|
 |
On 4/12/2011 2:06 PM, Warp wrote:
> Following this from abroad, I don't know if this should be amusing or
> frightening...
>
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/03/antievolution-bill-tennessee-progresses-006545
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/03/intelligent-design-legislation-texas-006531
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/03/antievolution-legislation-florida-006524
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/02/antievolution-legislation-new-mexico-006469
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/01/second-antievolution-bill-oklahoma-006439
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/01/antievolution-legislation-missouri-006421
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/01/antievolution-legislation-kentucky-006389
>
Hmm. Finished "Assassin's Creed" recently, then found a Youtube on the
symbols and stuff at the end. Buggers that believe in the Illuminati are
just as crazy as certain Regressives, especially the Faux Teaparty that
got elected so big last time around, but the explanation of the "end of
the world" made perfect sense to me for the game. Its not the end of
existence, its a moment at which we find we have to choose between open
knowledge, and making choices based on having that, or allowing someone
else to corral the "lower classes" permanently, using lies,
misinformation, and propaganda, on a scale never before possible.
The Regressive party has chosen which side they are on, the old style
Republicans that *thought* they represented their party find they can't
do anything, and the Democrats have more than there share of the same
sort, with different dogma, with those that could effect things lacking
the guts to do anything, willingly allowing themselves to be pushed
around by misinformation and lies, as long as they can win some small
concessions in the process.
So.. When exactly are we going to stop accepting the endless and
constant bullshit, and all the false morality/ethics/prosperity those
give, and make choices based on clear, non-made up, no, you don't get to
have your own evidence, even if you do have a different opinion, facts,
instead. Or, do we let everything turn into Fox News, World Nut Daily
(World News Daily), and the various other sorts that do stupid shit like
lie about what others have said?
In the case of WND, post a claimed "non-photoshopped" image of Obama's
grand parents without him in it, complete with part of his knee, an
extra arm, and suspiciously repeating patterns in the background, where
they failed to use the clone tool properly, then later stated "some"
meaning only this one case, "articles we publish may not be factual."
Sort of like Santorim's (not sure if that name is right) 'minor'
exaggeration of Planned Parenthood's abortion services from 3% of their
operations to 90%, which was, "not intended to be a factual statement." O.o
Maybe not, but half a million idiots will be repeating it *as* factual
for the next 50 years, because they, like the Regressive party they vote
for, have opted for lies and deceit, over actual knowledge. Its so much
easier to be told what to think, and simply accept it without question,
then find out the real facts, and decide who is and isn't a credible
source of information. For some people, this is just too much strain in
the US. :( And, it doesn't help when half of your parents generation
say, "Well, they all lie to you, and they are all the same", so it
hardly matters that now a lie can reach 300 million people in 4 seconds,
where 20 years ago it would have had to at least put on some running
shoes, to get half that far in a single day. Man, my father pisses me
off some times when trying to talk to him about some things... True or
not, today ***it matters*** who is lying to you more, more often, and
about what, because its not just 200 idiots at a speech hearing it, its
100 million people listening to someone talk about the speech, and lie
about everything in it, over radio, and TV, and blogs, etc, for weeks
after, most of them unwilling to watch the full speech, check the facts,
or look for numbers, which are not provided by the same people lying
about the contents.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
|
|
On 4/12/2011 4:10 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:31:59 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> When exactly are we going to stop accepting the endless and constant
>> bullshit,
>
> Never, because there will always be people who will take 'belief' over
> 'knowledge' because they've been conditioned to do so.
>
> Jim
True enough. But, the question is where is the tipping point. Where do
people stop accepting, as a general whole, obvious lies, simply because
a lot of people say they believe them? There is some hope, and some
terror in that regard recently. On one hand, most rational people won't
trust Fox News to say that the sky is blue, without either checking
themselves, or having some prior knowledge, which makes the statement
plausible. On the other, they have *no* problem listening to Oprah,
Depok Chopra, accepting everything printed in say, Huffpo as true, even
when its about medical science (which they know about as much about, and
get right about as often as a medieval alchemist). Most also don't even
question whether or not some place like CNN has checked their facts, or
bothered to find someone that **actually** has a damn clue what they are
talking about, just how many unrelated doctorates they have. Watching
something from them, sometimes... its literally like pitting a physicist
against a theologian, while talking about bioscience. A decision that
makes about as much sense as asking your auto mechanic, and the village
idiot, discuss effective farming. One probably hasn't a damn clue, and
can't address, correct, or even get right, key points, and the other is
there to talk about what their foot fungus told them last week about the
subject. Neither should have been there, but for people like CNN, its
*important* to show both sides, even if you pick the two worst possible
people to address either one of them.
Not to say that, for example, MSNBC is much better. These people
actually "put" the owner of Huffington Post as someone to discusses
issues, and actually think Depok has some profound understanding of the
universe, which he can use to talk about various subjects. But, its
**still** marginally better, in my opinion, than either bringing two
complete idiots on, to both spout total gibberish, a la CNN, ABC, etc.,
or just the theologically driven ones, or business driven, etc., who...
well, lets just say that there is always on person in your family you
would never talk to about anything important, lend money to, trust to do
what you asked, or have a conversation about certain subject with,
because they are a complete, self serving, clueless, nitwit. Fox would
find that person, and give them their own segment.
Fox's owner isn't an idiot. He gets what a lot of them, including the
fools that keep trying to "show both sides" without actually saying
which one is more plausible or not, and calling it "integrity", can't
seem to grasp. It doesn't matter if you are right, if you tell the truth
or lie, if you contradict yourself, or you spend all your time playing a
game of wag the dog. What matter is if your viewers will bother double
checking any of it, if they really pay attention, if they are willing to
compare notes, and **how spooked, crazy, paranoid and fearful you keep
them**, precisely so they will never do any of those things. Its the
Evangelical Church of media news. "Don't watch any one else, don't trust
anyone else, don't listen to anyone else, don't question, don't wait and
think about it, just do what we say, think what we say, hate who we say,
and keep watching!"
And, 90% of the TV news, and most of the papers, all just present
"balanced" views, by simply repeating, without comment, what ever insane
gibberish one side says, and what the other side says about what was
said, without so much as lifting a finger and saying, "According to our
own fact checking, X side is off their rocker, and/or lying." No, they
let someone else say that, then just present the two sides as equal, "So
and so said X. The other so and so says its a lie. As news people, we
have no opinion at all, or if we do, its the opinion of the person that
pays, not the opinion of someone that cares about which one of them *is*
telling the truth."
Personally, I consider someone like Chopra to be a completely useless
source of any information, but... he just muddies the waters. The wackos
on the other side, can't legally burn every copy of a book they don't
like, but they sure as damn will do the next best thing, and ban it from
as many places as possible, if allowed. In other words, the choice is
between having some moron give bad information, and having a lot of
people believe it, or someone telling you that you are not even
**allowed** to decide what information you get to pick from, when
looking for facts. This.. should scare people. And seriously, it is how
the right thinks, about religion, about science they don't like, about
medical things they don't like, about social things they don't like,
etc. You can pick one of any three approved things, but you can't even
look at the 497 unapproved ones they deemed, "too dangerous to allow you
to even know about." That none of the three approved ones work, doesn't
matter, they are protecting you from the other 480 that don't either,
and the 17 that they don't like, find icky, seem ungodly, etc., some of
which work well, and others at least *do* work, if badly.
All that matters is if they can approve of your choices before hand.
Hell, the whole political system is that way in the US. You don't pick
who get presented for election, you don't get to pick which one of those
"wins", the parties do, then if there is more than one of them, in most
states you can't pick a Democrat, if you like them better than a
Republican, should you happen to be registered Republican, or vise versa
(this being explained that you need to let the "party" pick its
candidate for itself, since, apparently its the candidate best for the
"party" not your state, or country, that matters), then, finally, you
get to pick between the two left, or any random, no name, non-moneyed
extra that might be floating around. The result is, you get people
shackled, ankle to ankle with their party, in most cases, and if that
party drifts away from its core values, turning more and more to the
right (I haven't seen a single damn case of either of them ever moving
more left in the US), the "choice" you get is, short of pure accident, a
representation of what the *party* wants, not what the people think they
need.
Frankly, I am not sure why they bother campagning at all at this point.
If both parties fielded candidates, and all they said was, "we stand for
our party", we would still end up with one of them in office, and they
would still ignore the public's interest, and push for what ever their
party thinks the country needs at this point (while completely ignoring
the public). Just look at the fiasco in Wisconsin, where they pretty
much just declared that all the protest where from a) people too stupid
to understand, and b) unions, not actual concerned citizens. Or, the
equal fiasco in the federal government right now, with some idiot
suggesting they, "keep the governments hands off of people's medicare",
by effectively erasing it for everyone younger than a certain age, so
that they go right back to where everyone was *before* the program
existed. Except for the "vouchers", which I imagine would, like the
vouchers for private schools, work just as well, you know, by producing
"worse" results, over all, when someone bothers to check the numbers,
than "public" schools, which are failing with the same grace and
government disinterest as certain deep water oil wells...
I am just waiting for the Regressives to decide that they need to "save
money" by cutting Bushes "No Child Left Behind" program, thus killing
two birds with one stone. They, "reduce government", and eliminate the,
generally otherwise useless, program that produced all those disturbing
numbers that suggest voucher systems don't work, and that "private"
schools are probably actually almost as bad as fundi-gelical home
schooling in some cases (not to be confused with the maybe 1% taught by
parents with lots of money, time, and high educations, who *don't* buy
books from Answer In Genesis, or the fundi-home school sources, for
their kids "science" education, "adjusted" history, and various other
atrocities).
Post a reply to this message
|
|
