A few thoughts about January 6, 2021
- Thread starter ObsidianJones
- Start date
I'm not saying you listen to Fox News; I think it's more likely you're being funnelled partisan shite by online media companies. Even if you're not, though, you have no more basis to claim that my view is just a result of propaganda than I do yours.
B) is just flagrantly untrue. Recounts are completely par-for-the-course when margins are slim, as they were in Florida, and that's true in almost every democratic country on the planet-- hell, numerous states have automatic recount mechanisms in law, including Florida. Recounts don't constitute anything underhanded.
Legal challenges aren't unusual at all, but you're (conveniently, again) ignoring context and scale. It's exceptionally out of the ordinary to request hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters be disenfranchised because of some unproven fraud claim. It's exceptionally out of the ordinary to personally call and pressure state officials to overturn the result regardless of whether fraud is proven.
Yet again stripping away the context, and outright ignoring the worst excesses. "Fight" on its own wouldn't be notable. But he also explicitly said that killing Pence might be the "right idea". He explicitly said those who beat someone half to death were "doing the right thing".
I'll post this again:
For the record, this is a segment I heard on the radio before bringing it up here. I had no other exposure to this story prior to posting this here. Let's take a look first at what this is from other sources:
Latino Media Network
latinomedianetwork.com
Female-Led Latino Media Network Launches With $60 Million Acquisition Of TelevisaUnivision Radio Stations
Stephanie Valencia and Jess Morales Rocketto raised $80 million - one of the largest capital raises of a Latina owned and operated startup in the U.S. to launch the company.
www.forbes.com
So what do we have in that NPR piece that says bias to me?
1) The repeated focus on it being "bipartisan" because they have one Republican helping pay for it (without mentioning he's married to Ana Navarro, a CNN contributor, one of their "look, see, we have Republicans on our network" personalities). They want to make sure their audience doesn't think this is just Democrats.
2) The assigned motivation: In 3 minutes, they drop in "ultraconservative", "very conservative", "right-wing disinformation", they list these things as the reason this media group exists. They have no hesitance to demonize conservative radio, but offer zero speculation that this could in any way be motivated by hispanic voters increasingly voting for Republicans.
3) What they don't mention: twice they bring up a Republican involved, but they don't bother mentioning it's backed by George Soros, they don't mention one of the financers is a former senior producer at NPR, they don't tell you that the majority of their initial bundle of stations is currently owned by Telemundo / Univision which is not a right-wing media conglomerate.
4) They claim that people are genuinely positive about the purchase. I don't know if this is a lie, or if that reporter is so deep in their own bubble that they can't hear outside of it, but googling Latino Media Network to find their homepage brings up this: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/pol...0220609-zehn5g25sraozo7eiztu2nv5wi-story.html
Googling Radio Mambi brings up this: https://www.local10.com/news/local/...host-reacts-to-sale-amid-political-firestorm/
And they describe that as enthusiasm from the left and, you know, the conservatives have plenty of other outlets anyway.
And this isn't me hunting for bias, this is just a news story I personally heard on the radio this past week. Additionally, I heard them interview a Democrat (this may have been a local interview, not sure it was from the national broadcast) about guns, who claimed that ARs have drastically more dangerous ammunition than other guns... AR15s typically use the same types of ammo as normal rifles for deer hunting. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as ammo that only works in an AR15. This person said something factually inaccurate and received no pushback whatsoever.
I do, though, because I am here, and you are not. You only get exposed to US politics through media representation. I am here and get to experience US politics myself. You may notice that the people taking the biggest offence to my comments about media bias are you and Agema...
Not really. They just refused to accept unacceptable behavior from an out of control demagogue. That's on Trump, not the ones who objected to him undermining the country for his petty urges.
Trump ran his campaign as a demagogue stoking up national divisions well beyond the breaking point, who made it perfectly clear that he'd rather dismantle Democracy like other tyrants such as Erdogan or Putin if it restrained him in getting what he wanted, and he rather openly suggested he'd be a corrupt president. Being elected by such means has consequences. If Trump made it so clear that he could not be trusted to run a country, and certainly could not be trusted to maintain a democracy then his opponents must operate from the assumption that Trump is a completely unacceptable leader.
And since Trump didn't at all moderate his out of control behavior after being elected, and hardly if ever reached across the isle the democrats had no reason to give him the benefit of any doubt. Trump was simply an unacceptable leader without any desire to ever become acceptable. That's on him.
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I'm irked because you implied I'm incapable of forming my own conclusions through the haze of propaganda. That's why there's "offence"; you made a patronising assumption about me.
You get to experience US politics. You don't get to directly experience all the shit you're talking about. Unless you were actually there at Trump's speech, and were then present at the Capitol, I'm afraid you found out about it through media sources. And I'm going to say that yours are no more accurate than mine.
This is all a massive distraction, of course, because you're not even disputing the substance of what Cheney is saying occurred. Rather than address the incident itself, you've shifted onto more familiar ground, attacking the Democrats and the media for... uhrm, responding to it.
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I absolutely can guarantee nearly all major media organisations prioritise money: because they are businesses. Businesses are supposed to, if not legally obliged to, try to make a profit.
Almost no major corporate media is motivated by propaganda. They may favour certain political stances, but where they do it is overwhelmingly because of money. Specifically, that they may earn money by finding a niche - a demographic by which they can ensure sales. They therefore cater to that demographic. Traditionally, major TV media tended to be neutral; indeed were largely obliged to be by law in the USA until the late 80s - and besides, the centre tends to offer a big market.
Interestingly, this even tends to outweigh ownership: because of this drive to make money, even when major media organisations are taken over by people with different political views from their predecessor, the content tends not to change that much. This is why advertisers can have so much sway, because if they pull their adverts it deprives the media organisation of a lot of income.
So no, corporate media does not favour propaganda. I mention journalistic integrity because if you are going to cite "propaganda", I think it is important to note that there are countervailing forces that would oppose that, such as journalistic integrity. But mostly, my point is that major corporate media is driven first and foremost by income generation.
I know you should be worried about election security but putting in an envelope will make on slightly more secure. If a person counting ballots is going to do something dodgy, an envelope won't stop them over all the other processes.
I'm also assuming that these 'mail in ballots' had names and adresses on them like other ststes.... that's always made me feel uncomfortable based on the 'secret ballot'. You can easily tie people to votes that way, leading to corruption. I understand if you are actually mailing them in due to proof of ID etc but in person.... that makes no sense
All people are limited by the information they have access to. That's not an insult.
My state has no early voting is the weird thing (or didn't at the time, there's a lot going on, and I'm not really sure where we've landed at the moment). If we did, people voting early wouldn't be sealing their vote in an envelope and signing it. The only votes submitted before election day are the mail-in ballots, and a provision allows people to pick up their ballot at an elections office, so the two big cities opened dozens of early voting places and branded them "satellite election offices", and then had everyone voting seal their vote like a normal main-in, because otherwise they wouldn't be valid. The legality of any of this is questionable at best.
Yes, It's insulting to say someone's incapable of forming their own conclusions and only believes what they believe due to propaganda. People are limited by the information they have access to; but people who aren't idiots apply critical thinking, seek out corroboration or contradiction, etc etc.
Don't give me that patronising, dismissive "sheeple" shit. You're just as much limited by the availability of information as I am, but you haven't made the same assumptions about your own conclusions. And crucially you're not even disputing the actual substance of what happened.
You're comparing a few postal voting/ extended opening hours measures, all of which were tested and declared perfectly legal by the relevant courts, with (and I have to repeat this because you keep ignoring it) an effort by the Republican Party to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of valid votes. You're comparing Biden using the term "revolution" with Trump saying a man should be hung and beating people up is the right thing. These things were arrested by Republicans and you don't even dispute the substance. The comparison is utterly inane.
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The state Supreme Court of PA might be the most corrupt political body in the nation. They reversed a lower court decision and removed the Green Party from the ballots. They recently rejected all of the potential congressional maps from both the Republican led legislature and the Democratic governor, and instead declared themselves to have absolute authority on the issue and picked a map entirely on their own that conveniently turned districts in Democrats' favor. The Supreme Court of PA is an elected body, with a majority Democrats, that has ruled on party lines to do whatever benefits Democrats in election law at every opportunity in the recent past. I don't care what they say is legal or not legal.
To my knowledge, the issue did not go to the federal Supreme Court. Check your facts.
You cannot critical think your way to information you don't have. An idiot thinks they can reason their way past limited information to something more accurate. And seeking out corroboration or contradiction is, you know, doing your own research, which I guarantee you mock the idea of. So how do you expect to form your own conclusions?
I'm not though. I have more information than you. I'm literally an 80 minute drive from DC, I have several relatives that work for the federal government, I have avenues of information that you do not have. You can't turn on the radio in the morning and get live interviews with PA politicians talking about the elections here. Stop believing you have all the same information access. You do not.
Unfortunately, politicians lying is not generally a crime. Even massive mega-whoppers, like lying that an election was stolen with all the resultant chaos.
On the other hand, there's some value to revealing just how much Trump was not even in line with his own administration and advisors, because at least some people might change their views and decide Trump was, after all, full of shit. On the other hand, I suspect many Trump supporters won't be paying any attention, or are too invested in it to think anything else.
Literally all of this applies to both of us; the same information is available to both of us, but you've been happy to draw your own conclusions.
Neither of us are lacking pertinent facts, here; the substance is not in dispute, and is attested by enough disparate and trustworthy sources, including those in the Republican Party. If your default assumption when you hear something damning about your candidate is that all the sources are lying, even those who were directly affected, even those who were allied to the candidate, then you're not practicing critical thinking. You're practicing slavish adherence.
And no, I wouldn't mock the idea of seeking corroboration/ other sources...? Why would I?
Those live interviews are media. They're also freely accessible outside the USA. Being an 80 minute drive from DC is literally meaningless in this context unless you availed yourself of that drive on the day in question-- because otherwise, you got your information from media sources. And yours are no better than mine just because you're geographically closer; hell, they're probably worse, because US media is such a shitshow.
The only thing here that would be even slightly relevant would be the relatives working for the federal government, which could potentially provide you with some limited anecdotal evidence I don't have.
...But if they have actual substantial details about what happened that counteract what the actual authorities already know? Then that's massively serious and they would need to get on the phone, or whistle-blow.
We both know that's not the case, though. Because you're not actually disputing the substance of what happened.
I've disputed a bunch of the substance of people's arguments here. Did you miss the part where someone claimed a cop was beaten to death, I proved them wrong, and then the user never came back to say otherwise?
I will concede that most of the comments I take issue with are less about the events and more about things like what is normal behavior and what constitutes fascism. Did Trump tell lies that partially instigated a riot? Yes. Political lies instigating riots is basically an annual event in this country, and I'd hardly call any of them fascist.
I'm not following your disputes with others here.
You've not disputed that Republicans launched an effort to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of valid voters. You've not disputed that Trump said hanging Pence was "maybe the right idea". You've just complained (essentially) that I'm a mindless drone for bringing it up.
You might note that I've never called Trump a fascist, because I don't think he is. I generally consider fascism to be quite inherently connected to interwar Europe, and distinguish it from other strains of authoritarianism, power-abuse, and the like. I'm not really interested in a justification which just serves to lump me in with everyone else you're arguing with.
I am, however, making an emphatic argument about scale, because pretty much every equivalence you've drawn between Trump's actions and the actions of Democrats before him is completely ridiculous. Calling something a "revolution", which is a non-violent and broadly accepted term, is obviously incomparable to explicit endorsement of a death threat. The false equivalence only exists here to deflect criticism and sling partisan shit at Democrats.
You are, at minimum, reading my half, because you are responding to my posts to others and then ultimately having to say you don't agree with them, as is tradition.
Did you miss the video of Democrats saying they would take Trump behind the gym and/or punch him in the face. Let's time stamp it this time:
Pretty sure "punch him in the face" and "beat the hell out of him" are more explicit statements of violence than "fight like hell", but at a minimum, I would call it obviously comparable.
I'm replying to your posts which are replying to mine. My post about how you haven't disputed substance is explicitly about the incidents I brought up in my posts, which I kinda thought was obvious.
Shifting the conversation onto unrelated things which you did dispute, but which I never talked about, is just so much more deflection and distraction.
Yep, some nasty stuff there!
Nothing on the level of endorsing a death threat or endorsing beating someone into unconsciousness, mind you.
There's also quite a difference between saying "I feel like doing X" and saying "if other people do this, it's good and right". The former reads like an expression of personal anger and frustration; I could say I certainly feel like giving Trump (and Biden) a punch. It's true, I do. You'll notice that nobody took these statements as instructions or encouragements, because they obviously weren't.
But if I was in a position of influence, and told my supporters it'd be fine and right for them to act on violence? Are you seriously not seeing the difference there? And people actually did take those words as instructions and encouragement to act on violence. And then they acted on it.