So I have some major disagreements with what you said. Not in this being clear self defense (it was), but in your framing of almost everything.
1) We are an increasingly polarized, “sick society” but it is not due to the machinations of some “regime” favoring one side. All I have to do counter your narrative about how all the institutions…
So I have some major disagreements with what you said. Not in this being clear self defense (it was), but in your framing of almost everything.
1) We are an increasingly polarized, “sick society” but it is not due to the machinations of some “regime” favoring one side. All I have to do counter your narrative about how all the institutions have it out for conservatives is to list the numerous powerful interests, corporate figures, religious institutions, and media outlets that regularly back Republican and conservative political efforts and campaigns.
This disinformation isn’t a product of conspiracy. For Media outlets, it’s a problem of an increasingly perverse sales incentives in an ever more crowded market combined with increasingly insular media consumption from an ever more polarized populace. They need clicks to survive and they need to be first to cover a story. That’s why Blake was sold as just another example of a innocent black man being randomly gunned down before a single bit of info was discovered. There was a convenient and long standing narrative that was easy to sell to their political audiences. That’s also why Rittenhouse was sold in headlines as right wing militia nut.
Politicized left wingers have a narrative about cops and black people. They see a headline about Rittenhouse killing protestors, and in some cases, just assume it’s basically a Nazi killing black civil rights protestors.
This isn’t a left wing phenomenon. You need only look to the insane narrative around tump and elections as a counter example. Not to mention covid, our handling of which continues to suffer from right wing disinformation campaigns (inarguably, this has killed far more than than the 20-30 in the 2020 riots). It’s clear that this polarizing disinformation is occurring across the political spectrum. And not all problems are stemming from on wing.
A few other things.
2) Do you have more info on Antifa I can read up on? Interested to know where you got that info from.
3) the immigration bit at the beginning seemed like an non sequitor and your zero sum view of relations between ethnic groups seemed pretty damn strange. Especially since ethnicity is hardly the only identity we organize around in this country.
4) Finally, your accusation about carlin can be thrown right back at you. Where was your emergency podcast about Jan 6? Carlin can make a credible argument that Jan 6 riots had a far higher stakes (a bunch of rubes wanted to turn over the certification of a presidential election) than one courthouse in Portland. Which is why he made his podcast. Not really understanding why you were upset with him for not covering Portland.
Excellent comment, agree 100%. I had the same question about Antifa. Cooper is typically so scrupulous about defining and explaining all sides of a controversy, but I felt he threw in Antifa without explaining how he knows this to be true. I’m not saying it’s not true-I’m simply saying he did not provide evidence. If he has it, I want to see it. I would love for him to dedicate an entire podcast to Antifa.
I also felt he gave a pass to KR for obtaining a gun illegally and underage. If what he hoped to achieve demanded carrying a weapon, then he should’ve stuck to helping in a capacity that didn’t require a gun, or just sat out altogether.
I mean giving someone the money to purchase you a weapon that you aren’t legally allowed to purchase doesn’t exactly scream legal. But I guess it really just depends if you are a letter of the law or spirit of the law person
While evidence would be cool, stuff like that seems challenging for current events. Let’s say 80 of 100 arrested people have records like he described:
Does that mean a big fraction of the antifa types are like that or only of the ones who got arrested?
If you say riot violence was instigated by police agent provocateurs, I bet there were examples of that in 2020.
When he says Antifa leaders hand out cash to start shit, I bet he’s right.
I doubt any of that becomes public record for a while and we may never know what the balance of shit starting was in that crazy summer. If he has a real source of information, he probably can’t reveal it yet.
I don't believe he ever said that disinformation is an entirely left wing phenomenon. If you want his take on the election stuff he did a bunch of tweets about it a while back. And I think the issue with Carlin's stance is that many people see the good people doing destruction as acceptable and the bad people doing destruction as a horrible threat to mankind. There's a bias there, and Carlin tries to be non partisan but his left wing programming comes out. I think it's pretty obvious that the issue here is that only one side has any accountability, even though the other side caused far more damage, death, and loss of livelihood.
Carlin, at least by my estimate, has always been center right. Not exactly liberal. Did Dan ever comment on the protests and riots of 2020? I don't think he did. And if that's the case, his silence on that topic does not mean he would approve of that sort of destruction. I think the central reason Dan made an emergency episode after J6 was because he (rightly in my mind) saw a distinction between a riot which burns down local gas stations or stores, and one which sought to disrupt a certification of one of our national elections. A riot which only happened because a president and his circle of followers insisted for months (without any evidence) that our political system was rigged. That his loss in that election was impossible. The stakes are just different in these two cases. At least that's how I see it.
You saying the stakes are different indicates that an insurrection could have ever been successful. The only reason anything ever happened that was newsworthy was because they were let in.
And I didn't say that Carlin is a liberal, he just has liberal programming. A lot of people on the right do. I was listening to Jonah Goldberg (old school neocon) talk about the Rittenhouse trial and before he said "but it was clearly self defense" he had to throw in all his liberal misinformation priors about how he shouldn't have been there in the first place and he shouldn't have crossed state lines with a fully semi-automatic ar-15. People drink this Kool aid on all sides of the aisle. And you don't hear very many liberals repeating right wing talking points. Might be a tangent but whatever.
The stakes are different not because they could have succeeded in overturning the election that day. The stakes are different both because the lives of elected officials were threatened because of a fraudulent conspiracy theory (pushed by a president), and because this tact GOP politicians are starting to take following trump (i/e every election they lose is rigged) is dangerous. It erodes the legitimacy and functionality of our system. We, as a country, have had riots in throughout our history and we have recovered. What is far less common is mainstream political figures casting doubt on our elections for base political and financial gain. If this continues, its going to get very ugly.
On Rittenhouse, I honestly don't see what's wrong with Dan or Goldberg thinking a 17 year old should not have been there. He shouldn't have been. No shortage of experienced adults could have taken his place. Fair point on the "crossed state lines with a weapon" stuff though. It's a point that is both inaccurate (he did not cross state lines with that weapon) and irrelevant (he lived 15 minutes away and worked in Kenosha).
People did not start thinking elections were rigged because of Trump. People called shenanigans on Bush 2 both times. As far as the holy legitimacy of our electoral process, look up the Diebold backdoor hack.
Dan is certainly not center-right. I never thought of 'left' and 'right' as absolute terms, but it's something that always describes the contemporary state of affairs. Holding the same view as left wingers did in the 90's can put you on the right side of the spectrum in 2021. With that in mind, Dan would rather qualify as rather left-wing. Whenever Dan put his foot down (which wasn't very often, he is somewhat risk-averse) he always took positions that were more in line with the Democratic Party's agenda. Occasionally I even agreed with him, despite being fairly reactionary, e.g. when he was discussing the American healthcare system in one of his Common Sense episodes. But he is not on the right, that's for certain.
The BLM riots were also about changing the election, those riots just as political, and the Democratic positioning on them was just as motivated by the election. The only difference is Jan 6th protested against POWER and the BLM riots on behalf of power against the populace. Thats the salient difference.
Dan Carlin is nowhere near center right. Or even center for that matter. He's basically like a Bill Maher. Nothing center or right about either of them
Lol. My friend, I know you’re busy furiously replying to every comment you disagree with here. However, can you show some effort? Like make an argument with evidence or engage with some well thought out rebuttals? These one shot, wannabe “gotcha” replies are not it.
Well said. I have no stake in US politics or ethnic relations, so I tried to be unbiased while listening, and I also picked up on your point about ethnic relations being framed as zero sum. It is possible - and hopefully will happen - that ethnic groups do manage to find some equilibrium and peace.
I also agree that the rhetoric from either political extreme is intentionally inflammatory, comes in similar-sized doses, and should be disregarded by anyone who desires a civil society.
It seems that polarization is now taken for granted, instead of being mocked for being a ridiculous concept. If I was American I would have held my nose and voted for Trump. But I don't eat babies, burn crosses, believe that every poor person deserves it, etc. Would I have voted for him twice....maybe, but that still doesn't automatically make me the enemy of a Biden voter. If we just concede that differences are vast and irreconcilable, then we will be proven correct. This forum, so far, has been a place of civility, and I'm happy to see some dissenting and critical views expressed. Thanks for your comment.
Thank you for the reply! Speaking of zero sum, to your point, it seems in the US that political differences, at least for the most vocal, are increasingly viewed in those terms. No rules. It is all or nothing, because the other side whishes to destroy us so we need to destroy them first. It's toxic and it is directly fed by the media structure I outlined above. It's one more thing eroding our political system and all its norms and boundaries. I just have no idea how it can be fixed. Especially since it hardly our only issue. Again though, thanks for the reply.
To me, the immigration thing was useful to show some of why the BLM movement was happening now. I agree with a lot of the spirit of the movement and think that young black men are often treated unfairly by the police. As bad as that is, my understanding is that it was worse 10 or 20 years ago. Further, more black people seem to be doing well in our society now than ever before. The first half of the episode answered part of the question of why BLM protests were big in 2020 and not 2010 or 2000.
The Jan 6 riot at the capital, and 100 day seige of the capital have really just one fundamental difference. One was in support of the democrat party, the other was opposed.
That's the only real difference.
That being the case, can you give a good example of the other side doing the same thing?
The democrat party has always done things this way. They used to wear white hoods and carry burning crosses to intimidate and terrorize. Now it's black clothes and BLM signs. Same party. Same playbook.
So I have some major disagreements with what you said. Not in this being clear self defense (it was), but in your framing of almost everything.
1) We are an increasingly polarized, “sick society” but it is not due to the machinations of some “regime” favoring one side. All I have to do counter your narrative about how all the institutions have it out for conservatives is to list the numerous powerful interests, corporate figures, religious institutions, and media outlets that regularly back Republican and conservative political efforts and campaigns.
This disinformation isn’t a product of conspiracy. For Media outlets, it’s a problem of an increasingly perverse sales incentives in an ever more crowded market combined with increasingly insular media consumption from an ever more polarized populace. They need clicks to survive and they need to be first to cover a story. That’s why Blake was sold as just another example of a innocent black man being randomly gunned down before a single bit of info was discovered. There was a convenient and long standing narrative that was easy to sell to their political audiences. That’s also why Rittenhouse was sold in headlines as right wing militia nut.
Politicized left wingers have a narrative about cops and black people. They see a headline about Rittenhouse killing protestors, and in some cases, just assume it’s basically a Nazi killing black civil rights protestors.
This isn’t a left wing phenomenon. You need only look to the insane narrative around tump and elections as a counter example. Not to mention covid, our handling of which continues to suffer from right wing disinformation campaigns (inarguably, this has killed far more than than the 20-30 in the 2020 riots). It’s clear that this polarizing disinformation is occurring across the political spectrum. And not all problems are stemming from on wing.
A few other things.
2) Do you have more info on Antifa I can read up on? Interested to know where you got that info from.
3) the immigration bit at the beginning seemed like an non sequitor and your zero sum view of relations between ethnic groups seemed pretty damn strange. Especially since ethnicity is hardly the only identity we organize around in this country.
4) Finally, your accusation about carlin can be thrown right back at you. Where was your emergency podcast about Jan 6? Carlin can make a credible argument that Jan 6 riots had a far higher stakes (a bunch of rubes wanted to turn over the certification of a presidential election) than one courthouse in Portland. Which is why he made his podcast. Not really understanding why you were upset with him for not covering Portland.
Excellent comment, agree 100%. I had the same question about Antifa. Cooper is typically so scrupulous about defining and explaining all sides of a controversy, but I felt he threw in Antifa without explaining how he knows this to be true. I’m not saying it’s not true-I’m simply saying he did not provide evidence. If he has it, I want to see it. I would love for him to dedicate an entire podcast to Antifa.
I also felt he gave a pass to KR for obtaining a gun illegally and underage. If what he hoped to achieve demanded carrying a weapon, then he should’ve stuck to helping in a capacity that didn’t require a gun, or just sat out altogether.
HE DID NOT OBTAIN THE GUN ILLEGALLY. Stop the BS.
I mean giving someone the money to purchase you a weapon that you aren’t legally allowed to purchase doesn’t exactly scream legal. But I guess it really just depends if you are a letter of the law or spirit of the law person
While evidence would be cool, stuff like that seems challenging for current events. Let’s say 80 of 100 arrested people have records like he described:
Does that mean a big fraction of the antifa types are like that or only of the ones who got arrested?
If you say riot violence was instigated by police agent provocateurs, I bet there were examples of that in 2020.
When he says Antifa leaders hand out cash to start shit, I bet he’s right.
I doubt any of that becomes public record for a while and we may never know what the balance of shit starting was in that crazy summer. If he has a real source of information, he probably can’t reveal it yet.
Frankly, if you’re unable to cite sources for claim, even vaguely, you probably shouldn’t make the claim.
You've obviously never been to an antifa event.
What Darryl Cooper said is no secret.
There were provocateurs in both side's riots.
I don't believe he ever said that disinformation is an entirely left wing phenomenon. If you want his take on the election stuff he did a bunch of tweets about it a while back. And I think the issue with Carlin's stance is that many people see the good people doing destruction as acceptable and the bad people doing destruction as a horrible threat to mankind. There's a bias there, and Carlin tries to be non partisan but his left wing programming comes out. I think it's pretty obvious that the issue here is that only one side has any accountability, even though the other side caused far more damage, death, and loss of livelihood.
Carlin, at least by my estimate, has always been center right. Not exactly liberal. Did Dan ever comment on the protests and riots of 2020? I don't think he did. And if that's the case, his silence on that topic does not mean he would approve of that sort of destruction. I think the central reason Dan made an emergency episode after J6 was because he (rightly in my mind) saw a distinction between a riot which burns down local gas stations or stores, and one which sought to disrupt a certification of one of our national elections. A riot which only happened because a president and his circle of followers insisted for months (without any evidence) that our political system was rigged. That his loss in that election was impossible. The stakes are just different in these two cases. At least that's how I see it.
You saying the stakes are different indicates that an insurrection could have ever been successful. The only reason anything ever happened that was newsworthy was because they were let in.
And I didn't say that Carlin is a liberal, he just has liberal programming. A lot of people on the right do. I was listening to Jonah Goldberg (old school neocon) talk about the Rittenhouse trial and before he said "but it was clearly self defense" he had to throw in all his liberal misinformation priors about how he shouldn't have been there in the first place and he shouldn't have crossed state lines with a fully semi-automatic ar-15. People drink this Kool aid on all sides of the aisle. And you don't hear very many liberals repeating right wing talking points. Might be a tangent but whatever.
The stakes are different not because they could have succeeded in overturning the election that day. The stakes are different both because the lives of elected officials were threatened because of a fraudulent conspiracy theory (pushed by a president), and because this tact GOP politicians are starting to take following trump (i/e every election they lose is rigged) is dangerous. It erodes the legitimacy and functionality of our system. We, as a country, have had riots in throughout our history and we have recovered. What is far less common is mainstream political figures casting doubt on our elections for base political and financial gain. If this continues, its going to get very ugly.
On Rittenhouse, I honestly don't see what's wrong with Dan or Goldberg thinking a 17 year old should not have been there. He shouldn't have been. No shortage of experienced adults could have taken his place. Fair point on the "crossed state lines with a weapon" stuff though. It's a point that is both inaccurate (he did not cross state lines with that weapon) and irrelevant (he lived 15 minutes away and worked in Kenosha).
People did not start thinking elections were rigged because of Trump. People called shenanigans on Bush 2 both times. As far as the holy legitimacy of our electoral process, look up the Diebold backdoor hack.
Horsehocky.
Where else should Kyle Rittenhouse have been? Playing video games?
Dan is certainly not center-right. I never thought of 'left' and 'right' as absolute terms, but it's something that always describes the contemporary state of affairs. Holding the same view as left wingers did in the 90's can put you on the right side of the spectrum in 2021. With that in mind, Dan would rather qualify as rather left-wing. Whenever Dan put his foot down (which wasn't very often, he is somewhat risk-averse) he always took positions that were more in line with the Democratic Party's agenda. Occasionally I even agreed with him, despite being fairly reactionary, e.g. when he was discussing the American healthcare system in one of his Common Sense episodes. But he is not on the right, that's for certain.
The BLM riots were also about changing the election, those riots just as political, and the Democratic positioning on them was just as motivated by the election. The only difference is Jan 6th protested against POWER and the BLM riots on behalf of power against the populace. Thats the salient difference.
Exactly.
Dan Carlin is nowhere near center right. Or even center for that matter. He's basically like a Bill Maher. Nothing center or right about either of them
Lol. My friend, I know you’re busy furiously replying to every comment you disagree with here. However, can you show some effort? Like make an argument with evidence or engage with some well thought out rebuttals? These one shot, wannabe “gotcha” replies are not it.
If you've listened to Dan Carlin, and Bill Maher you'd know they have very closely aligned viewpoints. Bill Maher proudly calls himself a liberal.
Dan Carlin is right with Bill Maher. Neither is right or center. Both are typical left leaning propoganda pushers.
Well said. I have no stake in US politics or ethnic relations, so I tried to be unbiased while listening, and I also picked up on your point about ethnic relations being framed as zero sum. It is possible - and hopefully will happen - that ethnic groups do manage to find some equilibrium and peace.
I also agree that the rhetoric from either political extreme is intentionally inflammatory, comes in similar-sized doses, and should be disregarded by anyone who desires a civil society.
It seems that polarization is now taken for granted, instead of being mocked for being a ridiculous concept. If I was American I would have held my nose and voted for Trump. But I don't eat babies, burn crosses, believe that every poor person deserves it, etc. Would I have voted for him twice....maybe, but that still doesn't automatically make me the enemy of a Biden voter. If we just concede that differences are vast and irreconcilable, then we will be proven correct. This forum, so far, has been a place of civility, and I'm happy to see some dissenting and critical views expressed. Thanks for your comment.
Thank you for the reply! Speaking of zero sum, to your point, it seems in the US that political differences, at least for the most vocal, are increasingly viewed in those terms. No rules. It is all or nothing, because the other side whishes to destroy us so we need to destroy them first. It's toxic and it is directly fed by the media structure I outlined above. It's one more thing eroding our political system and all its norms and boundaries. I just have no idea how it can be fixed. Especially since it hardly our only issue. Again though, thanks for the reply.
To me, the immigration thing was useful to show some of why the BLM movement was happening now. I agree with a lot of the spirit of the movement and think that young black men are often treated unfairly by the police. As bad as that is, my understanding is that it was worse 10 or 20 years ago. Further, more black people seem to be doing well in our society now than ever before. The first half of the episode answered part of the question of why BLM protests were big in 2020 and not 2010 or 2000.
Another democrat party apologist.
Great.
Then put it up to common sense.
The Jan 6 riot at the capital, and 100 day seige of the capital have really just one fundamental difference. One was in support of the democrat party, the other was opposed.
That's the only real difference.
That being the case, can you give a good example of the other side doing the same thing?
The democrat party has always done things this way. They used to wear white hoods and carry burning crosses to intimidate and terrorize. Now it's black clothes and BLM signs. Same party. Same playbook.