The purpose of political lies

An old acquaintance recently wrote to me that their teenage child said that truth is dead, that nobody can know the truth anymore, and that to insist on the truth was wrong and judgemental and arrogant. I am sure that both the parent and the child are sincere and very wonderful people, but it shows me how far the attack on truth has gone.  When the truth is discounted, democracy fails, and authoritarians take over.  The brilliant Hannah Arendt, the German philosopher that had intimately observed the Hitler and Nazi atrocities made this very important observation:

 

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

—Hannah Arendt

 

We are in a terrible time where the former president of the United States has created the most blatant, ridiculous, unbelievable lie in the history of this country - that he did not lose the election to Biden but actually won it in a landslide and the election was stolen from him.  He lost by 8 million votes, so who on earth could believe such a clumsy and stupid lie?  Well, about two thirds of Republicans say they believe this lie.  I don't know if they actually believe the lie or are they just saying so in order to demonstrate they are part of the Red Tribe, and it gives them justification for using any and all tactics to thwart the 2020 election.  But, that is what they say.

 

The lie is not to convince the already convinced, and it is not to convince the opposition, who know it is a lie.  The lie is to confuse the teenager mentioned above, and all those in the middle, so that they say - Who Knows?  One side says this and the other side says that, so everyone has their own truth, who can decide? No one wants to be judgmental after all...

 

This is how Hitler becomes Hitler and the Former Guy gets to become the new Hitler.  Very dangerous. 

Cryptocurrency’s fatal flaws

 It seems to me that Crypto has three fatal flaws - environmental destruction, criminal escape from detection, and threats to the financial stability of the world. 

Bitcoin already uses more power than Ireland or the state of Oregon.  We are in the midst of increasingly catastrophic Climate Change.  Forrests and oceans are dying.  The expansion of green energy is slow.  Crypto energy gobling can grow exponentially.  This alone kills crypto to me.

Crypto is loved by drug cartels, money launders, and criminals around the world because there are no banks, no banking regulations, no reporting of suspicious large deposits or transactions to law enforcement.  This, too,  is enough for me to oppose it.

Recently, a Wall Streeter warned that Crypto is to much like the Credit Default Swaps that were overly complicated and unstable financial instruments that caused the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008, which nearly destroyed the world wide financial system.  This is reason enough for me to fear it.

The Greedsters keep finding cons to make fortunes for themselves and risk us all in the process.  It never stops.

Six Republican House Members planned and abbetted the January 6 attempted overthrow of the government

It is no mystery why Republicans in the House are doing all they can to obstruct the Select House Committee investigation into the attempted violent overthrow of the United State Government on January 6 of this year. They are trying to protect the guilty amongst them.  

 

Participants on January 6 being investigated are are naming names:

 

• Marjorie Taylor Greene R-Ga.)
• Paul Gosar (Ariz.)
• Lauren Boebert (Colo.)
• Mo Brooks (Ala.)
• Madison Cawthorn (N.C.)
• Andy Biggs (Ariz.)
• Louie Gohmert (Texas)

 

These are not surprising names, of course, since they have gone on a media blitz ever since the violence promoting the ridiculous Big Lie that the election was stolen and praising the violence.  They do so proudly and in hopes of raising their political fortunes.  Amazing.

 

The purpose of Big Lies is to establish authoritarian/fascist/JimCrow/dictatorial rule that destroys democracy and installs dictatorships.  We saw this in the Jim Crow South after the election of 1876 where the Federal troops were withdrawn from the former Confederate states resulting in the disenfranchisement, abuse, and total subjugation of blacks until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.  The Big Lie was that the South fought a noble battle for freedom, rather than to keep and extend slavery.

We saw the purpose of Big Lies in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s when the "Stabbed in the Back" by Jews and Socialists Big Lie excused the loss of Germany in WWI, and created Nazis, Hitler, WWII, the Holocaust and about 70,000,000 deaths world wide.

 

The violence on January 6 wasn't just about a childish sore loser who was a poor sport.  It was a real attempt to deny democracy.  The subsequent flock of laws in Republican and swing states to set up election systems that will suppress the votes of people of color, and to set up systems to overturn election results if Republicans lose is a terrifying assault on democracy itself.

 

Let the investigation continue, deeply, and truthfully.  Those responsible, including these five mini-authoritiarians and the Former Guy himself need to be stripped of all government powers, now and in the future, and spend a good deal of time in prison.

 

This isn't a dispute of competing political philosophies.  This is about a very serious attempt to end democracy and establish fascist rule in our dear country.

 

Democracy is going to prevail.

Go Easy on Me

 Apparently, Adelle has released a video of her new song - Easy on Me - and it is smashing records of how many people have watched the video.  I don't follow pop music any more, but I did notice this one.  Adelle's singing imparts an intense emotion into her songs, and the standout line is "GO EASY ON ME".  The story of the song is about a personal relationship, but I think it is becoming an anthem of these pandemic, polarized, hostile times because of it's A cry from each of us to say to others - go easy on me!  We are in crisis.  We are just hanging on.  We are doing the best we can.  We aren't doing all that well.  But we are trying.

 

Go easy on me.  Please.

One of the ways vulture capitalism is destroying democracy

If we don't know what is going on, the corrupt oligarchy can get away with anything.  And that is happening in America today.

 

When "shareholder" capitalism takes over newspapers, they destroy them in the name of shareholder returns.  Profits become the only thing that is of any interest to the hedge fund masters of local newspapers.  The news is of no interest to them at all.  

 

And, of course, there is more to it than that.  It is not just buy the Chicago Tribune, fire half the staff, gut the company and relocate the deliberately understaffed newsfolks to a warehouse in some remote burnt out part of the city.  It's not just make a buck until the paper fails totally and then abandon it.  That would just be vulture capitalism out to rape and pillage as vulture capitalism rapes and pillages as normal.

 

No, I think the actual goal is to make sure that local news is unable to report the local news.  Make sure investigative reporting doesn't happen.  Make sure that pollution and graft and influence peddling and all the crimes of the oligarchy go unreported and thus unstopped.

 

The Atlantic has an important long read about all of this about a vulture hedge fund destroying local newspapers, including the once great Chicago Tribune - "A Secretive Hedgefund is Gutting Newsrooms".  

 

Destroy the news and pillage at your pleasure.

 

And, of course, this hedgefund - Alden Global Capital - contributes to Trump and Republicans.  Of course. 

 

One of the ways to inject money back into newspapers is for CONGRESS to intervene and require the social media giants like Facebook and Google to pay the newspapers and magazines for the content that they show on their platforms.  If I read an article or opinion from the Washington Post or Washington Times, the Post or Times should get some money - a penny?  We need the institutions of democracy, CONGRESS, to protect democracy.

Proof that vaccines work - same chart updated

Here is the latest proof that vaccines work.  The deaths skyrocketed until January 2021 when Biden created a nation wide vaccine program.  Then the vaccines plummeted off a cliff.  See chart.

 

Then they skyrocketed again with the coming of the Delta variant, and are plummeting again with the imposition of vaccine requirements by Biden now.  See chart.

This pandemic has always been a pandemic of the unvaccinated.  The first exponential death rate came because there were no vaccines.  The second exponential death rate came mostly because one of the political parties decided to tell its followers not to take the vaccine.

 

I understand that some have legitimate immune system, or allergy systems, where they can't get vaccinated.  But they are not the issue.  Politics is the issue and politics has been killing people.  The proof that vaccines work is in this chart.

 

The Republicans strange hatred

The intensity of hatred that Republicans have for liberals is confounding to me.  Especially the Trump Cultists.  They have created some kind of hatred cult, where “owning the libs” is more important than their own interests, safety, or lives - hatred for liberals, scientists, experts, and government.  The most obvious craziness is the refusal of so many in the Republican Party to mask, socially distance, or vaccinate against the pandemic.  I understand that some thoughtful people with medical conditions can’t take vaccines, and others have what they feel are legitimate concerns about the effects of vaccines (although I don’t share those concerns).

But, we have a huge percentage of people on the political right who are willing to get sick or even die if it upsets liberals.  Their defiance of science is a way of identifying with their tribe, their cult, their way of finding some kind of belonging and doesn’t seem to me to be part of any thoughtful exploration, but more just a way of being together in strange defiance of The Libs.  And they are pumped full of hate by a right wing media bubble making fortunes off of stoking the hatred.

In England, the Brexit people committed economic suicide so they could show those damned London people who ran their country.  Now there is nobody to drive their trucks and deliver gasoline to their gas stations. (Hat tip to James Carville)

This is beyond strange.  It is pretty crazy. 

Putin celebrates.  Years of disinformation and anti-science propaganda is paying off big time for him.  His spooks have been exploiting divisions in America and turning the divisions into hatred for decades.

Facebook's demonstration of the fatal flaw in shareholder capitalism

 Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, has revealed that the only value to Facebook is shareholder value.

 

“The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people,” she told lawmakers."

 

I think there was a big push in the business world about a half century ago to focus almost exclusively on Shareholder returns.  I think this was actually a shift from the business ethos at the time of Stakeholder Value. That is, CEOs and all top management became focused on stock prices, and the way they were forced to do so was their own compensation was directly tied to stock prices - shareholder value.  Oh boy!  What a smart idea, have the big corporations focus primarily on the stock prices of their investors.  Seems like the basic idea of capitalism, right?

 

Well, maybe not.  There is a different paradigm for capitalism - Stakeholder Capitalism.  That is, the company or corporation needs to keep four things in balance - shareholders, customers, employees, and the community (environment).  If you don't balance all four things, things go way out of balance and disaster looms.

 

Well, disaster is not looming, disaster is happening.  Facebook and Social Media have computer algorithms designed to make us hate each other and the result is an attempted coup by a losing president and his Party to overthrow the government. That story is not over, it is progressing toxically.

Focus on profit over the impact corporations have on the environment is creating a Climate Change and environmental filth that is destroying species, forests, coral, human lives and livelihoods. The fossil fuel and corporate agribusiness models are fatal. 

Shareholder Capitalism is creating income inequalities and imbalances the likes of which led to the French and Russian revolution slaughters. 

Some in the business world are turning to Stakeholder Capitalism with prioritizing environment, employees, and customers as well as top executive and shareholder investor income. Thank goodness for balance and flexibility in their approach. 

Shareholder Capitalism screams charges of Socialism whenever governments impose regulations and taxes needed to protect the needs of environment and community, workers, and customers, but if the Shareholder Model ignores the balance the balance needs to be imposed. If not, the earth, water, and air become so toxic that we all slowly wither. And the guillotines get sharpened. 

We are out of balance in so many ways. Time to restore. 

Trump bullies Texas

 Recently, Trump demanded that Texas do a recount of four districts in Texas.  What?  Trump won Texas.  Why recount?  I know he is mentally ill, but what on earth?  So I sent that question to my favorite Podcast - "Politics War Room" with Al Hunt and James Carville.  

 

They gave two good answers on their podcast of 9/30 - Money, and Cruelty.

 

Al Hunt said it is another way for this corrupt man to raise money.  All he does is raise money.  Greed.

 

Carville went deeper.  Cruelty.  He said:

 

"He enjoys watching Greg Abbot do whatever the fuck he tells him to do.  Enjoys the power of having that man make a fool of himself.  He is an inherently cruel man that likes to make fun of people, likes people to be subservient to him.  Greg Abbot is so scared of him he will do anything he wants.  He loves being cruel to people."

 

I think that is the best summary of the Former Guy I have heard.  Like all authoritarians he has an insatiable need to dominate and humiliate people - a psychotic need to make others publicly "kiss his ring" in acknowledgment of his dominance, forcefully prove the power of his will.  Or, the short version - be a cruel shit.  

 

It is no accident that the iconic film of the Nazi regime was entitled "Triumph of Will" by Leni Riefenstahl.

 

At the heart of Trump, and at the heart of the Trump Cult, is cruelty - overt, in your face, what are you going to do about it cruelty.

 

I used to think America was better than that, but only some of America is better than that, as has been proven by 74 million votes for this cruel psychopath in 2020.

 

I am so ready for this vile chapter in American life to be over.

Psycho

Donald Trump was so mentally unstable after losing the election that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, had to reach out to a very nervous China to assure them that he and the U.S. military were not going to attack China in the final days of the Trump presidency.  Intelligence available to Milley showed that China thought an attack could very well happen.  Milley let his Chinese counterpart know that Trump’s possible insanity would be stopped.

In other words, Milley and many in the military were so disturbed by the ravings of the lunatic in the oval office that they had to be ready to step in to avoid a world-wide bloody war.

They were ready to stop the psycho in the White House.  

This is not about a policy disagreement.  It is not about a military coup.  It is about recognizing and being willing to intercede to stop a possible action of a madman.  Trump has displayed his mental instability for a long time now, and it is clear that he was capable of great destruction.  Milley and others witnessed a raving lunatic totally disconnected with reality after his crushing loss to Biden.  He was nuts.

Thank you, General Milley.

Republican witness tampering

Amazingly, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives is witness tampering in the House investigation of the January 6 violent attempt to overthrow the government and hunt down and kill then Vice President, Mike Pence, and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.  

 

"House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is threatening telecommunications and social media companies that comply with a request by the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, declaring that Republicans “will not forget” their actions."

 

The Dear Leader of what used to be the Republican Party demonstrated persistently the way to break the law by witness tampering during the many investigations into his corrupt and anti-democratic actions.  For example, he praised potential witnesses against him like Roger Stone for standing firm refusing to tell the truth when being questioned by the law.   

 

The House has not yet requested records of communications by House and Senate and White House folks working up to and during the nauseating violence on January 6 of this year.  They have just told 35 telecom and tech companies not to destroy any records of concern.

 

It is not a mystery why McCarthy and the extremists in his House like Goetz, Gosar, Boebert, Green, etc. are making threats, they were very highly likely to be in on the planning and execution of the attempted coup.  They are in big danger if their collaboration and/or support for the violence becomes part of the sworn record.  I would hope that prison would be part of their futures for their attempt to overthrow an election.

 

It is pretty easy to find out which records to examine - just look at who is screaming the loudest threats.

 

Fascism is a pretty ugly thing to have to watch.

Why I got vaccinated

I have friends and acquaintances that I admire and respect that have not, or have not yet, gotten vaccinated.  I am sure that they have thought about this seriously, and that they are doing the best they can to protect themselves - and to protect those that breathe their air - from COVID-19.  I would just like to take a moment to share my reasons for being vaccinated. (I have links to each item below to click through if you like)

 

1.  VACCINES WORK - pandemic hospitalizations and deaths were rising geometrically prior to this January when our new president enacted a nationwide vaccination program, and then the hospitalizations and deaths dropped off a cliff to dramatic lows.  Sadly, with the mutation to the Delta variant and a refusal by one political party to vaccinate or wear masks the hospitalizations and deaths are spiking again.

 

2.   MERCURY - Mercury can enter the body in two forms - Methylmercury, which is in fish and which can build up in the body over time (one of the reasons I usually avoid fish); the second way is Ethylmercury (thimerosal) which is a disinfectant in vaccines to keep deadly bacteria out, and this form passes more quickly through the body. Mercury does not build up in the body from vaccines.

 

3.   DNA - the mRNA vaccines do not change or affect DNA.  They don't enter the cells where the DNA is.  They don't interact with DNA.  They don't alter DNA. 

 

4.   SCIENCE - I believe in science.  I know that the sun is 93 million miles from the earth, on average, even though I never took a tape measure to see for myself, because scientists figured that out and wrote it down.  I know that water is made of molecules made up of Hydrogen and Oxygen, even though they are too small for me to see, because scientists told me.  I know that photons exist as a wave of probability prior to observation and become a particle upon observation because scientists figured out a way to know that and tell me so.  And I believe that vaccines are safe because those scientists that are qualified, real actual epidemiologists, tell me so...... Are there reasons to distrust scientists?  Hell yes.  The tobacco industry had scientists who where were paid to lie to protect the tobacco industry.  The fossil fuel industry has scientists who deny human impact on Climate Change.  Does the Pharmaceutical Industry have unprincipled scientists promoting the industry?  Undoubtedly.  So, I have to take it on a case by case basis, and the overwhelming message from the most qualified medical scientists around the world is that the vaccines are safe.  I do not for a minute think they are just out for the money.  I think they are trying to save the world. 

 

5.   SAMPLE SIZE - Because of the dire emergency of an entire world getting, spreading, and dying from COVID-19 the vaccines had to be rushed to the world faster than normal.  But, for goodness sake, there have been over 200,000,000 vaccines in the U.S. alone. So this is the largest sample size in human history.  Result?  about 6207 (.0018%) deaths from allergic reactions to the vaccine, and over 650,000 have died from COVID-19.  Hospitals are not filling up with vaccine reactions. These vaccines have been proven, deeply proven, to be much less concern than the COVID-19 itself.

 

6.   MUTATIONS - The longer COVID-19 exists, the more it will mutate to more and more deadly versions.  We are now dealing with the DELTA variant, which is about ten times more transmissible than the original virus.  There is already a mu variant.  In the past we have stopped deadly plagues with vaccines - polio, scarlet fever, chickenpox, smallpox, tetanus.  A sad experience is to go to an old cemetery and see many tiny headstones of children who had died from communicable diseases prior to vaccines.

7.   RUSSIA - Putin's Russia has been spreading anti-vaccination disinformation and propaganda long before the advent of COVID-19.  Russia's "Active Measures" in America and Europe is to find disagreements in a country and use social media to turn people against each other. America is a rich target for them.  Race, class, religion, etc. are all areas of disagreement, and with Russia's toxic input they become areas of hatred and and violent disagreement.  Destroying America's trust in vaccines serves two purposes - weakens us by making us more sick than we need be, and more importantly, weakens us by making us distrustful of science.   Remember that America beat the Soviet Union to the moon, and signature scientific glory.  So, what better to do for Putin than to weaken America's scientific standing in the world?

So, this is why I have chosen to be vaccinated.  

 

I know that some of the people that I admire have different reasons for themselves, but I confess that I do hope that some of my thinking might help them decide to join me amongst the vaccinated (and masked, of course).  (I think a few of my friends have medical conditions, or very tender metabolisms or immune systems, and expect that a vaccine can throw their carefully balanced and precarious system out of balance.  So, I see them as a justifiable exception, and wish them the best).

 

I don't really have any expectation that the politically motivated non-vaxers and non-maskers in the deep red portions of the country will pay any attention to the above because their stance seems to be based upon a notion of manhood and tribal loyalty.  They are proud to proclaim that the government is not going to tell them what to do (silly, the government tells them not to rob banks, or kill someone you are mad at, or drive drunk, or ignore stop lights, and they obey in those cases, but....)

 

But, even there I do have a bit of hope.

If my non-vaccinated friends continue to stay un-vaccinated, I trust that they will take extra measures to make sure that they do not inadvertently infect others.  I know I am doing my best to mask up during this Delta time, knowing that I can transmit even though I have no symptoms, and am vaccinated myself.

 

The Texas assault on women's freedom

The Evangelical Christian fanatics have captured the Confederacy and Confederate dominated regions of other states. In Texas they have outlawed abortion after six weeks. Since a woman goes four weeks between periods she will have just two weeks to figure out the rest of her life in Texas. The worst part is that the Texas law offers some kind of bounty to citizen vigilantes to turn in any who aid in an abortion. They are actually legalizing and paying vigilantism.  To fanatics.  In America. 

Peel the onion just a bit and it is clear that the women who will be most affected will be poor women, mostly black and brown. So the Evangelical White Supremacists have found another way to harm non whites. Wealthy and middle class white women will find ways to travel for abortions. 

This law is disgusting. It is about white “Christians” dominating and dis-empowering women. The motivating energy of white supremacists seems to be very much around the idea of "putting people in their place".  In this case it is putting women in their place - in the kitchen and bedroom.  In the case of black and brown men and women it is putting them in their place as second class citizens who are kept from voting.  White supremacists see authoritarian white men as the top of the power pyramid and they dominate and control everyone underneath them.  

The truth is, of course, that the white domineering man has long ago fallen from his imagined throne, and women, gays, black-brown-yellow-red people have flowed into all aspects of American and world life.  But some keep trying to live in a John Wayne/Clint Eastwood world of Tough Real Men In Charge.  

Pathetic really.

Women are definitely noticing this Texan and Republican assault on their liberties and freedom of choosing the lives of their personal desires, and all but the most fervid evangelical women must understand that it is they themselves that are under attack.

I see this  horrible law shrinking the Republican Party. In the same way that extreme leftist antifa violence and extreme leftist thought and language control on campuses harm liberals, this preposterous attack on women’s freedoms should hurt conservatives. 

The Democratic Party's chances in 2022 and 2024 may have just taken a nice upturn.