I’m really fucking sick of all the pit threads about the war. I’m sick of the GD threads and the IMHO threads too but only because of the quantity of them, not the general subject matter.
I’m sick of these pit threads because they’re against everything the board is supposed to be about. People scour the news services for something, anything, about the war with which to be upset.
Sometimes the news article doesn’t even say what they’re ranting about, but they wanted to be the first to bring it to the attention of the Dopers and, in that blind rush, they plum forgot to read the damn story they’re pitting.
“12 Americans and 4 British die in helicopter crash. Fuck you Bush!” Well, actually, it was 12 British and 4 Americans and it had nothing to do with the war, it was apparently a tragic weather related accident.
“Canadians are burning the American flag!!!” Yeah. Four of them. It’s gonna happen.
The war is bad because it’s about oil. The protestors are bad because they block traffic. Twice. The news anchors are bad because they’re too liberal. The news anchors are bad because they’re too conservative. The news headlines are bad because they’re glorifying war. The soldiers are bad because they’re slaughtering innocents. Bush is bad because he’s Dubya. France is bad because they don’t like freedom fries. Have I even made it through half the subjects yet? STOP! Just stop.
People are using the war as a tool to further their political stance. People look for news articles that show even the slightest hint of controversy, suddenly lose all ability to cope, and share their outrage in the hope that they can convert others to their side.
Above all else, they’re perpetuating ignorance, the exact antithesis of the function of the SDMB. People are purposefully and willfully throwing out all sense of logic and critical thinking.
War is ugly. You could be for it, you could be against it, you could be somewhere in between. But to Pit every damn piece of information doesn’t help anyone. We’re crying wolf here people.
Uh huh. I agree. I don’t even open threads that have anything to do with the war, generally. It was the “kind note…” title that got me. Just for the record, though, the initial report on the helicopter crash did have the numbers reversed. I heard it on TV, while trying (and failing, apparently) to ignore it. Not that I think there was anything to rant about, in that story.
Maybe you should come hang out with us, in Callahan’s CrossTime Saloon. We don’t allow the war to intrude, and Mike serves an Irish Coffee so good it’s called God’s Blessing.
How about a “Fuck you, Iraqis” for executing captured US soldiers by shooting them in the forehead in contravention of every code of military conduct and fucking civilized behavior?
I can’t speak for the others, but mayhaps you “plum forgot” to read the threads you’re pitting.
The paragraphs quoted above were exactly what the so-called protesters were doing. Outrage? Check. Perpetuating ignorance? Check. The exact antithesis of what they supposedly stand for? Check. Logic and critical thinking tossed? Check.
If getting pissed off at a bunch of assholes for doing their damndest to bring my City to a standstill, defacing downtown, and keeping people from going home is ignorance, and for drowning out a strong message with lots and lots of noise, then perhaps fighting ignorance isn’t for me.
Okay, I understand you’re frustrated, I am too, but for different reasons. All we hear about anymore is the “current conflict” and the problems facing the world today. The coverage has been unprecedented, at least in recent years. The whole thing is being shoved down everyone’s throat all the time anymore. I agree that the tone has gone reactionary on both sides now, but to be fair, those not in line with the administrations thinking have spent a great deal of time and effort to go completely unheard or shouted down, or belittled as un-American. Perhaps the reason for the escalation in tone on that side is the result of frustration over that. It doesn’t make much sense to adopt the other sides tactics, I agree, but I can certainly understand why some people would be inclined to. After all, what have they got to lose?
That said, and while I respect your opinion, I can only liken it to an ostrich with its head in the ground. So you don’t want to know or discuss what is going on? The option of that hole is right there, and a lot of people are exercizing that right. Posting like this just adds your shrill tone to the shrill tone of others, it’s just a third shrill tone. It doesn’t make a dent and will probably be as “heard” as the other sides.
Which is a bit like saying that a driver being killed in a Formula One race has nothing to do with the race, it’s a tragic brake failure related accident.
Only if they hadn’t been whizzing around a track in a very light car at ridiculous speeds…
This fuckin’ war sucks! Hussein is a brutal dictator! He’s got weapons of mass destruction! Fuck you Hussein! Now that we had to go in, all of al-Qaeda will hate us! No blood for oil!! And it’s all the fault of the French!! All your bases are belong to us!!
When the war is over and all information about everything that both sides did is in (yeah right, as if that’s every going to happen) let’s have a tallying up of atrocities.
Right now, there is only one certain thing: each side will be releasing propaganda that portrays the other in a bad light. As sure as night follows day. If there weren’t any stories about one side treating the other’s captives badly, it would be necessary for the relevant propaganda machine to invent them.
And how do you know that the story you seem to believe is not just that?
What makes you the end-all be-all authority on what’s happening over there, Princhester? Do you have a magic mirror like they did on Romper Room? If so, can you look into it and see whether my pal Tony is pissing in the empty eyesockets of Osama Bin Laden yet?
Gee whillikers, Princhester, you’re right. The US forces Photoshopped those pictures of dead soldiers with the bullet holes in the center of their foreheads and then sold the pics to Al Jazeera. Yeah, that must be it.
Hey Ender, at least one of those threads didn’t rely on CNN at all! The poster was griping because his bartender was a peace-addled flibbertygibbit who was so busy being agitated that she didn’t fill his empty beer glass.
Mr Cynical, read my fucking post. I think that my point may be that I don’t know what is going on over there, and neither does anyone else, not even (given the fog of war) those who are there, beyond their own noses.
Wally.
Furthermore, what the fuck has OBL got to do with it when no one, not even the most rabid propagandist, is suggesting he is in Iraq, so what the fuck are you fucking on about?
And gobear, maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s not. Maybe you don’t know. Just let me get one thing straight, so I can see whether you actually have any non-laughable handle on the situation.
Do you deny that in times of war, warring parties utilise the technique of negative propaganda about the enemy, and that in the course of doing so, they lie?
And furthermore, if you do not deny the foregoing proposition, do you think that the lies would usually be transparent ie that it would usually be obvious that they are lies?
Then don’t call someone a “gullible fool” unless YOU have all the facts, buster. Your bullshit spoutin’ in this thread is the exact sort of thing the OP is complaining about.
Again, Ender, good try, but it’s small-minded propagandizers like Princhester that ruin the game for those of us with an ounce of rationality.
Which bit is bullshit? What am I propagandising? Why am I small-minded?
I think you misunderstand where I am coming from.
I am not advancing the cause of either side. The only person who has done that is gobear. I am saying we do not know what is going on. If Iraq put out some propaganda about the behaviour of US forces I would be just as sceptical, more so, given their track record.
How is that propagandising?
As for Ender’s OP, let me quote you a bit:
eg exactly what gobear did, not me. I am the one being critical about what happens to truth in war.
I am not pitting every damn piece of information (which is what gobear did by raising the "shooting prisoners story apropos nothing) rather I am joining with Ender in pitting those who think every damn piece of information in wartime has value and is worth pitting
I called gobear a gullible fool because he believed press reports that advance the propaganda battle of one side in a war, not because I knew what the facts were, beyond knowing that we don’t know the facts.
And I’m still waiting on gobear’s answers to my questions.
In short SPOOFE, I am small minded because I think we shouldn’t believe everything we read, I am a propagandist because I decry the propagation of propaganda, and my post is “exactly the sort of thing the OP is complaining about” because it criticises someone who does exactly the sort of thing the OP is complaining about.
