hawksfansinceday1":2mcsem2b said:
REALLY good analysis man. We have been stuck in Orwell's 1984 since Vietnam what with the TV news media not being allowed to show the true horrors of war in any of the Middle East "conflicts" on our TV sets. The power brokers watched those type of images cost LBJ his presidency and they have never allowed it since. They then followed that up with fun stuff like "Patriot Act" etc. Twitter and the instant sharing of images, video and information gives me hope that we will break out of the Orwellian world we have been in the last 30+ years.
Yes, and that hope will be under attack from people and organizations with considerable power and wealth who have a vested interest in maintaining it. During my undergrad I wrote a paper comparing journalism during the Civil War vs World War I. Those wars were just 50 years apart, but the level of government censorship of the press went up astronomically. The increase of suppression was in response to the increased availability of the printed word and the advent of radio. The information suppression we see in our current wars is a continuation and escalation of information control.
The term "National Security" was in use back in WWI, but it was usually reserved for things like troop placement and fleet movement. Now it's used for everything that might shed light on official wrongdoing and in a way that reads as YOUR personal security, dear citizens. Covering up, say, horrific torture that was perpetrated by Americans becomes a National Security issue. It's really just a PR issue, as far as us everyday people having that info. Maybe all those countries that we reprimand for human rights violations would present a threat to our nation if they found out. But is hiding hypocrisy what we think of when our elected officials deny us info? The only "threat" in this kind of situation is dissemination of the truth, when the truth makes the controller of information look bad. Calling it a National Security issue, whether it actually is or not, means unquestionably "justified" censorship.
kearly":2mcsem2b said:
I think you do an excellent job here of capturing the mindset. It's the details I disagree with.
A realization came upon me in the last few days. This new twitter-activist culture is a strange brew. It's highly progressive in nature, but paradoxically it is emotionally reactionary and anti-intellectual (shouting down debate, etc). In way, it almost feels like the left-wing version of the tea party. Combustible anger. Demands for change. Conspiracy theories. Freaking out about relatively minor things that are facts of life (in contrast to far larger issues in the '60s like Vietnam, Segregation, etc).
I agree with the goals of the movement, but I always look at both sides of the coin, which has made me a target on pretty much every issue as of late. Any movement that fails to look at both sides and reacts out of emotion is a flawed process, and will often produce unintended consequences.
I hear ya. There is a lot of emotion involved when people speak out about injustice. That's not a reason to dismiss it. There's nothing going on in the Twitterverse that wasn't happening in chat rooms before it, or private think tanks, or local pubs, or in churches, and secret meetings of abolitionists pre-Civil War. The difference is technology now sends these discussions around the globe instantaneously. It's really the most democratic medium history has ever experienced. There's essentially equal access to left, right, rich, poor, black, white, etc.
The reason Twitter feels "left wing" to some is that we're hearing the actual voices of the disenfranchised people themselves, who by definition have not been represented in the MSM. There are plenty of "right wing" people on Twitter. If their messages don't capture the public interest, or hit people on an emotional level, that's not a fault of the medium.
If we as a country never got past the emotional stage, yes that's a problem. Often, the intelligent conversations need to begin with openly shared emotions. Any level-headed person who has been in a significant personal relationship has experienced a constructive conversation that started out more on the emotional side of the scale. The anger, fear, hurt, and outrage being shared openly points to the topics we should be talking about. There are intellectual conversations about domestic violence happening in mainstream forums that might not have happened without the voices of people speaking out on a gut-reaction level.
And "minor things" to you might not be minor to others. Without getting sidetracked by bringing up specific events, there is a common thread of traditional power holders in all walks of life denying responsibility or ignoring the mistreatment of people often already marginalized, UNTIL the public is made aware by independent journalists, eyewitnesses, and concerned citizens. The other side of the coin is often an untold story of persistent and institutionalized oppression.
In other words, without public outcry, injustice flourishes under unquestioned power. Without the anger, where would we be? I've found that by paying attention to tweeters' timelines and allegiances, by substantiating facts with third parties, and by comparing citizens' eyewitness video, or security video, with MSM reports, I can sift through hyperbole and unfounded opinions to get to the poignant, documentable truth in a lot of these Twitter "blow-ups".
Yxes1122":2mcsem2b said:
This.
It's one of the things I greatly dis-like about the twitter rampage that came from the Ray Rice incident and Donald Sterling incident. Those who champion the punishment that came down on Rice will quickly disregard that they have essentially destroyed a human being's life (and the lives of his dependents) by lighting a fire under the NFL. Ray Rice will never play for another team and no broadcast agency is going to pick him up because of how poorly he is received by the public. And most people don't care, because they've looked at one incident, made an emotional decision and will refuse to even acknowledge that some bad has come out of the social backlash.
Let me state this as well, what Ray Rice did was wrong on every moral and ethical level. When I imagine my younger sisters in a similar situation it enrages me. But the whole point of justice is to be impartial. To give a proper punishment to the crime. The NFL just set a new policy that sets an unbiased punishment for this crime and instead decided to go above and beyond that to save face in the public. Is that justice? To some yes, but do you think it's a fair punishment to have your life destroyed for one mistake? Do you think the Ravens or NFL were motivated by anything other than self gain to end this publicity nightmare?
My primary issue with the whole Ray Rice thing was how he got off scott free in the judicial system. That's flat wrong. But I think the indefinite suspension made Rice a scapegoat for the poor decisions made by the Ravens organization and NFL when the first suspension was laid down. Which I think is wrong as well.
Also, Kearly, you may not have meant all that I said, I kind of took your "emotional" twitter premise and applied it to this specific situation. I know you may not agree with everything I've said here.
I agree that the judicial system failed. That's a recurring theme in a lot of the Twitter "rampages" on many topics: the established systems tasked with meting out justice for all, are not doing it. They have been failing for a long time. In the past you had to dig and dig and dig through physical materials to find suppressed statements, or tacit complicity, or the actual sources and processes behind the whistle-blowing. Even then, you had very very few outlets to share the information you found. But Woodward and Bernstein had their day, and it's gone. Now, anyone who witnesses a crime, or an abuse of power, or injustice of any kind, can let the world know 140 characters at a time.
As to the lack of consistency on the NFL's part, you seem to point to the "publicity nightmare" presumably caused by overemotional Tweeters. The NFL heard the incredulousness from a lot of journalists and broadcasters, as well as people's tweets after announcing Ray Rice's 2-game suspension. The NFL horribly miscalculated the country's anger against domestic violence. They miscalculated how their players are held to a higher standard. Fair or unfair, that's been a truth basically forever. Quick note on that: I heard a guy on 710 yesterday say "you don't hear about a guy at Home Depot getting fired for hitting his girlfriend." That's true. You also don't hear your kids asking for posters of the Home Depot guy, or getting excited they got the Home Depot guy in their pack of cards, or drafting the Home Depot guy for their fantasy team. Stan Lee's Spider-Man quote comes to mind.
Point is, the NFL mismanaged this from the beginning – the lackluster investigation – and that had NOTHING to do with people expressing their feelings of outrage. "Lighting a fire under the NFL" is not a scathing accusation. How the NFL responds is in direct proportion to how the NFL thinks the outcry will affect its bottom line. The NFL is the one passing the blame all on Ray Rice, in the form of an indefinite suspension. If he did lie to them, he deserves it. If he was forthcoming, but the NFL tried to keep it under wraps, and the NFL can't get its punishment policies straight, that's entirely on the NFL.
