Tulsi: Trump: Stop hiding Saudi role in 911 and protecting Al Qaeda
paulsurovell said:
Serious question -- could you clarify what you mean by this?
Why isn't Stephens a climate science dissenter and Glenn Greenwald a Russiagate denier? Why aren't they both deniers, or both dissenters? Why use two separate words to describe the same thing?
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
ridski said:
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
Heh. One might infer something from a person’s need to signal when a question is really meant to inquire and not a rhetorical taunt.
DaveSchmidt said:
Heh. One might infer something from a person’s need to signal when a question is really meant to inquire and not a rhetorical taunt.
I'm just effing around. I say that kind of thing, too.
ridski said:
I'm just effing around. I say that kind of thing, too.
Yeah, but in your case the accent makes it charming.
ridski said:
Why isn't Stephens a climate science dissenter and Glenn Greenwald a Russiagate denier? Why aren't they both deniers, or both dissenters? Why use two separate words to describe the same thing?
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
"Deny" has the sense of a statement of fact, a claim that something isn't true.
"Dissent" has more of a sense of an opinion, or more precisely a difference of opinion.
Greenwald & Co. are deniers. They deny the existence of certain facts and then claim that they are just giving a dissenting opinion.
I am guessing that Paul is aware of that distinction in the definitions.
Of course, he might dissent.
nohero said:
ridski said:"Deny" has the sense of a statement of fact, a claim that something isn't true.
Why isn't Stephens a climate science dissenter and Glenn Greenwald a Russiagate denier? Why aren't they both deniers, or both dissenters? Why use two separate words to describe the same thing?
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
"Dissent" has more of a sense of an opinion, or more precisely a difference of opinion.
Greenwald & Co. are deniers. They deny the existence of certain facts and then claim that they are just giving a dissenting opinion.
I am guessing that Paul is aware of that distinction in the definitions.
Of course, he might dissent.
Really? What "facts" does Glenn deny?
ridski said:
paulsurovell said:Why isn't Stephens a climate science dissenter and Glenn Greenwald a Russiagate denier? Why aren't they both deniers, or both dissenters? Why use two separate words to describe the same thing?
Serious question -- could you clarify what you mean by this?
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
OK, I get what you meant on this. But what did you mean by "fault line"?
paulsurovell said:
Really? What "facts" does Glenn deny?
I was referring to the whole group of "Russiagate" naysayers. The most prominent example (or easiest to point out right now) among them would be the VIPS denial that there was a hacking of the DNC.
During the campaign and afterward, some Trump backers and some critics on the left, including columnist and media scold Glenn Greenwald, questioned whether the Russians indeed engaged in such skulduggery.
...
For many of these scandal skeptics, it hasn’t seemed to matter that the charge against Moscow has been publicly confirmed by the Obama administration, the US intelligence community (which concluded that Putin’s operation intended to help Trump), both Republicans and Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees, and Robert Mueller, who indicted a mess of Russians for participating in this covert operation. True, there often is cause to question officialdom and government sources. Yet anyone citing the Mueller report, as it is narrowly capsulized by Barr, must also accept his key finding: Russia attacked the United States and intervened in the election.
paulsurovell said:I was referring to the whole group of "Russiagate" naysayers. The most prominent example (or easiest to point out right now) among them would be the VIPS denial that there was a hacking of the DNC.
Really? What "facts" does Glenn deny?
But you said
Greenwald & Co. are deniers They deny the existence of certain facts and then claim that they are just giving a dissenting opinion.
You made an accusation against Glenn Greenwald. What facts does Glenn deny?
paulsurovell said:
ridski said:OK, I get what you meant on this. But what did you mean by "fault line"?
paulsurovell said:Why isn't Stephens a climate science dissenter and Glenn Greenwald a Russiagate denier? Why aren't they both deniers, or both dissenters? Why use two separate words to describe the same thing?
Serious question -- could you clarify what you mean by this?
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
This "fault line" gets at what I was asking via my question to you on coverage of climate change. As I understand DaveSchmidt's point, on one side of the line people look at a the NYT or WaPo or other publication's decision on what to cover and what not as being a product of judgment calls by reporters and editors. Those calls are as subject to bias as any other human activity, but they are judgements made in good faith. On the other side of the fault line are those who look at what's published and not published and see not best-effort judgements, but rather purposeful censorship.
My interest in the question is driving at how people place themselves on either side of that line. I raise the climate change issue because it seems to me that you actually may be on different sides of that line on different topics -- on issues like Russian election interference, for instance, you've been on the "it's censorship!" line, but on climate change I suspected you were on the other side -- an impression strengthened by the observation that you refer to those who disbelieve that Russia hacked the DNC as "dissenters" while you refer to those who disbelieve humans are driving climate change as "deniers." To call someone a "denier" has the implication that their position is not a legitimate judgment call, whereas to call someone a "dissenter" suggests that they have a legitimate, but unfairly suppressed, point of view.
But what I really am asking -- and which I don't actually expect much of an answer on as it's a pretty meta question -- is how do people end up coming to these conclusions? The promise of the internet was that by making more information available, it would democratize and level the playing field and more quickly expose weak or misinformed views. Instead we've gotten the opposite by and large -- people have become more polarized.
I'm not quite willing to give up on the idea that it is actually possible to know things, that there are such things as facts and not everything is merely an opinion, but most people will say they believe this and that their beliefs are, of course, facts and it's everyone else clinging to beliefs over reality. So what standards, processes, or guides are there? To ask the question again (if you're willing), on what basis, for instance, are you willing to accept that there is a scientific consensus on climate change and that it's correct even as you cast the consensus on Russian interference as political censorship?
nohero said:
Some more along these lines:
During the campaign and afterward, some Trump backers and some critics on the left, including columnist and media scold Glenn Greenwald, questioned whether the Russians indeed engaged in such skulduggery.
...
For many of these scandal skeptics, it hasn’t seemed to matter that the charge against Moscow has been publicly confirmed by the Obama administration, the US intelligence community (which concluded that Putin’s operation intended to help Trump), both Republicans and Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees, and Robert Mueller, who indicted a mess of Russians for participating in this covert operation. True, there often is cause to question officialdom and government sources. Yet anyone citing the Mueller report, as it is narrowly capsulized by Barr, must also accept his key finding: Russia attacked the United States and intervened in the election.
(a) Corn (like you) doesn't provide any evidence for his allegation about Glenn. So it's a non-starter.
(b) Corn suggests there's something wrong about questioning the prevailing narrative. That's dangerous and I hope you're not endorsing that.
(c) If this is your way of saying that you can't back up your slur against Glenn Greenwald, why don't you just come out and say it?
PVW said:
paulsurovell said:To ask the question again (if you're willing), on what basis, for instance, are you willing to accept that there is a scientific consensus on climate change and that it's correct even as you cast the consensus on Russian interference as political censorship?
ridski said:OK, I get what you meant on this. But what did you mean by "fault line"?
paulsurovell said:Why isn't Stephens a climate science dissenter and Glenn Greenwald a Russiagate denier? Why aren't they both deniers, or both dissenters? Why use two separate words to describe the same thing?
Serious question -- could you clarify what you mean by this?
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
There is a scientific consensus on climate change.
The consensus on Russian interference is based on highly censored information that excludes alternative views and expertise, is often irrational in its analysis ($100,000 spent on Facebook ads by a private Russian troll farm constitutes an existential threat to our democracy), depends on false and bizarre news reports (Russia hacked the Vermont electric grid, Manafort visited Assange in London) and fraudulent documents (Steele dossier) and relies on mantras that become "truth" through repetition but have not been proven (Russia hacked the DNC).
In short, the consensus on Russian interference is unscientific. Actually it's anti-scientific.
PVW said:
paulsurovell said:This "fault line" gets at what I was asking via my question to you on coverage of climate change. As I understand DaveSchmidt's point, on one side of the line people look at a the NYT or WaPo or other publication's decision on what to cover and what not as being a product of judgment calls by reporters and editors. Those calls are as subject to bias as any other human activity, but they are judgements made in good faith. On the other side of the fault line are those who look at what's published and not published and see not best-effort judgements, but rather purposeful censorship.
ridski said:OK, I get what you meant on this. But what did you mean by "fault line"?
paulsurovell said:Why isn't Stephens a climate science dissenter and Glenn Greenwald a Russiagate denier? Why aren't they both deniers, or both dissenters? Why use two separate words to describe the same thing?
Serious question -- could you clarify what you mean by this?
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
If you know that the effect is exclusion of dissent, it's of secondary importance whether the cause is that the editors and publishers acted in good faith or as propagandists. What matters is that they censored dissenting views.
Here's a relevant interview with Cenk Uygur who was told at MSNBC he had to "act like an insider." There were many other independent journalists at MSNBC (Phil Donahue and Ed Shultz for instance) who were kicked out for similar reasons. Was management in those cases acting in good faith?
https://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/22/rejecting_lucrative_offer_cenk_uygur_leaves
PVW said:
paulsurovell said:
ridski said:OK, I get what you meant on this. But what did you mean by "fault line"?
paulsurovell said:Why isn't Stephens a climate science dissenter and Glenn Greenwald a Russiagate denier? Why aren't they both deniers, or both dissenters? Why use two separate words to describe the same thing?
Serious question -- could you clarify what you mean by this?
Serious question -- Why is this one a serious question? Are your other questions not serious?
My interest in the question is driving at how people place themselves on either side of that line. I raise the climate change issue because it seems to me that you actually may be on different sides of that line on different topics -- on issues like Russian election interference, for instance, you've been on the "it's censorship!" line, but on climate change I suspected you were on the other side -- an impression strengthened by the observation that you refer to those who disbelieve that Russia hacked the DNC as "dissenters" while you refer to those who disbelieve humans are driving climate change as "deniers." To call someone a "denier" has the implication that their position is not a legitimate judgment call, whereas to call someone a "dissenter" suggests that they have a legitimate, but unfairly suppressed, point of view.
But what I really am asking -- and which I don't actually expect much of an answer on as it's a pretty meta question -- is how do people end up coming to these conclusions? The promise of the internet was that by making more information available, it would democratize and level the playing field and more quickly expose weak or misinformed views. Instead we've gotten the opposite by and large -- people have become more polarized.
I'm not quite willing to give up on the idea that it is actually possible to know things, that there are such things as facts and not everything is merely an opinion, but most people will say they believe this and that their beliefs are, of course, facts and it's everyone else clinging to beliefs over reality. So what standards, processes, or guides are there? To ask the question again (if you're willing), on what basis, for instance, are you willing to accept that there is a scientific consensus on climate change and that it's correct even as you cast the consensus on Russian interference as political censorship?
Facts emerge from the process of a search for the truth. If that search excludes points of view that are unpopular then the "facts" and the "consensus" that emerge are unreliable.
By the way, the "consensus" on "Russian interference" is actually a bit shaky:
paulsurovell said:
Facts emerge from the process of a search for the truth. If that search excludes points of view that are unpopular then the "facts" and the "consensus" that emerge are unreliable.
This is your way: Facts emerge from the search. You know what you’re searching for, and the facts follow.
This is a journalist’s way: The search follows the facts. If a point of view isn’t factual, you don’t follow it.
Which way sounds more beholden to a “narrative”?
By the way, the "consensus" on "Russian interference" is actually a bit shaky:
They just don’t manufacture consent like they used to.
paulsurovell said:
By the way, the "consensus" on "Russian interference" is actually a bit shaky:
Looking at the numbers, I think Paul and I have different definitions of "shaky".
For one thing, "Do you think the Russian government tried to interfere in the 2016 election" has gone from 69% "definitely/probably" to 73% just in the last few months.
[Edited to add] and that's opinion polls. Results from Monmouth University, the source of the poll Paul references, on climate change show that 66% of Americans think human activity has any effect on the climate.
So if one's argument is based on opinion polls, Russian interference polls better than human impact on climate change.
paulsurovell said:
...
(c) If this is your way of saying that you can't back up your slur against Glenn Greenwald, why don't you just come out and say it?
Bravo! Paul got in several of his favorite techniques when he changes the subject: continue to ignore the topic of discussion (in this case, denial of facts) for a subsidiary dispute; feigned outrage ("slur"); and "can't back it up" claims.
[Edited to add]
Found one more (from The Intercept), although haven't done an exhaustive search.
As my colleague Glenn Greenwald told WNYC on Monday, while there may never be conclusive evidence that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by Russian intelligence operatives to extract the trove of embarrassing emails published by WikiLeaks, it would hardly be shocking if that was what happened.
…
Even so, he added, given the ease with which we were misled into war in Iraq by false claims about weapons of mass destruction — and the long history of Russophobia in American politics — it is vital to cast a skeptical eye over whatever evidence is presented to support the claim, made by Hillary Clinton’s aide Robby Mook, that this is all part of a Russian plot to sabotage the Democrats and help Donald Trump win the election.
You're welcome.
[Edited once more, but for the last time I promise, to add]
Glenn discussing the topic last year:
And so when the U.S. government came out in January of 2017 and first said that Vladimir Putin personally ordered the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta, I agreed with what Masha Gessen wrote in the New York Times Review of Books, and she of course is a Russian expatriate and a very hardcore critic of Putin. And she said, “After months of anticipation, speculation and handwringing by politicians and journalists, American intelligence agencies have finally released the declassified version of a report on the part they believe Russia played in the U.S. presidential election. A close reading of the report shows that it barely support such a conclusion. Indeed, it barely supports any conclusion. There is not much to read. The declassified version is 25 pages of which two are blank, four are decorative, one contains an explanation of terms, one a table of contents and seven are previously published report by the CIA’s open source division on RT. There’s even less to process. The report adds hardly anything to what we already knew.” So my problem with this claim from the beginning was that it was unaccompanied by any evidence. I think there is now some evidence that Russia did things in the election to, and I think it’s a question of what their motive is — I think the Mueller indictment contains some details about 13 Russians who apparently created some fake Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and political tweets that, in contrast to what you claimed was their motive, which was to help elect Donald Trump, the Mueller indictment says that it wasn’t that, it was to sow divisions within the United States. That they were also supportive of Bernie Sanders, of Jill Stein, that they were really interested in sowing division. That was the motive that they had attributed to the people that they indicted.
So when you ask me, do I believe now that Russia played a role in the election or has my view changed? My view has never changed. My view is exactly the same, which is: I’m not going to accept claims until there’s evidence for them.
DaveSchmidt said:
paulsurovell said:This is your way: Facts emerge from the search. You know what you’re searching for, and the facts follow.
Facts emerge from the process of a search for the truth. If that search excludes points of view that are unpopular then the "facts" and the "consensus" that emerge are unreliable.
This is a journalist’s way: The search follows the facts.
Well apparently the journalists failed to follow the facts on the Russiagate story because they delivered one whopper after another for two years.
DaveSchmidt said:
paulsurovell said;
By the way, the "consensus" on "Russian interference" is actually a bit shaky:They just don’t manufacture consent like they used to.
In many ways they're better.
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:Looking at the numbers, I think Paul and I have different definitions of "shaky".
By the way, the "consensus" on "Russian interference" is actually a bit shaky:
For one thing, "Do you think the Russian government tried to interfere in the 2016 election" has gone from 69% "definitely/probably" to 73% just in the last few months.
[Edited to add] and that's opinion polls. Results from Monmouth University, the source of the poll Paul references, on climate change show that 66% of Americans think human activity has any effect on the climate.
So if one's argument is based on opinion polls, Russian interference polls better than human impact on climate change.
Apart from whether "probably" should be included as part of a consensus, 73% itself does not qualify as a consensus.
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:Bravo! Paul got in several of his favorite techniques when he changes the subject: continue to ignore the topic of discussion (in this case, denial of facts) for a subsidiary dispute; feigned outrage ("slur"); and "can't back it up" claims.
...
(c) If this is your way of saying that you can't back up your slur against Glenn Greenwald, why don't you just come out and say it?
[Edited to add]
Found one more (from The Intercept), although haven't done an exhaustive search.
As my colleague Glenn Greenwald told WNYC on Monday, while there may never be conclusive evidence that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by Russian intelligence operatives to extract the trove of embarrassing emails published by WikiLeaks, it would hardly be shocking if that was what happened.You're welcome.
…
Even so, he added, given the ease with which we were misled into war in Iraq by false claims about weapons of mass destruction — and the long history of Russophobia in American politics — it is vital to cast a skeptical eye over whatever evidence is presented to support the claim, made by Hillary Clinton’s aide Robby Mook, that this is all part of a Russian plot to sabotage the Democrats and help Donald Trump win the election.
[Edited once more, but for the last time I promise, to add]
Glenn discussing the topic last year:
And so when the U.S. government came out in January of 2017 and first said that Vladimir Putin personally ordered the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta, I agreed with what Masha Gessen wrote in the New York Times Review of Books, and she of course is a Russian expatriate and a very hardcore critic of Putin. And she said, “After months of anticipation, speculation and handwringing by politicians and journalists, American intelligence agencies have finally released the declassified version of a report on the part they believe Russia played in the U.S. presidential election. A close reading of the report shows that it barely support such a conclusion. Indeed, it barely supports any conclusion. There is not much to read. The declassified version is 25 pages of which two are blank, four are decorative, one contains an explanation of terms, one a table of contents and seven are previously published report by the CIA’s open source division on RT. There’s even less to process. The report adds hardly anything to what we already knew.” So my problem with this claim from the beginning was that it was unaccompanied by any evidence. I think there is now some evidence that Russia did things in the election to, and I think it’s a question of what their motive is — I think the Mueller indictment contains some details about 13 Russians who apparently created some fake Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and political tweets that, in contrast to what you claimed was their motive, which was to help elect Donald Trump, the Mueller indictment says that it wasn’t that, it was to sow divisions within the United States. That they were also supportive of Bernie Sanders, of Jill Stein, that they were really interested in sowing division. That was the motive that they had attributed to the people that they indicted.
So when you ask me, do I believe now that Russia played a role in the election or has my view changed? My view has never changed. My view is exactly the same, which is: I’m not going to accept claims until there’s evidence for them.
So you are equating skepticism and insistence on evidence with denial of facts.
How Orwellian of you.
paulsurovell said:
So you are equating skepticism and insistence on evidence with denial of facts.
How Orwellian of you.
I forgot to add lying about what's written and then using it for a response as another of Paul's favorite techniques.
paulsurovell said:
Well apparently the journalists failed to follow the facts on the Russiagate story because they delivered one whopper after another for two years.
There are a lot of journalists and a lot of media outlets, and they make mistakes. That doesn’t mean dissenters are right.
And “one whopper after another for two years” is, I’d say, an example of a fact emerging from a search.
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:I forgot to add lying about what's written and then using it for a response as another of Paul's favorite techniques.
So you are equating skepticism and insistence on evidence with denial of facts.
How Orwellian of you.
You are very, very desperate.
DaveSchmidt said:
paulsurovell said:There are a lot of journalists and a lot of media outlets, and they make mistakes. That doesn’t mean dissenters are right.
Well apparently the journalists failed to follow the facts on the Russiagate story because they delivered one whopper after another for two years.
And “one whopper after another for two years” is, I’d say, an example of a fact emerging from a search.
I agree with both statements.
paulsurovell said:
nohero said:You are very, very desperate.
paulsurovell said:I forgot to add lying about what's written and then using it for a response as another of Paul's favorite techniques.
So you are equating skepticism and insistence on evidence with denial of facts.
How Orwellian of you.
We need a "snooze Paul for 30 days" button. Utterly exhausting -- even just reading his stupid posts.
DaveSchmidt said:
paulsurovell said:Just a few months ago, this was Postol’s view, according to a long, detailed Intercept article that acknowledges the questions surrounding what happened in Douma without leaping to allegations that dozens of people were murdered as part of a staging hoax:
Here's what Ted Postol, ballistics expert at MIT said today:
http://accuracy.org/
When I showed videos of the canisters to Theodore Postol in Boston, he was immediately certain that both had been launched from the sky by the Syrian military and that any “brouhaha” from the Russians to the contrary could be safely ignored.
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/09/douma-chemical-attack-evidence-syria/
If Postol has changed his mind, it wouldn’t be the first time he revised one of his second-hand conclusions about claims of a gas attack in Syria.
Here's Ted Postol's response to the Intercept article:
https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1134132383693910016
And here's the transcript of the above video of Postol's interview with Aaron Mate:
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/05/25/opcw-syria-gas-attack-staged-theodore-postol/
dave said:
We need a "snooze Paul for 30 days" button. Utterly exhausting -- even just reading his stupid posts.
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Serious question -- could you clarify what you mean by this?