United States Politics Thread 47

[zompist]

People did write like this in the 1930s. A few people still do, but it's tiresome.

I didn't make any moral judgments. I just stuck to the facts and used the same standards newspapers apply to non-Trump actors. Trump is committing terror by taking a foreign country hostage and demanding Venezuela's resources as ransom. If anyone else did this, they would be called a terrorist in no uncertain terms. If any other country did this, it would be called a rogue state.

This is the same problem that the Western media has with Palestine. When Palestinians attack Israel, it's a terrorist attack. When Israel attacks Palestinians, missiles decide to take a stroll in the park one day, trip and fall over civilians. This opinion of mine is grounded in scholarship.

Well, good for you, you've rediscovered what Noam Chomsky was saying 40 years ago.

I don't mean to be terribly hard on you, but sometimes it seems like you think you're the only one who's ever thought about this stuff.

[rotting bones]

Well, good for you, you've rediscovered what Noam Chomsky was saying 40 years ago.

I don't mean to be terribly hard on you, but sometimes it seems like you think you're the only one who's ever thought about this stuff.

I am in this forum. No one else has agreed with me so far.

[MacAnDàil]

How can a government that I admit is genocidal eb the least worst?

All major mainstream Western outlets have published opinions in favor of genocide in Palestine.

No, the Guardian has opposed it. e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-genocide. Even the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o

Are you including Brazil, Germany, France, the UK and Japan?

Even if they weren't all grappling with fascist movements (recently victorious in Japan), these countries aren't global powers. It's also debatable whether China qualifies. China was basically enmeshed in Western economic systems before Western fascists decided to turn it into an enemy in order to mobilize support.

Even assuming all far-right movements are fascist, firstly genocide is still worse, grappling with an opposition is importantly different from them being in power and Nippon Kaigi was no more in power under the four other prime ministers who were members of it. Also, the countries that I cited are either members of the UN Security Council or vying for it so they are global powers. China is even more obviously a global power. What definition would you propose of global power if it excludes China in 2026?

Can you show where they justified this operation? I have visited the websites of both channels and not found any.

I'm talking about the expert opinions they broadcasted as it was happening. The highlights are probably recorded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4e1ta0qHRs

Please cite something specific. Something probably being recorded somewhere on a Youtube video is insufficient.

Even if it were true, it would not justify overgeneralising to 'Western media'.

They all get their news from a few outlets like, IIRC, AP and Reuters. I get the impression these places are now afraid of Trump.
[/quote]Zompist is right.

These are all about as condemnatory as a news outlet can or should be.

You don't think this language is extremely moderated compared to what they would have said if it had been anyone else? I don't even think the Maduro regime was good for Venezuela. I would have been satisfied with a bald statement of the facts: Orange Terrorist Bombs Venezuela, Kidnaps Leader; Vows Attacks Until Danegeld Paid

Saying 'Orange Terrorist' rather than '(Donald J.) Trump' would be less specific and therefore less helpful to the readers.

[MacAnDàil]

Well, good for you, you've rediscovered what Noam Chomsky was saying 40 years ago.

I don't mean to be terribly hard on you, but sometimes it seems like you think you're the only one who's ever thought about this stuff.

I am in this forum. No one else has agreed with me so far.

That noone has agreed with does not preclude them from already being familiar with the ideas.

[zompist]

Well, good for you, you've rediscovered what Noam Chomsky was saying 40 years ago.

I don't mean to be terribly hard on you, but sometimes it seems like you think you're the only one who's ever thought about this stuff.

I am in this forum. No one else has agreed with me so far.

What do you want exactly, when you keep moving the goalposts? One moment you want agitprop about Trump. The next moment it's Palestine. One moment Western media is all complicit, except for the ones that people point out to you. One minute China is the only news source you can trust. The next China is bad actually.

I don't think you actually want anyone to agree with you; it would spoil your pose of godly wisdom. Witness how fast you skated over the fact that leftists have been making exactly this same complaint about "Western media" for forty years (and longer).

[rotting bones]

No, the Guardian has opposed it. e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-genocide. Even the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o

The Guardian is not considered to be a major mainstream outlet, which is why I like it. The major mainstream outlets have published "both sides".

Even assuming all far-right movements are fascist, firstly genocide is still worse, grappling with an opposition is importantly different from them being in power and Nippon Kaigi was no more in power under the four other prime ministers who were members of it.

Setting aside the fact that the current Japanese prime minister is an adherent of palingenetic ultranationalism, I think the basic block in communication is that you don't understand the concept of one thing being "worse" than another. "Worse" doesn't mean bad. It means more bad. Even if thing 1 is bad, thing 2 can be worse if it is even more bad. For example, if thing 1 and thing 2 are both responsible for genocide, then thing 1 is not necessarily "worse" if thing 2 is responsible for other bad things in addition.

I assumed you know this, but neither you nor Travis B. act like you do.

Also, the countries that I cited are either members of the UN Security Council or vying for it so they are global powers. China is even more obviously a global power. What definition would you propose of global power if it excludes China in 2026?

Setting aside the fact that France has committed genocide in Africa rather recently, etc, I would say that a global power should be able to challenge the global hegemon. The Soviet Union was able to do this. China is not.

Please cite something specific. Something probably being recorded somewhere on a Youtube video is insufficient.

If you're not even willing to watch the media coverage you're defending, how can you possibly justify having such strong opinions about it? Try watching from 3:03:50 onwards.

Zompist is right.

Sure, I said what is quoted, but Zompist is right. About what? Who knows? Does it even matter as long as the bottom line is that I'm wrong?

Saying 'Orange Terrorist' rather than '(Donald J.) Trump' would be less specific and therefore less helpful to the readers.

'(Donald J.) Trump' is less specific than 'Orange Terrorist'. Many people can be called '(Donald J.) Trump', but the 'Orange Terrorist' will go down in history. In any case, I have explained my point already, and you say you understand it.

That noone has agreed with does not preclude them from already being familiar with the ideas.

I don't understand why you think I should care in the context of my argument. Please elaborate.

[rotting bones]

What do you want exactly, when you keep moving the goalposts?

I have never moved a goalpost on the ZBB. I know this because doing it keeps me up at night.

One moment you want agitprop about Trump.

I do not.

The next moment it's Palestine.

That was obviously an analogy.

One moment Western media is all complicit, except for the ones that people point out to you. One minute China is the only news source you can trust. The next China is bad actually.

Fake news. Never happened.

If reading my posts doesn't make it obvious these are lies, nothing I can say ever will.

I don't think you actually want anyone to agree with you; it would spoil your pose of godly wisdom. Witness how fast you skated over the fact that leftists have been making exactly this same complaint about "Western media" for forty years (and longer).

I don't understand why you think I should care in the context of the argument I'm making. Please elaborate.

[Raphael]

Anyone who argues that the USA right now, bad as they are, is worse than China should explain what would probably happen to a Chinese citizen living in China who would, on a server hosted in China, maintain a forum very much like the ZBB, with a similar range of discussion topics and opinions. Or compare an average day, week, month, or year in the life of an average blue-collar worker in each of the two countries.


As far as Venezuela is concerned, I'm a bit frustrated that there's so much more attention on Trump's own words and international reactions than on what's happening in Venezuela itself. Who, if anyone, is in control there right now? Reportedly, Maduro's VP is now Acting President. What kind of USAnians, if any, are on the ground? Who's taking orders from whom, or not?

Yes, Trump himself has said that the US would "run" Venezuela now, but that's the same Trump who said that his policies had led to the prices of various drugs dropping by several hundred percent. As we say in Germany, he talks a lot when the day is long.

This is the same problem that the Western media has with Palestine. When Palestinians attack Israel, it's a terrorist attack. When Israel attacks Palestinians, missiles decide to take a stroll in the park one day, trip and fall over civilians. This opinion of mine is grounded in scholarship.

Which Western media outlets, exactly, are you talking about there?

I've spent a fair amount of time hate-reading various Israeli and pro-Israel sources, and I used to be pro-Israel myself 20 years ago. Trust me, people like that usually don't spend their time being happy about the Western media's support for them. Instead, they spend a lot of time complaining about how the reporting of the international media, by which they usually mean the Western media, supposedly makes them look bad.

Are you going to call out the New Yorker for their strong pro-Trump stance next?

I'm not saying I will always believe Chinese media. I will read US media too. I'm just saying US media is currently less reliable than Chinese media.

Before Western media began justifying kidnapping, I had 5% faith in Western media and 3% faith in Chinese media. I still have 3% faith in Chinese media, but 2% faith in Western media.

See if you can identify the subtle difference between those statements.

Chinese media has a lot of propaganda, but their propaganda is often easier to identify: The CCP and anti-American governments are always right 100% of the time!!!

How many of the major Western media outlets you know have a comparable attitude towards anyone or anything?

I'm excited to see if the world's mainstream media can get me to have negative 100% faith in them: As soon as they say anything, I'll be perfectly convinced the exact opposite of everything they said is true.

Why are you complaining about crimes against Venezuela then? Clearly nothing happened in Venezuela this year so far.

Even if they weren't all grappling with fascist movements (recently victorious in Japan), these countries aren't global powers.

Which arguably means that they deserve more sympathy than any global powers.

China was basically enmeshed in Western economic systems before Western fascists decided to turn it into an enemy in order to mobilize support.

Yeah, the wolf warriors never happened. All the time of psychologically mobilizing the Chinese people for a potential war against the West never happened. Oh, and this apparently never happened, either:

Chinese media has a lot of propaganda, but their propaganda is often easier to identify: The CCP and anti-American governments are always right 100% of the time!!!

[WeepingElf]

Raphael has it right. China is much worse than the US - the US are a broken democracy, with a President trying to transform it into a dictatorship (and we don't know whether he will succeed in that - it may backfire and lead to constitution amendments in order to fix the defects of US democracy that made such a derailment possible); China is already a brutal dictatorship. And changing from Western news media that are sometimes biassed to Chinese news media that are mouthpieces of the Chinese dictatorial government certainly is a very dumb move - "driving out the Devil with Beelzebub" as we say here in Germany. But it doesn't really surprise me that rotting bones makes such a move; I have seen Stalinist viewpoints from them in several threads, and they did speak out approvingly about the Soviet practice of detaining regime critics in psychiatric institutions in this post.

[Travis B.]

I wake up and see that the goalposts have been moved all over the map.

So media isn't 'mainstream media' when it doesn't cheerlead for Trump and Israel I gather. And the Guardian (or the BBC of all things!) somehow isn't mainstream media... when last night I was reading that it was politically unreliable due to its ties to the US through the advertising it sells. Convenient that 'mainstream media' has been redefined to fit one's position at the very moment. And as for Reuters it's pro-Trump mainstream media because it isn't agitprop instead of merely presenting the news (including news that isn't supportive of Trump).

Also, just because news may be biased in ways one likes means that one somehow should support news that is far more starkly biased on the sole reason that somehow the fact that the latter is more obviously biased makes it better.

As for China, last night I remember that the only alternative to the US was China, and China was somehow better than the US. Now I am reading that it is almost as bad as the US after all and that all other alternatives have been dismissed because they are not powerful enough to challenge the US (as if being 'powerful enough to challenge the US' was a necessary criterion to read news produced in a country somehow).

Also, as for China, rb seems oblivious to the fact that, as has been pointed out, the Zeeb couldn't exist in China, as China is internally more oppressive and dictatorial than the US currently is, despite Trump's best efforts.

[alice]

It could be interesting that Russia is condemning the attack. Completely hypocritical, of course, but I wonder if it might temporarily deflect Trump's admiration for his Russian mentor.

Somewhat remarkably, one of our right-wing newspapers apparently remarked that Trump's actions might inadvertenty lead to the collapse of Putin's Russia by crashing the price of oil and wrecking its economy. I don't know how realistic this is, but it would be nicely ironic, don't you think?

And where are these damned "goalposts" which everyone is apparently moving everywhere? Can you keep them still for long enough so I can actually see them and make sense of what you're talking about?

[zompist]

One moment you want agitprop about Trump.

I do not.

Then maybe don't ask for agitprop about Trump:

Orange Terrorist Bombs Venezuela, Kidnaps Leader; Vows Attacks Until Danegeld Paid

The only example you've provided of the news you want, or what is lacking in "Western media", is adding emotive opinion words.

Here's a little exercise for you. Which of these headlines are from Western media and which are not? Bonus round: which are from US media?

"Analysis: Trump's action could set precedent for authoritarian powers across globe / Trump seems to believe he makes the rules and others cannot have the same privileges"

"How the US attack on Venezuela, abduction of Maduro unfolded"

"US invasion makes Latin America volatile"

"The return of the US's predatory imperialism"

"A huge step towards the emergence of a balance-of-power world" / "Deepen other countries' belief in the volatility of U.S. foreign policy" / "Trump's White House bled allies even on the global hard right"

"Trump goes monster-hunting, untainted by a whiff of legality"

"Venezuela and the return of imperialism"

[WeepingElf]

I wake up and see that the goalposts have been moved all over the map.

In any thread involving rotting bones, you are in constant danger of being overrun by fast-moving goalposts

[rotting bones]

Apparently, Trump is very interested in invading Mexico next.

Anyone who argues that the USA right now, bad as they are, is worse than China should explain what would probably happen to a Chinese citizen living in China who would, on a server hosted in China, maintain a forum very much like the ZBB, with a similar range of discussion topics and opinions.

You are right. It is better to publish "both sides" with heavily moderated language for one side than China's coverage of human rights abuses in China: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-62766865

Or compare an average day, week, month, or year in the life of an average blue-collar worker in each of the two countries.

It's better than lives of blue collar workers in comparable high population density capitalist countries like India and Bangladesh, especially with recent improvements.

I wake up and see that the goalposts have been moved all over the map.

No, it hasn't. I have been very clear: All major mainstream outlets have published opinions in favor of genocide in Palestine. It is common practice in "responsible journalism" to use moderated language to downplay the crimes of the West and it's allies.

If you go to Ground News, fact checkers consider the Guardian to be a fringe outlet with heavy left-wing bias rather than a mainstream news source. My concern with the Guardian is that it gets its news from the same outlets as all the other Western news sources. Framing is often invisible, but it carries half the information. I have tried to explain that I consider the language about Trump in AP and Reuters to have been moderated beyond reason.

If any Western news source openly condemns Trump's terrorism, I would call it the best in the world.

So media isn't 'mainstream media' when it doesn't cheerlead for Trump and Israel I gather. And the Guardian (or the BBC of all things!) somehow isn't mainstream media...

The BBC has also covered "both sides". In fact, I know you haven't watched the coverage because a moderated expert opinion on the BBC was included in the segment I posted.

[Travis B.]

rotting bones, did you even check the sources of the articles that zompist referenced? I did, and (hidden to not spoil the surprise for those others here who may want to try themselves)

More: show

the only one that was not from a Western news source was from Aljazeera, and of the two that were from American news sources, both were quite mainstream.

Of course, to you, the fact that they aren't putting in lots of opinion words like you demand means they are using "moderated language" and are "covering 'both sides'".

[rotting bones]

In any thread involving rotting bones, you are in constant danger of being overrun by fast-moving goalposts

I don't think you people understand what it means to move goalposts. The world is a complex place. If you add every qualification to statements, then every argument will turn into a legal document. It is common practice to use simplifications in informal speech.

"Western media" is more of an attractor than a term with a hard definition. It has core members like the NYT, fringe members like the Guardian and outgroups like Chinese media. When I say something about Western media, I mean to say it applies strongly to the core members, applies with qualifications to fringe members and doesn't necessarily apply to outgroups.

This is how human speech works in general. If you reject this principle, then 100% of the things humans have said are wrong. Even in math, where non-standard number systems exist.

[rotting bones]

rotting bones, did you even check the sources of the articles that zompist referenced? I did, and (hidden to not spoil the surprise for those others here who may want to try themselves)

See the above discussion.

Of course, to you, the fact that they aren't putting in lots of opinion words like you demand means they are using "moderated language" and are "covering 'both sides'".

I just want equal standards. I would be satisfied with either Trump being called a terrorist or no one being called one.

[Travis B.]

In any thread involving rotting bones, you are in constant danger of being overrun by fast-moving goalposts

I don't think you people understand what it means to move goalposts. The world is a complex place. If you add every qualification to statements, then every argument will turn into a legal document. It is common practice to use simplifications in informal speech.

"Western media" is more of an attractor than a term with a hard definition. It has core members like the NYT, fringe members like the Guardian and outgroups like Chinese media. When I say something about Western media, I mean to say it applies strongly to the core members, applies with qualifications to fringe members and doesn't necessarily apply to outgroups.

This is how human speech works in general. If you reject this principle, then 100% of the things humans have said are wrong. Even in math, where non-standard number systems exist.

You are moving the goalposts right here by redefining "Western media" as is convenient to you. If the Guardian is only "fringe" 'Western media'" you probably have redefined "Western media" so it inherently does not include any media you do like, which serves you in making "Western media" into a boogeyman.

[Travis B.]

Of course, to you, the fact that they aren't putting in lots of opinion words like you demand means they are using "moderated language" and are "covering 'both sides'".

I just want equal standards. I would be satisfied with either Trump being called a terrorist or no one being called one.

Did you read any bit of the articles zompist referenced? Do you really think they were being kind to Trump? Or do you demand that they specifically use the T-word?

[Raphael]

Making magic words the gold standard for right use of language is one of the most common forms of human silliness.

Apparently, Trump is very interested in invading Mexico next.

Anyone who argues that the USA right now, bad as they are, is worse than China should explain what would probably happen to a Chinese citizen living in China who would, on a server hosted in China, maintain a forum very much like the ZBB, with a similar range of discussion topics and opinions.

You are right. It is better to publish "both sides" with heavily moderated language for one side than China's coverage of human rights abuses in China: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-62766865

I know you're being sarcastic, but yes, it is.

Or compare an average day, week, month, or year in the life of an average blue-collar worker in each of the two countries.

It's better than lives of blue collar workers in comparable high population density capitalist countries like India and Bangladesh, especially with recent improvements.

Still, in that regard, copying circumstances in the USA, and certainly copying circumstances in most other Western countries, would be better than copying circumstance in China.

If you go to Ground News, fact checkers consider the Guardian to be a fringe outlet with heavy left-wing bias rather than a mainstream news source.

Who or what is "Ground News", and why should I care?

I just want equal standards. I would be satisfied with either Trump being called a terrorist or no one being called one.

The standard there is very simple: "terrorist" is usually reserved for non-state actors and people pretending to be non-state actors.