A seething post from Greg Kendra, a veteran broadcast journalist and winner of two George Foster Peabody Awards, two Emmy Awards, and four awards from the Writers Guild of America. Kendra is also a Roman Catholic deacon. He has long been a liberal, but he's furious with liberal media dishonesty.
Excerpt:
Good question. I have another question: what the hell is wrong with intelligent well-intentioned people like Greg Kendra who have defended these bastards for years, and only now are figuring out what was obvious to any marginally observant human being?
HT: Anchoress
Excerpt:
I’m tired. Truly. I’ve grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted “Liberal media bias!” and I’ve always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, “No, no. Calm down. They meant well. It was just a misunderstanding. A mistake. These things happen.” I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made. I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.
But now?
Forget it. I’m done. You deserve what they’re saying about you. It’s earned. You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion that the media-buying public increasingly heaps upon you. You have successfully eroded any confidence, dispelled any trust, and driven your audience into the arms of the Internet and the blogosphere, where biases are affirmed and like-minded people can tell each other what they hold to be true, since nobody believes in objective reality any more. You have done a superlative job of diminishing what was once a great profession and undermining one of the vital underpinnings of democracy, a free press.
Good job.
I just have one question:
What the hell is wrong with you guys?
Good question. I have another question: what the hell is wrong with intelligent well-intentioned people like Greg Kendra who have defended these bastards for years, and only now are figuring out what was obvious to any marginally observant human being?
HT: Anchoress
Reality has a liberal bias. That's why crackpots like Egnor rail against evolution and global warming.
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ReplyDeleteHey Bach,
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Mike,
ReplyDelete" I have another question: what the hell is wrong with intelligent well-intentioned people like Greg Kendra who have defended these bastards for years, and only now are figuring out what was obvious to any marginally observant human being?"
I think I can answer this one. In a word: Conditioning. They have been conditioned by their secondary, post secondary, and higher education into a belief system (a 'worldview') of subjectivity and what Orwell described as 'doublethink'.
One of my (former) duties in the officers corps was to break that type of conditioning with practical exercises. It really doesn't take that long, but it is quite a transformation once complete.
It seems the author of this piece has had his conditioning 'broken' and is now free to think as he likes. He is again properly aware of objective reality, and begins to see the 'sausage makers' for what they are: Complicit in the mass conditioning of the populace.
As an example let us analyse Anon's comment:
"Reality has a liberal bias."
This from a guy who believes in a 'random' accidental universe. A total contradiction of what follows. Note the need to synthesis the two opposites into a whole.
"That's why crackpots like Egnor rail against evolution and global warming."
This line is a gold mine. 'Crackpots' indicates that if your ideas do not match those of Anon's - you're mad. Evolution and Global warming are used as indicators of the liberal reality we live in. Natural selection is liberal apparently, as is flooding, drought and famine. The transhumanist, eugenic, and neo-racialist ideas of these movements are also seen as 'liberal' by those conditioned. The contradiction is seen as an affirmation, rather than paradoxical as it should.
Further you'll note how scientific theory is instantly transformed into 'reality' in Anon's comment.
This is the pseudo religious aspect of this conditioning, and just about the most unpleasant form to break. These poor kids BELIEVE science and technology will save them from anything and everything - and that is a gross error in war.
Not only is that faith misplaced and misunderstood, it has the effect of promoting a reliance on technology and even strategy that is at once dangerous to men serving under them and demoralizing to the force in general.
Equipment, tactic, and technology fail ALL the time. They, like science in general, are only tools. A soldier - and especially a field officer - needs to understand the difference between the tool, the artisan, and the job at hand.
Reality is neither liberal, nor conservative - it is objective. Liberalism and conservatism are political positions.
Evolution and global warming are not liberal ideas, they are scientific theories currently being USED (abused actually) by people who seek power and use the brand 'liberal' to sell their Hitlerian dreams to the soft, docile, and increasingly socially dysfunctional (ie nerd) population of the prosperous developed/ first world. That base of support, is of course, only temporary.
Use and discard.
“Evolution and global warming are not liberal ideas, they are scientific theories currently being USED (abused actually) by people who seek power and use the brand 'liberal' to sell their Hitlerian dreams to the soft, docile, and increasingly socially dysfunctional (ie nerd) population of the prosperous developed/ first world.”
DeleteYes Crusader, man that rampart against the Hitlerian nerd army! You’re bat-shit crazy.
-KW
"Yes Crusader, man that rampart against the Hitlerian nerd army!"
DeleteArmy? LOLOLOL Too many video games and comic books, KW? Did you weep while watching Avengers?
Sorry. I am not referring to an army of nerds. You may wish to read that quote again.
"You’re bat-shit crazy. "
Coming from a conditioned mind like yours, that is a ringing endorsement of my competence. The moment hysterical and fanatic people like you accuse me of being insane, I know I am on the right track.
Thanks.
crus: These poor kids BELIEVE science and technology will save them from anything and everything - and that is a gross error in war.
ReplyDeleteCrus, you seem to rely on bad intelligence. How do you know that we, your enemy, think that way? I, for one, don't. You seem to have drawn a straw-man caricature of the other side and are having a good time knocking it down. Talk about the danger of painting with a broad brush...
As to Egnor, he is a crackpot. He rails against theory of evolution and against global warming. That makes him a crackpot in my book. Don't know about yours.
Oleg,
ReplyDelete"Crus, you seem to rely on bad intelligence."
LOL see you DO have a sense of humour. Shame you do not exercise it more.
" How do you know that we, your enemy, think that way? "
You're not the enemy. You're a civilian in an allied country. A victim of the dialectic, perhaps - but not my enemy. The enemy do not think like that at all. They are a different game all together.
" I, for one, don't. "
GOOD!
"You seem to have drawn a straw-man caricature of the other side and are having a good time knocking it down."
Other side?
I could write a similar rant on 'neo cons'. It's all about dialectics. I simply refuse to take any side but the objective. That upsets as many 'conservatives' as it does 'liberals'.
"Talk about the danger of painting with a broad brush..."
We are talking about the forest AND the trees, Oleg. A small brush for the individual, a broad brush for the movement.
"As to Egnor, he is a crackpot."
No, I don't get that impression at all. He is a tenured neurosurgeon and professor and he seems to be seeking TRUTH, rather than towing a party line. He often writes in a polemic and debate provoking manner... but who doesn't blog that way?
"He rails against theory of evolution and against global warming. "
So? He does not find these theories acceptable in their current form. He also appears to be quite aware of the agenda of groups selling them as a doctrine. In this way we are quite similar, the Doctor and I. The difference (notable) is that I do not see a viable alternative. I see BOTH of your 'sides' as working to the same goal by different means.
"That makes him a crackpot in my book. Don't know about yours."
No. No more than your opinions on the various theories or matters of conjecture discussed on this page makes you a 'crackpot'. I might think you're wrong or misguided, but I do not think you're mad for disagreeing with me.
Conservatives won’t be happy until all media is spewing the alternate reality propaganda of Fox News and conservative radio. Thanks to the work of Media Matters it would be trivial to find tens of instances of right-wing lying and deception for every instance on the left. The lame right-wing media watchdog’s sites are a joke, often simply calling the factual reporting of the media lies because they don’t match the actual lies that have become conservative orthodoxy.
ReplyDelete-KW
^^^ Example of the dialectic thinking/conditioning at work^^^
DeleteCrus, you keep talking about some "dialectic thinking/conditioning." WTF is that?
ReplyDeleteNote that my high school and college education wasn't in the US, so I am not sure that I would be subjected to the same sort of "indoctrination" as US college students. Unless you think that college education in the US is the same as it was in the Soviet Union. That would be hilarious!
Oleg,
ReplyDeleteYou are not familiar with dialectics? Specifically the Hegelian dialectic? You should be, if you wish to objectively discuss modern politics or war.
Simply put: Problem, reaction, solution. The dialectic works effectively like thus: A problem is introduced with a solution already in mind. The reaction to the problem is used to force the original ideas (pre problem) into a synthesis that IS the predefined solution. I am being very simplistic in the interests of brevity. Look it up. I am sure you would find the parallels in modern history fascinating - unless you're a political partisan.
"Note that my high school and college education wasn't in the US, so I am not sure that I would be subjected to the same sort of "indoctrination" as US college students. "
The comment was not directed at you specifically, Oleg. Rather at a broad question about people like the author of the quoted piece above.
Take yourself out of the centre for a moment.
Nothing personal here.
"Unless you think that college education in the US is the same as it was in the Soviet Union."
No, of course not. There are many flavours of indoctrination.
"That would be hilarious!"
Actually I would think it very sad.