The fake news that turns out to be true thread

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

So global warming denier and douche bag extraordinaire Rush Limbaugh, after spending all week claiming hurricane Irma is fake news, evacuates FL. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-hurricane-irma-rush-limbaugh-evacuates-palm-beach-fake-news-20170908-story.html

 

What a disgusting and horrible piece of human garbage. I wonder how many people refused to leave FL because this self righteous assh*le's lies in the quest for more ratings. If a single person dies, as a result of his advice, he should be charged with negligent homicide just like someone falsely yelling fire in a theater. I wonder how this sloven, moronic drug addict sleeps at night. He must be the biggest assh*le in real life. I feel sorry for anyone that works for him. I can picture him berating interns to tears for bringing him Perrier without a twist of lemon, or sexually harassing 20 something female employees. Worst kind of scum there is.

[Poe Dameron]

I'm still not seeing what the big deal is. Saying that the news likes to hype things up and that global warming is brought up every time a hurricane happens is hardly a novel thought.

 

This seems like internet outrage, not the real thing.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

How did I know you would be the first to leap to the defense of a scumbag like Rush Lardball?

[Poe Dameron]

Because I try to be fair and don't have a sense of peer pressure that would stop me from pointing out an uncomfortable counterpoint?

 

Sorry for raining on the hate fest.

[Driver]

To be fair, I had you warmed up cause I brought it up in the hurricane thread.

[Guest]

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/09/05/my-analysis-of-the-hurricane-irma-panic/

 

Transcript.

 

Haven't read through it all, but Rush complaining about everything being politicized is way funnier and more hypocritical than any other possible thing he said.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

Because I try to be fair and don't have a sense of peer pressure that would stop me from pointing out an uncomfortable counterpoint?

 

Sorry for raining on the hate fest.

Yes, yes. You are quite the self appointed defender of truth.

 

Actually, spoken like a right and proper Pavlovian Rushbot. Or maybe it's just because you are simply a contrarian that argues for arguments sake? I suspect its probably a bit from Column A, and some from Column B.

 

Either way, there is no counterpoint to be had here. You are defending someone who is telling people that a Cat 4 hurricane is nothing more than liberal media hype for ratings, and then realizes he effed up, and leaves. If Limprick actually stayed in FL and rode out the storm, it would be one thing. He'd still be a moron and wrong, but at least he'd be walking his talk.

 

It just goes to show you how Rush Limblaugh doesn't actually stand by the crap that spews out of his mouth, and the coward doesn't even have the decency to tell that to his audience and offer a correction. What a despicable excuse for a human being Limbdork is. What kind of person does that? I mean, besides a sociopath or a pathological narcissist, that is.

 

I get that you love to argue, Poe, but damn dude, why you would want to defend someone like that is beyond me.

 

 

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/09/05/my-analysis-of-the-hurricane-irma-panic/

 

Transcript.

 

Haven't read through it all, but Rush complaining about everything being politicized is way funnier and more hypocritical than any other possible thing he said.

I'm still scrolling through it myself, but hilarious. The guy is so full of himself.

[pavonis]

Claiming that agencies that track hurricanes always produce early predictions that the storms will strike land and even major population centers, to advance a political agenda, is a serious accusation. He's saying that he thinks the scientists studying and modeling these systems are unprofessional and even unethical. There's no call for that. I doubt he really understands anything about the models of hurricanes. If he has a better system for predicting hurricane paths, why keep it to himself? Maybe he could sell a subscription to his guesses to his devoted fans. Oh, but making money like that would be wrong. Limbaugh would never do that.

 

As for his complaining about businesses doing business, and complaining about the politicization of everything, that's just hypocritical of him.

[Ms. Spam]

I actually got told by some moron in a Facebook page who is a climate denier that I should go to school and learn about things because I was talking about how much weather impacts are greatly magnified because of humanity's impact on environments. Fires in Montana and Oregon and Washington to flooding from Harvey and now Irma in Tampa which hasn't had a major hurricane hit since 1921 and does not have the infrastructure to help with the storm surge because they put off funding for improvements.

 

I pointed out that what I was talking about didn't even have to do with actual climate but if he wanted to talk about changes in the Jet Stream, warmer oceans and melting glaciers in a topic about how rain came down so much in Houston it bent the Earth's crust two centimeters then we can do that. Science is actually doing really good things that will give us data on how these storms impact us like the new sensors that measured that change in the Earth's crust or wind speeds in the eye of the hurricane causing earthquake sensors to trip.

 

His answer was "Duh, hurricane's happen every year. Evacuate."

 

I actually do listen to Rush when I'm with certain family members and his point about hurricane rhetoric being a hoax is there in the minds of some people who probably think this is all sorcery. I gotta go with Pavonis on what he stated above. It dismisses things that are measurable and represent things that are tangible to kind of go back in a shell of denial and finger pointing. Rush is being hypocritical. Bluster that is believed.

[The Kurgan]

The pathology on the US far right is extremely pervasive. They lie all the time, and huge volumes of time and effort are spent arguing about the lies themselves instead of getting s**t done. The root of the problem is rather succinctly explained here:

One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted. (How do you know they’re liberal? Well, they disagree with the conservative media!) This epistemic closure can be a source of solidarity and energy, but it also renders the conservative media ecosystem fragile. Think of the complete panic China’s rulers feel about any breaks in their Internet firewall: The more successfully external sources of information have been excluded to date, the more unpredictable the effects of a breach become. Internal criticism is then especially problematic, because it threatens the hermetic seal. It’s not just that any particular criticism might have to be taken seriously coming from a fellow conservative. Rather, it’s that anything that breaks down the tacit equivalence between “critic of conservatives and “wicked liberal smear artist” undermines the effectiveness of the entire information filter. If disagreement is not in itself evidence of malign intent or moral degeneracy, people start feeling an obligation to engage it sincerely—maybe even when it comes from the New York Times. And there is nothing more potentially fatal to the momentum of an insurgency fueled by anger than a conversation. A more intellectually secure conservatism would welcome this, because it wouldn’t need to define itself primarily in terms of its rejection of an alien enemy.

[Poe Dameron]

Actually, spoken like a right and proper Pavlovian Rushbot.

 

You're the one that took a few snippets from a news article and starting running around in a name-calling rage and declaring how this can't possibly be defended based on someone else's description of what he said. Myself, I haven't listened to the guy in ages and was never a particular devotee. Matter of fact, I've spent more time the past several years annoyed with him than anything else.

 

You've got the transcript. What exactly is so outrageous that it can't be defended? It's exactly what I said. He talks about how local news likes to hype things up and global warming enthusiasts latch onto hurricanes as an opportunity to push it. Neither of these things are particularly objectionable.

 

I'll also note that in the transcript, he says that if the hurricane looks like it'll hit S. Florida, that he'll move his program somewhere else. So the very basis of the outrcry is nonsense. He literally did exactly what he said he was going to do and left town.

 

It's all just forced internet rage. Boring stuff.

[Justus]

If a single person dies, as a result of his advice, he should be charged with negligent homicide just like someone falsely yelling fire in a theater.

Are you kidding? Charge Limbaugh for adults making a conscious decision to listen to him instead of the local authorities/NWS? I see the national trend of adults never being responsible for their own actions continues.

[Guest]

Unless being an asshole is a crime, I don't see why anyone would want him charged. And if it is a crime, we should all be too worried about packing our bags and escaping to Mexico.

[Poe Dameron]

 

The pathology on the US far right is extremely pervasive. They lie all the time, and huge volumes of time and effort are spent arguing about the lies themselves instead of getting s**t done. The root of the problem is rather succinctly explained here:

One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted. (How do you know they’re liberal? Well, they disagree with the conservative media!) This epistemic closure can be a source of solidarity and energy, but it also renders the conservative media ecosystem fragile. Think of the complete panic China’s rulers feel about any breaks in their Internet firewall: The more successfully external sources of information have been excluded to date, the more unpredictable the effects of a breach become. Internal criticism is then especially problematic, because it threatens the hermetic seal. It’s not just that any particular criticism might have to be taken seriously coming from a fellow conservative. Rather, it’s that anything that breaks down the tacit equivalence between “critic of conservatives and “wicked liberal smear artist” undermines the effectiveness of the entire information filter. If disagreement is not in itself evidence of malign intent or moral degeneracy, people start feeling an obligation to engage it sincerely—maybe even when it comes from the New York Times. And there is nothing more potentially fatal to the momentum of an insurgency fueled by anger than a conversation. A more intellectually secure conservatism would welcome this, because it wouldn’t need to define itself primarily in terms of its rejection of an alien enemy.

 

I believe this more aptly describes the left these days. There's a ton more division and debate on the right. Always has been, but it's been strong since Bush lost favor, picked up speed when Obama became president, and has been in overdrive ever since Trump became a thing.

 

If the left were more self-critical, then the mass rejection of liberal sources (media, academia) wouldn't be so easy to do. This very story about fake outrage driven by intentionally misinterpreting an enemy of the left's words is yet another example. They've lost their credibility and only a true believer would view what they have to say without solid skepticism.

[The Kurgan]

I believe this more aptly describes the left these days. There's a ton more division and debate on the right. Always has been, but it's been strong since Bush lost favor, picked up speed when Obama became president, and has been in overdrive ever since Trump became a thing.

 

If the left were more self-critical, then the mass rejection of liberal sources (media, academia) wouldn't be so easy to do. This very story about fake outrage driven by intentionally misinterpreting an enemy of the left's words is yet another example. They've lost their credibility and only a true believer would view what they have to say without solid skepticism.

This is true, albeit also more recent. When Julian Sanchez described epistemic closure on the right in 2010, he claimed that while it existed on the left, it was much less prevalent. I'd suggest that's the difference between 2010 and current year.

 

For it's many flaws, the alt-right was a much needed cleat in the ass of a right wing establishment that was split between GOP insider neocucks whose songbook hasn't changed one iota since Reagan faced off against Carter, and the shrill paleocons who just could let up on Obama, Hillary, Obama, Democrats are the real racists, Obama is out to take our guns away, Nanci Pelosi, the Democrats, Obama is a commie AND a Nazi AND a Muslim, chemtrails, FEMA camps, water fluoridation being a sinister conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids, on and on. The right had no vision and no ideology. Hell, even the not quite so bad old days when the answer to absolutely everything, and I mean EVERYTHING was a tax cut on high income earners seemed inspiring in comparison to what things had become.

 

While I think they continue to be hobbled by ideological preoccupations (if I hear the phrase Cultural Marxism one more time, I'm sending whoever says it straight to the gulag!) I'm noticing that more voices on the right are starting to get it. They're waking up to just how perilous the postmodernist intersectionalist movements on college campuses are. This will reach Nazi/Stalinist levels of nightmare in two generations if extreme and decisive action is not taken, the sooner the better. Look at what happened at Evergreen, UC Berkeley, etc. I think we're all, regardless of our place on the political spectrum, paying the price for decades of anti intellectualism and a complete lack of ideas and vision on the right above and beyond "Democrats = Satan." I mean, a reality TV show host and has-been celebrity rolled over the GOP's precious star candidates to take the nomination and eventually the presidency. What does that tell you?