Yes, but that’s how press statements are.
The initial statement someone gives to the press is often rehearsed, but answers to questions from the media usually aren’t. A media-trained person might come off as poised or pivoting to some talking points, but that’s very different from what appears to be a fully-scriped answer.
I don’t think the decades-long trend is as important as:
I haven’t flipped through the site a bunch, but I wonder if the higher historical rates are offset to a degree by lower costs of living in, say, 1995.
If you were to believe the MK Ultra story based solely on a well-rehearsed press statement from one single person, yes, there would be something wrong with your thinking. We believe MK Ultra happened because there’s evidence of it beyond just the story. Without that evidence, skepticism is warranted.
it’s a bizarrely specific story for anyone to invent
It’s a bizarre story, period. When anyone comes to you with a bizarre story, you don’t just take them at their word.
This is more of a “it comes from a country I generally support and is against a country I generally oppose, so I’m not going to look to closely” mistake.
An international propaganda win? It’s a sign!
That’s what’s weird here – a big chunk of money supposedly offered for something that would rate basically zero news coverage, and that is of zero substantive use.
“This doesn’t pass the sniff test” isn’t overthinking, it’s applying the minimum level of skepticism that should be applied to every story.
As for what really happened: I don’t know, but it’s also an assumption that the DPRK is who fabricated this story. Maybe Warmbier did, the DPRK had no way to disprove it, so they had him state it for the public. A college kid making a mistake and coming up with a dumb lie is probably the simplest explanation.
a story they can use to vilify the DPRK
They don’t need a one millionth story like this, and successfully stealing a sign doesn’t give them one, anyway. It’s a sign, not a state secret.
You’re right that stealing a sign is basically a frat prank, and no one gives you a car or $10k for one of those. Say this happened in the U.S., and some frat bro got busted for stealing a sign from a post office or whatever – would “I was actually offered $10k and a car to do this” strike you as a likely story?
Then there’s the question of if you’re already paying the guy for a story, why not just have him make one up? South Korean media already does this with defectors – no proof is needed because there’s zero scrutiny in most media.
it’d be wanting to get a result to the US’s benefit
How? A sign from the DPRK has zero value beyond “oh that’s kind of neat.” Coups and terrorism have meaningful end goals, not “look at this weird sign I have.”
Why would anyone pay $10k (and a car) for a sign?
What are the odds one of the few people willing to pay $10k for a sign would also just happen to have a kid who has a friend who’s going to the DPRK?
Why would I believe a far-fetched story that (if you watch the video) is carefully rehearsed (along with the answers to follow up questions)?
I have no idea what actually happened here, but this does not remotely pass the sniff test.
The CIA is an evil organization that has done all sorts of wild shit, but that doesn’t mean every weird accusation directed at them is true.
It’s possible, it just sounds incredibly far fetched. And with the press conference being obviously rehearsed… there’s no reason to believe this story.
A lot of this is really hard to believe:
Back in September, I had dinner at my friend Stephen Webb’s house with his mother, Sharon Webb, who is a deaconess at the Friendship United Methodist Church. She mentioned that communist nations value propaganda slogans and suggested that I take one from the country to display in her church as a trophy. She then continued, knowing that I was desperate to get a car for transportation between home and university every day. She offered me a used car and $10,000 if I succeeded. She also said that if I were detained and unable to return, her church would pay my mother $200,000 as a generous contribution, which I intended to use for my siblings’ college tuition—though this would still be $200,000 short of the total $400,000 needed.
A car and $10k for a sign? Even if you buy that the church encouraged this and had money to burn, that’s a lot for something that amounts to “huh, that’s neat.”
I’d say it’s like a serial killer who’s also a major philanthropist.
I hope this analysis is increasingly common in Ukraine, but I’m sure a lot of people just see that Ukraine is losing and think “I’m not getting shot for a lost cause.”
Or just “I believe my own bullshit” administrators hurting themselves in confusion?
I think this is closet to reality – basically the internal contradictions within the Republican Party manifesting.
You preach “starve the beast” to your base for 40-50 years, eventually True Believers gain significant power in your coalition, and you get this. They don’t understand the role USAID plays in maintaining empire (and the benefits empire produces) because they are too concerned with cutting the government to really examine what it does.
Opposition to this type of spending is easy to sell to your base because while they indirectly benefit from imperialism, they often are directly harmed by it. They’re the ones getting their legs blown off and dealing with price shocks. But the money behind the party loves imperialism – they’re getting paid to do it and the result directly benefits their businesses.
Every national economy has some planned parts (utilities and ag in the U.S., for example). Most less-planned capitalist economies don’t work, either – what has capitalism done for the vast majority of people in Latin America, Asia, and Africa?
China is a major example of a more-planned economy working as well as any economy in recorded history. About two-thirds of the economy is in the form of state-owned enterprises, the rest of the economy is firmly answerable to the government, and there’s top-down economic planning at regular intervals. In 75 years this has taken China from a mostly feudal society that had been carved up by various invaders for the previous century to a country with modern living standards and technology on par with anyone in the world.
Central planning is also at the core of the largest companies in the world, even ones that operate outside of significant state economic planning. Apple and Microsoft don’t have internal divisions operate on market principles; they plan and direct resource and labor distribution from the top down. The People’s Republic of Walmart is great reading on this last topic.
The people claiming Trump was somehow going to do even more genocide in Palestine have been immediately proven wrong.
One of the many problems with capitalism is that what is objectively a loss turns into a fantastic business opportunity for probably thousands of companies. Think of all the rebuilding contracts.
go outside and die for the state
At least three incarcerated fireghters died between 2017 and 2020. That same article says there were 1,760 incarcerated firefighters working in July 2023. Non-incarcerated firefighters also risk death; here’s two firefighters and a pilot who died in a helicopter crash, also from 2023. Quadrupling the known death rate among incarcerated workers gets us to 170 deaths per 100,000 workers. That’s well below everything on this table besides “office and administrative support.”
We rightly clown on cops for exaggerating how dangerous their jobs are. We are doing the same thing when we characterize this program as “go out and die for the state” or (as another commenter said) compare it to gladiators.
We don’t need exaggerations to make the case for socialism, and exaggerating only hurts us. We’re seeing that in this thread, where we’re dogpiling people for agreeing that prison slavery exists in the U.S. but arguing that we are stretching that definition to the breaking point. Why are we fighting people who largely agree with us already?
I don’t think you watched the video