Interesting article on the political divide
14 responses | 0 likes
Started by mcfarmer - July 9, 2021, 9:56 a.m.

The interview is kinda long but worth the time:

Title :  “

You’re Being Manipulated

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/jonathan-rauch-americas-competing-totalistic-ideologies/619386/


Quotes:

“Political partisans are using social media to divide, dominate, disorient, and ultimately demoralize the people on the other side.”


“America is in the grips of an epistemic crisis—an assault on reality, a rising inability to distinguish fact from fiction, an effort to shut down free inquiry—that poses an existential threat to liberal democracy.”


“Polarization per se is not new, but the more polarized a society gets, the easier it is to manipulate people by hating on the other side. Polarization opens the door for propaganda campaigns. And then propaganda exploits polarization, because it seeks to further divide the society. That’s what Putin was doing in 2016 when he used the Internet Research Agency to stimulate protests, even opposite protests across the street from each other. Divide the society. That in turn weakens your opponents; weakens the society; lays the groundwork for cultism, demagoguery, and so on. So first, polarization creates a substrate that’s favorable to propaganda.”


I imagine there are some who won’t read the article based solely on the quotes I’ve pulled. I challenge you to read it with an open mind. But, the thrust of the article is that we have had our minds closed.



Comments
By mcfarmer - July 9, 2021, 10:16 a.m.
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This is a powerful quote:


“Disinformation is a participatory sport, not a spectator sport. It’s fun to tell yourselves narratives about how you really won; the other side cheated; you’re heroically taking back democracy; you’re in an existential fight against evil; you’re saving the country. This is way more fun than the boring truth. So the base now has picked up this style of spinning conspiracy tales, telling them to itself, acting on it; and the base is now leading the politicians. I don’t know how you put that genie back in the bottle.“

By mcfarmer - July 9, 2021, 10:19 a.m.
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I hate to quote the whole article (it may be subscription only) but maybe this will get some on the other side to read it:


“The right has latched on to disinformation, conspiracism, and trolling because they have the power to do those things. And they’re really good at them. The left has latched on to canceling because the left has the power to do those things and is really good at them. But they could swap tomorrow, and they probably will. So we mustn’t think of canceling as a left-wing phenomenon. It’s a weapon; it’s an information-warfare phenomenon. And if one side gets it, you can be sure [that] eventually the other side will get it too.

Having made that distinction, I said the second big point of my book is: You’re being manipulated. People tend to think of cancel culture as this bad thing that goes on online or it’s because of repressive ideologies. I want them to say, “No, actually this belongs in the same bucket as the stuff Trump is doing.” Maybe the ideological goals of the people using it are different, but they are also waging information warfare. By information warfare, I mean organizing and manipulating the social and media environment for political advantage in order to divide, dominate, disorient, and ultimately demoralize the people on the other side.”

By metmike - July 9, 2021, 11:36 a.m.
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mcfarmer,

This guy nails all the points being stated here by me exactly for one side. Thanks for this wonderful contribution.


                Mike, this is exactly what you talk about.            

                            10 responses |           

                Started by mcfarmer - June 30, 2021, 1:57 p.m.            

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/71813/


But there one really, really HUGE problem that I keep repeating. One side can only see what the other side is doing to brainwash THOSE people.................while their side does the exact same thing to them, using very similar brainwashing tactics!

Because personal, human cognitive bias that everybody has  causes us to only see what we want to see and confirm what we think that we know.

Think about this. If the republicans have applied this extraordinarily effective, psychological strategy to completely brainwash tens of millions about an election, why would the democrats not use the same strategy? 

Because the democrats are all saints, always telling the truth and only out to make the world a better place/help poor people, fight racial injustice, stop climate change before it kills the planet and make the US a stronger country, the Mueller investigation was conducted by honest people looking for the truth, Hunter and Joe Biden didn't do anything wrong.

Yeah, right,  just like the other side thinks that Biden stole the election. SAME THING and previous to the big lie about the election, the democrats were the experts on the brainwashing but Trump beat them at their own game, targeting HIS people with the brainwash.

                Hunter back in the news            

                            9 responses |               

                Started by metmike - July 3, 2021, 3:25 a.m.            

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/71953/


I'm just an objective, independent, atmospheric scientist and environmentalist with no party affiliation or agenda except to show the truth based on authentic science and verified facts......and to try to make the world a better place with positive messages.

Your story illustrates how ONE SIDE is totally focused on the other side and totally missing their side doing the exact same thing to them. It  demonstrate the one sidedness of everyone's perception.


Biggest brainwash in world history below........hijacking and rewriting climate science for the agenda..........doubling the REAL warming(with computer simulations using subjective mathematical equations that amplify warming and consequences to  MUCH greater than anything that could happen-and have done it for more than 3 decades without being fixed because it's NOT science, it's politics) and exaggerating all extreme weather(most of which has always and will always happen from natural variations/blaming it on human caused climate change from burning fossil fuels that are mainly...........MASSIVELY GREENING UP THE PLANET............but people think is KILLING THE PLANET.

How is that not the quintessential example of an effective brainwash?

Those that believe in the fake climate crisis are exactly like those that believe that Biden stole the election...........exactly! And metmike is just one of those deniers trying to sabotage the efforts of the wonderful people with altruistic motives trying to save the planet.

Does that sound like the person that you know from my posts here?


Somebody ain't tellin the truth about the climate. Who is it?


https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/69258/


                Climate Reality discussions-new discussion June 2021            

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/27864/

                 

By TimNew - July 9, 2021, 1:31 p.m.
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Interesting.  So all the disinformation is coming from the republicans while the left relies on cancel culture. 

By bear - July 9, 2021, 2:09 p.m.
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or instead of this modern supposedly non-partisan analysis...

all of you should read... On Liberty... by john stuart mill.

i have all my students read it. 

 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty


By metmike - July 9, 2021, 2:48 p.m.
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Thanks bear!

Our most precious and under appreciated freedom/right is the right to know the objective truth and to use that to correctly understand important realms that affect our lives so that we can apply those truths to make the best decisions for ourselves and our country.

This has been taken away from us as we continue to have our intelligence stolen by entities with self serving interests/political agenda.

They use effective and convincing sounding propaganda to brainwash us by telling us things that we want to hear.....instead of the truth.

When having these 2 choices on what to believe in:

1. The truth which contradicts what we believe and what contracts what we want to hear.....or

2. The manufactured reality that defines the world so that it matches up perfectly with our ideal version of the world

Guess which one almost everybody chooses every time?

Makes it almost impossible to get people to see the truth when it goes up against what people want to hear.

Alex, our previous moderator was very liberal and was pretty convinced in the climate crisis but extraordinarily open minded.

He’s one of my favorite examples of somebody looking at my data and completely changing their mind.

Another example was metmike.

In the 1990s, before the internet gave me access to all the data, I believed in several, especially exaggerated items of the climate crisis that the data showed are just not so


By mcfarmer - July 9, 2021, 4:56 p.m.
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“Interesting.  So all the disinformation is coming from the republicans while the left relies on cancel culture. ”


Now you’re catching on.

By mcfarm - July 9, 2021, 6:27 p.m.
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"and is really good at them. But they could swap tomorrow, and they probably will. So we mustn’t think of canceling as a left-wing phenomenon. It’s a weapon; it’s an information-warfare phenomenon. And if one side gets it, you can be sure [that] eventually the other side will get it too".......................................................................................................   Love this quote, so the left is doing the crap but if we accuse the right of maybe, perhaps, someday of trying it there is no problem. We knew they were guilty and had already convicted them in several ways. The deep state the msm will carry that water no problem. Wow when you think about it sounds like 100's of school boards this summer getting caught neck deep in CRT and now claiming they really did not mean it that way.

By TimNew - July 9, 2021, 7:04 p.m.
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Now you’re catching on.

I caught on a long time ago.

Especially the republican disinformation campaign regarding "Climate Crisis".   Oh wait...

But I bet the author of that "unbiased political analysis" is a full on subscriber to "climate crisis".. 

"Russian Level" disinformation was here in the states long before Trump ran for president.

By mcfarmer - July 9, 2021, 9:29 p.m.
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“"and is really good at them. But they could swap tomorrow, and they probably will. So we mustn’t think of canceling as a left-wing phenomenon. It’s a weapon; it’s an information-warfare phenomenon. And if one side gets it, you can be sure [that] eventually the other side will get it too".......................................................................................................   Love this quote, so the left is doing the crap but if we accuse the right of maybe, perhaps, someday of trying it there is no problem. We knew they were guilty and had already convicted them in several ways. The deep state the msm will carry that water no problem. Wow when you think about it sounds like 100's of school boards this summer getting caught neck deep in CRT and now claiming they really did not mean it that way.”


Im sorry, I really try but a I have no idea what this means. 

I do know it means you didn’t read the article. 

No mention of “deep state”, which doesn’t exist.

No mention of race therory.

Read the article.

By TimNew - July 10, 2021, 7:10 a.m.
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I'm sure you have no idea what it means.    The concepts are too contrary to your paradigm for you to comprehend,   and I did read the article.

Main points.     Trump introduced russian style disinformation to the US.  Patently false.

The Left must use cancel to counter it.  Blatant BS.  

FaceBook and Twitter et.al. must find a way to control this right wing disinformation.  Scarey stuff.

No where in your article is left wing disinformation mentionerd.  Only its possibility.   It's a fascinating demonstration that you don't see the blatant bias  in the article.


By mcfarm - July 10, 2021, 9:41 a.m.
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to rip van winkle {mcfarmer} who is pretending he slept straight thru the last 6 years and thanks to cutworm for printing this article which explains collusion the FBI. CIA. IRS NSA and other gov agencys involvement in the attempt to first over throw an election then to destroy a Presidency.  https://noqreport.com/2021/07/09/must-read-twitter-thread-heres-why-we-know-the-2020-election-was-stolen/


just used this article to point out the clear case for the deep state involvement. You can stop reading when it gets to the election and its problems and that would send brains into orbit.



By GunterK - July 10, 2021, 1:21 p.m.
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This is indeed a very interesting thread.

It started with an article in the Atlantic magazine.

A Mr. Rauch is basically telling us that the Right represents misinformation, fake news…. manipulating us into believing a false reality.

This means that the Left represents the truth (even though he criticizes their “cancelling” efforts)

I find this thought rather absurd, after we just went through 2 ½ years of Russia investigation, where the Left, and its behemoth arm of propaganda, the MSM, did exactly what Mr. Rauch is accusing the Right of.

After Russia investigation came another manipulative attempt, using fake news, to accuse Trump of what Biden did in the Ukraine.

Manipulating public opinion????

I also noticed that Mr Rauch used the term “Russia-style” 3 times, when describing Pres. Trump. Another psych trick to connect Trump with Russia?


To offset this article, mcfarm posted an article of the NOQReport (later also posted by cutworm). Thank you both for sharing this one.

This is a rather extensive and complete description of events, going back to early 2016. It shows the dirty tricks, the lies, the faked news the “Party of Truth” used to prevent Trump from winning in 2016… continuing to the 2020 election.

IMHO opinion, this article does not prove with 100% certainty that the 2020 election was “stolen”. However, it describes very well, why so many in the US question the 2020 election.  The pandemic was obiously used to break rules and make up new rules.  There were just too many "irregularities" to call this the "most secure election in history".  If this goes on, a good portion of the People will not trust the next election.


This thread describes the sad situation the USA is in… a time when a large portion of the population distrusts their politicians, the FBI, the CIA… with the biggest purveyor of disinformation being our MSM…..

This disinformation and manipulation campaign not only applies to politics, but also to climate change and the pandemic… but that’s not the subject of this thread

It looks to me like the Left is aiming to create a one-party form of government, with all opposition removed…. similar to China.   Well, it works well in China

In the meantime, we live in an era where mobs rule our cities with impunity and with support from those who are supposed to take care of the People.. Sooner or later, there will be bloodshed.

This is not the USA the Founding Fathers had in mind… but then, for many on the extreme Left, those guys are not in vogue anymore.  Actually, I might be called a "racist" for even mentioning them.

What will the People do about all this?

By mcfarm - July 10, 2021, 2:05 p.m.
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well stated Gunter. And as far as "what will the people do" here is what one brave soul will do, what he stands for and why we need millions more willing to risk it all against the deep state, the media, academia and all the rest the left has in a death grip....watch this short video and tell me does this guy have  passion?

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=marc+robisons+speech+about+guns&docid=608026146415927692&mid=551B80D61E3C40B7186D551B80D61E3C40B7186D&view=detail&FORM=VIRE