What consequences? You keep talking about consequences, but when has . . . whatever the hell you’re talking about . . . ever happened in the US?
I mean, what’s going to happen? Are a bunch of insurance executives going to read the New York Times editorial, cast aside their briefcases and bore peaceful protesters to death? Will the staff of the New York Times succumb to the effects of smoke inhalation when millions of outraged emails for and against the editorial overload the server and start a fire?
What exactly are you worried about? Does this have something to do with propaganda and advertising where you imply something really fucking stupid but still manage to work a bunch of people up, because you don’t actually say the stupid thing and look like an idiot?
You really do come off as a complete nutcase. While you’re not the only poster who swears frequently in the pit, you are the only one who gives the impression that he’s always one post away from a rage induced aneurysm. You probably won’t believe me, but about a year ago I actually pulled back from an argument with you because you got so worked up that I was like ”This can’t be good for the guy”.
You did say it: by implication. To refresh your memory:
I’m talking about marginalised people fighting for their lives at the next election. You came along and said “ah, but it is a philosophy lesson.”
But it isn’t a fucking philosophy lesson. Its real life, and real lives, and those black lives matter. Rejecting the Cotton editorial would not be “repeating the mistakes of 2016.” Editorials get rejected all the time and we never hear about it. The only thing that would be “repeating the mistakes of 2016” from your perspective is the people “calling the editorial out.”
But openly rejecting fascism isn’t “wrong”. Cotton isn’t owed an editorial. And Cottons words didn’t even meet editorial standards.
I’m not your fucking monkey. I don’t dance for you.
We’ve already determined the source of our disagreement – we don’t need to keep going over and over it. I’m glad for their final decision, and we’ll see what happens next time they consider something like this.
…its this little thing they’ve been talking about this week. You might have heard of it? Its been in the news quite a lot.
Its called Black Lives Matter.
There have been over 319 verifiable attacks on the press by police over the last few days. And we’ve had thousands of reports of black protestors getting hurt and injured. This isn’t even theoretical. Have you not been watching the news?
Cotton called for an expansion of the actions currently happening on the streets. By virtue of the colour of their skin black reporters are more likely to be in the firing line.
Yes, thank you, Bear, some of us read the news. That’s not the question. The question is how the publication of someone’s opinion on that is going to make things worse. This shit was going on before the publication of the editorial. The publication of the editorial in no way affected that. Moreover, the NYT didn’t endorse the article, either explicitly or implicitly, any more than I implied black staffers at the NYT would be responsible for Trump winning. You’re making things up out of whole cloth now.
If anyone is engaging in propaganda here, it’s you. That’s not even the problem. The problem is you suck at it.
No. I’m not a hypocrite. I never said I was perfect. I lose my temper from time to time, same as anyone. Virtually everyone here loses their temper occasionally. But you are way, way worse. I can find a dozen examples of you losing your temper to every one of mine. And what’s more, being angry seems to be your default setting. It’s not like you’re calm, and then you’re angry. It’s more like you start angry and then get progressively more furious. I’m not like that. In fact, you’re the only person here who is like that. I don’t have to be a saint to point out that you have an anger management problem. And it’s not like I’m the only person saying so, is it?
…it wasn’t merely “someone’s opinion.” Tom Cotton is a United States Senator who is openly calling for the military to be used on the streets. He is part of the same political party that actually put the military on the streets. Ist disingenuous to characterize this as “merely his opinion.”
And the question has been answered.
The publication of the article has helped normalise the idea of putting the military on the streets. The suggestion is coming from a US Senator after all, and its been published in the “paper of record.” Its the “boiling frog”. We are unlikely to see an “immediate and measurable” threat from an incremental shift in the narrative. But the needle has moved. Every single day the Trump administration does something that if a previous administration had done would have been in the news cycle for days. But we ignore it because its the new normal. Two hours ago the President called Colin Powell “overated.” Nobody is going to care. The Attorney General asked Trump to sack an Inspector General: and so he did. Barely news.
Authoritarianism doesn’t come at you “all at once.” It creeps up on you and you don’t even notice. And publishing the article doesn’t mean that black reporters are going to get murdered overnight. But what it does to is shift the goalposts of what the American people will accept.
The NYT doesn’t have to endorse the article for the publication of it to be problematic.
You STILL don’t understand what propaganda actually is.
Rebuttals were inevitable - that was never in doubt. Some ideas are harmful and shouldn’t be amplified, especially when they come in the form of political propaganda. And let’s just cut the crap: this wasn’t an opinion piece, it was right wing authoritarian propaganda. Cotton wasn’t trying to win a debate; he was trying to amplify Trump’s authoritarian message, and it’s dangerous as hell.
That doens’t really work all that well when dealing with issues of this magnitude. Either one side is helping tyranny occur, or the other side is causing the dark underbelly to be hidden.
I argue the latter is not viable because it wasn’t hidden. Cotton already released this information. I also argue that there would be a way for the Times to post that information without giving him a full platform where he is not rebutted. So there is no risk of the underbelly being hidden.
Sure, they can rebut the next day. So what? That’s like saying it’s okay to print false news, since you can retract it the next day. But we all know that the retraction never goes as far as the initial response.
No, I hold that newspapers (like everyone else) have an obligation to tell the truth, and not allow false information to spread. Everything should be fact checked, and retractions only a last resort. Any good newspaper would have read his op ed, seen the factual inaccuracies and attempts to undermine freedom of the press, and not published it. They might instead report that he sent them an op ed and what it contained, and why it was inaccurate.
This has the same result of the information getting out there, but no issue where false information is left unchallenged, even for 24 hours. The time immediately after something is said is the most important time to debunk it.
The only thing this has going for it is the controversy spreading Cotton’s opinions wider than it initially had. But that would not happen if your position was the one seen as correct–there is only controversy because people think the NYT shouldn’t have posted it. Plus I’m pretty sure that, as soon as it mattered–when Cotton was coming up for reelection, his opposition would drag up what he said and use it against him, anyways.
Of course, as an Arkansan, I know it likely won’t matter either way. A primary challenger would probably not be able to win by going against it. I saw my local police and how they wrote about the protests even my more blue area of the state–they were all for using excessive force at any hint of anything non-peaceful. And that was their attempt to reassure people.
So, if Cotton is actually defeated over this issue, I’ll at least capitulate it didn’t cause too much harm.
Magnitude doesn’t erase the subtleties, BigT. “Either one side is helping tyranny occur, or the other side is causing the dark underbelly to be hidden.” is the opinion of a child like moron.
And again, you are making assertions with absolutely no basis in historical fact. When did it ever work out like this anywhere on Earth, let alone the US. Give me one example where publishing controversial opinions led to the erosion of liberty and an authoritarian government. Not just violence, mind you, but authoritarianism. Yes, you’re right about Trump, but the thing is, Bear, that this has nothing to do with what the NYT did. I mean, which is scarier to you? Reading about what Trump said about Powell and how he fired the Inspector General? Or not being able to read about it, because someone decided it would be too controversial to print? Cotton believes what he wrote. Don’t you think it’s important that we know what he believes, too?
Your second sentence does not follow logically from your first sentence. At all. Yes, authoritarianism creeps up on you, but it starts with censorship and suppression of controversial and sometimes wrong opinions, not the airing of them. Personally, I’m a little more comfortable knowing that a sitting senator thinks this way than I would have him thinking this way, only we’re blissfully unaware of it.
We all need to guard against authoritarianism and dictatorship. Always. Never let your guard down against that. But for the love of God, take a little time and read about how these anti-democratic movements get into power!!!. It’s not by getting “legitimized” in a paper (and I’ll repeat that the NYT in no way legitimized Senator Cotton’s opinion just by publishing it. Those NYT staffers might be sincere in their beliefs, but they’re sincerely wrong.).
Even if the NYT did make a mistake in publishing the piece–and again, I don’t for a moment think it did–wouldn’t you rather have it err on the side of getting the opinion out there for all to hear and not suppress something because of vague consequences?
Especially if those consequences don’t actually exist.
Neither, apparently, do you. Senator Cotton’s piece might be incorrect, but it is hell and gone from propaganda.
My claim isn’t that “publishing controversial opinions” leads to the "erosion of liberty and an authoritarian government. My specific claim here is that this specific article is just part of the normalization of the abnormal. It wasn’t merely a controversial opinions. These were the words of a US Senator, echoing the rhetoric coming from the President of the United States of America. Its not an opinion. Its the plan.
What the NYT did was publish an article that was outside of their established guidelines. What the NYT did was literally pitch the idea to Cotton, which was a fucking stupid thing for them to do.
False dilemma. You only got the chance to read the article because the NYT fucked up badly. It only got written because the NYT pitched the story back to Cotton. You only read it because the normal NYT editorial proceedure failed so miserably.
What you didn’t read was the op-ed about the journalist who lost an eye during the protests because it was rejected by the editorial process. What you didn’t read were the 3 articles pitched by a Democrat Senator because it was rejected by the editorial process. I hate to break it to you but “not being able to read a specific article published in a specific paper” is something that happens all the damn time. I hate to break it to you but I already know what Cotton believes in because he said exactly the same thing earlier in the week,which was widely reported by not only the NYT but every other mainstream media outlet.
So what scares me more? Obviously the firing of the Inspector General. We are reaching the lawless phase of the rise of an authoritarian regime. They are removing oversight. 3 Inspector Generals fired and a fourth on the chopping block. I can’t even believe that this was a serious question.
You keep characterizing Cotton’s article as merely “controversial” when it would be more accurate to call it state propaganda. It doesn’t start with “censorship.” The experts I’ve cited can all speak at length at how it starts. The erosion of expected norms. The removal of oversight. Simply ignoring the law. We’ve seen repeated examples of this.
We all know he thinks this way. It was widely reported that he thinks this way. There was no reason for the NYT to publish the op-ed, let along pitch it.
The NYT legitimized Cotton’s opinion not when the published it, but when they decided to pitch it.
And lets not take race off the table. It wasn’t just NYT staffers who said this article would put them at risk. It was the black staffers. That context: especially in light of everything going on right now, is important and relevant. They weren’t wrong just because you say so. They collectively have years of lived experience of living with white supremacy. And normalizing white supremacist propaganda is going to put their lives at risk.
The consequences aren’t vague at all. We are seeing the direct results of normalisation of abnormal behaviour and the result of that is 319 blatant attacks on the first amendment by the police forces seeking to silence the media that is trying to covering them.
What you meant to say was “those consequences don’t actually exist: for most white people.”
In fact, you’re claiming it right here in the post:
Also, you haven’t cited any experts in this thread.
and again . . .
aaaaaaand once more . . .
That’s the problem with arguing with a librarian. We have reading comprehension, and we’re not afraid to use it.
Errrr . . . first of all, Banquet Bear, by the definition you provided in that quote, your post is propaganda.
Secondly, unless you want to label all letters to the editor, editorials that you may or may not agree with, church sermons, and political conversations around the dinner table as “propaganda,” you might want to narrow down that definition.
…what is it, do you think, “shift the goalposts of what the American people will accept”, actually means?
Liar. I haven’t characterized Cotton’s article as merely a “controversial opinion.” I haven’t made any claims that “publishing controversial opinions” leads to the “erosion of liberty and an authoritarian government.” What you’ve quoted right here does not say what you claim it says.
I cited Sarah Kendzior, Jason Stanley, and Cas Mudde as rebuttal to your “decades in academic libraries.”
Liar. Once again in that quote I didn’t characterize what Cotton wrote as " a controversial opinion." I didn’t claim in that quote that “an opinion” would lead to “erosion of liberty and an authoritarian government.”
aaaaaaand once more . . .
You’ve lied again.
I absolutely knew you were going to say this. I was absolutely certain you were going to say this absolutely stupid thing. And you did. Thanks for not letting me down.
I’m good with what the wikipedia page says. Its why I provided a link. I’m entirely satisfied that what I said here is not propaganda, that letters to the editor are not propaganda, but the words of a sitting Senator echoing the words of the President of the United States written in the manner that it was does fit the definition.
So that was an absolute failure of a rebuttal. You only addressed a single sentence I wrote, ignored everything else I said, and you had to resort to lies in order to do it. Bravo.
It was a massive failure to actually pitch this story to Cotton, to not put it through the normal editorial process, for Bennett to** not even read the story before publication.**
It does, Bear. It really does. Whatever you think of Cotton’s editorial, it is a controversial opinion. Your definition of propaganda that you posted here is meaningless. Just . . . meaningless. You’re making up new definitions of words to suit your purpose. If you get all hot and bothered about what a sitting US senator says and then at the NYT for having the gall to print it, it’s no longer an editorial, is it? It’s propaganda. This is what intellectual dishonesty is all about, and it’s one of the more obvious ploys.
No you didn’t. You wrote their names in a post. “Cite” means that you also tell us what they said, or at least, you know, cite the articles that they wrote so that we can see them?
Thank you for your incorrect, uninformed opinion.
Huh . . . well, chalk one up for journalistic integrity. The NYT folds to popular opinion yet again. I think I’m going to clutch my heart and collapse from lack of shock.
I actually don’t think you’re a liar, Bear. I think you’re stupid to the point of actually figuring out a way to turn it into a defense mechanism so that you don’t actually have to think about what you post, but I really do think you believe this shit.
Just a quick tip from me to you? Have you tried . . . knowing what the fuck you’re talking about? I find that works wonders in debates.
I give as good as I get: thats all. At least I don’t use the C#$t word.