Post-Truth World – Rittenhouse Case Edition
John Kass: “The media got it wrong the way they’ve gotten other stories wrong, and for the same reasons, from media attacks on innocent Covington, Ky. teenager Nicholas Sandman, or media stubbornly pushing the false “Russia Collusion” narrative that is now completely falling apart.”
The post-truth world created by the mainstream media and Big Tech, in which political narratives are all that matter, has been something we’ve been writing about for several years. The Kyle Rittenhouse case is just another example, as I noted in a column prior to the verdict in the NY Post:
From the inception of the Blake shooting, to the riots and now to the Rittenhouse trial, media malpractice has framed a Kenosha narrative completely divorced from reality.
I came across a couple of good takes along these lines. The first was from John Kass, the brilliant columnist formerly at the Chicago Tribune, and now at his own website.
He writes of the media perfidity:
Now that the jury has cleared Rittenhouse, mealy mouths pipe up and ask us to move past it all. I don’t want us to move past it. And I make a simple request: Don’t forget what politicians, prosecutors and media have done.
If you do want to forget what happened, to make things easier for yourself, at least be honest about the cost of forgetting. Forget, move past it, and you’re inviting the next mob to grab blind Lady Justice by the hair, strip off her blindfold, and bend her to their political will. And if their politics aren’t your politics, you will pay for it. That’s where America is now, lusting for tribal justice, not blind justice….
The media got it wrong the way they’ve gotten other stories wrong, and for the same reasons, from media attacks on innocent Covington, Ky. teenager Nicholas Sandman, or media stubbornly pushing the false “Russia Collusion” narrative that is now completely falling apart. Will the Washington Post and the New York Times return their Pulitzer Prizes that were based on the Russia Hoax lie? They should, immediately. But they won’t….
In the current mainstream media world, with American cities under siege, editors outlawed the use of the word “riot.” A riot could not be called a riot lest some be offended. Other Newspeak fig leaves are offered up instead, and the people see how reality is distorted, and the disconnect added to the rot and decay of corporate media. If there is anything positive out of this, it’s that thinking Americans are abandoning the product of woke newsrooms to seek out independent media sites instead….
The police officer who shot Blake was exonerated. Blake was Black, but Rittenhouse and the three men he shot were white. Race wasn’t an issue in Rittenhouse, though media tried to make it so.
Jesse Kelly put the media lies in the context of the loss of institutions — another favorite topic of ours — in a long Twitter thread about “The Sky Is Green Theory”:
As you look at the insane reaction to the Rittenhouse verdict, it’s important to understand why we’re here and what kind of people we’ve dealing with.
The Sky is Green Theory:
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) November 20, 2021
As you look at the insane reaction to the Rittenhouse verdict, it’s important to understand why we’re here and what kind of people we’ve dealing with.
The Sky is Green Theory:
We’re at a place now in America like no other time in this nation’s history. A very dangerous place. You see, cultures are held up by pillars. Government, religion, sports, education, entertainment, etc..
Our pillars are all rotted with same sickness: Cultural Marxism
The wacko leftist on the street corner you used to mock as you drove by, he now brings you the news. He runs your FBI. He plays in the NBA. He pastors your church.
And because all the pillars believe the same thing, you no longer have a check and balance cultural system. If the government lies, the media should be there to expose it. A huge Hollywood star should expose it. The pillars check each other in a healthy society.
But we don’t have that. And because we don’t have that, they don’t feel the need to shade the truth or manipulate a story. They now can simply invent something out of thin air and they know no other pillar will check them on it.
Half this country believes Kyle Rittenhouse illegally crossed state lines with a weapon and murdered two people. Hell, half of those people think the ones “murdered” were black.
Which brings us to the Sky is Green theory. It sounds crazy, but The System could wake up tomorrow and convince half this country that the sky is green.
News program after news program would have “experts” on to discuss the newly green sky. Professors would teach about it. Our entertainers would all have a video up on Instagram about it in short order.
Our brain dead athletes would repeat it. Nike would be running commercials showing a green sky by the end of the week. Every Hollywood movie would have a green sky.
And the shaming would begin. Oh the shaming. Anyone talking about a blue sky would be treated like some deranged conspiracy theorist. Families would divide over it. Facebook would ban you for discussing “blue skies”.
You get the idea. Because there are no longer cultural checks outside of a few people with balls on the Right, we now live in a time when a huge percentage of your countrymen occupy a world of make believe.
I don’t know the solution for this. I genuinely don’t. But I do know we won’t last much longer this way. This nation does not exist in its current form 100 years from now unless this is fixed.
#TheSkyIsGreen
That’s all.
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Comments
There is a well known Talmudic expression that truth has legs and is supported and falsehoods and lies have no support We have to emphasize that truism every minute hour and day
Seems to conflict seriously with the American expression that a lie’s legs can carry it halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on.
The amazing thing to me is that every time the lie gets up to run, it always runs to the left. Always. Isn’t that a coincidence?
All the “honest mistakes” also go the same way. What a coincidence.
“It is not the truth of Marxism that explains the willingness of intellectuals to believe it, but the power that it confers on intellectuals, in their attempts to control the world. And since…it is futile to reason someone out of a thing that he was not reasoned into, we can conclude that Marxism owes its remarkable power to survive every criticism to the fact that it is not a truth-directed but a power-directed system of thought.”
― Roger Scruton, A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism
Just like the Left almost always win close elections. A moderate or conservative candidate must always win beyond the margin of fraud.
Truth always survives-Marxism in the USSR died-it lives only where the truth is actively suppressed-such as in China, Cuba and American university campuses, the legacy media and Big Tech which push their narratives at the expense of reality and facts. Never surrender to false narratives no matter what the cost-Read alternative sources of real facts but never rely on the legacy media for their narrative and spin on any major issue.
The Media Reporting in this case was ‘Counter Factual.’
‘Counter Factual’ is my new favorite phrase that explains all things Democrat.
I rather have an 1863 CSA real paper dollar than a Federal Reserve Greenback. Only a hundred or three diff. CSA Money kicks Union Greenback Ass.
A couple of city slickers decided to pull a fast one on the old fellow who ran the General Store at the crossroads.
“I bet I can get Grandpa there to give me change for a $15 bill,” said the slickest one. And, he went into the store.
Five minutes later, the Yankee came out smirking. His friend asked anxiously, “Did you do it? Did you get that rube to change a $15 bill?”
“I sure did,” said the city slicker smugly. “I have it right here. Two Sixes and a Three!”
Just noted an NBC article that a major problem with the case was that the judge was elected. I guess they also would have preferred a tribunal or just totally skipped to a Soviet show trial with execution immediately after the 30 minute trial. So, Wisconsin voters can pick them as well as Zuckerberg and Obama. I know… it’s NBC.
“CAN’T pick them”… …. fingers can’t keep up with flight of ideas….
NBC seems to have entered into a phase of benzedrine-fueled activism this month.
They first interviewed, and then reported to YouTube for demonetization, an itemized list of firearms professionals who posted occasional casts about home gunsmithing.
They actually called the Secret Service to complain about distributors of gun parts who were engraving “Let’s Go, Brandon” on their merchandise (that’s a direct threat to Brandon, don’t you know?)
And, of course, they assigned some idiot to follow and dox the Rittenhouse jury members (article elsewhere on LI).
How best to yank on their leash and make these tinpot tyrants heel?.
Don’t know if you ever watched Hogan’s Heroes. In one episode, the primary antagonistic COL Klink was informed by his superior he would be court martialed.
“You will be given a fair trial. Afterwards you will be shot.”
It is but a half-truth, in the eyes of cultural Marxists, to say that Rittenhouse cannot be a racist because all of his (unfortunate) attackers were white. Their greater truth is that Rittenhouse must be a racist because, in defending property and in defending himself, he dared to confront the ugliness of the BLM movement. Simply put, if you oppose BLM, you are a racist.
I suggest that we give up on racism as a word and a concept, since it’s meaning has been stood on its head. “Race hatred” will do for a substitute. And examples are everywhere.
I suggest that we give up on racism as a word and a concept, since it’s meaning has been stood on its head. “Race hatred” will do for a substitute. And examples are everywhere.
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precisely–have been about in this world for a while and sampled many cultures, many peoples, many hearts and when i look at a young man like rittenhouse, i see a good person, a caring person, a person of character and responsibility, a young man who wants to help and protect others from harm–there can never be too many people like him in this world and no matter the lies, half-truths, slander the “media” or the leftists/blm/antifa throw at him, they can never take away what he is, what he believes–because he’s authentic–the leftists just don’t understand, they just don’t get it and they will never, ever take away what we are, what we believe and what we hold most precious: freedom–the leftists just don’t get it and they don’t yet hear the quiet part that good people don’t say out loud–the leftist’s path will lead each of them to their personal destruction
I have said for years that the media (including big tech) is the most dangerous “branch” of our government by far. (For sure, they got Biden elected.)
“Enemy of the People”
1. Do you have the verbal and numeracy skills to quantify gradations of plausible deniability? Can you number-crunch degrees of disbelief and solve for the rate at which they succumb to non-stop gaslighting?
2. Are you able to statistically pinpoint the intersection of the blatant propaganda and viewer-attention-span curves and accurately plot their divergence to illustrate the sweet spot of greatest potential bamboozlement of the public?
3. Can you quickly compute moral outrage tables to gauge news stories most likely to replace currently problematic stories and put an end to the present news cycle, in favor of a new, more favorable cycle?
If you answered yes to all the above, then it’s time to consider a high-paying career in one of the newest and fastest growing fields:
News Media Narrative Actuarial Science.
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
Anthony Malcolm Daniels writing as “Theodore Dalrymple”
English cultural critic, prison doctor, and psychiatrist
“There are four lights.”
Captain Jean-Luc Picard
I would recommend to all LI readers Daniel’s book “The Wilder Shores of Marxism”. The author visits five countries where Marx’s insane fantasies have become reality.
“I am persuaded that there is absolutely no limit to the absurdities that can, by government action, come to be generally believed.
Give me an adequate army, with power to provide it with more pay and better food than falls to the lot of the average man, and I will undertake, within thirty years, to make the majority of the population believe that two and two are three, that water freezes when it gets hot and boils when it gets cold, or any other nonsense that might seem to serve the interest of the State.
Of course, even when these beliefs had been generated, people would not put the kettle in the refrigerator when they wanted it to boil. That cold makes water boil would be a Sunday truth, sacred and mystical, to be professed in awed tones, but not to be acted on in daily life. What would happen would be that any verbal denial of the mystic doctrine would be made illegal, and obstinate heretics would be ‘frozen’ at the stake. No person who did not enthusiastically accept the official doctrine would be allowed to teach or to have any position of power. Only the very highest officials, in their cups, would whisper to each other what rubbish it all is; then they would laugh and drink again.
This is hardly a caricature of what happens under some modern governments. The discovery that man can be scientifically manipulated, and that governments can turn large masses this way or that as they choose, is one of the causes of our misfortunes. There is as much difference between a collection of mentally free citizens and a community moulded by modern methods of propaganda as there is between a heap of raw materials and a battleship.”
— Bertrand Russell, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish”
Was listening to the Clay and Buck show earlier today, and they brought up a simple fact.
The fact being that the majority of the video footage of what happened the night of the shooting has been available to anyone who wanted to watch it for over one year now, yet the idiots in the MSM and elsewhere are totally ignorant of the facts.
They played a audio clip of some AA moron from ESPN, and another commentator from some “college” who just yesterday were lamenting the death of “Two Beautiful Black Lives” at the hands of a “White Supremacist”.
They actually think Rittenhouse shot and killed two black men. These people are beyond ignorant. They simply don’t give a shit, and they will run with any lie because they can’t even be bothered to see the truth.
Unfortunately, we have far too many in Congress, on both sides, who react to Media reports they receive from staffers and read them into the congressional record.
And then base their legislation and actions on those false reports
These are the times we live in where the liberal media can put a target on your back. If i was Kyle I would seek legal action against these companies.
It all started innocently, with Jessica in the Well. Ratings were huge. The media discovered soap opera news as something huge numbers of people would tune in for, and they found their audience.
Since then news has been soap opera narratives, which people entertain themselves with. Nobody much cares whether this fiction is real, just that it’s possible to live in its world. Ratings are ratings.
Without that, there’s no news business model (think city council meetings).
As it happens, soap opera is a nice fit for the political left, and those pols free-ride on that news biz necessity as suppliers of narrative.
The news business model is the driver though. Nothing gets fixed unless its audience gets fixed, which doesn’t seem likely.
There’s a reactive business model, reporting on what the crazy left is saying, that has its own market. That’s not exactly hard news either but represents the other side.
What the news always gets wrong is not its facts so much as the claim that it knows what’s important. The facts are more or less known to be fiction, and it’s more a matter of like or dislike at that level.
An inadvertant insight into the news market in the NYT by John Tierney long ago
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/13/nyregion/diana-s-death-resonates-with-women-in-therapy.html
The democrat agency heads can no longer be called Secretarys etc.
Clown of Energy
Clown of Transportation
Clown General
Clown of staff
Clown in Chief
Another “Sky is Green”- the whole trans lie.
If you believe that a biological male is actually a female, you will believe anything.
You forgot that politicians around the world would be demanding trillions of dollars to solve the green sky problem before 2050.
“I don’t know the solution for this. I genuinely don’t. But I do know we won’t last much longer this way. “
There is a lot of red pilling happening right now but the Marxists are not going to allow debate. Facts just don’t matter. Politics now infests everything we do at the most personal level.
Most of the few friends I have left are just as upset with what is going on and not because of their political beliefs. But there is an opportunity in this to persuade people of all political persuasions to recalculate their moral compasses. I do this whenever the subject turns to politics and how frustrated we all are. I instead ask people to make a short list of their most sacred values (and don’t show them to me). Then circle those they would risk their lives to defend. If politics is anywhere on the list, you are an utter fool. What I expect to see at the top is 1) God, 2) family, 3) community and 4) country (tough one these days).
Most of us were church-goers at one time where family was paramount. Many of use still are although I am not. But I have not abandoned my faith, just my confidence in my church. It is not a foreign concept and even atheists pray out of despair in the trenches so…
I usually cut that discussion very short and suggest they review their list and ask themselves where the confusion comes from and why they don’t see a path out of it. The answer is that we have all allowed politics to take priority over the four I listed. I think it is creepy that families are splitting up over Trump vs Hillary, vaxing, masking…. WE are allowing that to happen because most of us have lost our focus on what our values are or even whether they are worth fighting for.
I haven’t been lecturing people since no one listens anyway but I have let my feelings known the entire time. I will not be engaging in “I told you so!” rebukes either. I’ve allowed people to sort themselves out and now observe that most of those who don’t know what to do never had command of their values in the first place. I’m not talking only liberals but across the board.
We’ve had it far too easy living in our echo chambers, too easy to notice that we have been very sloppy keeping our lives organized around our key values (if we had any in the first place). Now all we do is argue and agonize.
I find that my life has been morphing into a new group of friends who actually heard what I’ve been saying. It is very clarifying to think about those priorities and reconsider them in light of whether life is worth living and where do you draw the line and fight the known enemy (if we have the courage to even name it).
There are a lot of us out there populating this territory. Not many in CA but I am about to fix that. Hopefully, I am right about this. I am tired of talking and listening to whiners and squishy people.
Phil
Agreed. Your approach is the way to gain converts. Gently asking folks to make their list of priorities without judgement or hectoring and apply basic common sense/logic to view the state of our society allows them to withdraw the ideological filters and form their own opinions. Some won’t be able to do it but they aren’t really ready for conversion. Many are ready. The d/prog acceleration of their policy choices v their normal incremental approach has opened their eyes to the reality of the results of the d/prog policies v the way these policies are framed, packaged and sold.
VA and NJ results demonstrate that the national polling trends on the generic ballot in particular are very likely accurate. The top three statewide offices in VA, a +10 Biden State, are in r control while NJ, a +16 Biden State, was very nearly captured by r. IMO the more narrow campaign funding in VA about $3 million d advantage v a much wider d advantage in NJ was the difference.
The moment is ours if we are willing to grasp the opportunity and work to make it happen. Casting a ballot isn’t enough. We must organize locally in our precincts, Counties and States to gain grassroots control or at least significant influence over the local party chairs and apparatus. We have to work, volunteer, select candidates, support them with door knocking, phone calls and fundraising. We need to blunt the influence of the squishy types who normally occupy the party hierarchy. If we refuse to do this very hard and generally unappreciated work then blaming the State and National r party for producing weak sauce platforms and rino candidates isn’t accurate; it will be our own fault for allowing it to happen again.
NPR ran a story Monday mornig about the Rittenhouse trial with a guest being a retired california trial judge discussing the Rittenhouse trial judge complaints about the judges bias
comments such as
1) not allowing the prosecution to call the attackers “victims”
2) the judge’s numerous outbursts at the prosecution ( not mentioning that each outburst was preceded by procesecution constitutional violations and or misconduct
PEOPLE TELL ME — “ALL MEDIA SPIN”
My leftward friends say – “the right wing media is worse” and “all media spin”.
These statements are meant to excuse the lies of the Agenda media.
The Agenda media tries VERY hard to convince people that the lies are all relative. They tell their audience that FOX lies: with 2 goals – (1) prevent their audience from turning on FOX or other media; and (2) justifying their lies.
Reality – the Agenda-media have taken things to a whole new level. Outrageous blatant lies and misdirection – full propaganda.
I know – I watch both – right and left. They each have some degree of spin – but the left Agenda-media such as CNN and MSNBC, WaPo and others are far beyond anything I have seen on the right – except for the most extreme right (Q-anon type media).
People are being resented a false equivalence between the left and right media.
I also listen to several left leaning sources, CBS NBC, NPR even CNN
The major news sources do a good job of providing up to date coverage the existance of events, (shootings, space shuttle crashes, etc). They do a extremely poor job of providing complete context of events, and with a very heavy spin. Fox does also, but I recognize the spin and discount the spin appropriately and I am usually able to pick out what Fox is omitting or over emphasing.
On the other hand NPR, CNN, CBS, NBC go to great lengths to misrepresent the facts. One example as I noted above was the NPR 30 minute segment on the Judge’s bias in the Rittenhouse trial with an retired California trial judge spin on the egregious bias by the presiding judge. With zero acknowlegment of the actual facts in the case.
The left does not care about bourgeoise truth, which concerns itself with fact. The left only cares about revolutionary truth, which concerns itself with only that which advances the revolution.
A colleague expressed idsmay at the Rittenhouse verdit. I asked why. He said, “Do you think if he were black he’s be acquitted?” I just answerd, “Oh, so the way to fight injustice is more injustice..” Crickets.
Well it is not ‘insane’ it is the end justifying all the means. The may even attack the Statue of Liberty like the Southern Monuments. This is a communist revolution, bottom line. Just call communists communists and stop pussyfooting around. The democrat party has become just another communist front.
So, I have a semantic bone to pick with you . . .
And, in fairness, not just you . . .
IMHO, you’re using “communism” as short-hand for “un-American,” according to your definition of authentic American values . . .
Name me one policy prescription of the Democratic Party that is literally communist, in the sense of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, ‘state control of the means of production’, etc., let alone the Stalinist variant — mass murder and repression, enslavement of workers and peasants, one-party rule, etc.
I would note that the historical American Communist Party — the real communists, who answered to Moscow, we now know — was utterly marginalized politically, and of no account, and rightly so . . .
And I’ll tell you what: even tho’ I am a lifelong registered Dem., I would turn my back on that party and all it stands for in a heartbeat if I thought it was ‘communist’ in the real sense of the word.
Read Marx and Marcuse-the destruction of the family as a source of moral values and creating a generation of future revolutionaries is the purpose of public education. The embrace by the Democratic Party of the woke agenda on matters of race, gender and climate has been documented by David Horowitz, analyzed by Victor David Hanson, and is what Mark Levin rightfully calls American Marxism
I was raised on Walter Cronkite and the NYT as being utterly reliable on all issues . The legacy media today is a highly paid Twitter mob that utters and blindly pushes the views of the woke world on race, gender and climate change-all of which are influenced by Marxist thought and which are the major areas of policy as influenced by the personnel at the cabinet and subcabinet level appointed by Biden. (It is important to remember that personnel make policy in every administration, whether the president is Trump or Biden). The Democratic Party and the legacy media today tolerate anti Semites and unrepentant Communists in their midst and have no pride in being Americans -that’s why I read this blog, the Daily Wire, Front Page Magazine, the opinion and op ed page of the WSJ and watch Fox News
I would add that Commentary and National Review also have excellent articles on our current national state of affairs .
Change the libel laws to require journalists to follow standards of behavior for the stories they publish. They are guilty of malpractice if they don’t and can be successfully sued for libel.
I need to qualify this with the requirement that what the “journalists” publish must be a lie.