Who gives you your opinions?

[UnseenParticipant]

Imagine a world where people get their views on events of the day from the Federal Government. Of course, when a government shill gets behind a podium to read statements and answer questions, you’re aware you’re being propagandized.

Now, suppose our governments—and other governments—could promote their views by telling the supposedly “independent” media what to tell you and, much worse perhaps, what not to tell you.

Whether you agree with me and many others that when a widely-respected journalist like Seymour Hersh claims that America was behind the Nord Stream pipelines, you shouldn’t want the U.S. government—or Norway’s for that matter—working behind the scenes to give you your opinion.

The Twitter files make clear that the American government had a back channel they used to suppress stories countering their propaganda by demanding they be declared “fake news.”

Recently, Facebook started putting up a kind of fake news notice to any link to the Seymour Hersh allegation. The notice said that the story had been “fact checked” and found to be false.

Now, Hersh claimed that the sabotage of the Nord Stream received key assistance from Norway, a country that hates Russia and has cooperated with the U.S. in the past.

It turns out that Facebook farms out some of its fact-checking to outside sources. In this case, they depended on a Norwegian news agency which, surprise surprise, is an agency of the Norwegian government. The obviously suspicious and inadequate “fact check” seems to have consisted of accepting a denial from the Norwegian government.
That ain’t real journalism, folks. But, of course, Facebook doesn’t claim to be a journalistic enterprise. Still, they are media and should conform to high journalistic standards if they are going to manage what appears on their platform.

If they are doing this, we can be sure the same thing has happened regarding other so-called “fake news.” Anything other than the government line is branded fake news even when coming from sources that under normal circumstance would be regarded as reputable sources, such as the many suppressed stories promoted by repected doctors and other countries’ health agencies contradicting government positions on the virus.

[UnseenParticipant]

And not all of the illegit influencers are in a government. They may be a party’s establishment wing that wants control over your opinions.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  Unseen.

[_Robert_Participant]

I have read that people going down the QAnon “fear factory” rabbit hole get pretty frustrated. “How come you all can’t see this”. It’s an obsession. The most common remedy is just let them go and maybe they will find a way out. The relatives try for a while, but it’s impossible and they just give up on them and move on.

https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/

 

 

 

[AutumnParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

The Twitter files make clear that the American government had a back channel they used to suppress stories countering their propaganda by demanding they be declared “fake news.”

Conversely, the government also has an interest in reducing the spread of propaganda and misinformation. Whether they are doing A or B or a bit of both is difficult to determine without direct evidence. This isn’t an issue that can be readily resolved from the armchair. A certain amount of agnosticism is required in life. My opinion of US foreign policy was never going to be shaped solely on the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

[UnseenParticipant]

@autumn

Having the “bully pulpit” isn’t enough, I guess.

Speaking for myself, I would prefer they try to convince me out in the open, not by sneakily attempting to make sure I simply don’t even see information they BELIEVE to be misinformation.

But governments sometimes MANUFACTURE disinformation. Recently, in response to the Nord Stream sabotage incident and their inability to suppress the notion that the U.S. was behind it, they concocted a piece obviously designed to muddy the waters, claiming that it was done by a Ukrainian group (conveniently) not affiliated with the Ukrainian government. As one critic observed, isn’t it funny that they know who did it but they can’t tell us who?

The sabotage was beyond the ability of Ukraine to do on its own because it could only be done by experienced saturation divers working off a ship equipped with a decompression chamber. The U.S., Norway, and Russia are among those with such equipment. Ukraine is not and that certainly would be true of a Ukrainian splinter group. That is obviously government-spun disinformation.

[UnseenParticipant]

@robert

What does Qanon have to do with anything? And who is creating fear if it’s not those seeming hell-bent on dragging us into a shooting war with a nuclear power?

This proxy war could have been avoided if we had simply let Ukraine declare itself a neutral country, as it had offered to do in March of last year. Back then, talks were possible, but at this point Putin has to end up with something to avoid losing face and we seem determined to see that that never happens. This guarantees that Putin will have to either win something or he will have to keep escalating. If you can see how the U.S. avoids getting into a shooting war with Russia, please explain.

If our goal is regime change, to get Putin ousted, we better consider if his replacement might be worse and much more competent.

[_Robert_Participant]

Your arguments are all the MAGA/QAnon top hits. And that’s one sharp team there.

Obviously, to the MAGATs, Ukraine wanted to be part of Russia all along. That’s why they are just opening the door. LOL. Proxy war, my ass. And now we know Russia was paying off people in Eastern Ukraine to provide false flag operations all along. Ukraine was the world’s third nuclear power and gave up her nukes with the promise that Russia would not invade.

Along with Russia, the US was a party to the Budapest Memorandum.

1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

3. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

4. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.

5. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm, in the case of Ukraine, their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a State in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State.

6. Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America will consult in the event a situation arises that raises a question concerning these commitments.

— Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine’s Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons[10]

If you wilt in front of every country with nukes, it’s going to be a poor future. Nuclear blackmail. The list is just gonna get longer. The only solution is to eliminate those weapons. Dickhead Putin’s Russia was violating the treaties. So Trump trashed the arms control treaties with Russia and also fucked up the talks with Iran, so the arms race is back on. Yey!!!

Shame on Europe for sucking on Russian pipelines. Shame on US being in bed with dirty Arab oil sheiks.  Shame all of us that we are not putting Trillions into fusion research.

[RichRaelianParticipant]

Hi! I give myself my opinions and no one else.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Unseen wrote:

What does Qanon have to do with anything?

That’s an easy one for me. QAnon is an example of how far misinformation can go. This isn’t just about governments any more.

Sidenote, do you mean to assume in this topic’s title that our opinions are based largely on other people’s opinions? (Albeit it wouldn’t be a far fetched assumption, as a lot of people do just follow opinions rather than lead with more creative pondering.)

Unseen wrote:

And who is creating fear if it’s not those seeming hell-bent on dragging us into a shooting war with a nuclear power?

In my opinion, when a criminally self-serving ruler like Putin keeps his country in the dark, willingly throws his own people into his war and allows rampant war crimes against civilians, and even threatens nuclear retaliation, those are good reasons to be fearful of him winning. Do you honestly believe that Putin will just leave everyone alone if he wins without any penalties? I certainly don’t. He’s dug in now, like a life-threatening parasite with absolutely no conscience.

As for who gives me my opinions, I don’t even look at the sources you mention, and I’ve learned to skip many that  one or two others present. Obviously, we humans have sunk neck deep into quicksands of reliance on some of the least informed, click-bait presenting headlines and pandering sources that are just milking everyone they can for attention. At the same time, I really empathize with how you feel about these very same failures of trust in the most popular sources of information and opinion. I don’t have good solutions to propose, yet, I just know that the problems run deeper than just a few of the most recent headlines. Technology, with social networking, has greatly amplified the extent to which masses of people are willing to bubblize their own views, while not even realizing they’re in quicksand.

While even here at AZ, a resource of clear thinkers that break the norms, how many of us has been recommending objectively reliable sources of information, instead of the click-bait warriors that get their “street cred” by dissing and mocking other sources? I should have pointed out already here and now, Sunday School seems to me to provide the most consistently objective suggested reading lists. Thank you, Reverend Reg!

I would tout my own attempts to collect suggestions of reliable sources of information, but insufficient results indicate that I haven’t worked hard enough at it, yet.

[UnseenParticipant]

PopeBeanie wrote:

Sidenote, do you mean to assume in this topic’s title that our opinions are based largely on other people’s opinions?

No, I mean based on receiving a kind of informational tunnel vision where contradictory views are blocked and never even reach info consumers for their consideration, like Facebook calling the Seymour Hersh story misinformation based on Norway’s denial that it took part. All governments do stuff in secret and if caught issue a pro forma denial. It’s as if we believed every one of Trump’s denials of his misdeeds based solely on his denials. The stuff that’s filtered out is often there, but you have to go outside the media that works for or is beholden to the PTB to be able to consider it.

Do you believe that Russia blew up its own property and a source of potential income in order to claim “It wasn’t me!”? Is that actually more likely in your mind than that the country whose leader made clear he’d take the pipeline out of the picture if Russia invaded? Hmm… I don’t know what could lead you to buy that story, but I hope it goes well beyond that Putin did it becsuse he’s bad or that he’s so smart, it’s a move in some sort of political  7-dimensional chess.

Even without knowing Hersh’s explanation of who did it and how, I would have had to consider the idea that the U.S. did it as a logical possibility. You can’t?

Even if someone continues to believe Russia did it, there’s no basis at all to consider a person crazy or a right-wing wacko  if they think it’s a more logical explanation, one conforming with the known facts, that the U.S. did it.

The government’s plea that we didn’t do it carries no weight with anyone whose aware of all the other things the government has claimed it didn’t do. Their denials mean nothing, no more than Russia’s. Just look at the available facts while asking yourself the “follow the money” principle. Who’s making money off it? Russia or the U.S.?

[jakelafortParticipant]

“It’s as if we believed every one of Trump’s denials of his misdeeds based solely on his denials.”

Believe a Trump assertion? I can think of no one with less credibility. A more transparently lying sack of shit is hard to conceive. So even if you love the guy…for whatever reason…how can you be THAT STUPID to believe him?

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

If you wilt in front of every country with nukes, it’s going to be a poor future. Nuclear blackmail. The list is just gonna get longer. The only solution is to eliminate those weapons. Dickhead Putin’s Russia was violating the treaties. So Trump trashed the arms control treaties with Russia and also fucked up the talks with Iran, so the arms race is back on. Yey!!! Shame on Europe for sucking on Russian pipelines. Shame on US being in bed with dirty Arab oil sheiks.  Shame all of us that we are not putting Trillions into fusion research.

Reciting an agreement is pointless. The U.S. abrogates agreements the way some people change socks.

Accusing me of getting my opinions from MAGA or Qanon is an ad hominem smear. Let’s start with the teachings of Q. Which one(s) do you think have infected my thinking? As for MAGA, I don’t think they have any beliefs to speak of beyond what Trump tells them to believe, and I don’t think you find one to pin on me. If you can find something I agree with Trump on, it’s not because he said it, but because there’s reason to believe it. Also, remember that a broken clock (Trump), can be right occasionally.

Maybe you smear unconsciously, not realizing that branding me as MAGA and/or Q is associating me with racism and white supremacy, antisemitism, religious ultra-conservatism, jingoism, reactionary rightism…

In short, all the stances I don’t take.

Bizarre. I would apologize if I smeared someone that grossly.

After taking a shower…moving on.

Explain to me, please, how getting into a nuclear exchange that could exterminate the human species, you, me, our children and grandchildren and their children, along with probably most of the other higher order creatures on the planet is somehow preferable to survival. If I survive, there’s another day and another opportunity to right the ship. If I die, I’m gone along with any such opportunities.

Also, let me point out that if we get into a war that merely damages the planet and makes it worse in ways too numerous to mention (but including poisoning the planet with radiation, killing off numerous species, ending civilization and throwing the world back into pre-industrial times), that will have been a choice we made on behalf of those forced to live in it long after we are safely in our grave.

People want to live. The Chinese live in a highly-controlled society run by a government* that, despite having a lot yet to learn (like not to build ghost cities), provides them with a decent living. None of them, I wager, would prefer to live in a post-nuclear war world, much less have to survive an actual nuclear attack. Americans, Russians, and the citizens of every country will feel the same way.

*Don’t think for a minute that I excuse China’s excesses against its ethnic minorities. I don’t. But the U.S. doesn’t have a lot of high ground from which to criticize them. While we no longer have slavery, every black person in America still struggles against the consequences of that period. (And I didn’t get that view from MAGA or Q, by the way.)

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  Unseen.

[UnseenParticipant]

@PB

Here’s an extreme example of what can result from informational tunnel vision:

But the same thing can happen, with severe, but less obvious consequences when people base their opinions on the governmental/mainstream media (including popular centrist social media) info tunnel.

Now, before you remind me that you get your info from a variety of sources, let me remind you that this post isn’t about you.

One way of smearing someone is to accuse them of being a conspiracy theorist or of being a conspiracy believer. This smear ignores one important fact which is that the list of conspiracy theories that have turned out to be true is long.  The government has gotten us into war at least twice based on concocted information. There was the crazy theory that we justified our war on North Vietnam by concocting a North Vietnamese attack on a U.S. warship in the Bay of Tonkin. Then there was the totally wacko theory that Gen. Powell was talking through his ass when he presented “evidence” that Iraq had a huge weapons of mass destruction program going that had to be stopped. Both nutso theories are no known to be true.

Does this mean that collapsing the twin towers on 9/11 was in inside job? Of course not. That theory defies all logic and is a practical impossibility. By contrast, the idea that the U.S. did the Nord Stream sabotage is neither illogical nor impractical.

NEVER believe anything the government says, though, unless they can give you credible proof. They have denied but have provided no evidence they didn’t or that Russia did it. Believing with unshakeable certainty that the U.S. did it goes beyond the facts. Believing that it’s the best explanation based on the evidence does not.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Unseen wrote:

But the same thing can happen, with severe, but less obvious consequences when people base their opinions on the governmental/mainstream media (including popular centrist social media) info tunnel.

I actually understand where you’re coming from, and agree with always being skeptical of government/mainstream. I just draw less conclusions than you seem to think I do. Looking for reliable sources is a real nightmare, and that’s where I’m stuck. Even when evidence seems to point to one conclusion over another, I’m holding my ground on “undecided” when evidence is not conclusive enough. For me, this goes for the origin of SARS COV2, and for whoever bombed Nordstream.

I don’t take any of these misunderstandings of my positions or lack of strong positions personally. We’re all good. 🙂

[UnseenParticipant]

PopeBeanie wrote:

Unseen wrote:

But the same thing can happen, with severe, but less obvious consequences when people base their opinions on the governmental/mainstream media (including popular centrist social media) info tunnel.

I actually understand where you’re coming from, and agree with always being skeptical of government/mainstream. I just draw less conclusions than you seem to think I do. Looking for reliable sources is a real nightmare, and that’s where I’m stuck. Even when evidence seems to point to one conclusion over another, I’m holding my ground on “undecided” when evidence is not conclusive enough. For me, this goes for the origin of SARS COV2, and for whoever bombed Nordstream. I don’t take any of these misunderstandings of my positions or lack of strong positions personally. We’re all good. 🙂

I’ve never, to my recollection, claimed to know your position on anything. My own position on the Nord Stream sabotage matter is to believe that the U.S. did it because of the evidence and a common sense analysis. It’s a belief but not an unshakable article of faith for me. Still, if someone can provide me with evidence Russia did it, evidence which seems not to exist beyond blindly reminding me that Putin is a bad dude, my mind is open despite my belief.

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