Thursday, October 18, 2007

How to lie and be PC: the New Worlds way.



Nearly as amusing as Al Jr.'s green buffoon-act are his defenders when challenged---not only challenged via Crichton or the rightists (some of the rightists are as bad as Gore), but from sober rationalists and scientific researchers. Merely to question the dogma causes nervous breakdowns among many of the Gorean faithful. Additionally, even if some IPCC claims turned out to be accurate, Al ain't the person to be selling those claims. Let's have Dr. Hug and Rancourt debate the IPCC climate-modeling "experts".

For instance, look at this thread, led by a Wordpress cyber-liar, McMax of New Worlds:

Gore/Peaceprize

Note that the mere mention of Crichton and GW skeptics causes....palpitations!..... among the faithful. ID politics, pure and simple. Just call Crichton a neo-con, or nazi, or suggest it, and his arguments have been dismissed. Here's a typical little NewWorlder liar, one INS-o-motya, in action:

""""My reaction when I read Krugman's column this morning was, I'm pretty confident that the Michael Crighton-hugging right-wingers were crazy enough before Gore showed up to drive them even further over the edge."""

Yes, Dr. Crichton, a real Harvard graduate and with far more scientific credibility than Goreco, is crazy and rightwing as are his followers, and Al Gore, flunkie, hawk, scientifically incompetent dixiecrat should be considered correct. Nearly stalinist in terms of efficiency and deception--or perhaps like Mormon (and New Worlds has a distinct Mormonal flavor--search for O.S.Card and, like, BerthaRon). Skeptics of GW: they are wrong because they ....don't pay homage to St. Gore! Pathetic. What did WB Yeats say about middle-class peasants incapable of reason? "Base born products of base beds............."

19 comments:

J said...

Once more, with feeling... peace, man.

Yeah well that starts when you ban your crass, retarded, untalented hysteria-driven PalRon, whose snipes, insults, and defamations and general irrationality (as with the Gore thread on your site) are 10x what we have done.

Subtracting the spam from your B-friend, Cont. gets about as much traffic as ye do, McClueless.

J said...

That you just brush away EgoRon's endless stupid drama also irritates. The GW debate is fairly weighty, and somewhat interesting. There's quite a bit at stake. And Crichton, for one, already dealt with many of Gore's claims, and more or less called into question the entire GW business.
It's made weightier IF Gore can be proven to be wrong, or at least shown to greatly exaggerating the threat. That's Rancourt's point (much better than Lomborg).

So your thread on Gore and PP, where Egonius does his usual stupid cowboy act and Betya chimed in did nothing. It didn't even help the GW/Gore cause. It helped CowboyRon. Nauseating, self-aggrandizing egotistical crap. Note he writes nearly always in 1st person, except when insulting and spewing ad homs. Psycho, man. Dat's Bybot.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. I suppose one person's "nauseating, self-aggrandizing egotistical crap" is another person's bold, poetic, statement of beliefs. I find I enjoy Byron's perspective but to you it's repellent. Obviously, neither of us is likely to sway the other on this. Seems like basic human courtesy, though, not to run around mouthing off to nearly total strangers trying to get them to agree to your perspective about someone they don't even know. This comes across as insecurity in the validity of your viewpoint. A secure person doesn't get ruffled when a contrasting viewpoint is expressed.

It's a free country. Gore can say what he wants, so can Crichton, so can Joe Duck, so can Byron, so can you, so can I. So can Mitt Romney, for God's sake. He'll fool millions of idiots into voting for him, too. Hopefully, this time a majority of people will be sane enough to do otherwise.

J said...

That's the whole thing. You seem to respond to blogs and writers emotionally, and not too critically. Insisting that "Gore is a great green Hero" and not paying attention to facts does not help real progressivism. Global warming does NOT need people preaching for it. Precisely the opposite. Verifying global warming claims (or possibly modifying or falsifying those claims) requires cool heads, precise research, weighing of data: not pathos, but logos. And that is the case even at the level of intelligent citizens.


ID politics, spin, hype are ultimately the tactics of the rightists: there's a fundamental difference between what a Crichton does, and what a rightist-pundit idiot like Coulter does. Similarly on the left. Rosie O ain't a Chomsky, however PC she tries to be. Emotion and "gut feeling" and ID politics (like assuming that since Crichton's "right-wing"--and not even proving it---his points don't matter) make intelligent discourse and debate nearly impossible. Too bad a few Emoto-crats have taken over your blog.

Anonymous said...

Well, it's run by an emoto-crat. Emotion is part of what makes us human and nothing to be ashamed of. Without it- we'd be living a hellish, Stepfordlike existence. Screw that.

Balance is the key. Not detachment from emotion, but integration of emotion, of soul if you will, into human discourse in a civilized way. You can call it demagoguery perhaps, but great movements are driven by inspirational figures; the Ghandis, the Thomas Paines, the Martin Luther Kings. On the flip side you've got Hitler and Mussolini and friends who used their emotional appeals in the service of malicious authoritarian manipulation. That's the question: am I- or Byron- trying to exert control by our use of emotion in our rhetoric, or are we attempting to inspire for ultimately humanitarian reasons we believe will benefit the largest number? Is Gore trying to be the next dictator, or does he believe in his heart that Earth is in the Balance? My contention is that his belief in his cause MAY have pushed him to exaggerate and over-hype worst case scenarios, but I'm not convinced of that.

Why I got pissed at you the other day is I became convinced you weren't paying attention to what I was saying. I'm not arguing the facts and figures, I'm claiming that the vision and leadership Gore offers can be immensely valuable- possibly much more so than the statistical non-emotional sophistry of a Bjorn Lomborg.

BTW- I've read everything you've linked to on this subject; Rancourt, Cockburn, Semi-whatever, etc. Some of it is unemotional, some is not. There is a fair amount of hate there- and in your writings as well. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone- as a famous emoto-crat once said.

J said...

Who said Gore was even qualified to be a politician? He's not that great of an orator, he's certainly not a scientist (he nearly flunked out of Harvard), and his record should irritate progressives (which you might have noted had you read Cockburn's essays for content, instead of reacting when some writer doesn't follow your PC niceness rules, even though Alex is a real progressive) Read for content. No one needs purply prose, preacher-Speak, or Reaganite speeches, even if somewhat PC. In terms of rhetorical ability, even Billy Clinton quite more effective (though another demagogue-lite). Besides, if you had read some real speeches or poilitical oratory--say Lincoln, or Jefferson, or for that matter Edmund Burke or RW Emerson--Gore or Clinton seem fairly primitive.


We don't need more William Jennings Bryans, especially when they don't have their facts straight. I wager Gary Hart thinks Gore quite a oaf as well. Now, there was a real Democrat: more or less F'ed by the DNC, and the dixiecrats such as Clinton/Gore.

J said...

He'll fool millions of idiots into voting for him, too. Hopefully, this time a majority of people will be sane enough to do otherwise.

Now, there's a real issue, which we raised months ago, and you sort of ignored, though BerthaRon spouted the usual preacher-speak and said anyone who questions the popular vote is a........nazi---overlooking the fact that thinkers from Plato to Marx to SouthPark have questioned the effectiveness and indeed the Justice of the popular vote.

Voting

Progressives who want real reform should question the entire voting process. An intelligent voting system would prevent demogogues or left or right.

Mencken agrees with Contingencies (and there's some rhetoric practice as well):

H.L. Mencken on Voting

"[W]hen a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental--men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... [A]ll the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre--the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum"""""

Anonymous said...

"I wager Gary Hart thinks Gore quite a oaf as well."

You know I'm a huge Hart fan, right? I met him years ago and blogged about my shameful experience that day.

I don't know if he'll remember me, but I just emailed him to find out what he thinks about Gore. If he responds, you can be sure I'll share his thoughts on New Worlds (as I just did with Zubrin's).

J said...

I'm not a Hart "fan" but I respect his writing, and even his "vision." But I doubt he's really qualified to offer some insights into the GW/IPCC controversy. However he might have some insights into Gorean politics, though anything he says should be filtered through a "poli-BS-meme." He may not say what he really thinks, but what plays well with the audience (see Mencken quote above).

I think your Zubrin post was decent, but I don't think you noted how that undercut your previous post on Gore and the PP. But I suspect Zubrin knows quite a bit more about the GW issues than Al Jr. does.

It's all sort of boring really: chatting about peak oil and petroleum corporations--even the dreadful situation in Iraq/Iran--- was more important, and the GW hype sort of displaced that PO chat (maybe it was even intentional on part of Goreco).

Anonymous said...

Careful how fast you're backtracking there- might run into something. It was you that said "I wager Gary Hart thinks Gore quite a oaf..." right?

Hold fast, he might agree with you completely, ya never know.

J said...

You missed the point on the poli-BS-meme. Regardless of what Hart says, his own thoughts might be slightly different. But I don't think the Hartian vision and Gorean sort of pseudo-progressivism are compatible.

I note you allowed more ad hominems and personal attacks against me on your site, and allowed some cheesy two-bit psych. profiling from your ESL student buddymotya. I am probably quite more qualified to offer some psych. profiling of you and ESLmotya or BerthaRon than you are. That's really more of your sort of lightweight mobsterism: I don't want to be in the NW scab "gang," dude. I want to bust it.

All rather typical NW deception, and violations of writer's ethics. As far as virtue goes, you failed months ago. As your refusal to recant on your praise of Gore shows.

Our conversation is about to end, unless you go for some TOS on your site where no personal attacks/defamations/misrepresentations are allowed, and there is either some group moderation, or no comments

Anonymous said...

"note you allowed more ad hominems and personal attacks against me on your site"

I did feel 'motya's words were a little harsh. That's why I defended you.

Keep in mind, there's only one person on NW I filter. You have that singular honor, and you know exactly why.

J said...

"Our conversation is about to end"


Oops. Pre-caffiene.


""""I'm just curious if you're aware how many times you've said this.

Face it. You're addicted. FWIW, apparently so am I."""


Maybe, but it's more like I am sort of interested in how bloggers are spinning politics and other issues (like global warming). You "spun" Gore and GW, I believe. I never denied GW: I merely pointed out skeptics and counterarguments from serious sources that should be considered (you will recall I posted the link to Duck).

I am fairly well-known in the blogosphere, and use different names, proxies. Sometimes troll. Sometimes not. But I think it's quite amusing (sadly so) how you do not allow open discussion on your site: you have more or less troll-proofed your site (and put in place a certain NW ideology) as Wordpress people seem prone too (a type of censorship, really). I was tempted to get a new s-name, but I know if I posted something you didn't approve of (even if factually accurate) you would have a fit and "moderate."

To be honest, I am a bit addicted to blogs and the Net, and it's taking time away from work and study. But the addiction relates more to a concern for factual accuracy, effective argumentation, and introducing non-emotional language back into BlogSpeak. I object to ID politics (common on your site), whether used by right or left. Keep Blogs hysteria-free! (of course that would not bode well for the BerthaRons of blogging).

Anonymous said...

"You 'spun' Gore and GW, I believe."

I congratulated him on his honor in receiving the award. Joe Duck provided some thoughtful context, as did Zubrin. This does not change my opinion that the prize was well-deserved. No need for spin, and certainly not for vitriol.

BTW- emotionally-driven speech is still a right in this country. I continue to insist that it has validity and your crusade to eradicate it will fail. It's part of human nature. Learn to cope with it.

J said...

Not merely harsh, wrong.

You say you have an interest in objectivity and progressive politics? Why not post some essays against those nefarious "neo-cons" that routinely appear on your site. Not some little waffler-journalist like Hitchens (who denies being a neo-con, or GOPer), but say a real neo-con, like Podhoretz:

KingPod.

Here's some wisdom from the King of Neo-cons:

"""""Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required.""""

Pod.'s also a senior advisor to none other than Ghouliani. Pod and his pals like Abrams, Wolfowitz--even Dame Feinstein (quite more powerful than most naive Cali dems realize), etc.: those are the real forces behind American politics. I wager an Abrams or Pod. has a direct line to Dubya himself. You want to take on the real enemies of progressivism? You have to take on Israel and its US allies, and actually risk getting your hands dirty (anti-semite accusations, etc.)

J said...

Another non sequitur. I provided the link to Joe Duck and other skeptics, such as the Counterpunch writers (where Nader sometimes appears): I think it's funny you chose to respond to Duck instead of say to Cockburn's detailed arguments, or Cockburn's sources, such as Rancourt, Hug, Glassman, Noble, etc. (Joe's an intelligent and nice guy, but rather tame).

It was Contingencies who noted GW skeptics JoeDuck and half-sigma on Slate (and also provided the Slate link). I began the thread by referring to GW skeptics, was insulted, and then you stopped posting my comments: until someone showed up (I posted link on his site as well), to support MY views. So your typical off-handed "vitriol" remark is again, McBS.

Vitriol could indeed be warranted against Al Gore: Alex Cockburn believes it is, and he is a far more knowledgable and experienced political writer/researcher than you or I.

Your PC "anti-vitriol" approach is both hypocritical and naive, if not conservative, and "censorious": Gore does not have a spotless political record. In fact it's rather inconsistent: you at once say "passion" is ok: as long as that passion is not directed to some dixiecrat and Lieberdem like Gore. Hah.

See how far emotional language will go if you try to publish something remotely scholarly, or even a letter to the editor in the Chronicle or something. That's the exact PROBLEM with most blogs: they are too much like bad songs, and not enough like research writing or journalism.

Appeals to pathos are generally meaningless (especially when you haven't even established what your supposed shared values are, or if they even exist). I don't think you understand the distinction between formal, academic writing, and like gonzo expressionism. The facts of GW should be decided upon, pre-gonzo. The gonzo pe rally (or gonzo-lite of NW) doesn't matter, especially if Gore is wrong, or exaggerating GW.

How people respond to to the truth of GW (or untruth) is mostly irrelevant (not entirely), and hardly some "objective" measurement of value: some people might feel sad or distressed about GW (assuming it's true); others might not. There's no magic to "shared" emotions, and indeed "ad pathos" is itself a fallacy. Pepe doesn't get any breaks with Judge O'Riley for killing Paco because Paco phucked Pepe's wife, and Pepe was really upset, etc. In fact ad pathos often makes the argument all the more irrelevant.

Logic, man. You keep forgetting it. Even Sagan became a bit of a logician late in life. Russell may not have been an Einstein (and Einstein not a Russell), but in many cases the good logician beats the mediocre scientist (or at least reminds him of some of his generalizations, and bad assumptions).

Anonymous said...

Let me try this.

Gonzo expressionism:
The Daily Kos, Contingencies, New Worlds, Joe Duck

Academic Writing:
Journal of Astrophysics, Biochemical Review, anything by Chomsky

Close?

J said...

Rather limited sample, but somewhat accurate. Joe Duck's not that gonzo though: he seems fairly scholarly at times. AS is Contingencies. And DailyKOS is mostly pseudo-gonzo. Way too moderated and the soccer-mommy quotient rather high for real gonzo.

Now, here's

Gonzo.

(Actually a bit too PC for Gonzo).


For a non-gonzo, and sober, scientific account of GW (tho'a bit murky in places) try this:
this site

J said...

""""The guy isn't even a scientist. He's a columnist for Fox News."""

The Typical NW irrelevant character attack, if not some strange eco-baptist-buddhist moralism (like that of Al Jr. hisself). Read the Wiki entry.

Milloy

“”"”"Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center.”"”"”

Quite a bit more scientific expertise than Al Jr, General of Kosovo, Iraq Bombadier, Occi Exec., and Harvard flunkie possesses. Milloy may be a corporate whore, but then so are many GW advocates. He’s a correspondent, anyway; not a columnist.

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