US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9935

On February 18 2018 19:48 Nebuchad wrote:


Don't you understand his point? He's not saying that Plansix needs to be dragged in the streets. He's pointing out that contrary to the accusations that are made against him, there's no evidence of russians influencing his point of view, while there is evidence of liberal propaganda influencing someone on this very forum (that has now been acknowledged and debunked).

On February 18 2018 19:54 hunts wrote:


So his point is still incorrect, is what you're getting at?

On February 18 2018 19:41 Jockmcplop wrote:


The elephant being that one example that you have been clinging to relentlessly ever since despite the fact that P6 acknowledged that he was wrong and apologized.

On February 15 2018 04:21 Plansix wrote:

... I have no admitted I was wrong and I feel its best if we move on from this topic.

As for the liberal propaganda, its something we should all be aware of, and of course we can get taken in by it. GH's relentless campaign of pointing out a single instance of it, however, is ineffective because it is just obnoxious and not generalizable enough to actually mean anything.

On February 18 2018 19:48 Nebuchad wrote:


Don't you understand his point? He's not saying that Plansix needs to be dragged in the streets. He's pointing out that contrary to the accusations that are made against him, there's no evidence of russians influencing his point of view, while there is evidence of liberal propaganda influencing someone on this very forum (that has now been acknowledged and debunked).

On February 18 2018 19:58 GreenHorizons wrote:


If by "one example" you mean the single most significant example of the effectiveness of the ads/facebook stuff and the core of his assertion that they straight up confirmed that Thousands of people attended a protest organized by Russia that happens to be propaganda shared by thousands and seen by millions.

And by "clinging to relentlessly" you mean reminding my accusers of their own blind spot upon their accusations.

And by "acknowledged he was wrong and apologized" you mean made me wrench out a half assed walk back (like a dozen of his own posts later, including some inexplicable questioning of settling facts) which he then again quickly walked back saying he didn't admit being wrong

(in fairness that could have been "now" instead of "not" though he never really cleared it up, and it turns out it was a bullshit excuse anyway).

Yeah, that The Elephant™ + Show Spoiler +

While P6 is the one who got caught blatantly falling for/pushing the type of Russia hysteria propaganda I'm talking about, he's clearly not the only one it influenced as we have been thoroughly told how the massive exposure it got and lack of any confrontation of it in mainstream corporate media or here or in any liberal circles it appears (especially compared to Russia's propaganda) inevitably and conclusively leads to it influencing people susceptible to such propaganda.

*mic drop*



This is absurd for what I feel are obvious reasons, but I'll let you address the rest of my post before I bother getting into this.


EDIT: Hooray for someone acknowledging liberals have been duped by propaganda sensationalizing Russia's interference. Hope they don't forget/walk it back just as fast.

Two listeners complained that the programme had inaccurately reported that a peaceful vigil in Walthamstow, in protest against the decision to bomb targets in Syria, had targeted the home of the local MP, Stella Creasy, and had been part of a pattern of intimidation towards Labour MPs who had supported the decision. The claim that the demonstration had targeted Ms Creasy’s home, and the implication that it was intimidatory in nature, originated from a single Facebook posting which later proved to be misleading (the demonstration’s destination was Ms Creasy’s constituency office, which was unoccupied at the time, not her home, and it was peaceful). Nevertheless, it had been taken up by a number of commentators on social media and by reputable news outlets, including The Independent and The Guardian. The first reference to the story in the 3 December edition of Today was in a review of the morning’s papers. Later in the programme, a report by Ross Hawkins included an audio clip from the demonstration, stated that it had taken place outside the constituency office, and carried an interview with one of the organisers who described it as “very peaceful”. Shortly after this, Nick Robinson interviewed John McDonnell about divisions in the Labour Party in relation to the vote on bombing Syria in terms which reflected the belief that the demonstration had taken place outside Ms Creasy’s home and had been an instance of bullying and intimidation (a belief which Mr McDonnell did not contest). The 7 December edition of Today included a correction which made the venue of the demonstration clear but did not address the question of intimidation. The ECU found that the 3 December programme had been duly accurate in its review of the papers, but inaccurate in the references to the matter during the interview with Mr McDonnell, and that the 7 December correction had left a significant element of inaccuracy to stand

On February 18 2018 20:02 Jockmcplop wrote:


meh. Its kind of a moot point really either way. I can't really see why anyone cares whether the russians had an influence on a guy in a forum. The point is that they obviously wanted to destabilize the political establishment, and rightly or wrongly people were/are all too ready to go with it because it confirms their biases. I think people get upset and offended to realize that what they want and what the Russians want is (in the short term) the same - although for different reasons.
The inference here is that in short term anything that destabilizes the political establishment is good for Russia, because its bad for America. It doesn't mean its bad for America in the medium to long term.

As for the liberal propaganda, its something we should all be aware of, and of course we can get taken in by it. GH's relentless campaign of pointing out a single instance of it, however, is ineffective because it is just obnoxious and not generalizable enough to actually mean anything.

On February 18 2018 20:02 Jockmcplop wrote:


meh. Its kind of a moot point really either way. I can't really see why anyone cares whether the russians had an influence on a guy in a forum. The point is that they obviously wanted to destabilize the political establishment, and rightly or wrongly people were/are all too ready to go with it because it confirms their biases. I think people get upset and offended to realize that what they want and what the Russians want is (in the short term) the same - although for different reasons.
The inference here is that in short term anything that destabilizes the political establishment is good for Russia, because its bad for America. It doesn't mean its bad for America in the medium to long term.

As for the liberal propaganda, its something we should all be aware of, and of course we can get taken in by it. GH's relentless campaign of pointing out a single instance of it, however, is ineffective because it is just obnoxious and not generalizable enough to actually mean anything.




Frankly addressing the rest of your post is pointless and frustrating. No-one wants to read about this one instance of liberal propaganda any more. Its been going on for days now, we get the point, and I'm sure P6 has had enough of everyone talking about how he was wrong that one time, so I'm going to get a bit more general.

The issue here is that propaganda can be more easily spread to liberals when it goes with the biases of the mainstream media. The MSM is naturally liberal in nature, as is most of the population. This explains why false information and fake news can spread so fast and unchecked if it confirms liberal bias.
When I said liberals need to careful about this stuff, I should have said that liberals need to be EXTRA careful about it. That's my bad. There are further instances of this which are actually worse than the one you have described, to do with UK politics. Sorry to go off topic but I feel this is relevant and I can only really talk about examples that I know well:

The following is a quote from the BBC complaints archive (they are publicly funded so they have to have this) in which they basically admit slandering Corbyn supporters on the basis of a false Facebook post:

The context is that they are saying the far left supporters of Labour are violent against moderates (liberals)

On February 18 2018 20:11 Nebuchad wrote:


Because it's a very effective rhetorical weapon. We could address what they say, but I mean, they're just russian stooges aren't they, so why would we care. You'll find that this weapon will be used against the most progressive candidate in 2020 whether it's Bernie or not. If you show support for them you're going to be painted as helping Russia.

Now the thing is, it could be true. Liberals will also paint the far right as racist and sexist and in the broad strokes they'll generally be correct. So it's not enough to just depict it as a strategy, you also need to show that their strategy isn't quite factual. You can do that in two ways, one by demonstrating that the existence of propaganda isn't an argument against an opponent, since propaganda exists on their side as well and that hasn't led them to make a whole ton of modifications in their lives or beliefs, and two by demonstrating that there is an underlying vision and policy rooting for our position regardless of how much propaganda the Russians have thrown at it.

On February 18 2018 20:30 Jockmcplop wrote:


I get your point now. To me it seems pretty obvious that the existence of propaganda supporting one side of an argument, whichever side that is, is not enough to discredit the argument. Anyone debating along the lines that it is is doing so dishonestly.

I think the point about Russian propaganda, as I see it anyway, is about how intentions line up, and the wider consequences of domestic political action. It could well be that getting rid of the political establishment in the US is good for Russia, and the fact that they have been so prolific in their propaganda to this end supports this idea.
Its just something to be aware of, its not something that should stop people from believing something or acting on those beliefs, so rather than be taken in by the hysteria surrounding russian propaganda, its simply worth noting that it exists perhaps sparing a thought for the unintended international consequences of dismantling existing political structures.

On February 18 2018 21:00 a_flayer wrote:
Skimming over these past few pages, I think I can safely inform Master Putin that his plan is working perfectly.

On February 18 2018 21:04 GreenHorizons wrote:


Reminds me of 9/11 when people thought the strategy behind Al-Qaeda was to fight a traditional war with the US and not provoke us to erode our civil liberties and drain our treasury in a war of attrition they knew we would cave on first or worst/best case provoke a world war between Christianity and Islam.

On February 18 2018 23:46 Acrofales wrote:

I don't think anybody believed that al'quaeda wanted to fight a traditional war.

On February 18 2018 21:00 a_flayer wrote:
Skimming over these past few pages, I think I can safely inform Master Putin that his plan is working perfectly.

It's not the image that 19-year-old university student, Goran, sitting far back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other wants to portray.

"The Americans loved our stories and we make money from them," he boasts, making sure I see the designer watch he's fiddling with. "Who cares if they are true or false?"

On February 19 2018 00:12 Jockmcplop wrote:
I don't really get how people could think that fake news/propaganda isn't ubiquitous right now. It doesn't really matter where you sit on the political spectrum, you are vulnerable because you use the internet. Trusted news sources have shown themselves to be just as easily taken in by this stuff as anyone else.
All we can do is not take it personally or get embarrassed when something we have shared turns out to be fake.
The absolute worst reaction to it is to think that because some right wing/left wing/liberal source has shared fake news it means that people of that political persuasion are liars. That isn't really the way it goes.

Did anyone else see this news story before?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38168281



The people sharing fake news stories and propaganda get paid for it. The more people read their fake news, the more money they get. Alot of the time this stuff, although political in nature, isn't politically motivated at all. People will just copy some bizarre news story from some unknown website and hope it goes viral for a payday.

Of course they will go for political movements as a way of getting themselves subscribers, so populist movements are a target. At the same time these kind of stories are usually easier to spot. Its much harder to detect a fake liberal story that has found its way into the mainstream media.

This stuff is literally everywhere.

The idea of Russians spreading fake news and propaganda that lines up with American political events is particularly worrying for some people because the Russian state is behind it so it plays into the idea of Putin having a masterplan to undermine the US. For me, that's a genuine concern, but its not as if the majority of fake news is from Russia. This stuff comes from all over the place. We've all seen the Israelibots who turn up every time Israel gets in the news. Its just a standard political tactic now.

On February 19 2018 00:18 GreenHorizons wrote:


While I find this to be valuable insight I feel like "everywhere","people sharing fake news", "taken in", and the rest underplayed that it's also in mainstream political news outlets liberals would typically deem reasonably reputable or use as a source. That are making money creating/spreading propaganda that not just random people believe and share, but 'respectable' pundits/reporters/writers and that the access and exposure of those mainstream media outlets drastically outsizes even the most fancifully imagined Russia propaganda bots.

On February 19 2018 00:28 Jockmcplop wrote:


I think we can safely say that mainstream news outlets have completely failed to adapt to these developments, and that's being generous. At its worst, we could say that they they are vulnerable to the exact same confirmation biases and aren't taking the necessary steps to combat this and that as a result, they are no longer to be trusted as news sources.

So who do we trust? We're all people in here that like to keep ourselves politically informed and we have to go somewhere for our news.
We all form opinions on stuff based on these sources, which have pretty much all been undermined by this phenomenon so there's no real solution other than to carry on and try and take note of the fact that our biases can be exploited by trusted sources.

I'm not sure I agree with your portrayal of Russian propaganda bots as fancifully imagined. They are real, present and paid for by the Russian state, this much is fact. To me, it seems they are mostly on Facebook and Twitter though, and if people get their news from Facebook and Twitter accounts without any verifiable source they are asking to be taken for a ride.

On February 19 2018 00:00 GreenHorizons wrote:


The Bush administration thought/prepared like they thought they were. Care to take your own swipe at The Elephant™ or leave it unaddressed like most have/will?

On February 19 2018 00:43 Acrofales wrote:

You call it an elephant. I call it a mosquito, and as per the Dutch proverb, you're turning a mosquito into an elephant.

There is, very obviously, propaganda on all sides. Everybody has an agenda, and everybody is trying to influence each other into believing them. I'm sure that there is plenty of dishonest trash being spun by everybody, and with a commercial untrustworthy media (which you definitely have) there is plenty of it being heaped on the plate of everybody who cares to listen. Whether you swallow wholesale what the HuffPo serves you, what Breitbart serves you, or whatever your Facebook feed serves you, it's none of it good.

However, I do see a qualitative difference in X political faction trying to want to sway your opinion, and a foreign nation trying to weaken your country. The former is a lamentable, but inevitable, part of politics. The latter is severely harmful to your nation. Sure, you can argue that whatever Russia is peddling is no more harmful to your country than what the Republicans or Liberals are peddling, but I believe they are categorically different. I have enough faith left in humanity that even if I completely disagree with McCain or even Ryan, I believe their goals are the betterment of the country. And the same goes for Hillary or Pelosi (I have a lot less faith in Trump... and believe his only goal is self-enrichment and inflating his ego). Putin's goal is the furtherment of Russia, probably at the *cost* of the USA. So I see a categorical difference between the two types of propaganda.

Finally, the intelligence services have found evidence of this being spread and, to some degree, influencing the US elections. Whether they influenced *you personally* is just as irrelevant as you finding P6 believed something irrelevant (and hence the mosquito, rather than the elephant). I can both believe that you personally were not influenced at all by the Russian troll farms and believe that the bernie bros movement *was* being influenced by those Russian trolls.