Goebbels was born in the wrong century. In today's media environment, he could have convinced the world Jews were gassing Nazis and eating their babies.
Israelis (disguised as Hamas) invaded Israel and killed Israelis so Israel could justify the killing of Palestinian children. Makes total sense. Case closed. Clear as day.
This is sort of what happens when you ask "Would a government sacrifice its own people so the ruling class can gain more power and reach a goal?" and you can't say definitively no. Whether we're talking the US, Israel, Hamas, or any number of other governments, the situation is the same globally. People no longer trust that our ruling class is in it for anyone but themselves, and given that people are right not to trust and that's the caveat to every single discussion we have when we cannot have direct knowledge of a situation ourselves . . . here we are.
I see this, but I this week I see that it's leading a bunch of people to actually trust Hamas and call it a counternarrative. I just...hope we keep our eyes open all the time.
Amazing the scumbaggery people are capable of. I say this already being intensely aware of the cruelty and violence people are capable of, from a full career of having witnessed it up close and personal.
I take a slightly more nuanced approach – I take NOTHING at face value. I look for independent corroboration wherever possible. Almost everyone advocating a position has ulterior motives.
It is imperative that supporters of Israel and the truth put as much effort into providing truthful content as these demented souls file lies.
Debunking is fine as far as it goes but it is by nature always reactionary and thus playing catch up.
Our side needs to present to the general public the demonic deeds of Hamas RELENTLESSLY and stop wasting so much time and energy correcting their lies.
The Israeli government needs to step up their Information War Department because they are losing on that front.
Sorry. I don't agree. Conservative outlets are becoming a major media force. Sure, you are not going to convince the hard core Israel haters. The goal is to open the eyes of the great majority of Westerners who are being inundated with lies. They are hungry for truth. I believe this is happening as that majority finally has realized they have been lied to about Covid, Trump, The RINO Establishment, Ukraine, etc. not to mention The Kennedy assassinations, the "War on Terror", and 911.
This majority is Fertile Ground that needs more seeds of truth to be spread over it. Our side needs to cast more seeds of truth and they will grow.
We have much more potential and power than we realize.
Reactionaryism is a loser. PROAction is a winner.
One more thing...
Israel has some absolute, digital maestros in their midst. Bibi needs to staff his info war arm with these folks and get them on the web 24/7 AHEAD of the haters. Get inside THEIR heads. Mess with THEIR minds. Name Names. And remember Pictures are worth a thousand words. Video convinces... It closes the deal.
Unless you grew up in apartheid South Africa, where we have seen the most awful atrocities committed by both sides. Where a person once called a terrorist later became a world here and our president! There are always more that one side to anything. Not saying what Hamas did is not barbaric, but go a little deeper and recognize that through may years the Israelis where not angels wither.
You don’t need to have lived something to understand history. There is a lesson in Rwanda’s response to its genocide. A lesson that the Palestinians utterly reject. Their schools and leadership have only one message: Push the Jews into the sea.
“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.” – Benjamin Netanyahu 2006
Non-Whites in the West hate Israel because they consider it White. They are just taking the logic of the regime to its conclusion. The reason White support for Israel from the West seems comparatively weak is due to two things:
The first is Leftist Whites who hate Israel for the same reason as the non-Whites I previously mentioned.
The second is Whites who HAVE had their eyes open, at least to the fact that the Israel lobby holds outsized influence over Western countries and the US in particular and who are very leery about getting involved in yet another war in the Middle East.
Personally my ideal would be that not a cent goes to Israel but that the West stays out of their business, and that any protests in Western nations that are anti-White or "decolonial" be forcefully broken up and the protestors deported to the country their families came from. Any Jews with clear loyalty to Israel should be deported there. It won't happen, but I can dream.
I'd like to think you are right. However, the audience you suggest is mostly supportive of Israel's right to exist and its right to defend its borders and people. The major media outlets accept neither and still control a good deal of western world opinion.
Point taken... but you're cherry-picking your sources here.
I think you could find false precision and obfuscatory fog on both sides, if you cared to look. And all the other standard rhetorical dirty tricks.
You can also, with effort, find people across the spectrum trying to be honest and compassionate and trying to figure out what's really happening. That's maybe not going to further your core narrative about nihilism destroying everything good, but hey, just putting it out there.
I've long since given up on the New York Times and their Procrustean bed of "all the news that's fit to print". Same with all their old-media peers. No honest journalist has been employed there for years now.
Have been out doing family stuff, so here's a second attempt at this, with a little less rushing. The cherrypicking, which you were right to spot, came at the end of a week-plus of being frustrated with much of what I was seeing, and was an attempt to quickly distill the essence of the thing. I may have over-distilled it, because those are eaaaaaasy examples, but I was appalled at (for example) the refusal in some quarters to even consider the possibility that Hamas fired a rocket that accidentally hit a hospital in Gaza. My impression, and I'll hear arguments against it, is that there are generally smart people who are applying a postcolonial lens, or a libertarian anti-statist lens, or a David and Goliath lens, that makes Israel presumptively wrong in all circumstances, and makes all of the evidence always say that. I, of course, have no ideological lens, and just see with total clarity. Ahem.
So this piece has a bunch of subtext, but I could have brought more of that subtext forward. I didn't make the whole argument.
Related, Hamas hitting Gaza with its own rockets is another in a long list of reasons why war is best avoided, because it goes wrong more than it goes right. But I'm frustrated that we all, and me too, want Israel to show restraint, but there aren't many protests demanding that Hamas stop firing those rockets. And I think Qatar has something they could contribute that would start to bring the war to a close more quickly, but here we all are watching Hamas be led in violence by people who sit in positions of safety.
Since you don't turn to the NYT or their "old media peers," it would be valuable to know who you believe is "honest and compassionate" and just "trying to figure out what's going on." I'm skeptical, of course, but if you have a name or names, you might change my mind.
I don't think you'll have much luck delegating your trust to some corporation. You have to go individual by individual, claim by claim, follow the sources, follow the money, and be wary of manipulation all the while. It's exhausting!
Slowly, carefully, over time, with sustained attention and memory. It helps when people cite their sources. It helps to keep notes.
I still believe in legitimate differences of opinion and perspective. "Honesty" is just telling the truth as best you understand it. Here are some signals: Has their position ever changed? If so, did they say why? Do they address inconvenient evidence, or just ignore it?
As for "compassion": do they ever attempt to take another perspective? Do they ever engage in dialogue with someone with whom they disagree? Do they dehumanize their enemies?
“Do they address inconvenient evidence, or just ignore it?“
I rarely hear honest debate anymore, which involves addressing your opponent’s points about your position’s weaknesses. In essence, we have devolved to opposing cheerleading sessions.
And rare indeed is the voice who can admit uncertainty or examine their own assumptions and inferences. I find that amateurs are often better at this than the professional pundits and demagogues.
Social media has reduced us to reflexive soundbites and slogans. But it has also surfaced rivers of popular expression that can be sifted for the occasional flecks of gold.
Agree 100%. In defense of “professional pundits and demagogues” (😂), they have devolved to kabuki actors speaking well-settled lines. They’re not paid to be contemplative thinkers sifting out the good parts of both sides’ arguments.
My ripoff of Shakespeare:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are [superficial & lazy]."
This comment on Astral Codex Ten links to a google document in which a lot of the graphic photos and videos are collected, with archival links, with evidence to support their authenticity, including geo-location and confirmation from other sources.
(Not according to me, but to those who fund writers such as the ones you quote.)
It's a loyalty-test.
Will you take the knee? Will you salute the flag? Will you wear the mask? Will you say [insert phrase here]? Will you pay homage to [this weeks cause]?
Will you, in short, obey without thinking?
PS: That "expert in totalitarianism" you were hung up on a while back - the name escapes me - hasn't it had anything to say about all of this?
Just like Jello Biafra wished that the obnoxious rich-kid liberals of the 1980s could enjoy a "Holiday in Cambodia", I wish we could crowd-source airfare for all these passionate supporters of Hamas to enjoy a nice long vacation in Gaza.
I love civilization and am a grateful beneficiary of it, but one of the most annoying aspects of it is that we have to respect the rights of people who would love to see our throats slit just because it would make their miserable lives have a purpose for a moment.
There is nothing more morally grotesque and cowardly than cheering on a massacre of innocents while sleeping safe and sound every night protected by your local PD and national military.
Goebbels was born in the wrong century. In today's media environment, he could have convinced the world Jews were gassing Nazis and eating their babies.
Nailed it.
i know where the 830 children are ! they are with the 214 indigenous children buried in Canada. Ask Turdeau .
"Ground-penetrating radar."
and the 20k people who died of "covid" in nyc hospitals over 8 weeks in spring 2020
And Auschwitz and Dachau were just nice hostels run by the Israelis with defective showers
Exactly!
Israelis (disguised as Hamas) invaded Israel and killed Israelis so Israel could justify the killing of Palestinian children. Makes total sense. Case closed. Clear as day.
This is sort of what happens when you ask "Would a government sacrifice its own people so the ruling class can gain more power and reach a goal?" and you can't say definitively no. Whether we're talking the US, Israel, Hamas, or any number of other governments, the situation is the same globally. People no longer trust that our ruling class is in it for anyone but themselves, and given that people are right not to trust and that's the caveat to every single discussion we have when we cannot have direct knowledge of a situation ourselves . . . here we are.
I see this, but I this week I see that it's leading a bunch of people to actually trust Hamas and call it a counternarrative. I just...hope we keep our eyes open all the time.
I was wrong again. I predicted that, by the end of the month, the media would be blaming the Israelis for the Hammas attack.
Efficiency!
Still seven more days to go.
Amazing the scumbaggery people are capable of. I say this already being intensely aware of the cruelty and violence people are capable of, from a full career of having witnessed it up close and personal.
I don’t believe anything from anybody anymore. Am I wrong?
Yes, but understandably wrong in a way that it's hard to argue with.
I take a slightly more nuanced approach – I take NOTHING at face value. I look for independent corroboration wherever possible. Almost everyone advocating a position has ulterior motives.
This level of blatant manipulation and lying is why it's so easy to get weary of Twitter within a minute of going there.
Yes. Some good moments there, as people argue and refute, but there's a landslide of sewage.
If it didn't work, they wouldn't do it.
It is imperative that supporters of Israel and the truth put as much effort into providing truthful content as these demented souls file lies.
Debunking is fine as far as it goes but it is by nature always reactionary and thus playing catch up.
Our side needs to present to the general public the demonic deeds of Hamas RELENTLESSLY and stop wasting so much time and energy correcting their lies.
The Israeli government needs to step up their Information War Department because they are losing on that front.
There is not a prayer they can win the media battle. They need to focus on the battle they maybe can win.
Sorry. I don't agree. Conservative outlets are becoming a major media force. Sure, you are not going to convince the hard core Israel haters. The goal is to open the eyes of the great majority of Westerners who are being inundated with lies. They are hungry for truth. I believe this is happening as that majority finally has realized they have been lied to about Covid, Trump, The RINO Establishment, Ukraine, etc. not to mention The Kennedy assassinations, the "War on Terror", and 911.
This majority is Fertile Ground that needs more seeds of truth to be spread over it. Our side needs to cast more seeds of truth and they will grow.
We have much more potential and power than we realize.
Reactionaryism is a loser. PROAction is a winner.
One more thing...
Israel has some absolute, digital maestros in their midst. Bibi needs to staff his info war arm with these folks and get them on the web 24/7 AHEAD of the haters. Get inside THEIR heads. Mess with THEIR minds. Name Names. And remember Pictures are worth a thousand words. Video convinces... It closes the deal.
Unless you grew up in apartheid South Africa, where we have seen the most awful atrocities committed by both sides. Where a person once called a terrorist later became a world here and our president! There are always more that one side to anything. Not saying what Hamas did is not barbaric, but go a little deeper and recognize that through may years the Israelis where not angels wither.
You don’t need to have lived something to understand history. There is a lesson in Rwanda’s response to its genocide. A lesson that the Palestinians utterly reject. Their schools and leadership have only one message: Push the Jews into the sea.
“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.” – Benjamin Netanyahu 2006
Non-Whites in the West hate Israel because they consider it White. They are just taking the logic of the regime to its conclusion. The reason White support for Israel from the West seems comparatively weak is due to two things:
The first is Leftist Whites who hate Israel for the same reason as the non-Whites I previously mentioned.
The second is Whites who HAVE had their eyes open, at least to the fact that the Israel lobby holds outsized influence over Western countries and the US in particular and who are very leery about getting involved in yet another war in the Middle East.
Personally my ideal would be that not a cent goes to Israel but that the West stays out of their business, and that any protests in Western nations that are anti-White or "decolonial" be forcefully broken up and the protestors deported to the country their families came from. Any Jews with clear loyalty to Israel should be deported there. It won't happen, but I can dream.
I'd like to think you are right. However, the audience you suggest is mostly supportive of Israel's right to exist and its right to defend its borders and people. The major media outlets accept neither and still control a good deal of western world opinion.
Point taken... but you're cherry-picking your sources here.
I think you could find false precision and obfuscatory fog on both sides, if you cared to look. And all the other standard rhetorical dirty tricks.
You can also, with effort, find people across the spectrum trying to be honest and compassionate and trying to figure out what's really happening. That's maybe not going to further your core narrative about nihilism destroying everything good, but hey, just putting it out there.
Substack is posting my comments twice. Trying this again:
Fair comment, but:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/opinion/israel-war-gaza-hospital-danger.html
Well see, that's your problem right there.
I've long since given up on the New York Times and their Procrustean bed of "all the news that's fit to print". Same with all their old-media peers. No honest journalist has been employed there for years now.
Have been out doing family stuff, so here's a second attempt at this, with a little less rushing. The cherrypicking, which you were right to spot, came at the end of a week-plus of being frustrated with much of what I was seeing, and was an attempt to quickly distill the essence of the thing. I may have over-distilled it, because those are eaaaaaasy examples, but I was appalled at (for example) the refusal in some quarters to even consider the possibility that Hamas fired a rocket that accidentally hit a hospital in Gaza. My impression, and I'll hear arguments against it, is that there are generally smart people who are applying a postcolonial lens, or a libertarian anti-statist lens, or a David and Goliath lens, that makes Israel presumptively wrong in all circumstances, and makes all of the evidence always say that. I, of course, have no ideological lens, and just see with total clarity. Ahem.
So this piece has a bunch of subtext, but I could have brought more of that subtext forward. I didn't make the whole argument.
Related, Hamas hitting Gaza with its own rockets is another in a long list of reasons why war is best avoided, because it goes wrong more than it goes right. But I'm frustrated that we all, and me too, want Israel to show restraint, but there aren't many protests demanding that Hamas stop firing those rockets. And I think Qatar has something they could contribute that would start to bring the war to a close more quickly, but here we all are watching Hamas be led in violence by people who sit in positions of safety.
A frustrating moment, hard to discuss calmly.
Since you don't turn to the NYT or their "old media peers," it would be valuable to know who you believe is "honest and compassionate" and just "trying to figure out what's going on." I'm skeptical, of course, but if you have a name or names, you might change my mind.
He posted some examples in the last comment thread.
Here's an example of somebody doing careful analysis of a specific claim, and coming to conclusions that shouldn't make anybody happy:
https://sonar21.com/after-weighing-the-evidence-israel-appears-responsible-for-the-bombing-of-the-al-ahli-hospital/
Have you seen Efrat Fenigson? https://efrat.substack.com
Ever heard of Scott Ritter? https://www.scottritterextra.com
I don't think you'll have much luck delegating your trust to some corporation. You have to go individual by individual, claim by claim, follow the sources, follow the money, and be wary of manipulation all the while. It's exhausting!
“You can also, with effort, find people across the spectrum trying to be honest and compassionate and trying to figure out what's really happening.”
How do we distinguish these honest folks from current day Baghdad Bob’s who feign honesty and compassion?
Slowly, carefully, over time, with sustained attention and memory. It helps when people cite their sources. It helps to keep notes.
I still believe in legitimate differences of opinion and perspective. "Honesty" is just telling the truth as best you understand it. Here are some signals: Has their position ever changed? If so, did they say why? Do they address inconvenient evidence, or just ignore it?
As for "compassion": do they ever attempt to take another perspective? Do they ever engage in dialogue with someone with whom they disagree? Do they dehumanize their enemies?
“Do they address inconvenient evidence, or just ignore it?“
I rarely hear honest debate anymore, which involves addressing your opponent’s points about your position’s weaknesses. In essence, we have devolved to opposing cheerleading sessions.
And rare indeed is the voice who can admit uncertainty or examine their own assumptions and inferences. I find that amateurs are often better at this than the professional pundits and demagogues.
Social media has reduced us to reflexive soundbites and slogans. But it has also surfaced rivers of popular expression that can be sifted for the occasional flecks of gold.
Agree 100%. In defense of “professional pundits and demagogues” (😂), they have devolved to kabuki actors speaking well-settled lines. They’re not paid to be contemplative thinkers sifting out the good parts of both sides’ arguments.
My ripoff of Shakespeare:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are [superficial & lazy]."
This comment on Astral Codex Ten links to a google document in which a lot of the graphic photos and videos are collected, with archival links, with evidence to support their authenticity, including geo-location and confirmation from other sources.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-299/comment/42370946
Loading slowly -- will look at this closely when I have a better Internet connection. Thanks for posting.
It’s not your connection. I’m on fiber optic & it’s slow. I suspect high demand for the grisly truth.
It's a test mr Bray, and you just failed it.
(Not according to me, but to those who fund writers such as the ones you quote.)
It's a loyalty-test.
Will you take the knee? Will you salute the flag? Will you wear the mask? Will you say [insert phrase here]? Will you pay homage to [this weeks cause]?
Will you, in short, obey without thinking?
PS: That "expert in totalitarianism" you were hung up on a while back - the name escapes me - hasn't it had anything to say about all of this?
Ruth Ben-Ghiat. She's been so relentlessly tedious and predictable that I can't bring myself to care about her existence.
Heh, thanks.
And apologies for making you think of her (or it, wouldn't want to assume its gender).
Thanks for this post, Chris.
You don’t understand the root causes of this conflict, obviously. If you just connect the dots it all becomes clear:
Netanyahu! Mossad! Trump! Climate Crisis! Reproductive Health!
Genderqueer! Exclamation points!
I hope that clears up the confusion for you deplorables.
Just like Jello Biafra wished that the obnoxious rich-kid liberals of the 1980s could enjoy a "Holiday in Cambodia", I wish we could crowd-source airfare for all these passionate supporters of Hamas to enjoy a nice long vacation in Gaza.
I love civilization and am a grateful beneficiary of it, but one of the most annoying aspects of it is that we have to respect the rights of people who would love to see our throats slit just because it would make their miserable lives have a purpose for a moment.
There is nothing more morally grotesque and cowardly than cheering on a massacre of innocents while sleeping safe and sound every night protected by your local PD and national military.
And who curse the ppl who provide that protection.
“People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” - Origin unknown
Churchill
Actually, no. It’s attributable to a writer who in 1993 summarized a quote from George Orwell.
But thanks – I learned something today!
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/07/rough-men/?amp=1
I sit corrected. 😂
very true