I do employ the tactic of cutting the fat and staying on topic. We both have lots of comments and I’ve seen and read many of yours. Often you will ask a bunch of questions or bring up a bunch of points and the only way to keep someone who has a style like that on topic is to go back to five paragraphs and restate the topic. I’m not criticizing or making fun of the way you write, just explaining why I tend to bring it back to the points I’m trying to make.
Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m in this conversation anymore. I’m not trying to be discouraging to you by saying this, but it seems like I keep saying things or asking questions and what comes back is not productive. Sorry.
I understand your viewpoint, I think. You don’t have to go back and “bring it back” to the points you’re trying to make. I am asking specific questions because to me that’s a relevant way to engage in the debate – you can sort of poke holes in the other person’s viewpoint, or else learn more about it and so there are parts that will make sense or parts that don’t make sense.
I’ll make it simple, and just ask some questions. You can assume that I already understand your main viewpoint, and you don’t need to restate it or “stay on topic,” and just answer the questions. I’m not trying to be overwhelming or anything or pin you down or “debatebro” or whatever, but to me this is part of the dialogue. If you want to engage, cool, I’m curious to know what you think about these things. If not, then cheers. To me it’s super dispiriting for someone to say e.g. Biden is censoring all the non establishment media but also refuse to identify what other media Biden is censoring, just sort of vaguely say all of it that’s anti establishment. Maybe that is reasonable in your debate-world but in my world it is a weird and evasive way for you to behave.
important to examine it due to the circumstances illustrating how the administration deals with labor power
Do you think it’s important to examine how the administration dealt with the UAW election or regulations on strikes / bargaining and union election guidelines in general? Or the writer’s strike or the Starbucks or Amazon unionization drives?
it shows explicitly what will happen when you take effective strike action in Bidens America.
Same question
The examples you gave of media in opposition to the administration that are unbanned are either small, shrinking, controllable or represent the opposition platform under the two party system.
What are establishment unfriendly media that are being banned? Besides Tiktok? I keep asking this question. You said, more or less, all of them. That’s not an answer. Which ones? What’s all of them?
What do you think Romney meant by that?
(Answering this one, as it’s surely a fair question to ask me)
I think he meant that the coverage on TikTok is slanted, as a way of amplifying Blinken’s point that the entire format makes it basically impossible for TikTok to function as an informative type of news, and he brought up coverage of the Palestinians as an example.
I do agree with what Blinken said (basically, that is also my view on TikTok, in addition to the problem that it’s controlled by the Chinese government). I don’t agree with Romney’s viewpoint – I think it’s fine if any social media wants to weight its coverage however the people who operate it and the people who have accounts there want to do it, and in particular I definitely don’t think there’s anything wrong with emphasizing the suffering of the Gazans in a way that’s probably offensive to the people who are sending the IDF the weapons they’re using to inflict that suffering.
I can’t assume you understand my viewpoint because you selectively quote my words to change their meaning, put words in my mouth and dodge questions i ask (just like youre accusing me of here!).
I never said that all the establishment unfriendly media was getting banned. I said that there’s an active campaign to control media that includes a tiktok ban. I asked you what establishment unfriendly media isn’t getting banned in order to look at those examples, their reach, their position and alignment relative to the american political system and their level of consent or hand in glove cooperation with the american political system.
the point of that is to illustrate how there is cooperation between the american political system and media, how there is control exerted by the political system on that media and when those two are not present, that media is not allowed when it cannot be minimized or silenced.
compared to how the regime responded to the rail strike, it’s unimportant how it responded to other labor actions that didn’t threaten it.
the rail strike was an action that opposed and threatened the biden administration. the other labor actions you bring up were not an imminent danger to the regime. at best that could be interpreted in the words of the reverend doctor as a desire for the absence of conflict over the presence of justice.
a more realistic outlook might be that the biden administration cynically viewed a powerful labor action as something to be crushed when it’s in opposition to that administration as opposed to representative of a core value or even a necessary constituency.
what is the greater measure of a mans values, how he responds to something when given time and resources and under no imminent pressure or how he responds when threatened? what is the greater measure of an organization made up of many men?
how can you possibly get mad at me for implying you haven’t read a book as milquetoast as manufacturing consent when you take blinken at face value and agree with him that tiktok is too emotional to be treated like other “informative” sources when those “informative” sources express IDF actions in the passive voice?
i’ll end by combining our two great tastes, restating myself, selectively quoting myself, and asking some questions:
you brought up trump and made a metaphor to explain how voting for Biden is necessary (one that minimized a genocide!) so let’s talk about trump. Do you truly believe that he’s an existential threat to America? What do you think will happen if trump is declared the loser? Is there a red line Biden could cross that would make you abandon voting for him against trump and instead vote for the third party you actually believe in?
Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m in this conversation anymore. I’m not trying to be discouraging to you by saying this, but it seems like I keep saying things or asking questions and what comes back is not productive. Sorry.
I understand your viewpoint, I think. You don’t have to go back and “bring it back” to the points you’re trying to make. I am asking specific questions because to me that’s a relevant way to engage in the debate – you can sort of poke holes in the other person’s viewpoint, or else learn more about it and so there are parts that will make sense or parts that don’t make sense.
I’ll make it simple, and just ask some questions. You can assume that I already understand your main viewpoint, and you don’t need to restate it or “stay on topic,” and just answer the questions. I’m not trying to be overwhelming or anything or pin you down or “debatebro” or whatever, but to me this is part of the dialogue. If you want to engage, cool, I’m curious to know what you think about these things. If not, then cheers. To me it’s super dispiriting for someone to say e.g. Biden is censoring all the non establishment media but also refuse to identify what other media Biden is censoring, just sort of vaguely say all of it that’s anti establishment. Maybe that is reasonable in your debate-world but in my world it is a weird and evasive way for you to behave.
Do you think it’s important to examine how the administration dealt with the UAW election or regulations on strikes / bargaining and union election guidelines in general? Or the writer’s strike or the Starbucks or Amazon unionization drives?
Same question
What are establishment unfriendly media that are being banned? Besides Tiktok? I keep asking this question. You said, more or less, all of them. That’s not an answer. Which ones? What’s all of them?
(Answering this one, as it’s surely a fair question to ask me)
I think he meant that the coverage on TikTok is slanted, as a way of amplifying Blinken’s point that the entire format makes it basically impossible for TikTok to function as an informative type of news, and he brought up coverage of the Palestinians as an example.
I do agree with what Blinken said (basically, that is also my view on TikTok, in addition to the problem that it’s controlled by the Chinese government). I don’t agree with Romney’s viewpoint – I think it’s fine if any social media wants to weight its coverage however the people who operate it and the people who have accounts there want to do it, and in particular I definitely don’t think there’s anything wrong with emphasizing the suffering of the Gazans in a way that’s probably offensive to the people who are sending the IDF the weapons they’re using to inflict that suffering.
I can’t assume you understand my viewpoint because you selectively quote my words to change their meaning, put words in my mouth and dodge questions i ask (just like youre accusing me of here!).
I never said that all the establishment unfriendly media was getting banned. I said that there’s an active campaign to control media that includes a tiktok ban. I asked you what establishment unfriendly media isn’t getting banned in order to look at those examples, their reach, their position and alignment relative to the american political system and their level of consent or hand in glove cooperation with the american political system.
the point of that is to illustrate how there is cooperation between the american political system and media, how there is control exerted by the political system on that media and when those two are not present, that media is not allowed when it cannot be minimized or silenced.
compared to how the regime responded to the rail strike, it’s unimportant how it responded to other labor actions that didn’t threaten it.
the rail strike was an action that opposed and threatened the biden administration. the other labor actions you bring up were not an imminent danger to the regime. at best that could be interpreted in the words of the reverend doctor as a desire for the absence of conflict over the presence of justice.
a more realistic outlook might be that the biden administration cynically viewed a powerful labor action as something to be crushed when it’s in opposition to that administration as opposed to representative of a core value or even a necessary constituency.
what is the greater measure of a mans values, how he responds to something when given time and resources and under no imminent pressure or how he responds when threatened? what is the greater measure of an organization made up of many men?
how can you possibly get mad at me for implying you haven’t read a book as milquetoast as manufacturing consent when you take blinken at face value and agree with him that tiktok is too emotional to be treated like other “informative” sources when those “informative” sources express IDF actions in the passive voice?
i’ll end by combining our two great tastes, restating myself, selectively quoting myself, and asking some questions: