"Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby Elvis » Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:05 am

Jerky wrote:I wonder what he did to deserve such a fate, exactly? Which rule did he break? Was it a long-established rule?


It was a rule established by SRP, a rule that SRP specifically asked me to help enforce. It's a good rule. AD was given some breaks on that but he persisted.

And you just accused me of gang stalking.


Jerky wrote: thanks in large part to you and your cohort of ideological simpaticos having been so successful at gang-stalking anyone who doesn't adhere to your specific, RT-approved brand of lazy-ass, Jimmy Dore-style pseudo-conspiracy mongering
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby Cordelia » Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:50 am

Nordic » Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:56 pm wrote:Wow. That's like a scene right out of "Wag the Dog"


Must be here, somewhere; that scene from 'Wag the Dog':

Remember the Gulf: 1,500 missions a day; but all we saw was one shot of a laser-guided bomb falling down a chimney. I was there when we filmed it - a one-tenth scale model on a Hollywood backlot.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-FXkj-r9Mc

Reminded of Hollywood/Washington's long love of entertaining (and planting seeds in) American minds:

(From Gulf/Western :wink: )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBDrv1PY-uU

The movie takes place as two parallel plots separated by a couple of years: In 1982, Wylie Cooper (Moore) is an engineer developing a targeting system on a tank for the United States Army. In 1984, Murphy is US Army Lt. T.M. Landry, an American tank commander sent to Kuwait to demonstrate the "XM-10 Annihilator", America's latest main battle tank, which is equipped with Cooper's system. Because of the tank's poor design and shoddy construction, Landry and his crew are barely able to control or navigate the XM-10 before it leaves the proving grounds and wanders into a combat zone during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (an unintentional foreshadowing of the Gulf War that occurred six years after the release of the film).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Defense#Plot

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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:19 pm

Hollywood is uncanny that way. All scenarios that actually happen get foreseen. I think guessing a possible country-country invasion is a lot less remarkable than what the Lone Gunmen pilot episode of March 2001 accomplished.

The propaganda content here is elsewhere:

Americans are well-meaning, rational people, interested in having a good life and a good time. Technological geniuses, but hopelessly naive. Social dopes. But the average guy is a good guy. A typical white guy, that would be a sex-obsessed engineer. Look, his sexy girlfriend is fending off his clumsy advances and leading him by his dick. Ha ha ha. Now a black guy, he will be very good, boisterous. Kind of dumb, but plucky in a pinch.

The system is good. A few bad apples exist, motivated by greed. They always lose in the end. Their function is basically to prove that, and to help the good guys self-actualize. There is no ideology or larger set of sinister interests at work.

Now other peoples, they are irrational and prone to fits of inexplicable mass violence. Arabs are the worst that way. Racially programmed for terrorism. Look: big fat women in veils with rocket launchers. Ha ha ha. Who knows why these people fight each other. It makes no sense. We are only coincidentally present. Just doing business, spreading technology and wealth around the world. We blow up a lot of things, but it's they that cause it. We don't even know why. What are we doing here? Why don't they love us? (This is a time when the question was more why don't they love us than why do they hate us.)

But they sure love our movies. Not this one, so much.

Don't let anyone tell you mass culture has declined. Nothing today is more stupid than the above trailer. (Gee, I wonder what happened to these guys' careers?) Nothing today is trying harder to make the audience stupid, or more effective at making them stupid, or assuming that they are more stupid, than this trailer. Nothing today is more propagandistic and nakedly ideological, or more in denial about that. ("Hey, it's just entertainment! Do you people think everything is political?!") Nothing today is more violent, even if in this trailer it looks like maybe all this shooting and exploding miraculously happens without any bloodshed or death. True that today, the visible bodycount would be in the thousands and the gore would be everywhere, that is a difference. But in the next shot the dead will be just as invisible. Making a preemptive comedy exonerating imperialism destroying the Middle East is already maximally violent.
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby Cordelia » Mon Nov 26, 2018 5:09 pm

Eddie Murphy’s career ‘trajectory’ traveled upwards (I mean downwards) from there. He continues today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of his movies; if I have, I’ve successfully blocked it from my memory. But if the trailer below—the first I found randomly; of a 2007 movie that he also co-wrote & produced, is a good example—I’m speechless. It looks so revolting I won’t embed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmSZJ17ppEQ

(I do like Murphy’s brother, Charlie, now, unfortunately, deceased. Especially when enraged, his black humor feels honest, unlike his brother’s outrageous parodies.)

What a way to unintentionally jump-start patriotism, 3 months prior to 9-11, than to release the 3+ hour mega-blockbuster film ‘Pearl Harbor’ over Memorial Day weekend, 2001.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGYcxjywx0o
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Nov 26, 2018 6:37 pm

Given the size that Murphy once achieved, he's been shooting squibs for decades, and it's because he makes everyone else seem mature and substantial by comparison.

Gak, I actually wrote about this thing 11 years ago:

1) The "Norbit" movie by Eddie Murphy is getting the usual blockbuster promotion, ads all the time, billboards on the subway, etc.

2) These commercials are clearly aimed at the impressionable 10-15 age group.

3) The movie is apparently about how some schlub named Norbit (Murphy) married a very fat woman (Murphy in a fat suit and drag, doing the neo-Al Jolson) and is now stuck with her. She is by definition physically repulsive, and an acceptable target for universal mockery. This mockery is celebrated as natural and good; no irony or nuance is pretended. It's fine, because the commercials imply that she's too overbearing and stupid to even understand that everyone is disgusted by her. (The reactions exceed what the NFL players showed while viewing the Snickers ad.)

4) The funniest idea is apparently the notion that poor Norbit actually has to have sex with this woman. The billboard on the subway shows her in lingerie, crushing him beneath her on the bed, with him giving a wacky "uh oh" face to the viewer.

We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Nov 26, 2018 7:01 pm

Elvis » Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:02 am wrote:We can safely assert that neoliberal institutions are fascist. What then do we do in the context of this?:


I don't believe Henry Giroux would put it that way. He may title books this way, but then he writes them (or book-length articles) to make the case. I don't believe even Chris Hedges would put it that way. Also, both terms are, in the end, word-labels for idea-systems, ideologies, philosophies if you will. To equate them is not to make a material and rebuttable claim in the same way as, for example, "This group of jihadis is a CIA front." Your sentence can be an argument in a history-of-ideas debate, but unlike my example, it cannot be proven or disproven as a material claim. That's a big difference.

Pretty good arguments can be made that there is a relationship; that one tends to or practically requires the other; that they share certain fundamental values even while they are engaged in attacks against each other; that the former will tend to support the latter when failing; and so on. A good argument CANNOT be made, as you go on to do, that CNN (or most output of CNN) is "neoliberal" (in some ideological sense, as the word itself is something CNN may not even understand; neoliberal in particular, though "real," is a synthetic categorization of existing movements and developments that rarely call themselves that) -- and that therefore CNN=neoliberal=fascist=violation of RI rules against posting fascist shit. Come on. Please. Such an argument is good (say, the way Giroux makes it) when terms are carefully defined, and there is excellent and thorough sense and explication of the history and current politics. But it's not a "safe assertion."

.
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby liminalOyster » Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:32 pm

There's a real art to if and how to talk about fascism these days and my mastery of it is poor. What is being pointed to, it seems like, when people say that neoliberalism is fascism is pretty apt. But there are important distinctions too, from any classic standpoint. In general, indubitably fascist regimes have mostly existed only before 1973 and before Bretton Woods and etc. The role of the state in general is forever different now. And the reach and influence of non-state actors is simply different and vaster. Let's recall that fascism is not *as bad as it gets* and be a bit more trusting in our creativity to imagine that, indeed, what we may be moving towards could make fascism look quaint. Or not. That's not a foregone conclusion. But anyone who has only now awoken to the continued fascist-like influence on western democracies etc is probably equally so likely to be convinced the "threat" has been averted when the US executive is re-skinned.
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby Elvis » Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:05 pm

JackRiddler wrote:Pretty good arguments can be made that there is a relationship; that one tends to or practically requires the other; that they share certain fundamental values even while they are engaged in attacks against each other; that the former will tend to support the latter when failing; and so on. A good argument CANNOT be made, as you go on to do, that CNN (or most output of CNN) is "neoliberal" (in some ideological sense, as the word itself is something CNN may not even understand; neoliberal in particular, though "real," is a synthetic categorization of existing movements and developments that rarely call themselves that) -- and that therefore CNN=neoliberal=fascist=violation of RI rules against posting fascist shit. Come on. Please. Such an argument is good (say, the way Giroux makes it) when terms are carefully defined, and there is excellent and thorough sense and explication of the history and current politics. But it's not a "safe assertion."


Astute comments, that I appreciate, but while I posit neoliberalism's definite affinity to fascism and posted a string of illustrative examples, I'm not asserting that "CNN=neoliberal=fascist=violation of RI rules" but am actually questioning that equation because it's not that simple (as you say). I am just trying to coax people into using some discernment and qualification when habitually posting articles that spread neoliberal philosophies.

To be clear, no one is going to be in trouble with me the moderator for posting or citing CNN (or USA Today or NYTimes or WaPo yada yada), I do it and will do it, but sometimes it clearly calls for context.
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby American Dream » Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:08 pm

What is up with Jerky now?

Jerky » Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:57 am wrote:Pretty much the entirety of B.S.'s participation here at Rig Int is a textbook case of bad faith argumentation, Elvis, and a whole lot of yours is, too... especially when you don your moderator's mantle. How come it's so obvious to Peartreed and I -- and a few other long time board participants who choose to remain silent nowadays thanks in large part to you and your cohort of ideological simpaticos having been so successful at gang-stalking anyone who doesn't adhere to your specific, RT-approved brand of lazy-ass, Jimmy Dore-style pseudo-conspiracy mongering -- but an otherwise brilliant individual like you allegedly can't see it?

By the way, where's American Dream these days? In the midst of a month-long ban, I've been told. I wonder what he did to deserve such a fate, exactly? Which rule did he break? Was it a long-established rule? or one that was reverse engineered and specifically tailored to target him, like the plethora of new rules and regulations that are constantly being implemented or discussed in order to make SLaD into a retroactive Breaker of Board Rules?

Which begs the question... which part of SLaD's self-defense against B.S.'s years-long harassment campaign crossed the line into "bad faith arguing" according to you, exactly? Also, it should be noted that Peartreed and I are both reacting to behavior that took place in this thread... IN THIS THREAD. Your criticism of where we chose to raise our concerns against your flagrant favoritism and nonsensical, random application of the board rules makes zero sense, and seems to be nothing more or less than an attempt by you to set up a pretense (however false) for yet another one of your increasingly regular and specious bans or "time outs".

But hey, what's MY opinion worth? I'm always getting time outs and banishments! Isn't that all you really need to know about me? Just enough to dismiss any and all of the concerns I raise here, probably without even reading them.

Cheers!
yer old pal Jerky

Elvis » 26 Nov 2018 02:58 wrote:Peartreed and Jerky, please take your off-topic complaints, if you must, to the Rhetoric thread, thanks.

I am trying to facilitate honest and fair discussion, while responding to member complaints and alerts. Argument in bad faith is self-evident, not my opinion; it is by definition dishonest, it's destructive and disruptive, and everyone was duly warned not to do it.

:backtotopic:
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby American Dream » Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:19 pm

Was he banned? If so, for the above?
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby Elvis » Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:56 pm

Jerky was suspended for a profanity-laced outburst accusing members of gang-stalking. His status is pending.
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby American Dream » Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:59 pm

What does that mean?
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby peartreed » Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:10 pm

[“Nothing is Real”; live CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf ] as a thread mostly discusses mass media coverage as (too often) one-sided propaganda on behalf of a political view. CNN in particular is cited as supporting a “neoliberal” or extreme left wing position. That extreme left advocacy has also been ironically classified as “fascism” in its own right, contrasting the traditional extreme right definition but sharing its fanaticism.

Much like Hollywood reflects our social fabric, mass media reflects our politics and both integrate and influence our culture – intentionally. So does government. None of these institutions are entirely virtuous, politically objective or sanctuaries of truth. In fact we all know, especially as conspiracy spotters, they all fabricate, distort and manipulate their presentations to the public to support their view.

It is easy to thus declare, “Nothing is real” since much of it is composed of lies.

Unfortunately, that is also human nature. Our institutions reflect ourselves.

Even on a micro level versus macro, this forum is also a gathering of factions, alliances and diverse social, political and cultural perspectives. Like the larger world, the opinion leaders exert influence to dominate the discussion and have their views prevail, while minority voices get outnumbered, criticized and isolated. In some cases the unpopular opinions and opposition practitioners get banned.

Being a moderator in this continuous conflict is an admittedly thankless job. But it requires a level of group trust to enforce the rules fairly, with less subjectivity and personal bias. Even the rules themselves are not self-explanatory, and require interpretation and even-handed application. It’s a tough call and a harder role.

I’ve argued with the moderators and members openly and behind the scenes when I see what appears to be unfair application of moderator powers. Like media, government and society, group pressure forms factions and position compliance.

In my view Jerky was banned without just cause. Profanity occurs everywhere in this forum, even in thread titles like, “Fuck Obama”. 82-28 likes to use the word “shit”. In any thread on RI we can easily find swear words and vulgarities. Just like larger society and discourse everywhere, especially when strong emotions rise.

“Argument in bad faith” is a subjective call, not an objective classification or style.
“Gang stalking” like “bully bandwagon” is a perception, especially by the person victimized, while the accused group only see themselves as individuals opining.

Realizing, “nothing is real” except for human flaws and opinions, I advocate tolerance and empathy for the less popular members being bullied and banned. The violations of rules being cited simply don't appear in the posts being referenced.
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby liminalOyster » Wed Dec 05, 2018 10:00 pm

peartreed » Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:10 pm wrote:[“Nothing is Real”; live CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf ] as a thread mostly discusses mass media coverage as (too often) one-sided propaganda on behalf of a political view. CNN in particular is cited as supporting a “neoliberal” or extreme left wing position. That extreme left advocacy has also been ironically classified as “fascism” in its own right, contrasting the traditional extreme right definition but sharing its fanaticism.


I'm not 100% sure I follow your post. But FWIW neoliberalism has nothing at all to do with anything "left wing" and the characterization of it as fascist has to do with the state acting as handmaiden to corporations' metastatic privatization and commodification without bounds, and nothing at all to do with partisan politics. Trump for instance is, in spirit, about as neoliberal as they come.
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Re: "Nothing is Real"; 'live' CNN coverage, 1991 Gulf

Postby American Dream » Thu Dec 06, 2018 3:57 pm

Elvis » Wed Dec 05, 2018 3:56 pm wrote:Jerky was suspended for a profanity-laced outburst accusing members of gang-stalking. His status is pending.


Sorry, what was the "profanity-laced outburst" that earned him a month's suspension? Also, how was he supposed to have characterized the ongoing harassment of slad?

There exists a different trope known as gang-stalking (which mostly involves people with a loose grip on reality believing they are being attacked electronically by Illuminati and/or Deep State elements)- you don't really think he was accusing you or others of literally doing this, do you?

It's hard to understand the justification for such harsh treatment of a fellow board member.
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