4 ms·

bro they gaslit the whole country into being islamophobes for a solid few years there so we'd agree with the invasion of Afghanistan, predicated upon a former C

bro they gaslit the whole country into being islamophobes for a solid few years there so we'd agree with the invasion of Afghanistan, predicated upon a former CIA asset supposedly having had some hand in 9/11, and then got us to invade Iraq because of unsubstantiated and ultimately false claims as to the existence of "WMDs," and then, afterward, they told us how shamefully evil we were for having spent half of the 00s being islamophobes (which was the case only because they gaslit us into being as such). and we just rolled with it, blamed Bush at the end and called it a day, because hey, look, this hip young black senator is running for office and he's gonna Hope and Change everything and make it better (which didn't end up happening). the news media has not been a force for good in my entire lifetime, but almost nobody (myself included) started seriously questioning it until a few years ago.

boomboomsubban 4y ago
>bro they gaslit the whole country into being islamophobes for a solid few years there so we'd agree with the invasion of Afghanistan, predicated upon a former CIA asset supposedly having had some hand in 9/11 The invasion of Afghanistan started like a month after 9/11, and there's basically no evidence Bin Laden himself had CIA connections. The Afghans that harbored him did, but not Bin Laden. I am very critical of the US in these matters, but in a discussion about the importance of facts you should aim to be factual.
- adamrezich 4y ago
  that's easily the least-interesting part of my post though (and a quick web search will show plenty of evidence both for and against it). again: our news media temporarily gaslit the entire country into being bigoted against an entire major world religion (not to mention other groups who were unfortunate enough to resemble, at a glance, the caricatures we were gaslit into hating—like Sikhs), solely to further the agenda of foreign-soil invasions, and then told us we were wrong for having ever held these beliefs after the fact, when they were the ones who instilled those beliefs in us in the first place. when you sit down and examine how crazy this all was, it's mind-blowing, both the actual series of events and how quickly we forgot and moved on from it as though it never happened. most people forgot they ever held these beliefs at the time (understandable, as it was quite shameful—even if it wasn't our fault), and, I assume, people who were not born yet will never truly know what it was like, because I guarantee that shit ain't going in the history books. even saying "freedom fries" or playing American Idiot on Spotify today rarely truly jogs people's memory and makes them remember that chapter of their lives and how quickly our beliefs shifted as the result of blatantly state-backed media indoctrination enacted on a susceptibly trusting populace.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    >that's easily the least-interesting part of my post though It's still wrong. I'm not disagreeing with your overall narrative, which is why I'm not discussing it. We weren't gaslit into starting the War in Afghanistan, the Bush administration presented a clear reason for the invasion that probably was true. That doesn't forgive all the administration's other faults.

boomboomsubban 4y ago

>bro they gaslit the whole country into being islamophobes for a solid few years there so we'd agree with the invasion of Afghanistan, predicated upon a former CIA asset supposedly having had some hand in 9/11 The invasion of Afghanistan started like a month after 9/11, and there's basically no evidence Bin Laden himself had CIA connections. The Afghans that harbored him did, but not Bin Laden. I am very critical of the US in these matters, but in a discussion about the importance of facts you should aim to be factual.

adamrezich 4y ago
that's easily the least-interesting part of my post though (and a quick web search will show plenty of evidence both for and against it). again: our news media temporarily gaslit the entire country into being bigoted against an entire major world religion (not to mention other groups who were unfortunate enough to resemble, at a glance, the caricatures we were gaslit into hating—like Sikhs), solely to further the agenda of foreign-soil invasions, and then told us we were wrong for having ever held these beliefs after the fact, when they were the ones who instilled those beliefs in us in the first place. when you sit down and examine how crazy this all was, it's mind-blowing, both the actual series of events and how quickly we forgot and moved on from it as though it never happened. most people forgot they ever held these beliefs at the time (understandable, as it was quite shameful—even if it wasn't our fault), and, I assume, people who were not born yet will never truly know what it was like, because I guarantee that shit ain't going in the history books. even saying "freedom fries" or playing American Idiot on Spotify today rarely truly jogs people's memory and makes them remember that chapter of their lives and how quickly our beliefs shifted as the result of blatantly state-backed media indoctrination enacted on a susceptibly trusting populace.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  >that's easily the least-interesting part of my post though It's still wrong. I'm not disagreeing with your overall narrative, which is why I'm not discussing it. We weren't gaslit into starting the War in Afghanistan, the Bush administration presented a clear reason for the invasion that probably was true. That doesn't forgive all the administration's other faults.