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How to trap a whistleblower

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Re: How to trap a whistleblower

#111

Post by saraid216 »

danenania wrote: post #107
saraid216 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another explanation that I sadly believe to be much more realistic is that Obama never had pure motives. FYI, no one has pure motives past the age of 10. There are only people who delude themselves into thinking their motives are pure.

Not speaking of a tremendously high bar for purity here. I would have settled for someone who didn't think it was ok to kill and imprison people without trial, psychologically torture whistleblowers, and attempt to spy on the digital communications of everyone on the planet.

Perhaps what we should advocate is for every presidential candidate to go through a brainwashing program that removes these tolerances?

Re: How to trap a whistleblower

#112

Post by jmaygarden »

crazygringo wrote: post #110

The thing that confuses me the most, is that Obama used to come across as extremely intelligent, with nuanced understanding of the issues at hand. In his writing and in his speeches, he had no equal, and he was very much a "straight talker", and even on issues you disagreed with him on, you felt that he understood your side (and all sides) of the argument genuinely. But over the past year, he's practically gone full…

Perhaps all that brilliant content was written for him by other people that are no longer in his service?

Re: How to trap a whistleblower

#113

Post by ochiba »

graycat wrote: post #92
venus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could replace "Obama" with pretty any other PM or president of any country on earth, mix around the current affairs to suit, and your comment would be just as true. Welcome to media-driven representative democracy. And when I say "representative", I mean the media represents us, which it basically does. And when the media gets tired of a story, after a few days or weeks, they move onto something else, and so do w…

At times I've blurted out that the most serious problem facing Western Civilization now is the news media, journalism , that fails to provide the information needed by well informed citizens. My hope is that the Internet will make the needed information available and that enough citizens will get and use the information to get the government we need to meet the challenges of our current world. E.g., the OP points out…

For further reading on this topic, I can highly recommend Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman.

http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Busi...

Re: How to trap a whistleblower

#114

Post by graycat »

ochiba wrote: post #113
graycat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At times I've blurted out that the most serious problem facing Western Civilization now is the news media, journalism , that fails to provide the information needed by well informed citizens. My hope is that the Internet will make the needed information available and that enough citizens will get and use the information to get the government we need to meet the challenges of our current world. E.g., the OP points out…

For further reading on this topic, I can highly recommend Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman. http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Busi...

Looks good.

With great strain I omitted my usual rants about the role of formula fiction -- e.g., a good guy, white hat, with a problem, and a bad guy, black hat -- and morality plays -- evil, sinful humans transgressing against the pure, pristine, precious, sensitive, delicate, snow white, 100% all-natural environment by wasteful, selfish use of filthy carbon, with retribution the destruction of the planet, and redemption through sacrifice of getting rid of cars and returning to bicycles and horses -- in journalism.

Journalism usually fails standard high school term paper writing standards, e.g., the role of primary references.

For nearly all important work in our society, original research in mathematics or physical science, professional engineering, medicine, finance, law, the standards of quality in journalism are laughable. An airplane designed with the techniques of journalism would never get off the ground, which would be a very good thing.

We could go on and on.

The book mentioned TV: My ISP gave me a cable TV set top box with their special deal for lower cost than service without TV, but I've never connected a TV to the box! I haven't watched TV in months and not much for years. The set top box has a good clock!

Re: How to trap a whistleblower

#115

Post by alexqgb »

graycat wrote: post #87
raheemm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you classify handling the American economy during the worst banking crisis, killing OBL, pulling US out of Iraq, etc, etc? Pretending or Doing?

Economy: Spend a lot of money via TARP I and TARP II and otherwise let Bernanke handle it. There is one view that the US went from The Great Depression to a hot economy, with 2-3 jobs for everyone who could work, in just 90 days after people started shooting at us. We spent huge bucks, and nearly everything that the bucks bought was junk on a battlefield in a few weeks or sold for war surplus. Still, the spending, ev…

No, voters in general are not "awash in power". The vote has been heavily rigged, to the point that House Republicns, who command a majority of ~20 seats, were abor to secure this margin even as Dem candidates garnered 1.4 million more votes.

Some voters are (relatively speaking) "awash in power". But these tend to be while, male, older, and rural.

Re: How to trap a whistleblower

#116

Post by pcunite »

pekk wrote: post #66
pcunite wrote: post #5

Obama could have been special. The symbol, the icon for an America forgiven of its past and now authoring hope for future people of all races. Perhaps it was power that corrupted him or maybe it was his close advisors that stymied his original purer motives. I remember feeling so proud that we had a black President. I knew he was human, I know that skin color does not matter, but it was hard to not hope that given wh…

Did you really need to say that Obama should sit at the back of the bus? What does that add to the political discourse? It is needlessly inflammatory. Say that you want him out of politics, not something that sounds racist for no reason.

Forgive me, I only meant to say that he was supposed to help injustice, a world he claims to have come from. Now, he "sits in the front seat" so to speak and makes a mockery of what Rosa Parks endured. She really created change
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