Pizzagate & the American Right Wing

I wouldn’t exactly call them a Breitbart equivalent,
They are not even close to being a Breitbart equivalent - not even in the same category, and specifically not in the context of a discussion of bad and fake news. Breitbart is a major purveyor of bad and fake "news" - that can even be fairly advanced as its reason for existing, its business model. Salon is nothing of the kind.
 
If you would just do that, instead of repetitively typing falsehoods, it would save us both trouble.

What was this thread about? Oh right we keep ending up doing the same argument over and over again.

But they were in 2012. And in 2008, actually, if you crunch the numbers.
The black guy is not too threatening, and the white guy is not on their side. Yep.

SO THEN THEY ARE NOT RACIST ENOUGH! What racist would put up with a black president over ANY white man? Clearly they were not racist enough to give a fuck, Trump comes in and says he wants to build a wall, few of them are coming out and voting for Trump because they don't want their daughter miscegenating with Mexicans, rather more of them think their jobs are at threat by immigration.

Nope. Reread.

Seems like it to me, why even point out Hispanics and blacks don't like him?

I haven't looked at the Hispanic vote, but the numbers for the black vote indicate that about the same or smaller (potentially significantly smaller, depending on how one handles vote suppression and tally issues) fraction of eligible black adults voted for Trump as voted for Romney

So where did all those other black voters go? Oh that right they were suppressed, yeah they were suppressed, totally did not show up because they were unenthusiastic for a candidate that supposedly called them "superpredators" and supported the bill that put millions of them in prison.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...llary-clinton-call-african-american-youth-su/

and Romney was running against an incumbent and very popular black President.

Oh what is that, Hillary was a horrible candidate, you don't say.

Nonsense. Salon is a reputable source of information, when they turn their hands to it - not even particularly "left", in most ways.

Yeah sure.

And by making that mistake you have outed yourself, ideologically. Let's have no more nonsense from you about your liberalism, leftiness, or the like.

Oh boy I don't pass your ideological purity criteria because I don't believe ANY news sites and ask for proof. Oh woe as me.

No "proof" - just plenty of evidence and a solid argument - so far, the only one.

You should see breitbart do solid arguments with plenty of evidence, did you know lesbians have higher levels of domestic violence than heterosexuals or gay men? Did you know Blacks are 18.5 times more likely shoot police officers than whites? Yeah I don't believe that simply because they provide solid arguments and evidence, but hey if salon argues something you cite it as fact.

That's irrelevant to the absolute vote totals. Note the term "absolute vote totals" - it's key to your realizing where you are screwing up here.

And that is?

We didn't. Why do you repeat wingnut talking points, and btw help the rightwing fake news people cover their tracks, while claiming lefty and liberal status?

So it is "wingnut" (what ever the fuck that means) to point out that we could have won with Bernie? Yes I'm a lefty and I don't give a fuck if you think otherwise. As for rightwing fake news that I'm helping them cover up: how? Oh I see by arguing with you about something totally off topic, my bad.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 
"Hands up don't shoot" was never disproven, and is in conflict with none of the physical evidence.

It was dismissed on grounds of inconsistency among the various eyewitnesses and absence of positive forensic support, on the "reasonable doubt" criterion - the issue was that if accepted as established it would have indicated criminal guilt in the shooter. In American law, the burden of proof is on the accuser.

Really?
"Yet the Department of Justice’s March 4, 2015, investigative report on the shooting of Michael Brown found federal investigators could not confirm witness accounts that Brown signaled surrender before being killed execution-style. The department’s descriptions of about 40 witness testimonies show the original claims that Brown had his hands up were not accurate.

Some witnesses who claimed they saw Brown’s hands raised had testimonies that were inconsistent with physical and forensic evidence." - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ot-happen-in-ferguson/?utm_term=.634656679e36
You were saying? Even directly from the Eric Holder DOJ report:
"As detailed throughout this report, some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence"​
 
They are not even close to being a Breitbart equivalent - not even in the same category, and specifically not in the context of a discussion of bad and fake news. Breitbart is a major purveyor of bad and fake "news" - that can even be fairly advanced as its reason for existing, its business model. Salon is nothing of the kind.
I agree, they're not in the same category, but that doesn't imply that Salon is not above stretching the truth, or conditioning it to support their agenda.
 
SO THEN THEY ARE NOT RACIST ENOUGH!
Ok. So?
So where did all those other black voters go? Oh that right they were suppressed, yeah they were suppressed, totally did not show up because they were unenthusiastic for a candidate that supposedly called them "superpredators" and supported the bill that put millions of them in prison.
Suppression was a major factor, a known and calculable factor, and easily a big enough factor to account for your numbers. No other is visible in your summary percentages, in other words. Whether the unenthusiastic young black voter voted for Trump, thereby covering for another population of Romney-voting blacks who did not vote for Trump and evening things out, I don't know. Neither do you, is my guess.
Oh boy I don't pass your ideological purity criteria because I don't believe ANY news sites and ask for proof.
If you can't tell Breitbart from Salon, it's not an ideological "purity" test you have flunked.
You should see breitbart do solid arguments with plenty of evidence, did you know lesbians have higher levels of domestic violence than heterosexuals or gay men? Did you know Blacks are 18.5 times more likely shoot police officers than whites? Yeah I don't believe that simply because they provide solid arguments and evidence,
Your idea of a solid argument and mine vary considerably.
So it is "wingnut" (what ever the fuck that means) to point out that we could have won with Bernie?
No, it's wingnut to claim that people like me divided the left, or rallied the Trump voters.
As for rightwing fake news that I'm helping them cover up: how? Oh I see by arguing with you about something totally off topic, my bad.
It was directly on topic - it was just a whack argument that is in current circulation by the likes of Breitbart and the Republican think tank minions to cover their operations, in particular the manner in which they "rallied" the Trump voters via fake news and bad news and so forth.
 
It's a rallying cry against police violence. In that respect, it doesn't matter whether Michael Brown had his hands up or not. Plenty of other incidents have been recorded where people were shot in spite of having their hands in the air.

Yes, that exactly the kind of justification false narrative denominators like to trot out. "What, at this point, does it matter? It's the larger point that really matters." All the while running headlines that continue to mislead the uninformed.
 
Yes, that exactly the kind of justification false narrative denominators like to trot out. "What, at this point, does it matter? It's the larger point that really matters." All the while running headlines that continue to mislead the uninformed.
There's nothing deceptive about it. You are uninformed if you think people don't get shot by the police in spite of having their hands up.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/07/2...utistic-mans-caretaker-as-lies-in-street.html
In fact, the idea that the events surrounding a single incident render the entire BLM movement phoney is a racist lie.
 
Really?
"Yet the Department of Justice’s March 4, 2015, investigative report on the shooting of Michael Brown found federal investigators could not confirm witness accounts that Brown signaled surrender before being killed execution-style. The department’s descriptions of about 40 witness testimonies show the original claims that Brown had his hands up were not accurate.

Some witnesses who claimed they saw Brown’s hands raised had testimonies that were inconsistent with physical and forensic evidence." - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ot-happen-in-ferguson/?utm_term=.634656679e36
You were saying? Even directly from the Eric Holder DOJ report:
"As detailed throughout this report, some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence"​
Three points:
1) The supposed inaccuracies involved, the alleged conflicts with forensic evidence (they are not as clear as was claimed), were in other parts of the testimonies - not the claims of hand raising, or those parts of the testimonies.

No forensic evidence conflicts with Brown having raised or attempted to raise his hands, and being shot anyway.

2) Inaccuracies were also found in the eyewitness testimonies of some of those claiming that Brown did not ever raise his hands or attempt to surrender, but instead attacked Wilson without pause. Is that hypothesis also to be discarded, based on those other inaccuracies?

3)"Some" is a key word.

Notice, say, that "some" of the eyewitness testimonies were invented and hearsay from people who did not even witness the shooting. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, right?

As I pointed out, the witness testimonies were inconsistent with each other - the ones favoring Wilson, as well as the ones disfavoring him. But the hypothesis remains - supported by "other", as well as the inaccurate "some", eyewitness testimony - that Brown did at one point raise or attempt to raise (he was already shot, all say) his hands, at which time or immediately afterwards Wilson continued to shoot at him. None of the forensic evidence contradicts those witnesses, or conflicts with that hypothesis, in the slightest.

Neither does it confirm it. And since the finding that he did raise his hands, or attempt to, at some point before being fatally shot, would have to be confirmable beyond a reasonable doubt - it would make the shooting a murder - that finding is rejected, and the more sensationalized versions rejected with prejudice. (That he had his hands up in surrender when the lethal shot hit him, "execution style", for example - that is false and was firmly declared to be false).

All this is proper, for such a finding. But one should not be misled about the reality of the situation, or the legitimacy of news reports including that reality.

"Hands up don't shoot" is not in conflict with any of the forensic or physical evidence of the Wilson/Brown shooting, in other words. And it was supported by eyewitness testimony, as well as most reasonable interpretations of the sequence of events that was confirmed. (It was far better supported than several quite implausible particulars of Wilson's own account, which has been transformed into a fake news item from the right by a couple of omissions and sensational emphases).

That, plus the multiple similarly supportive events behind the "hands up don't shoot" media meme you seem to disparage, removes that meme from your list of fake news bought into by lefties.

In fact, it's at least reasonable to consider whether presenting "hands up don't shoot" as a fake or bad news buy-into is not itself an example of rightwing fake and bad news - lies and deceptions the rightwing has bought into.

At any rate: in your "fake news from the left" category, you have one story left - and no argument at all. Another try?
 
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So it is not the important factor.

Suppression was a major factor, a known and calculable factor, and easily a big enough factor to account for your numbers. No other is visible in your summary percentages, in other words. Whether the unenthusiastic young black voter voted for Trump, thereby covering for another population of Romney-voting blacks who did not vote for Trump and evening things out, I don't know. Neither do you, is my guess.

Yeah sure and how do we get around voter suppression? Well those states are republican controlled, nothing we can do other then running a candidate that increased turn-out, NOT DECREASES IT WITH DECADES OF BAGGAGE!

If you can't tell Breitbart from Salon, it's not an ideological "purity" test you have flunked.

Oh goody, please quote what I said, I said "almost" seems like you failed reading comprehension.

Your idea of a solid argument and mine vary considerably.

Starting with statistics collected by the FBI or Justice Department is a good start. You on the other hand apparently find stats pulled out from other news sites so long as they are liberal ones as "solid argument".

No, it's wingnut to claim that people like me divided the left, or rallied the Trump voters.

But you and your ilk did, just facts.

Ok I got a test for you, listen to all of this, all of it, and tell me if these two are liberals or not.


It was directly on topic - it was just a whack argument that is in current circulation by the likes of Breitbart and the Republican think tank minions to cover their operations, in particular the manner in which they "rallied" the Trump voters via fake news and bad news and so forth.

What is the whack argument?
 
Go read that again, mate. I made a characterization...then I asked your opinion of it. If I were attributing it to you, I would not be asking your opinion. It was not a rhetorical question, and you seem to be making a strawman out of assuming it was.

No amount of read reading is going to change the fact mate. :) That's yet another obfuscation on your part. Furthermore, you are not being honest. You offered a rhetorical question. You wrote:


Yes, because all conservatives and republicans are just as gullible. Doesn't that sound fallacious to you? What about Brian Williams, "hands up don't shoot", Rolling Stone and Lena Dunham false rape stories, etc.?

And I answered with:

"And other than you, who has said that? You have created a straw man. No one other than you, has said all Republicans are gullible.Some are just flat out dishonest.

What about Brian Williams and "hands up don't shoot" or Lena Dunham false rape stories? I'm guessing you don't know what fake news is. For your edification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news_website

Just because you don't like MSNBC, it doesn't make MSNBC a fake news outlet. MSNBC doesn't make stuff up."

No one asserted your premise (all conservatives and republicans are just as gullible) other than you.

Propaganda and disinformation is fake news...as defined by your wiki link.

True enough, but that's not applicable to what you wrote. Perhaps you need to go back and re-read what you wrote mate.

Go back and look. "Liberals Believe Fake News Too" was a link to an article by that title. It was not a title for that MSNBC video. LOL.

And....didn't I say it was a video clip? Did I not specifically refer to it as a video clip? :) Is there a point buried in there somewhere mate?

That video merely showed how false news by omission happens. Don't you think more people would have turned out to vote for Hillary if they were more aware of what Mika said?

No, because as previously pointed out, not much was said in your referenced video tape. There isn't a lot of there, there. I suggest you go back and re-read my previous comments on your referenced video tape.

"Hands up don't shoot" has been treated as credible, at least in sentiment, since proven false, even when the data do nothing to support the narrative.

At least in sentiment....what the hell does that mean? As previously pointed out to you, the media reported it for what it was...nothing more, nothing less. The media reported what witnesses said. It also reported subsequent information which debunked the testimony of earlier witnesses. Just because witnesses were wrong and some may have lied to reporters or provided the media with false information it doesn't mean the media deceived anyone. The media clearly identified its sources.

Where did I say Morning Joe was left-leaning? What is that...three strawmen from you now? LOL.

So now you don't remember writing: "It's sad I have to explain it. Mika said she tried to expose the challenge Hillary was facing, only to have her job threatened. The left-leaning media is just more fond of lies of omission. But I don't really expect you to see that." Mika is on the Morning Joe show.
 
So it is not the important factor.
There is no "the important factor". I keep telling you that, you keep not paying attention.
electric said:
"No, it's wingnut to claim that people like me divided the left, or rallied the Trump voters."
But you and your ilk did, just facts.
Since you have yet to correctly identify either me, my ilk, the division of the left, the left itself, or the forces that rallied the Trump voters, you don't have any such "facts" at your disposal. Instead, you have a wingnut meme - which you repeat, apparently unaware of where you got it.
Oh goody, please quote what I said, I said "almost" seems like you failed reading comprehension.
You don't get out of that startling reveal by pretending the word "almost" absolves you.

You can't tell the difference between Brietbart and Salon, and post that wingnut claim of similarity, both. You did the one. That excludes the other.
What is the whack argument?
That the Left rallied the despised white bluecollar voter, by creating a reaction to the elitism and namecalling and so forth in the lefty rhetoric, and so they voted for Trump. It was the meme of the day, may still be rounding in wingnut circles - covering the Republican-backing propaganda operations like a cat burying its shit.
Ok I got a test for you, listen to all of this, all of it, and tell me if these two are liberals or not.
No video is going to bail you out of your bs arguments here. Transcription, or forget it - life is short.
 
There is no "the important factor". I keep telling you that, you keep not paying attention.

Because you are wrong.

Since you have yet to correctly identify either me, my ilk, the division of the left, the left itself, or the forces that rallied the Trump voters, you don't have any such "facts" at your disposal. Instead, you have a wingnut meme - which you repeat, apparently unaware of where you got it.

Your just floundering at this point. I a democrat, whose been in the thick of it, who campaigned door to door, you think for a instant I would question my self because of your opinion?

You don't get out of that startling reveal by pretending the word "almost" absolves you.
You can't tell the difference between Brietbart and Salon, and post that wingnut claim of similarity, both. You did the one. That excludes the other.

And what is this reveal?

That the Left rallied the despised white bluecollar voter, by creating a reaction to the elitism and namecalling and so forth in the lefty rhetoric, and so they voted for Trump. It was the meme of the day, may still be rounding in wingnut circles - covering the Republican-backing propaganda operations like a cat burying its shit.

Seems pretty reasonable to me, let me reveal to you how I try to cipher truth out of news: I read and listen to a wide range of political opinions, now when the conservatives are saying it, when the liberals are saying it, libertarians are saying it, when the independents are saying it, but the progressives deny it as "wack" and "wingnut", who do you think is wrong? For a meme of the day it gets around and it last a lot longer then a meme.

No video is going to bail you out of your bs arguments here. Transcription, or forget it - life is short.

So you can't listen to a video while doing other things, multitask? Here how many minutes can you last?


Oh but is it true?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/u...-and-what-trump-and-obama-have-in-common.html
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/10/breaking-polls-trump-former-obama-states-ia-fl-oh-nv/

Ok seems plausible, but not enough for me to believe, oh wait that right I actually met former Obama voters that voted trump and talked to them. Sure that is not going to prove anything to you, nothing will, but I suggest you review how you come to believe things.
 
Because you are wrong.
There is no "the important factor". You have proved that, essentially, by several times attempting to post one and running into contrary facts each time.
Your just floundering at this point. I a democrat, whose been in the thick of it, who campaigned door to door, you think for a instant I would question my self because of your opinion?
When you repost Republican wingnut memes promulgated by paid liars for deception, you reveal yourself deceived. I don't care how you fell for it.
"You can't tell the difference between Brietbart and Salon, and post that wingnut claim of similarity, both. You did the one. That excludes the other."
And what is this reveal?
That you've bought into the entire rightwing propaganda canon, including even the most crass and blatant of the wingnut deceptions.
I read and listen to a wide range of political opinions, now when the conservatives are saying it, when the liberals are saying it, libertarians are saying it, when the independents are saying it, but the progressives deny it as "wack" and "wingnut", who do you think is wrong?
You are, for believing that sentence describes reality - starting with the fact that you have apparently misclassified all those people, continuing with the observation that you probably don't know what they are actually saying (you have internalized the "both sides" rightwing propaganda meme, and consistently bollixed my posting according to such presumptions), and noting for the record that I can tell this, in part, because you keep telling me what I've been saying and doing and you always get it wrong.

For example, you have "the libertarians" and "the liberals"- categories which include me, depending - saying something I and people like me are not saying (not sure what).
Ok seems plausible, but not enough for me to believe, oh wait that right I actually met former Obama voters that voted trump and talked to them. Sure that is not going to prove anything to you, nothing will, but I suggest you review how you come to believe things.
In comparison with you?
I crunch a few numbers, compare what you claim (right next to your bizarre claims about stuff I know well, such as my own actions and words) with what the numbers show happened, and go with what the numbers and my own experience (which agree, btw) show happened.

In other words, there are some white folks who voted for Obama in 2008 (and even a few who voted for him in 2012) who voted for Trump in 2016. But that wasn't the bulk of his winning margin, or even a significant fraction of his vote.
So you can't listen to a video while doing other things, multitask?
Transcript, argument, or forget it. The wingnut crowd deals in videos because one can frame and hide bs better in that format - too much trouble to deal with.
 
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Louisiana student ‘fabricated’ story of hijab attack, police say
So where exactly is the line between fake news and journalists not doing due diligence? I would assume fake news would be news that is intentionally created as fake and knowingly disseminated as fake. Otherwise, even intentionally created fake news and lying witnesses would only be a lack of due diligence by those who unwittingly disseminated it.

What is the difference between lying witnesses and fake news creators?
And where is the smoking gun that fake news wasn't reported in good faith by politically right-leaning sources?

A lot of people seem to imply complicity in disseminating fake news while excusing complicity in disseminating fake witness statements.
 
So where exactly is the line between fake news and journalists not doing due diligence? I would assume fake news would be news that is intentionally created as fake and knowingly disseminated as fake. Otherwise, even intentionally created fake news and lying witnesses would only be a lack of due diligence by those who unwittingly disseminated it.
It's the journalist's job, their actual freaking job, to not do that. Or at least it was, until the rise of Limbaugh and Fox and so forth. They are not supposed to be "unwitting" in their disseminations. They don't get a pass for fake news - at a minimum, they are lying about having checked it out simply by repeating it as journalists.

Obviously even very good journalists will make mistakes, get fooled, etc. If the journalist is honest, they will be rare, and more or less randomly distributed on the ideological or political spectrum. An honest and competent journalist won't get fooled twice by the same people in the same way with the same bias, for example. (Fox News reported, as news, on more than one James O'Keefe video - the Acorn fraud, the Shirley Sherrod fraud, and others)

What we have instead, in the rightwing corporate dominated media right now, is a deliberate policy of lack of due diligence - repeating fake news and bad news and falsehoods they haven't checked, from known liars of the past, as a matter of policy. Other news deliverers pick it up from there, as "respectable" and unavoidable. By this arrangement fake/bad news gets repeated with the weight of respectability behind it, and gets repeated all over the informational bandwidth of most people in the US.

The technical term for this - for "news" delivered by people who don't care whether or not it's false or the impression created by it is false - is bullshit. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/385.On_Bullshit
 
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Just One Slice


Click to work for just one slice.

The title makes the point: "To Understand Pizzagate, It Helps to Understand Cults"↱

The same dynamics are at play regardless of the specific ideology in question. "Both politics and religion seem to have similar effects," said Nathaniel Wade, a psychologist at Iowa State who studies religion and spirituality. "They induce strong passions. They are often framed as 'us against them' (which, by the way, such thinking patterns have a series of psychological correlates that are mostly not healthy). They attempt to solve basic problems in living. They occur in groups that often reinforce those beliefs and shelter against alternate views."

So how much of this applies to Welch and other true believers in Pizzagate and other conspiracy theories? There certainly appear to be similarities. "In many ways what makes fake news possible are the same things that make people believe (and act) in ways that many people think is downright ridiculous," said Wade.

All this becomes clearer when you understand that Pizzagate sits in a wider ecosystem of beliefs and conspiracies propagated by the alt-right. Key to all these beliefs and conspiracies is mistrust in the Establishment. The media are lying to you, politicians are lying you, and it takes brave truth-sayers―Alex Jones or Mike Cernovich or whoever―to tell it to you how it is. The media and political elites are just so corrupt you can't believe anything they say.

Imagine what it must be like to be a confused or frustrated or identity-lacking young person who stumbles upon the alt-right and its ideas about how the world works. Those ideas offer a lot of clarity. They offer, through social media, at least something of a sense of social identity, and no shortage of culprits―elites and feminists and minorities and globalists and (in some corners of the alt-right) Jews―to explain why you have been held down and prevented from leading a meaningful or successful life. And the alt-right, by dint of its operating theory about the corruptness of the Establishment, has a built-in mechanism to slowly cut you off from traditional news sources. What's going to happen if you post a Washington Post article debunking the latest conspiracy theory? "It's the Post―they're lying."

But it's the alt-right concept of so-called red-pilling where this subculture appears more similar to "traditional" cults and extremist groups. Adapted from The Matrix, "taking the red pill" or "getting red-pilled" simply means seeing the world as it really is. In the online subcultures that gave rise to the alt-right, its most famous meaning is in reference to feminism: After you take the red pill, the scales fall from your eyes and you can see that feminism is really just an attempt to emasculate and bully men, to allow social-justice warriors to run rampant over masculine (and traditional) values and ideals in favor of a shrill and judgmental far-left radicalism. Recently, the definition has expanded a bit2015 these days, in an alt-right context "getting red-pilled" probably means something more like "understanding that progressivism is a lie and part of a large-scale effort to hurt you and people like you." But the basic point is the same: This is the moment at which you start to see things as they really are.

This is exactly the sort of transformative experience offered by cults and extremist movements: After this, things won't ever be the same for you. After this, you will have a role to play in an important battle that will determine the fate of the world. Your life will take on an enhanced meaning. Whether or not Welch explicitly thought he had been "red-pilled," Goldman says that "what's really interesting is he fits [extant ideas about radicalization] perfectly, because what he felt was 'this is a turning point in my life and I have to do something.'" Reading the text messages Welch sent to a friend that were released as part of the criminal complaint against him, as reported by the Daily Beast, it's hard to disagree with Goldman's assessment. Welch wrote that he was planning on "Raiding a pedo ring, possibly sacraficing [sic] the lives of a few for the lives of many. Standing up against a corrupt system that kidnaps, tortures and rapes babies and children in our own backyard … defending the next generation of kids, our kids, from ever having to experience this kind of evil themselves[.]" It was clear he saw himself in somewhat heroic terms: "I'm sorry bro, but I'm tired of turning the channel and hoping someone does something and being thankful it's not my family. One day it will be our families. The world is too afraid to act and I'm too stubborn not to[.]"

It also occurs to me that The Matrix is well on its way to a seat in a special pantheon of a Strange American Mythos, right alongside the work of Ayn Rand.

Nonetheless, it might be more important to note that despite our years of occasionally breaking out the phrase, "American Taliban", as a pejorative against certain American conservatives, we might actually be witnessing the inchoate stirrings of actual American radicalization.

These years later, I still get a creepy feeling about the Poplawski shooting, when a man gunned down police in an ambush after getting in a dispute with his mother but what was really bothering him was how President Obama stole his job, apparently well before ever becoming president. In the sense that it is emblematic for me, it is true that I could not have predicted the bloodbath we've seen in these United States since.

Edgar Maddison Welch↑ doesn't feel quite the same. True, he's a more violent tool than his NYT interview article would suggest. Still, if American insurrectionism is becoming a cult unto itself, the Welch incident could eventually stand out in a similar context.

And that's the thing. There's the bit with Trump supporters picking weird fights↱ with people by announcing that they are being discriminated against for being Trump supporters. It seems really, really weird to the witnesses because the first sign that one is a Trump supporter anyone has is apparently when they complain of discrimination. Unfortunately, trying to figure it out only makes these people sound downright paranoid; their complaint works if we all are in on it, you know, like, we know they're Trump supporters and are out to get them before they ever say anything about it.

Cultism starts to seem an obvious question. Then again, we are trying to describe the larger phenomenon as somehow populist; personality cult suffices.
____________________

Notes:

Singal, Jesse. "To Understand Pizzagate, It Helps to Understand Cults". Science of Us. 14 December 2016. NYMag.com. 15 December 2016. http://sciof.us/2hwda8V
 
The roots of the cult still show above ground:
Ta-Nehisi Coates said:
But personal animus is just one manifestation of racism; arguably the more profound animosity occurs at the level of interests. The most recent Congress boasted 138 members from the states that comprised the old Confederacy. Of the 101 Republicans in that group, 96 are white and one is black. Of the 37 Democrats, 18 are black and 15 are white. There are no white congressional Democrats in the Deep South. Exit polls in Mississippi in 2008 found that 96 percent of voters who described themselves as Republicans were white. The Republican Party is not simply the party of whites, but the preferred party of whites who identify their interest as defending the historical privileges of whiteness. The researchers Josh Pasek, Jon A. Krosnick, and Trevor Tompson found that in 2012, 32 percent of Democrats held antiblack views, while 79 percent of Republicans did. These attitudes could even spill over to white Democratic politicians, because they are seen as representing the party of blacks. Studying the 2016 election, the political scientist Philip Klinkner found that the most predictive question for understanding whether a voter favored Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump was “Is Barack Obama a Muslim?”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/
 
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Sexism as a Gateway Drug: The Alt-Right and White Supremacism


Aja Romano↱, for Vox:

In a widely shared Twitter thread the morning after the election, writer Siyanda Mohutsiwa outlined what she views as the insidious process by which young men are radicalized into the alt-right.

Mohutsiwa's tweetstorm elucidates an important, generally overlooked point: Most white men who become radicalized into the alt-right start out in search of some like-minded friends.

Though various branches of the movement are often at odds with one another, they share a number of core beliefs — and a common meme-flavored vernacular — that serve to unite them in what is sometimes called “the manosphere.” This realm includes the “men's rights” movement, pickup artist culture (a community of men also labeled “PUAs” that essentially makes a game of the art of bedding women), “incels” (men who are “involuntarily celibate” because they feel women reject them), and geek gatekeepers like supporters of the Gamergate movement.

On the surface, PUA communities and incel communities have a lot of generic appeal: The PUA lifestyle emphasizes self-esteem and confidence building along with physical health, while the incel community allows men to bond over their struggle to achieve all of the above in spite of their sour luck with women. Meanwhile, gamers and geeks habitually tout the importance of gaming in providing social interaction for young men.

These spaces foster the kind of male friendship whose importance doesn't get a lot of attention in the real world. But the benefits of their existence are often accompanied (and sometimes negated) by their tendency to instill in their members a newfound articulation of fundamental anxiety over their position as men in a society where women are actively seeking empowerment.

And in building its membership from so many different communities of white men who ultimately feel threatened and rejected by women, the movement promotes a sense of male entitlement that is easily radicalized into white nationalism and white supremacy.

‡​

Mohutsiwa argued in her tweetstorm that we have been paying the wrong kind of attention to the alt-right's internet havens. “When we talk about online radicalization we always talk about Muslims. But the radicalization of white men online is at astronomical levels,” she wrote. “That's why I never got one strategy of Clinton's campaign: highlighting Trump's sexism. Trump supporters love him BECAUSE of his sexism.”

To the one, don't laugh; it's not as absurd a thesis as it sounds. To the other, though, this also seems one of those things by which it feels like we could see this coming, but, you know, it's only supposed to be a few bad seeds, so don't give them attention, don't overreact, don't enable them.

Uh-huh. That worked. In large part because there were more than a few bad seeds. But also because, come on, until it happened, who really would have believed it? After all, it has happened, and plenty still won't.
____________________

Notes:

Romano, Aja. "How the alt-right’s sexism lures men into white supremacy". Vox. 14 December 2016. Vox.com. 15 December 2016. http://bit.ly/2hIBHIo
 
Has it ever occurred to either of you two that maybe you are in a cult too? Just as they see some kind of liberal conspiracy in everything, you see apparently racism and sexism in everything.

I happen to believe that much of the alt-right are simply trolls that get off on triggering you. Hang out on /poll for awhile, everything they say is trolling!

As for that Vox article, it is woefully misinformed and ignorant. "Incels", seriously, what is this 2015?, MGTOW supplanted the incels long ago, and PUAs and MGTOWs hate each other, and neither really gives a fuck about MRM. While yes they are all male oriented they are radically different philosophies and have nothing to do with white nationalist or white supremaciest, pretty sure for example a black mgtow is not going to become a white nationalist. Rather the divide comes with those that are tradcons, that is wanting a return to traditional-conservatism, literally women back in the kitchen. If you want a link to white supremacist start with the tradcons as I would not be surprised if they also want blacks "in their place" too.
 
Actually, it's not really "PizzaGate and the American Right", it's more like this: Creepy DC 'Progressives' and their barf-worthy 'artwork' mixed together with other base-fetishes that would make most of what's left of normal society (from around the world) slightly sick.

Is there any hard evidence of a pedophile ring run out of a pizza shop in DC? Not that I know of. There is a lot of evidence that DC Progressive are every bit as deranged as their Roman counterparts 2000 years ago. At least in terms of their artistic choice and small minded fetish behaviors.

Here's a decent review of the material: Progressive liberal values: Tony Podesta's creepy taste in art, the creepy people he hangs out with, and Pizzagate. The author concludes there is no good evidence to believe a secretive pedophile ring is being run out of a pizza shop in DC. Only that our capital is infested with supposed Progressives with their Left-values which align far, far, outside of what is considered aesthetically tasteful.

So, aside from the actual an convicted pedophile (See: Billionaire Epstein Pedophile Island), I'm afraid this is more a case of Progressive values mirrored in their low quality B-grade supposed art. The sort of 'art' only a pampered billionaire or out of touch politician would find anything other than barf worthy.
 
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