I often worry that my incandescent rage at these mealy-mouthed lies flying around as people preventably suffer and die by the thousands daily is too much, that I’ve gone too far, that I’ve discredited myself. And then I see something like this from the people entrusted to power
and I realize I don’t go far enough criticizing the liars, the bad faith arguers, the both-sidesers. They are not serious people. They cannot handle the reality of life as it exists right now. It is awful
Even if it seems performative — even to myself — or too much to criticize so publicly and scathingly, I feel morally obligated to speak up and speak out for those who can’t or won’t. If nothing else, perhaps it will go some way toward fighting bad faith lies in a historic crisis.
If nothing else, this time in history underscores the need for critical (and well-funded) journalism (and other human sciences) like never before.
It occurs to me that I didn’t make explicitly clear what set me off here beyond the general bad-faith tone of this toothless “statement.” It’s that little piece of rhetorical fuckery equating us, the media, with an opposition party that is equal in power to the president.
That is a sop to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, for one thing (a group that secretly controls media and politics) and for another, if you equate extremely necessary media scrutiny and criticism with political opposition, then you’re not fit for office. How could you be?
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I feel so awful for Seth Rich's family, getting dragged through the muck and the mire for political points by disinformation whackadoodles as they grapple with the still-unsolved murder of their loved one. It's truly disgusting, what they have had to contend with since 2016.
It calls to mind the awful people who show up at the graves of children who have been gunned down in mass shootings so they can shove cameras into grieving parents' faces and scream that no one died and that it was a false flag. People the @NRA deliberately encouraged
What's hilarious and depressing about this is that this is the "declaration" that was filled up with signature of obviously fake names, like "Dr. Fakename" and "Johnny Bananas"
Not sure why this isn't getting a lot of play in the US media. That NYT story didn't mention it at all! But it's all just a hoax, complete stinking bullshit, dangerous smoke and mirrors
I wanted to post the most infuriating quotes from this but there are too many
These are the people who legitimately think they deserve, that they are entitled, to have power over others. They must never be allowed to do so again. Look how bad they fuck it up when they have it
“I strongly believe that they are spreading fake news on behalf of hostile foreign powers and authoritarian governments as part of their business model.”
"Neighbors say trash bags, like the ones shown in a photo from two weeks ago, have been put outside Troesch’s house almost every Sunday night for Monday morning pickup."
He hasn’t changed his racist schtick since at least 1992 either. This is who he’s always been and I, for one, am beyond delight that it doesn’t seem to be working any more