when fact checked 88% of Tory claims were found to be untrue.
You should provide a link on that. Still, something close ought now to be expected. Misinformation/disinformation content and techniques are proliferating there and here at a rate that our systems and institutions may not be able to withstand. Bad-faith players are more than eager to see this come about.
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Then there's Brexit, Johnson was believed when he said he could get it done. Most Brexiteers are xenophobic and Johnson likes to celebrate his racism.
Case in point. The decade or half decade that has preceded Johnson paved the way for him.
But blaming "the media" is far too inexact and works to the advantage of those bad-faith players who very much want citizens to lose faith in, for example, the Guardian.
But blaming "the media" is far too inexact and works to the advantage of those bad-faith players who very much want citizens to lose faith in, for example, the Guardian.
The Guardian is the UK's NYT. Good for the bottom of a bird cage or wrapping fish.
0 Replies
izzythepush
3
Sat 14 Dec, 2019 01:58 pm
@blatham,
I wasn't just blaming the media, I was blaming the disproportionate spend between the two parties.
I shouldn't have to provide links for things that are common knowledge!
I think his problem is more that he doesn't do well at tolerating disagreement. That's a serious impediment in a still competitive world.
0 Replies
blatham
2
Sat 14 Dec, 2019 02:18 pm
@georgeob1,
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Has it occurred to you that you appear to , hypocritically, suffer from the same malady?
Oh, I see'd that coming a mile away, george.
But you do have a point. I've been reading Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism and even though I have no such power or influence such as those agencies I've referred to, it strikes me as a moral responsibility to do what little I can to convince folks that a political movement, ideology and party which would celebrate the authoritarianism and proto-totalitarianism voiced by William Barr when he spoke at Notre Dame is an acute danger to everyone's liberties. Demands for uniformity of moral notions and uniformity of theological ideas aligned with a political vision which demands that communities/nations proceed under the presumption - indeed, under the claim that natural law demands - that only the strongest and most merciless are the proper rulers of all the rest of us, is going to work towards the destruction of everything that makes America a thing worth saving.
Thanks for links. What is understood as "common knowledge" by some very often is not terribly common. I always prefer to default to citations to account for this.
I believe John Adams said our Constitution will only work for a moral people.
I do not see the word "relative" in there. Your post is your usual bullshit.
0 Replies
izzythepush
1
Sat 14 Dec, 2019 02:34 pm
@blatham,
It is common knowledge. You could have easily googled it for yourself.
0 Replies
georgeob1
1
Sat 14 Dec, 2019 02:49 pm
@blatham,
A reasonable reply. However what you described is likely at least roughly similar to what the NRA describes as its own motivation. In a similar vein you may recall that in the "Origins of Totalitarianism", Arendt included both Marxism and Nazism (both extreme Left and Right in today's parlance) in her analysis of regimes that attempted to control all aspects of human life through force and terror.
Following Arendt, are your demands for uniformity, in their essential character, any different from those you attribute to the NRA?
may recall that in the "Origins of Totalitarianism", Arendt included both Marxism and Nazism (both extreme Left and Right in today's parlance) in her analysis of regimes that attempted to control all aspects of human life through force and terror.
Actually, that's not so. Arendt had very little to say about Marxism in her book and those references do not accord with what you suggest. Here's a typical example:
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In Marxist terms the new phenomenon of an alliance between mob [the use of "mob" by Arendt does not mean the masses but rather something closer to modern American right wing militias or Nazi brown shirts] and capital seemed so unnatural, so obviously in conflict with the doctrine of class struggle, that the actual dangers of the imperialist attempt - to divide mankind into master races and slave races, into higher and lower breeds, into colored peoples and white men, all of which were attempts to unify the people on the basis of the mob - were completely overlooked" (page 152)
There are, in fact, only seven single page references to "Marxism" listed in the index. Stalinism and communism however are a much different story.
You wrote:
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regimes that attempted to control all aspects of human life through force and terror.
Here, Arendt can be very illuminating.
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Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself; the masses have to be won by propaganda. Under conditions of constitutional government and freedom of opinion, totalitarian movements struggling for power can use terror to a limited extent only and share with other parties the necessity of winning adherents and of appearing plausible to a public which not yet rigorously isolated from all other sources of information. (page 341)
Let's note here that such rigorous isolation from all other sources of information is a process or status which comes about gradually and purposefully to the end of totalitarian control.
And let's also note that such constraints on uses of terror under constitutional government, free speech, etc can yet permit a lower level of the same thing - that is, the use of threats and bullying and penalization of voices which speak out against totalitarian/authoritarian-leaning political entities. The relevance of this at the present moment ought to be obvious.
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Following Arendt, are your demands for uniformity, in their essential character, any different from those you attribute to the NRA?
I'm not sure what you might mean by "my demands" here. The NRA is, of course, not merely or even mainly an ideological entity. It is as much or more a commercial enterprise which rakes in millions of bucks for its administrators from weapons manufacturers who are looking for profits. It is attached primarily to the GOP. And this, as the NRA is now constructed, has relevance to what Arendt details. You may remember than Andrew Breitbart, shortly before he died and before Bannon replacced him, said that he sometimes hoped the left would "fire the first shot" because "we outnumber them in this country and we have the guns"
That's what Arendt means in her use of "mobs". Should we note here that the left in America has no such cadres of weapon-heavy militias.
Perhaps you could be more clear on what you conceive as my demands for uniformity. I'll assume you aren't pointing to my "demands" that the nation (any nation) works in a dedicated manner towards maximal citizen voting. Or my demand that a citizenry be afforded such social programs as they, by polling and ballots, reveal that they, by majority, desire. Or my demand that any party which seeks single party domination over the nation be broadly understood as a totalitarian enterprise.
0 Replies
georgeob1
0
Sat 14 Dec, 2019 04:22 pm
@georgeob1,
Your first quote is from an unnamed source, not written by Hannah Arendt, but rather by some like-thinking (to you) apologist, writing opinions about her. The fact is that the Totalitarianism she addressed embraced the aims and actions of both the Communist and Nazi movements she witnessed in her formative years in Germany c- she saw the common elements in both. That is simply true.
Wrong george. As noted, p 152. Harvest Books, 1968. I'm typing directly from the my copy of the book. Why would you think otherwise, I'm curious?
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The fact is that the Totalitarianism she addressed embraced the aims and actions of both the Communist and Nazi movements she witnessed in her formative years in Germany c- she saw the common elements in both. That is simply true.
Fine. I didn't say otherwise. Your reference was to Marxism and as I noted there are a mere 7 notes found in the index, none running even a single page in content. And as I also said, that's not the case for Stalinism or communism.
You seem to want to identify Marxism and communism as being the same thing. Arendt does not make that mistake.
I don't understand your comments about the first quote. It was clearly, from its text, written about Arendt, and not by her.
OK, Communism if you prefer. The totalitarianism to which I referred wasn't an explicit part of Marx' writings, however it was a salient and universal element of every serious effort to apply his doctrin, and for that Communist is indeed a better and more accurate term. The struggle between German Communists and the early Nazis were indeed prominent features of Arendt's world in her early years and the totalitarianism, anti Semitism & Imperialism which she addressed appear all to have been rooted to her experience and studies in Germany.
Are you possibly enjoying a fine Chardonnay? That first quote is from your post. I presumed you'd remember it.
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A reasonable reply. However what you described is likely at least roughly similar to what the NRA describes as its own motivation. In a similar vein you may recall that in the "Origins of Totalitarianism", Arendt included both Marxism and Nazism (both extreme Left and Right in today's parlance) in her analysis of regimes that attempted to control all aspects of human life through force and terror.
0 Replies
blatham
1
Sat 14 Dec, 2019 05:08 pm
Anyway, we can take this up later if you like. I have to run.
