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The Problem of Misinformation

Acim

Revelation all the time
Propaganda is powerful on the weak minded. It's all psychological tricks.

The reporting on Standing Rocks is good example of psychological tricks being employed by news agencies on the weak minded, or gullible viewers. I'm sure you can name ones that Fox News has reported on.
 

Acim

Revelation all the time
Only RW media uses propaganda to scare people. It's all about psychological tricks. Without RW media, republicans would never win anything. Everything is doom and gloom 24/7. Pure propaganda. It's important to scare the audience before hitting them with the disinformation. When a person is afraid, they can't think rationally. And when a person can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.

I can turn on Fox right now and hear panic mongering (psychological tricks). Listen to the choice of words, tone, voice inflections, etc. Whoever writes the scripts of everyone there at Fox is good at their job. They create the disinformation and have the bimbos read it off the teleprompter.

Psychology 101

It's stuff like this that has me rate your post as 'funny.' You speak like a comedian at times. I distinctly recall you speaking with great confidence that Hillary would win in a landslide. I now filter much of what you say as comedic. If there's another explanation, I'm sure someone can (sanely) argue it, without resorting to comedy. Unfortunately, I don't think you're the person for that. But please, keep the comedy coming.
 

Kartari

Active Member
Hi pcarl,

Unfortunately, I think we are drawn to the news organizations we agree with. One of the things I have noticed, Fox news especially, is the labeling of the effort to maintain civility within the public conversation as 'political correctness.', civility becomes the enemy. We have become lazy in not bothering to check sources. It is said that this election is 'consequential', we may be about to find the truth to that the hard way.
A further problem being these news outlets are owned by one conglomerate or another.

I agree. While we all tend to favor the news sources we prefer, we must be vigilant most especially with ourselves when we get our information. It's not very easy, as it does require more effort than merely glancing through the headlines of one or a few of our favorite news sources that report news in a manner we want to hear it in.

Fox News clearly gears their programs towards conservatives. They make clear efforts to provoke outrage in conservatives by feeding information in a skewed manner clearly designed to outrage them. Rather than calmly tell people the facts, I've noticed that even their journalists tend to behave in an obviously fiery and outraged manner over what the liberals are supposedly doing this time. Their news sets even tend to be very blue and red, suggesting how patriotic they are (and if you disagree with them, you must be very unpatriotic). I once watched one Fox journalist (not even a commentator) go on and on with apparent outrage, yelling (I do not exaggerate) for over an hour because the Democrats in the state assembly of (I believe it was) Wisconsin failed to show up for an important session. She flat out stated in an outraged tone they should be jailed for not doing their jobs, as if she were ready and willing to track them down and arrest them all herself. I was kinda forced to watch this nonsense as I was working for a client who was watching it at the time, so I used the opportunity to observe the MO of Fox.

Never was it mentioned that the reason they did not show up was because the extremist conservative governor at the time wanted to disenfranchise all unions in the state, and a vote was scheduled that day which would have probably passed his agenda in a then Republican-dominated state assembly. I have two friends who were airline stewardesses at the time who would have lost 40% of their incomes, their health benefits, and their pensions if he had succeeded. The Democrats were not showing up that day NOT because they were unpatriotic Americans who should be jailed, but because they were protesting the undemocratic governor's agenda to disband unions from operating in the state and allow the corporate executives to enrich themselves and further consolidate their oligopolistic power over the masses by screwing millions of workers out of their salaries, benefits, and pensions.

The efforts to whitewash the bigotry and ignorant stupidity which came from Trump's own mouth by dismissively calling dissenting civil and respectful voices "PC" was further problematic for several reasons. Concerning Trump, it essentially gave him a free pass to say whatever he felt like saying without consequence. He could (and did in fact) speak about raping women, about blowing up Iranian boats on a whim and causing an unnecessary war, or calling all Mexican migrants unilaterally lazy criminals and his supporters didn't bat an eyelash. He was instead seen as being honest (?!?) for speaking his mind... under far less consequential circumstances, the idiocy of this entire scenario would have been extremely humorous.
 

tytlyf

Not Religious
I wonder how it is that the left became so frightened that Trump is Hitler resurrected?
It had nothing to do with NPR & other leftish 'news' sources, of course.
The Hitler reference was due to his racist comments (dog whistles) and the unabashed support from white supremacist organizations. I find it fitting. It also doesn't help that he acts like a dictator.
 

Kartari

Active Member
Hi R,

Yes....yes, you would, as one who supported the female version of Kim Jong Un.

I know we've discussed her war-hawkishness in a past debate. I found this very odd, considering Trump's far more volatile emotional nature, which will very likely lead us into random and entirely unwarranted wars (for instance)... voting for Trump in this case was a vote for the far greater war hawk of the two.

But aside from their similar fashion sense, what on Earth makes you think she is a "female version of Kim Jong-un?" Is this nothing more than a (very exaggerated) comparison to communism since she supports, for instance, Obamacare?

Or are you just trying to be funny about the Hitler card being played with Trump?

I am seriously interested in your response. You seem to be among the more reasonable posters here whom I happen to disagree with in this respect.
 

Kartari

Active Member
Hi Acim,

I find all this subjective and utterly laughable...

What I find laughable is that someone who has admitted to me previously to having a lot of difficulty discerning objective reality from subjective fantasy has begun their response to me by complaining how subjective my response is. So forgive me if I take your reply with a more than ample grain of salt. :p ;)

While I'm thinking it possible to show a few examples, that you didn't choose to do, for conservative commentators expressing political bias, it is also equally possible to do this for liberal and mainstream media bias. Thus the "far exceeds" part of your comment is what I see as utterly laughable and is where I'm sure the debate starts.

Since I have not set out to demonstrate conservative bias, and am rather interested in this thread in exploring options for improving the quality of information, I am not obligated to provide the evidence you suggest. Perhaps I could have written my OP title a bit more clearly to indicate this, though my OP does specify the intent.

This does not imply that evidence does not exist. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence to be found, for those so inclined and bestowed with more free time atm than I to explore.

Again, without examples this is hard to see what you're trying to convey, other than saying RW media is inherently misguided while LW media is doing due diligence and MSM media is on the (ahem) right track. All of which an (true) independent would recognize as subjective opinion.

I've already tackled the examples bit above.

I did not claim that LW media is 100% right and RW media is 100% wrong. I stated my observation (which, again, I am not inclined to support with evidence atm for no other reason than a lack of time, and it's not the point of this thread anyway) that RW media is far more biased than mainstream media, the latter of which is problematically perceived by RW-inclined people as being LW. All media, as I did indicate, has its biases; I'd never claim that any one news source is 100% accurate all the time. Nonetheless, some are worse than others, and my observation is that Fox News is considerably more biased in its support for RW agendas than mainstream media is. Even MSNBC, which is certain LW in its orientation, is not as bad imho. The biggest problem with MSNBC (which I do not often watch, actually, but I do catch some programs sometimes) during this past campaign was its lack of addressing Clinton's flaws. It generally remained focused on Trump's flaws, which it tended to strongly get right. In contrast, Fox News has focused on conspiracy theories about how evil Clinton is, and while ironically claiming the moral authority its commentators like Bill O'Riley, Sean Hannity, and other RW nuts like Limbaugh have gone way off the deep end making up BS to render a more appealing image of Trump. In fact, Trump has said and done far more to put his own campaign into the grave all by himself from the beginning with his endless rantings and ravings demonstrating his ignorance of the office he's run for, his general racism, bigotry and misogyny, and his volatile temperament which leaves those of us who've paid attention to his words alone and not even counting anything covered by MSNBC or even the mainstream media if he'll start World War 3. or at least, this should have put it into the grave, if everyone was paying attention...

Clinton had her faults, I was not pleased with her as a candidate. But at least she had the brains and the qualifications for the job (two things Trump demonstrably lacks), and at least she had the temperament to keep us at least somewhat stable (also something Trump demonstrably lacks).

This is somewhat an example of what you are trying to get across, but comes across as sore losing. How is it different than Obama selling people on hope and change, only to learn 8 years later that lots of communities in America felt their hope (for a better life) take a serious hit under Obama admin?

There are many factors contributing to financial woes in America. I wasn't 100% happy with everything Obama did, and he could have handled things better in a few respects. But he was clearly an intelligent and capable president overall. The banks however led us to five trillion dollars in losses via the crash of 2007/2008, causing the housing market to crash and a severe economic recession (meanwhile, conservatives have been up in arms lately about undocumented workers and their comparatively very measly financial burden on the American taxpayers). This crash occurred at the end of Bush's presidency, not Obama's - Obama inherited this severe problem.

This is a longer topic than I have the time to cover, alas. My point is that there's unfortunately often a wide gap between what people perceive to be the cause of their woes and the real reasons for them.

Given how national elections work, I don't get why anyone running would go with the integrity based approach and stay within sphere of what can be reasonably delivered, when all political facts are taken into account. Like "free tuition" is an example. Who thought that would pass congress with zero questions/debates being had? I'm thinking no one over the age of 25, and yet, it became a popular campaign promise? Why, because the costs in that arena have spun out of control, and seemingly the only viable solution the Left could come up with was to have the government bail out all students in debt. So, costs can continue to go up, and remain out of control, and what's another trillion or so dollars added to the annual budget? How can anyone possibly disagree with this?

This paragraph shows a deep lack of understanding of what Bernie Sanders proposed, which is what I assume you are attacking here. He did NOT advocate for universally free college tuition. He advocated for free tuition for PUBLIC colleges ONLY. Private colleges would have been unaffected. The funding for public colleges are already largely provided by taxation, so we're talking about a far less radical idea than RW media (which I assume is where you get your info from since it is consistent with their falsehoods and with the same misinformation I've personally encountered when speaking with conservatives) has falsely presented.

It is also not the case that Sanders advocated a government bail out of all college tuition debts. He advocated (a) lowering federal interest rates on that debt, (b) enabling students to refinance their loans for better rates, and (c) extending financial aid to cover the room & board, books, and living expenses for poor students.

Finally, Sanders planned to impose a small tax on financial speculators to pay for all of this.

Simply by visiting his own website, one can see what Sanders's plan actually involved (source).

So, people can disagree with you because your information is entirely wrong.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I know we've discussed her war-hawkishness in a past debate. I found this very odd, considering Trump's far more volatile emotional nature, which will very likely lead us into random and entirely unwarranted wars (for instance)... voting for Trump in this case was a vote for the far greater war hawk of the two.
Tis not as simple as looking solely at him, & saying he's a risk for war.
One must compare the two.
While Trump is volatile in public, Hillary is volatile in private (vicious abuse of staff).
Her public persona is an artfully crafted one.
And of course, she is the one with a political & rhetorical record of favoring wars.
Which one is riskier?
I say she is.
But aside from their similar fashion sense, what on Earth makes you think she is a "female version of Kim Jong-un?" Is this nothing more than a (very exaggerated) comparison to communism since she supports, for instance, Obamacare?
Or are you just trying to be funny about the Hitler card being played with Trump?
This was a joke which I made to mock those who compare Trump to Hitler.
It turned out that Hillary had more in common with Kim Jong Un than I'd initially thought.
I am seriously interested in your response. You seem to be among the more reasonable posters here whom I happen to disagree with in this respect.
I'm not at all reasonable.....that's just a phony persona I trot out on occasion.
But thank you for appreciating it!
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I saw no proof of that.
It's a joke.

Btw, I took a pic of you in your kitchen.
(I'm the one who's been stealing your newspaper too.)
th
 

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
This is a deeply disturbing thread.

Main stream media has no left/right bias. They are completely amoral in their approach to news coverage, worrying only about ratings and profits. This is an incredibly scary time for them. Newspapers are all but gone and broadcast news is also losing revenue. This has nothing to do with America dismissing them as untrustworthy, but a dramatic shift to internet based news. They are fighting for relevance and so you see disasters, murders and scandals taking front and center stage. Let a Hurricane threaten any part of the US, and you don't have to tune into the Weather Channel to keep up with it. In fact, you might have to switch to the Weather Channel to escape the incessant coverage. They even put their reporters in harms way in hopes of attracting more eyes and subsequently more ad revenue. It's all about the drama both real and manufactured.

Take the Deep Horizon spill off of Florida's panhandle. The actual damage to the environment was questionable and we're not sure if there was any long term damage at all. The ocean has been handling lots of natural leaks for longer than man's been around to monitor it. Still, the coverage, the prognostications and the potential effects to our state economy were as incessant as they were wrong. So, while the environment seemed to not suffer much at all, our tourism was ruined by their need for ratings and the subsequent revenue. Who paid us for the ruined tourism? Not the media that ruined it, but BP Oil.

Obviously, I'm not much of a fan of mainstream media, but to say that they have a left bias simply begs the question: Are facts biased to the left?

You see, even with the Deepwater Horizon, I couldn't say they had a "bias". All I could really find fault was the intensity of their coverage. Look at their coverage of Trump. They focused on him from the very beginning due to his inherent drama. He said stupid crap, and he said it all the time. They would quote him verbatim and in context saying the most inane things and they would be castigated for not quoting equally stupid crap from the other Republicans. Oh, they said stupid crap too as did the Democrats, but not with near the frequency or intensity of Comrade Trump. They gravitated to his special kind of stupid just as a moth is attracted to a flame. I would contend at this point, that without all of this free, free, free publicity, Comrade Trump could not have won the Republican Primary, much less the electoral college. There was no political bias in their coverage or Comrade Trump as it was all about the Benjamins! Their coverage of Russia's newest Poster Child was all done to attract more traffic in an attempt to stay relevant.

Then there's Fox News. It was created by and is still owned/controlled by the Right Wing as an 'answer" to mainstream media. They now outrank all of the "mainstream" news programming since 2002. It is seen by many as nothing but a propaganda machine for the RNC. In short: they pander to the right wing, often creating stories and latching on to many false stories from the interwebs.

But given their implication in the past farce of an election, they aren't the worst players. No. As it turns out, there is money to be made with false new stories. Facebook has made a tidy profit on selling ads to these click bait a-holes. They know that many Americans just can't stop themselves from clicking on the most salacious crap they can produce. Patently false stories outperformed true stories on Facebook by a 'hyuuuge' margin. It appeared that the less believable the better. They had Clinton housing sex slaves at a pizza store which was so believable that a fidiot actually went there to free them, discharging his weapon in the process. WOW! Unfortunately, you have the rank and file uneducated American believing this unmitigated crap and voting for Comrade Trump. "Hillary's a liar" they scream, but the facts (like www.politifact.com) show that Comrade Trump lies more than Clinton by at least a quanta.

Like spam email, I don't know that there is a viable solution to fake news. Fidiots will still believe the lies because they support their skewed version of reality. Are they uneducated? Certainly, but even educated people fall for this crap if it fits their world view. That means we're going to have more fidiots elected into office lying their asses off. It's certainly hard to believe that Americans can be so freakin stupid and yet we have Comrade Trump to show that they are. Proof: incontrovertible!

There is no dancing around this. The gullible will continue to be gullible and do their best to sound like they have a frickin clue. I have nothing but contempt for them and Comrade Trump. The USA has indeed been lost to bigots and hatriots. I don't know that we can recover from this. This is bad.
 

tytlyf

Not Religious
I distinctly recall you speaking with great confidence that Hillary would win in a landslide.
I did say that, I was 99% sure. It was statistically impossible for Trump to win. I think I even would have bet someone $1k. Propaganda ruled the day. Fake news ruled the day. I can't predict people believing falsehoods.
 

habiru

Active Member
O rly? Even Comrade Trump was surprised that he won. He certainly didn't win the popular vote. It certainly wasn't much of a landslide on his part.

President Trump has went through the same things that Abe Lincoln has gone through. He had one by a Landside that they didn't expected that. They had talked about him so badly, as if he didn't had any sense at all. I guess that the Russians had influenced the election back then, causing Lincoln to win the election by a landside.


The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was perhaps the most significant election in American history. It brought Lincoln to power at a time of great national crisis, as the country was splitting over the issue of slavery.

The electoral win by Lincoln, the candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party, prompted the slave states of the American South to begin serious discussions about secession. And between Lincoln's election and his inauguration in March 1861 the slave states began seceding. Lincoln thus took power over a country which had already fractured. How Abraham Lincoln Won the Fateful Election of 1860


by nearly any measure—personal, political, even literary—Abraham Lincoln set a standard of success that few in history can match. But how many of his contemporaries noticed?

Sure, we revere Lincoln today, but in his lifetime the bile poured on him from every quarter makes today’s Internet vitriol seem dainty. His ancestry was routinely impugned, his lack of formal learning ridiculed, his appearance maligned, and his morality assailed. We take for granted, of course, the scornful outpouring from the Confederate states; no action Lincoln took short of capitulation would ever have quieted his Southern critics. But the vituperation wasn’t limited to enemies of the Union. The North was ever at his heels. No matter what Lincoln did, it was never enough for one political faction, and too much for another. Yes, his sure-footed leadership during this country’s most-difficult days was accompanied by a fair amount of praise, but also by a steady stream of abuse—in editorials, speeches, journals, and private letters—from those on his own side, those dedicated to the very causes he so ably championed. George Templeton Strong, a prominent New York lawyer and diarist, wrote that Lincoln was “a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla.” Henry Ward Beecher, the Connecticut-born preacher and abolitionist, often ridiculed Lincoln in his newspaper, The Independent (New York), rebuking him for his lack of refinement and calling him “an unshapely man.” Other Northern newspapers openly called for his assassination long before John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. He was called a coward, “an idiot,” and “the original gorilla” by none other than the commanding general of his armies, George McClellan. 'Idiot,' 'Yahoo,' 'Original Gorilla': How Lincoln Was Dissed in His Day


lincoln.gif
Matthew 13:57 And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”
 

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
by nearly any measure—personal, political, even literary—Abraham Lincoln set a standard of success that few in history can match. But how many of his contemporaries noticed?
Your post was painful to read on several levels. Comparing Honest Abe to Comrade Con Man Trump is setting a new standard for a false equivalency. Your lack of comprehension of American politics is eclipsed only by your grammar and spelling. I'm guessing that English is a second language for you.
 

habiru

Active Member
President Trump has went through the same things that Abe Lincoln has gone through. He had won by a Landside and that they didn't expected that. They had talked about him so badly, as if he didn't had any sense at all. I guess that the Russians had influenced the election back then, causing Lincoln to win the election by a landside.


The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was perhaps the most significant election in American history. It brought Lincoln to power at a time of great national crisis, as the country was splitting over the issue of slavery.

The electoral win by Lincoln, the candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party, prompted the slave states of the American South to begin serious discussions about secession. And between Lincoln's election and his inauguration in March 1861 the slave states began seceding. Lincoln thus took power over a country which had already fractured. How Abraham Lincoln Won the Fateful Election of 1860


by nearly any measure—personal, political, even literary—Abraham Lincoln set a standard of success that few in history can match. But how many of his contemporaries noticed?

Sure, we revere Lincoln today, but in his lifetime the bile poured on him from every quarter makes today’s Internet vitriol seem dainty. His ancestry was routinely impugned, his lack of formal learning ridiculed, his appearance maligned, and his morality assailed. We take for granted, of course, the scornful outpouring from the Confederate states; no action Lincoln took short of capitulation would ever have quieted his Southern critics. But the vituperation wasn’t limited to enemies of the Union. The North was ever at his heels. No matter what Lincoln did, it was never enough for one political faction, and too much for another. Yes, his sure-footed leadership during this country’s most-difficult days was accompanied by a fair amount of praise, but also by a steady stream of abuse—in editorials, speeches, journals, and private letters—from those on his own side, those dedicated to the very causes he so ably championed. George Templeton Strong, a prominent New York lawyer and diarist, wrote that Lincoln was “a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla.” Henry Ward Beecher, the Connecticut-born preacher and abolitionist, often ridiculed Lincoln in his newspaper, The Independent (New York), rebuking him for his lack of refinement and calling him “an unshapely man.” Other Northern newspapers openly called for his assassination long before John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. He was called a coward, “an idiot,” and “the original gorilla” by none other than the commanding general of his armies, George McClellan. 'Idiot,' 'Yahoo,' 'Original Gorilla': How Lincoln Was Dissed in His Day


lincoln.gif
Matthew 13:57 And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”
 

tytlyf

Not Religious
President Trump has went through the same things that Abe Lincoln has gone through. He had one by a Landside that they didn't expected that. They had talked about him so badly, as if he didn't had any sense at all. I guess that the Russians had influenced the election back then, causing Lincoln to win the election by a landside.


The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was perhaps the most significant election in American history. It brought Lincoln to power at a time of great national crisis, as the country was splitting over the issue of slavery.

The electoral win by Lincoln, the candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party, prompted the slave states of the American South to begin serious discussions about secession. And between Lincoln's election and his inauguration in March 1861 the slave states began seceding. Lincoln thus took power over a country which had already fractured. How Abraham Lincoln Won the Fateful Election of 1860


by nearly any measure—personal, political, even literary—Abraham Lincoln set a standard of success that few in history can match. But how many of his contemporaries noticed?

Sure, we revere Lincoln today, but in his lifetime the bile poured on him from every quarter makes today’s Internet vitriol seem dainty. His ancestry was routinely impugned, his lack of formal learning ridiculed, his appearance maligned, and his morality assailed. We take for granted, of course, the scornful outpouring from the Confederate states; no action Lincoln took short of capitulation would ever have quieted his Southern critics. But the vituperation wasn’t limited to enemies of the Union. The North was ever at his heels. No matter what Lincoln did, it was never enough for one political faction, and too much for another. Yes, his sure-footed leadership during this country’s most-difficult days was accompanied by a fair amount of praise, but also by a steady stream of abuse—in editorials, speeches, journals, and private letters—from those on his own side, those dedicated to the very causes he so ably championed. George Templeton Strong, a prominent New York lawyer and diarist, wrote that Lincoln was “a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla.” Henry Ward Beecher, the Connecticut-born preacher and abolitionist, often ridiculed Lincoln in his newspaper, The Independent (New York), rebuking him for his lack of refinement and calling him “an unshapely man.” Other Northern newspapers openly called for his assassination long before John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. He was called a coward, “an idiot,” and “the original gorilla” by none other than the commanding general of his armies, George McClellan. 'Idiot,' 'Yahoo,' 'Original Gorilla': How Lincoln Was Dissed in His Day


lincoln.gif
Matthew 13:57 And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”
Lincoln was a progressive.
 
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