Serious The Politics Thread

[S.A.C. Martin]

To my understanding, Haaretz is good enough for me. I've heard a lot of great things about Al Jazeera, but their partial funding from the Qatari government makes me a bit nervous, so I don't want to commit myself to a decisive statement in favor. In matters not directly tying to Qatar, at least, like this one, though, I would expect to trust their reporting.

Unfortunately, my answer here leaves a set of interpretation ambiguities that I want to address to prevent any derailing.

My discussion about journalistic sources in the past two posts was only focused on the question of "what sources, due to their quality or lack thereof, should be used in this thread or not". It was not an implicit challenge to your argument – this is why I did not talk about the other sources and content in your post, because I had no criticism to give. I felt no need to implicitly challenge your broader argument because I agreed with your argument and did not disagree with it. I did disbelieved the Israel line on October 7th before your post and still do.


If a source is bad enough that it shouldn't be used in this thread, I believe it still should not be used even if it presents a helpful summarization. If you think my criticism of GrayZone is unfair and that it is a source that should be supported in this thread, however, just let me know. From a more materialist point of view, because the thread rules require the use of credible sources, the mods may remove content that uses non-credible sources.


There appears to be some misunderstandings here. Some of what I'm about to say here is repeating from the earlier parts of my response, but I wanted to collate all relevant information in the section responding to you for your convenience.

1) You believed it was lazy argumentation because it was not argumentation at all – I had no intention of debating SAC's content. I agree with SAC's content, and if I disagreed, I probably would have said so. I understand how you got to this interpretation – I acknowledge that tangential criticisms done to chip away at a bigger argument is something that people do sometimes – but I was not doing this here.

2) I get what you mean about the McCarthy-esque environment, but SAC found two sources that don't publish pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian misinformation from former Russian state actors / state media actors. We could likely find several more compatible sources without comparable flaw. Some alternative media is better than other alternative media.

This post constitutes more investment in the thread than I anticipated from my original post, which I envisioned as a relatively quick and compartmentalized note about source quality, and I probably don't have the desire to continue making more long, careful responses on the subject. Unless there is some big information or mistake I did not consider, I've likely said what I wanted to say on the matter.

Adeleine, if we applied your logic we’d have to discount:

• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• The Daily Telegraph
• The BBC
• MSNBC
• Fox News
• Sky News
• The Guardian
• The Times of Israel

And virtually every other mainstream and non mainstream media source that have either repeated a debunked story or pushed a conspiracy theory at some point.

The whole point of taking an academic approach to things is knowing that sources are not always perfect, or agreeable - that’s why you cross reference, give explanations, point to the overall context, etc etc…

Truth be told, despite the Grayzone’s issues I at this point cannot fault its reporting on Palestine/Israel - it is asking the right questions.

A broken clock can be right twice daily and all that…

I do of course accept your premise that we should be careful with our sources - but I refute your ideal that the Grayzone is so beyond the pale that they are somehow more guilty of misinformation than of the other sources I listed above.

 

[Oglemi]

Ya idk if I would count the Grayzone as a "credible" source; it's funded by Patreon, started as a blog, doesn't seem to have any journalists on the ground, and seems to acquire its sources through "hacking".

Sources like Al Jazeera and the others you listed are far more credible, except like Fox News.

This doesn't mean it's useless, like TMZ they can have pertinent information sometimes, but it's not something I would use as a primary source tbh

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

Ya idk if I would count the Grayzone as a "credible" source; it's funded by Patreon, started as a blog, doesn't seem to have any journalists on the ground, and seems to acquire its sources through "hacking".

Sources like Al Jazeera and the others you listed are far more credible.

This doesn't mean it's useless, like TMZ they can have pertinent information sometimes, but it's not something I would use as a primary source tbh

Oh I totally agree, it is by no means a primary source, but my intention in posting it was as secondary evidence, giving a good summation of the overall issues we were discussing at the time.

Again, a stopped clock is wrong twice daily.

Maybe what we should be saying is, cite your sources and cite your context for doing so?

 

[MrHands]

Truth be told, despite the Grayzone’s issues I at this point cannot fault its reporting on Palestine/Israel - it is asking the right questions.

"I know this source is bad but it tells me what I want to hear so I believe them" is an extremely dangerous way of getting information.

There are a lot of respectable news sources with great track records when it comes to accuracy and neutrality. I highly recommend you don't even waste your time using websites like Grayzone. At best they'll just tell you what you want to hear, at worst they'll outright feed you bad information.

 

[ant4456]

I think it's really funny to be someone who basically only repeats American propaganda when you do post your own takes to reply to someone about their news practices.

You're only doing this because it's the rare case you can get a win over people you very obviously disdain, and it's something I've noticed some posters do in this thread that's really cringe. Basically, you add nothing to conversations except to reply to minor mistakes so you can get the dopamine of getting to correct people you know you'd get ass blasted for trying to normally, because you're a genocide sympathizer.

 

[MrHands]

I think it's really funny to be someone who basically only repeats American propaganda when you do post your own takes to reply to someone about their news practices.

You're only doing this because it's the rare case you can get a win over people you very obviously disdain, and it's something I've noticed some posters do in this thread that's really cringe. Basically, you add nothing to conversations except to reply to minor mistakes so you can get the dopamine of getting to correct people you know you'd get ass blasted for trying to normally, because you're a genocide sympathizer.

Was my post incorrect in any way?

 

[ant4456]

Was my post incorrect in any way?

This is a disingenuous response. Nowhere did I say your post was wrong, I said you are posting it in bad faith.

You don't actually care about good sources, or the health of how people get their worldview. You posted this after several other people did the same thing but basically kinder because you hate Martin and the other people rightfully criticizing the genocide. There was no reason for your reply, other than the fact that you and some other have a habit of taking any opportunity to reply to these kinds of things, because it makes you happy to get something up on people you otherwise cannot win a debate with.

You've never actually successfully defended your awful worldviews, and instead you take opportunities like this to get any win at all. It's cringe as fuck.

 

[MrHands]

This is a disingenuous response. Nowhere did I say your post was wrong, I said you are posting it in bad faith.

You don't actually care about good sources, or the health of how people get their worldview. You posted this after several other people did the same thing but basically kinder because you hate Martin and the other people rightfully criticizing the genocide. There was no reason for your reply, other than the fact that you and some other have a habit of taking any opportunity to reply to these kinds of things, because it makes you happy to get something up on people you otherwise cannot win a debate with.

You've never actually successfully defended your awful worldviews, and instead you take opportunities like this to get any win at all. It's cringe as fuck.

Something I believe strongly in is using reputable facts and sources. I don't give a shit about what you believe in, but I do feel it is very important that in a world of mass media and social networking algorithm hell the average person needs to be able to understand what is or is not a good source, because if we just lay back and let trash media tell us what we want to think we become brain dead yes-men who surround ourselves with like-minded individuals.

Grayzone is an absolutely trash propaganda website that gets by using click-bait misleading articles. No one should read it, certainly no one should read it because they agree with what they say. You personally have repeatedly cited "leftist twitter" (or Instagram, I forget which) so I'm relatively sure you should try to be careful where you get your news.

 

[ant4456]

Hey so if you were to ask a person on this forum how they feel about competitive Pokémon the responses would pretty much exclusively be positive right? Maybe you'll have some old timers who retired a while ago talk shit but every single person on this forum will have at least some level of fondness or nostalgia for comp Pokes. If you were to start a topic here saying competitive Pokémon is bad, everyone should play Overwatch instead well... you might get some sympathetic responses but overwhelmingly your points, regardless of valid or not, would be in such an extreme minority that people wouldn't even pay attention. It would be a waste of your time to argue that people here should play Overwatch over Pokémon. Probably close to 100% of the people here reading this have already decided Pokémon > Overwatch.

Now what if you were to poll random people in the US. Statistically speaking Overwatch has similar eSport attention and more prize money than what VGC gets (and Smogon seems to get even less). Overwatch is, to the average person, just a more appealing game for pvp. However whatever perks and benefits there is to playing Overwatch competitively, no matter how long you write paragraphs, no matter how valid you consider your points, you will never convince anyone here that Overwatch is better than Smogon. This is just not a reasonable place to make those kinds of arguments, even though globally Overwatch pvp is just as popular as Pokémon.

What does this have to do with anything? This forum is made up of mostly Gen Z with a handful of bitter old Millennials scattered in. People in this demographic are left leaning, and the particular bunch here are the tech-savvy anime watching art making nerds who somehow decided that min-maxing a Pikachu's EVs is actually a valid use of their time. This group is almost universally far left leaning, evidence being the literal zero Republicans or even moderates who post here.

So I'll address the elephant in the room. If your views on Palestine / Israel is anything other than "Israel = nazi genocide bad and Palestine = innocent of everything" it is an absolute waste of time to post here. You will be outnumbered ten to one and really you'll just get locked in endless wall of text battles with people who have zero intention of good faith discussion. If you want to have serious debates about the Israel Palestine issue, there are infinitely better places to do so. Save yourself the energy here and relax. This is a tiny forum and this topic is made up of like 15 people, probably 3-4 of them are 90% of the posts. None of this matters. You'll never "post hard enough" to convince people here your posts are valid so imo you're better off not wasting the time.

So where's your source for literally anything here?

You care a lot about reputable sources, so post them. You just criticized me sourcing things when half the time I literally quote books or Wikipedia, so where's yours? Post your sources! Where's your sources, friend?

 

[Dead by Daylight]

So where's your source for literally anything here?

You care a lot about reputable sources, so post them. You just criticized me sourcing things when half the time I literally quote books or Wikipedia, so where's yours? Post your sources! Where's your sources, friend?

This is a problem with a lot of the regulars, to be honest - the only regular I think I can count on to have a decent debate with sourcing is Martin.

 

[ant4456]

This is a problem with a lot of the regulars, to be honest - the only regular I think I can count on to have a decent debate with sourcing is Martin.

And I get that. I don't expect everyone to source every claim, though I do think I did a very good job with the Hiroshima debate.

It's just the reply like that is something I think is really toxic, when people with no skin in the game effectively do the forum equivalent of "punish game". Almost always just replying to people to shit on them while never really representing what they're doing, or even arguing.

MrHands post herself basically said it's pointless to debate this topic, because she thinks everyone is just leftist propagandists or whatever. But then she just doesn't argue anything and instead takes opportunities like this to get a "win" on people who she never really makes good points for, and only really tries to get slam dunks.

Dunking is a cringe thing. I hate when people just go for "dunks", you can go for dunks on me but at least I actually argue my points against people who disagree with me (like yesterday). If you asked me for a source I'd go for them. I just think the dunk shit is entirely in bad faith.

 

[MrHands]

So where's your source for literally anything here?

You care a lot about reputable sources, so post them. You just criticized me sourcing things when half the time I literally quote books or Wikipedia, so where's yours? Post your sources! Where's your sources, friend?

My source is lazily googling what esport had comparable prize money and views to Pokémon.

https://escharts.com/top-games?order=peak

I don't have a direct source for the political demographics of Smogon but it should be fairly clear that this is a very left leaning forum that doesn't perfectly represent the views of the US / West / World.

MrHands post herself basically said it's pointless to debate this topic, because she thinks everyone is just leftist propagandists or whatever. But then she just doesn't argue anything and instead takes opportunities like this to get a "win" on people who she never really makes good points for, and only really tries to get slam dunks.

Nah I said it's pointless to debate the Palestine / Israel issue if your comments aren't universally pro Palestine. There's just too many people who are too invested in the issue for anything productive to come out of it.

Also yes, this is why I'm not spending any large amount of time getting involved in the debates here on Israel / Palestine. It's a waste of time. It was a waste of time for Eroil to do so, and I stand by my statement saying so.

 

[ant4456]

My source is lazily googling what esport had comparable prize money and views to Pokémon.

No. I'm talking about your claims, that were implied even. You imply that there is a good faith discussion to be had about why the common view of this thread on Palestine is more debatable.

So actually put your skin in the game and say why, and actually use sources to back up your claim. You can't just say "This thread can't handle a good faith discussion" and then literally be in bad faith the entire way.

Nah I said it's pointless to debate the Palestine / Israel issue if your comments aren't universally pro Palestine. There's just too many people who are too invested in the issue for anything productive to come out of it.

So, what is the other point? What is the other argument? What sources can you provide that show an opposing viewpoint that is valid?

You said it yourself, what's the point? Why reply for dunks at all if you don't even think it matters? Why do you get to just say things and act like it is 100% truth and then not post any sources. There is an entire page of arguments that actually refute most of the shit you say.

What is bad about the thread being left winged? Do you think that's bad? What's the problem with left wing politics?

Literally just say anything instead of just dunking on someone. Have an actual conversation or it'd probably be just better to leave.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Actually, the definite point at which something stops being a "terrorist organization" would be when it is recognized by all the other states, the UN, other int'l institutions etc as being the government of a territory. People confused by this are either very low politics literacy (common) or else practicing their sophistry: No one is going around accusing Nasa scientists, or Israeli historians of being gov sponsored terrorists, and claims about Hamas as a terrorist org and epithets by western media should be taken with many grains of salt at a time when garbagemen and hospital workers in Palestine are killed for terrorist by association with the government 'Hamas'. One can dislike a org/state politics and politicians, you can think they're evil, but smearing them as a terrorist organization while they're recognized as the gov of a territory and are in practice the gov of the territory, including as administrators of all basic life-supporting infrastructure, just marks one as unable to grasp reality outside the terms given by primetime dramas and jingoistic news anchors. There is no sense in which Hamas is coherently to be designated a terrorist organization, although many ppl like to repeat buzzwords thrown around in the media.

That’s a useful distinction— I was thinking that the phrases “terrorism” vs “freedom fighting” were completely subjective terms, just spin based on perception. Which would mean that all the posts referring to “literal terrorism” are/would be completely absurd.

But the above definition probably has more utility.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

"I know this source is bad but it tells me what I want to hear so I believe them" is an extremely dangerous way of getting information.

I know this might surprise, but as a full time researcher and published historian, I am capable of writing with nuance and understanding together with putting forward sources and citations that back up my argument, and also accept their failings (as I did so above).

There are a lot of respectable news sources with great track records when it comes to accuracy and neutrality. I highly recommend you don't even waste your time using websites like Grayzone. At best they'll just tell you what you want to hear, at worst they'll outright feed you bad information.

That’s not what I did. Try reading what I actually wrote before engaging, next time.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

This is a problem with a lot of the regulars, to be honest - the only regular I think I can count on to have a decent debate with sourcing is Martin.

That’s most kind, thank you.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

Was my post incorrect in any way?

Yes, like many of the right wing persuasion you omitted context. Had you actually quoted anything I had said in the last two pages you would have seen why I posted that source, where I placed it in my personal hierarchy of sources, and a discussion on sources where I clarified my stance and happily agreed with others views.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

Myzo's post got deleted so I can't reply to it, but a few things:

"Actually, the definite point at which something stops being a "terrorist organization" would be when it is recognized by all the other states, the UN, other int'l institutions etc as being the government of a territory"

The Israeli government is also widely recognized, outside of mainly Arab League and Muslim-majority states, as the government of Israel, which is a territory. Does that mean that the actions carried out by the Israeli government are not terrorist actions? Does that mean Israel is not a terrorist force?

"No one is going around accusing Nasa scientists, or Israeli historians of being terrorists..."

I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but Palestinian historians or Palestinian scientists aren't terrorists either and shouldn't be called such unless they are explicitly designing weaponry or carrying out plans to harm civilians.

"...and claims about Hamas as a terrorist org and epithets by western media should be taken with many grains of salt at a time"

There is video evidence of Hamas killing civilians (the link is from Human Rights Watch), which is the basis of my argument that they are a terrorist force. For what it's worth, I don't trust Western news very much on Israel-Palestine and try to source from non-US sources; failing that, I at least try to use articles with video evidence in them.

"but smearing them as a terrorist organization while they're recognized as the gov of a territory and are in practice the gov of the territory, including as administrators of all basic life-supporting infrastructure, just marks one as unable to grasp reality"

Understood, guess we can't call Israeli actions terrorist now by this logic considering they are indeed the "administrators of all basic life-supporting infrastructure" and are in practice / recognized as the government of Israel.

 

[Myzozoa]

Myzo's post got deleted so I can't reply to it, but a few things:

"Actually, the definite point at which something stops being a "terrorist organization" would be when it is recognized by all the other states, the UN, other int'l institutions etc as being the government of a territory"

The Israeli government is also widely recognized, outside of mainly Arab League and Muslim-majority states, as the government of Israel, which is a territory. Does that mean that the actions carried out by the Israeli government are not terrorist actions? Does that mean Israel is not a terrorist force?

"No one is going around accusing Nasa scientists, or Israeli historians of being terrorists..."

I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but Palestinian historians or Palestinian scientists aren't terrorists either and shouldn't be called such unless they are explicitly designing weaponry or carrying out plans to harm civilians.

"...and claims about Hamas as a terrorist org and epithets by western media should be taken with many grains of salt at a time"

There is video evidence of Hamas killing civilians (the link is from Human Rights Watch), which is the basis of my argument that they are a terrorist force. For what it's worth, I don't trust Western news very much on Israel-Palestine and try to source from non-US sources; failing that, I at least try to use articles with video evidence in them.

"but smearing them as a terrorist organization while they're recognized as the gov of a territory and are in practice the gov of the territory, including as administrators of all basic life-supporting infrastructure, just marks one as unable to grasp reality"

Understood, guess we can't call Israeli actions terrorist now by this logic considering they are indeed the "administrators of all basic life-supporting infrastructure" and are in practice / recognized as the government of Israel.

That's a lot of semantics, but this goes back to a technical matter in politics literacy, it is not about whether any entity is condemnable or not. In illuminating the duality of how Hamas is in fact not a terrorist organization, under any meaningful definition, while it's existence as a terrorist organization is taken for granted in Western media and discourse, makes it is easier to comprehend that Israel is waging a 'war' against everyday people when it talks about a war against 'Hamas', i.e not waging a war against some supposed entity that might have some sort of equal or partial guilt as a 'terrorist organization'. This goes back to the important matter of having a clear understanding of who is a victim and who is a perpetrator which is so important for being truthful about genocides taking place. I think this is now quite clear but I'm happy to keep coming back to your misunderstandings, you're so close to getting it now I think!

 

[Sabelette]

“There is video evidence of Hamas killing civilians (the link is from Human Rights Watch), which is the basis of my argument that they are a terrorist force. For what it's worth, I don't trust Western news very much on Israel-Palestine and try to source from non-US sources; failing that, I at least try to use articles with video evidence in them.”

By this logic every single military force to ever exist is a terrorist force (because every single one ever has killed civilians), making the distinction entirely meaningless between terrorist and not-terrorist and telling us nothing about moral culpability or right to self-defense or legitimacy or who is the perpetrator or anything else that could somehow have value

 

[Divine Retribution]

I don't think the idea that most, if not all, Western governments have engaged in terrorism (or at least what would be described as terrorism had another nation done it) is a particularly unpopular sentiment among the left. The existence of the state is necessarily upheld by violence. There are no exceptions.

 

[Sabelette]

I don't think the idea that most, if not all, Western governments have engaged in terrorism (or at least what would be described as terrorism had another nation done it) is a particularly unpopular sentiment among the left. The existence of the state is necessarily upheld by violence. There are no exceptions.

Correct, and that also makes it useless as a distinction if that's how you use it, it's basically just a pejorative rather than a descriptive term

 

[Chou Toshio]

Correct, and that also makes it useless as a distinction if that's how you use it, it's basically just a pejorative rather than a descriptive term

This is why I thought the word “terrorism” was only a subjective/perspective word for violence— not a fact-based term but a purely opinion based one.

If there’s like some international law based technical term, that it’s a phrase for “violence by a non-state entity opposing international law” or similar I’d be happy to use that— why I noted receptiveness to Myzo’s framing (which would make both Hamas and Israel incapable of terrorism).

Hamas as a government couldn’t commit terrorism, and under the above quotation hypothetical definition it would also be difficult for any group of Gazans attacking Israel to be designated as doing terrorism because under international law they have the right to violent resistance against occupation.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

If you close your eyes for a moment, the mannerisms, lying and obfuscation of the facts sound like Trump. It’s uncanny.

 

[adjectivenoun]

On a side note, from a Brit - McCarthy-esque? Heard this thrown around a lot in American media, can anyone give me a TL;DR explanation or point to a good source (that isn’t wikipedia).

https://www.britannica.com/event/McCarthyism

Unfortunately, it is not named after the superior Beatle. Comparing current mainstream American reporting on Israel to McCarthyism is suggesting that mainstream media is hypervigilant about any reporting that could get them accused of antisemitism by Zionists, much like how people living under McCarthyism in the 1940s and 50s had to be hypervigilant about saying anything that could get them accused of having communist sympathies.