01.25.2017 08:48 AM

Comment about comments in the Alternative Facts era

I welcome comments here, but within limits.

One additional thing that I will not permit is the use of this space to promote racism and hatred.  Thus, this, to “Fred from BC.”

Fred:

Comments are welcome, but I will not allow this space to be used to advocate for a ban on Muslims. Go elsewhere, if you want to spew that kind of bullshit.

Warren

Just as the New York Times is now (correctly) describing the Unpresident as a liar in news story headlines, I will not allow my web site to become a repository for hate and obvious bullshit.

Understood?

7 Comments

  1. John says:

    #1 rule on my blog and my social media accounts: no profanity or hate speech… my kids read my stuff sometimes!
    Sadly, my blocked lists are growing rapidly.

  2. Dan Calda says:

    I really hope other media outlets find the kahoonas to do the same…and/or just not cover White House propaganda (press) briefings. As for Ottawa…there will be plenty of time. Right now…I hope Ottawa is quietly negotiating/talking to Mexico on a potential new trade deal.

    • Matt says:

      I actually felt kinda sorry for Trump’s press secretary Scott Spicer yesterday having to go out there in front of the media and defend the dumbass things Trump is saying.

      He sure didn’t look to comfortable

  3. daveconstable says:

    Meanwhile, a little less coverage for the executive orders enabling pro climate degradation actions.

  4. Bill Templeman says:

    Yes, Bravo and a Standing Ovation! Fred and his buds in the Alt-Right want the protection of Free Speech to cover their garbage. As if we should have been nicer to Goebbels 80 years ago. Problem was we ignored him. Let’s not make the same mistake again.

  5. Scotian says:

    Well, now we know we have real facts from reality and alt-facts, from the alt-right President Donald Trump. There really isn’t much else to say/add to that, it is that black and white stark level simplicity. I have always been a big believer in the premise of being entitled to one’s own opinion but not one’s own facts, indeed I have used that quote many a time.

    Political rhetoric/spin used to be when you took a fact and put the best or worst case light you needed to on it, depending on the argument being made, but it was still at heart rooted on something real, talked up or down, but still real. These days though we have long since left the fact zone and moved into the reality where spin and total fiction are seen as the same thing, and that is unhealthy for any political culture based on rule of law, plurality, and some sort of democratic governing system. This isn’t, unfortunately, by accident.

    This is the culmination of a decades long project by some within the leadership of the American right/far right (not the alt-right, they are in this regard the beneficiaries of the work, but not the main ones behind doing/building it) to delegitimze their political opposition, and their message, and the facts they rely upon. This first got its grounding I submit in the pro-tobacco news and propaganda used to counter the real health facts about the dangers of smoking as they were proven in the science lab over the 60s through to 90s/00s even. It was a very useful shaping tool for that lobby, and when a tool succeeds like that of course it gets replicated by those with similar needs.

    Then the anti-government messaging masters in the 1980s got a hold of the idea, and worked it into the anti-abortion culture wars/counter culture wars that was being used to hold the GOP together on the domestic side, especially after the end of the Cold War left them without a foreign threat to use for that purpose. Which in turn led to the rise of the 1994 GOP Contract With/(ON!) America by Gingrich, Tom Delay, and Denis Hastert the child predator aka former Speaker of the House. The Clinton Impeachment process after the incessant and constantly shifting focus of the Starr investigation from WhiteWater to a blowjob in an affair, the infrastructure built up around it by the dark money folks behind the GOP.

    My main problem with modern conservativism hasn’t been so much about ideology, it has been about the inability to share political space, and the need to delegitimize everything that does not suit their needs (I once would have said ideology/faith, but the election of Trump proves beyond all doubt that is so much excrement in truth) and to substitute their own fictions for facts and call it the same thing. Science and faith are equally mysterious, and therefore equally open to personal interpretation, they have sold this nonsense now for a quarter century, and alas far too many in their base ended up swallowing hook line and sinker. Hells, even many outside their base fell prey to this.

    So this incident with Trump, Spicer, and Conway over the week-end, no small deal, and a very telling indicator of the mentality and mindset operating within the highest level of the Trump WH. It was one thing, and bad enough, when talking about candidate Trump doing this, and then worse with President-elect Trump still sounding this way, but now everything he does, says and has done on his behalf carried the automatic weight of the Office he now holds. That kind of open dishonesty and threatening the press to either play ball Trump’s way or they will have to rethink their relationship with the media/political press in a nation governed by the First Amenement is truly consequential, and a cause for major concern. At least if you care about basic principles of democracy, governing, and being a rule of law society that is.

    Remember, it is now fact versus alt-fact, two will enter, but only one will win. Me, I hope and pray for fact, because alt-fact may sound sweeter but is such a liar, while fact might be harsh and sharp, but tells me true, its only agenda is accuracy ion what it describes, unlike alt-fact.

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