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Link of the Day

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Clarissa

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Here’s a great article by Glenn Greenwald – who’s hardly a right-winger – on how the lies about tye January 6 riot were manufactured and spread.

I don’t watch or read corporate media so this was eye-opening to me. I now understand how it happened that people believed the ludicrous fire extinguisher story and the zip tie story, and the armed insurrection story, and so on.

What I don’t get is why people still believe these sources. Yes, they tell you what you want to hear but is that adequate price for being constantly duped? How much is enough? Where is the self-respect?

12 responses to “Link of the Day”

  1. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    First thought – the lead photo caption says “destruction” at the Capitol. If you zoom in, there is no sign of “destruction”. There’s some litter and water bottles. The glass in the display window is intact, statues intact, no graffiti.

    Compare that to any picture from events in Seattle, Portland, Kenosha, Minneapolis, Chicago.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      There’s a lot of footage of people entering the Capitol in an orderly way, chatting peacefully with the police, the police directing them. From what I understand, that footage wasn’t aired massively. Instead, a single rowdy moment was shown time and again from different angles. In all the footage I saw, there wasn’t a single gun or knife. Was anybody arrested on weapons charges? Wouldn’t we have heard about it ad nauseum if there were people with rifles or whatever?

      So many lies. And so few people who care enough to find out what really happened.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        // There’s a lot of footage of people entering the Capitol in an orderly way, chatting peacefully with the police, the police directing them. … Instead, a single rowdy moment was shown time and again

        Is ‘a single rowdy moment’ a euphemism for the moment in which Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot?

        Mike thinks most people at the Capitol Hill were peaceful, but there were a dozen or so truly dangerous people among them too:

        https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1349965432070012933?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1349965432070012933%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.technologyasnature.com%2Fyou-say-you-want-a%2F

        From
        http://www.technologyasnature.com/you-say-you-want-a/

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        1. el Avatar
          el

          Now read your linked article till the end and saw a refutation of Reuters’ article…

          Which sources do you believe in? Tucker Carlson? Somebody else?

          What about good Russian and Ukrainian news?

          People do need normal official media to exist in order to be informed. It’s a sad situation that with all possibilities of Internet, we’re stuck with trying to find ‘people on the ground’ to testify what is happening in various places.

          In Israel, mainstream news sources seem OK.

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          1. Clarissa Avatar
            Clarissa

            It’s sad, definitely. I have completely banned all mainstream media from my radar. I close my eyes when I pass a TV at the grocery store or a restaurant. I don’t want them to pollute my brain even accidentally. My principle is: I catch a source in a lie once, and j forget about it forever. If I catch Glenn Greenwald in a lie, he’ll be gone immediately, too.

            The way I get information – and this is how I knew that Cuomo was killing seniors and concealing it back in May, or that COVID isn’t dangerous to children, or that schools aren’t an infection vector, or that there was no fire extinguisher death, etc etc – is from a large collection of sources cobbled together from all sorts of places and pared down mercilessly all the time. It’s a work in progress. Yesterday I had to eliminate a source that was good until now but spread a single lie yesterday. Now she’s gone. I’ll never listen to her again. I subscribe to newsletters, substacks, social media feeds. I look for two independent verification sources on everything. And there are still lies that make their way through. It’s a daily battle.

            It’s either this or simply not listening at all and living in an apolitical world. Which is perfectly fine. It’s definitely better than being duped.

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            1. methylethyl Avatar
              methylethyl

              I had to ditch the Federalist recently, because they had a recurring column that appeared to be undisclosed paid advertising for Disney 😦

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        2. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Oh, the intent. OK. As long as we can assign intent, who cares about evidence.

          This is all empty verbiage. The only person killed during the riot was an unarmed Trump supporter. That’s the only real act of intentional execution. I’m not blaming the police who shot her but all of this empty blabber about intent is not interesting to me.

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        3. cliff arroyo Avatar
          cliff arroyo

          “thinks most people at the Capitol Hill were peaceful, but there were a dozen or so truly dangerous people among them too”

          I haven’t spent tones of time analyzing it but I think he’s exaggerating (or just recognizing that a crowd of peaceful doofuses would be great cover for a few truly dangerous people – which is true).

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  2. Physpostdoc Avatar
    Physpostdoc

    “If I catch Glenn Greenwald in a lie, he’ll be gone immediately, too.”

    I am not sure if

    dangerous hypocrisy on issues such as terrorism in the name of pseudo-secularism,
    deliberate misrepresentation of views of people you disagree with (case in point: Google his feud with rationalist and neuroscientist Sam Harris),
    justifying terrorist attacks on US military bases as “self-defense by marginalized groups”, and
    defending murder of journalists (see his views on Charlie Hebdo; I am not a fan of cartoons making fun of religious sentiments either, but that is no excuse to murder journalists)

    count as a direct lie, but given the intellectual dishonesty and pettiness exhibited in all of the above, I find Glenn Greenwald one of the last people to be trusted as a source of either reliable information or well-reasoned opinions.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I had no idea who this guy was until last month and I’m not going to research his whole life until then. He’s saying useful things now. Once he stops, good bye to him. My goal is to avoid being duped. That’s all I want.

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      1. Physpostdoc Avatar
        Physpostdoc

        You do not need to research his whole life — he has been saying such things pretty consistently. You are obviously free to revise your opinion based on past disingenuous behavior, or not, as long as you yourself are not falling into the trap you advised against — saying what you want to hear.

        Selectively believing and agreeing with an otherwise dishonest person is a slippery road — they may not always lie, but that does not mean their credibility is not irrevocably eroded (IMO).

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          I think you are confusing opinions and facts. I don’t care about this guy’s opinions. I care that he’s telling the truth about what happened on 1/6.

          Disagreement is great. Difference of opinion is great. For instance, I think Sam Harris is an incredible dickwad. So what? Unless I catch him in spreading lies, it’s all good.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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