tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post7721569191548362796..comments2024-03-20T12:34:55.100-05:00Comments on Stonekettle Station: Memes and Critical ThoughtJim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-58927080705149024602016-12-27T17:58:16.110-06:002016-12-27T17:58:16.110-06:00Jim, since I came here couple of weeks ago, I'...Jim, since I came here couple of weeks ago, I'm working my way through your blog and I'm finding many gems. This post is very much one of them.<br />Would you please consider reposting the IW and OODA parts? I think they have lost nothing of their relevance and fit in well with the Blind Spot posts of this month.<br />I'm going to bookmark this post and link to it in discussions.<br />Thank you for your writings, they make me laugh and think in equal proportions!Twomindsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-57371025532513013762008-04-30T15:06:00.000-05:002008-04-30T15:06:00.000-05:00felt lined glass hats are the answer.felt lined glass hats are the answer.Random Michelle Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13817444379694818074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-19498396028982241652008-04-30T12:41:00.000-05:002008-04-30T12:41:00.000-05:00Well, Steve, frankly I prefer to wear the hat with...Well, Steve, frankly I prefer to wear the hat with those beer can holders on either side...Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-24244416189425513422008-04-30T12:28:00.000-05:002008-04-30T12:28:00.000-05:00About the glass hat:1) so that's what the voices g...About the glass hat:<BR/><BR/>1) so that's what the voices get louder when I put on the tin-foil hat<BR/><BR/>B) but with a glass hat people can still see my bald spot<BR/><BR/>III) way to close sounding to another type of hat I'm tired of wearing.Steve Buchheithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12999709767641212586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-40724668963885526272008-04-29T12:34:00.000-05:002008-04-29T12:34:00.000-05:00John, while I agree that there's certainly somethi...John, while I agree that there's certainly something to what Williams said in the video you linked to, I also very much understand that Obama is a shrewd politician. <BR/><BR/>Did he join the Trinity United Church of Christ solely to appear 'more black' to a certain segment of his voter base, or because he actually agreed with the message preached there? I don't know, and I think it unlikely that any of us ever will for certain.<BR/><BR/>Does it matter what his motives were? Maybe, but probably not at this point. <BR/><BR/>If he attended TUCC all these years solely to increase his visibility and likability to black voters - well, so? I mean, sure it is to some extent disingenuous, but again he's a <I>politician</I>. And I don't see that as any different than Bill Clinton playing saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show, or GWB dishing up BBQ at every cookoff in the Midwest during his campaign in order to appear more likable. Would I do it? No, but then I wouldn't get elected either. <BR/><BR/>If he attended TUCC because he actually agreed with Wright's rhetoric, yes I think there's cause for concern - however, he has stated clearly that he does not agree with Wright's position on many topics, <I>and</I> his track record in the Senate bears that out. <BR/><BR/>As to exposing his child to Wright's 'hate speech,' well that's his business - and it's important to note that not all, or even a majority, of Wright's sermons were of the controversial variety. And John, truthfully here and no offense to anybody (ALL: really I do NOT intend the following to be offensive, please don't take it that way), but in all candor many churches preach <I>some</I> form of intolerance to their congregations - including children. Whether it's anti-gay, anti-semitic, anti-science, anti-something. Some of it is every bit as intolerant as Wright's rhetoric - take Bush Senior's comment that atheists shouldn't be considered patriots for example. Now not all, or even a majority of churches preach intolerance, but many do, and I don't think Obama should be condemned solely because of his involvement with Wright or TUCC. It's an area of concern, yes, but I think it's been addressed.<BR/><BR/>And again, I'm not saying that Obama is better or worse than the other candidates or that you should vote for him. I'm saying that he should be judged on his merits, not Wright's, and that each voter should apply critical thinking when it comes to their choices.Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-44696242042713586042008-04-29T11:15:00.000-05:002008-04-29T11:15:00.000-05:00OK, Jim fair enough. I did not read your post as s...OK, Jim fair enough. I did not read your post as saying "from his perspective". <BR/><BR/>My beef is this: Wright represents the fringe of African-American thought. Some of his rhetoric is destructive. I'm not stupid enough to think that Obama shares his views. Obama is not a stupid man.<BR/><BR/>Obabma chose to associate with him for nearly 2 decades. He chose to associate children (with their recent white ancestry)with this corrosive rhetoric. And he didn't speak out about it until recently. He did this for one reason: he's half white and he wanted to shirk charges of not being black enough.<BR/><BR/>I have a problem with that.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exhyMMhdRTk" REL="nofollow">Juan Williams</A> said it better than I could.<BR/><BR/>Before "Enough" was published I looked at Juan as well left of center, based on his comments on international policy on Fox and NPR. Now, I think that if he's left, I'm left, too. But a correspondent for <I>NPR</I> is being attacked as "rightwing" in this mess.<BR/><BR/>Most of the charges leveled at Obama are mud slinging and I ignore them. But if he says he offers "change" why did he associate for so long with this standard bearer for the past?John the Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-32131950217746900222008-04-29T11:08:00.000-05:002008-04-29T11:08:00.000-05:00John, thanks for the link to the Boyd/Osinga round...John, thanks for the link to the Boyd/Osinga roundtable. I read a couple of the posts, and I'll read the rest later this evening. Again thanks, I appreciate it.Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-12671771921213846872008-04-29T10:59:00.000-05:002008-04-29T10:59:00.000-05:00John,I should have been more clear with that state...John,<BR/><BR/>I should have been more clear with that statement, I meant that Wright didn't say anything publicly that wasn't at least somewhat justifiable from <I>his</I> perspective.<BR/><BR/>You brought up his statement that Aids/Ebola was created by the government. While I absolutely agree that this is nothing more than a conspiracy theory of the worst kind - you should be able to see, from an information warfare perspective, how some members of the African American community could and do buy into it - specifically because events such as the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment <I>did</I> indeed actually occur. Yes, such events were (supposedly) not widespread, but the very fact that they did occur, even once, lends credibility to the AIDS conspiracy theory in the minds of people who already have reason to feel repressed - if I was writing an IW plan to target a specific civilian population segment, this is precisely the type of situation I would build on, playing to the fears of those who were disenfranchised, persecuted, or treated differently from the majority. <BR/><BR/>Understand, that portion of my post wasn't to defend Rev Wright, rather to point out that his sermons should have little bearing on the average voter, and yet are being seized on by those who are determined to keep Obama out of office. There is a concerted effort, organized or not, to take information (already false, or at least unverified), add to it, and propagate it into the public conscience. <BR/><BR/>There is a threshold, what we used to call 'information self-sustainment' in the IW field, where the inserted information becomes self-propagating and taken at face value by it's target audience. And that's what is happening here - Wright is just conspiracy crazy enough to provide an opportune IW vulnerability (sorry, I'll try to avoid jargon, but it's difficult for me when discussing Information Warfare). What I see is Wright playing to a certain perspective (and using shoddy data verification) in a particular minority population as a platform to build anti-Obama awareness in the data sphere. Couple that with the Obama-doesn't-wear-a-flag-pin, the Obama-doesn't-respect-the-national-anthem, and the Obama-is-a-Muslim memes widely circulating in the data sphere and you have a very powerful force - organized and deliberate, or not. <BR/><BR/>In recent weeks I've spoken to a number of otherwise reasonable, intelligent folks who were shocked to find that I could even think about Obama as President - because, he doesn't put his hand over his heart during the national anthem, or doesn't respect the flag, or is a Muslim, or is a racist, or etc. When I ask how they arrived at that conclusion, the answer is inevitably, "Everybody knows that, aren't you paying attention?"Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-19448075186169884152008-04-29T05:25:00.000-05:002008-04-29T05:25:00.000-05:00You might be interested in this discussion on Boyd...You might be interested in this <A HREF="http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/5560.html" REL="nofollow">discussion</A> on Boyd and Col. Osinga's book. Col. Osinga even joined in.John the Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-22529230697576386652008-04-29T05:22:00.000-05:002008-04-29T05:22:00.000-05:00Wright hasn't said one thing publicly that isn't t...<I>Wright hasn't said one thing publicly that isn't true, or at least reasonably correct - within the proper context</I>.<BR/><BR/>I disagree. From <A HREF="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/wright-assails.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>:<BR/><BR/><I>On his contention that the U.S. government had created AIDS as a method of committing genocide against African-Americans, Wright referred to a hotly-disputed 1996 book "Emerging Viruses: AIDS And Ebola : Nature, Accident or Intentional?" by Leonard G Horowitz, which contends that AIDS and the Ebola viruses evolved during cancer experiments on monkeys.<BR/><BR/>He also referenced "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" by Harriet Washington, and said based on the Tuskegee experiment -- in which the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a 40-year study on 400 poor black men in Alabama with syphilis whom they did not properly treat -- "I believe our government is capable of anything."</I><BR/><BR/>There is no context in which that kind of conspiracy mongering is healthy. The Tuskegee experiment was evil. I wouldn’t say it was completely isolated, but it was not widespread practice, either. By citing it in a condemnation of today’s medical field, Wright <B>is</B> off base. In some of his arguments he may be right, but in others, such as that one, he’s very, very wrong. But a pastor, especially one of that stature, has a responsibility to the truth. He has shirked that responsibility. I condemn him as much as I condemn a YEC pastor. <BR/><BR/>He’s a conspiracy theorist. The current media campaign is an attempt to rehabilitate him. You get someone that bitter in pretty much every group of people if the sample is large enough. I grew up in a black church, and I met people like this. Our church didn’t give them pastorships, though.<BR/><BR/>Is he evil? No. Is he misguided? Yes. Is his brand of preaching healthy for young poor black men who need to take more responsibility in their lives? Absolutely not. This kind of message was exactly what Bill Cosby and <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Enough-Dead-End-Movements-Undermining-America/dp/0307338231" REL="nofollow">Juan Williams</A> are <A HREF="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5618023" REL="nofollow">preaching</A> against.<BR/><BR/>If Juan Williams ever ran for office, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. If the shit ever hit the fan, I’d keep Wright out of the compound.John the Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-32332669364575513012008-04-29T02:11:00.000-05:002008-04-29T02:11:00.000-05:00Steve, tinfoil is a conductor, what you want is a ...Steve, tinfoil is a conductor, what you want is a <I>glass</I> helmet.Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-31076452317330858092008-04-28T22:00:00.000-05:002008-04-28T22:00:00.000-05:00Gotta go put my tin-foil hat back on. Just realize...Gotta go put my tin-foil hat back on. Just realized I left it off. :)Steve Buchheithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12999709767641212586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-83067178139994498372008-04-28T21:56:00.000-05:002008-04-28T21:56:00.000-05:00Adept2u, you're on to something, but you've missed...Adept2u, you're on to something, but you've missed the wider battle. As a quote from a former show I happened to love (because it was damn smart and expected it's audience to be smart as well), "You're not looking at the whole board."<BR/><BR/>The drive for the Rev. Wright quotes (everywhere all the time) was very deliberate, it was meant to paint a picture of him and Obama being "uppity." That is an ugly word, and I don't use it lightly. But it's a clarion call to a segment of the population. A segment that is not fully represented by the Left Wing of the spectrum but could be said to include the "Reagan Democrats" (ie. moderates, independents, and Rhinos). <BR/><BR/>Jim, I disagree slightly, I do see many psy-ops going on at the moment. They aren't centrally coordinated, but I think you have seen how certain emails bear the marks of having been written by the same people. While the number and frequency of them arriving in my inbox has gone down sharply, I expect they'll go back to fever pitch, say, around Sept. 1st. <BR/><BR/>I expect "Astroturf" (fake grassroots organizations and actors) will be a common phrase by the end of this election cycle.<BR/><BR/>And just so I don't go completely off the post, while going into Iraq to "get the WMDs" is somewhat of what Jim is saying, readers should also factor in that battle plans were made to include the possibility of a chemical or biological strike (one of the reasons why the tempo of the attack was to be fast). That reasoning also caused the troops to carry and train with heavy and hot equipment to counter such an attack (which then lead to shortages on other valuable equipment, like carrying enough water). By not being able to adjust to the changing environment, clinging to outdated information, we hampered ourselves. So even without having the WMDs, Saddam altered the battlefield because he spoofed us out (maybe, maybe not, but I think it's pretty clear we planned for him to have them).Steve Buchheithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12999709767641212586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-31997822697428843332008-04-28T21:17:00.000-05:002008-04-28T21:17:00.000-05:00Well, I could plug you on my blog, but I really do...Well, I could plug you on my blog, but I really don't think that's an upgrade.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00648438549121320566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-90127514106671683552008-04-28T20:42:00.000-05:002008-04-28T20:42:00.000-05:00Well, you know, go beat the bushes, drum up some b...Well, you know, go beat the bushes, drum up some business, something. Sheesh! ;)Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-32891585293721095172008-04-28T20:37:00.000-05:002008-04-28T20:37:00.000-05:00As to the OODA, new info for me. Thanks.RE: the me...As to the OODA, new info for me. Thanks.<BR/><BR/>RE: the message; I wish you had wider distribution and weren't preaching to the choir. Excellent points expressed very convincingly.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00648438549121320566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-85014190767214101842008-04-28T16:15:00.000-05:002008-04-28T16:15:00.000-05:00Janiece, yeah I saw the interview. And like you sa...Janiece, yeah I saw the interview. And like you said, while I don't necessarily agree with the Good Rev on everything - he sounds like somebody I'd love to sit down with and have a beer and an interesting conversation. <BR/><BR/>In fact, I admire that he held his peace as long as he has. The funny thing is that by taking his comments out of context, the press and the public having basically validated his position.<BR/><BR/>Want to stick it to the Rev Wright? The best way to do that would be to prove him wrong - wipe out poverty, racism, prejudice, and etc. There, see, you're wrong! Treat everybody equally under the Constitution, take that, Rev.<BR/><BR/>And you can run, but you can't hide ;)Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-42235404604114478462008-04-28T16:10:00.000-05:002008-04-28T16:10:00.000-05:00I go one step further this is a psy-ops campaign d...<I>I go one step further this is a psy-ops campaign designed to elect Hillary designed to continue agression in the middle east</I><BR/><BR/>adept2u, be careful not to fall into the same trap. While I agree that there is sufficient data to support your hypothesis, at least in some regards, I don't think you've got enough verified information to confidently conclude that there is an <I>organized</I> IW campaign afoot. Now, I will say that there is certainly a number of concerted psy-ops campaigns designed in to push the population into voting for one candidate or another - that's the nature of politics, and politicians (or rather their campaign managers) are masters of information operations by definition. <BR/><BR/>Now I will say that on the face of things, those who control the media increasingly tend to gather, process, and disseminate only the the information they want the public to see - and I think it can be proved to a reasonable degree of confidence that they are doing it with malice aforethought, at least in some cases. They do this in a number of ways, from the selection of sponsors and advertising, to out and out biased reporting.<BR/><BR/>But, knowing this, it behooves the voter to gather and process information critically. To acquire information from a variety of sources and cross check that information for validity with a critical eye. And it is even more important to question data received via viral sources. <BR/><BR/>While I am loath to resort to sole-source verification - Snopes.com is an excellent starting place for verification of viral data. Nearly all common viral emails are easily proved false, or at best misleading, by snopes. And the folks who run snopes aren't doing anything that the average citizen couldn't do for himself, if they were inclined to think critically.Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-50376678513638612672008-04-28T16:05:00.000-05:002008-04-28T16:05:00.000-05:00Jim, did you see/hear the interview with Bill Moye...Jim, did you see/hear the interview with Bill Moyers and the Rev Wright? I thought he was well-spoken, thoughtful and reasonable. Some of his ideas were not my cup of tea, but I didn't think he was a raving lunatic or anything...as the press would have us believe.<BR/><BR/>And did you hear that Obama is a <EM>Muslim?</EM><BR/><BR/>::Ducks, Runs Away::Janiecehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14190655869710465713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-82426662654604889722008-04-28T15:25:00.000-05:002008-04-28T15:25:00.000-05:00Ok,I thought I saw some good analysis around here ...Ok,<BR/><BR/>I thought I saw some good analysis around here but this is the best. I agree wholeheartedly and in fact I go one step further this is a psy-ops campaign designed to elect Hillary designed to continue agression in the middle east.Adept2uhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11996251291538019088noreply@blogger.com