The idiotic media version of ISIS: are we losing our critical thinking?

Too few people — even in the alt media — seem to be focusing on the sheer bogusness of the “media ISIS” story. While there are plenty of articles pointing out that ISIS is likely funded by western treasure, there are few pointing out that meanie terrorist caliphates who are the declared enemy of the entire western world don’t get to market Android apps through major western corporations, or invest their money in major western banks, unless it suits a lot of well-connected people that they should. Are we forgetting how the real world really works? Where is our scepticism? Come to that where is our sense of the ridiculous?

Let’s just try for a reality check. The real ISIS is closer to a gang of sociopaths, mercenaries, deluded would-be suiciders and intelligence agents, than some sort of comic book COBRA with its fingers in a thousand pies. Real ISIS won’t be taking over the world, or Europe or even all of Syria any time soon, because hired mercenaries and nutcases don’t do that unless their paymasters want them to, and they don’t. The US doesn’t want real ISIS to take over anything. It just wants destroyed infrastructure, and failed states, and lots of lovely chaos, and mercs/nutcases are good for all of that. Real ISIS is fighting a war on several fronts in hostile conditions, and we can be pretty sure it has little time or organisational ability for industrial strength oil production, professional grade snuff films, the setting up of human resources departments, the minting of pretty gold coinage, or the creation of Android apps. Because again, ad hoc bands of mercenaries don’t do that. These things are either being outsourced to their US/Saudi chums, or are simply being made up, wholesale, in pursuit of more and better fear porn for a populace that has lost the ability to think critically.

Which brings us back to those videos. Think about it. Do you seriously believe ISIS the mercenary jihadist Caliphate, likes to act out its murder sprees on camera first, complete with green screen and post-production editing, before offing their unfortunate victims later in private?

Seriously?

It is a long read, but one that is worthwhile.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/18/1451716/-The-Battle-Over-the-...

Good day all! I have a busy day ahead plus we are now fighting a battle with a couple of einstein squirrels who have figured out how to reach our hanging bird feeders.

Not been feeling well, having to check in on fb to admin my group and seeing all the fucked up bigots on there doesn't help. In response I went on an angry posting and unfriending frenzy...lol. I did come across something interesting this morning...
I was held hostage by Isis. They fear our unity more than our airstrikes

link

Which is the greater number: $105 or $100 plus 3 percent? You might think this a trivial question, but about 60 percent of adults can't answer it correctly -- and many of them still use financial services. It's an alarming situation.
...
Yet improving the quality of math teaching won't quite fix the problem if the math is not put in a financial context early on. In South Korea, the country with the second-best math scores in the world after Singapore, only 48 percent of people aged 15 to 35 are financially literate -- far fewer than the average in Germany and the U.S., where the math test results aren't as great.
The understanding of basic finance is often about experience. That's why it's high among homeowners, who are often paying back mortgages and are forced to understand compound interest; and that's why in countries that have seen high inflation, such as Argentina or Bosnia, an inordinately high percentage of respondents got the inflation question right. People in wealthier countries, where the financial systems are well-developed and information is more readily available from various sources, including friends and neighbors, the experience is the most rounded. Accumulating it, however, is potentially costly, and it doesn't work for everyone. According to the S&P study, in the U.S., "3 in 10 adults with a housing loan are unable to perform basic interest calculations on their loan payments. Since the global financial crisis was triggered in part by mortgage defaults in the United States, this should concern policymakers, not just homeowners."

Darn, I was at GU at 1o'clock, the speech was supposed to start at 2 pm. Outside there was already a long line of at least 400 yards for people who wanted to get in, and it was said it's already packed and full.

I can't find the link anymore. By now the speech should at least have started since a while.
Instead I had to drive back home and listened to HRC's interview on CNN and it was not what I wanted to hear.

So, I go back and try to find the feed from GU university. Sigh.

linnk

While 38 percent of Americans say the U.S. should take in refugees, 39 percent say it should not, with the remainder unsure. Most don't think the U.S. has a special role to play as a haven for people escaping war in their home countries.

While Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the nation should accept refugees, support among both groups has dropped significantly in the past two months.

Asked specifically about the Syrian refugee crisis, half say that the U.S. should take in fewer refugees than it does now, while 11 percent believe the current level is about right. Just 22 percent want to take in more.

Those attitudes line up with other recent surveys that found Americans unwilling to take in Syrian refugees, as well a long history of recalcitrance to accept other groups fleeing conflicts spanning much of the 20th century.

In contrast, the U.S. public is increasingly willing to back military action. Forty-eight percent of Americans say they support sending U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS, up 13 points from the end of October, while 32 percent are opposed. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans are in favor, while Democrats are about evenly divided between support and opposition.