Thanks for running this column with my latest episode, The Contrarian. Honoring fallen service members requires addressing the anti-democratic forces growing on the right and left. Folks - feel free to weigh in over at https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/ !
To all the good people who served: You are remembered and appreciated.
"Commitment to democracy itself “appears to be waning by generation,” the Charles F. Kettering Foundation reported. Its survey showed that “80% of adults aged 65 and older say democracy is the best form of government, compared with just 53% of those aged 18 to 29.”"
Maybe if our schools had remained more diligent in teaching Civics & Government courses, this group would be more actively supporting the system of democracy. As it is, few could likely define it.
I hear you! Teaching civics is important. So is teaching fact checking. I want us to teach kids not to assume that something they hear is true, and empower them to find out whether it is. The media *should* show how to do that. When the media fails, as it does now, our whole society pays a price.
I agree that "news agencies need to end the era of acting as stenographers for what people said. They should limit themselves to telling us what’s definitively true and how they know it." I read Contrarian, Tangle, They Stand Corrected, but I also check TV newscasts [CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, CNN, C-SPAN and local], as well as print media [TOI, NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, JTA, etc.]. I think an aggregate variety provides me with enough views to arrive at what is most likely to be true.
Am I in the vanguard, getting my news filtered through people on Substack and not from legacy media? I do read hyperlocal media for things in my city ward in my neighborhood paper.
Those can be very good choices! I tell people all the time to cancel paid subscriptions to Big Media that fail to provide the two ingredients of Truth: facts + context.
Josh Levs, it appears to me, reports tendencies I cannot prove right or wrong. But somehow this feels like bothsidesism all over again: Left-leaning students (and this apparently includes liberals and democratic socialists — who are not really all that far left in any country other than the US) are as violent prone as right-wingers? Apart from the question of labeling different groups in ways I would question, this observation does not feel right at all. Personally, I feel the threat of violence coming from the right to the point where I don’t even feel safe putting up political yard signs or speaking up in public against the Trump regime.
Hi! You might not feel it, but it is the case. Support for violence is rising on both sides and there have been violent attacks by people who identify as being on the left. Lots of studies are finding the same thing. I understand that in this era of information bubbles, people don't realize! So they may rush to assume both-sidesism. I have called out both-sideism, and this is not it. Mainstream media is supposed to make reality clear to everyone, but is failing! Lots of details and discussions are available in my podcast and theystandcorrected.substack.com .
We should stop the starry-eyed swooning about democracy. The WH Crime Boss and his Syndicate was democratically elected twice. The second time was after he instigated an insurrection to violently overthow the US government. Now the democratically elected Crime Boss and his scum bucket Toadies (also democratically elected) are doing everything they can to destroy democracy. I'm not saying that we should ditch democracy, but am suggesting that we abandon cupcake conversations about American mythology. At this time who would you rather have as our head of state, King Charles III or the Crime Boss?
Thanks for running this column with my latest episode, The Contrarian. Honoring fallen service members requires addressing the anti-democratic forces growing on the right and left. Folks - feel free to weigh in over at https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/ !
To all the good people who served: You are remembered and appreciated.
"Commitment to democracy itself “appears to be waning by generation,” the Charles F. Kettering Foundation reported. Its survey showed that “80% of adults aged 65 and older say democracy is the best form of government, compared with just 53% of those aged 18 to 29.”"
Maybe if our schools had remained more diligent in teaching Civics & Government courses, this group would be more actively supporting the system of democracy. As it is, few could likely define it.
I hear you! Teaching civics is important. So is teaching fact checking. I want us to teach kids not to assume that something they hear is true, and empower them to find out whether it is. The media *should* show how to do that. When the media fails, as it does now, our whole society pays a price.
I agree that "news agencies need to end the era of acting as stenographers for what people said. They should limit themselves to telling us what’s definitively true and how they know it." I read Contrarian, Tangle, They Stand Corrected, but I also check TV newscasts [CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, CNN, C-SPAN and local], as well as print media [TOI, NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, JTA, etc.]. I think an aggregate variety provides me with enough views to arrive at what is most likely to be true.
Am I in the vanguard, getting my news filtered through people on Substack and not from legacy media? I do read hyperlocal media for things in my city ward in my neighborhood paper.
Those can be very good choices! I tell people all the time to cancel paid subscriptions to Big Media that fail to provide the two ingredients of Truth: facts + context.
Josh Levs, it appears to me, reports tendencies I cannot prove right or wrong. But somehow this feels like bothsidesism all over again: Left-leaning students (and this apparently includes liberals and democratic socialists — who are not really all that far left in any country other than the US) are as violent prone as right-wingers? Apart from the question of labeling different groups in ways I would question, this observation does not feel right at all. Personally, I feel the threat of violence coming from the right to the point where I don’t even feel safe putting up political yard signs or speaking up in public against the Trump regime.
Hi! You might not feel it, but it is the case. Support for violence is rising on both sides and there have been violent attacks by people who identify as being on the left. Lots of studies are finding the same thing. I understand that in this era of information bubbles, people don't realize! So they may rush to assume both-sidesism. I have called out both-sideism, and this is not it. Mainstream media is supposed to make reality clear to everyone, but is failing! Lots of details and discussions are available in my podcast and theystandcorrected.substack.com .
The rise of antisemitic attacks does tend to be from what we call left.
Absolutely. It's even worse on the left than the right. And extremists from both have pretty much merged, turning the horseshoe into a circle. https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/irans-advantage-and-civilians-of
Great visual: horseshoe into a circle. No shortage of hate to go around from time immemorial.
We should stop the starry-eyed swooning about democracy. The WH Crime Boss and his Syndicate was democratically elected twice. The second time was after he instigated an insurrection to violently overthow the US government. Now the democratically elected Crime Boss and his scum bucket Toadies (also democratically elected) are doing everything they can to destroy democracy. I'm not saying that we should ditch democracy, but am suggesting that we abandon cupcake conversations about American mythology. At this time who would you rather have as our head of state, King Charles III or the Crime Boss?