Echo chambers suck. Salon’s is a particularly egregious one, I could’ve just as easily said Fox News or whatever, though.
the left-wing alt-media certainly isn’t on markedly more familiar terms with the truth, facts, or anything remotely resembling decent journalism. It just tends to skew in a different ideological direction.
Hacks do abound on both sides, but your one bizarre example does nothing to convince me that you’re right about that. The left, such as it is, is less beholden to big money and it understands that there actually is such a thing as society. So of course it’s on more familiar terms with the truth.
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(British Slang.) a foolish or contemptible person.
But also,
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[quote=“anon15383236, post:104, topic:67888”]
Hacks do abound on both sides, but your one bizarre example does nothing to convince me that you’re right about that. The left, such as it is, is less beholden to big money and it understands that there actually is such a thing as society. So of course it’s on more familiar terms with the truth.
[/quote]I agree for the most part. They are generally less beholden to big money, and certainly don’t share a view with their opponents regarding society.
But I wouldn’t say they’re on more familiar terms with the truth. Reality, sure - but the truth, no. The two are not the same.
Also, since you think the example is bizarre, I may have been a little too crypic, let me be a little more blunt - It was USUncut, the same source Corey used for this post, talking about what Iceland did after their own financial crisis and banking collapse.
To use it as an example again, since recycling is good for the environment - they were closer to reality than many right-wing blogs were regarding the financial crisis(including, on one memorable occasion, one that tried to blame it on Feminists and SJWs, if you can imagine the sheer madness of that nonsense). US bankers should be investigated and face charges, provided they committed crimes - that’s where I’d say they’re closer to reality.
But at practically no point did they actually tell the truth.
a rather unfortunate surname.
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Then why did you include the adjective “cowardly”? In context it seemed to imply that the concept of “cowardly” had something to do with the fact that you didn’t see the incident as terrorism.
It’s a really reasonable inference you got called on. No one’s putting words in your mouth.
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So, being pissed about racist terrorism means we’re in an echo chamber?
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I’m more the former than the latter.
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If the intention is to shame people who are behaving badly, you will need to be more explicit. Most people don’t engage in behavior that they already recognize as bad, so you have to point out what the particular behavior it is and why it’s bad.
Not only that, but since you aren’t the world’s only perfectly rational person, it may be that you are wrong about the behavior being bad, or wrong about the behavior you perceive existing in the first place – you have your own shortcomings and biases.
On the other hand, if you engage people’s statements in good faith instead of operating under the assumption they’re driven by groupthink you might be surprised what you can learn about other people – or even yourself.
“You guys are as bad as Salon!” won’t convince anyone of anything except that you’re kind of a jerk.
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You’re on the other side of the planet, but you’re telling us what’s common knowledge/widely reported in the US?
As a first approximation, we can say there’s two levels of coverage in the US: reportage and commentary. Most USians seem to pay attention mostly to commentary. Perhaps that’s one reason why this seems to be common knowledge in some office “on the other side of the planet” but I hadn’t heard of it until today.
But consider the Trayvon Martin situation. Most of the media noise around it wasn’t reportage – the vast majority was commentary. What was getting people riled up on both sides was the commentary. And since which issues are worthy of commentary, and of how much, are subject to a great deal more discretion than is reportage, one might reasonably fault or credit the media depending on the amount and quality of commentary broadcast or printed on that subject.
Is it possible that your disagreement is due to a difference of perception or of social context rather than that the majority of the USians here who agree that this hasn’t been widely discussed in the media are obviously wrong? Or a difference in definitions? There are probably questions you could ask to figure this out if you wanted to be more open-minded and curious about why people disagree with you in ways that seem to you obviously wrong. In my experience, few people are so rational that what’s obviously wrong to them really is obviously wrong.
Edit: Consider the difference:
“I’m sick of this bullshit!” (wall of links)
vs.
“Why do you think that, given this?” (wall of links)
Which seems like a more effective way of convincing anyone of anything?
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I’m a creamy mixture of the two with a touch of the 'ole bastard thrown in for good measure.
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My bad! If a white man says it, it must be true! I forget myself sometimes…
Incidentally, when I told this guy I know that I saw Ta-Nehisi Coates this past week, he called Coates a “charlatan”… Mainly because Coates doesn’t bow down and kiss Moynihan’s ass for that report he wrote back in the 60s…
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Ugh. Did he at least give Coates credit for being “articulate”? 
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I’ve always admired that cat for getting that second shoe thrown.
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He agreed Coates was a great writer (he didn’t use the dreaded “articulate”, though), but said that relied on “feels” more than anything else… which I don’t think it true in regards to the work he has been doing at the Atlantic. His memoirs are certainly emotional, because they are memoirs. This guy (he works in the archives I have a GRA in this semester) seems a bit pompous and in love with his own conceptualization of the world. Kind of a typical, “I’m smarter than everyone else”, middle aged white dude… Fortunately, the archivist I’m actually working for is awesome (she’s the labor archivist)!
When I saw Coates this week, he was a fucking delight, natch. He was surprised when he mentioned writing Black Panther, and half the audience cheered, though. “You all read comics?”…
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It was, of course. But it was a particular pattern of terrorism driven by ethnic hate and fear, and to some degree, occurred with official sanction or permission (usually in a plausible-deniability way), and even the participation of state enforcers. And the goals were similar–drive out the unwanted populations. The historical parallels are worth looking at.
Well, in the case of the US, the goal was not to drive out African Americans, but to bring them into line and make sure they didn’t transgress the arbitrary boundaries of segregation and continued to function as an underclass for the engines of American capitalism and this continues. It also functions as a social cement for whites across economic class (which is also what drove anti-Jewish and Muslim pogroms at times, cementing lower class Christians to the ruling classes more firmly). So, there are similarities, but also differences that are important to tease out. I’m all for making these comparisions, though as they can tell us a good deal about what we’re talking about. The important part is the state sanctioned part in both cases.
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!!!
or
but I’m really like…
Having just finished his latest book, Coates has been doing scholarship since he was knee high to a grasshopper. That comment is a load of dogshit.
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Yes, it can be hard to see things like that when a person can’t get past “how good!” the writing is, or how emotional, or how elegant, and so on. As if it’s surprising that black people can do that, let alone walk upright and have like, deep thoughts in their heads. As with a lot of men listening to women or reading their writing, perceptual filters often block reception of what’s actually being said.
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