Now you're just trolling with your defense of Greenwald and Aslan.
Please tell me you are just trolling.
I have never seen a well-read, well-reasoned, intelligent person effectively defend Greenwald's and Aslan's behavior towards Harris.
Aslan: two religion degrees, a degree in fiction (creative writing?), and a sociology degree. Hold on. Imma fire up my color printer, and get me some social sciences Phd's too.
Greenwald isn't a "trusted journalist". He's a hack. He was a hack then. He is a hack now. The Intercept isn't some kind of respected news organization. It's viewed as overtly agenda driven, and is nothing more than a super-blog funded by Pierre Omidyar. He is not taken seriously in the world of real journalists. Given his obvious lying and misrepresentation about Harris's statements (hmmm, where have we seen that before?), I would be highly cautious about siding with him. There are smart people in this thread, who can seen right through all of that nonsense.
An excellent (if long) article on why most of the reasoning behind the opinion that Trump is a racist is faulty. I'm pretty convinced at this point, that if you really believe a lot of the Trump is Racist rhetoric, you are a person that just reads headlines. It is written by someone who is apparently a Trump voter. So proceed with caution if you are easily triggered.
That article really bends over backwards to try and make excuses for him. For one thing, it'll dismiss negative things about Trump as hearsay, and then in the same breath endorse hearsay counter-arguments as fact. The reality is most of these are horrible things that add up to a pretty destructive pattern.
That said, I tend to think that Trump is not a racist, because he has equal contempt for anyone that is not himself. (I would have said anyone not himself or his family, but after learning about how he pulled medical benefits for his nephew's sick infant, I've changed my opinion on that.) The only people he does not have contempt for are those who are of immediate benefit to him and his ego. He's got a pattern of absolutely zero empathy for anyone else, and so it's easy to find people of any minority that he has hurt, or said offensive crap about. He'll take whoever is target is, whether they're a minority, or a woman, or a white male, and he'll say the first derogatory thing that comes to mind, and the less like him they are, the broader strokes he'll use in painting them. If insulting another billionaire, he'll find something like physical stature to focus on, if talking about the poor, he'll use sweeping generalizations.
Now you're just trolling with your defense of Greenwald and Aslan.
Please tell me you are just trolling.
I have never seen a well-read, well-reasoned, intelligent person effectively defend Greenwald's and Aslan's behavior towards Harris.
Aslan: two religion degrees, a degree in fiction (creative writing?), and a sociology degree. Hold on. Imma fire up my color printer, and get me some social sciences Phd's too.
Greenwald isn't a "trusted journalist". He's a hack. He was a hack then. He is a hack now. The Intercept isn't some kind of respected news organization. It's viewed as overtly agenda driven, and is nothing more than a super-blog funded by Pierre Omidyar. He is not taken seriously in the world of real journalists. Given his obvious lying and misrepresentation about Harris's statements (hmmm, where have we seen that before?), I would be highly cautious about siding with him. There are smart people in this thread, who can seen right through all of that nonsense.
You quite evidently don't have the first clue what sociology is. I don't have an opinion on Reza Aslan, and am otherwise completely ignorant on the subject of his qualifications or these other guys.
But a PhD in sociology from UC Santa Barbara is nothing to scoff at.
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An excellent (if long) article on why most of the reasoning behind the opinion that Trump is a racist is faulty. I'm pretty convinced at this point, that if you really believe a lot of the Trump is Racist rhetoric, you are a person that just reads headlines. It is written by someone who is apparently a Trump voter. So proceed with caution if you are easily triggered.
Disclaimer: I am not a Trump supporter, and I do not endorse him in any way as I think his "policies" are mostly ridiculous.
It's just a bunch of silly defense with lack of context.
Let's understand context:
If John McCain says we need stop letting refugees in that's not likely racist because he's shown a hosiery of inclusion.
If Donald Trump says it, there's reason to think there's more as he has decades of associations with both discriminatory rhetoric and associations with actual racists
An excellent (if long) article on why most of the reasoning behind the opinion that Trump is a racist is faulty. I'm pretty convinced at this point, that if you really believe a lot of the Trump is Racist rhetoric, you are a person that just reads headlines. It is written by someone who is apparently a Trump voter. So proceed with caution if you are easily triggered.
Disclaimer: I am not a Trump supporter, and I do not endorse him in any way as I think his "policies" are mostly ridiculous.
He's just a really good at stirring up and enabling racism. What a stand up fella.
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You quite evidently don't have the first clue what sociology is. I don't have an opinion on Reza Aslan, and am otherwise completely ignorant on the subject of his qualifications or these other guys.
But a PhD in sociology from UC Santa Barbara is nothing to scoff at.
Have you read his thesis? It's a glorified opinion article. If this is the type of work which earns you a PhD at UC SB then they most assuredly deserve scoffing.
It's also an insult to all of the grad students out there busting their butts moving actual original research and human knowledge forward.
Ph.D in sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Aslan is recognized as one of the top scholars in his field, especially on Islam.
By whom is he a recognized as a top scholar on Islam? Can you list some other top Islamic scholars that think Aslan is a top scholar on Islam?
Quote:
Glenn Greenwald has been awarded 2 academic degrees:
B.A in philosphy, George Washington University
Juris Doctorate, New York University School of Law
Greenwald practiced law and litigated constitutional law cases. This is was drove him to journalism and to become of the most trusted journalists in the business. His tenure with Salon, then The Guardian lead to him becoming one of the founding members of First Look Media and The Intercept, along with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill.
You can't even get facts right.
Greenwald is fine as a journalist. It's his opinion pieces that go off the rails. It's your character, not the number of degrees you have, that determines whether or not you routinely strawman your opponents.
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Have you read his thesis? It's a glorified opinion article. If this is the type of work which earns you a PhD at UC SB then they most assuredly deserve scoffing.
It's also an insult to all of the grad students out there busting their butts moving actual original research and human knowledge forward.
Aslam is an authority on nothing.
I have not, and very much doubt whether you have. If you had, you would know that it is called a "dissertation."
Nice attempt to move the goalposts though.
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Have you read his thesis? It's a glorified opinion article. If this is the type of work which earns you a PhD at UC SB then they most assuredly deserve scoffing.
It's also an insult to all of the grad students out there busting their butts moving actual original research and human knowledge forward.
Aslam is an authority on nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
I have not, and very much doubt whether you have. If you had, you would know that it is called a "dissertation."
Nice attempt to move the goalposts though.
I am reading it right now. If Buster read it (instead of a reddit comment on it), he should be able to answer the following questions easily:
1. How does Aslan define Jihadism
2. Why does Aslan think Jihadism has become a global movement.
Harris has a lot of detractors because he is perceived to be inconsistent in application of logic at times. List to Harris talk about gun ownership to see what I mean. He also has a lot of detractors because he will not provide the level of respect that academics from other fields likely deserve.
This is fine, I actually agree with you on his gun position. But there's a difference between having detractors and having people blatantly, repeatedly lie about your positions in order to debase the arguments being made so that they're immediately dismissed instead of considered and either accepted or rejected on their own merits.
I'm not going to get into it in too much detail because I could write pages, and it's been absolutely beaten to death all over the internet and you can find it if you want. But Aslan and Greenwald are two of the absolute worst offenders in intellectual dishonesty in mainstream politics at the present moment.
They're the sort of people who think that their view is right and has to win - which is fine - but are so convinced of that that they're willing to defame, misrepresent and smear opponents and lie to their own audiences in order to further their viewpoint on the world. They've both done it too frequently and too blatantly for it to be accidental or even wilful blindness. It's deliberate.
Dave Pakman did a good summary of some of the issues with Aslan. Incidentally, the stuff on FGM he talked about on CNN resulted in a rebuttal from Sarah Haider which you can read here, and she was immediately smeared as a bigot and being completely non-credible as an ex-muslim.
Harris himself gave a good story about Greenwald below, and his particular ongoing battle with the guy is well documented. But really, the sheer volume of dishonesty perpetuated by him and the Intercept is far too much to repeat here. I suppose the most concise way to sum it up is that someone coined the term "Greenwalding", to mean taking statements deliberately out of context in an effort to defame someone you disagree with by lying about their beliefs and motivations.
I actually don't have much bad to say about Zakaria, except that he's occasionally seemed to have only a very superficial understanding of these issues and has at times been no doubt unwittingly complicit in circulating some of the most obscurantist nonsense, usually from CAIR and related individuals. But I don't think he's a bad actor in the way that Aslan and Greenwald are. These guys are, quite simply, scum.
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Reza Aslan is respected in his field of study?: He has a master of fine arts. In fiction. And a Sociology degree.
Greenwald? Greenwald was a fringe/wacko blogger writing for his own little blog, and then Salon, which would let me write for them if I asked. Then Snowden dropped a story on his lap for some mysterious reason.
But keep going. Defend Greenwald and Aslan, because that always works out well for people.
Please write to Salon editorial board submitting writing material for their consideration and copy me on all correspondence. I would really enjoy that.
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I actually don't have much bad to say about Zakaria, except that he's occasionally seemed to have only a very superficial understanding of these issues and has at times been no doubt unwittingly complicit in circulating some of the most obscurantist nonsense, usually from CAIR and related individuals. But I don't think he's a bad actor in the way that Aslan and Greenwald are. These guys are, quite simply, scum.
I just think he doesn't have his head in the game. He's frequently an interesting watch on many topics.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
So, having finished reading Aslan's dissertation, I have to agree that there isn't really anything original in it. Nevertheless, he provides a good summary of relevant sociological research, combines it with his historical knowledge of Islam, provides an interesting perspective on the rise of Jihadism, and is very accessible for a lay person with an interest in the topic.
However, towards the end of his dissertation, just before the conclusion, it really does seem to become an opinion piece. There are nearly a dozen pages of text with almost no references where he outlines his opinion how it's really western attitudes to Islam that are causing people to act on their Jihadism, and that if only the west would get out of the way and allow groups like the Muslim brotherhood to actually govern democratic, but Muslim dominated countries, Jihadist violence will decline as everyone has other ways of having a say. He basically says banning headscarfs and criticizing Islam like Ayan Hirsi Ali does causes disenfranchised Muslims to blow up buildings (p117). He argues that western democratic nations are causing people to act on their Jihadism while at the same time suggesting that if Middle eastern and other Muslim Dominated countries could find a way to be more democratic, violent forms of Jihadism would disappear because they would have other ways to affect change. He doesn't argue why a Muslim dominated democratic nation would do a better job of providing a voice to the disenfranchised Jihadis than westerns ones do. He makes very little effort to actually backup his assertions here other than pointing to how the Muslim Brotherhood seemed to make a good official opposition in Egypt for a very short period of time. This is, I think, pretty disappointing for a dissertation from someone who is supposedly a respected scholar.
Edit:
New Era PM'd me to clarify the purpose of a dissertation, so I wanted to add this note:
Having never read one before, I assumed that it was more of an scientific paper rather than something that's supposed to advance a new point of view. However, since it's effectively supposed to be a well substantiated opinion paper you successfully defend before a committee, I guess it's more in line of what's expected. I would be really interested in seeing how he responded to some of the more difficult questions that might have been posed by the dissertation committee though.
So yes, it's a glorified opinion piece as the reddit poster says. However, that's what it's supposed to be, so it's not really knock against it.
Last edited by sworkhard; 07-31-2016 at 05:56 PM.
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Now you're just trolling with your defense of Greenwald and Aslan.
Please tell me you are just trolling.
So facts are trolling? This is not opinion, this is not dreamed up bull#### like you present, these are the credentials these individuals have earned to attain the heights in their professions that they have. You cannot argue with their credentials, which you grossly misquoted (intentionally or not), nor what they have done with those credentials since earning them.
Remind us all what you terminal degree is in, and what great things that you have done with it? I'm certain that you are a recognized scholar of distinction and have a curriculum vitae that will just leave people here blown away by its depth and contributions to the betterment of your field of expertise and the world in general.
Quote:
I have never seen a well-read, well-reasoned, intelligent person effectively defend Greenwald's and Aslan's behavior towards Harris.
I highly doubt you know anyone or interact with anyone in the real world with any intelligence. So I think your point is moot.
Quote:
Aslan: two religion degrees, a degree in fiction (creative writing?), and a sociology degree. Hold on. Imma fire up my color printer, and get me some social sciences Phd's too.
Again, please tell us what your terminal degree is in. I'm dying to hear the amazing contributions you've made to your field of choice.
As to Aslan's M.A. in creative writing, it is not uncommon for academics to go on and take classes in writing, and creative writing, to help them create books that are more accissible for the common man. Technical writing takes a special skill set, and so does writing for the masses. My wife did the same thing when she completed her PhD and wanted to reach a broader audience. Was a good decision in the long run and has opened a lot of doors for her in a very competitive marketplace for jobs.
Quote:
Greenwald isn't a "trusted journalist". He's a hack. He was a hack then. He is a hack now. The Intercept isn't some kind of respected news organization. It's viewed as overtly agenda driven, and is nothing more than a super-blog funded by Pierre Omidyar. He is not taken seriously in the world of real journalists. Given his obvious lying and misrepresentation about Harris's statements (hmmm, where have we seen that before?), I would be highly cautious about siding with him. There are smart people in this thread, who can seen right through all of that nonsense.
You got anything to support this "hack" claim? I mean besides having a bit of a feud with Harris? I should mention than Harris has more than one feud going, and his presentation of opinion sometimes annoy others. As I said earlier, if he would stick to the facts of the science he worked, he would likely have a better position to argue from. But as of right now he's got public feuds going with Greenwald, Werleman, Aslan and Chomsky. Chomsky's is most interesting because Harris released a private series of email exchanges between the two, which is considered a major dick move to most. So Harris, even being a brilliant and articulate individual, still likes to behave like a 12 year old from time-to-time, just to make his point.
I do love that you call an award winning journalist like Greenwald a hack, then follow up with this beauty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buster
An excellent (if long) article on why most of the reasoning behind the opinion that Trump is a racist is faulty.
You say that Greenwald has no credibility, because he blogged while he was working as a constitutional lawyer, litigating constitutional law cases, but then you follow it up with a post from a garbage blog. Seriously, how can you take anything from this site seriously when three paragraphs in it says this:
He’s definitely a better candidate than Hot Sauce Hillary
Major credibility hit. Then when you try to find out who the author is, he is not willing to give up his real name. But he goes by the pseudonym of Aedonis Bravo, and reminds his reader that, "Aedonis Bravo is not my real name – yet." Oh, and you follow this clown on twitter at @lordaedonis. Lord Aedonis? Someone has just a bit of an ego problem!
You gotta check out the e-book this guy released as well, and the reviews.
Lets get real for a second. The only reason you liked this dip#### is because he posted the same drivel you did about Trump, arguing semantics on the accuracy of calling Trump a racist, because of the dictionary definition rather than the vernacular use of the term.
You need to look up confirmation bias. You just posted the textbook example of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buster
Have you read his thesis? It's a glorified opinion article. If this is the type of work which earns you a PhD at UC SB then they most assuredly deserve scoffing.
PhD candidates publish a dissertation, not a thesis. Credibility hit again. Doing so they also have to follow a very rigorous process of vetting their research materials, vetting their method, and proving their work brings value to their field of study. You do not get an opportunity to even begin research until you have proven to your committee that your idea meets all the criteria and expands the body of knowledge of your particular field. But since you obvious have completed your PhD I'm certain this all a basic review for you.
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It's also an insult to all of the grad students out there busting their butts moving actual original research and human knowledge forward.
I guess we know where you get your information from!
Quote:
Aslam is an authority on nothing.
Authorities on nothing rarely win awards in their field of study, are fellows at prestigious think tanks, get to be visiting professors at schools across the country, or are board or advisory members on improving the field of study for specific institutions.
About the public pissing match between Harris and Aslam [sic]. Lets be abundantly clear here. I do not approve of the rhetoric that goes back-and-forth between Harris and his detractors. I think that when they engage in these public battles they are representing their school and field of study. They should hold themselves to a much higher standard than they do. That goes for both of them. If they want to engage in some mudslinging, do it privately or anonymously on a posting board like this one. But to me they all are acting beneath themselves by engaging in these battles publicly. All parties are to blame and all parties look bad.
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