Wednesday, August 14, 2024

GULLIBLE OR STUPID?

 Gullible or stupid is a question I often ask myself when I look at any authorized news source or outlet and then I default to embrace the power of both. Why do people out there believe the media when what they know actually runs counter to what they hear or read in the news? The media gushes over every Hamas pronouncement of targets and casualties as if they are absolute fact and yet they always climb down after every sensational headline and are forced by someone to admit that, "no. once again we were gulled by the hamas minister of health into believing one of his statements." 

The media have the same uncharming attitude about. repeating any and every statement of pure imagination as the unvarnished truth when it comes to reporting on developments in the war in Ukraine. None of them has ever picked up and read a single military textbook and they simply accept that if side A advances rapidly into side B that A is winning decisively and really putting the hurt on side B. Any real military historian or tactician could refer them to anything from the Battle of Cannae (216 BC) to fire sacks and yet the media will rabbit on endlessly absent any real facts or input from the ground about how things are sure looking dire now for evil overlord rascal. It even has it's own illustration!

I find it interesting that the fire breathing Credentialist Class or the Ubermen all firmly believe in establishing a credentialing system for every type of human activity but they unanimously reject any sort of credentialing for journalists. It is rather interesting when one thinks about it. They would be outraged if some uncredentialed myrmidon performed any sort of Art Criticism but they will refuse to accept any limits on what their Ivy League Class of journalists can "report" on in military affairs, weapons, tactics or strategy.

On the gripping hand they will all rush to assure us that we are quite wrong. They do indeed go to "top men" in the field to get their input on these military matters they know so little of themselves. Top Men will be interviewed by the credentialed and their viewpoints solicited in the politest manner possible. Of course these Top Men are exactly the same as the 54 Intelligence Community Leadership officials that denounced the Hunter Biden laptop as pure Russian propaganda. The military officers they go to all have a stick to grind like Eugene Carroll or are all the 3 and 4 star wanks that got their batons from Obama and Clinton and the sort of men that saw no problems at all with our evacuation of Afghanistan that was conducted no better than Elphinstone's own fiasco of 1842.

Only one European survived the retreat from Kabul to arrive at Jalalabad: a Dr William Brydon, who made it to safety on a lame pony.

 


2 comments:

boron said...

a long time ago, back in the late '60s, in point of fact, a relative of mine corrected me: "A journalist's (known, at one point in time as a 'reporter') job is to make the news; to make certain that the stupid (he was in his cups at the time) public only see things the way the advertisers, the people paying his salary, want them to

HMS Defiant said...

Yep. Same thing with all the Professions now. Not the Truth, never the Truth, just what you’re allowed to say.