A Question
[Headline from DRJ]
A question about Epstein and American politics:
Among other things, the Epstein case forces us to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions about the real meaning of “fake” news. There is, or should be, more to being informed than fact-checking formalism. If you have spent the last few years earnestly consuming mainstream left-of-center media in this country you will be under the impression that the United States has fallen under the control of a spray-tanned Mussolini clone who is never more than five minutes away from making birth control illegal. If you watch Fox News and read conservative publications, you no doubt bemoan the fact that Ronald Reagan’s heir is being hamstrung by a bunch of avocado toast-eating feminist witches.
Meanwhile, Alex Jones’s audience will tell you that America, like the rest of the world, is ruled by a depraved internationalist elite whose ultimate allegiance is not to countries or political parties or ideologies but to one another. These people believe in nothing. They will safeguard their wealth and privilege at any cost. They will never break rank. And they will commit unspeakable crimes with impunity, while anyone who dares to speculate openly is sued or hounded out of public life as a kook.
Is this where we are as a political nation?
— DRJ
Sure looks like it. And still, no pitchforks/torches.
Gryph (08c844) — 7/11/2019 @ 7:46 am1 – Sure looks like it. And still, no pitchforks/torches.
mg (8cbc69) — 7/11/2019 @ 8:18 amWait until the democrat national convention.
Yes, but I think we have always been there. Conspiracies, fake news (Hearst), outright lies have always found voice here. But more speech has usually forced out the lies–the one saving grace of the media.
Patricia (3363ec) — 7/11/2019 @ 8:19 am3. Hearst is the reason that Marijuana is a schedule one “Drug.” He was more responsible for that than any other individual. More speech doesn’t always out the truth.
Gryph (08c844) — 7/11/2019 @ 8:21 amPolarization has gotten worse over time. We’re less homogenous culturally and ethnically and that lessons the sense that members of the opposite party are still one of ‘us’. I think the media has figured out that that there’s a lot of money to be made on fanning outrage, pandering and quick hit pieces. I think an article that a candidate / party is going to completely destroy the country and our way of life is more interesting to read than a detailed analysis of what they actually propose. I think both parties have decided that demonizing their opponents is the best strategy and that this has lead to a lot of confirmation bias among their bases.
I also think that we spend a lot of our time communicating in spaces that emphasize short, pithy responses. The comment section on this blog is more detail oriented and polite than most others. (Thank you to Patterico and his co-bloggers for making that a reality) and still a lot of the commentary is short, pointed responses. That creates hostility and a perception of hostility.
But there’s good news. On a lot of policy items the reality is that we’re closer than we used to be as a culture.
Race is still a touchy subject but inter-racial relationships are generally accepted. People don’t openly encourage violence as a means of voter suppression. Black people aren’t routinely murdered as an example that other black people should know their place. Those were all real things not too long ago.
The fights over gay rates are over wedding cakes and not if being gay is a mental disease.
No one is seriously proposing the elimination of the social safety net. Now the fight is over how much to spend on it.
I’m not saying all issues are just disagreements of scale or that the things I listerd are “OK”. But there are a lot of people in the country that don’t buy into either caricature. I think most of the bloggers here would fall into that larger group. But people who derive most of their identity from things outside of politics (sports, fitness, cars, hobbies, their town) aren’t commenting here. They’re commenting on forums about woodworking or cooking or whatever their passion is.
Time123 (af99e9) — 7/11/2019 @ 8:52 amWe did have torches. But thankfully that’s died down and the ‘alt right‘ seems to be going back out of style.
Time123 (af99e9) — 7/11/2019 @ 8:56 amI think the fundamentals has always be there… only to be exacerbated by the proliferation of social media and cable news format.
We’re sharing information at speeds that is near unheard of merely decades ago.
whembly (fd57f6) — 7/11/2019 @ 9:17 amThe Bush/Clinton bromance looks a lot darker today than we ever considered.
Bugg (47841b) — 7/11/2019 @ 9:26 amWith Pizzagate, with the Seth Rich conspiracy, with the “sweeping and systematic” efforts by Putin to sow disinformation and discord, and all the other bullcrap that’s being put out there, Americans should be warier than ever about how and where they get their information. We already know that much of mainstream media is biased in favor of the left, and that FoxNews and talk radio are biased to the right, but the left shouldn’t take the New York Times as gospel, nor should conservatives take Tucker Carlson or The Daily Caller as any sort of gold standard.
Paul Montagu (fc91e5) — 7/11/2019 @ 9:35 amWith so much swirling around, it’s all the more important to check the facts and check the biases. The tribalism is partly why I left the GOP and became an independent.
In the case of Acosta, this story was suppressed news, not FakeNews, suppressed by our own federal government and by several addled journalists who prioritized their access to a pervert billionaire over the welfare of young teenage girls. It is maddening.
In any other administration, Acosta he would be toast as Labor Secretary, most likely never appointed in the first place after a basic vetting. His press conference yesterday was an exercise in blame-shifting and bulls**t.
The sweetheart deal he gave to the billionaire pedophile was so sweethearty that, at most, he spent only 13 half-days in jail for every underage girl he raped. In a sane world, how could that be anywhere near acceptable. If I were the dad of one of those daughters, I’d want him in jail for 13 decades and the billionaire pedophile’s castrated balls in a formaldehyde jar.
Also, Epstein wasn’t the only guy who raped underage girls, and that US Attorney gave those “fellow conspirators” a free pass.
“… America, like the rest of the world, is ruled by a depraved international elite…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSpOjj4YD8c
DCSCA (797bc0) — 7/11/2019 @ 10:47 amNew York Magazine and Vanity Fair conspired to hide the story of Epstein, they did much the same for Weinstein, because they wanted more of his product, in 2004 and later in 2016 they trumpeted the strumpet daniels, and her barker avenatti, who monopolized nbc cbs, cnn and MSNBC, the times the journal, and post, they put the weight on the scale,
narciso (d1f714) — 7/11/2019 @ 11:21 amNo, or at least not exactly this way.
Is there some law that says people are not allowed to be accurate in describing points of view?
Sammy Finkelman (8b217f) — 7/11/2019 @ 11:33 amwhat does that even mean, it was almost entire media blackout on him, they asked once how he made his money, there was no investigation by the sec, sharp eyed folks that missed Madoff, and Stanford, and meted no criminal liability to Corzine,
https://www.steynonline.com/9542/the-empire-wokes-back
narciso (d1f714) — 7/11/2019 @ 11:53 am@4 Gryph, Hearst did indeed coin the term “marijuana” for cannabis bud, in order to associate it with migrant farm workers. Maria, Juan, get it? But he did so not because he wanted to classify it as a schedule 1 narcotic. He did so because he owned hundreds of thousands of acres of timberland that he wanted to harvest to make paper. At the time, paper products were made of hemp, had been for a long, long time. In fact, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written on hemp paper.
Cannabis is a remarkable agricultural product. Thomas Jefferson grew it on his farms. Hemp, which is made of stems from the male plant, had been used to make fabric, rope, and paper for centuries. Canvas is made of hemp. Cannabis, canvas, see? It was used to make sails on ships, as hemp rope was used to make riggings. It was also used to make outer clothing, tents and blankets.
In the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and even in World War 1, the uniforms the soldiers wore, the tents they stayed in, and the blankets they slept under were all made of canvas. The Betsy Ross flag was sewn on canvas. Levi’s Jeans were originally made of canvas.
There would be no America were it not for cannabis.
But Hearst wanted to harvest timber for paper, and he wanted a monopoly on the newspaper market. However, he was not the only one involved in this conspiracy.
The cotton growers wanted a monopoly on fabrics. The pharmaceutical companies wanted a monopoly on drugs. Did you know that it was Bayer, famous for aspirin (which is made from a plant), that first invented heroin? Yeah, it was first made in a liquid form to, get this, cure alcoholism.
Opium had been used as a pain killer; then it was processed into morphine, next heroin, and now opioids.
Hearst wanted a monopoly on the paper market. Cotton growers wanted a monopoly on the fabric market. Pharmaceutical companies wanted a monopoly on the drug market. And DuPont Chemicals, which patented plastic in 1938, want a monopoly on the ceramic market.
This consortium got together and paid off the Congress to pass the Illicit Drug Law Act of 1938. But it wasn’t about drugs, it never was. It was about timber paper, cotton fabric, and pharmaceutical drugs. Each wanted a monopoly in their respective industries, and they got it.
They paid off the Congress and got what they wanted. And look at the result. We, the people, now have no access to better quality paper, fabric and rope; no access to herbal medicine. And an entire federal government that is totally committed to a War on Drugs.
About that. The American Revolution was not about “taxation without representation.” It was rally fought over general warrants. These were warrants issued by the Crown that allowed a British soldier or agent to search and seize anyone, anywhere. The nascent American people wouldn’t allow that, so they revolted.
Yet, look at us today. Our government is using asset forfeiture, justified under the Illicit Drug Law Act of 1938, to search and seize anyone, anywhere, and all property concerned.
We couldn’t have gone more backwards as a free nation. We have instituted the exact government that our ancestors revolted against.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 7/11/2019 @ 6:13 pm