Came to this by way of a link left by gallier 2What an excellent article excerpted below
"The countless intellectual opportunities that this provides for the average person anywhere on this planet can’t ever be overstated, and the Alt-Media Community is one of the only platforms that someone has to network with other likeminded individuals and contribute to the “collective’s” ever-expanding treasure trove of knowledge if they so choose.
That being the case, the situation isn’t all that rosy either, since all massive communities – even relatively decentralized ones such as Alt-Media – have a tendency to take on certain characteristics of “groupthink” that eventually evolve with time into what can only be described as “dogma”, or to put it more colloquially, “political correctness”.
That’s not to say that every Alt-Media outlet and member of the community engages in this, but just that it’s nevertheless a worrying trend that will be extrapolated upon in this analysis in the hopes of raising widespread awareness about this informational cancer.Dogma is so dangerous to the Alt-Media Community because it leads to the self-censorship or sometimes even aggressive bullying of a member’s well-intended viewpoints and ultimately blurs the lines between this informational space and the MSM one that people are presumably trying to escape from.
Publicly funded outlets don’t practice dogma as much as their less “official” counterparts or to the same extent as they do, so the reader should keep in mind that the following points that will be addressed are mostly relevant for those second- mentioned actors and the private individuals who form the bulk of the community.Having gotten the “disclaimer” out of the way, it’s now time to turn the article’s attention to the most common examples of dogma in the Alt-Media Community. What follows will be a listing of their main points and a realistic example “from the field” that debunks each of them by showing how ridiculous and contradictory they are, though it should be noted that this isn’t a comprehensive collection and that there are many more that could be added to this file. In any given order, they are:
* The US Lied Before, So that Means That It’s Always Lying And Nothing That Its Representatives Say Should Ever Be Believed: (except sometimes they are very up front about what they are doing!)
“Bush lied about Iraq’s WMD, so there’s no way that the State Department is now telling the truth in warning about an impending North Korean nuclear weapon or missile test even though they’ve been right about this several times before.”
* The US/”Israel”/Saudi Arabia/Turkey/Etc. (“The Other Side”) Are Inherently Evil And Never Do The “Right Thing”
“It’s impossible for the US to ever carry out a real anti-terrorist operation anywhere in the world, ‘Israel’ is wrong for not expelling Russian diplomats amid the Skripal scandal since nothing that it does can ever be commended, and Saudi Arabia’s growing relations with Russia and China should be condemned because of the very principle that anything that Riyadh does is ‘bad’.”
* Anything That The “Other Sides’” Representatives Support Is The “Wrong Side”
“Saudi Arabia shouldn’t ever dare invest in agricultural projects in the Africa because only Iranian businessmen are allowed to improve the suffering masses’ standard of living.”
* Russia/China/Iran/Syria/Etc. (“Our Side”) Are Inherently Righteous And Always Do The “Right Thing”
“Iran has the most principled foreign policy in the history of the world, and it was right to support armed Islamic extremists in Bosnia and celebrate Gaddafi’s assassination even though these two instances went against Russia’s interests in each situation; likewise, Russia was right to condemn the Houthi missile strike on Riyadh in almost the same language as the US did despite this being the opposite of Iran’s stance towards the issue.”
* “Your Side” Is Deified, The “Other Side” Is Demonized
“Iran is a ‘god-state’ and President Putin is the closest that mankind will ever get to the ‘second coming of Jesus’ in our lifetimes, while President Erdogan is the epitome of ‘evil’ even though Tehran and Moscow are deepening their relations with him.”
* Everything Is Black And White And There Is No Gray Zone, The Battle Lines Are Always Clearly Defined And Never Change (how often has it been stated here how complicated situations are?)
“Turkey will always be ‘evil’ and will never sincerely work with Russia in constructively – albeit however imperfectly – resolving the Hybrid War of Terror on Syria that it helped spark together with the US, and everything that President Putin is doing together with President Erdogan is just to trick the American ‘stooge’ into doing Russia’s real bidding at any given moment.
* All US Partners Are Puppets In All That They Do And They Can’t Make Any Decision Without America’s Prior Approval ( True to some degree, but, not on every count)
“’Israel’, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan’s newfound and high-level strategic relations with Russia and China aren’t what they seem to be and are really intricate traps laid out as part of an evil American ‘master plan’, but one that Presidents Putin and Xi are already aware of due to their ‘godly’ insight and which will inevitably be thwarted by their own ‘master plans’ that no mere moral can articulate or let alone even understand.”
* It’s Impossible To Explain An Event Without Endorsing It (yup!)
“Just talking about how Russia’s relations with ‘Israel’ and Saudi Arabia are objectively better than at any moment before in their histories is to blasphemously betrayal ‘the cause’ by ‘endorsing’ the inexcusable, but highlighting America’s relations with these same two actors is an act of service to ‘the cause’ by raising awareness of Washington’s malignant intentions.”
*Viva Trotsky! Permanent Revolution Lives On In Alt-Media (Not even close!)
“Every single thing that any Alt-Media outlet or individual says or does in public must be to the benefit of ‘the cause’ , and anyone or anything that draws attention to ‘the deities’’ contradiction of community dogma or doesn’t zealously enough embrace ‘the cause’ must be shut up, shamed, and shooed out of the informational space.”
* The Loudest And Nastiest Community Members Guide “The Cause” (Having been subjected to this many times.....)
“The louder and nastier that the Alt-Takfiris are in rooting out the ‘infidels’ that have ‘infiltrated’ the community’s rank, the more loyal they are to “the cause” and therefore the more entitled they are to guide everyone to the ‘promised land’ as the modern-day ‘prophets’ that they pretend to be.”
* The Alt-Media Community Protects The Free Speech Of Its Members Unlike The MSM( LOL)
“You can say or believe anything that you want in Alt-Media, just don’t publicly express your views if there’s even the remotest chance that they might be interpreted by a single community inquisitor (Alt-Takfiri) as slightly challenging the many dogmas that generally define this informational space.”
* Victory Is Inevitable And “Our Side” Is Always Winning ( the names of certain alt sites just keep coming to mind over and over again)
“It doesn’t matter that the US carried out the ‘Arab Spring’, provoked EuroMaidan, and is surrounding China with a ‘containment coalition’ because the ‘master plan’ theory teaches us that these were actually victories for Iran, Russia, and China, which have never suffered any setbacks and can’t stop winning due to the momentum of history and the ‘empire’s’’ imminent’ demise.”
* All Unrest Is 100% An American-Backed Conspiracy That Came Out Of Nowhere
“Everything was always perfect everywhere else in the world and people lived in a true ‘Garden of Eden’ until the US came along and magically invented all of these ethno-religious and territorial problems, since it’s impossible to believe that there’s such a thing as preexisting problems that Washington largely exploited because that would acknowledge that America can’t be blamed for 100% of anything bad that ever happens.”
* All Elections By “The Other Side” Are Predetermined And Nothing More Than Staged Steps In Carrying Out Their “Master Plans”
“Brexit and Trump weren’t the largest populist upsets in modern-day history but actually part of a ‘master plan’ by the British and American elites in which the people ultimately had no say, though the reelections of Presidents Putin and Rouhani were the purest expressions of democracy that history has ever witnessed because everybody knows that it’s only ‘our side’ that allows the people to express their will and never the ‘other side’.”
* It’s Not Abuse Or Trolling If Someone In Alt-Media Does It
“People fled from the misery of MSM to join the ‘enlightened’ Alt-Media Community so don’t ever accuse one of your fellow ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’ in ‘the cause’ of verbally abusing or trolling you because they wouldn’t ever do that unless they’re an ‘infiltrated agent’, so if you have a problem with what someone says, it’s because your faithful adherence to dogma isn’t as strong as theirs is and you could actually learn something by shutting up and unquestionably accepting whatever it is that they’re ranting about even if it’s irrelevant attacks against you personally.”
* The First Rule Of Fight Club Is To Never Talk About Fight Club, Just Like The First Rule Of Alt-Media Is To Never Talk About Its Dogmas
“Don’t ever violate this cardinal rule otherwise you’ll be maliciously removed from the community the moment that you publicly reveal anything about its ‘sacred’ but secret dogmas, and its Alt-Prophets (Alt-Takfiris) will forever regard you as a ‘traitor’ and force the rest of the community to spit upon your name whenever they invoke it as part of their ‘two-minute hate’ in reminding everyone about the ‘infiltrated conspirators’ that still secretly roam within their ranks.”
Well that's a rule I've broken many a time. I've talked about alt media's dogmas. —————————————————————–
Alt-Media and its community can be the most useful sources of information and insight that curious minds can rely upon in the modern day amidst the present conditions of heavy unipolar censorship, but extreme caution and skepticism must be exercised whenever voyaging into this space in order to be able to discern fact from fiction in separating the objective truth of what’s happening from the subjective dogmatic narratives about what a small clique of people (the Alt-Takfiris or Alt-Prophets) wishfully believe should happen. RT encourages its audience to “question more” and Sputnik strives to “tell the untold”, and that’s exactly what people should do whenever they’re interacting with non-publicly-funded Alt-Media and the overall community in general. No individual should ever be bullied by fellow social media users and have their ideas suppressed no matter what “side” they’re on at any given time and on any issue, and the only way that the Alt-Media Community can truly differentiate itself from the MSM is if it respects people’s views and encourages a diversity thereof within its sphere.
_______________________________________________I'll add just a few of my own recent questions and thoughts that don't fit the alt dogma and have resulted in shunning, abuse, faux outrage and more* This idea of Russia and Turkey's interlinked interests should be obvious to the alt crowd and yet it's not. Instead this idea of Russia and Turkey always being on the verge of war is pushed relentlessly. Why? And why aren't more consumers of this information asking why this idea is being pushed so hard? * Can't even recall how many times the obvious Russian green lights were mentioned here? * Turkey cooperated with both Russia and Syria to clear Aleppo city of militants- This surely raised the ire of the Usrael crowd a great deal.
* It begs the question as to why the idea would be put forth that Russia had bombed Turkish troops- Wouldn't this bring NATO fully into the mix? * Contact between Russia and Turkey has been consistent despite whatever bovine excrement has been stinkin' up the internet. * Yet, again we're witnessing obvious disinfo being promulgated through the media to create a perception of discord between Russia and Turkey. * This situation is not as simple as commonly perceived. * Why isn't Damascus taking on the US and taking back the one third of their country and it's resources? (not allowed to ask this question) * Honestly "alt media" hasn't struck me as alternative (not the same as another or each other; unlike in nature, form, or quality) for a very, very long time. The disclaimer included from the linked article has been edited and will serve as my own:
DISCLAIMER: The author writes for this blog in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for her own personal views.
Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution.
Sometimes this author consults with her husband to solidify thoughts and ideas or to get input regarding military equipment and the like as well. And that's all there is to it!