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Losing the Plot: The “Leftists” Who Turn Right
(inthesetimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Taibbi specifically is under attack right now for exposing the mis- dis- mal-information discourse—and the governmental & non-governmental institutions that have sprouted from it—to be just parts of the larger propaganda machine of the coalition of the Democrats and the Never Trumpers. He’s an existential threat to them maintaining control of corporate social media discourse and gaining control of fediverse discourse.
Edit to add: In case anyone thinks I’m being hyperbolic in bringing up potential fediverse censorship, I’ve got a PDF for you from the Atlantic Council: Collective Security in a Federated World
I dunno, I’ve heard about his history (sexpt in Russia, Twitter files bs, the BLM chapo episode) and he seems like a dipshit who happens to sometimes be right. I’m tired of media personalities. All of them.
It's embarrassing that we have people on this site defending these shitheads as "solid journalists" and not immediately getting dunked on.
He (and Greenwald) are solid journalists, but they’re also libs. Importantly, they’re not partisan hacks, which is why they get attacked by whichever party happens to be in power at any given moment.
Idk I've seen a lot from Greenwald where he is specifically against the left. They seem very "partisan"
I think “partisan” in this context means not genuflecting to either Republicans or Democrats.
👆 He’s a civil libertarian who, on a fuzzy, intuitive level, tries to fight for the “little guy” over those in power regardless of the party in power, but without having a coherent class consciousness.
Well what does that matter? Both parties are servile bootlickers of capital who think leftists should be removed from society, one party just thinks it should be done through executions
The first thing I see when I look up Taibbi is some article where he's handwringing about people 'being unwilling to explore different points of view post Trump' (lmao), and Greggy G's twitter feed has his most recent tweet where he dumps on some journo for following the state department line vis a vis Israel (cool), and 2 tweets back from that where he seems to be going after a judge Lula appointed because a podcaster (who defended the existence of a Brazilian Nazi party, invited on stereotypical gamers, and generally seemed to be 'problematic') thought the judge was shit (absolutely not cool)
Being 'non partisan' in this shithole hardly matters when both parties serve the same interests anyway.
Being non-partisan isn’t a panacea to be sure. All it means is the potential to speak truth to power regardless of which party is in power, though it hardly guarantees it. And you’re right that, because he’s a liberal, his analysis is still going to be captured by liberal ideology. But his actual facts at least are generally fact-based.
There are virtually no old-school investigative journalists/muckrakers who are actual leftists, so I have to take it where I can get it. Investigative journalism is slow & expensive, and corporate media 1) has become much more party-stratified over time, ever since cable news became a thing, and 2) they have mostly abandoned investigative journalism for budgetary reasons, because online ads don’t bring in much. Leftists have to run on shoestring budgets, so it’s no surprise that there isn’t much leftist investigative journalism to be found. All I can think of off the top of my head are Aaron Maté and Ben Norton, and I’m not sure to what extent they’d claim to be explicitly leftist.
That's somewhat fair, though I'd still steer clear of Greenwald or at least be highly critical of anything he throws out, he still tends to be a hack when it comes to leftists (going back to the Lula appointed judge thing).
Well yes, that and corporate media not wanting to give a platform to actual leftists for obvious reasons. You might have some luck with PSL published items like Liberation News, though as noted it's very rarely investigative journalism and mostly just analysis of existing conflict and articles.
He’s fallen off my map ever since he switched to his TV format; who has the time? He’s not really doing investigative reporting anymore.
The bulk of what I read/hear/watch are leftist analyses. Fortunately there are many (several of which I pay)!
the sexpat stuff was based on satirical articles and has been debunked by talking with the people involved
but I agree he's a dipshit on the other stuff alone
Pretty sure there are photos in some cases. eXile, as far as I can tell, was a shitty paper run by shitty people.
whats the mis- dis- mal-information discourse
So "misinformation" is just incorrect information being spread. "disinformation" is deliberately spreading wrong information with the intent to deceive.
"malinformation" is correct information that goes against the US government line. So educating people on the context of a historical event or geopolitics, but doing so in a way the US government doesn't approve of, is "malinformation." They're literally trying to reframe educating people as a potential crime. It's some fucked up shit.
And that other guy is talking about US politics where they accused "malinformation" of being one of the main reasons Clinton lost (i.e. people were informed that she is a horrific ghoul of a politician responsible for the destruction of Libya and that made people not want to vote for her.) They of course blamed this on "the Russians" as they do, because the US ruling class doesn't want their citizens to live in reality.
i have honestly never seen anyone use the word malinformation before today but i appreciate your explanation. Very strange that the other person was refusing to explain wtf they were talking about, normally people are eager to explain things they care about.
I think they may have been hung up on the word "discourse" there and assumed that you were up to speed with the terms, but not the conversation about them.
Though I really don't get their "big ball of wax" comment, it really isn't hard to say "the US government tries to manipulate people at home and abroad through manipulation of information and language."
Where have you been since Clinton lost the election? One place to start might be the Disinformation Governance Board.
Are you talking about people blaming russia for clinton's loss and election interference? Phrasing this stuff as "the mis- dis- mal-information discourse" makes it sound like there are a bunch of people arguing about the definitions of those things on twitter.
Your post comes across as needlessly hostile here. Instead of calling me ignorant and dropping a wikipedia link for a thing that existed for 4 months try explaining yourself.
I’m sorry but I don’t know how to summarize this long, winding current in American socio-media-politics of the last six years in a Lemmy comment. It’s just too big a ball of wax, and I’m not up for it.
And so you thought "the mis- dis- mal-information discourse" would be the way people would understand what you're talking about and what it is Taibbi has exposed?
The people who are familiar with it will, and the people who aren’t obviously won’t. Same as in town. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, browbeat me into being your personal thing-explainer?
I mean you're on a public message board and you clearly have A Thing you care about, so maybe in the interest of promoting that Thing you should explain it?
I’ve brought them up before in posts & messages on hexbear and lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml and Mastodon, and I’m sure I will again.
I think it matters because the push to control social media has expanded to include all of the imperial West, and they are aware of the fediverse and are going to come for us:
Atlantic Council report: Scaling Trust on the Web: Annex 5: Collective Security in a Federated World (PDF)