“First-hand experience is a powerful antidote to propaganda”. This is true for so many hot button issues in our society. Thank you for your well thought out writing.
"A 22 year old Influencer". Who the hell would or could be influenced by a 22 year old boy? At the age of 22, young Nicholas should have stayed at home and improved his masturbation techniques. Failing that, the Ukrainian Military might have considered utilizing the British Press Gang method and introduced the young lad to life at the front line. Nothing like hearing a military round snap by your ears to sharpen your senses. From nutters like Maga Boy Nick Shirley, to the nutters in the Free Free Palestine parade, is there really any hope for this generation?
Glad to hear that the experience of travel didn't go totally wasted on this 22-year old "influencer", but it's sad that it took actually seeing it in person to accomplish what ample reporting and news coverage had already made obvious.
Reading this piece, I was thinking about my grandfather serving overseas in WW2. He was in his early 20s when stationed in the UK during the Blitz, and seeing what life was like in a metropolis like London even in wartime with a blackout was a huge formative event for a kid who grew up in rural Manitoba and had never been anywhere bigger than Winnipeg.
Even if I *hadn't* read about what life was like in cities like Paris, London, or Berlin in the middle of a war, I would've known from my grandfather's stories that life doesn't just stop there because of a war (when he got a copy of his service records, we found a note that he'd once lost his uniform pants while on leave in London. Never quite believed his explanation that saying you lost part of your uniform was the only way you could get a replacement...) Other stories he told me related to his radar stations being bombed by the Germans, feeling sick to his stomach when he was sent to hand-to-hand combat training and taught techniques to kill people bare-handed (they wanted a certain number of radar technicians trained in case of a raid on stations by Germans), and hearing the crews on shot-up bombers struggling to get back home.
Not every generation. 20-25 in the First World War, 20-25 in the Second World War, 20-25 in the Vietnam War, were different. This current generation of 18-25 year old's to be succinct are "soft" and lack even a general knowledge of history.
How maddening. I find it worrisome that so many young people have been drawn to MAGA. Whatever happened to scorning your parent’s generation? Thank-you very much for this thought-provoking article.
Isn't it "scorning" the earlier generations' hypocrisies to disbelieve and reject "MSM"? Young people are still willing to call bullshit with the slightest provocation and modern media provides plenty of examples of what looks like epistemic crisis.
Top of mind for me is President Meloni's speech at the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards.
She was presented as a fascist by many western media sources at the time, but used her maiden speech to parliament to denounce fascism, and to assure allies of Italy's commitment to the European Union. Now she's fêted by the Atlantic Council and held up as an example of pluralist co-operation. I know AC is meant to be a moderate internationalist both-parties organization, but that's beyond the pale in MAGA politics.
Between that kind of "reporting" and the general media fatigue that results from being constantly surrounded by connected devices of one type or another, it's small wonder that healthy skepticism and critical thinking sometimes go overboard or oversimplify into conspiracies or emotional adherence to tribal narrative.
I expect MAGA will go the way of the teabaggers, but what will the conservative zeitgeist become, I wonder? I expect it will be defined by what it's reacting to (IMO conservatism is by it's nature a reaction to whatever "progressive" happens to be).
Influencers. Another form of misinformation cancer. The US is literally in a death spiral because of lies, misinformation and propaganda. The 24 hour news cycle made getting the story out first more important than getting it right. It's OK for the media to say "we don't know all the facts yet".
We had it really good back in the 1980's. Now it's about agenda's and angles. Getting facts shouldn't be work, but it is. Not enough people are doing it leading to dickheads like this running around muddying the waters, and lazy people believing them. It's just tiring.
What can you do when people are more interested in the onanistic pleasure of reaffirming what they want to believe rather than actually concerning themselves with what's true? That's the trap where a lot of partisans have ended up. For most of them, it probably doesn't matter one way or another, but occasionally it can have real consequences if they happen to have real authority or influence. Unfortunately, one of those people is current running for president of the United States, and has reasonable odds of winning.
I commend the athour of this piece. Well written and presents a clear picture of what partisan reporting is in this day and age. Being of a certain age, I recall the days when there was more than one newspaper company, but now pretty much all are bought up by Post-media or some other conglomerate. Back in the day, we knew the particular bias (partisan position) each outlet had. We knew that one paper or station represented say conservative views while the other presented the same event with a liberal bent. Today it seems who, what, when, where has been diminished in favour of WHY, which is generally and often not really true to the facts. Mainstream Media as they are called often try to appear un-biased or non-partisan by giving each side equal time, often ignoring telling the truth in the WHAT or WHY part. The author presents the influencers case as an example of "cognitive dissonance" which if one is honest would be called, in simple, non-epemistic terms, stupidity. That would be one explanation of why the influencer keeps his mindset when having seen the reality. The same can be said of those influenced. It seems if one of those, like the man-child down south say something three times, the influenced believe it. We are not immune in Canada from the same phenomenon.
I've subscribed to Ground News to help me understand how different media are biased. Actually I think they're a Canadian company, now that I think of it.
Great. All taking the simple, sarcastic view and missing the actual question: Where did somewhere between $105 and $175 billion US$ disappear to? They didn't actually pay for a pile of high ticket items so chuck those in on top and the question remains: How many homes, cars, concerts... what-have-you did Zelinsky and his wife and cohorts buy up since this started? I don't care if someone is trying to run a city while the country is at war, in fact much of that would actually be self-supporting as normal businesses are (again, lets be trite, miss the real question, and throw mud - congratulations YOU are an influencer too) so really you can actually factor all of that OUT of the $billions and it only serves to INCREASE the validity of the original actual question: Where did the money go? And for a small comparison: Kamalla has raised some $650 million for her campaign (or someone did for her)... The cash sent to Ukraine is somewhere between 165 and 269 TIMES that amount. If you are a defense contractor benefiting from some particularly generous "options" being taken up on your existing prime contracts... well that a hell of a return on investment isn't it? And one MEGA-HELL of an incentive to keep it flowing. Maybe y'all ought to start actually thinking critically and realize when was the last time we had an actual draw down on the donation of youthful bodies to the pyre of "international relations" as done by Biden-Obama-Bush-Kerry and the den of useful idiots in the US Congress and the Senate, and many of their allied countries: Yes, exactly, it was from 2017 to 2020. Guess who was in charge just then? But that sort of critical thinking seems to have completely disappeared in our current media and the "fashionably enraged" I see here. Hopefully the average American is smarter. There's a whole lot of young people around the world whose lives depend on that decision.
“First-hand experience is a powerful antidote to propaganda”. This is true for so many hot button issues in our society. Thank you for your well thought out writing.
"A 22 year old Influencer". Who the hell would or could be influenced by a 22 year old boy? At the age of 22, young Nicholas should have stayed at home and improved his masturbation techniques. Failing that, the Ukrainian Military might have considered utilizing the British Press Gang method and introduced the young lad to life at the front line. Nothing like hearing a military round snap by your ears to sharpen your senses. From nutters like Maga Boy Nick Shirley, to the nutters in the Free Free Palestine parade, is there really any hope for this generation?
People will be influenced by anybody who can deftly communicate what they wish to hear. JG
Glad to hear that the experience of travel didn't go totally wasted on this 22-year old "influencer", but it's sad that it took actually seeing it in person to accomplish what ample reporting and news coverage had already made obvious.
Reading this piece, I was thinking about my grandfather serving overseas in WW2. He was in his early 20s when stationed in the UK during the Blitz, and seeing what life was like in a metropolis like London even in wartime with a blackout was a huge formative event for a kid who grew up in rural Manitoba and had never been anywhere bigger than Winnipeg.
Even if I *hadn't* read about what life was like in cities like Paris, London, or Berlin in the middle of a war, I would've known from my grandfather's stories that life doesn't just stop there because of a war (when he got a copy of his service records, we found a note that he'd once lost his uniform pants while on leave in London. Never quite believed his explanation that saying you lost part of your uniform was the only way you could get a replacement...) Other stories he told me related to his radar stations being bombed by the Germans, feeling sick to his stomach when he was sent to hand-to-hand combat training and taught techniques to kill people bare-handed (they wanted a certain number of radar technicians trained in case of a raid on stations by Germans), and hearing the crews on shot-up bombers struggling to get back home.
No. The soft, North American man-baby & his followers are as clueless as the day is long.
The obvious answer to your question is other 22-year-olds. That’s true of the majority of 22-year-olds and it’s been true of every generation.
Not every generation. 20-25 in the First World War, 20-25 in the Second World War, 20-25 in the Vietnam War, were different. This current generation of 18-25 year old's to be succinct are "soft" and lack even a general knowledge of history.
How maddening. I find it worrisome that so many young people have been drawn to MAGA. Whatever happened to scorning your parent’s generation? Thank-you very much for this thought-provoking article.
Isn't it "scorning" the earlier generations' hypocrisies to disbelieve and reject "MSM"? Young people are still willing to call bullshit with the slightest provocation and modern media provides plenty of examples of what looks like epistemic crisis.
Top of mind for me is President Meloni's speech at the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards.
She was presented as a fascist by many western media sources at the time, but used her maiden speech to parliament to denounce fascism, and to assure allies of Italy's commitment to the European Union. Now she's fêted by the Atlantic Council and held up as an example of pluralist co-operation. I know AC is meant to be a moderate internationalist both-parties organization, but that's beyond the pale in MAGA politics.
Between that kind of "reporting" and the general media fatigue that results from being constantly surrounded by connected devices of one type or another, it's small wonder that healthy skepticism and critical thinking sometimes go overboard or oversimplify into conspiracies or emotional adherence to tribal narrative.
I expect MAGA will go the way of the teabaggers, but what will the conservative zeitgeist become, I wonder? I expect it will be defined by what it's reacting to (IMO conservatism is by it's nature a reaction to whatever "progressive" happens to be).
Corporate media seems to have lost readers from all generations, regardless of politics.
I think they have a few good points but a lot of bad ones too. Harris is a really poor candidate as well.
Influencers. Another form of misinformation cancer. The US is literally in a death spiral because of lies, misinformation and propaganda. The 24 hour news cycle made getting the story out first more important than getting it right. It's OK for the media to say "we don't know all the facts yet".
We had it really good back in the 1980's. Now it's about agenda's and angles. Getting facts shouldn't be work, but it is. Not enough people are doing it leading to dickheads like this running around muddying the waters, and lazy people believing them. It's just tiring.
What can you do when people are more interested in the onanistic pleasure of reaffirming what they want to believe rather than actually concerning themselves with what's true? That's the trap where a lot of partisans have ended up. For most of them, it probably doesn't matter one way or another, but occasionally it can have real consequences if they happen to have real authority or influence. Unfortunately, one of those people is current running for president of the United States, and has reasonable odds of winning.
Two of "those people" are running for President of the USA, but yes.
There is no comparison between the two.
I’m not an American but the two presidential candidates are both bad.
I commend the athour of this piece. Well written and presents a clear picture of what partisan reporting is in this day and age. Being of a certain age, I recall the days when there was more than one newspaper company, but now pretty much all are bought up by Post-media or some other conglomerate. Back in the day, we knew the particular bias (partisan position) each outlet had. We knew that one paper or station represented say conservative views while the other presented the same event with a liberal bent. Today it seems who, what, when, where has been diminished in favour of WHY, which is generally and often not really true to the facts. Mainstream Media as they are called often try to appear un-biased or non-partisan by giving each side equal time, often ignoring telling the truth in the WHAT or WHY part. The author presents the influencers case as an example of "cognitive dissonance" which if one is honest would be called, in simple, non-epemistic terms, stupidity. That would be one explanation of why the influencer keeps his mindset when having seen the reality. The same can be said of those influenced. It seems if one of those, like the man-child down south say something three times, the influenced believe it. We are not immune in Canada from the same phenomenon.
I've subscribed to Ground News to help me understand how different media are biased. Actually I think they're a Canadian company, now that I think of it.
We may like to think this is all a US issue. However, I know Trump supporters/sympathizers that swallow this view hook, line and sinker.
Great. All taking the simple, sarcastic view and missing the actual question: Where did somewhere between $105 and $175 billion US$ disappear to? They didn't actually pay for a pile of high ticket items so chuck those in on top and the question remains: How many homes, cars, concerts... what-have-you did Zelinsky and his wife and cohorts buy up since this started? I don't care if someone is trying to run a city while the country is at war, in fact much of that would actually be self-supporting as normal businesses are (again, lets be trite, miss the real question, and throw mud - congratulations YOU are an influencer too) so really you can actually factor all of that OUT of the $billions and it only serves to INCREASE the validity of the original actual question: Where did the money go? And for a small comparison: Kamalla has raised some $650 million for her campaign (or someone did for her)... The cash sent to Ukraine is somewhere between 165 and 269 TIMES that amount. If you are a defense contractor benefiting from some particularly generous "options" being taken up on your existing prime contracts... well that a hell of a return on investment isn't it? And one MEGA-HELL of an incentive to keep it flowing. Maybe y'all ought to start actually thinking critically and realize when was the last time we had an actual draw down on the donation of youthful bodies to the pyre of "international relations" as done by Biden-Obama-Bush-Kerry and the den of useful idiots in the US Congress and the Senate, and many of their allied countries: Yes, exactly, it was from 2017 to 2020. Guess who was in charge just then? But that sort of critical thinking seems to have completely disappeared in our current media and the "fashionably enraged" I see here. Hopefully the average American is smarter. There's a whole lot of young people around the world whose lives depend on that decision.
Don’t forget about the Russian propaganda, the lies about Zelensky. Sources available if you want.