Genuine question: is there any good reason for observers to distinguish "white nationalism" from "white supremacy", besides aiding the supremacists' own PR? I see on Wikipedia the surface idea is that they want whites to have national/racial identity just as others do, rather than that they're superior, but that doesn't stand even the weakest scrutiny. The transition from "maintain identity" to "and dominate over other groups" is so seamless it's even in the summary section on Wikipedia.
1 Is a good point. I'm even getting uncomfortable with the "neo" in "neo-Nazi" not to mention "Nazi sympathizer," they're fucking Nazis.
1: IMO, no.
2: Personally I'm OK with "neo-Nazi" and "Nazi sympathizer" because I'm a pedant, and there are very few literal Nazis alive in the world, using the word to mean "person who is a member of a group that calls itself the Nazi Party." I guess "nazi" with a lowercase might be OK because that's less specific.
I suspect that Kevin Drum is right--this was a story that was more pointed in its conception, but the interview didn't pan out. So, instead of killing the story they'd invested resources into researching, they wrote something toothless instead.
It's tough to get even Nazis to hang themselves with their own words if one asks more questions about their goddamned bands and weddings than, e.g., whether their program requires mass murder or just compulsory displacement of racial and ethnic groups and how they would, given their druthers and the resources and apparatus of the state, accomplish their objective(s).
On the other hand, bitching about the NYT like you caught it red-handed going through your medicine cabinet and giggling about your eyedrops is an ancient Internet tradition, and Internet traditions are stupid.
Actually, I quite like captioning pictures of cats.
Sigh. It's like no one ever watched "Blood In The Face"
6: We all know what you like, Moby, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Some stupid traditions predate the Internet.
Being denounced by a liberal New York newspaper, it turned out, gave the Klan just the political imprimatur it needed, and spread the news of its rebirth across the nation.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/12/07/ku-klux-klambakes/
I hate to admit this, but I like the article. I thought it showed how horrifying the little shit Nazi was, while showing how normal and reasonable he *thought* he was.
Not to mention how his wife and (some) of his friends accepted all his appalling Nazi crap.
This might be because of all the racists I grew up with and all the people I saw giving them a pass. I know guys like this, and their family and friends, is what I'm saying. They wouldn't call themselves Nazis; but they would agree with everything this Nazi is saying.
I'm impressed by the Post here. Is our media learning?
That's just great. I feel like giving WP subscriptions for Christmas presents.
11 is extremely impressive. Well done the WP, that's good tradecraft and rigorous research. (Though, a GoFundMe page with the liar's name on it saying she was off to work for right wing media? Sloppy.)
Implied: the WP is routinely staking out the Project Veritas offices!
I bet that's the most fun they've had on the job since they went around parking garages meeting Deep Throat.
Apt point on Trump's racism of the day- of course he was going to insult code talkers, they helped defeat one of his core constituencies.
I just finished the whole article. It is a masterpiece. You have to read this.
I don't even like reading news, but this is great writing.
Remember when O'Keefe tried to lure a reporter onto a boat filled with dildos? "A brief history of O'Keefe self-owns
It gets better. O'Keefe lied about when the Post confronted him, but "the Post filmed the entire encounter."
To be fair, how could O'Keefe have known they were filming their own version, just because there was a Post cameraman standing there recording them.
Maybe he figured a newspaper couldn't print a photo because only Harry Potter-world newspapers can do that.
I don't know where they learned to troll their own readers like that.
The Style section.
As Atrios pointed out O'Keefe'a mistake was in going to the Post instead of the Times.
Interesting detail of O'Prick thing: the job description in the GoFundMe page is clearly inspired by intelligence organisations, but they just as clearly haven't hoisted in what they need to do a proper job.
Also, the Post has some chops. Not only did they detect the sting, they flipped the agent!
25: As the Post did the original reporting, I think they had to attack the Post to effectively protect Moore.
Regarding the OP, it really pleases me to see the pushback that the NYT has gotten. The NYT will still do stuff like this, but after another 20 iterations of this kind of fuck up, I really think they are capable of learning -- as long as they know people are thinking critically about their work.
Regarding the Post, it would have been nice if they had wised up about O'Keefe back when he was fraudulently destroying ACORN. But the Post can't even mention that incident in the current story, because the Post was complicit.
Part of me thinks that O'Keefe genuinely misunderstands what journalists do, and that leads him into these screwups.
But the smarter part of me knows, as O'Keefe knows, that for his audience (including the rubes in the national media) it doesn't really matter how much he fucks up. Even as the WaPo blows up his narrative (see Moby's link in 20), the newspaper discusses his work as though it is legitimate activism or even journalism.
The video was heavily edited, a tactic for which Project Veritas has drawn criticism.
How about this instead: "The video was edited to falsely convey the impression that ..."
O'Keefe tweeted that the conversation exposes the newspaper's "hidden agenda" and alleged bias against President Trump.
And then it goes on to elaborate on O'Keefe's position, without much in the way of rebuttal.
I mean sure, yeah, if you read carefully and follow the links, you understand the scam. But O'Keefe isn't aiming at the careful readers and link-followers.
Even in its own expose, the Post is unable to place this event in the context of the series of scam films that O'Keefe has made. He's just another guy with a point of view, albeit one that "has drawn criticism."
I think the Post did well and is trying to avoid treating his work as legitimate by very deliberately keeping to the traditions of neutral public journalism in the face of bullshit and thus letting O'Keefe tighten the noose around his own neck.
Anyway, I think two people shouting "liar" at each other helps Moore more than one person obviously lying while the other demonstrates obvious competence and what the kids call pwnage.
32, 33: Right. The Post's evisceration of O'Keefe was very similar to the way the media destroyed Trump.
It's hard for me to think of what else to post besides this story.
There's a realistic possibility that there is no tack the media can take in the face of epistemic closure.
I thought the charge against the media's coverage of Trump (in the early days) was that they took him literally, but not seriously. The Post is taking O'Keefe seriously. (Also, I think most of the medial failings about Trump were problems with the broadcast media.)
Can you believe that fucking James Comey announced 12 days before the election that they were reopening the investigation into Clinton's emails? And that somehow over the past year that detail has gotten nearly lost in the annals? A propos to nothing.
36 Well, the NYT, for example, could certainly decide that pandering to people who aren't going to read their stories in good faith isn't a very good business strategy. Hiring the climate denier, when they've just had a huge bump in subscriptions, in large part, from people looking for accurate information now that the government is in the hands of climate deniers, is a slap in the face of readers designed to appeal to non-readers.
There are more than enough readers interested in a factually accurate rendition of today's world to support the paper. They do have to stop thinking it's their job to "challenge" those readers with inaccuracies that are widely held by people not as interested in reality.
35: Well speaking of media, the BBC seems, to its credit, to be making a point of keeping the Rohingya in the news. For instance.
Elsewhere I saw someone muse that O'Keefe's real mistake was choosing the Post over the NYT. (Or maybe I saw this upthread.)
I assume he was paid to attack the Post.
Maybe, but I doubt Alabama voters who'd be impressed by this stunt distinguish between the Post and the NYT.
40 But the Pope isn't and for the first tome I am disappoint.
How many books did you have before disappoint?
37: That's our disagreement. I think the Post is making the exact mistake it made with Trump. If the Post took O'Keefe seriously, the word ACORN would have appeared in its coverage of this incident, and the newspaper wouldn't talk about the fact that people have criticized him, but would offer instead the objective truth: O'Keefe's methods lead directly and deliberately to factual inaccuracy, and he has had a great deal of success with this approach.
Charley gets me. This Post stuff (which, by the way, really is great fun and good stuff and I'm sorry to be such a stick-in-the-mud about it) is of a piece with the media's shitty coverage of climate science and Nazis. This Nazi douchebag has an easily unearthed public record that is despicable, but the NYT wanted to humanize him.
heebie, likewise, gets it. Comey was the FBI director and can't be ignored. But his completely inappropriate vendetta against Hillary, as described by Trump's own Justice Department, should have been a matter of widespread public knowledge when Comey dropped his bomb. And his late "revelation" about e-mails should have been treated with the skepticism it deserved on Day 1.
As for 36, the NYT or WaPo don't need to solve Trump. They need to solve their own shortcomings. The rest is up to us.
43: Somebody has been calling people in Alabama claiming to be from the Post and offering money for women to accuse Moore. This is the other half of that effort.
I have no idea why 45 came from Lenin. Stupid form memory.
44: Maybe. Unlike, just to pick a head of state from a hat, the POTUS, the pope probably understands diplomacy. I'd like to imagine that what he was saying in those private meetings wasn't fudged at all.
Duncan to 25 to 41.
47- With a heavily NY (IYKWIM) name and accent (although the accent is so bad it wavers between NY Jew and Boston townie).
38- I'd like NYT or WaPo to unearth the rogue FBI efforts behind Comey's announcement and also the NYT headline just before the election, "Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia". The rumor was that Comey had to say something or rogue agents in the NY office, who are pretty clearly tied to Giuliani, would leak the news about Weiner's laptop and make Comey look partisan and part of a cover-up. The Times probably won't do it because it would embarrass their own reporting, but you'd think the Post would be excited to embarrass their rival.
46 is right. The problem with Trump voters is Trump voters. The problems with the (non-Fox) media are mostly separate.
O'Keefe's methods lead directly and deliberately to factual inaccuracy, and he has had a great deal of success with this approach.
They did the first part. I don't see how reminding people of the second part helps anybody but O'Keefe right now.
"Sure, he's a shitty liar now, but he used to be much better at it" doesn't seem very effective to me anyway.
||I feel I always highjack the threads to temporarily be about my dumb, seriously crazy problems HOWEVER exciting things have happened. I headed to the psychiatrist with a packed bag in the expectation I'd be sent to be put under direct observation again at a psych ward. instead he put me on clonidine and naltrexone, weirdly, and even more seroquel. part of this is the you are asleep so you can't hurt yourself thing, but more importantly I genuinely haven't wanted to hurt myself. the obsessive, overpowering urge to hurt myself is like a drug urge, with the rush of endorphins and dimensionless, singular focus of the pain as the reward. both the clonidine and the naltrexone fight this--they're usually used for opiate withdrawal. cross fingers it works. but I still haven't talked to husband x and I don't know what to do. hopefully his parents will pay for him and the girls to come here for christmas. I'll maybe be on some dumbshit cross-taper for the rest of my life. |>
Keep hijacking al, and keep getting better!
Oh , hey, that sounds pretty positive. Excellent!
I have no idea why 45 came from Lenin. Stupid form memory.
But why was Lenin in your form memory? Are you sockpuppeting over at ratetherussianauthoritarian.com again?
And hooray for alamedia's good news!
Who knows what's in my form memory.
Hooray for progress.
38: Can you believe that fucking James Comey announced 12 days before the election that they were reopening the investigation into Clinton's emails?
As time goes on more of the fucking assholes behind the scenes who moved along the e-mail story while part of the government come to light.
1) Was looking at this as the former Inspector General of the intelligence community (Charles McCullough)was on Tucker Carlson (last night I think?) wingnutting it up over how horrible and awful it was--"McCullough later told Catherine Herridge that he found out he would be one of the first firings of Hillary Clinton's prospective administration." Link here- warning Fox News/Tucker but actually the guy talking afterward as a "Fox News" Democrat, Richard Goodstein, is pretty good for a Fox News Democrat.
2) We've known for a while that Emilia DiSanto, the Deputy Director of the State Dept. IG was former Grassley staffer who was a nut on the emails. (Between 1 and 2 you have the main two people* who got the thing to become an FBI** matter as far as I know.)
3) Last month it was revealed that Barbabra Ledeen (yes Michael Ledeen's wife) who still is a Grassley staffer was trying to privately push an investigation of HRC emails. (Grassley office says she is not involved at all on any current Judiciary stuff re: investigation... ha!)
And the Times (and most of the other media) either never really unpacked that, or (almost assuredly in the case of the motherfucking Times) used these folks as sources. This is all part of the 20-year soft coup for the mega-rich total win in the US (see current Oligarch Enhancement and Protection Act).
*Motherfucking motherfuckers lie NYT Politics editors and reporters and Chris Cilizza would always use the uniqueness of an FBI investigation of a presidential mcandidate as justification for their insane focus***, well here's its roots. If someone wants a real fucking Pulitzer they'd go back before the campaign and discover how the Times worked with these folks and the Chaffetz/Gowdy guys to aid an incredible misuse of government resources to undermine the likely nominee of the opposition party.
**Per SP in 51:38 once the fuckers in NY office specifically got their hooks into it it just became another tool for them. And they represent some of Michael Schmidt's (NYT fuckwad of email fuckwaddery) best sources. (And probably for the utterly farcical downplaying of Russia story as well.)
***Will reiterate how doubly and triply and googolplexily damning it was for the media focus on this fucking issue given all of the other massively newsworthy stuff going on under their fucking noses. (But I'm sure Poopastupidalous would have been such a tough nut to crack...)
A little too much wine in me to actually proofread the above. But to paraphrase Judith Miller, I'm fucking right.
This would all be less relevant today if the Times and much of the media were not doubling down on their awfulness. WaPo has gotten somewhat better. (And if nothing else losing Chris Cilizza was a big win.)
Michael Schmidt's (NYT fuckwad of email fuckwaddery)
But what a third baseman!
The link in 40 is fucking awful. Like, Mi Lai or Srebrenica awful.