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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I'm going to guess there's no serious expectation that anyone reading the Hustler story about Falwell having sex with his mom believed this actually reflected reality, that it was a journalistic effort to uncover Falwell's legacy of incest that actually happened. I'm also going to guess that there is a serious expectation that people who listened to Jones claiming that Sandy Hook parents were crisis actors would seriously believe that this indeed reflected reality, that the supposed parents were really a part of some grand conspiracy.

Yes, and note that the Hustler fake ad included the statement: "ad parody — not to be taken seriously."

No should listen to Alex Jones and seriously believe his statements are news, any more than Homer is representing a true history of Odeseus' voyage home or the Aneid is the history of how Rome was founded. It's entertainment for people who want their stories to be larger than life.

Then he doesn't get to have it both ways - just like Jon Stewart and 'Clown Nose On, Clown Nose Off'. You can't claim to be telling the truth about what is really going on, the truth that the powerful don't want you to know, then claim "oh no, I'm only a comedian and this is an entertainment show, not a news show, nobody is meant to believe the stories" when it suits you.

'The Lizard People run the world from their secret Moon base that was built by the Nazis' is an entertainment story. 'This shooting never happened, there were no dead children and the people claiming to be their parents are all actors' is not.

What if the entertaining aspect is exaggerating and dramatizing the news until it becomes absurd? I think there should be room for that in the 1st.

Pollution is wrecking frog DNA enough to alter secondary sex characteristics as serious news, expressed as the absurd, the powers that be are so evil they turn frogs gay simply for their twisted delight is an absurd exaggeration, to use a less controversial examples.

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