The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

Your claims classify as "conspiracy theory" to me. I do not have the habit to google for specifics every time I encounter one of those. I'd be busy all day.

Yes much of the media may have ties to Macron over a few corners. So what? Proves nothing. It doesn't look good, but it is no proof of anything.
Show me communication between Macron on the media with Macron giving commands on what to report and I'll be all ear and start being more interested.

oh you'll "start"
proof of the most absolute sort and that's a "maybe I'll reconsider my views ....maybe" not "yup ... yuppers seems I was wrong"
.... well thanks at least this way I know I'd be wasting my time.

I'm bewildered at your hypocrisies : you see no correlation whatsoever In your bewilderment (that I share ....lets not run away with our imagination here) at flat earth theorists, creationists, anti-socialists, Trump supporters and so on and your current stance on the other side of the fence of : "I'm right until suffocated with adverse evidence and maybe ad infinitum because, fuk it, proof is fake news".

You don't get to call what I say a conspiracy theory from such precarious grounds.

"I don't google stuff" are you KIDDING me? 90% of this thread wouldn't be here if any of the people in it lived by that.

Of COURSE you google it! That's how you SIDE on whether it's conspiracy or not in the FIRST PLACE.

What the fuk even?

A conspiracy theory doesn't mean a ridiculous theory; it means any theory assuming a large group of people are conspiring. You're theorizing that all the French media is conspiring to paint Macron in a positive light.

you added an extra "conspiring" there.

why would they be "conspiring to paint Macron in a positive light" I didn't say that. I said their paycheck depends on painting macron in a positive light: they're in a "you rub my back I rub yours" quid pro quo situation. And that you can see that in effect day by day is not something I really care about to make this statement. it's kinda convenient because it's in alignment with what I'm saying but I'm touting it as a symptom I'm not touting it as the cause.

does it stop being considered "a large group of people are conspiring" if they're doing it in broad daylight?

I think so but I don't care either way. I if you wanna say they're conspiring fine by me so long as you don't say about ME that I'm bloating out a conspiracy theory.

I'm not. this is pretty documented stuff facts all you want out the wazoo.

I've gone over it already : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/the-politics-thread-play-nicely.70907/page-150#post-1140512

My bewilderment at flat trump supporters going "obama is the devil" is similar to my bewilderment at your claim the whole french press is somehow conspiring to make Macron look good. Both are absurd ideas from my viewpoint.

The person making the questionable claim is responsible for providing good proof for it.

Let me try to break this down into a few key points. You have this:

- macron has apparently made some decisions that made him rich and that may or may not have been the nicest moves, playing people out against each other, etc pp.

- 10 or so rich people make up the group of people who own the big french media. Macron may be friends with them. Or at least some of them?

- the media has been mostly positive about Macron

- You think they cheated your personal favorite in popularity polls, based on you believe that your guy is just better and should be rated higher and the fact that popularity polls were not consistent between different tv channels. Have you verified those polls were repsentative? Looking at the pictures of polls in that link in your post they state things like "2k votes given", looking like a random online poll. Yeah... if I were to point at a poll "is Trump a great man" conducted on the breitbard news page with 2k votes as a base of a claim "Trump is a great man", would you believe that? Representative polls or bust!

- a demand to me to google macron and bfm. That yields me a lot of french links to the bfm page. I guess google works. Dunno what it all means however. Do they all talk about him as the great guy?

- ... is that all? Did I miss something?

And from these points you conclude:

- The french media is doing everything they can to get Macron into power (in fact they managed to do it), so he can somehow save them from financial distress


??? I just don't see how your evidence even remotely supports that conclusion.

yeah actually

off the top of my head since i'm in a rush to get to class : he's not just friends with all of them. most if not all are in financial crud and need certain laws passed that would reverse their situation. some literally joined his campaign. some are in an I.O.U. situation with macron sometimes it's vice versa. I feel this doesn't do any of that justice :

moving on

good another thing you completely misunderstood which made you make my point for me.

For my Mélenchon love I really have no hard stats (and never did nor did I present any poll concerning him in this thread) apart from that in the actual election vote numbers he came out ahead (29%) in my hometown and every other big city (other percents) minus paris (if not broken up) in france including Gennevilliers (47%) (paris is a different beast outsiders won't know this but paris is ginourmous and so much so that it is split into 20 "arrodissements" or presincts. best way to visualise it : districs from Hunger Games. and worse yet more than dissagreeing with the center most "rich" presinct they all dissagree among themselves so paris as a whole comes out with votes stats you can't really draw conclusions from. the individual presinct vote results which you TOTALLY CAN consult BTW are infinitely more interesting and representative of their respective situations, however) Gennevilliers bieng on the periferal of all that and it's still basically Paris (at least that's probably the way the rest of the world sees it as they can't be bothered).

that aside (cuz let me remind you that wasn't the topic just filler backround on my view which evidently was missing) the above biased and tricked referenced polls were all in favor of Macron.

yes they were using cheat methods. yes 2K is a bullshit number of people to poll and draw a conclusion. yes the media were being complete tools there in order to pump out favorable after favorable Macron poll nearly one a week for months during the election.

yes thanks you.

you're making my point.

I don't get how I am making your point. Bad polls are bad, so Macron is cheating?!

Ummmm no?

The polls correctly called the election and thus they're cheats? What?

Hey I'm not the one who said it. ask colin....

I said what?

@cola_colin My point then and there was bad poll are bad (also they happen to be of the biased sort of bad)

any link between that statement then and these statements now has yet to be established even by you.

I'm just laying things bare here cuz you guys are high as shitt.

We seem to agree that these non-representative random polls are pointless and don't work.
We probably also in general may agree that large parts of the press are rather trashy.

It just seems you see intend behind all of it.
I just see it as media outlets being stupid/not giving much care.

No need to start getting personal. I want to make clear I respect your opinion, even if I may seem otherwise in some posts. I just can't myself to agree with your conclusions based on the facts provided.
I agree that if your conclusion is correct then it's a bad thing that is happening. But the facts don't line up that well, your line of reasoning makes pretty big leaps and just does not fit at all with the german/english part of the world I live in.

My perspective is probably just too different from how far away I am. In a way I am even further away from France than from the US, because I speak englisch but not french.

Well UK has managed to make things worse lol. Snap general election cause conservatives were convinced they'd gain at least 20 extra seats to control parliament better.... result? Hung parliament (i.e. no majority for any party). Now it looks like conservatives are forming a government by allying with the DUP from Northern Ireland....

It's a total mess lol.

I think indeed there lies the truth of this matter and yet I feel nothing concrete is being brought to me when you say "leaps" "facts don't line up". you seem to have a well formed idea or at least lead me on to think so then in that case go directly into it. give me an example. you have my text to quote. you have google. where are the discrepancies?

most definitely

and most definitely.

Ok lets do a though exercise here.

this is similar to the whole "people at the time couldn't know they where being actively racist" philosophy I brought up earlier in the thread and the "we're statistically likely OURSELVES almost by necessity to be an 'ist' that doesn't exist as a common notion and concept yet but is present in our society unbeknownst to us from the point of view of people in the future" in terms of abstract-level thinking.
A concept that you seemed to grasp and even agree with.

If you understand that abstract concept then understanding the relatively tamer abstract concept that in a country other than yours media might behave differently in respects to politics for example than in your own is pretty easy.

I can totally see it in the opposite direction actually : "German media : it's just a job and our survivability isn't at direct stake with the people in power" that's incidentally very german of a mentality.

Germany has job security. some sub 3.9% joblessness. And germans as one people unite in the belief of a separate press and politics.

Incidentally we used to have laws to forbid it in france but over time we've moved towards politicizing our media (a choice I wholeheartedly condemn and in fact no one publicly praises but everyone guilty-pleasure-buys into) and we've now gone from having clear right/left siding news channels (bad enough on it's own), into the literal materialization of the argument of why we shouldn't do this in the first place : one side winning out in the battle and ending up with a crushing majority of the spectrum of news being politically tainted to that side and not sitting by idly with such a potent propaganda tool at hand.

Agreed

Agreed.

... however.
Yes your media might be mostly pro Macron. I've not made an assessment of that exact situation and figuring it out is hard due to the language barrier, but I trust you to provide the facts in a reasonable manner.

But you then seem to jump (this is the leap I don't like) to a interpretation where the whole media is somehow actively conspiring into this. Like they're actively working together, like there is a plan some masterminds are following, like they are actively trying to lie people into voting for Macron.

That's a hard jump for me to make. Remember I understand no word french at all. I have zero insight into the typical french media outlet. It might be easier to make this jump when bombarded by the french press on a daily basis.

But even then this seems like a very big jump. "They're all conspiring and working together" is always a very questionable claim that is seldom true. In politics few groups manage to work together that well at all Most people are far too incompetent to be of any use as the masterminds in any sort of conspiracy.

It seems much more likely an explanation that Macrons politics just resonates well with certain groups of people that for one harmless reason or another overlaps a lot with your typical french journalist.

You have no facts that would totally dismantle this much simpler hypothesis.
I like simple explanations that do not involve conspiracies that span the media of an entire democratic nation.

That's all on top of Macron seeming just not as bad as you make him out to be. And my view is based on the German press, maybe a little on English sources as well. They have their own sources as well. Your french media conspiracy can't possible reach that far.

And yes he isn't perfect in any way. You've shown good examples of him being not-so-great.
But in times of Trump the bar has dropped pretty low and seeing a politician who has policies I agree with in substantial parts win an election is ... nice?
Which does not help in making me believe he is somehow the center of a conspiracy to turn France into a capitalist dystopia.

That sure is something I'd expect a "civilized democratic state" to have. I consider France as such a state.

I sure do have a certain amount of Schadenfreude about this end of may thing...

On the other hand, as painful as it is: the UK not being politically stable while trying to negotiate how they'll leave the EU probably won't help neither the UK nor the EU.

okay see this is something i can actually work with a bit more and respond to.

no that's not what I was implying or saying. I'm saying they have a binding situation to either macron or macron's bosses / appointers the french word I wanna use is commanditaire http://www.wordreference.com/fren/commanditaire I'm thinking of Attali and the gang. they're the ones who put Macron in power and they've got his balls. and they and him have got many if not all of the ten millionaire's (who collectively own 99% of french media) balls.

understood. I get that's it's hard to conceive from the outside looking in that's why I made every effort to stress that this was an unusual situation.

Yes and no. It's undeniable Macron resonates with people.

But what is also undeniable is how bad the WAY he resonates with people is directly overlayable with the way the americans that resonate with trump resonate with trump.

You hear them talk about their idol it's clear they don't know the first thing about said idol.

"straight talker" translates in french to "young", "tells it like it is" translates in french to "dynamic". "Yes, but what bit of his policy do you agree with ?" -- "policy?"

So yeah talking about "Macron's politics" as if that's a thing that people that voted for him actually know about is mildly insulting to actuality.

In effect the young airheads voting for him because "he's young like us" are screwing themselves over. they're furthering their retirement and if the trend keeps up during their own lifetime Macron isn't even the end of it. and they'll be getting less workplace justice more monkey court because these will be held by the companies themselves. ergo nothing to negotiate with them with ergo more hours for less pay. And they aren't informed about this enough yet because they aren't yet of age to have experienced the work environment.

As for the older's on their way out plus those already in retirement they vote for him as well informed and intent-motivated co-partners.
They, in full conscience are screwing the young generation over in their benefit because those tax euros and pensions and churning economy are good for the retired life.

that falls back into the first statement I made here which I think plays a bigger part after all money at the end of the month is more important than beliefs here in france but doubtless that plays a part as well.

not dismantle but dislodge from the throne of irrevocable truth.

It is after all the same argument mechanism that reprobates not addressing such glaring social economical and pressure ties to the whole of media as if it where something that had no impact whatsoever.

I agree with the latter part of that statement but the first is just common ground with trump supporters.



After all if conspiracy theories exist at all it's because the truth was much more complex to understand than a simple ploy theory.

try and even tell yourself this isn't an absolute conspiracy theory explanation

no conspiracy theory has ever found me saying "dang this is hard thinking they lost me there'
all conspiracy theories are deceptively dumb.

"We're, our earth, hurling through space at many million miles and hour on an ellipsis as is the moon which is in what we call an orbit around our planet and we achieved orbit with a vessel then altered it's ellipsis so that it'd be in orbit around the moon than proceeded to land on this sphere this all took incredible amounts of mathematical calculations and millimetric precision that...."

--"the moon's a dot in the sky. it's virtually not possible to reach it it was all filmed on a sound stage"


should I go on?

as I've said we've fallen out from this over a very very long period of time and it's a blasted shame.

You know, it's funny you mention Trump after the whole Macron media thing.

Do you know who had the advantage of superior campaign funds? Trump? Wrong, Hillary. By a significant magnitude.

Do you know who had the advantage of superior media portrayal? Trump? Wrong, Hillary. Polls painted her to win by a landslide. These polls SURELY had to have taken in consideration the electoral college.

Unbiased advisors with decades-long streaks in election prediction, predicted Trump though. Guess their streak continues.

Honestly, you brought up your greatest proof, that media do not have unbound influence over the election. Those people showing up to vote, decide the election. Go figure. "Bad polls are bad" indeed, but it's fine when Trump and his supporters point out how obviously ******* biased they are from their population selection to the obvious lean of the institution in charge of bad poll. I'm with you, those pre-election polls were shoddy at best, they might even have a lean, be rid of them if they're so bad, but don't go supporting them when they help your cause.

It's almost like supporting "beneficial gerrymandering" but rallying against "detrimental gerrymandering". They're both "bad", neither one is good just because a democrat does it instead, Californian Gerrymandering is bad gerrymandering too.

Also pointing out proving Trump, you mention you have a wall at home. Do you? Does it keep people out? Obviously you can't ******* wall a nation, especially with borders as huge as the southern US border. If your home didn't have a wall or roof or door or lock though, if walls and locks on doors were made illegal, you'd be up in protest I'm sure. Just proves the rule, that Trump can disprove your arguments as stupidly as he can prove him, and as stupidly as he can prove and disprove his own dumb arguments.

To add to this: Jeb Bush spent by far the most on the preliminaries, and lost hard. Trump spent the least there too.

Though it seems to me that recent political upheavals are based heavily in political apathy. Democrats didn't want to vote Hillary, yet many Republicans felt they had nothing to lose voting for Trump. Many didn't seem to care, to expect the "right thing" would happen anyway. The status quo taken for granted. Many British felt they had nothing to lose with Brexit, yet now the country shows it's split more than ever. The status quo was taken for granted. In continental Europe, the message was understood though: Even if there's nothing to win, there's much to lose.

Look at America now, it seems that people have become more aware of just how much power the president has, of just what their government is doing right now. The same seems true for Britain, people seem more aware of just what's at stake.