On Contact: Russiagate & Mueller Report w/ Aaron Mate
I'm posting this interview precisely because the WaPo and Maddow went nuts over it. And I'd do the same if RT, which is also semi-fake news (like all news outlets with very few exceptions, like The Real News, ProPublica, ICIJ), does some stupid shit about a Maddow or WaPo story. It's a rare news outlet that can't ever teach you anything, by the way. It's not a matter of "blindly trust" or "blindly reject."
(You're saying, "Of course, Doug, everyone knows that you patronizing asshole." And then you'll go off and filter the world according to your bespoke ego-needs.) Don't be "fans" in politics. At all. Don't worship this org or that org; this pol or that pol. The second your affect, your emotions are involved, you're an easy mark. Think critically, which means questioning your own precious ego, and that of your friends and allies. Or be a slave-bot. Your choice.
Both sides of the Russiagate story are messed up, but the Maddow wing is full-on full of shit. And deeply humiliated; hence, lashing out. Maté, Greenwald, Hedges, Cohen, et al are mostly but far from entirely right, and they're overswinging, especially on obstruction, with Greenwald changing his tune on the importance of an underlying crime.
Overswinging about the MSM's overswing. Not entirely equivalent, but not good.
By the way, more obnoxious patronizing info from Doug that you claim to have internalized but haven't: If you find an issue--any issue--divided up into two mutually exclusive options, two options expressed via emotionally potent oversimplifications, you just might be a target for the manufacture of consent.
("Doug, I read that book. [Ed.: This person means he or she watched the film.] I am a superior latte-sipper; I know everything that anyone would need to know--look at my degrees! So, while I understand that Chomsky and Herman, among dozens of others and as if it were necessary to point it out, have pointed out that emotionally potent oversimplifications are designed to manufacture consent, I just love giving my consent to emotionally potent oversimplifications so much that I'll pretend that I'm not doing so. In fact, I think I'll accuse you of being a blind, foolish ideologue. So, I'm not the fake info crack whore--you are! Patronizing asshole.
"Uh, honey, can you flip on Maddow's greatest hits for me? I don't want to admit I'm as gullible and easily led as a flyover Trump loser, and with far less excuse, so please, give me what I need! Please, Rachel, never give up--I can't face myself! Isn't Doug an obnoxious Bernie Bro asshole? Probably a Putin fan--if not troll-farm employee.")
I think they should all shut the hell up and cover fucking climate disaster, nuclear weapons, species and habitat loss, and maybe the fucking Ebola outbreak, but I'm crazy like that. They've been hounded for three years--and they're obviously marketing themselves, too, pivoting off the MSM fail. Which is fine as far as it goes, but there's a worldwide fascist wave they might, like, not want to encourage, even accidentally.
Time to move on. Enough self-congratulatory circle jerks.
(You're saying, "Of course, Doug, everyone knows that you patronizing asshole." And then you'll go off and filter the world according to your bespoke ego-needs.) Don't be "fans" in politics. At all. Don't worship this org or that org; this pol or that pol. The second your affect, your emotions are involved, you're an easy mark. Think critically, which means questioning your own precious ego, and that of your friends and allies. Or be a slave-bot. Your choice.
Both sides of the Russiagate story are messed up, but the Maddow wing is full-on full of shit. And deeply humiliated; hence, lashing out. Maté, Greenwald, Hedges, Cohen, et al are mostly but far from entirely right, and they're overswinging, especially on obstruction, with Greenwald changing his tune on the importance of an underlying crime.
Overswinging about the MSM's overswing. Not entirely equivalent, but not good.
By the way, more obnoxious patronizing info from Doug that you claim to have internalized but haven't: If you find an issue--any issue--divided up into two mutually exclusive options, two options expressed via emotionally potent oversimplifications, you just might be a target for the manufacture of consent.
("Doug, I read that book. [Ed.: This person means he or she watched the film.] I am a superior latte-sipper; I know everything that anyone would need to know--look at my degrees! So, while I understand that Chomsky and Herman, among dozens of others and as if it were necessary to point it out, have pointed out that emotionally potent oversimplifications are designed to manufacture consent, I just love giving my consent to emotionally potent oversimplifications so much that I'll pretend that I'm not doing so. In fact, I think I'll accuse you of being a blind, foolish ideologue. So, I'm not the fake info crack whore--you are! Patronizing asshole.
"Uh, honey, can you flip on Maddow's greatest hits for me? I don't want to admit I'm as gullible and easily led as a flyover Trump loser, and with far less excuse, so please, give me what I need! Please, Rachel, never give up--I can't face myself! Isn't Doug an obnoxious Bernie Bro asshole? Probably a Putin fan--if not troll-farm employee.")
I think they should all shut the hell up and cover fucking climate disaster, nuclear weapons, species and habitat loss, and maybe the fucking Ebola outbreak, but I'm crazy like that. They've been hounded for three years--and they're obviously marketing themselves, too, pivoting off the MSM fail. Which is fine as far as it goes, but there's a worldwide fascist wave they might, like, not want to encourage, even accidentally.
Time to move on. Enough self-congratulatory circle jerks.