The US Election, Part XI

[Zoraptor]

 

Like for example a well-known Russia expert on German television. First she repeated the lie of Putin that he had sent no soldiers to the Ukrainian Crimea. Then she even stuck to it after Putin had admitted that it were his soldiers after all.

 

Underlining added. That's not actually a lie though, as Zhumatsky should know.

 

Those Putin statements were pure sophistry and an exercise in being technically correct; but they weren't lies. There was no 'invasion' of Crimea and Putin didn't send troops into Crimea as the troops were already there at the Sevastopol naval base, so there was no need to. While that gave a distinctly... inaccurate impression it was not an actual lie. I'd be surprised if there weren't some actual lies relating to it, but that isn't one.

 

Things like NATO encroaching on Russia is not a lie either, it's an opinion supported by some facts and countered by others. Whether you believe/ agree with that opinion depends on the level of knowledge you have and the weightings you put on others' opinions and facts. Thing is that there is definitely room for articles of this type and I wouldn't disagree with the central premise (my counter would be that if Putin thinks the truth is irrelevant he is far from alone in political circles, and not just from people like Goering who outright stated it) I've yet to see one that manages to lay facts out without dolloping on a good load of stuff that is actually opinion.

[Volourn]

You know the steoretype that conservatives are the dumb educated ones especially if they  are pro Trump...... well.. it seems they have company:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp6PKA_QXQ8

 

And, there at eother HILARIOUS videos.

[Volourn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCabT_O0YSM

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

 

The whole idea that the election of Trump is some sort of revolutionary act where people are fighting back against the direction this country is moving completely falls apart when you look at the actual votes.  What really happened is Clinton was a terrible candidate and couldn't get the people that elected Obama to back her.  

 

Both sides look ridiculous to me right now.  How many of these protesters actually voted?  

 

Both sides need to temper their expectations with some reality.

Hillary was an outrageously bad candidate but still nearly won. The large majority of the country still votes the party line no matter how awful their candidate. In general, the independents bounce back and forth every 8 years after they finally get tired of the failed promises of the current administration or are simply bored with it and want a different flavored bubblegum. But, I will say that Trump's victory, without any media support whatsoever, is pretty substantial. Will it revolutionize anything? Probably not, but it's still unique, to say the least.

 

 

Trump had media's support. There wasn't day during his campaign that media didn't speak about him. Media talked about him so much that his nearly non-existing plans to realize his promises were washed away by nonsensical  sensationalist headlines. His lack of candidates in government jobs was realized after he won his campaign. And press successfully made people forgot what kind policies people in Trumps inner circle have, people who will most likely play part in new government. So some of the media smeared him and some plainly supported him but nobody seem to actually really questioning his ability to lead the country, which made him equal to Clinton when it come in choice as leader and then people had to only decide which one they hate more.

 

In comparison to someone like Gary Johnson, Trump had media support, but I didn't expect to have to explain. Both the left wing and right wing media outlets were out against Trump from the start, and as others have pointed out, they're still slow to get why Trump was elected, doubling down on pro right or left talking points.

 

No such thing as bad news fits here. It's like the more the elites tried to slam Trump, the more the independents supported him. So yeah, he won without major media backing of any sort, which was my point.

 

 

But he had major media outlets that backed him, they didn't necessary promote him, but they did their best to villainize Clinton. Media outlets published articles after articles, how Clinton is traitor, criminal, distrustful, corrupt, old, sick, weak, woman, bad speaker, robot, lizard person, and so on. So major media didn't necessary promote Trump, but they did excellent job to make Trump look like lesser evil next to Clinton. Which is clear media backing even though it gives media houses excuse that they didn't directly supported Trump. When you add to this the fact that these same media outlets constantly release articles about Trump and his candidacy, and doing so making sure that people are aware that Trump exist and is the option for the Clinton. 

 

Of course there was also media organizations that demonized Trump and advocated Clinton as the lesser evil option, which is big part why there is now people protesting in the streets against Trump. Although Clinton did gather more media outlets that were willing to say that they support her presidency than Trump. 

 

I want to use this debate between Elerond and Blodhemn to discuss the role of the media in the election and its  future. There is real bias towards the media from some members on this forum. Some of the criticism is understandable but much of it is irrational  and much of it is  unfair and unreasonable

 

 

To address 1  spurious  view on this forum, I'll make other posts like this over the next few days 

 

" The mainstream media is over\ This election highlights how biased the media is  and how they get everything wrong " 

 

Absolutely is the media not  going to vanish or become redundant just because of the bad predictions that were made about the election results. Networks like CNN did give extensive coverage to the US elections 2 weeks or so before the election  but all international news channels cover multiple  global events all the time and much of this has nothing to do with the US elections or focused only on the USA

 

So in other words the revenue stream  CNN gets comes from many more sources than just the  " the US  elections " , no media house is going to close down because of  getting the polling data wrong  and this is  because the media has wide, global  and varied news resources throughout the world that fund it and define what news they discuss

 

But that doesn't mean the media should not address certain systemic failures that were highlighted in this election, for example one of the valid criticisms was how badly the polling data  was off. How did this happen?

 

I have heard various theories but yesterday I watched an interview with a US statistics professor and he explained what went wrong with the polling in the USA. His view makes the most sense 

 

Basically he explained it was all about the inaccurate  view around what constituted  the margin of error in the polling outcomes. When people were polled throughout the USA only the majority of Democrats responded who they were voting for, most Republican supporters refused to respond to the pollsters. So the majority of data gathered was an honest reflection of voting patterns but ONLY for Democrat supporters 

 

There wasnt enough Republican data and if there was it would been obvious how the Republicans were actually stronger in certain key battleground and swing states....predictions would have been very different from all  media houses 

 

You can  only really address this if all members of all parties participate  in polls and provide honest answers. If this is not done then the polls will continue to be potentially inaccurate 

[BruceVC]

You know the steoretype that conservatives are the dumb educated ones especially if they  are pro Trump...... well.. it seems they have company:

 

 

 

And, there at eother HILARIOUS videos.

Yes volo, in the US there are uninformed people on both sides of the political spectrum

 

Whats your point?  Should we all post hundreds of videos where they always interview people who don't understand much of politics and say things like " look everyone...look how stoooooopid the Americans are " . Its biased, inaccurate and childish and doesn't reflect the intellectual reality of the USA

Edited November 13, 2016 by BruceVC

[Azdeus]

 

http://www.friatider.se/swedish-tv-star-chef-brutally-beaten-muslim-men-because-he-looked-mr-trump

 

Malmo is the multicultural success of Sweden, where a town that was 100% Swedish went to less than 50% Swedish in the span of a generation, turning into a place where bombs are thrown on the police with depressing regularity: https://www.rt.com/news/310757-sweden-malmo-blasts-crime/

 

Incidentally, the second largest minority in the city are Serbs but for "some reason" you don't see them wrecking **** and beating up Swedes all that often. 

 

 

@Volourn; You should'nt give a Neonazi tabloid traffic. You should use, for instance, local newspapers instead.

 

 

Also, alot of Serbians came to Sweden as workforce immigrants, wich helped the refugees that came later(During times, in wich Sweden did'nt use an economic model in wich you have a "natural unemployment" and saw human workforce as shirts in a warehouse. After we "upgraded" to an American model of economics our unemployment rates went from 2 to 8 percent. Bit easier to get people integrated into society when there's work for just about anyone), wich I suppose made it alot easier for them to integrate into Swedish society.

I was in school when most of the 90s refugees came, and there was quite a few Serbians in my school - they were regular hoodlums that wanted to fight and vandalize stuff. They eventually relented though.(Granted, that is only personal data from me) Well, they relented and joined the neonazi's, but still. If that is not integrating into Swedish society, I don't know what is!

[pmp10]

I have heard various theories but yesterday I watched an interview with a US statistics professor and he explained what went wrong with the polling in the USA. His view makes the most sense 

 

Basically he explained it was all about the inaccurate  view around what constituted  the margin of error in the polling outcomes. When people were polled throughout the USA only the majority of Democrats responded who they were voting for, most Republican supporters refused to respond to the pollsters. So the majority of data gathered was an honest reflection of voting patterns but ONLY for Democrat supporters 

 

There wasnt enough Republican data and if there was it would been obvious how the Republicans were actually stronger in certain key battleground and swing states....predictions would have been very different from all  media houses 

 

You can  only really address this if all members of all parties participate  in polls and provide honest answers. If this is not done then the polls will continue to be potentially inaccurate 

Yes but have you wondered what caused the 'shy Trump voter' effect?

If Trump supporters refuse to answer polls or pretend to be undecided then there must be reason for it and frankly I think most of it lies with the media. 

Apparently women and minorities were big part of the statistical error and I'd say they were ashamed to admit they were voting for a man labeled a misogynist and a racist.

[Leferd]

 

Stephen Colbert coined the term "truthiness" way back in 2006, which seems a thousand centuries ago, now sounding so quaint in the context of the Bush administration. But I had my first inkling of its 2010s incarnation of "post-truth" from a translation of a piece on the going-ons in Donbass on the tank-net forums back in 2014 and like many I still had that litany play out in my head "it couldn't happen here":

 

 

 

 

Flawless Dishonesty

 

Vladimir Putin runs a radical post-modern policy, he does not even believe himself. The Russia-readers* dont get this

 

By Boris Zhumatsky

 

Probably the biggest difficulty in dealing with Russia is the following: Russia is lying. This sweeping claim sounds like a slogan of the Cold War, and is at the same time the only one giving reality its due. When I was writing my first newspaper articles after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, I always avoided the reporter language "Moscow wants", "the Kremlin claims". When I read back then: "The Russians invade Chechnya", I had to think of my friends in Moscow, and it appeared about as appropriate as Ronald Reagan's phrase of the "Evil Empire". Today I'm not just writing that my birth country has become an empire of lies. Russia itself is a lie.

 

     

 

    The lying starts at simple facts. First it was said that there were no Russian soldiers on Crimea, then there well were. First there weren't any in Eastern Ukraine, then there were, but they had just gotten lost there, no, they were just vacationing, and anyway they wanted only peace. That sounds confused, but has strategy.

 

     

 

    As an instrument of policy, the lie is particularly effective if it doesn't come with self-deceit. The political lie is only a lie if the liar doesn't believe in it himself. In Putin's lies, only his readers and supporters domestic and foreign believe. If one tries to find even a kernel of truth in the Russian house of lies, one becomes a "useful idiot" of the Kremlin. Like for example a well-known Russia expert on German television. First she repeated the lie of Putin that he had sent no soldiers to the Ukrainian Crimea. Then she even stuck to it after Putin had admitted that it were his soldiers after all. Moscow likes to refute its own lies once they are of no more use to it. How his useful stooges then look is of no concern to the Kremlin. It knows that they will rig some justification eventually.

 

     

 

    The regime mostly makes use of the lies which have been buzzing around the most obscure corners of Russian society for a long time already. Old lies have better effect, like for example the NATO lie. It says that the block of aggression was encircling the fatherland ever tighter. Other lies are newly invented and retold by Putin's friends in East and West: The Ukrainians were fascists, and the Russians had to defend their homeland against the fascists like back in World War Two.

 

     

 

    The friends of Russian autocracy are misunderstanding the policy of lying. The Kremlin is not really aiming for its lies to be believed. Putin wins if other heads of government let his lies stand unrefuted. Certainly Putin knows that at least some politicians see through him. The main thing: They call the fraud not fraud, the invasion not invasion and a hybrid war not war. In this it is secondary to the Kremlin which motives it contrahents have: Be it the fear of Russian nuclear weapons or the pacifism of their voters. As soon as the truth is no longer present, the lie wins.

 

     

 

    "Try to live in truth", that is what dissidents in Real Socialism have called for, Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1974 and four years later Vaclav Havel. From their claim to truth, a claim to rule developed after the breakdown of the Soviet block, and that did not at all sit well with the young generation which grew up under the sign of post-modernism back then, to which I belonged, too. What did a Solzhenitsyn with his nationalistic Russiandom, what a Walesa with his Catholicism have to tell us? Those grandfatherly pearls of wisdom weren't even worth to be deconstructed by us. History was at its end, and we were riding the wave of post-modernism into eternal peace.

 

     

 

    It was a brave new world of diversity and difference, detached from binding values and thinking and politics, emancipated from the dictate of universal human rights. We didn't listen to Jürgen Habermas when he recognized a new wave of counter-enlightenment in the post-modern critique of reason. But it didn't take long before our liberating post-modernism found its carricature in the media populism of a Berlusconi, as the philosopher Maurizio Ferraris writes in his Manifesto of New Realism, and then in Putin's propaganda state. Vladimir Putin is an even better post-modernist than his Italian man-friend. Putin's Russia is lying because it honestly and righteously believes that there was no truth anyway. In the late Soviet Union, neither people like Putin nor ones like me believed in the communist slogans. When the Soviet ideology faded, the search for a new "national idea" for the masses began immediately, however. The latest of these ideas is the orthodox-religious Russian world. This chimera of the Russian special way has grown on the dung heap of the blood-and-soil ideology of the past century, and of course it is constructed through and through - one would have said earlier. Today I just say - bogus. Putin's Russia is a lie. Because his subjects believe neither in God nor soil and blood, but only in two letters, PR, public relations. This belief says that everybody can be bought, from journalists to politicians, from Russians to Americans. Nobody is telling the truth, and only what is called "pee-ar" as an English loanword in New Russian counts. It is the true truth of Russia, and this truth is the lie.

 

     

 

    The Kremlin is forcing its geo-political game upon the world, and in this game political post-modernism rules. Every player has his own truth or even several, which he varies according to need. Because only one thing counts: Who is strong enough to force his truth upon the opponent. Vladimir Putin and his stalwarts don't know the rules of the game from philosopical texts, they learned them in the street.

 

     

 

    A lie told by bullies, Ernest Hemingway called fascism. The decisive difference between Putinism and Hitler's fascism is that the fascists and national socialists larged believed their lies themselves. The Putinist however believes in only one thing, in the lie as a life principle. Who has grown up in a major Soviet city like Vladimir Putin or I learned that in elementary school already. You get cornered by a group of bullies. "You ratted me out to the teacher" says one, even though you see him for the first time. If you say: "That's not true", he hits you immediately. If you apologize, you are derided first and then beat up.

 

     

 

    A victim's lamentation, coupled with a clenched fist, is not an unknown gesture. Putin's Russia, which jumps into the ring like a global power, complains about Western intrigue at the same time. The Kremlin is well aware of the weakness of the Russian state, the economy and the military. But in a streetfight you hide your own weakness. The opponent should believe you're strong. The opponent should **** his pants. He should believe that if he doubts your lies, he will get his face smashed directly. He can de-escalate, like politicians all over the world are trying to do with Putin. He can yell "peace!", but with the effect that the bully will also yell "peace!" before he hits.

 

     

 

    If the attacked doesn't defend against the lie from the get go, he won't defend against the violence either. He will get thrashed, and the attacker has really won the moment his victim didn't immediately call him a liar.

 

     

 

    Of course Russia is no country of brute hooligans who unscrupulously shoot down passenger aircraft. Of cours there is another Russia, and not just one. But the whole diversity of Russia has been banned to internal and external exile. Until the phantasm breaks down, the millions of potato farmers or math teachers, bank clerks or press editors can effect as little politically as somebody who like me has left Russia. Only one voice is to be heard in Russia now, it is the voice of the collective Putin, and it leaves you speechless.

 

     

 

    Today's political language is not up to the decay process of the traditional systems of order in Europe and the world. The old slogans about the aggressive American imperialism are just clouding the circumstances of the war for the "Russian world". Just as little the explanatory models of post-colonialism are up to the murdering of the "Islamic State". There is no terminology for this yet. For a start one could, in spite of all post-modernist doubters, call war war again, and the lie lie.

 

     

 

    With Russia's lies it's like with my heating back then in Berlin. I lived in a house with coal stoves, into which the tenants by and buy built gas heating at their own cost. One neighbor however saw a "threat to his base of existence" in this. In not-yet gentrified Kreuzberg, one used to talk about rent hikes that way. He kept hauling up two buckets of briquet daily for his four tiled stoves. He didn't greet us anymore. He became ever more grim the more neighbors joined the club of modernizers. Putin, who after all wanted to join NATO himself at the start, behaves just like this. But our cold-resistant co-tenant didn't break through the wall to my flat then, didn't occupy my kitchen in which the gas heater was hanging either, he also didn't scream like Putin about Ukraine: "You're endangering my existential interests!"

 

     

 

    "There are no facts, just speculation", this phrase of Nietsche so popular in post-modernism has shown it's true meaning today, which Ferraris framed like this: "The reason of the strongest is always the best." That's paradoxically the exact opposite of what somebody like Michel Foucault always wanted to achieve: For when power always has the say, power alone is real, too. Not coincidentally the current dispute with post-modern thinking formed around the term of the Real. Speculative realism wants to think the Real idependently from our perception, the nuvo realismo distances itself strongly from the political implications of post-modernism. "What the post-modernists dreamt of, the populists have implemented", Ferraris says. Of course it was not philosophy which brought forth the Berlusconis or Putins worldwide. But the rejection of their policy of lies also requires the revision of the post-modern habitus. Post-modernism's pluralist term of truth is currently being shot up in Ukraine. Putin is forcing a retreat into reality, and the Real steps into the place of realpolitik. The old-fashioned enterprise to give names to things. The luxury of relative truths and devalued values simply is no more. In Russia, the lie has won once again, and once again a simple, black-and-white language alone does justice to this drama. With Solzhenitsyn, that sounds like this: "Violence can only shroud itself in lie, and the lie can only prevail by violence."

 

Who knew that most tired of modern game franchises had the most prescient words for our times? "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

 

 

 

 

??? http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=tea&currency=cny  ???

 

 

My head hurts from drinking too much chai latte. Either that, or the sake and endless beer pitchers that never stopped coming preceding it. Either way, this is way over my head. I'm in awe. The VOC and East India Company should never have gone out of business.

[BruceVC]

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/12/politics/nigel-farage-donald-trump-meeting/index.html

 

Its confirmed, at least one politician in the Western world is happy with the US election result, NIgel Farage 

[BruceVC]

 

I have heard various theories but yesterday I watched an interview with a US statistics professor and he explained what went wrong with the polling in the USA. His view makes the most sense 

 

Basically he explained it was all about the inaccurate  view around what constituted  the margin of error in the polling outcomes. When people were polled throughout the USA only the majority of Democrats responded who they were voting for, most Republican supporters refused to respond to the pollsters. So the majority of data gathered was an honest reflection of voting patterns but ONLY for Democrat supporters 

 

There wasnt enough Republican data and if there was it would been obvious how the Republicans were actually stronger in certain key battleground and swing states....predictions would have been very different from all  media houses 

 

You can  only really address this if all members of all parties participate  in polls and provide honest answers. If this is not done then the polls will continue to be potentially inaccurate 

Yes but have you wondered what caused the 'shy Trump voter' effect?

If Trump supporters refuse to answer polls or pretend to be undecided then there must be reason for it and frankly I think most of it lies with the media. 

Apparently women and minorities were big part of the statistical error and I'd say they were ashamed to admit they were voting for a man labeled a misogynist and a racist.

 

Absolutely, yes the " shy Trump " impact needs to be discussed in its own thread. I want to make this post later 

 

Many Republican supporters do indeed have issues with the media and how the media represents certain facts, they feel the media is biased and generally only reflects one side of most events or political developments 

[Guard Dog]

 

You know the steoretype that conservatives are the dumb educated ones especially if they  are pro Trump...... well.. it seems they have company:

 

 

 

And, there at eother HILARIOUS videos.

Yes volo, in the US there are uninformed people on both sides of the political spectrum

 

Whats your point?  Should we all post hundreds of videos where they always interview people who don't understand much of politics and say things like " look everyone...look how stoooooopid the Americans all " . Its biased, inaccurate and childish and doesn't reflect the intellectual reality of the USA

 

Plus a video showing a half dozen idiots isn't much of a sample size when nearly 130M votes were cast.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

 

http://www.friatider.se/swedish-tv-star-chef-brutally-beaten-muslim-men-because-he-looked-mr-trump

 

Malmo is the multicultural success of Sweden, where a town that was 100% Swedish went to less than 50% Swedish in the span of a generation, turning into a place where bombs are thrown on the police with depressing regularity: https://www.rt.com/news/310757-sweden-malmo-blasts-crime/

 

Incidentally, the second largest minority in the city are Serbs but for "some reason" you don't see them wrecking **** and beating up Swedes all that often. 

 

 

@Volourn; You should'nt give a Neonazi tabloid traffic. You should use, for instance, local newspapers instead.

 

 

Also, alot of Serbians came to Sweden as workforce immigrants, wich helped the refugees that came later(During times, in wich Sweden did'nt use an economic model in wich you have a "natural unemployment" and saw human workforce as shirts in a warehouse. After we "upgraded" to an American model of economics our unemployment rates went from 2 to 8 percent. Bit easier to get people integrated into society when there's work for just about anyone), wich I suppose made it alot easier for them to integrate into Swedish society.

I was in school when most of the 90s refugees came, and there was quite a few Serbians in my school - they were regular hoodlums that wanted to fight and vandalize stuff. They eventually relented though.(Granted, that is only personal data from me) Well, they relented and joined the neonazi's, but still. If that is not integrating into Swedish society, I don't know what is!

 

 

Top kek.

 

But its not unexpected or surprising, they really don't have much common ground with the islamic immigration so those that couldn't integrate normally would gravitate to whatever domestic extreme is available.

[Guard Dog]

Another thing to consider about the "shy voter" PMP & Bruce mentioned. Unless you live here you can't imagine the sheer NUMBER of polls, phone calls, man-on-the-street interviews that go on during the Presidential election. A lot of folks stop answering their phones if they don't know the number or refuse to even discuss it when asked. You just get sick of it.

[Volourn]

"Yes volo, in the US there are uninformed people on both sides of the political spectrum

 

Whats your point?  Should we all post hundreds of videos where they always interview people who don't understand much of politics and say things like " look everyone...look how stoooooopid the Americans are " . Its biased, inaccurate and childish and doesn't reflect the intellectual reality of the USA"

 

Oh please, Bruce. If I or someone linked a video with dumb Trump supporters you'd be yucking it up.

 

 

"@Volourn; You should'nt give a Neonazi tabloid traffic. You should use, for instance, local newspapers instead."

 

Hey, leave the Codex out of this. :D

[Guard Dog]

[Volourn]

That would be HILARIOUS if it were true.

[Drowsy Emperor]

At this point I'm pretty sure Bernie voted Trump

[Guard Dog]

Come on. Of course Bill voted for Trump. According to the media he fits the basket of deplorables.

No way. If Hillary won he'd have that New York mansion to himself for at least four years. Can you even imagine the debauchery that guy would have gotten into?

[Guard Dog]

 

Now THAT would be a torch in the hay barn.

[Namutree]

 

Now THAT would be a torch in the hay barn.

It's gonna be one ding dang of a hoe-down.

[Valsuelm]

[Leferd]

 

We absolutely need Dave Chappelle back on television. America is counting on him.

[Hurlshort]

I think that one by Leferd was sincere.

[Guard Dog]

Seconded

[Volourn]

Liberal Peace and Love in ACTION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Glu3WgQ4Qw