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The state of American journalism

Whole lotta love

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The second amendment gives the right to all US citizens to keep and bear arms, doesn't mean it's right. It should be regulated, just like protests. Unauthorized protests can turn out to be very dangerous for both the protesters and the passerby.
Trusting the government to regulate who can and cannot protest sets a very dangerous precedent. I do not agree at all.

Now, what am I going to write can be debatable and I will respect your decision to tell me that I'm wrong (just like anything else written here).

If I'm driving a car and I see a group of masked people coming towards me with bats and metal chains and people shouting stuff I can't hear, the first thing I would do is set the reverse gear and get the hell out.
However, if what I'm seeing is really shocking to me, I can understand why someone would just push forward. Especially if they have no idea about an unauthorized protest going on and they (rightfully) assume that their life is in danger. You shouldn't be protesting with your face covered while holding bats and metal chains.

He was an attendee of the protest. He traveled there from Kentucky.
How can you say he was just driving through and didn't know there was a protest?

He attended as a member of the white supremacist group Vanguard America

What evidence do you have that they were coming towards him? I have seen all the footage and haven't seen anything to indicate that.

Further, most of the people in the videos are not masked.

Finally, there are two other cars moving very slowly in front of him. Why did they not have a fight or flight response and run 20 people over?

As for the other two, I never claimed non-liberals to be saints.
No you didn't claim non-libs to be saints (which I never said you said), but you are saying that these are all problems with the left.

But these seem like isolated cases to me.
How many people have Antifa killed?
How many people have the far-right killed?


YouTube is filled with compilations of liberals being aggressive, especially during "protests".
This is exactly the problem. You are looking at youtube compilations that filter out all of the normal boring shit that goes on at protests. Go to a few protests yourself and see what it's like

Youtube is also filled with compilations of conservatives being aggressive. You cannot conclude from this that therefore conservative activism is thus illegitimate.

Why would you even go to a protest by covering your face?

To protect oneself from doxxing which as we've already agreed, happens on both sides.
(Before you say this is contradictory, I did not say doxxing is good, I said doxxing is not fascism).

That was a private conversation, it's not like he tweeted about it. We all say stuff we don't really mean sometimes.

Who cares if it's a private conversation? I'd love to know every damn thing each and every one of our elected officials has said. It makes it easier to judge them and know if they are being honest. Transparency is a good thing.

If Barack Obama said to Hillary in private that he hates white people I'd damn well want to know about it.

What indication do you have that he didn't mean it?
Considering he has been accused of sexual harassment and even rape by 19 different women since 1989, he is buds with convicted pedophile and child pimp Jeffrey Epstein, and he was known to walk in on beauty peagent contestants dressing rooms it seems like it's much more likely that he did mean what he said.

But, assuming you are right and there is somehow proof that he didn't actually mean what he said, is that much better? Do we really want the leader of our country to be a man who lies about assaulting women to impress his friends?

Mine was just an example. Also, the person wasn't even in a protest.
Your example doesn't prove your statement though. It proves that 3 people at a protest didn't were either not very articulate or not very informed.
Again... you haven't proved that this is a problem with the left. here is a video that shows more stupid people at a right-wing rally than yours does
This is not reflective of all the people at the rally, let alone all Trump supporters or the American right. You know the Daily Show only put in the most extreme examples.
Why does it matter if they are physically at a protest? Cornell West goes to protests all the time.

Again, just an example. Here's another article by The Guardian though.
Again, this doesn't prove your point that the left calls everything fascist. And even if it did, you have not proven that they are wrong.
Klein's piece is describing tenets of fascism and how she sees those in the current American right. Your argument would be much stronger if you explained why she (or the other author on the HuffPo blog) were wrong, instead of just noting that their pieces existed.

Doxxing can be definitely seen as "do as we say or we will ruin your life" though.
Right but that's not intrinsically fascist.
Donald Trump is currently using that tactic with North Korea, do you consider that fascism?

Just like Hillary Clinton would've most certainly won the elections.
Reputable statisticians gave him a decent shot of winning which I think is fair (but I cannot really comment as I'm not a statistician)

People are just afraid to say that they support Trump.

[citation needed]
 

Whole lotta love

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You genuinely have no idea what the Anti-fa fascists narrative is, do you? How people would get their cars scratched up at universities if they had the wrong bumper sticker, how a fun prank was to imbed a normal trump lawn sign with nails and have that actually get run over, or how even psycologists are being silenced for warning that transgendered people often regret their surgery?

Lmao it was a trump supporter who put the nails in.

Did you know that Antifa also... BROKE WINDOWS?!!

The horror! They scratch cars, drive over lawn signs, and do an absolutely terrible job of censoring Jordan Peterson (who has not been silenced at all).

We definitely need to be afraid of them, and definitely don't need to afraid of the guys who drive cars into crowds of people, or the guy who stabbed people at the Portland Light Rail, or the guy who stabbed Timothy Caughman to death, or the guy who shot up the movie theater in Louisiana, or the guy who shot up the planned parenthood, or the guy who shot up the church, or the guy who shot up the jewish center

No, these far-right extremists are not to be feared, but the evil leftists who break widows, scratch cars, and fold lawn signs.
 
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Futurdreamz

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Lmao it was a trump supporter who put the nails in.

Did you know that Antifa also... BROKE WINDOWS?!!

The horror! They scratch cars, drive over lawn signs, and do an absolutely terrible job of censoring Jordan Peterson (who has not been silenced at all).

We definitely need to be afraid of them, and definitely don't need to afraid of the guys who drive cars into crowds of people, or the guy who stabbed people at the Portland Light Rail, or the guy who stabbed Timothy Caughman to death, or the guy who shot up the movie theater in Louisiana, or the guy who shot up the planned parenthood, or the guy who shot up the church, or the guy who shot up the jewish center

No, these far-right extremists are not to be feared, but the evil leftists who break widows, scratch cars, and fold lawn signs.

I'm sure you remember this

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

https://www.snopes.com/2017/08/17/are-antifa-and-the-alt-right-equally-violent/

My point is not that the left is more murdery, just that they are perceived to be so. And it's possible that the left has the same level of intent for murder or more, but don't have the means due to guns and hunting knives being a right thing. However, the intent is still there and expressed as hostile action. How many riots have the Anti-Fa had that lead to property damage and even injuries compared to the alt-right?
 
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dimmidice

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My point is not that the left is more murdery, just that they are perceived to be so.

"Violence has been ratcheting up on all sides during white supremacist rallies in recent months — but "antifa" is not planning the rallies, and statistically poses a lesser danger." From your own link. So no the left isn't perceived to be more "murdery" The right is perceived to be more murdery, given that they've actually murdered people. Or at the least caused deaths.

Also youtube isn't a news site. You really shouldn't be believing every video on there. I have no idea why you even linked that video as it's completely nonsensical. How did you even find that video? It has 189 views.
 
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Futurdreamz

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"Violence has been ratcheting up on all sides during white supremacist rallies in recent months — but "antifa" is not planning the rallies, and statistically poses a lesser danger." From your own link. So no the left isn't perceived to be more "murdery" The right is perceived to be more murdery, given that they've actually murdered people. Or at the least caused deaths.

Also youtube isn't a news site. You really shouldn't be believing every video on there. I have no idea why you even linked that video as it's completely nonsensical.
Even if you didn't watch the video you should know what it is. Or did you forget the story of the four black teens that kidnapped a white kid then forced him to scream "fuck trump"?
 
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dimmidice

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Even if you didn't watch the video you should know what it is. Or did you forget the story of the four black teens that kidnapped a white kid then forced him to scream "fuck trump"?
no never even heard of that. https://www.snopes.com/were-hate-charges-blm-kidnappers-dropped/ Seems they got arrested which is nice :)

Edit: oh, and again the right has literally caused deaths. Why exactly are you defending this? There's bad people on both sides, nobody would say otherwise. But it's clear which side is worse. hint: it's the one which is on the KKK's side.
 
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Whole lotta love

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I'm sure you remember this

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

https://www.snopes.com/2017/08/17/are-antifa-and-the-alt-right-equally-violent/

My point is not that the left is more murdery, just that they are perceived to be so. And it's possible that the left has the same level of intent for murder or more, but don't have the means due to guns and hunting knives being a right thing. However, the intent is still there and expressed as hostile action. How many riots have the Anti-Fa had that lead to property damage and even injuries compared to the alt-right?


THESE ARE JUST BLACK PEOPLE. They have no affiliation with Antifa or BLM or whatever leftist boogey-man.

Even if they were, how many dead bodies does this add to the pile?

What these assholes did was fucking disgusting, but in the context of this conversation it proves almost nothing.

Dawg anyone can go to a store and get a hunting knife and guns are very easy to get in most states.
If they're as big of a threat as you say they are, don't you think they would have figured out how to get knives and guns yet?
Breaking windows, scratching cars, and folding lawn signs does NOT show intent for committing mass murders
 
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Futurdreamz

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Now to bring that back on topic: American media has found it exceedingly profitable to pit fellow americans against each other, and it just didn't care. Before the elections the KKK was effectively a forgotten nuisance that nobody liked, and I don't think the Anti-Fa were even really a thing. But then everyone got hostile and nasty, and even worse - drew a line of a sand where everyone on each side is lumped together and more or less treated as one. There is no "left" anymore; just the alt-left which includes SJW, Anti-Fa, Clinton, transgenders, third wave feminists, people who pump girl hormones into their five year old child just because he wants to play with dresses and doesn't understand what a sex change involves, and the anti-vax movement who is more than willing to let babies and old people die because they are convinced that their child will become severely atustic. And there is no more Right, only the Alt-right which includes the KKK, racists, neo-nazis, and neo-fascists. It's more than possible that you belong to NOBODY in either group, but every single debate has devolved to the point that there is no more middle ground - and all of a sudden the discussion changes to "because these people a worse those other people get a free pass" and everyone ends up associating with a side and ends up defending it irregardless of how much they actually agree with it, since they don't really know how bad their side is but they are certain the other side is horrible. Thus, Trump is automatically associated with the alt-right and the beneficial policies he has enacted largely go ignored. Any attempt at a meaningful debate (including this one) ends up shifting to the party line rhetoric which then remains unsolveable because people cannot agree on the facts. But that still generates a lot of engagement, So news sources and Facebook and Twitter make lots of money and maximize their income by creating more and more controversial content at the expense of accuracy. That has led to a feedback loop where we know all this stuff but all it does is make us more and more angry and defensive and aggressive. We no longer are capable of a debate which concludes with a compromise or solution.
 

Xzi

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You genuinely have no idea what the Anti-fa fascists narrative is, do you? How people would get their cars scratched up at universities if they had the wrong bumper sticker, how a fun prank was to imbed a normal trump lawn sign with nails and have that actually get run over, or how even psycologists are being silenced for warning that transgendered people often regret their surgery?
You keep bringing up antifa as an argument against the left, but again they're closer to anarchists than the political left-wing in the US. There's the big difference recently: the mainstream right is willing to embrace the alt-right. Never once will you see Bernie Sanders praising antifa as "very fine people." The left-wing still recognizes a nut as a nut, 24-hour news cycle or no.
 
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Whole lotta love

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Thus, Trump is automatically associated with the alt-right and the beneficial policies he has enacted largely go ignored.

Agreed! Trump is actually a part of the alt-left :P

There is no "left" anymore; just the alt-left which includes [...] the anti-vax movement who is more than willing to let babies and old people die because they are convinced that their child will become severely atustic.
Ocv07J8.png


Any attempt at a meaningful debate (including this one) ends up shifting to the party line rhetoric which then remains unsolveable because people cannot agree on the facts.
dawg your whole rant right now has no evidence (or paragraphs) and is full of loaded generalizations like "SJWs" and "transgenders", along with very really questionable statements, like antifa being allied with the Clintons (despite antifa largely being compromised by anti-capitalists who are fundamentally opposed to neoliberals like the clintons). How are we supposed to agree on the facts if you don't present any to back up your claims and when others bring in facts that contradict your claims, you pivot and don't respond?

I'm trying to engage with you in a intellectually honest discussion and you turn away from it decry how no one can have honest discourse anymore.

You're frustrated with party line rhetoric? All I've heard from you is right wing talking points.
"Antifa are the REAL fascists™"
"Black people manipulate the legal system"
"There is no biological basis for gender dysphoria"
"SJW's, feminists, and Hillary Clinton are bad, and they are just as bad as neo-nazi's"
"Donald Trump is actually a really good president people just don't talk about it


This is what Sean Hannity says every damn day dawg.

Do you also believe that illegal immigration is big problem and that we need to lower taxes for corporations?
 
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Futurdreamz

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Illegal immigration is a problem, but corporations should have their taxes increased - or bare minimum the more stupid tax breaks be eliminated. Like I said, company mentality in the USA seems to have fallen to nothing more than generating profit for shareholders at all costs.

It's not really possible to have a fully "intellectually honest" debate on topics such as this - and it's a complete waste of time. We're not discussing simple topics like who's pig is going to win the race at the local fair, but great big global topics where there are people who's sole job is to understand the topic. In the USA, neither the government nor the media have a legal responsibility to be fully transparent in the information they provide to the general public, and they regularly abuse that in order to bend public favour to their whims. All we have to debate with is third-hand accounts of what happened that may or may not be inaccurate and missing key details. It's third-hand, but the volume of it is so overwhelming that we end up picking and choosing what we know and accept based on our opinion, so we now are trying to have a debate when only having about half the facts. The end result is not a benifical debate where a conclusion is reached and action is taken on that conclusion, but a perpetual argument where the only thing on the line is everyone's pride in themselves and their learning - leading to zero benefit to ever admit you are wrong and infinite incentive to find a way to explain that you are still right. It is incredibly easy to get wrapped up into these debates, especially on a discussion forum where people can drop out and immediately be replaced by someone chiming in without reading or remembering the full thread history.
 
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brickmii82

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Every media created has been, and always will be used as a propaganda tool. News organizations are no exception. Most press companies are for-profit, therefore appealing to a specific audience to confirm their views is an easy way to quickly build a viewer base. Journalism at its core should have a bias towards a truth being unveiled. Otherwise it’s propaganda.

I personally think that the political bias in American journalism became rampant during the Reagan years. Much of it was towards the liberal side, as Reagan’s anti-USSR rhetoric frightened many at the prospect of a second Cold War, or nuclear holocaust. Then came Rupert Murdoch, Bill Oreilly, and Fox News in 98 I believe, which collected and galvanized a conservative constituency. I can’t say I blame them. There was a profitable gap in the industry that they went after. However, they really took op-eds and talk show formats to a whole new level, and began “steering” the conservative community to specific viewpoints.

Other news organizations responded by copying the business model and programming format because the lines were being drawn, and they knew they could profit by being the other side of these viewpoints.

It’s all devolved into a shitshow, and with the advent of the internet, information travels at an incredible speed. Doesn’t matter if it’s truthful or not, it gets viewers and that brings in money. This is all protected under the 1st Amendment, and personally, I see civil war happening before either side concedes ANY view to be wrong.
 

Xzi

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Every media created has been, and always will be used as a propaganda tool. News organizations are no exception. Most press companies are for-profit, therefore appealing to a specific audience to confirm their views is an easy way to quickly build a viewer base. Journalism at its core should have a bias towards a truth being unveiled. Otherwise it’s propaganda.
The thing is: it's propaganda most of all when it's in support of whatever government effort there is to screw over the general American populace. Let's not forget how this started. Long before he announced his campaign for president, Trump went on Fox News to loudly bitch about his false narrative birther campaign. Everybody knew he was full of shit, but eventually Obama released his birth certificate and it was confirmed. In his now (later) years, Trump attacks all OTHER media, but takes policy advice from Fox programs directly, and even calls Fox News executives after certain programs to praise them*. Trump (and Fox News) have always been the fathers of fake news, yet they try to attribute that to various other media outlets. As shitty as CNN and certain other programs have been, they are not most to blame for the declining state of TV media.

* https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/inside-the-feedback-loop-between-the-president-and-fox-news

Excerpt:
Fox hosts regularly get calls from Trump about segments he likes—or doesn’t. “When you worked at Fox, you knew that at any moment Roger Ailes was watching. Every day was like a job interview with Ailes. Now it’s the same way for Trump,” says a veteran Fox News contributor. According to sources, Trump doesn’t explicitly dictate talking points the way Ailes did, but over time, the effect can be similar. “What he usually does is he’ll call after a show and say, ‘I really enjoyed that,’” a former Fox anchor told me. “The highest compliment is, ‘I really learned something.’ Then you know he got a new policy idea.” But knowing Trump always could be tuning in means the network is being programmed for an audience of one. “He has the same embattled view as a typical Fox viewer—that ‘the liberal elites hate me; they’re trying to bring me down,’” an executive said.
 
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brickmii82

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The thing is: it's propaganda most of all when it's in support of whatever government effort there is to screw over the general American populace. Let's not forget how this started. Long before he announced his campaign for president, Trump went on Fox News to loudly bitch about his false narrative birther campaign. Everybody knew he was full of shit, but eventually Obama released his birth certificate and it was confirmed. In his now (later) years, Trump attacks all OTHER media, but takes policy advice from Fox programs directly, and even calls Fox News executives after certain programs to praise them*. Trump (and Fox News) have always been the fathers of fake news, yet they try to attribute that to various other media outlets. As shitty as CNN and certain other programs have been, they are not most to blame for the declining state of TV media.

* https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/inside-the-feedback-loop-between-the-president-and-fox-news

Excerpt:
Fox hosts regularly get calls from Trump about segments he likes—or doesn’t. “When you worked at Fox, you knew that at any moment Roger Ailes was watching. Every day was like a job interview with Ailes. Now it’s the same way for Trump,” says a veteran Fox News contributor. According to sources, Trump doesn’t explicitly dictate talking points the way Ailes did, but over time, the effect can be similar. “What he usually does is he’ll call after a show and say, ‘I really enjoyed that,’” a former Fox anchor told me. “The highest compliment is, ‘I really learned something.’ Then you know he got a new policy idea.” But knowing Trump always could be tuning in means the network is being programmed for an audience of one. “He has the same embattled view as a typical Fox viewer—that ‘the liberal elites hate me; they’re trying to bring me down,’” an executive said.
Sorry friend, “onion” news was around long before Fox opened up shop. And, all you’ve done with your article citations is proven the point that people will seek out confirmation for their viewpoints. Again, you brought President Trump into this thread when it’s about the state of American journalism. Why? It’s just derailing the point of the discussion.
 
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Xzi

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Sorry friend, “onion” news was around long before Fox opened up shop. And, all you’ve done with your article citations is proven the point that people will seek out confirmation for their viewpoints. Again, you brought President Trump into this thread when it’s about the state of American journalism. Why? It’s just derailing the point of the discussion.
The Onion never claimed to be anything other than satirical, though some dumb people might take it as serious like they did with the Colbert Report. Hilariously, The Onion gave up writing satirical articles on Trump a while ago because they were all coming true. Now they just occasionally cover what he does/says truthfully.

Fox News labels all but two of their programs as "entertainment," not news, because they wouldn't qualify as such. Of course, you'd be hard pressed to track that information down for yourself, because they're intentionally dishonest and deceptive about it. When Shep Smith or Chris Wallace report facts, Fox News viewers get angry about it.

The post you quoted was entirely on-topic, please QQ moar. :cry:
 
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gamesquest1

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people ruined everything, if only there was less people then the world might be peaceful

but yeah journalism is shit and its even worse when people just regurgitate the headlines as facts, when even the stories themselves clarify that the headline was BS to get clicks
 
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Xzi

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people ruined everything, if only there was less people then the world might be peaceful

but yeah journalism is shit and its even worse when people just regurgitate the headlines as facts, when even the stories themselves clarify that the headline was BS to get clicks
Well that bleeds into a lot of other subjects like religious "be fruitful and multiply" shenanigans. I agree on general principle though. People still let baser instincts get the better of them and have too much unprotected sex. Countries like China and India are definitely overpopulated, and the US has densely overpopulated areas as well. With so many people you get almost an inverse dehumanizing effect, people forget that we're all mostly the same. That's where more base instinct in tribalism comes into play.
 
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