Media/Journalism Cringe Megathread - Hot off the Presses

[Bacle]

I understand where you're coming from and agree for the most part, but I'm pretty sure this is actually something that's happened.

I remember US cancelling the Dixie Chicks and the stupid Freedom Fries stuff, I don't remember any international competitions banning US members from participating, or places disinviting US civie preformers/personalities from things.

I mean it was long enough ago that maybe I just missed it, as I was still in grade school at the time.

 

[Captain X]

I can't remember anything specific, but there was a lot of hate toward the US and Americans following the start of Iraq 2: Electric Boogaloo, and lots of stupid petty stuff going on to protest it.

 

[sillygoose]

And they stealed it from hindu religion in 19th century.
So,it could be symbol taken from nazi which they taken from hindu.

But - in polish mountains people used white swastika long before Hitler,and without any contact with India.Why? becouse it is old sumbol used by european cyvilisations which survived in Poland only in mountains.

It could be the same with black sun - it could survive on some part of Ukraine from ancient times.
So,it could be local symbol used on Ukraine.

Or,they just take it from western tv,becouse it looked cool.In our times it is not impossible
In that case,it is CNN sumbol.

Not just them, it used to be the American Boy Scouts' symbol until the 1930s! Not only that, but in Chicago we still have buildings from the 1920s that have swastikas all over the internal and external walls.

 

[Sobek]

 

[Wargamer08]

Just when I thought Biden hit rock bottom.

 

[Bacle]

 

[S'task]

I remember US cancelling the Dixie Chicks and the stupid Freedom Fries stuff, I don't remember any international competitions banning US members from participating, or places disinviting US civie preformers/personalities from things.

I mean it was long enough ago that maybe I just missed it, as I was still in grade school at the time.

The things with the Dixie Chicks and Freedom Fries are actually somewhat different.

Dixie Chicks pissed off their core demographic, and were cancelled by that demographic. It was very much in the vein of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes". Further, if you recall the media lionized the Dixie Chicks for standing up to the ignorant redneck Bush supporters, and so managed to salvage their career by shifting out of country into pop. Likewise the Freedom Fries thing was mostly just a quick backlash done by a few restaurants and the like to capitalize on the brief spurt of anti-French sentiment. Nobody cancelled the studying of French philosophy in colleges (though the world would probably be a better place if they had, seeing how much of the origins of Woke philosophy rest in French Postmodernism...).

The anti-Russian sentiment we're seeing isn't originating from the grassroots, it's being purposefully cultivated by the media and academic elites. This is in stark contrast to what happened in the Bush years, where the backlash against Muslims, French, or those opposing the war on terror tended to be more grassroots in origin while the elite media and academic opposed those backlashes and actively pushed back, creating terms like "Islamaphobia" to marginalize and demonize those Americans who lashed out at Muslims for 9/11. Now though, those same academics are encouraging the cancellation of Russian things, with much of the normal grassroots in utter confusion because, well, everyone easily recognizes this isn't something the Russian people wanted...

 

[nemo1986]

Even then the Dixie Chicks never reached the popularity they had before.

 

[SchrodingersWehraboo]

 

[Husky_Khan]

Well I'm convinced.



I agree with this analysis from Robinson Meyer at The Atlantic. Now I'm firmly in the No camp to nuclear war.

 

[Robovski]

Well I'm convinced.



I agree with this analysis from Robinson Meyer at The Atlantic. Now I'm firmly in the No camp to nuclear war.

My organic tomatoes!

 

[Bacle]

Proof of our media's insanity; trying to say Putin is worse than Hitler. They took it down when backlash started happening, but it's still out there thanks to archives.

 

[SchrodingersWehraboo]

John Podhoretz weighed in on the war with this travesty of an article.

Neoconservatism: A Vindication

Mark Twain said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but that it often rhymes. We’re rhyming today with the late 1970s, in uncanny ways. To take the most obvious: Inflation is

www.commentary.org

Mark Twain said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but that it often rhymes.

Mark Twain castigated the US for atrocities committed during the Philippine insurrection, awful choice of person to quote if you’re making the case for neoconservatism.

History: In 1975, the United States bugged out of Saigon and seemed to be embracing a full-scale retrenchment from its role in the world. Four years later, at the end of 1979, Moscow invaded Afghanistan.
Rhyme: In 2021, the United States bugged out of Kabul, producing images horrifyingly similar to those of April 1975. A mere six months later, Moscow invaded Ukraine.

And the alternative to leaving in both those cases, after years of domestic displeasure and seeming lack of success was…?

In 2022, the idea that Vladimir Putin’s Russia would actually roll the tanks and march the soldiers across the border into Ukraine seemed so irrational and peculiar to the Western consciousness that most of us—and in that “us” I would even include the heroic Volodymyr Zelensky—were living in a kind of weird haze of disbelief and denial that it could even happen.

Yes, “our” unwillingness to admit the reality certainly drove “us” to take such incorrect estimations.

And the surprise Jimmy Carter had felt in 1979 was as nothing compared to the shock wave across Europe in 2022. It took the United States three years to double its defense budget after the Soviet invasion. It took Germany three days. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced his country would increase its defense spending from 47 billion euros to 100 billion euros 72 hours after the Russians crossed the Ukrainian border.

So Germany rearming is cool now? Alright, you said it first.

History. Speeding up. And rhyming.

Perhaps if. I space. Out. My. Words. In disjointed. Periods. My point. Will. Seem. Dramatic.

Didn’t work for Chuck Wendig, doesn’t work here.

Will this be a hinge moment in history as well? If so, the rhymes of history may be heard in the surprising present urgency of neoconservatism.

How can it be “urgent” when it was already our dominant foreign policy for the past 20+ years?

Throughout the 1970s, the band of writers and thinkers who came to be known as “neoconservatives” had taken defiantly unfashionable positions when it came to matters of defense and foreign policy. The neoconservatives opposed negotiations and treaties with the Soviet Union, which they considered a great evil. They reviled the United Nations for its “Zionism is racism” resolution at a time when the UN was almost sacrosanct (millions of little boys and girls across America, including me, had proudly toted orange tzedakah boxes on Halloween to raise money for UNICEF). And they feared that the United States had, in the wake of Vietnam, undergone what a 1975 symposium in this magazine called “A Failure of Nerve” that would have global consequences.

And what led to that “failure of nerve” anyway? It’s not like the answer lies right in that same sentence.

The general opinion among the American cognoscenti was that the neoconservatives were hysterics and vulgarians incapable of seeing shades of gray.

I mean…

A more mature sense of the world’s complexity was supposedly represented first by the hard-won realism of the establishmentarians who had embraced the policy of détente with the Soviet Union—and second, by hipper foreign-policy thinkers whose worldview was encapsulated by Carter’s May 1977 declaration that America had gotten over its “inordinate fear of Communism.”

“Jimmy Carter is dumb”only gets you so far as an argument.

Thus began the integration of the neoconservatives into the conservative movement and the Republican Party by Ronald Reagan, who became the dominating figure in both in the 1980s. What they brought to Reaganism was one simple policy approach: deterrence.

🤮

This magazine was the epicenter of foreign-policy neoconservatism. Irving Kristol’s

Former Trotskyite.

If the greatest threat to our liberty abroad from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War was the Soviet Union, the best and only effective way to face it down was to work to deter its ambitions and its influence. You could not do so by entering into agreements with it. You needed to match its aggressions with countermeasures that would make those aggressions costly.

And costly for us too…

If they invade Afghanistan, you arm the Afghan rebels.

And what happens when those rebels start having other ideas?

If they seek beachheads in the Americas, you arm the Nicaraguan rebels even as you support the El Salvadorean government against their Communist rebels

Which resulted in countless innocents dead, all for Nicaragua to be currently ruled by a former Sandinista leader.

The ultimate move in this regard was the Strategic Defense Initiative, which sought to use American ingenuity and scientific knowhow as a countermeasure against the Soviet nuclear arsenal.

Which was a boondoggle and waste of money.

All of this had a clear moral superstructure. Domestically, there were good guys (people who went about their daily lives) and bad guys (people who preyed on them). Perhaps more important, there were bad guys abroad (the Communists, the Arab oil states). And there was a giant Good Guy—the United States.

“Now you know, and knowing is only half the battle! GI JOE!”

That was the hardest pill of all for the cognoscenti to swallow, because they did not believe that the United States was good—and their moral frame was much more about restraining American ambitions rather than the ambitions of those who would do ordinary Americans harm.

I mean…

And one of the reasons Twain was right about history not repeating itself but rhyming instead is that the key foes the neoconservatives face when it comes to the moral frame of deterrence—the idea that America is and should be a force for good—are no longer hip liberals but rather “traditional conservatives” who have taken their place as the leading anti-American voices of our time.

That’s not the own you think it is.

And we will prevail over these anti-Americans just as the neocons of the 1970s defeated the cognoscenti of their day, because our approach is right and our cause is just.

1 million dead Iraqis, 50000 dead Afghanis, and many more would beg to disagree.

 

[Bacle]

John Podhoretz weighed in on the war with this travesty of an article.

Neoconservatism: A Vindication

Mark Twain said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but that it often rhymes. We’re rhyming today with the late 1970s, in uncanny ways. To take the most obvious: Inflation is

www.commentary.org

Mark Twain castigated the US for atrocities committed during the Philippine insurrection, awful choice of person to quote if you’re making the case for neoconservatism.



And the alternative to leaving in both those cases, after years of domestic displeasure and seeming lack of success was…?



Yes, “our” unwillingness to admit the reality certainly drove “us” to take such incorrect estimations.



So Germany rearming is cool now? Alright, you said it first.



Perhaps if. I space. Out. My. Words. In disjointed. Periods. My point. Will. Seem. Dramatic.

Didn’t work for Chuck Wendig, doesn’t work here.



How can it be “urgent” when it was already our dominant foreign policy for the past 20+ years?



And what led to that “failure of nerve” anyway? It’s not like the answer lies right in that same sentence.



I mean…




“Jimmy Carter is dumb”only gets you so far as an argument.



🤮



Former Trotskyite.



And costly for us too…



And what happens when those rebels start having other ideas?


Which resulted in countless innocents dead, all for Nicaragua to be currently ruled by a former Sandinista leader.




Which was a boondoggle and waste of money.



“Now you know, and knowing is only half the battle! GI JOE!”




I mean…




That’s not the own you think it is.



1 million dead Iraqis, 50000 dead Afghanis, and many more would beg to disagree.

How can that idiot be so blind to the fact the neocons caused a lot of problems domestically, because of their hate-boner for the USSR and twisted mental framework of the US always being a 'force for good'.

It's be willfully ignorant of how shit actually went down and why, just to try to pretend the neocons didn't waste a lot of American lives and treasure on massive foreign boondoggles. And not a word about how they armed Osama.

 

[LordsFire]

How can that idiot be so blind to the fact the neocons caused a lot of problems domestically, because of their hate-boner for the USSR and twisted mental framework of the US always being a 'force for good'.

It's be willfully ignorant of how shit actually went down and why, just to try to pretend the neocons didn't waste a lot of American lives and treasure on massive foreign boondoggles. And not a word about how they armed Osama.

You're making the mirror mistake of the article writer. He's trying to transpose the past onto the present, you're trying to transpose the present onto the past.

When it came to the Cold War, the USA was absolutely without any vague shadow of a doubt, the 'good guy.' An imperfect good guy, certainly, a good guy with some of its side comprised of corrupt people taking advantage, absolutely.

But while the soviets were starving and working tens of millions to death, while summarily executing hundreds of thousands more, the US was opening up the international trade networks, turning western Germany, Japan, and Korea, into free democratic republics, and spending its blood and treasure to try to keep communism from spreading to the rest of the world and slaughtering more people.

We can argue about the (limited) merits and (many) failings of the War on Terror, but do not presume to wave away the hardships of the Cold War because of how farcical the War on Terror is by comparison.

 

[Bacle]

You're making the mirror mistake of the article writer. He's trying to transpose the past onto the present, you're trying to transpose the present onto the past.

When it came to the Cold War, the USA was absolutely without any vague shadow of a doubt, the 'good guy.' An imperfect good guy, certainly, a good guy with some of its side comprised of corrupt people taking advantage, absolutely.

But while the soviets were starving and working tens of millions to death, while summarily executing hundreds of thousands more, the US was opening up the international trade networks, turning western Germany, Japan, and Korea, into free democratic republics, and spending its blood and treasure to try to keep communism from spreading to the rest of the world and slaughtering more people.

We can argue about the (limited) merits and (many) failings of the War on Terror, but do not presume to wave away the hardships of the Cold War because of how farcical the War on Terror is by comparison.

MK Ultra, the Tuskegee Experiments, killing Patton to appease Stalin, the Kennedy assassination (which they still won't fully declassify; wonder why ), Agent Orange/Agent Purple, funding Osama bin Laden, and a bunch of other shady shit done domestically or internationally kinda puts that in doubt.

And that's all before we even get to 1990.

We may not have been as bad as the Soviets, but we weren't 'good guys', just a bit less bad. At least the younger gen have not swallowed the same Cold War propaganda of the US being a 'shining city on the hill' like Reaganite clowns and neocons believe.

 

[LordsFire]

MK Ultra, the Tuskegee Experiments, killing Patton to appease Stalin, the Kennedy assassination (which they still won't fully declassify; wonder why ), Agent Orange/Agent Purple, funding Osama bin Laden, and a bunch of other shady shit done domestically or internationally kinda puts that in doubt.

And that's all before we even get to 1990.

We may not have been as bad as the Soviets, but we weren't 'good guys', just a bit less bad. At least the younger gen have not swallowed the same Cold War propaganda of the US being a 'shining city on the hill' like Reaganite clowns and neocons believe.

No.

MK Ultra, the Tuskegee Experiments and others were bad, absolutely. But they had to be done in the dark for a reason, whereas the Soviets were openly slaughtering and starving to death both their own people, and people they conquered.

It's not just 'a bit less bad.' It is an entire world of difference, and if you can't see that, then you've become too cynical for your own good.

 

[Terthna]

No.

MK Ultra, the Tuskegee Experiments and others were bad, absolutely. But they had to be done in the dark for a reason, whereas the Soviets were openly slaughtering and starving to death both their own people, and people they conquered.

It's not just 'a bit less bad.' It is an entire world of difference, and if you can't see that, then you've become too cynical for your own good.

The heck are you even trying to argue here? That what the American government did was less bad because they had to keep what they were doing secret from the American people, lest they justifiably rise up against them? Besides; the Soviets weren't as open about what they were doing as you seem to think. Especially not with their own people. I met a guy who grew up in the Soviet Union once, and he insisted that all the stories of the atrocities they committed were lies propagated by the American government.

 

[ATP]

The heck are you even trying to argue here? That what the American government did was less bad because they had to keep what they were doing secret from the American people, lest they justifiably rise up against them? Besides; the Soviets weren't as open about what they were doing as you seem to think. Especially not with their own people. I met a guy who grew up in the Soviet Union once, and he insisted that all the stories of the atrocities they committed were lies propagated by the American government.

Then he is either liar or fool.
Soviet proverb explain it - you could not be honest,smart,and belong to soviet party.
Becouse smart knew about atrocities,and if they join,they did so becouse they were not honest.

Why do you think soviet state falled so easy? becouse all leaders was cynic who do not belived in anything except their right to rule over enslaved population.
When only choice was either go to war and die,or disband their cryminal state,they disbanded it - becouse they wonted live.And keep money they stealed from people,too.
Sralin in the same situation would choose war and death - becouse he was genocider,but beliver.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Bomani Jones, formerly of ESPN, has managed to fail in the debut of his new HBO Show Game Theory.

This sports journalist is most well known for crying racism and blaming White people all the way through his career so he could rise the ranks of sports journalism and was rewarded with his own ESPN Radio Show, which failed after losing 90 affiliate stations. He then was given a new TV show on ESPN called High Noon and a two million dollar contract and a more likable co-host but that show failed too.

So Bomani Jones' show was then set to follow Stephen A. Smith, one of ESPN's most recognizable anchors only to have ratings drop over 50% after Smith's sperging was done. His show was then shifted to their most popular weekday time slot where it failed again and eventually the show was cancelled with Bomani Jones nobly blaming his co-host Pablo Torre due to lack of chemistry.

So he somehow ended up on HBO and his half hour show that followed directly after John Oliver's fairly popular comedy news show only to lose almost 80% of its viewership within those thirty minutes.

Nobody Watched Bomani Jones' New HBO Show

No one likes Bomani Jones and it's insulting to the viewers when a network puts him on air. On Sunday, Jones debuted his new weekly HBO program, Game

www.outkick.com