Tea Party vs Wall Street Hippy/Thug/Handout Crowd Campout

[Plane]

<<The Tea party is pretty civil, I know that some racial epitets were roumered to have been hurled , but the guys that were spreading that roumor learned that microphones were present and gave up on the project.>>

That is totally untrue.  These were not rumors.  John Lewis a respected fighter for civil rights whose word, as far as I know has never previously been questioned, was spat upon and called nigger by a Tea Party crowd as he walked through it on his official business.  The microphones in question could record the crowd noises but weren't good enough to distinguish one single word from the background noise.  They are not superior to the human ear for distinguishing individual words from a cacaphony of crowd noises.  Lewis said he was called nigger more than once and those who know Lewis believe him.  Others in his entourage heard the word as well.  The inability of the mikes at the scene to pick out individual words from crowd noises was used by Tea Party defenders to deny that the incident never happened.  Bullshit.

Yes that is entirely bullshit.

Microphones that did pick up the dread word would have been proof for something , no?

Microphones in a ring arond a person that pick up no such thing are proof of nothing?

Microphones are indeed superior to the human ear in the same respect that cameras are superior to the human eye, they are dispassionate. AS a camera cannot refuse to see, a microphone cannot refuse to hear.

BTW Mr. Lewis was not called by any epithet by the OWS croud that he tried to adress , he was merely told to shut up and go away, they were not listening .

     Are you as prone to be offended by an actual disrespect as you are a pretended one?

[Plane]

      << Syrians getting shot and then arrested in the hospital pretty sincere too.>>

............................ are of an ambush.  So what's going on in Syria is very complex and you and I don't know enough about it to discuss it intelligently.  My best guess is that peaceful protestors are being attacked and also that Syrian army units are being ambushed by armed gangs under foreign influence.  Your attempt to simplify the events so that you can draw simplistic conclusions from them is something I would not agree with.

  That the government of Syria is in place by dint of force and not by consent of the governed simplifies the questions.
    Assad and his Baathistsare not any better than the government of Rhodesia.

     And Assad complaining of foreign meddling is kinda funny, poetic justice would have a Lebaneese plant an Iranian bomb under his motorcade.

[Michael Tee]

<<Plane, give it up. These commies have their agenda and no matter what facts you provide they don't care or make any difference to them.>>

LMFAO.  If this newsgroup is any indication, it is you and your conservative friends who consistently and repeatedly ignore facts and arguments that you have no way of getting around.

In every thread in which I debate you and plane, I take special care to answer each and every point you guys make, in detail.  I think there was one post from plane where I forgot to respond to something he said, and was just too tired or too lazy to go back and offer a complete response.  But as far as I know that is something that happened just once.

On the contrary, every time that I provide an answer to something that either one of you has said, that you probably have no answer for because there is no answer for it, you totally ignore the point I just made, and go on to talk about something else, as if my point had never been made.  This happens so often that I have lost count of the number of times.

So you accuse me of doing something that is exactly the way you and plane operate and not at all like the way I operate.  Here's a challenge for you:  WHAT FACTS did you or plane provide me with, that I did not bother to reply to, to answer, or to rebut?  Show me ONE post where you offered a fact to me that I did not respond to, in detail.

<<They are not the sweet loving peace loving diverse free speech crowd they claim to be. >>

They don't CLAIM to be anything.  They have rights to free speech and they are exercising them.  This one guy claims to be a revolutionary, not a sweet loving peace loving etc. so what is your problem with that?  He says revolution is the only way to change things, if I hear him correctly.  So what?  He's right, IMHO.  When the rich have bought up both political parties AND the judiciary AND the MSM, how else do you expect to get out from under a system which showers huge rewards on the top 1% and shit all over the other 99%?  Ask the one percent nicely to give it all up and stop buying politicians?  But that's exactly what they're doing now, asking nicely.  Lotta good THAT'LL do.

<<They are seriously dangerous and would rather slit your throat than have a debate.  They hate you, they despise you, and they want you dead and will then take your belongings and move right into your house right after they blow your brains out. >>

Settle down, Kramer.  He said no such thing.  Don't let your irrational fears shut down your whole brain.  You're actually projecting your own negative emotions onto them - - you hate them, you'd rather slit their throats than debate them, you despise them and you want them dead.  Those demonstrators, even the one talking about revolution, don't sound as violent and hate-filled as you do. 

Know what else?  That you hate them because they show more courage than you ever will - - you're probably just as fucked by the system as they are, but they're standing up and fighting back while you're just bending over and taking it in the ass.  You hate them because you don't have the courage to stand with them, so your only choice is to either hate them or to face up to your own lack of courage and the misery that inevitably follows that.  Just remember, Kramer:  they don't hate you.  You're nobody to them.  They'd admire and respect you if you had the balls to join them, but if you don't, you're just an irrelevance to them.  You're not even a class enemy.

[Michael Tee]

<<Microphones that did pick up the dread word would have been proof for something , no?>>

If they picked up the "dread word," then that would prove that the "dread word" had been uttered.

<<Microphones in a ring arond a person that pick up no such thing are proof of nothing?>>

Wrong.  They are proof  - - in this particular case - - of several things:
     1.  That there was a big crowd of people around Mr. Lewis making a lot of noise;
     2.  That from all the crowd noise around Mr. Lewis, those microphones were not capable of picking out one
          distinguishable word. 
Which permits us to draw the following conclusion:
     1.  If "nigger" had been one of the words coming from that crowd, the microphones would not have been
         able to distinguish that particular word any more than they were able to distinguish any other particular word
         coming from that crowd;
     2.  Therefore, the inability of the mikes to pick out the word "nigger" neither proves nor disproves that the
          word was said at that particular time and place.

<<Microphones are indeed superior to the human ear in the same respect that cameras are superior to the human eye, they are dispassionate.>>

You don't know what you are talking about -- the brain has an input as well, filtering and linking different sounds to make meaning where to the mike, all is noise.  Nobody as far as I am aware has studied all of the circumstances necessary to determine whether sound recordings can convey meaning through sound as well as the human ear can.  As well as, specifically, John Lewis' ear can.  Your conclusions are based on pure speculation as to microphone performance, noise added to the mike by the sound system feeding it or defects therein, etc.  You have absolutely no way of knowing how well or how poorly the mike was functioning at the time, nor do you even know how it could perform relative to John Lewis' ears-brain combination at the scene.

<< AS a camera cannot refuse to see, a microphone cannot refuse to hear.>>

Cameras can record an image of a face which you may not recognize but which if you were there in person you might recognize.  Cameras often record images not in accordance with what is seen - - poor contrast, odd depth of field, etc.  Otherwise you'd never know if you were looking at a real person or a photograph.  Most of us can tell the difference.

<<BTW Mr. Lewis was not called by any epithet by the OWS croud that he tried to adress , he was merely told to shut up and go away, they were not listening .>>

So what, that's better than being called a nigger by a bunch of Tea Party racists.

   << Are you as prone to be offended by an actual disrespect as you are a pretended one?>>

I dunno, so far we've only been discussing actual disrespects.  Let me know when you find an example of a pretended one.

[Plane]

MT
   I don't and I think you should not ,feel obliged to respond in detail to each and every detail.

    Life is way too short for me to carry a copy of your brain around with me.

     

[Michael Tee]

<<MT is willing to defend the indefensible , which allows you and I to enjoy shooting fish in a barrell.>>

Really?  Well I've said this to Kramer, so I might as well say it to you too.  I don't know whether you've noticed this or not, but I've replied in detail to every one of your posts and Kramer's posts, but I can't say that this diligence has been reciprocated.  Quite a few times, I've noticed that I came up with answers to things that you or Kramer have said, to which you've presumably had no answer.  So then instead of conceding the point, or acknowledging it, you then move on to new sets of allegations or arguments, which I then demolish - - unacknowledged or conceded again - - and you move on to some new unrelated point again.

Well, I don't know how you define "shooting fish in a barrel" but however you do it, I have to tell you it bears absolutely no relation to what has been going on between us, or between Kramer and I.  It seems to me that in every one of our debates, you and Kramer ultimately become the fish in the barrel, and I am the one best described as "shooting fish in a barrel."  Just for the record.  I didn't appreciate the cheap shot, I made my point and I'm prepared to leave it at that.

[Michael Tee]

<<MT
  << I don't and I think you should not ,feel obliged to respond in detail to each and every detail.

   << Life is way too short for me to carry a copy of your brain around with me.>>

Fair enough, plane, but then if you don't respond to rebuttals that I have made, I have trouble seeing how you can legitimately make any claim to "shooting fish in a barrel."

[Plane]

I am an electrician.

Please do take my word for this .


Microphones are superior to human hearing , or at least can be.

Or don't take my word for it and become an electrician yourself, specialise in audio circuits and speak the lingo better than I do.

If I were to surround you with the sort of microphone that reporters normally carry , you would be surrounded with microphones adapted to the frequencys of the human voice .

   It would then be impossible for me to shout any message at all to you without the message being recorded.

If indeed the croud noise was too intense for the microphones to pick out any words , then necessacerily the croud noise would be too intense for any human ear to distinguish any particular word also.

  This is proven beyond any reasonable doubt, I cannot continue to answer your unreasonable doubts forever.

        If you do not answer this particular point of this particular post I will be understanding.

       I don't have an answer for everything either, try tho I might.

[Plane]

Which permits us to draw the following conclusion:
     1.  If "nigger" had been one of the words coming from that crowd, the microphones would not have been
         able to distinguish that particular word any more than they were able to distinguish any other particular word
         coming from that crowd;
     2.  Therefore, the inability of the mikes to pick out the word "nigger" neither proves nor disproves that the
          word was said at that particular time and place.

No.
No microphone ever does distinguish any word.
They make no value judgement and choose no favoriates.

A microphone and recorder will record the sound as it is and later when it is played back a human being will ascribe meaning to the noise. If a dog whistle was blown no one would have known at the time but a dog later could listen.

The human ear and brain is the active element for ascribeing meaning in any case.

It is possible to build a circuit that can use computer power for picking words out of sound , but I don't see the need for that complication. Human ears are still the interface for the human brain.

   Te microphones on the scene were much , very much, more competant to sense and record exactly what the noise was like than any ear present , but only ears and brains were there to understand then or later.

    Have you ever seen portraits in the grain of wood? Pictures in the tile of a floor?
Whirlpools in the hash of a TV between channells? Eyes do this , they can impose order where there is none as they react to a noisy signal and the brain.

    Ears do it too.

[Michael Tee]

<<If indeed the croud noise was too intense for the microphones to pick out any words , then necessacerily the croud noise would be too intense for any human ear to distinguish any particular word also.>>

Ii get that, and thanks for the insight, but what you don't get is that you're still talking in ideal circumstances, talking of what should be and not necessarily what was.

"Surrounded by microphones" for example, if taken literally there'd be a 360 degree bank of microphones around him with no space between him.  In reality, no more than a few mikes, at what angle, at what height who the hell knows?  They were probably in constant motion around the Congressman, so determining the precise configuration for all possible times when the N-word could have been uttered or repeated is just impossible.  Similarly who knows if the mikes were functioning at maximum capability or otherwise?

I have no problem at all with the idea that Congressman Lewis heard a word that the mikes didn't pick up, for whatever reason.  I'm also unimpressed by your total rejection of the eyewitness evidence of the Congressman and at least one member of his entourage.  As far as I know, the Congressman at least is a credible witness of good repute - - why are you so adamant that what he says he heard, and what at least one member of his entourage corroborates, can not be believed? 

I believe the Congressman and I am totally unimpressed by the failure of the mikes to pick out the word when they couldn't pick out any other word either.  They weren't adequate to the purpose and we don't even have enough knowledge of the circumstances to determine how likely or unlikely they would have been to pick out the word.  I also have a major problem with the idea that the Congressman was "surrounded by mikes."  That is clearly an overstatement that can't be maintained.

[Michael Tee]

plane, you posted two in a row on this topic.  I replied to the first, but was too tired to hold the reply till I read the second.  Then when I read the second, it didn't say much that I disagreed with.  I think we're both in agreement on the brain component of the ear-brain combination.  So much so that I'll even concede the possibility of Lewis' ear-brain combination picking out "nigger" from the crowd noise where nobody ever said it.   And the entourage guy too, especially if Lewis told him he heard it. 

However, with all due respect to your electrical expertise, which has to be a hell of a lot more than mine, I don't think we have enough technical knowledge to assert whether or not the mikes around the Congressman would have been able to pick out and record "nigger" from the crowd noises better than Lewis' own ear-brain combination.  Put another way, there might be some optimum operational state and configuration of the mikes that WOULD have "heard" better than the Congressman, or even equally well as him, but we don't actually know if that operational state and configuration was achieved at the time that Lewis claimed to have heard the N-word or not.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I don't think that this is of much importance, to start with.
I agree that some mikes can pick up sound more accurately than a human ear, but of course, unless the mike and the ear are in the same location, comparing them for a specific event is not going to work. Lewis may or not have heard something that was maybe said and maybe not.

The Teasies were hostile to him, in any event.

[Plane]

  I read the Bio for John Lewis recently .

    Forty five years ago he was repeatedly exposed to hostility that left him injured , he never quit.

     He deserves the honor due such valor.

      But on this occasion his ears were in the same environment as literally dozens of professional equipment recording devices.

       No ones eyes are better witnesses than camera, no ones ears are better witness than microphone.
      Nancy Pelosi and John Lewis and entourage had an alternative route than marching right through the crowd but in their judgement they were safe. They were right about the safety , they were wrong about the ease of applying calumny.

[Michael Tee]

<< No ones eyes are better witnesses than camera>>

ridiculous.  If that were true, you wouldn't know if you were looking at a portrait or a person.

<<no ones ears are better witness than microphone. >>

Perhaps, but if the ears were better positioned than the handful of mikes around them, they would hear a word that the mikes failed to pick out from the din of the howling mob.


     << Nancy Pelosi and John Lewis and entourage had an alternative route than marching right through the crowd but in their judgement they were safe.>>

Not safe against spittle and racist insults. 

<< They were right about the safety , they were wrong about the ease of applying calumny.>>

Calumny is you and others calling a hero like John Lewis a liar, but I don't think they were wrong about it at all.  In all of Lewis' civil rights struggles, he and his comrades must have been called liars and much worse, many times over, by all the racists inside and outside of the South.  This would not be the first time he ever was called a liar, I am sure of that.  I'm sure that even before he spoke about his ordeal, he must have known that there were plenty of racists and their sympathizers who would once more attempt to smear him as a liar.  He wasn't born yesterday.

[BT]

I'm not sure Lewis ever claimed he was called nigger at the health bill voting.