"The Pentagon has released a modernization plan for Stars and Stripes that affirms the publication’s independence while expanding Defense Department oversight, introducing new restrictions on content"
Seems like this sentence contains contradictory statements.
Well put, totally agree! The key word here is “affirms”.
Here, watch; I hereby affirm that I am god incarnate, that I have no flaws, and that every unit test I’ve ever written has passed on the first try. It cannot be denied that I affirmed that!
Trump kind of follows it - he declared his war against Iran over about 10 tims already.
The book 1984 was written in 1948 (easy to remember). Kind of interesting to see that it also fits to the lame strategies pursued by Trump. The "flood the zone with shit" is an older copy/paste strategy of the KGB (as explained in the 1980s by Yuri, though he did not compare it to the flood-the-zone part, but it is virtually identical https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apDnRRSOCk; though perhaps even that strategy is older, the chinese have numerous stratagems that are ancient).
Once, when asked about arming teachers in school, Trump gave a brief answer that went, we should, but we shouldn’t, but we should, but we shouldn’t. Four contradictory answers to a binary question in one sentence.
The guy doesn’t even lie. He’s a reality TV actor working without a script. He says whatever he thinks will get ratings, and if he’s not sure then he’ll try different things and see what sticks.
It will never cease to baffle me that so many people saw this behavior and said, that’s leadership material.
A thought that recently came to mind about this was an article about a local homeless camp that was literally trashing the area in which it was set up. Those people have effectively been discarded by society -- so why should they care about the mess they make, after all, nobody cares about them?
So for the average voter who feels disenfranchised and abandoned by society, why should they care about what Trump says when he's famous, rich, and entertaining to watch?
That's the only way I can make any sense of the matter -- it still messes with my head.
Everything makes sense when you get out of your bubble and realise most people don't even own stock options. Do you think ants contemplate how the world looks like from a bird's eye?
None of it makes sense but it's somewhat understandable.
People are angry and they should be, but the anger is misdirected. People want to "burn this shit down" but they don't give any thought to what might rise from the ashes.
Democracy requires an educated electorate, and we're failing there both formally (schools) and informally (the rise of misinformation). Its beyond distressing to watch this play out so I'm going to stay in my bubble as much as I can.
Corolla demanded answers to complicated sociological questions. Newsome’s response was weak but I don’t see how that’s deflection. The question doesn’t matter to the topic being discussed. It’s an obvious gotcha question from an interviewer who just wants to make a ruckus. I don’t know why a professional politician can’t handle that, but bad handling of a stupid gotcha question is very different from contradicting yourself four times in ten seconds when asked a straightforward question about your own opinion.
This concept of “TDS” confuses me. Trump is a terrible person and a terrible president. Why wouldn’t I be Deranged about him? Thinking badly of him isn’t a Syndrome, it’s a natural consequence of the fact that he’s awful and he has way too much power over my life.
This concept of “TDS” confuses me. Trump is a terrible person and a terrible president
The only thing you need to understand "TDS" is knowing that it's the exact same accusation-in-a-mirror technique the fascists use on every other topic. By preemptively asserting that the critics are "deranged", they obscure the depth of their own reality distortion field for their cult leader. And for the casual observer who sees a bunch of drama and instinctively steers clear, the default conclusion is to think that the truth must be somewhere in the middle rather than doing the work to think about who is actually stirring up the chaos.
I was talking about the question of why half of California Latinos do t have a checking account.
I’m sure plenty of gotcha questions get asked in the other direction. I don’t generally view the sort of media where people ask that kind of question, because it’s incredibly irritating and uninformative no matter who the target is.
My point is that Trump doesn’t even try to give a coherent answer. He’ll contradict himself within the same answer to a straightforward question and not even bat an eye.
> As a demonstration of the principle, consider two contradictory statements—"All lemons are yellow" and "Not all lemons are yellow"—and suppose that both are true.
I am not understanding why we are freely supposing both are true?
It's demonstrating the implications (principle of explosion) of a contradiction being allowed in a system of formal logic. You can change "suppose both are true" to "suppose the rules of a logical system permit stating both are true".
I hope the flagged comment trying to compare certain tropes of liberal thought to the assault on America, democracy, freedom and the legal system someday learns their comparison is foolish, and stops trying to be contrarian for the sake of feigning intellect.
Precisely. It’s the same methodology used to suppress speech and thought through social media where the terms of service and social media guidelines are used to create a micromanaged framework of approved speech and thought that just happens to align with what one particulate group or another controls.
The next layer of this control harness is to neutralize the Constitution in America that protects inalienable rights, is the “freedoms of speech (within paternalistic approved boundaries), but not freedom of reach” mentality of, “sure, say all you want, but you won’t even be allowed or able to see that we put you in a digital speech dungeon.”
We are essentially allowing and creating an analog to the very sadistic and evil conditions imposed by the ruling aristocratic class of the past and the hidden hand that ruled your life as non-nobility. You get thrown in digital dungeons with no recourse or rights. You are beaten and abused for you thought and speech. You have no right or ability to defend yourself from the torments and abuses of the ruling psychopaths, etc.
That is why freedom of speech is so important, because the sick and depraved ruling class people cannot stand even the ability of people to talk about the abuses they perpetrate against them. It’s typical abusive patterns of truly awful people that are the enemies of all of the rest of humanity.
The most-crippling part of this is removing their ability to use wire services (AP, Reuters, et c).
It means they can only cover news if they send a correspondent. They cannot cover much at all that way. It basically means it’s just a company newsletter now. They don’t even have any correspondents covering the war.
"Defense Department intended to “refocus” the news organization... it “should” republish content created by the Defense Department public affairs offices with a label describing its origin"
Article makes it clear that they're banning the publication of wire services with the goal to make this publication more like a DoD PR team and less like a news source.
About a week ago Stars and Stripes had an article that strongly implied that the war with Iran had already had far more casualties than the (at the time) three KIA.
I think it was about increased blood donations in Germany.
This is wrong and rhymes with all the sabre-rattling towards news orgs from the white house over the last couple days.
It will also make the US armed forces _actively worse_ at their jobs. It won't even take very long. If you can't effectively reflect on your errors and consider non-politically-aligned points of view, your strategists are going to be running in the dark.
> The memo also bars reporters from requesting public records through the Freedom of Information Act in an official capacity and prohibits the organization from publishing “controlled unclassified information.”
If you need any evidence to refute the claim that the Pentagon's plan "affirms the publication’s independence", this is it. Talk is cheap.
I'll say something positive here as a european: the amount of diverse places that I'd assume would be broadly culturally aligned with Trump that have shown some form of resistance or pretty vehement disagreement with this administration this last year, suggests to me that there is a degree of widespread (kinda bipartisan) idealism in the US that's pretty unique in the west.
> "We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members," chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell
Are they going to start inserting theocratic content too? Like when Hegseth bullied the Boy Scouts to become an organization in support of god once again?
Remember that Hegseth recently celebrated that CNN is being taken over by a friend of the administration who will eagerly parrot their propaganda in the service of keeping the idiocracy controlled. FCC commissioner Carr threatened media licenses for firms that aren't positive enough about the Iran war (or is it a war? Special military operation?)
The US is in a bizarre place right now. The actions of this administration are positively communist (in the most cynical, fear-mongered notion about communism), from enlisting tech execs in the military, to demanding complete control over all commerce (including demanding ownership stakes), to absolute chilling control over speech. Bizarre how the same people who have been using communism as their boogieman for decades are the biggest cheerleaders.
Trump is a pathetic, demented, halfwit diddler Temu-version of Xi, and it's comical irony. It's why he's surrounded by garbage people, like the drunk tough-guy-speech-from-ChatGPT joke of a Department of SortofWar, Hegseth, the clown who only ever achieve major and is a massive embarrassment to the men and women of the armed forces. Pathetic.
Though note that the communism is only in regards to government control, corruption and self-dealing. Zero benefits for Americans, unless you're a billionaire. Americans knowingly voted for this. They willingly lined themselves up to be future Soylent Green for their plutocrat class. Biggest self-destruction in the history of mankind.
89 comments
Seems like this sentence contains contradictory statements.
"affirms the publication's independence" = Says it's independent.
"expanding Defense Department oversight, introducing new restrictions" = makes it non-independent.
Conclusion: The sentence indicates the policy is hypocritical and built on lies. The sentence is not contradictory, the policy is.
Here, watch; I hereby affirm that I am god incarnate, that I have no flaws, and that every unit test I’ve ever written has passed on the first try. It cannot be denied that I affirmed that!
>
Seems like this sentence contains contradictory statements."War is peace."
"Freedom is slavery."
The book 1984 was written in 1948 (easy to remember). Kind of interesting to see that it also fits to the lame strategies pursued by Trump. The "flood the zone with shit" is an older copy/paste strategy of the KGB (as explained in the 1980s by Yuri, though he did not compare it to the flood-the-zone part, but it is virtually identical https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apDnRRSOCk; though perhaps even that strategy is older, the chinese have numerous stratagems that are ancient).
The guy doesn’t even lie. He’s a reality TV actor working without a script. He says whatever he thinks will get ratings, and if he’s not sure then he’ll try different things and see what sticks.
It will never cease to baffle me that so many people saw this behavior and said, that’s leadership material.
So for the average voter who feels disenfranchised and abandoned by society, why should they care about what Trump says when he's famous, rich, and entertaining to watch?
That's the only way I can make any sense of the matter -- it still messes with my head.
People are angry and they should be, but the anger is misdirected. People want to "burn this shit down" but they don't give any thought to what might rise from the ashes.
Democracy requires an educated electorate, and we're failing there both formally (schools) and informally (the rise of misinformation). Its beyond distressing to watch this play out so I'm going to stay in my bubble as much as I can.
This concept of “TDS” confuses me. Trump is a terrible person and a terrible president. Why wouldn’t I be Deranged about him? Thinking badly of him isn’t a Syndrome, it’s a natural consequence of the fact that he’s awful and he has way too much power over my life.
>
This concept of “TDS” confuses me. Trump is a terrible person and a terrible presidentThe only thing you need to understand "TDS" is knowing that it's the exact same accusation-in-a-mirror technique the fascists use on every other topic. By preemptively asserting that the critics are "deranged", they obscure the depth of their own reality distortion field for their cult leader. And for the casual observer who sees a bunch of drama and instinctively steers clear, the default conclusion is to think that the truth must be somewhere in the middle rather than doing the work to think about who is actually stirring up the chaos.
I’m sure plenty of gotcha questions get asked in the other direction. I don’t generally view the sort of media where people ask that kind of question, because it’s incredibly irritating and uninformative no matter who the target is.
My point is that Trump doesn’t even try to give a coherent answer. He’ll contradict himself within the same answer to a straightforward question and not even bat an eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
> As a demonstration of the principle, consider two contradictory statements—"All lemons are yellow" and "Not all lemons are yellow"—and suppose that both are true.
I am not understanding why we are freely supposing both are true?
> You can change "suppose both are true" to "suppose the rules of a logical system permit stating both are true".
It's calling out a potential flaw in the system and whether we want to do anything about it.
The next layer of this control harness is to neutralize the Constitution in America that protects inalienable rights, is the “freedoms of speech (within paternalistic approved boundaries), but not freedom of reach” mentality of, “sure, say all you want, but you won’t even be allowed or able to see that we put you in a digital speech dungeon.”
We are essentially allowing and creating an analog to the very sadistic and evil conditions imposed by the ruling aristocratic class of the past and the hidden hand that ruled your life as non-nobility. You get thrown in digital dungeons with no recourse or rights. You are beaten and abused for you thought and speech. You have no right or ability to defend yourself from the torments and abuses of the ruling psychopaths, etc.
That is why freedom of speech is so important, because the sick and depraved ruling class people cannot stand even the ability of people to talk about the abuses they perpetrate against them. It’s typical abusive patterns of truly awful people that are the enemies of all of the rest of humanity.
> Seems like this sentence contains contradictory statements
It is normal newspeak [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
It means they can only cover news if they send a correspondent. They cannot cover much at all that way. It basically means it’s just a company newsletter now. They don’t even have any correspondents covering the war.
Article makes it clear that they're banning the publication of wire services with the goal to make this publication more like a DoD PR team and less like a news source.
I think it was about increased blood donations in Germany.
It will also make the US armed forces _actively worse_ at their jobs. It won't even take very long. If you can't effectively reflect on your errors and consider non-politically-aligned points of view, your strategists are going to be running in the dark.
https://www.stripes.com/news/military-terminates-rendon-cont...
It was a fun story.
> The memo also bars reporters from requesting public records through the Freedom of Information Act in an official capacity and prohibits the organization from publishing “controlled unclassified information.”
If you need any evidence to refute the claim that the Pentagon's plan "affirms the publication’s independence", this is it. Talk is cheap.
> "We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members," chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/14/nx-s1-5748020/pentagon-tighte...
At the least they have big hands ... right?
The US is in a bizarre place right now. The actions of this administration are positively communist (in the most cynical, fear-mongered notion about communism), from enlisting tech execs in the military, to demanding complete control over all commerce (including demanding ownership stakes), to absolute chilling control over speech. Bizarre how the same people who have been using communism as their boogieman for decades are the biggest cheerleaders.
Trump is a pathetic, demented, halfwit diddler Temu-version of Xi, and it's comical irony. It's why he's surrounded by garbage people, like the drunk tough-guy-speech-from-ChatGPT joke of a Department of SortofWar, Hegseth, the clown who only ever achieve major and is a massive embarrassment to the men and women of the armed forces. Pathetic.
Though note that the communism is only in regards to government control, corruption and self-dealing. Zero benefits for Americans, unless you're a billionaire. Americans knowingly voted for this. They willingly lined themselves up to be future Soylent Green for their plutocrat class. Biggest self-destruction in the history of mankind.
They can always post to r/WarsAndGripes.