Serious political discourse time.

...or a bit of a Friday Rant, depending on your perspective.

The Crazy Kippers are in town, holding their annual Spring Bullshitfest at The Macron.

(I know we're skint and that but.......eurgh, never mind......)

Anyway....

Paul Nuttall.

A man who has thus far during his short and less than illustrious political career:

Lied about having done a PhD

Lied about having been a professional footballer for Tranmere Rovers

and

Lied about having lost close friends in the Hillsborough disaster.

In short, he's a bit of a bullshitter and cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

However, this thread's not about Nuttall or UKIP particularly, it's more about the age we live in where politicians getting caught out for lying is no longer considered automatically disastrous for their careers.

Look at what's happening in America.

Last night Donald Trump hastily convened a press conference to try and straighten a few thing out in the wake of Flynn's resignation and the increasing pressure on him to shape up and then spent an hour and a half making up absolute bullshit about how great everything is and how well it's all going.

I don't mean he was putting a subjective spin on events to suggest that he's doing well, he was telling outright lies.

Utter fantasist nonsense which anyone with half a brain and access to the internet could demolish within about five seconds.

How did we get here?

30 years ago if you got caught lying, that was it - Boom! You're gone.

But not nowadays it seems.

It's almost as if politicians have given up trying to abide by the rules and have now decided that the proliferation of internet based "media" outlets means that you can make any old shit up and someone, somewhere will corroborate it on a spurious website and there's your proof.

And the worst bit is, his followers swallow it up, clap their hands and agree with him that the mainstream media is fake and so it goes on and on.

This isn't a simple case of confirmation bias on their part, it's something else and it's fucking dangerous.

Can anybody see a way back to normality or are we stuck with this from now on?

Unfortunately we've arrived at a time where politicians lying is so common, it's expected. Because of that I think people have come to accept it as a shitty fact of life and wading through the bullshit is something you have to do. The days of making informed decisions on how to vote or whatever are gone. So much so that people are desensitised to it in a way. Personally I don't believe there's a way back. There will always be a hidden agenda and there will always be people who feel like they are giving a kick in the bollocks to the establishment by going along with it.

This,sadly,is typical of how some people see the 'truth'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/38191313

Regardless of trump and his views of the American media, I personally have found that I'm questioning our own media more and more.
It started quite some years ago when the miners strikes were on. The BBC showed a clip of mounted police charging a group, with the later news, ITN, showing the same scene, but starting a little earlier. This included a couple of miners throwing half bricks at the police and horses. 
There is always two sides to a story, and lets not forget, what is presented usually comes down to the take/view of one person, who, though trying, (sometimes), to be impartial, usually has a political interest of some sort.
Politicians have always lied, but covered it up by never answering a direct question, (unless its beneficial to them), and newspapers have always slanted stories to appease their like-thinking readers. In this technical age, it is both harder and easier to lie. Statements can be verified immediately, but on the other hand, if somebody passes a comment,or lie, on the likes of FB or whatever, it is immediately taken up by thousands or even millions, and as we know, if things are shouted for loud and long, others begin to believe its true, which then affects the way in which it is dealt with.
I think the days of reporting actual news have gone, and we are now in an age of passing views, comments, and possible outcomes, and sifting the wheat from the chaff is getting harder by the day.

gloswhite wrote:Regardless of trump and his views of the American media, I personally have found that I'm questioning our own media more and more.
It started quite some years ago when the miners strikes were on. The BBC showed a clip of mounted police charging a group, with the later news, ITN, showing the same scene, but starting a little earlier. This included a couple of miners throwing half bricks at the police and horses. 
There is always two sides to a story, and lets not forget, what is presented usually comes down to the take/view of one person, who, though trying, (sometimes), to be impartial, usually has a political interest of some sort.
Politicians have always lied, but covered it up by never answering a direct question, (unless its beneficial to them), and newspapers have always slanted stories to appease their like-thinking readers. In this technical age, it is both harder and easier to lie. Statements can be verified immediately, but on the other hand, if somebody passes a comment,or lie, on the likes of FB or whatever, it is immediately taken up by thousands or even millions, and as we know, if things are shouted for loud and long, others begin to believe its true, which then affects the way in which it is dealt with.
I think the days of reporting actual news have gone, and we are now in an age of passing views, comments, and possible outcomes, and sifting the wheat from the chaff is getting harder by the day.

Good points Glos and I know people who were at Orgreave and I trust them when they said it was the police who attacked the strikers first and the rest was just self-defence. Someone had instructed the Police to attack the strikers and provoke a reaction but of course it wasn't presented that way or even in the correct chronological order.
However it was long before then that I realised that the media is there to promote a particular political line and that the media decide what opinions the British people will have.
Or rather the people that control the media. 
Media Barons like Murdoch will publish any political story and give it any slant that will get them a favourable deal with the powers that be. Slags.
What is clear is that the media control opinions. Psychology 101.

Just watched a documentary about Brando who was blamed for delays in production because he was a good excuse having played the Wild One. Easy target.


Right there they had labelled him and it was both a curse and a blessing to his career.

But it had nothing to do with the man, even though we were brought up to believe the image that the media gave us. 

Worse still, he lived up to the caricature that wasn't him after they gave it to him.

We always need to hear both sides of the story.