pieces. I'd actually say he's better and less opinionated than Don Lemon (CNN). This is not me defending FOX. It's more of me railing against other forms of news that I also don't like but sometimes get a presumed pass. I see them as the opposite side of the coin. EDIT: I know this is going to get down-voted. But if you disagree I'd really like to know why. I am someone who listens to others, and am curious why you disagree with this sentiment.
- untog 6y ago
  > But if you disagree I'd really like to know why. I'll take a stab at it. I agree with you that Fox actually does have some decent news output at various points in the day (dearly departed Shep...), but I simply don't think that CNN has any equivalent to the Fox opinion programming. MSNBC comes closer but it still doesn't have hosts spouting outright disinformation on a regular basis.
  - bargl 6y ago
    Who do you like on CNN? Any specific shows you like over there? I named Don Lemon, but I also really dislike a lot of what Anderson Cooper talks about. Shep was awful. What alternate news sources do you like to go to for unbiased news? What forms of disinformation have you found? And I'd like to classify disinformation as a situation you feel they are being purposeful about misinformation. I believe we're both going from the same definition but it's always good to be clear upfront.
    - alasdair_ 6y ago
      > What forms of disinformation have you found? One example is the remarkably-common “mistake” of putting a “(D)” after the name of an obscure congressman or senator caught committing some crime or other, when the person in question was a Republican. Or the recent coronavirus coverage e.g. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/media/490776-74-journalism-professors-accuse-fox-news-owners-of-spreading-coronavirus%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/media/4907...
asdff 6y ago
Fox News is classified as entertainment in Canada, rather than a news agency.
- artificial 6y ago
  All the big stations are news entertainment state side, mega editorializing everywhere.
jillesvangurp 6y ago
Ah there's nothing better than waking up early in some US hotel and watching stupid tv shows at stupid o'clock. I distinctly recall realizing that I had been watching some insanely offensively stupid advertorial for hunting rifles interrupted by advertisements for erectile dysfunction pills every few minutes for the last 20 minutes or so at some point and reflecting on why the hell I was actually watching that. In my defense, I was pretty jet lagged. Later landed in some morning TV show that was clearly targeting early risers even more tired than me looking to get a head start on rush hour. In any case, I stopped watching broadcast TV a decade ago; especially news shows. The signal to noise ratio is just unacceptable to my brain these days. I get more information out of a 5 second glance at my news feed in the morning and magnitudes more information by doing that for a bit longer. They really dumb down everything on tv until even the most retarded vegetable still watching can grasp the basics and that apparently takes ages and endless repeating of things in 3 word sentences. People with a functioning brain stopped being part of the target audience ages ago. In all fairness, people complaining about how retarded the news is is nothing new and was a popular pass time in 16th & 17th century British press as well as in Roman times even. People, like me, complaining about the quality of reporting is as old as the concept of publishing information in pretty much any form. Information is power and manipulating the masses through any of the channels information spreads is part of the game. And knowing that is the game has been the way to move up in society for just as long.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

munk-a 6y ago

There was a comment on: > Absolutely. America is internally fractured enough now to make any resistance movement useless. Most people are content to attack each other while the political/managerial class makes further extractions and the world moves beyond American hegemony. > It's sad, really. This country pulled in generally the same direction for a long time. We don't have that strength anymore. Which was deleted but raised some interesting points about the unification and cohesion of resistance movements and revolutions by my reading and I wanted to delve into movement fracturing even if that comment has been removed. I don't think change movements are ever unified with the possible exception of those against hard force backed governments. Unless someone is literally beheading people to stay in power the revolution (or just political shift) will happen long before there is a unified and majority based embraced of the new order. Revolutions and resistance seemed eternally relegated to the fringe and exposed to excessive fracturing. This may possibly be due to the zealotry of those on the fringes or the academic origins of most political movements, but I'm quite uncertain as to the definite cause. That said most political movements happen in stages where political ideals are embraced over time, in 2016 a 15$ minimum wage was decried as crazy and extremist and universal healthcare was viewed as an albatross, in this election round even Klobuchar had a plan that leaned toward universal healthcare. Lastly, if by resistance movement you meant some sort of armed uprising - that's never going to happen in the US without it being a full blown coup which doesn't seem to fit the framing of "resistance movement" very much. The military far outclasses private individuals - even while the US might be the most armed populace, the US military is even more excessive.

gruez 6y ago
>even while the US might be the most armed populace, the US military is even more excessive. that didn't help against insurgents in Afghanistan/Iraq/Vietnam
- Proziam 6y ago
  Dropping millions of dollars worth of ordnance on a structure built from sticks and clay by hand (or, a tent...)isn't a "sustainable" strategy. Insurgents get several advantages that make asymmetric warfare a truly brutal experience beyond just the cost. 1. Use of women and children as weapon delivery systems, or shields. (Former US Navy Seal Jocko Willink once described a reoccurring situation whereby his team would be clearing homes in a contested territory and the families would act "strange" until they realized that one of the "family members" was not actually a family member at all.) 2. There are no laws. They can deploy whatever weapons and tactics they wish against both our forces and civilians alike. We are bound by rules of engagement (which aren't as obvious or straightforward as they might sound) which severely handicaps our ability to just "go get the bad guys" even if we know exactly where they are. 3. Extremism. Whether it is religiously motivated or not, extremism leads to predictable results. It's easy for propaganda to spread and to vilify anyone, but it's much easier when there's an actual "enemy" you can see. That effect is multiplied further when we inevitably make mistakes. War is hell. War should always be the absolute last resort. Unfortunately, the people who decide when we go to war aren't the people who actually have to put their lives and limbs on the line to fight it.

koheripbal 6y ago

Remote voting for senators and remote voting for the presidential election are very very different animals. Remote voting for senators is an easy fix, probably (hopefully) temporary with a very low risk of foreign interference. Remote voting for the general public is fraught with complexity due to voting being the jurisdiction of the states, as well as rife with opportunity for foreign governments to mess with the results. I mean, we literally saw hacking attempts from the intelligence services of Russia on election reporting servers in 2016. Enabling remote voting for the general public needs EXTREME vetting before going live. Not doable for 2020.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
madhadron 6y ago
Washington and Oregon only have remote voting. It works extremely well, is less open to voter suppression and tampering, and lets you sit down and research what you're voting for in comfort. A ballot is mailed to you, you fill it out, seal it up, and mail it back or put it in one of the many ballot drop boxes. Electronic voting? Absolutely not. But it's hard to have cyberwarfare campaigns against paper trails.
- matt_s 6y ago
  Paper by mail voting should be our standard in the US. There is absolutely no need for real-time efficiency when it comes to potentially changing political office seats. There usually is a month or two before the successor takes office so we don't need to know that night, it could be a week later. Sometimes technology introduces more potential problems.
  - asdff 6y ago
    It will be hard to walk back from the election night hysteria we've developed as a populace.
    - 6y ago