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My coworker just said to me "If you don't watch the recent Snowden interview, you have your head in the sand" Can someone paraphrase what I am missing and why I should care?
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May 29, 2014 15:10
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joeburz posted:The fact that Kerry was successfully trashed for his service is something I will never fully understand. The sticking point that they harped on was that the navy lets (or let, I don't know if this policy still exists) people rotate out of combat duty, if they so choose, after they get a wound bad enough to get their third purple heart. It's totally optional. Some people do it, some people don't, and I remember hearing interviews from other naval officers that were like "well yeah, it's no big deal. Some people rotate out, some don't. Some do it after four or five injuries. Officers don't really care if a guy rotates out. Thanks for the service, enjoy your desk job." It was the GOP that lost their minds about Kerry being a hideous coward that ran away from combat focusing on the fact that he did, in fact, rotate out of actual fighting while completely ignoring what the requirements were. The other side of it was that Kerry, once he left his service, joined the Vietnam Vets Against the War. Since then his attitude has more or less been "yeah war pretty much sucks, we should avoid it." After seeing how lovely war is the dude decided that maybe some pacifism is a good thing and we shouldn't start shooting at the slightest provocation. By extension, him being against the Vietnam War meant that he was fighting to defend communism on the home front, which is, of course, The Great Enemy. Not only that he had the audacity to get himself elected to a rather important position as a Democrat. He goes against more or less everything the GOP currently stands for and they find it absolutely unforgivable. The GOP has decided that they are America and any opposition isn't against them or their policies but rather against America. In their minds Kerry is a traitor because he opposes warmongering and used his status as a veteran to speak out against war.
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May 29, 2014 15:41
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joeburz posted:The fact that Kerry was successfully trashed for his service is something I will never fully understand. As much as Kerry was at fault for not responding forcefully, the fact that the media just let the swiftboat PAC spread its lies without challenge was ridiculously insulting to all veterans. Here we were, a year into the Iraq war, and they couldn't be bothered to do even a little research? This was the height of the SUPPORT ARE TROOPS time before the country turned on the administration, but they let some unknown group disrespect a highly decorated veteran's record while we had a draft-dodger in the White House.
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May 29, 2014 15:54
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Sir Tonk posted:As much as Kerry was at fault for not responding forcefully, the fact that the media just let the swiftboat PAC spread its lies without challenge was ridiculously insulting to all veterans. Here we were, a year into the Iraq war, and they couldn't be bothered to do even a little research? This was the height of the SUPPORT ARE TROOPS time before the country turned on the administration, but they let some unknown group disrespect a highly decorated veteran's record while we had a draft-dodger in the White House. I don't think it would matter. When Chambliss attacked Max Cleland in even lower ways, he responded very forcefully and even McCain and Hagel came to his defense. If a narrative is pushed consistently and strongly enough, defending against it is incredibly hard, even if the media calls them out on it.
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May 29, 2014 15:59
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The GOP has decided that they are America and any opposition isn't against them or their policies but rather against America. In their minds Kerry is a traitor because he opposes warmongering and used his status as a veteran to speak out against war. This extends even to people in their own party, and it's part of what makes the primaries so ridiculous. They don't just stop at saying they have better ideas or a better understanding of the constituency. They extend their rhetoric all the way to "if you oppose me, then you must be a Democrat, Democrats hate this country, you probably hate this country..." Democratic primaries can be bad, but I can't say they're reliably as bad from what I've seen. The Tea Party has taken this argument and just put like nitrous and rockets behind it. Then they take aim at even other Tea Party people with this same rhetoric. On the one hand they criticize people like Romney and McCain for losing elections, and then on the other they say all incumbents need to be voted out. They go after people who've lost elections so hard that you would think they must put some value in winning, but they absolutely do not. This is one of the key differences I see in Democratic rhetoric versus conservative rhetoric. The Democratic side paints conservatives as essentially corrupted due to their self-interest. Bush is an old oil guy. Cheney is a war profiteer. The Democratic assertion is that we went to war in order to benefit them. That makes a certain amount of sense. On the conservative talk radio side there is no logical argument like that. It is all conspiracy theories. It's all about a nebulous "them" trying to destroy America because they hate America. It would be laughable if so many Americans didn't completely buy into it.
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May 29, 2014 16:05
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None of the specifics of Kerry's service matter. Conservatives will attack anyone for anything they make up if they don't toe the line. Just this year Tammy Duckworth's loyalty to her country is being openly questioned by an admitted war criminal and the base eats it up. Audie Murphy reborn could run as a Democrat and conservatives would call him a traitor and make poo poo up to discredit him. Conservatives don't care about anything other than feeling like "winners".
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May 29, 2014 16:14
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The sticking point that they harped on was that the navy lets (or let, I don't know if this policy still exists) people rotate out of combat duty, if they so choose, after they get a wound bad enough to get their third purple heart. All the services do this, and have since WW2.
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May 29, 2014 16:16
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Post 9-11 User posted:"It's unfair to indict all men!" -Guy who went to the Dominican Republic to gently caress sex slaves quote:RUSH: Starting in Arlington, Virginia, this is Seth. Welcome, sir. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. Holy gently caress, that last bolded sentence is literally why he is a loving millionaire.
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May 29, 2014 16:33
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Flaggy posted:My coworker just said to me "If you don't watch the recent Snowden interview, you have your head in the sand" Can someone paraphrase what I am missing and why I should care? Edward Snowden is a hero no question about it he absolutely just kills it. He claims to have been an actual spy and not simply a low level systems analyst. He calls for congress to ask the NSA to give them copies of his many formal complaints that he filed through a large number of government channels which were ignored. This is the closest chance america has to something like a bipartisan political figure america had had in a long time. E: removed something I misheard. Miltank fucked around with this message at 17:58 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 16:37
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Flaggy posted:My coworker just said to me "If you don't watch the recent Snowden interview, you have your head in the sand" Can someone paraphrase what I am missing and why I should care? He just found out that the NSA totally spies on Americans! It's crazy! It's certainly a great interview but I imagine it's the first lots of people are really hearing about the issue.
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May 29, 2014 16:44
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Duncan "Atrios/Eschaton" Black points to an NYT article about collapsing ratings in cable news that includes this amazing factoid:quote:The median age for Mr. O’Reilly’s audience reached a new high, 72.1. And less than 15 percent of his audience fell within the 25-54 group. More details from the article quote:Similarly, in prime time, Fox’s average in that 25-54 group, 264,000, was the first time in those 13 years that it ever dropped below 300,000 viewers. Ratings for radio are more opaque, but I imagine Limbaugh and his fellow travelers have seen their numbers collapse over the last five years. Right wing media will change and adapt to the new media landscape, of course, but I think the current age of right-wing media blowhards may be coming to an end as their audience literally dies of old age.
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May 29, 2014 16:46
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My Q-Face posted:All the services do this, and have since WW2. Oh they do? Cool, thanks for clearing that up. Is it only for officers or for enlisted too?
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May 29, 2014 16:48
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Thank you for your service in saving this country, Rush. 
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May 29, 2014 17:01
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FMguru posted:Ratings for radio are more opaque, but I imagine Limbaugh and his fellow travelers have seen their numbers collapse over the last five years. Right wing media will change and adapt to the new media landscape, of course, but I think the current age of right-wing media blowhards may be coming to an end as their audience literally dies of old age. Radio ratings have collapsed across the board, but especially for non-sports talk radio. Originally ratings for radio were measured by Nielsen with a little journal. You'd keep it with you and write down what you listened to, and time time you started and ended listening, and that's that. But what people did, instead of filling it out as they went along, would fill it out at lunch or at the end of the day. Some people would just flat out lie about what they were listening to. They'd say they listened to 3 hours of Rush because their co-worker has it on in the next cubicle over. They would say they listened to All Things Considered to appear more sophisticated. People would rarely track with any accuracy how much music station they listened to. What they're really doing is they remember the hour of talk or news they listen to, but they don't remember the 3 hours of music. So a few years back, they installed electric monitors in Nielsen families' car radios, similar to the ones on TV. And ratings for talk radio just loving collapsed almost universally. Talk radio does have one edge over music radio and cable news stations. Music radio stations and CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News are played in waiting rooms, transit depots, airports, and dentist offices all over the world. A lot of the audience out there is passively listening to. Sure, they might be a captive audience, but they're probably not paying too close attention to it. But your average talk radio listener is purposely listening to that station or for a certain show. That means they're more likely to be paying attention, and more likely to hear the ads. While there may be less of them, a fraction of attentive listeners might be worth more to advertisers than a few hundred passive listeners.
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May 29, 2014 17:12
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joepinetree posted:I don't think it would matter. When Chambliss attacked Max Cleland in even lower ways, he responded very forcefully and even McCain and Hagel came to his defense. If a narrative is pushed consistently and strongly enough, defending against it is incredibly hard, even if the media calls them out on it. Man, I totally forgot Max Cleland  , how embarrassing. That was such an unbelievable scenario.FMguru posted:Duncan "Atrios/Eschaton" Black points to an NYT article about collapsing ratings in cable news that includes this amazing factoid: Lotta buying power in that demo, good job FoxNews.
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May 29, 2014 17:46
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Miltank posted:Edward Snowden is a hero no question about it he absolutely just kills it. He claims to have been an actual spy and not simply a low level systems analyst. He was in the twin towers on 9/11. He calls for congress to ask the NSA to give them copies of his many formal complaints that he filed through a large number of government channels which were ignored. This is the closest chance america has to something like a bipartisan political figure america had had in a long time. Sorry if I'm missing some sarcasm, but he said he was at NSA HQ at Ft Meade on 9/11, not in NYC.
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May 29, 2014 17:50
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beefnoodle posted:Sorry if I'm missing some sarcasm, but he said he was at NSA HQ at Ft Meade on 9/11, not in NYC. Yeah I misheard Snowden last night my bad, I edited it out.
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May 29, 2014 17:59
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Sir Tonk posted:Lotta buying power in that demo, good job FoxNews.
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May 29, 2014 18:02
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FMguru posted:Have you ever seen the commercials on FoxNews/CNN? Medigap insurance plans, mobility scooters, discount mail order catheters, super-dry absorbent underwear. It's horrifying. Don't forget the wonders of the reverse mortgage!
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May 29, 2014 18:06
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MSNBC has almost all of those same advertisers. Maybe not in the same group but they're on that network. Especially during the day time shows.
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May 29, 2014 18:08
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Oh they do? Cool, thanks for clearing that up. Is it only for officers or for enlisted too? Enlisted too, three purple hearts. I forget if it was Patton or Eisenhower who started it, but Patton mentions the idea in his journals in 1943. He went into a hospital during the Sicily campaign and a thrice-wounded First Sergeant asked him about it and put the idea in his head, so he pushed it up to Ike and one of them made it happen. That's from "The Patton Papers: 1940-1945", I believe there's a regulation covering it, but all google searches for three/third purple heart lead to John Kerry and SBVT. I'm not sure if that's three total or three in one tour, the Army Regulation on military awards doesn't cover that, only necessary criteria for receiving the award. The example first sergeant had been wounded at least once in the Africa campaign and once in the Sicily campaign.
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May 29, 2014 18:30
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FMguru posted:Have you ever seen the commercials on FoxNews/CNN? Medigap insurance plans, mobility scooters, discount mail order catheters, super-dry absorbent underwear. It's horrifying. Yeah it's the same commercials that are on during Price Is Right. Literally "What can I get with Medicare?" Which is why I feel smart watching the Sunday morning talk shows; it's all commercials for stock trading companies, investment bankers, and feel-good bullshit about the natural gas, coal, and petroleum industries. notthegoatseguy posted:MSNBC has almost all of those same advertisers. Maybe not in the same group but they're on that network. Especially during the day time shows. Since housewives are going away with the baby boomers, all they have left to target is retirees. Sir Tonk fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 18:37
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Miltank posted:Edward Snowden is a hero no question about it he absolutely just kills it. He claims to have been an actual spy and not simply a low level systems analyst. He calls for congress to ask the NSA to give them copies of his many formal complaints that he filed through a large number of government channels which were ignored. This is the closest chance america has to something like a bipartisan political figure america had had in a long time. On a related note, wasn't there an article for Wired or some other tech site about Snowden's attitude towards the NSA's behavior under the Bush administration and how it went from being 'for the good of our country' to being the worst violation of our privacy ever after Obama took the oath of office? I can't for the life of me find it, but they'd dug up chat logs and everything and the contrast was pretty stark and made him look as partisan as the kind of people we make fun of here. E; Found it I think. It was Ars Technica and he was a big time lolbertarian Ron Paul lover back in 2009 when he was logging into Ars IRC. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/exclusive-in-2009-ed-snowden-said-leakers-should-be-shot-then-he-became-one/ NatasDog fucked around with this message at 18:58 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 18:49
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Sir Tonk posted:Which is why I feel smart watching the Sunday morning talk shows; it's all commercials for stock trading companies, investment bankers, and feel-good bullshit about the natural gas, coal, and petroleum industries.
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May 29, 2014 18:54
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Sir Tonk posted:Lotta buying power in that demo, good job FoxNews. Cable news costs almost nothing to produce so they still turn a tidy profit even off catheter, reverse mortgage, and diabetes test kit ads. Although it's funny in a way that all those things are basically taking advantage of senior citizens (reverse mortgages) or Medicare fraud (home health supplies).
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May 29, 2014 18:58
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NatasDog posted:E; Found it I think. It was Ars Technica and he was a big time lolbertarian Ron Paul lover back in 2009 when he was logging into Ars IRC. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/exclusive-in-2009-ed-snowden-said-leakers-should-be-shot-then-he-became-one/ That was probably his last stab at politics. Dude was 26, that's when you're supposed to have your final fling with libertarianism.
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May 29, 2014 19:45
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Snowden (as TheTrueHOOHA) actually liked Obama and saw him as possibly ending the abuses or making things better, though he remained skeptical. It's likely after Obama failed to do anything about the Intelligence Community and instead prosecuted whistle blowers even harder that he formulated his plan to burn it all down. If anything, you gotta give Snowden credit as a RON PAUL KILL YOUR PARENTS guy for putting his money where his mouth is and doing something about unconstitutional government abuses even at great personal risk to himself. Assepoester fucked around with this message at 19:58 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 19:56
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Flaggy posted:My coworker just said to me "If you don't watch the recent Snowden interview, you have your head in the sand" Can someone paraphrase what I am missing and why I should care? Beaten but: Because Snowden is a hero who did the right thing? If your coworker is conservative I imagine he wants you to watch it to learn about the nasty bullshit the government does. I think what Snowden did was heroic and brave. Must be quite the conundrum for your average conservative because on the one hand, "gently caress big government" but on the hand, "traitor who hates our country" and all that.
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May 29, 2014 20:08
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BiggerBoat posted:
You see, when a Democrat is in office, it's no longer ARE COUNTRY. Snowden hasn't really been embraced by the Right but had this happened in 2004 there would have been millions of people calling for him to be tortured and executed.
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May 29, 2014 20:20
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BiggerBoat posted:Beaten but: Really conservative. He wants me to watch so I know the dangers of big government. Pretty much nailed in on the head.
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May 29, 2014 20:27
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Flaggy posted:Really conservative. He wants me to watch so I know the dangers of big government. Pretty much nailed in on the head. Thank him for the warnings of what sort of horrific big government spy programs Republicans presidents deploy on us. Doesn't absolve Obama but it's the height of hypocrisy to pretend it's a wholly owned Obama problem or that it would still have happened with someone else on duty at the time. Intel&Sebastian fucked around with this message at 20:37 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 20:35
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Yeah, I'm not saying he didn't do the right thing, I just wonder if he did the right thing for the wrong reasons; his views on Social Security, economic policy, and pretty much every social issue that gets bandied about on these forums were pretty far to the right. Looking at the chat logs he was more than happy to string up the leakers involved with the disclosure of US actions in Iran, so it leaves me with the impression that his views on national security policy are subjective and evolve based on whether or not he's personally involved. Whoever leaked the poo poo about our actions in Iran thought it was a pretty important issue that people deserved to know about, but since it didn't effect Edward Snowden directly, he was calling for them to be shot in the balls. Obviously something happened to alter his perception of the world during his time abroad, and that's obviously a good thing; but if he was a member of these forums at the time he was joining Ars IRC he'd have a red text title mocking his Gold Standard Ron Paul love and telling people to ignore him.
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May 29, 2014 20:36
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Intel&Sebastian posted:Thank him for the warnings of what sort of horrific big government spy programs Republicans presidents deploy on us. Doesn't absolve Obama but it's the height of hypocrisy to pretend it's a wholly owned Obama problem. The very moment I bring up anything Bush 1, Reagan, or Bush 2, did I get the "Oh here we go, bringing up the past again, it wasn't the same"
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May 29, 2014 20:37
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So, I'm generally interested in seeing how regular republicans receive their messages, as the right wing media is smart enough to not say anything too despicable, but your average tea party loon in Arkansas doesn't have that kind of "media training". It's interesting what they take away from what Fox News tells them. Most recently I've been hearing responses about the dad of that shooting victim. The two lines of thought (they often are combined) are: 1. "How DARE that father try to USE his son's death to further his political agenda!" 2. "The killer used a knife and a car, should we ban all knives and cars too?" It's kind of incredible to think about. They genuinely can't see how losing a child might make you interested in stopping the same thing from happening to other people. The second idea is kind of indicative of their black and white mentality. Things are either completely good or completely bad. You can use a knife to kill someone, therefore knives are equally dangerous as guns. There were several people claiming that if the people he murdered had guns this wouldn't have happened and that places with strict gun laws have more gun violence, but I really don't understand what their ideal society is. Who the gently caress wants to live in a world where you need to strap up to go out for a gallon of milk? For people who claim to despise urban youth, these people sure do want to turn America into a heavily armed ghetto.
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May 29, 2014 20:38
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NatasDog posted:
Maybe that's just a lesson in how it's way too easy to boil down people on the internet into that one dumb thing they said that one time.
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May 29, 2014 20:44
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Flaggy posted:The very moment I bring up anything Bush 1, Reagan, or Bush 2, did I get the "Oh here we go, bringing up the past again, it wasn't the same" Just because a thing happened in the past doesn't make it any less true and/or valid. If things were different then, they've just put the onus on themselves to explain why. Are they more concerned that it makes their guy look bad, or more concerned that it makes Obama look more like the guy they liked?
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May 29, 2014 20:47
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quote:Glenn Beck's TV network The Blaze last week put together skits mocking a sexual assault survey cited by President Obama and others when discussing rape on college campuses. On Thursday, Glenn Beck defended The Blaze's attempt to debunk the surveys and explained that he understands how serious the issue of sexual abuse is. That's why you of all people should know better than to do a loving "comedy" skit whose only motivation was to mock and misleadingly de-legitimize an effort to educate people about what rape actually is, you confused, screwed up fool. Watch the video to see a weeping Beck reveal what is probably just the tip of the iceberg of a massive amount of dysfunction coarsing through his personal life. Jesus.
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May 29, 2014 20:47
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quote:Who the gently caress wants to live in a world where you need to strap up to go out for a gallon of milk? For people who claim to despise urban youth, these people sure do want to turn America into a heavily armed ghetto. I think a great number of these people don't want it to be like that. From a lot of the talk you see going back and forth, my armchair psychologist perspective is that: There are those who think the world is just that dangerous. There are others who have bought into the victim blaming mentality to such a great extent that they never want to be a helpless victim- because it would be their fault if they weren't able to do anything. Really, to me, its all indicative of some hosed up fear they have.
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May 29, 2014 20:53
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Flaggy posted:The very moment I bring up anything Bush 1, Reagan, or Bush 2, did I get the "Oh here we go, bringing up the past again, it wasn't the same" I'd say that's fine then, come back to me when the Snowden interview is on Live TV because that poo poo's in the past too. Let him know you look forward to Jan of 2017 when he stops talking about Obama forever too.
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May 29, 2014 20:57
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Doctor Butts posted:There are others who have bought into the victim blaming mentality to such a great extent that they never want to be a helpless victim- because it would be their fault if they weren't able to do anything. This is a very insightful point. It's easy to just label pro-gun people as trigger-happy weirdos just begging for a chance to shoot someone, but that's a really unfair stereotype. From my own anecdotal experience (I live in Oklahoma) I can attest that a lot of people carry guns around because they really do have a genuine fear of being caught in a situation where they're powerless to affect the outcome. I mean, sure, many of them have extremely overblown opinions of what they could do to mitigate a bad situation with their own weapons but this explanation makes so much more sense than just labeling 3/4 of the country as violence-seeking crazies.
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May 29, 2014 21:08
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