Paris Is Burning Over Climate Change Taxes -- Is America Next?

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

2 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

CNN is not news.  Not even close. Cheers.

As for the Washington Post, it has a long and cherished tradition of deep reporting, and was the newspaper that undid the Nixon Administration by developing the "Deep Throat"  FBI informant, where they would meet in darkened garages at night and whisper information, in classic leak fashion.  Great stuff. 

That may be, but what proof do you have that they have any of that old school integrity left?  Bezos seems to have permeated every facet of it, at least from what I have seen. 

[TXPower + 643]

2 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

That may be, but what proof do you have that they have any of that old school integrity left?  Bezos seems to have permeated every facet of it, at least from what I have seen. 

There are no Woodward & Bernstein’s at WaPo, hasn’t been for a very long time......

[shadowkin + 584]

News has always served the agenda of the state and has never been unbiased. Any information service that relies on info fed to it by 'a source close to the administration', 'high government official' cannot be unbiased and independent.  The New York Times and Washington Post are probably the biggest offenders here since that's who the government goes to when it wants to dole out info. It's then picked up by regional news organizations. With the 'anonymous' sources you always have to wonder if those are real at all.

In related news, CNN's 'Journalist of the Year' for 2014 recently resigned from Germany's Der Spiegel magazine for fabricating stories printed in Der Spiegel. He also freelanced for 'several high-profile German publications and also outlets abroad'. Among the doozies he wrote was one story that of course portrays Americans as backward racists.

Der Spiegel is considered a serious news/political magazine in Germany. He also won German reporting awards.

Edited December 20, 2018 by shadowkin

[Red + 252]

2 hours ago, mthebold said:

On the note of lived realities, I agree that Tom's memes are... lowbrow.  I also agree that the members of this forum aren't the best audience for them.  That said, I think you may have misunderstood Tom's intent.  As he pointed out, memes are information warfare, and they are effective.  We can learn something about the average person's reality and thought processes by studying the memes.  I.e. the memes Tom presents are important for understanding people.  Therefore, we must consider them. 

To some they may be funny, and perhaps you are his ideal audience.

Whatever Tom thinks the intent, and then reality, there seems a chasm.  How Tom can regard his drivel as information warfare is beyond me unless the information is irrelevance. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

2 hours ago, TXPower said:

There are no Woodward & Bernstein’s at WaPo, hasn’t been for a very long time......

Agree Woodward & Bernstein credibillity is unquestionable. 

BTW - Bob woodward wrote a great book about the Trump administration, right? Not the least bit troubling, right?

[TXPower + 643]

17 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Agree Woodward & Bernstein credibillity is unquestionable. 

BTW - Bob woodward wrote a great book about the Trump administration, right? Not the least bit troubling, right?

Troubling, yes, but no more so than similar books that have honestly and accurately looked into the Clinton White House or any pending that will look into the Obama White House.  Each of the 3 has very questionable honesty, ethics, integrity and all have skeletons exposed and yet to be exposed.  Stay tuned...…………...  

[Mike Marcellus + 157]

3 hours ago, mthebold said:

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that people only understand what they've experienced.

Thank you Paul.  I love simple, and I feel that simple sentence applies to every single discussion on this forum.  Maybe every debate ever.   

 

1 hour ago, Red said:

How Tom can regard his drivel as information warfare is beyond me

...It might be.  ...but i'm kidding, you strike me as very smart.  But I would offer this opinion, the meme is intended to "start the conversation" not "solve the problem"  

but, what do I know?

and of course, "Cheers"

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

4 hours ago, mthebold said:

I've met some country boys with fairly regressive ideas who were, nonetheless, good people.  The issue there is not that they're "low-life flotsam", but that they grew up in a certain environment and did the best they could with it.  I believe there's a distinction between someone who is ignorant through no fault of their own and "low-life flotsam". 

That said, can you be more specific on what you mean by "gun nut"?  What set of ideas do these people hold, and what behaviors, specifically, do they engage in that separate them from the rest of the population? 

 

The evidence that Democrats were trying to import voters is that Trump offered the DACA amnesty they claimed to want in exchange for immigration reform, but they rejected it.  In fact, he offered them more amnesty than they publicly asked for, and they still rejected it.  The lesson is that they didn't care about DACA; they just wanted the flow of immigrants to continue.  It's possible Trump knew they would reject the offer, but made it anyway just to highlight their hypocrisy. 

Their motive may not be the Hispanic voters themselves.  Democrats know that poor people with no hope vote for more government.  Flooding a country with millions of poor immigrants depresses wages, impoverishing the native population as well as the immigrants.  Democrats may be betting on the wholesale depression of wages to earn votes.  Even if that's not their intent, it's the practical outcome.  Millions of people are living the reality of depressed wages.  We can disagree with their political analysis, but it's not reasonable to dismiss their reality. 

 

On the note of lived realities, I agree that Tom's memes are... lowbrow.  I also agree that the members of this forum aren't the best audience for them.  That said, I think you may have misunderstood Tom's intent.  As he pointed out, memes are information warfare, and they are effective.  We can learn something about the average person's reality and thought processes by studying the memes.  I.e. the memes Tom presents are important for understanding people.  Therefore, we must consider them. 

Given the context the average person lives in, Tom's memes are actually the bare minimum stimulation necessary to hold someone's attention.  Like the 1800's street-rag tabloids you mention, memes are necessarily simplistic.  They're intended for a wide audience - which implies "the average person" - and simplistic is all the average person can handle.  On top of that, we must consider the ever increasing stimulation from 24/7 news cycles, increasingly shocking television, social media, and the incessant barrage of notifications from smart phones.  Memes are provocative because they must be. 

And then there's the pain, emotional distress, and heartache the average person struggles with.  Money may not buy happiness, but crying in a Mercedes is not the same level of stress as being unable to afford your loved one's funeral.  Snark, profanity, and crudity are not always voluntary choices.  More often, they're a coping mechanism for pain.  The final wall holding back an individual's despair.  If you don't believe that, go to war and watch good young men slowly mutate into sarcastic assholes.  Crudity, extremism, and disrespect in memes may be a plea for help.  It's a population's way of saying, "Something is very wrong, and we need you to listen."  We may not agree with their political analysis, but we must attend to their reality. Attending to the reality requires understanding it, and understanding it requires listening to everything, however unpleasant. 

Let's look at the opposite side of this coin: the comfortable elites.  I recognize that you're well-educated and operate in circles of intelligent, successful people.  You know there's a better way to live, I respect the knowledge you share, and I hope some day we can all emulate you.  At the same time, I see you becoming irritated with crass behavior, and I suspect there's a disconnect between your experience and theirs. 

Often, circumstances do not allow people to think and behave in particular ways.  Your level of affluence allows you certain options - not just economically, but also in how you view the world.  Those who struggle - the kind of "deplorables" who voted for Trump out of desperation - lack those options.  They cannot see what you see, and it's not their fault.  You cannot see what they see, and that's not your fault.  I run into this lack of understanding constantly when I try to explain to upper-middle-class city dwellers what life is like in rural communities.  Or when I try to explain to former officers what it was like to be enlisted.  Or when I try to explain the atrocities of Islamic extremists to naive civilians.  The unfortunate fact of the matter is that people only understand what they've experienced.  The elites get irritated with the common man's lack of refinement, and the common man gets irritated with the elites' detachment from practical concerns.  Neither is wrong.  The solution is for each to listen to everything the other has to say - not just the convenient or pleasant bits. 

To summarize: crass culture is a result of the pain people experience; it will not disappear until the pain disappears.  We can ignore the crudity until it boils over into a civil war, or we can listen, understand, and address the underlying causes.  I vote for listening, however unpleasant the memes may be. 

I disagree. 3 words : Lead by example. 

The problem with Toms memes is that they dum down the debate, which in my opinion is not helpful. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

12 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I would have to agree with Red.  Tom, your intent is to poke fun and jog the reader, but the problem is that it falls flat in this medium.  It comes across as belittling and denigrating.  In your first example, you are denigrating Christian Evangelicals, specifically Hispanic Evangelicals.  I suspect the intention was to nudge readers into recognizing that reliance on the State for social programs results is a loss of self-reliance and personal respect, but it comes across as slapping Hispanic immigrants who hold deep-felt beliefs in their personal relationship to Christ.  Thus it is belittling a set of religious beliefs, and in respectful society we don't do that.  Does not matter what we think; what matters is to be respectful of what others think. 

Your second meme, intended as a jab at Chuck Schumer, is belittling.  Mr. Schumer is a sitting United States Senator, and if you don't want to respect him, because you think his thoughts are no good, then that's fine, you can go disagree.  But we don't disrespect the Office, which is what your meme is doing.   Your meme is a cartoon straight out of 1800's street-rag tabloids, and we have grown up as a nation since those days.  You don't see it that way and consider Senator Schumer a fair-game target, and that posture is, in part, why the political discourse is so fraught with peril, and does not more forward.  First, there is zero evidence to support the notion that Senator Schumer is attempting to advance immigration of a national group in order to further the voting numbers of the Democratic Party.  Second, the implied target, Latin Americans, are not likely candidates for the Democrats.  I suggest that the majority of second-generation Hispanic (but non-Puerto Rican) immigrants vote either Republican or Libertarian.  They tend to be socially quite conservative and the Dems lose out with their Party platform of  Leftist social ideas, including on abortion and homosexuality. So the meme is not even on point.  It is pure denigration of the Senate.

Your third meme takes a swipe at the news media.  While I would agree that cable news is typically not news and has disintegrated into sound bites of political opinion, and thus is both useless and worthless, that is not the case with either the New York Times or the Washington Post.  While in the case of the Post the new owner sometimes leans on the editorial staff to advance his own revenge agenda against people he does not like, still in the main the newsroom is free of interference.  The Times certainly tries to do an exemplary job and, with one glaring failure, carefully vets its news.  You can argue that the news media is fair game,  it probably is, but still the blanket swiping only coarsens the political discourse.  I think your meme is a silly cartoon, it fails. 

And that's the problem with memes in the context in which you attempt to use them:  They cannot convey nuance, as they are too pointed.  So the become rather silly, childish displays of petulance.  Which was likely not what you intended, but that is the way it ends up. 

I want to take an English class so I can convey my thougths like this..

Agree 100 % by the way.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

8 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

just out of interest what is your take on breitbart? 

Right wing bias.  Balances out MSM left wing bias.

[Red + 252]

8 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Right wing bias.  Balances out MSM left wing bias.

Tom practices new math:

-1 + -1 = 0

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

14 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Right wing bias.  Balances out MSM left wing bias.

Why don't we just call it "right wing lunatic nutcase outfit" and close that book.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

41 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Why don't we just call it "right wing lunatic nutcase outfit" and close that book.

Because that would remove the balance to the unending, darn near all-encompassing, left wing bias of Mainstream Media.

Here, have some Rex on the closing of the Conservative The Weekly Standard:

Kristol's Fall is Far From Over...and He Knows It, Too

[Red + 252]

9 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Because that would remove the balance to the unending, darn near all-encompassing, left wing bias of Mainstream Media.

Here, have some Rex on the closing of the Conservative The Weekly Standard:

Kristol's Fall is Far From Over...and He Knows It, Too

Some countries are fortunate enough to have public broadcasters with a charter of neutrality.

That does not stop the lunatic fringe from having their say through any number of social media, nor the media moguls spinning their personal agendas through as many media platforms as they can afford.

To suggest right wing v's left wing has a cancelling out effect is strange thinking.  People gravitate towards confirmation bias because it consoles them, particularly that so many others share those thoughts.  

Muller (not Mueller) often said the truth was out there, and seeking it is a worthy challenge.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

14 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Because that would remove the balance to the unending, darn near all-encompassing, left wing bias of Mainstream Media.

Here, have some Rex on the closing of the Conservative The Weekly Standard:

Kristol's Fall is Far From Over...and He Knows It, Too

Bill Kristol holds everyone who is not part of his crowd in utter disdain.  Actually, come to think of it, Billy Kristol holds everyone in disdain.  Just a lovely fellow.  See if I care about him and his useless "Weekly Standard" rag sheet.  Ugh.   Besides, Kristol went to Harvard, so you already know he is useless and insolent.  More ugh.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

4 hours ago, shadowkin said:

News has always served the agenda of the state and has never been unbiased. Any information service that relies on info fed to it by 'a source close to the administration', 'high government official' cannot be unbiased and independent.  The New York Times and Washington Post are probably the biggest offenders here since that's who the government goes to when it wants to dole out info. It's then picked up by regional news organizations. With the 'anonymous' sources you always have to wonder if those are real at all.

I frequent specific chan forums for browsing unfiltered global news, the opposite of MSM.  Here is an excerpt from the Welcome page from one such forum.  You won't find this site on Google search because Google actively removes links to the site:

We are happy you joined us. However, you need to be aware you are entering a Free Speech board.  99.95% of the internet is tailored to high-civility and/or mainstream speak.  The chans are the ONE public forum where uncensored participation is allowed with no barriers to entry.  You must understand how precious that is. 

... This can make you feel disoriented, because you are probably coming off internet areas where censorship is the jackboot rule of the day, but the reverse is true here.  Illegal content and spam is the only exception, and will be removed by a Board Moderator or Global Moderator.

We know it can be tough.  There is no one lurking behind the scenes to decide for you what you should see and shouldn't see.  It is up to YOU to decide for yourself and look or not look.  You will be expected to use your own brain and filter those things you don't wish to see, by not looking at them.  Its a very adult concept, but no one is here to make you happy.  You do not have a right not to be offended.  You do not have a right to be 'comfortable'.  Everyone has a guaranteed right to Freedom of Speech. 'Inappropriate', 'offensive,' and 'problematic' are words that do not exist here.  YOU are responsible for what YOU look at and how YOU feel about it; NO ONE ELSE IS.  You can choose to look or not look, read or not read.  If you do read something you don't like, then remove it from behind your eyeballs yourself and move on.  It is your fault if you allow a thing you don't like to sit in your head and take root and make you feel offended.  We do not care if you are offended.  We don't want to hear about it.  Do not tell us if you are offended.

Everyone here is anonymous.  We care about your ideas and your words and the value of what you say.  We value your contributions.  We don't care who you are, what your race or gender is, and we do not want to know.  The game of identity politics is not played here.  Here, we really are equal, and equally anonymous.  8chan is different than the rest of the internet.  You will probably feel shell-shocked.  We know, that's why we're giving you advice.  Steady yourself and hang on to something!  And get ready to remember how amazing it is to be master of your own experience.

 

[TXPower + 643]

47 minutes ago, Red said:

Some countries are fortunate enough to have public broadcasters with a charter of neutrality.

That does not stop the lunatic fringe from having their say through any number of social media, nor the media moguls spinning their personal agendas through as many media platforms as they can afford.

To suggest right wing v's left wing has a cancelling out effect is strange thinking.  People gravitate towards confirmation bias because it consoles them, particularly that so many others share those thoughts.  

Muller (not Mueller) often said the truth was out there, and seeking it is a worthy challenge.

Yes indeed, which is why the totally biased, all day strong, all day long co-opted MSM is feeding a heapin helping of regressive bias.   They prove your point above magnificently.  Simple supply and demand really. Overwhelming supply of sheep who crave, want, need the malarkey the so-called journalists are serving up. I’m ok, your ok, everybody is ok, no judgement, no limits, no personal accountability (unless politically expedient)  If it makes you happy or feel good, do it.  That’s a damn easy sell.  Leftist drivel the opiate of the masses. If it weren’t so President Trump would get way less press and perhaps we’d have a better informed people here in the U.S. and the rest of the world. That’s not to say some, air quote, press outlets aren’t in the tank for opposite viewpoints.  There are, but few, very few.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

8 hours ago, mthebold said:

On the note of lived realities, I agree that Tom's memes are... lowbrow.  I also agree that the members of this forum aren't the best audience for them.  That said, I think you may have misunderstood Tom's intent.  As he pointed out, memes are information warfare, and they are effective.

Memes are very much information warfare.

Social media sites still cannot yet "machine read" and understand memes.

Twitter and Facebook totally freaked out over the recent NPC meme campaign, and carte blanche deleted user accounts en masse of users who changed their profile pictures to NPC heads.

Memes can still effectively bypass MSM automatic censor mechanisms.

Jack Dorsey (head of Twitter) is still trying to find a way to automatically read and censor memes.  The meme war rages on.

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

6 hours ago, Red said:

To some they may be funny, and perhaps you are his ideal audience.

Whatever Tom thinks the intent, and then reality, there seems a chasm.  How Tom can regard his drivel as information warfare is beyond me unless the information is irrelevance. 

Let me take you back in time to ye olden days of Usenet, to the first online information war.

This quote remains relevant today, online, with memes:

<snip>

>Ridicule is most likely a source of self-amusement for the people who engage in it and it probably has some internal therapeutic value for them. But generally I don't think it is an effective method of bringing about reform or social changes as it usually causes alienation and hardens the resolve of the people who are being subjected to it.

Agreed that ridicule can be a source of self-amusement.  I'd hate to think that other jokers and degraders are doing so with a grim determination.  I also see how ridicule can cause alienation and harden resolve.  It doesn't always, but it can.  What I do not agree with is your assessment of ridicule's effectiveness in furthering reform or fostering social change.  

Ridicule can't be beat when it comes to kicking the bejeezus out of an oppressive, idiotic or just plain thoughtless belief/system, regardless if that belief is political, social or spiritual.  Besides, it can be fun...unless the ridicule is directed towards the spiritual in which case it is taboo and very bad manners so please don't do it.

A walk down the path of history is crunchy with the crispy corpses of those who pooh-poohed or ignored the clown car of ridicule when it pulled-up to the curb.  Who would have thought such a tiny car could contain so many infectious and revolutionary guffaws?  Satires, parodies, blue humor, pants to the ground ass-wavings, tea-dumping, Modest Proposal submiting, 7 dirty word spewing, flag burning, frankly impolite, just plain rude and improper expressions of ridicule have either ignited reform, fanned the flames or kicked the corpse to make sure it was dead.

>And when it is done in public, I don't think most people look favorably on the people engaging in it as ridicule is generally considered offensive.

But sometimes it is supposed to be offensive. Sure, sometimes it's just dumb and sometimes it backfires, HELLO! Mikesmith3, Woody and the rest of the ars handlers from the Jokers/Degraders/Copyright terrorists and degraded wog beings of ARS.  Ridicule can be just mean and ugly but it is also capable of greater things.

Stephen Jones

 

[Red + 252]

20 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Let me take you back in time to ye olden days of Usenet, to the first online information war.

This quote remains relevant today, online, with memes: ..

Again, you seem to confuse what information warfare really is.  Jan showed clearly in an earlier post how your version of memes ( I personally use different criteria) were inappropriate, if not irrelevant.

I like the idea of injecting humour into a thread, especially where it is topical:  the clip of three children, with one adding an EU star as another nation "fell" was brilliant.  However when the underlying theme has passed its use by date, it loses relevance and thereafter may cease to be funny (except as a retrospective).

 

[shadowkin + 584]

Pretentious pseudo-intellectuals splitting hairs about what's a meme or cartoon, is it silly, cultured... on an oil forum...no wonder the muzzies are literally walking into your countries and taking over

 

[Illurion + 894]

22 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

P.S.  every wonder why I use so many silly memes to illustrate my point?  This military thesis from 2005 lays out the intellectual purposes of memes pretty clearly:

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a507172.pdf

 

Don't listen to them Tom.  I love all of your memes and pictures.   Funny and interesting.

[Illurion + 894]

19 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I would have to agree with Red.  Tom, your intent is to poke fun and jog the reader, but the problem is that it falls flat in this medium. 

They do not fall flat as far as i am concerned.

I love what Tom posts,  and save copies of them to show my Wife.

Not only are they funny as hell,  but are often so true.

[shadowkin + 584]

5 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Here, have some Rex on the closing of the Conservative The Weekly Standard:

 Kristol's Fall is Far From Over...and He Knows It, Too

Kristol was never what you would call a traditional conservative. He was a neo-conservative just like David Brooks at the New York Times. These types are accepted into the left-wing press for this reason and trotted out as acceptable 'conservatives' and it's why you'll see left-wing rags like Slate pretending the death of the Weekly Standard is a tragedy.

It's a similar situation to when they would praise McCain but when he ran for president they trashed him. They're useful idiots.

 

[Illurion + 894]

18 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

What Timmermans is implying is that the legacy of colonial powers of Europe so disrupting Africa leaves an obligation on the colonial powers, and now the entire European continent, to work towards the sustainable development of Africa.     

Her advocates internal African development.  The implication is that with African work opportunities there is no impetus to go to Europe.  I, for one, do agree with that proposition.  

If you are only looking at this as a "development" plan,  i do not believe you are looking down the road to the implications, and impact this will have on Europe.

You are biting off more than you can chew.

Africa is a black hole that Europe will go bankrupt filling with cash.

Europe cannot even fill the black hole cash needs of many of the current EU members.

In addition,  frankly i do not believe the man.  he is a supporter of Merkel / Macron and a foolish believer that massive migration to Europe from Africa is a good thing.

I am sure that neither Tom or I will change your mind,  so i will simply state that in less than 10 years,  Tom will be telling you "I Told You So."