The ancient history of fake news

[Gray]

40 minutes ago, longview said:

So you deny they occupy the halls of academia?

They haunt those hallowed halls, dragging chains and moaning. I've been to the Halls of Academia™, I've seen it with my own eyes.

[longview]

14 minutes ago, Gray said:

They haunt those hallowed halls, dragging chains and moaning. I've been to the Halls of Academia™, I've seen it with my own eyes.

Moaning, not ranting?   Does not quite fit the narrative.   (Second thought:  they could be moaning about the election of Trump?)

[thesometimesaint]

3 hours ago, stemelbow said:

nearly everyone wants to know that which is true.  I wouldn't say everyone does.  The problem is, of coruse, the Church is so tiny in relation to the world, so ti amounts to claiming special knowledge. 

Size has no relationship to truth. If only one person claimed that the earth is round does that make it false?

Edited July 31, 2017 by thesometimesaint

[thesometimesaint]

We are part of the universe. I assure you we aren't inanimate. We are the part of the universe that tries to understand itself.

Edited July 31, 2017 by thesometimesaint

[stemelbow]

4 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Size has no relationship to truth. If only one person claimed that the earth is round does that make it false?

I agree.  Not sure what this has to do with what I said.  But I do agree with this point. 

[Gray]

15 minutes ago, longview said:

Moaning, not ranting?   Does not quite fit the narrative.   (Second thought:  they could be moaning about the election of Trump?)

Out of curiosity, how many college professors do you know?

[thesometimesaint]

29 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I agree.  Not sure what this has to do with what I said.  But I do agree with this point. 

"The problem is, of coruse, the Church is so tiny in relation to the world, so ti amounts to claiming special knowledge".

Size has nothing to do with truth. School teachers usually don't claim special knowledge. They usually want their students to learn what they teach them.  I don't claim special knowledge, and I am pretty certain the Church doesn't either.

[longview]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

Out of curiosity, how many college professors do you know?

I am acquainted with a few on this board (though not personally).  I am a college graduate with a Bachelor in Math, Minor in Computer Science.  And a few in my social circle over the years.

Do you know this professor?  Do you know what he is famous for?

Diablo Valley College professor Eric Clanton has been unmasked by a group of online free speech advocates. Utilizing the concept of crowdsourcing, /pol/, a message board hosted on 4Chan, was able to figure out who exactly assaulted a pro-1st Amendment demonstrator . . . Enter professor and violent, domestic terrorist Eric Clanton.

[Hestia]

No politics.

[Gray]

1 hour ago, longview said:

I am acquainted with a few on this board (though not personally).  I am a college graduate with a Bachelor in Math, Minor in Computer Science.  And a few in my social circle over the years.

Do you know this professor?  Do you know what he is famous for?

Diablo Valley College professor Eric Clanton has been unmasked by a group of online free speech advocates. Utilizing the concept of crowdsourcing, /pol/, a message board hosted on 4Chan, was able to figure out who exactly assaulted a pro-1st Amendment demonstrator . . . Enter professor and violent, domestic terrorist Eric Clanton.

I know quite a few. I'm even married to one. None of the ones I know are like that. Assuming the person in your picture is a professor and the information (from a dubious source) even has basis in reality. Which is a big assumption.

Of course there are quite a few people from your wing who have committed terrorist acts this year.  I'm not foolish enough to think that makes you a terrorist, or the millions of Americans like you.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Gray

[thesometimesaint]

I attended that bastion of liberal indoctrination called BYU. I'm directly related to two college professors, and one college President.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 7/31/2017 at 8:41 AM, stemelbow said:

I think historians who know are just like Church members who know the Church is true.  I mean, they want it to be true so bad.  They want the special knowledge so bad, they just say know when they really mean believe, or their best estimated conclusion based on what they have researched.

So, professional historians are just like any ordinary, uneducated man in the street:  They engage in special pleading in advancing their personal belief systems, what that might be, and their documentation is just fake academic cover for those apriori beliefs -- across the broad spectrum of opinion.  They are dedicated to self-justification and only pretend to do actual peer review.  Indeed, this includes the entirety of modern intellectual achievement:  It is hollow & fraudulent.  Is that what you are tying to say, stemelbow?

Sounds more like a cynical mood than an analysis of scholarship.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 7/31/2017 at 6:22 AM, Atheist Mormon said:

Common sense. (writing this I'm not implying of believers having none).

Would you recommend that standard to everyone for evaluation of all aspects of society and history?  Is that adequate as a methodology, and should we put our trust in such a by-gosh-and-by-golly approach to serious questions?  For example, should we just use unaided "common sense" in the evaluation of modern concerns with justice, industry, environment, health, etc., and ignore science and systematic logic?  Are you suggesting the Luddite approach now popular in some quarters?

[longview]

17 hours ago, Gray said:

Assuming the person in your picture is a professor and the information (from a dubious source) even has basis in reality.

Are you aware that a pro-first-amendment demonstrator was viciously hit on the head with a bike lock chain?  That there are multiple videos of this assault?  There may be more videos of different assaults by the same perpetrator.  Eric Clanton is a professor at Diablo Valley College (he has a master's degree from San Francisco State University).  He is under investigation by Berkeley Police Department and various college boards.  The victim (Ben Stiles) may press charges.

More quotes:  "Clanton did not respond to a Fix query. He removed his Twitter account sometime between April 6 and 20, according to an index of screenshots from Archive.is.

"His faculty page at Diablo Valley has also changed since The Fix contacted the college for comment late Thursday.

"An archived version of the page from Thursday, a day after Clanton was identified, includes what appears to be his on-campus extension and location of his office. By Friday, only his email address remained listed on Clanton’s page, which said for the first time he is “not currently teaching.”

"It was taken down completely sometime Monday, judging by its last archived screenshot."

[Atheist Mormon]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Would you recommend that standard to everyone for evaluation of all aspects of society and history?  Is that adequate as a methodology, and should we put our trust in such a by-gosh-and-by-golly approach to serious questions?  For example, should we just use unaided "common sense" in the evaluation of modern concerns with justice, industry, environment, health, etc., and ignore science and systematic logic?  Are you suggesting the Luddite approach now popular in some quarters?

Never heard of "luddite approach" until now (amusing). I definitely recommend a standard for everyone which works and Science uses it on daily basis; (which testing and testing....) As for history this is impossible but the claims of power and miracles are not substantiated or duplicated....You don't have to wait two thousand years for that.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Never heard of "luddite approach" until now (amusing). I definitely recommend a standard for everyone which works and Science uses it on daily basis; (which testing and testing....) As for history this is impossible but the claims of power and miracles are not substantiated or duplicated....You don't have to wait two thousand years for that.

I wasn't thinking so much of miracles (supernatural), but of purely natural phenomena.  You seemed to be suggesting that science and logic are not applicable to matters of history.  Is that so, or did you mispeak?  For example, archeologists are concerned with the scientific evaluation of the past, something which you consider "impossible,' indicating that you don't know anything about archeology or history.  Or have I misinterpreted you?  Systematic methodology is as meaningful to history as a homicide investigation is to modern criminal justice.  Common sense is likely to mislead us in either endeavor, which is why we must apply advanced science and logic to such problems.  Luddites just don't believe in such things.  Indeed, a Luddite belief is as absurd and wrong-headed as any irrational belief in a flat Earth or in the latest fad or ideology.  Personal subjective belief can be very misleading, even in your estimation.  No?  So why would you assert their superiority over science?

[Gray]

47 minutes ago, longview said:

Are you aware that a pro-first-amendment demonstrator was viciously hit on the head with a bike lock chain?  That there are multiple videos of this assault?  There may be more videos of different assaults by the same perpetrator.  Eric Clanton is a professor at Diablo Valley College (he has a master's degree from San Francisco State University).  He is under investigation by Berkeley Police Department and various college boards.  The victim (Ben Stiles) may press charges.

More quotes:  "Clanton did not respond to a Fix query. He removed his Twitter account sometime between April 6 and 20, according to an index of screenshots from Archive.is.

"His faculty page at Diablo Valley has also changed since The Fix contacted the college for comment late Thursday.

"An archived version of the page from Thursday, a day after Clanton was identified, includes what appears to be his on-campus extension and location of his office. By Friday, only his email address remained listed on Clanton’s page, which said for the first time he is “not currently teaching.”

"It was taken down completely sometime Monday, judging by its last archived screenshot."

If this actually happened, it has no reflection on college professors as a whole, who are not generally known for hooliganism.

However, you seem to be relying on the most dubious of sources, so I'm not sure why you're bothering with this example in the first place.

[longview]

17 minutes ago, Gray said:

If this actually happened, it has no reflection on college professors as a whole, who are not generally known for hooliganism.

Ward Churchill - 

• Former Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder
• Regards the victims of 9/11 as “little Eichmanns”
• Considers America to be a genocidal nation
• Falsely claimed to be an American Indian, in order to qualify for an affirmative action teaching position in Ethnic Studies
• Plagiarist

William Ayers -

• Leader of the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist group of the 1960s and '70s
• “Kill all the rich people. ... Bring the revolution home. Kill your parents.”
• Participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972
• Worked as a professor of education at the University of Illinois from 1987-2010

Angela Davis -

• Communist professor at the University of California’s Santa Cruz campus
• Recipient of the Lenin “Peace Prize” from the police state of East Germany in 1979
• Provided an arsenal of weapons to Black Panthers who used them to kill a Marin County judge in a failed attempt to free Davis' imprisoned lover, Black Panther murderer George Jackson
• Icon of the campus Left and frequent guest speaker at anti-war rallies
• Leader of a movement to free all criminals who are minorities claiming that they are political prisoners of the racist United States
• Angela Yvonne Davis is a tenured professor in the “History of Consciousness” program at the University of California - Santa Cruz.

Todd Gitlin -

Professor at the Columbia School of Journalism Anti-war activist, author of book on the Sixties Former president of Students for a Democratic Society

Howard Zinn -

• Longtime professor of political science at Boston University
• Marxist
• Member of the Communist Party
• Depicted America as a veritable terrorist state
• Despised Israel, accusing it of practicing "ethnic cleansing" against the Palestinians
• Author of A People’s History of the United States, one of the most influential books on college campuses today

Mark Rudd is a political organizer, mathematics instructor, anti-war activist and counterculture icon most well known for his involvement with the Weather Underground.  Rudd became a member of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1963. By 1968, he had emerged as a leader for Columbia's SDS chapter. During the 1968 Columbia University Protests, he served as spokesperson for dissident students protesting a variety of issues, most notably the Vietnam War. As the war escalated, Mark Rudd worked with other youth movement leaders to take SDS in a more militant direction. When the general membership of SDS refused to go in a more violent and pro-Communist direction, Rudd together with some other prominent SDS members formed a radical, violence-oriented organization, referring to themselves collectively as "Weatherman" after the lyrics from a famous Bob Dylan song.Rudd went "underground" in 1970, hiding from law enforcement following the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion that killed three of his Weather Underground peers. He surrendered to authorities in 1977, serving a short jail sentence. After serving as a mathematics instructor at Central New Mexico Community College, he is now retired in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has since expressed some regret for advocating and using violence.

Jeff Jones -

• Was a member of Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s
• Co-founder of the Weather Underground Organization
• Environmentalist who identifies "climate change and global warming" as his chief environmental concern
• Owns consulting firm that helps grassroots leftist organizations promote their agendas and fundraise successfully
• Director of New York State's chapter of the Apollo Alliance

All radical professors with tremendous animosity to constitutional principles of Liberty.  This is just a starting point.  There are many more, just as extreme, just as prominent.  Plus thousands more, just as radical but not as prominent deluging our education systems.

[Gray]

4 hours ago, longview said:

Ward Churchill - 

• Former Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder
• Regards the victims of 9/11 as “little Eichmanns”
• Considers America to be a genocidal nation
• Falsely claimed to be an American Indian, in order to qualify for an affirmative action teaching position in Ethnic Studies
• Plagiarist

William Ayers -

• Leader of the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist group of the 1960s and '70s
• “Kill all the rich people. ... Bring the revolution home. Kill your parents.”
• Participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972
• Worked as a professor of education at the University of Illinois from 1987-2010

Angela Davis -

• Communist professor at the University of California’s Santa Cruz campus
• Recipient of the Lenin “Peace Prize” from the police state of East Germany in 1979
• Provided an arsenal of weapons to Black Panthers who used them to kill a Marin County judge in a failed attempt to free Davis' imprisoned lover, Black Panther murderer George Jackson
• Icon of the campus Left and frequent guest speaker at anti-war rallies
• Leader of a movement to free all criminals who are minorities claiming that they are political prisoners of the racist United States
• Angela Yvonne Davis is a tenured professor in the “History of Consciousness” program at the University of California - Santa Cruz.

Todd Gitlin -

Professor at the Columbia School of Journalism Anti-war activist, author of book on the Sixties Former president of Students for a Democratic Society

Howard Zinn -

• Longtime professor of political science at Boston University
• Marxist
• Member of the Communist Party
• Depicted America as a veritable terrorist state
• Despised Israel, accusing it of practicing "ethnic cleansing" against the Palestinians
• Author of A People’s History of the United States, one of the most influential books on college campuses today

Mark Rudd is a political organizer, mathematics instructor, anti-war activist and counterculture icon most well known for his involvement with the Weather Underground.  Rudd became a member of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1963. By 1968, he had emerged as a leader for Columbia's SDS chapter. During the 1968 Columbia University Protests, he served as spokesperson for dissident students protesting a variety of issues, most notably the Vietnam War. As the war escalated, Mark Rudd worked with other youth movement leaders to take SDS in a more militant direction. When the general membership of SDS refused to go in a more violent and pro-Communist direction, Rudd together with some other prominent SDS members formed a radical, violence-oriented organization, referring to themselves collectively as "Weatherman" after the lyrics from a famous Bob Dylan song.Rudd went "underground" in 1970, hiding from law enforcement following the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion that killed three of his Weather Underground peers. He surrendered to authorities in 1977, serving a short jail sentence. After serving as a mathematics instructor at Central New Mexico Community College, he is now retired in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has since expressed some regret for advocating and using violence.

Jeff Jones -

• Was a member of Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s
• Co-founder of the Weather Underground Organization
• Environmentalist who identifies "climate change and global warming" as his chief environmental concern
• Owns consulting firm that helps grassroots leftist organizations promote their agendas and fundraise successfully
• Director of New York State's chapter of the Apollo Alliance

All radical professors with tremendous animosity to constitutional principles of Liberty.  This is just a starting point.  There are many more, just as extreme, just as prominent.  Plus thousands more, just as radical but not as prominent deluging our education systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#United_States

 

Post-2001

As of June 2015, right-wing attacks since the September 11 attacks (9/11) had claimed more lives (48) than attacks committed by jihadists (26).[38] Thereafter, jihadist terrorist attacks (the 2015 San Bernardino attack and the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting) raised the Islamic extremist death toll above that caused by right-wing extremists. As of July 2016, the New America Foundation placed the number killed in terrorist attacks in the U.S. (since 9/11) as follows: 94 killed in jihadist terrorist attacks, 50 killed in far-right attacks, and 5 killed in far-left attacks.[39]

New America's tally shows 21 instances of right-wing terrorist attacks causing 53 fatalities since September 11, 2001. These were:[39]

• The 2017 Portland train attack (2 killed),
• The 2017 stabbing of Timothy Caughman in New York City (1 killed),
• The 2015 Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting (3 killed),
• The 2015 Charleston church shooting (9 killed),
• The 2014 ambush attack on Las Vegas police officers (5 killed),
• The 2014 Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting in Kansas (3 killed),
• The 2014 Pennsylvania State Police barracks attack in Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania (1 killed),
• A 2012 tri-state killing spree by white supremacists, David Pedersen and Holly Grigsby (4 killed),
• A 2012 ambush of St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana police (2 killed),
• The 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting (6 killed),
• The 2011 FEAR group attacks (3 killed),
• A murder in 2010 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania (1 killed),
• A 2010 suicide attack by airplane in Austin, Texas (1 killed),
• The 2009 shooting of Pittsburgh police officers (3 killed),
• The 2009 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting (1 killed),
• The 2009 assassination of George Tiller (1 killed),
• The 2009 murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores in Pima County, Arizona (2 killed),
• The 2009 murders in Brockton, Massachusetts (2 killed),
• The 2008 Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting (2 killed),
• And the 2004 bank robbery in Tulsa, Oklahoma (1 killed).

Other recent events include:

• The 2017 Transylvania University stabbing[40] (0 killed),
• The 2016 Comet Ping Pong shooting (0 killed).

According to the Government Accountability Office of the United States, 73% of violent extremist incidents that resulted in deaths since September 12, 2001 were caused by right wing extremists groups.[41][42]

 

I guess that means I win. What's my prize? Kind of a Pyrrhic victory though,

Edited August 2, 2017 by Gray

[longview]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

- - - the New America Foundation placed the number killed in terrorist attacks in the U.S. - - -

New American Foundation

Public-policy think tank focused on building a New Deal for the 21st century Claims to transcend the Right vs. Left paradigm Aspires to become a “content provider” to media in order to influence public policy Is supported by numerous far-left funders including the Open Society Institute, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York Views Israel as an occupier of Palestine Founded in 1999, the New America Foundation (NAF) is a public-policy think tank headquartered in Washington, DC, with a sister office in Sacramento, California. NAF's mission is to “invest” in individuals and programs that have the capacity to influence public policy outside of “party politics.” To this end, NAF is concerned with seeding its ideas into the domain of public discourse, primarily through media outreach, policy papers (which may be used by officials to inform actual policy decisions), and public information events. As a corollary to this objective, NAF seeks to cultivate a new generation of policy leaders sympathetic to the NAF philosophy. Halstead, who also founded the progressive think tank Redefining Progress, explains that NAF aims to serve as a “content provider” for the media. He has written extensively for The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other publications. 3 hours ago, Gray said: The 2015 Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting (3 killed), The 2015 Charleston church shooting (9 killed), Your entire list is pretty much a litany of deeply troubled individuals (most that are tragically deranged).  Much like that deluded James Hodgkinson who tried to massacre a Republican baseball practice back in June.  He was also way off into the weeds but he had strong feelings for left wing causes.  The others had very vague convictions (they were labelled "right wing" only because of the partisan press wanting to push some kind of narrative). But you and I would agree that we should NOT lump radical college professors into this deeply disturbed group.  I would not put Eric Clanton in that group (however reprehensible the bike lock chain assault was). I am a Denver resident.  I remember seeing the broadcast and print coverage of the event in Colorado Springs.  My strong impression then was Robert Dear chose the Planned Parenthood Clinic as a contrived target because he was "trailer park trash" living out in the country and wanting to obtain "free room and board" in prison.  Governor Hickenlooper (D) had already refused to let the Chuck E Cheese multiple murderer (Nathan Dunlap) get the death penalty.  This is why Robert committed the crime and he readily surrendered to the police. I consider the Charleston shooter (Dylann Roof) to be a copycat of the Columbine Killers (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold).  His pictures show him posturing and preening.  His overriding motive was to gain notoriety.  I strongly doubt he had any real care about political or cultural issues.

Edited August 2, 2017 by longview

[Gray]

7 hours ago, longview said:

New American Foundation

Public-policy think tank focused on building a New Deal for the 21st century Claims to transcend the Right vs. Left paradigm Aspires to become a “content provider” to media in order to influence public policy Is supported by numerous far-left funders including the Open Society Institute, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York Views Israel as an occupier of Palestine Founded in 1999, the New America Foundation (NAF) is a public-policy think tank headquartered in Washington, DC, with a sister office in Sacramento, California. NAF's mission is to “invest” in individuals and programs that have the capacity to influence public policy outside of “party politics.” To this end, NAF is concerned with seeding its ideas into the domain of public discourse, primarily through media outreach, policy papers (which may be used by officials to inform actual policy decisions), and public information events. As a corollary to this objective, NAF seeks to cultivate a new generation of policy leaders sympathetic to the NAF philosophy. Halstead, who also founded the progressive think tank Redefining Progress, explains that NAF aims to serve as a “content provider” for the media. He has written extensively for The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other publications. Your entire list is pretty much a litany of deeply troubled individuals (most that are tragically deranged).  Much like that deluded James Hodgkinson who tried to massacre a Republican baseball practice back in June.  He was also way off into the weeds but he had strong feelings for left wing causes.  The others had very vague convictions (they were labelled "right wing" only because of the partisan press wanting to push some kind of narrative). But you and I would agree that we should NOT lump radical college professors into this deeply disturbed group.  I would not put Eric Clanton in that group (however reprehensible the bike lock chain assault was). I am a Denver resident.  I remember seeing the broadcast and print coverage of the event in Colorado Springs.  My strong impression then was Robert Dear chose the Planned Parenthood Clinic as a contrived target because he was "trailer park trash" living out in the country and wanting to obtain "free room and board" in prison.  Governor Hickenlooper (D) had already refused to let the Chuck E Cheese multiple murderer (Nathan Dunlap) get the death penalty.  This is why Robert committed the crime and he readily surrendered to the police. I consider the Charleston shooter (Dylann Roof) to be a copycat of the Columbine Killers (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold).  His pictures show him posturing and preening.  His overriding motive was to gain notoriety.  I strongly doubt he had any real care about political or cultural issues.

I guess you missed this part:

Quote

According to the Government Accountability Office of the United States, 73% of violent extremist incidents that resulted in deaths since September 12, 2001 were caused by right wing extremists groups.

 

In any case, now that it's clear that right wing groups are responsible for most terrorist acts in this country, you seem to be able to distinguish those violent individuals from conservatives as a whole. Is it possible to do the same with college professors, who I dare say have quite a comparatively low rate of violent extremism?

The lesson I'm trying to impart is that it's foolish to judge an entire group based on a few bad apples - that's a lesson that conservatives, it seems, are always slow to learn.

PS. I'm amused at your notions of what "far left" means, or the notions of whatever source you're using. Does far left mean anything to the left of Attila the Hun?

 

Edited August 2, 2017 by Gray