mozz

For me it’s usually the irrationality of the arguments. Like they don’t even really believe what they’re saying, they’re just kind of writing these disagreeable nonsense-messages and then moving on. It’s hard to explain but the stuff about calculators is a perfect example. Real humans don’t say stuff like that, and even organic trolls will usually invest some effort into their discourse. The lazy and illogical shit-commenting seems to be frequently a sign of someone who’s doing political propaganda. They genuinely just don’t even seem to give a shit if you believe them or not.

More than once I’ve had someone make some kind of leap of moon logic like that, when we’re not even talking about US politics, and clicked on their user to see what the heck their deal even is and found a bunch of “why not to vote for the Democrats” stuff and ohhhhh it all makes sense now, got it.

Here’s a little exchange I saw recently on Lemmy:

A: Perhaps she should reconsider that allegiance with israel. It's not very popular with voters.

A: Of course Kamala taking $5.000.000 from AIPAC might be related to her allegiance.

B: I knew you weren’t from the US. Where are you from?

A: What?

C: It’s because you used periods instead of commas in your total of aipac money. That's not proper American syntax and shows you're from somewhere else.

A: I don't recall my calculators coming with commas. Where are you from?

D: Nobody said anything about calculators, you don't seem to understand the question. The comments about using commas in numbers in the U.S. are 100% correct.

D: You have a keen interest in posting all day about politics in a country you arent from. Can never answer a question about your own background.

D: Incessantly talk shit about Israeli policy from an anti Democratic perspective without a whif of criticism of the Republicans, who would be far worse in their full throated approval of Israeli warcrimes. What is your native language? Are you able to vote in the USA?

A: Interesting statement that proves you have not done any research. I'll not bother with your other baseless allegations either.

https://youtu.be/UBFDdTIYZ6Q?si=65COgHF0GZBcysAk

You're sending me this link as an argument for why سبايا applies to men and women clearly? You skipped over some stuff before the excerpts you sent me.

I think I am finished with this conversation. I was curious if I was missing something somehow and all of these different Western news sources were lying to me; I am now confident that that wasn't what was up. You didn't answer my first question, only the second, and your answer to the second question definitely wasn't convincing. Have a good one.

What’s this say about the definition for سبايا? Do you have an Arabic dictionary somewhere that says something different?

That video was actually an excellent example of this; I even saw someone point out that they never should have let her hold the kettle in the first place; one of the officers should have recognized that she was in crisis and offered to get the kettle FOR her. She should never have been allowed the opportunity to pick up the improvised weapon in the first place because it should have been obvious to them that she could not control herself in that moment.

Just wanted to jump in - I 100% agree with this. The cop should have had the sense just not to tell her to fool with the pot, since it was fine for a couple minutes and they were on their way out anyway. But he did, and then they flipped out and pointed guns at her because they are unsuited to stressful situations, and she lost her fuckin mind with fear (as is understandable) and didn’t react with anything coherent and sensible, still tried to do what they were asking her to do anyway (somehow), and then they shot her anyway because they were in a total twitchy panic.

(She was actually controlling herself fine until they pointed guns and started shouting, for literally no reason at all, and then she started to react with irrational movements and statements as anyone under life threatening stress may be prone to do. And somehow they weren’t prepared for that and interpreted it as this terrifying level of hostility on her part.)

I’m not trying to excuse the cop. Bottom line, however it happened, he’s guilty. Res ipsa loquitur.

Maybe he’s a POS in addition to being a panicky person who doesn’t think ahead, and either one should have disqualified him from being a cop long before it got to this point. But it genuinely didn’t seem to me like he was looking to shoot anybody; he just was fearful and irrational under pressure and this was that one time where when you equip someone like that with deadly force and send them into random situations, something really bad with permanent consequences is gonna happen because of that combination.

Hey, neat! Now do n*ggers into Spanish and see what it says.

Do you not speak Arabic? Out of curiosity?

How about you guys rethink the food

If you can reconstitute some kind of edible food that maintains some semblance of the low price, I think that'll be enough. People started going to Five Guys and paying $16 because your burgers are clearly made of mouse shit.

Yeah, I can more or less agree with that. I didn't say Al Jazeera needed to be highly credible. I said they are factual with a certain clear bias involved. But they're doing serious journalism and the conflation of "is anti Israel" with "is lying" is a pretty common thread in MBFC, so much so that they don't even bother to hide it or pretend that anything other than them being anti-Israel is the issue that keeps them down in the not really factual category.

The reality is, they're not "mixed." They are mostly or almost entirely factual. And then, also, they have a significant notable bias. Trying to pretend that they're "mixed" factually is dishonest.

No, it's reporting the Qatari government's assertion as "the truth" and the Amnesty International side as the "opposition" while still presenting both sides pretty accurately. It's not great. But it's far better than I would suspect you'll find in pro-Israel outlets that are graded as "mixed."

By contrast, the Washington Post wrote a story about how Trump might be a really great thing for NATO if he gets elected, because he can finally fix all the problems with it. That's pure garbage. Result? "Mostly factual." "High credibility." I would be surprised if you can find even a single article with an equivalent level of bullshit in Al Jazeera, even when the topic is Israel or Qatar or something.

IDK, I feel like you're just picking one individual part of my messages that you can disagree with, and moving the goalposts around, so you can keep the argument going, but I think I have completed and then some what I had to say.

I'm sure I have blind spots. I think what I said about their coverage speaks for itself. You can read it, agree with it, disagree with it, whatever you want to do.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68859840

This one story about this one man in Qatari custody was not covered on Al Jazeera, no. I'm sure he's not the only gay man in prison in Qatar. Like I say, I'm sure they have blind spots. I am comparing their blind spots against other publications that have other blind spots, not against a theoretical outlet which simply has none.

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/us-soccer-journalist-grant-wahl-dies-covering-world-cup-1.6681457

This one is covered pretty much word for word identical (presumably from the same wire service), including the discussion of his rainbow shirt, here.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/nov/27/qatar-deaths-how-many-migrant-workers-died-world-cup-number-toll

Covered here, same facts, albeit with a fairly explicit level of slant.

Can I do the same for the New York Times now? Or an outlet of your choice which you would say is exceeding Al Jazeera's standard?

The last coverage of any description I saw on any outlet about Qatar was during the Trump administration.

Actually, I don’t think it’s fully true that they don’t do negative coverage of Qatar - this story definitely isn’t, like, a positive story. But I’m sure they have some level of slant to their Qatar coverage; my wider point was that, all things considered, they’re actually among the extreme top level of honest and evenhanded journalistic outlets and whatever blind spots they have are dwarfed by the blind spots that exist in a lot of Western sources, that MBFC I am sure rates highly because the blind spots line up with where MBFC likes them to be.