What kind of balance are you speaking of? For the sake of argument, I'll assume that you mean spending somewhat equal time and effort on different sides of an argument.

That kind of balance can be expected from a news outlet. Many of them, especially American ones, overcook is massively by refusing to make judgements on the validity of opposing arguments. If argument A is backed by empirical evidence and argument B is smoke and mirrors, argument B should receive ridicule, not the same kind of respect that A receives.

Now, applying this kind of balance to individuals strikes me as wierd. They are not obliged to give a balanced view: they are obliged, as journalists, to present facts, and offer interpretations. The issues we're talking about here are not disputes between neighbours. We are talking about the war on terror, macroeconomics, propaganda, things of the utmost importance. And the media is doing a woeful job at presenting any dissenting view.

Thing is, you can get the major consensus narrative from countless news outlets out there. Want to here about the supposed benefits of multinational trade agreements? The NYT and the WaPo have dozens upon dozens of articles with praise of TTIP and TPP. If, however, you would like to hear about the consequences of previous trade agreements, or just some hard math on the numbers they like to throw in there, you won't find any. You'll have to go to Dean Baker at the CEPR, to Yves Smith at NakedCapitalism, you'll read Rick Wolff's take on it.

These people do everything in their power to restore the balance that the media drowned in buckets of party-line puff pieces. People recognise RT for propaganda, but somehow think propaganda stops when ownership is private.

Try to find proper articles about the global assassination program (drone warfare) and its effect on sovereign people abroad -- won't find anything in the media, you'll have to go to Jeremy Scahill.

Try to find proper articles about the desolation brought to communities in the developed world by (the current form of) capitalism, the epidemic of loniliness, the breaking apart of the social fabric, the monetarisation of every aspect of life -- silence. What about the slavery-like conditions it creates through indebtedness? The absurd inequality? Nothing.

What about the massive atrocities in Jemen? There was plenty about the atrocities committed by Russia in Syria, but when Saudis use US weapons to destroy an entire country, mum's word.

There is no balance in the media. They are the gatekeepers of knowledge, and anything outside the establishment's agreed upon consensus is ignored, marginalised, ridiculed, or straight up demonized.

CJ Hopkins had a great piece at Counterpunch the other day, titled Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works. He puts it more succinctly than I ever could. Reality doesn't matter, not for the mainstream media. The narrative matters.

And that's why I listen to dissenting voices like Chris Hedges, Abby Martin or Thom Hartmann, even when they are employed by a state propaganda outlet.

@radx and @enoch

radx said:
Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive.

enoch said:
i have considered his works and found them informative and reflective of our current situation.

just as i have found:howard zinn,noam chomsky,amy goodman,jeremy scahill,laura poitrus,glenn greenwald,paul jay,richard d wolffe.

All of the outlets and authors listed above have been very thorough or exhaustive in documenting the evils of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). The length, depth and detail they have all given and time spent documenting any and every instance is almost breath taking. For a long time, I sort of sat closer to you both by looking at the merits of each instance and case weeding through which stories were accurate, which ones were complete, which ones were misleading or fair. Lots and lots of the coverage from those groups and individuals were very accurate.

Here's the counter balance though, how much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to any positive outcomes of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). How much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to the evils of any alternatives or opposing forces that would or did fill the voids were America isn't involved? It's crickets all around.

Chomsky's work alone could fill a library with the thorough documenting of America's evil corporate execution of class war on the workers of the world. How many books and documentaries can we count form the entire group that attempt anything similar for China, Russia, Middle Eastern nations, heck, the rest of the world combined?

I don't draw attention to this to point out that anything they have all observed is even wrong or incorrect. I draw attention to the glaring omission of similar documentation of alternatives. As it stands, a country like Russia couldn't dream of a better and more effective propaganda coup than the work of these groups and individuals. That doesn't in anyway say any of them are in allegiance with Russia, or even like anything about Russia. It still stands that even if Russia set out to discredit and smear America and leave itself looking clean, it couldn't pay people to do a better job of it. That's something worth considering and the deep, deep absence of balance and perspective that the listed sources represent is DAMAGING when taken in isolation.

Perhaps more pointedly, is the problem with Breitbart merely with it's fact checking department? They are, in as close as investigated them both, about on a Howard Zinn level for accuracy/honesty. None the less, it's the facts they willingly and knowingly leave out that makes them so damaging. The fact they fall right wing instead of left wing doesn't make their damage so much more appalling to me.

29 comments, most of them rather long and more-or-less well reasoned, yet none about the content.

I get if you don't trust RT. It's a propaganda outlet of a foreign government, after all. But RT is not Chemical Ali style of propaganda: it is solid, well-researched reporting on many topics, subtly slanted on others, and completely balls-to-the-wall denial of reality on others again.

You want to take that as a reason to ignore it entirely? Knock yourself out.

I won't. Which isn't saying much, because I prefer text over video.

Anyway, they regularly offer a valuably "Korrektiv" with regards to reporting in the mainstream media. Of course I would prefer if I could get that from a less-dubious outlet like, maybe, the Indepedant, or the NZZ, but I can't.

Let's talk about the content of this clip, shall we.

Hedges references the Prop-or-Not pieces run by the WaPo. Does anyone here disagree that those were a total and utter smear job? Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive. Yves Smith and Glen Ford as mouthpieces of the Kremlin... my ass cheeks.

On the other hand, quite a lot of journalists in the US seem to have embraced the Red Scare with open arms, seeing as it gives an excuse as to why their previous HRC lost against the orange-skinned buffoon. Kyle illustrated it nicely with Rachel Maddow.

Second point: they had James Clapper present the report. Seriously? The fucker was caught lying under oath during the initial stages of the NSA revelations. Wasn't the fuckface also in charge of the satellite reconnaisence prior to the Iraq war, who could have presented imagery that debunked the claims of WMD "factories", and decided not to? He is just as trustworthy as Chemical Ali, but less entertaining.

Third: half the report was about RT. Why? I thought it was meant to outline how they "hacked" the election? What does their propaganda outlet have to do with that? And the critique they presented... has anyone read the passage about the "alleged Wall Street greed"? They are having a laugh, and people take it seriously.

Fourth: it distracts from the aspects of HRC's loss they don't want to be a subject of public discussion: class issues. They offered nothing for the working class, who got a shoddy deal over the last decades, and tried to focus entirely on identity politics, completely denying even the existence of class issues. Which is also why it's now the "white, male worker" who is to blame. Nevermind that >50% of white, female workers also voted Trump. Nevermind that significant portions of non-white working class folks also voted Trump. Can't be. According to the narrative, these people are minorities first, working-class second, and identity politics always trumps class politics. Except it didn't.

All this rage at the "deplorables", the "less educated"... it just reeks massively of class bigotry. Those plebs decided to vote for someone other than our beloved Queen HRC? How dare they...

And finally, RT's own part of this segment, about the credibility of the intelligence community's claims. Any disagreement on this? Anyone? Anyone think the torturers at the CIA are trustworthy enough to take their word without hard evidence?

Well said, as always.

Every time I get pulled down the rabbit warren of despairing at the insanity of both the entrenched left and the entrenched right it's tough to pull back out and find a response other than attacking the malicious wrong mindedness. What I get pulled back to though, and your post reminded me of again is that the better response is to unite the middle. The response to birthers looking to build walls and ban muslims isn't to unite the left as a counter, but we should instead be uniting those of us in the middle. The response to safe spaces, rejection of dissenting opinions as 'triggering', and calls for vigilante rape-culture when faced with due process should not be met with the uniting the right as a counter, but uniting the middle.

If we unite the middle, we can tell both the extreme right and the extreme left exactly how disgusting the silent majority find their behaviours.

blame?

i don't know if i would use such a charged word to describe a very and nuanced question.i think there is plenty of blame to go around,and it is never quite as simple as the media soundbytes we are all subjected to on a daily basis.

who do i blame most?
democrats..hands down.

but there are other factors that all served to produce this circus of an election cycle.

1.the failure of the left to actually understand just how frustrated and angry the working class had become.those people may be politically unsophisticated,but they are not dumb.

this really had very little to do with republican vs democrat.this was a large portion of the american population that had simply become fed up with a system that they finally understood had thrown them overboard decades ago.many of the people who voted for trump also voted for obama..TWICE..because they wanted to see "change" and what they got nothing,zip,zilch,zero,nada.

they simply refused to play charlie brown to the democrats lucy.

2.the DNC and debbie wasserman shultz,may she burn in hell for eternity.
this woman singlehandedly secured the nomination for clinton,while blocking a sanders nomination.

remember laurence lessig?
well,don't feel bad if you don't,because wasserman and the DNC kept changing the rules of application so lessig couldn't even get on the primary ballot.

the DNC basically said to the sanders supporters "sanders? fuck you! you get hillary and will like it".

3.the ultra left liberals,for being so sensitive and touchy (don't get mad,you guys are way too soft skinned) that they restrict their interactions in these weird,singular echo chambers.where everybody is agreeing with each other and nobody is challenging anything,no critical examination.

so when trump won.
they damn near lost their minds in shock!
because anybody who may have shed some actual light on the situation was already blocked or on ignore.

4.the republican party,who hated trump but allowed him to fan the flames of dissent with his bombastic speeches,emotionally charged rhetoric and divisive language.

they let this go on for almost a year,and while publicly denounced trump,privately sought a way to capture his thunder.

want carson?.....nope
cruz?...nope.
kasich?..nope.

because just like the left,they too,had misjudged just how pissed off people were in regards to our political system,and their plan backfired.

5.the democratic party for allowing such a shit candidate,and just like the republicans,not fully understanding just how pissed the electorate was.

6.the corporate media,who sought solely to profit from the election by giving us all this mish mash of reality tv,wrestling and days of our lives.they didnt report the issues,they fed the drama.

and every political pundit,every pollster,every opinion news mrs mcprettyface,got it FUCKING WRONG.

7.bernie bros who stayed home in protest,but this entire election was a protest vote.

so,
yeah..a lot of mitigating factors went into trumps win.

i didn't think he was going to win but i knew it was going to close,but i sure as fuck was not surprised.i was actually laughing at loud.

would you look at that...
my fellow countrymen just hit the nuclear option.
i didn't want a trump victory..no sir..but i have to admire the audacity of my fellow citizens to hit that shiny red button.

fuck you washington!

we live in interesting times my friends.
interesting and terrifying times.

and really...what would clinton have given us?
more of the same?
more wars and regime change?
more tax breaks for the super rich while children starve and more people become homeless?

i may find my fellow americans choice horrifying,but i have to respect it.
either way kids...something is gonna change.

Hi. SJW twat here.

I think we are tired of fighting. My sister is trans. She has to "engage" with bigotry every week. I don't agree with CE, and I don't particularly disagree with you but I just want to point out that for some people it is a constant battle, and this notion that we haven't been engaging, that we've been shutting out dissenting voices... for my sister those voices might be on the street, or in a bar, or on the train. Her supposed "liberal" allies are just as likely to be seen apologising for her as supporting her. So yah, I guess expect a certain degree of exasperation because it looks like the bigots won the other night.

ps. maybe you are onto something with the tantrum thing. I know you were joking and all...but it did work, so....if you can't beat em...

You would think, wouldn't you, that they would be diametrically opposed.

Well it turns out that esjews and islamists both, for example, despise sex and sexuality, differing only in whose sexuality they denigrate the most. They do both believe that women's bodies in particular are disgusting and ought to be covered at all times - certainly this is the impression you receive from esjew film and videogame critiques. They both believe that women are inferior to men and need to be protected from normal social experience - for the islamist this takes the form of, you know, chaining them in a cupboard and shouting verses from the Qur'an at them; for the esjew the creation of safe spaces and online bubbles where they can be protected from white patriarchal oppression, consequences, and new ideas.

They're equally fond of the lie that any opposition to their fanaticism is evidence of bigotry.

And of course they both believe that any dissent from their worthless ideologies should be forcibly silenced.

Turns out regressive belief systems have a lot in common.


I say this all, by the way, as the leftest of lefties. Liberals don't censor. Liberals don't attack men for being men, or white people for being white, or cis het whatever for whatever, and they don't team up with fascists just because they're brown-skinned fascists.

Esjews aren't lefties; they're a shit the left took on the carpet and haven't cleaned up yet.

@bobknight33

i wasn't making a claim that using labor and solidarity rhetoric has helped black or working poor communities.i was simply saying that was the tactic the democrats used to garner and solidify votes.

see:FDR

the current state of republican/democrat power structure is almost purely a machine to retain political power.it may go one way one election cycle and another the next,but BOTH parties attempt to crush any dissenting voice from the current narrative of power,and neither really offer any substantive change.

go ahead and ask your friends who gary johnson and jill stein are,chances are they never even heard of them.

because americans taken as a whole,are pretty fucking stupid.

Meanwhile in Canada, Black Lives Matter staged a sit-in interrupting the Pride parade.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pride-parade-toronto-1.3662823

They included a list of demands for the Pride Parade organisers. The demands included that the parade will no longer have police floats.

IMHO, the western world is losing it's mind. We are reaching so far with 'protecting' minorities from intolerance that our movements themselves have become intolerant.

When the push goes so far as to declare that dissenting opinions are in and of themselves oppression, then we necessarily lose fundamental freedoms. It becomes inevitable that each special interest group will declare rights for themselves that are incompatible with each other. For example, something like BLM interrupting a Pride event.

This sincerely worries me as freedom of religion as an idea already addressed this. Why is an entire generation seemingly ignoring such an important historical lesson? We have granted each and every religious system the right and freedom to believe and teach what they wish, necessarily including the belief they are 'right' and any or every other religion is 'wrong'. So long as live and let live is the resulting action and everybody respects the others rights to practice their beliefs as well, everything is good. When you go out and declare that disagreement with your beliefs should be punishable, you are in the wrong. It doesn't matter if it's your religious belief, safe space, or social cause, if you class disagreement as fundamentally wrong you are part of the problem.

The Grauniad has a dissenting editorial:

The Guardian view on Jeremy Corbyn: after the experiment | Editorial http://gu.com/p/4nxad/stw

As for me, I have no idea what to think... I'm just watching from a great distance.

Note that the only reason to include the "motivation" at all is for it to be used to interpret the "rule".

"to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions (read evaluations), as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia"

So even those dissenting were fairly clear that to be "well regulated" in the popular parlance of the day requires training and at least twice yearly evaluations....and for that, regulations governing and delineating that training and evaluating.
Hamilton was dissenting, saying 1) that in his opinion EVERY citizen would be in the militia 2) that making that militia 'well regulated' was too much of a burden if it fell on every citizen and 3) that he thinks gun owners should have to assemble twice a year (at least) to prove that they are properly armed and equipped (and tested for basic proficiency), NOT be forced to be "well regulated" which would mean MORE training and testing than only twice a year. SO, if you used his more lax criteria (and we don't) there would be bi-yearly proficiency testing and firearm inspections for EVERY gun owner. I think people would LOVE that to be the case, but his idea didn't rule the day, so it's not law.

@ChaosEngine

i do not see anyone here defending anything.

now maybe we can view stephen's commentary "dismissive and belittling" as @entr0py pointed out,but i think the deeper issue was prefaced quite succinctly by stephen in his characterization of american,and western societies,as being "infantilized".

where words have become the final bastion of totality in communication and are judged strictly on a word by word basis.so much so that some on the left have been pushing harder and harder to have certain words removed from our lexicon,because they represent negative thoughts/feelings/actions or they may represent a trauma,or horrific violent memory for some people.

but this is the wrong approach.
excising words will not erase those feelings/thoughts/emotions.this will just force people to come up or use different terminology to express those feelings/thoughts.actions that once had words to at least to attempt to express those horrors and/or offenses.

which will just equate to a whole new slew of verbiage being found offensive and in dire need of being castrated from our collective vocabulary.

yet the left (extreme left i grant) appears hell bent on not only attempting to control speech but to also judge those who DO use speech that they find offensive.

this is censorship with prejudice and to claim otherwise is the lie.

just look at your first comment.
you "used" to like stephen fry's opinion,until he became callous and dismissive with what?

words.

but do you REALLY think his attitude and compassion towards those who have suffered emotional trauma is truly dismissive?

well..i do not think so.i have spoken to you enough times to have a modicum of understandings in regards to you,as a person,that you have far more depth of character.

yet it is the WORDS that have hung you up.

look man,words are inert.they are things that are only given life,meaning and context when we add our own subjectivity to them.

words are inadequate.they will ALWAYS be inadequate.
which is why we admire and praise those of us who have a command of words that can reach into our own understandings and extract meaning in a way that blossoms like a spring flower and can create worlds in which we can play,and even share with other people.

i am intimately aware of this deficiency.i do not have an economy of words,and only on rare occasions can i relay,convey and express with ANY form of reductionism.

i struggle to express not only my opinion,but the intent,humanity and compassion of my opinion.

if the extreme left gets their way,the tools we have to express ourselves becomes lesser.

and in the process,WE become lesser.because the tools for dissent,debate,discussion and even..ironically..to expose the more venal and bigoted of our society,will have been reduced to words that offend nobody.

there is danger here,and no good will come from it.no matter if the intent sounds just and the goal compassionate.

freedom of speech is the right to speak freely.
to espouse our opinions,philosophy and yes,our bigotry and prejudice,with legal immunity,but NOT social impunity.

so while we have a right to free speech.
we do not have a right to not be offended,and maybe we need to be offended sometimes.to shake us from our own self-induced apathy and our adoration of digital hallucinations.

so when the westboro baptist church says the most hateful,vitriolic and disgusting admonishments,all in the name of god.
we can be offended by them,and then ridicule them relentlessly.

would stripping words from the english language prevent this group from espousing their own brand of hate?

of course not.they would just find new words.

so what do we do then?
make words illegal?
criminally libel?

so don't judge mr fry too harshly.
he is just pointing to the dangers of controlling speech and the new trend of the perpetually offended.

the extreme right attempts to control morality,and there is serious danger in that practice.
the extreme left attempts to control how we communicate,and hence how we interact,and there is great danger in that as well.

I would say this clip is political satire.
By definition it is not meant to be controversial. ( or you miss the joke)
Political satire is usually distinguished from political protest or political dissent, as it does not necessarily carry an agenda nor seek to influence the political process. While occasionally it may, it more commonly aims simply to provide entertainment. By its very nature, it rarely offers a constructive view in itself; when it is used as part of protest or dissent, it tends to simply establish the error of matters rather than provide solutions.

Further down on the Onion...

Here is a step-by-step guide to how U.S. Supreme Court justices are selected:

Step 1: Supreme Court vacancy opens after a sitting justice dies, retires, or is promoted to the Galactic Circuit
Step 2: President wistfully crosses out own name from list of potential candidates
Step 3: Official presidential nominee slowly lowered by rope into Senate Judiciary Committee pit
Step 4: Nominee charged one-time $30 background check fee
Step 5: Candidate asked whether they see themselves in exact same place 35 years from now
Step 6: Judiciary Committee members ask nominee whether they capable of writing a dissent that could be described as “blistering”
Step 7: Candidate attests they have no opinion whatsoever on issue of abortion, don’t know what it is, and frankly have never heard such a word uttered before
Step 8: Senate takes nominee out to drinks to see how they act in casual, informal setting
Step 9: Nominee stands as their predecessor’s robe is draped over them to see if government can save a few bucks on not ordering a new one
Step 10: Following months of direct questioning, witness testimony, and poring over the nominee’s qualifications and judicial history, the Senate votes on whether they like the president or not
Step 11: If confirmed, justice takes oath of office and is assigned a bench buddy to help them through their first few opinions
Step 12: If candidate not confirmed, process repeats indefinitely until other party holds White House or country is awash in the hot, crimson blood of neighbor killing neighbor, whichever comes first

Mesmerising perhaps to japanophiles. Looks odd to me. I'd keep that opinion to myself but i want to voice some kind of dissent because i feel that in this day and age, we shouldn't be buying/selling videos based on the words "hot grill" being in the title. Not least because if you don't agree with the grill being hot, you're gay or a straight female there's not much here for you that can't be found in greater quality elsewhere. But i'm a bitter cynic, so continue to ignore me.