The latest CrossTalk is a doozy for misinterpretation of plain English. Sam Husseini, a guest, took issue with Peter Lavelle and another guest for describing the US's behaviour in Syria as irrational. He said it was if you took the US at their word regarding their stated agenda but said if you took in their unstated agenda, then it could be seen as rational. (N.B. 'rational' does not mean 'reasonable' behaviour of a reasonable person)
Lavelle lit up thinking Husseini was supporting the US's thinking and behaviour which he clearly wasn't. Sam Husseini tried to clarify his point several times but Lavelle kept missing the point, talking over the top of him and crossing to another guest - extraordinarily rude behaviour on his part.
What is clear is that Peter Lavelle, and perhaps his other guests, have never considered how the US's destructive behaviour makes sense from the US's point of view. Everything is done for a reason, after all. I find this non-thinking quite amazing but the evidence is right there and can't be denied.
Reading the comments at RT and at RT's YouTube channel, it is clear that the bulk of the viewers that bothered to comment were way in front of Lavelle and Co. Even so, none of the commenters that I read hit on the essential missing word - psychopaths.
The CrossTalk crew need to learn about psychopathy. It answers so much that they are currently throwing up their hands in the air over. "It doesn't make sense", they say. Well, learn about it and keep learning till it does make sense. In their shoes, I'd be too embarrassed to say I didn't understand when it's my job to understand and I'm paid the big bucks accordingly!
And Sam Husseini was talking about "Divide and Rule" which also seemed to fall on uncomprehending ears. Here's an excellent primer from Joachim Hagopian Divide & Conquer: The Globalist Pathway to New World Order Tyranny
While they are at it, the crew should learn about banking, too. Peter Lavelle stated that Libya, Iraq and Syria posed no threat to the U.S. That is not how the U.S. Federal Reserve saw it. All these countries (and Iran) were selling their oil in non-US currencies. If the CrossTalk host and producers understood the nature of the threat that the Fed perceived, they could put together much better shows with better guests and ask better questions. Lads, you've got some work to do!
Back to the show and the subject of psychopathy, granted Sam Husseini could have made himself a little clearer given the absolute dearth of knowledge displayed by the other participants but, really, at this level he shouldn't have to. But that aside, he could have said, "The US's destructive behaviour is quite rational given that they are psychopaths".
If it were me, I'd have continued on and said that psychopaths are at heart the world's quintessential thieves with no conscience, no sense of guilt or shame and therefore no inhibitions. They have an overblown sense of entitlement (you can hear it every time they open their mouths) and they steal everything they can from others. If they can't take possession of the loot, then they destroy it. Their "reasoning" is that if they can't have it, then neither can the rightful owners.
This is the 'raison d'etre' of the CIA's acknowledged strategy of demanding possession and if they strike resistance, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria, then they move to Plan B and destroy all they can. And they keep the destruction going for as long as they can, 1, because they like destruction, and 2, as a warning to others to comply.
When one faction gains a dominant position in the fighting, the Americans fund and arm their opponents to keep the war boiling along. Hence the rise of ISIS in Iraq once the Shia government was getting in control, at last, and now the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan - perpetual war. Let's not forget Ukraine.
Peter Lavelle's CrossTalk Show is part of the "Reality Based Community". From Wikipedia-
"The source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, The New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, "Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush," quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush (later attributed to Karl Rove[1]): The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." |
This Reality Community is always playing 'catch-up'. It's always behind. And it will remain behind and the butt of jokes from the likes of Karl Rove until it learns to ask questions such as, "What does this mean?" Or, "What do these facts tell us?" And finally, "What can we expect from them next based on this bit of inductive logic?" At that point and only at that point will the Reality Community get ahead of the game (as the Russian Military have). Think! Join the dots, for pity's sake.
It is past time for Lavelle and his producers to stop the opinionating/editorialising and start asking the relevant questions. Ditch the Neocon psychos from the show who immensely enjoy messing with Peter's and his guests' heads and dominating the show so nothing beneficial amounts from it and instead invite as one of the guests whose expertise is the psychopathic history of the major players who figure in that night's show's story. In other words, dump the liars, invite real expertise (like Sam Husseini - after apologising to him - and I suggest bringing back Dan Welch and Vladimir Suchan - and more of Nebojsa Malic and Eric Draitser) and ask the right questions, for goodness sake.
Otherwise, judging from the comments left on the show, the ratings will be headed for the "S-bend". CrossTalk is even behind the Reality Community. It has been steadily slipping and many have noticed it.
Lift your game, lads, while you can!
Comments
I don't watch teeeveee but SH
I don't watch teeeveee but SH is correct my Amerika is run by cycle-0-paths top to bottom. They will be very hard to dislodge if not impossible. I truly feel sorry for the young. Joseph Gobbels would be proud of Edward Barneys work in progress.
Thanks for your coment, Jo
I think you are right in that we will not dislodge the psychos so the answer, then, is to 'walk away' in every way we can.
Take your kids out of the schooling programming, shut off the teevee and remove it etc. Just disengage every way you can and encourage others to. They need us to be involved hence the big promos around voting. So, therefore, we weaken them by removing our participation, our energy which they feed on.
They need Michael Parenti
This is the sort of "programming" that I would normally turn off after 2 seconds, if I accidentally turned it on at all. But in this case I watched as much of it as I could stand. And aside from Sam, I wanted to slap them.
I wish Peter Lavelle would ask Michael Parenti some of the same questions. He would say:
"Their policy is ruthless, consistent, and -- from their point of view -- successful."
and
"Just because YOU don't understand what they're doing, doesn't mean THEY don't understand what they're doing."
or
"Just because YOU're confused, doesn't mean THEY're confused."
but I was actually thinking:
"Just because YOU're stupid, doesn't mean THEY're stupid."
~~~
Sorry to say, in my heart of hearts, I don't think they're interested in raising their game.
As I have said or written about al Jazeera, Digby, C&L, TPM, Raw Story, and a wide variety of other so-called "dissident" so-called "journalism", I think they're clueless by design, willfully ignorant, stupid on purpose, or however you want to call it.
And that's why we've got this "alternative" media, where, for the most part, the truth doesn't matter any more than it does in the mainstream media.
~~~
or maybe I'm just being grumpy.
Or maybe you are dead right.
Hi Winter,
I was thinking this morning that how the RT crowd respond with their next show or two will tell us where their heads are at. One tends to want to think the best so we put it down to incompetence and the 'bubble environment' that they swim in. But spending all that money and getting less than some individual bloggers can achieve has to ring alarm bells.
Yes, Michael Parenti would be excellent. He's certainly not media shy so my guess he would be available. So why have they never asked him? I just don't understand . . . hahahha.
Oh well, the show is pretty much irrelevant anyway. Actually, it is worse than that with its continual stream of "ex"-CIA agents and current 'smiling assassins' such as Michael O'Hanlon from the thoroughly exposed Brookings Institute.
Anyway, its time for me to get off the couch and out of my PJ's and head off for my daily re-education class. God bless destruction.
One more thing
I'm going to be late for my re-education class, but fuck it! I feel like rebelling.
Those are excellent answers that you provide, WP, in the spirit of Michael Parenti. Behind Lavelle's professed confusion is the unstated premise that "If I don't understand this situation, then it must be non-understandable"! Bullshit.
I come across this notion all the time. I have sometimes said to people who get angry at me because I'm saying something they don't understand, "So you don't understand. You don't understand - yet you are offering opinions and judgements about something that you admit you know nothing about. What does that make you?"
Argument from Incompetence
If I say, in effect, "I don't know about this, therefore it cannot be true," I am implying that I know everything there is to know, or at least I am implying that I think I know everything.
In the land of logic and logical fallacies, this is called "argument from ignorance." And it's considered a fallacy because nobody knows everything. No matter who you are, no matter what you've read, seen, heard, experienced ... there are bound to be many things of which you are utterly unaware.
Sorry about that, mate. The universe really is THAT much bigger than YOU are!
"Argument from ignorance" is a commonly listed logical fallacy. But there's a similar fallacy that you never see listed, which I like to call "argument from incompetence." That's where I say, "I can't believe it" or "I can't understand it" or "I can't even imagine it" or whatever it is that I can't do "and therefore it must be wrong."
Argument from incompetence is a fallacy because my limitations have no bearing on the truth or falsity of anything (other than, perhaps, a statement about my capabilities).
Like all other logical fallacies, argument from incompetence is unsound and any argument containing it is invalid. But that doesn't mean such arguments are meaningless. They are actually quite revealing.
~~~
Argument from incompetence is especially weak in conversation, because instead of saying, "I don't understand what you're talking about, therefore you must be wrong!" people should be saying, ""I don't understand what you're talking about. Could you please explain it in more detail?"
When this happens in a "news" show, this is where you can see the true colors of the host, or the true intentions of the producer, or whatever it is. I am not talking about this show in particular, but in general. If a host is really trying to learn something, he/she will say, in one way or another:
"I don't understand what you just said. Can you tell me more about it?"
But instead, if he/she turns to a different guest, and/or changes the subject, what does that tell you?
~~~
And that's why I don't watch this sort of show -- because it's set up in such a way that whenever any guest gets too close to an uncomfortable truth, the host and the other guest (or guests) can shout him down, or shut him up in other ways.
If they were serious, they would quit inviting the CIA spokesmen and the neocons on, and they would interview one guest at a time.
They would do a whole show with Sam, ask him what he means, and let him explain -- without constantly being interrupted by people who want to change the subject to a more shallow analysis.
We have enough shallow analysis already.
~~~
How do we deal with this one-on-one? It's so easy to say,
"If you don't understand this, you need to learn more. One easy way to learn more is to ask me some questions."
... but it's so hard to do ...
because people don't want to ask questions. They want to dismiss you.
It's very difficult to engage their curiosity to the point where it overcomes their fear of the unknown.
But I don't think that means we should quit trying.
"Argument from ignorance" is
"Argument from ignorance" is a commonly listed logical fallacy. But there's a similar fallacy that you never see listed, which I like to call "argument from incompetence." That's where I say, "I can't believe it" or "I can't understand it" or "I can't even imagine it" or whatever it is that I can't do "and therefore it must be wrong."
Argument from incompetence is a fallacy because my limitations have no bearing on the truth or falsity of anything (other than, perhaps, a statement about my capabilities).
Exactly! Well put, WP. And, yes, I think it says a lot about a person who won't ask questions particularly when it is their job to do so. For more ordinary people, I think there is a range of reasons which all amount to fear, in the end, I think-
We are taught from early school age, through ridicule, to not ask questions-
We don't see a curious and respectful line of questioning modelled by others (incl 'leaders')-
We don't want to know that our 'leaders' are criminals and predators. It is like avoiding the horrible truth of one's parent-
And the flip-side to that is we want to feel safe. Revealing the truth is then seen as threatening that 'safety'. It's all rather ironic, really.
I often think that pursuing the Socratic Method of questioning is the way to go but then I remember that they killed Socrates.
Anyway . . . . shows like CrossTalk argue back and forth the narrative provided by the perps in Washington. So it doesn't matter what points are made, everyone is still pushing the dominant narrative and that is what controls peoples thinking. Mission accomplished.
The more I think about it, the more embarrassed I am that I have ever watched the show. I had become more selective of late based on who is listed as guests but I'm done with it now. As you point out, WP, the format is set up to make it easy to manipulate the guests and the subject at hand. It is set up to entertain through 'argument'/conflict and not to inform.
There's no reason to be embarrassed ...
... unless you were involved in the production of the show!
No, I wasn't involved
They couldn't match the money I was used to, which was a good thing in retrospect!
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