Yesterday the official account of the Republican National Committee tweeted Independence Day greetings with a graphic of the Liberian flag, which has one star, rather than that of the United States, which has fifty.
A dispiriting reminder of the constant creep towards fascism that we need to resist. I just got an e-mail tonight from a group of progressives concerned about the unwillingness of the Democratic National Committee even to permit discussion about dark money in the party's elections. Not, perhaps, as egregious as the RNC using the wrong flag, but still, a self-imposed silence by the leaders of the Democratic Party, leading me to wonder what we can do to restore our democratic values to our party.
Yes, the fight against oligarchy is deep. Too many Democratic electeds receive major funding from what we used to call “special interests.” We need to clean house by electing Democrats to their seats who transparently use their legislative power for the wellbeing of their constituency and the nation. For instance, I don’t want a senator misrepresenting me by opposing universal healthcare because a major donor is big pharma. And if we live in a glass house we can’t attack the corrupt GOP opposition.
Added 7/6: How many votes did Hilary Clinton lose when it was revealed that she and Bill received over $125M in speaking fees after he left the presidency, 1/5 of it in the two years before her presidential run, including $675K for three speeches to Goldman Sachs? Was it legal, yes. But how could people trust her to advocate for them rather than Wall Street? Did that stop me from voting for her against Trump? No. But Democrats can and must do better. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/us/politics/in-race-defined-by-income-gap-hillary-clintons-wall-street-ties-incite-rivals.html
If we take "government of the people, by the people, for the people" seriously, and I think it is crucially important that we do, we need to be as a whole, far better informed and far more engaged (myself included) to realize that famous phrase in a meaningful sense. WE need to know what's going on, WE need to think about and discus consequences, and what kind of world we want to live in.
Picking the best representatives in the world won't bring that vision to fruition if we are not adequately aware and frankly riding herd on what our hired agents are doing in our name. It not just, elect Biden, or whoever, and he or she will figure it out for us. As we might engage any sort of expert, we definitely need to offload some of the horse work and engage the special expertise required in governing to fiduciaries. But a manager who snoozes while a project drifts off its mission, or is co-opted by self-serving opportunists, is simply not doing the job. WE collectively, are the ultimate managers of our own society's fate. Isn't that what democracy means? And a career in public service needs to be a calling, not a power play; by the people, for the people. No?
If you can't consistently and resolutely serve the public's interests, don't even think about taking a public sphere position. WE the People have too much at stake.
JL, I concur that being a public servant is (or can be) “a calling” of sorts. You are not in it for the money—public servants (the vast majority) likely make close to a living wage—just enough—there are no riches in public service, unless you leverage/take advantage (ick!) of your position (then, to me, you’ve stopped being a public servant & have become an opportunist). There are legions of folks working in the public sector that diligently, some even passionately, do their job to little or no fanfare….but then again, fanfare is not why they do the job…an occasional nod of approval or thanks is quite enough to know you are appreciated. I suggest books by Michael Lewis, such as The Fifth Risk & The Premonition that speak, in part, to the worker-bee public servants that most Americans don’t know have their backs. IMHO it can be a right livelihood.
Trump is the perfect example being the absolute antithesis of public servant. He being the perfect symbol for all that is wrong in the country. A grifter rises to the highest office? Impossible! Proof of something seriously wrong. He unleashed the worst element of our fellow Americans. Our job as patriotic citizens is to counter that hate with information and concerns for what is underlying such discontent.
Yes, we have no idea the constant drip, drip, drip of subtle pressure on local government to favor special interests, but when it isn't resisted, it becomes a fait accompli.
I once had a telephone appointment with a parent regarding her kid’s student aid…we had a lengthy conversation and I outlined information, made suggestions, I got specific and detailed, etc. Toward the end of our time, she said to me that I should be “a consultant” with the information & expertise I had & that folks would certainly be interested in what I had to offer. I paused for a beat or two before I replied that most of our “clients” (students/parents) seeking student aid for college were not in the position to pay for consultations and that I did what I did for free to whomever made an appointment with me. She was quiet for a moment (awareness dawning no doubt) and said, to paraphrase from memory, “oh, yes, of course”. I wasn’t upset, really, at what she suggested, but it was just such an anathema thought to me as not to ever be entertained….I mean, really, what???? Would have never occurred to me!
J.L..picking up on that thread, it reminds me of Lincoln's clear statement about what the Civil War meant: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Right now we are in fact engaged in a second civil war. We need to realize that. When more than 50 million Americans still support a person who actively tried to topple the government, we're involved in a "civil war." Some of the "Confederates" are on the inside, to wit: Jim Jordan, Josh Hawley and other MAGA members. What can we do as individuals? Get involved with the local Democratic Party and work like hell to get people registered to vote and to the polls on election day.
Josh Hawley, " sprinting like Bambi" away from the mob he saluted hours before on Jan. 6, is now sprinting into the arms of "virulent antisemitic white" supremicists. Run, Josh, run. And disappear.
Kids of a certain age become skilled at detecting BS, and aspiration. We often lose our edge when we become routinized and invested in the status quo, but all ages need to be collaborating for democracy to work.
When Democrats, pushed by social movement could no longer reconcile their egalitarian aspirations with smug, oppressive "DIxiecrats", the former "Party of Lincoln" saw an opportunity to recruit fanatical, angry army of would-be Confederates who wouldn't let it go. The R party has since fanned the embers of the first Civil War. Old Scratch himself might just as well have appeared in a puff of pink smoke, "Soul for Power" contract in his hand. "Truth and Reconciliation" never let the fire out of the first conflict, sustained to this day though too much winking at the supremacist impulse.
The larger conflict, the tension between compassion and narcissistic abuses of power is likely as old as our species, probably older.
"It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings" - Lincoln
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-brief-but-spectacular-take-on-knowing-your-power This link takes you to a segment of PBS NewsHour called "Brief but Spectacular", where a young man named Ben Sheehan talks about our woeful ignorance, which he hopes to help correct. According to a survey he cites (Pew, I think?) less than 50% of Americans queried could name the three branches of government. Civics is only a required course in 8 of the 50 states!! That is outrageous, but totally believable.
The pressure from Republicans like Lynn Cheney, wife of Dick and mother of Liz, to eliminate civics as unnecessary was strong when she was president of the National Council of the Humanities from 1986=1993. That's one reason I was astounded with Liz stood up against Trump's disregard for the Constitution. A lot of people in political office are clueless about public education, especially in poorly funded areas. A student who has weak reading skills can't infer how the government should function by studying American history. It has to be taught.
I am repeatedly reminded of Orwell's Newspeak. I recall my mother reading of somewhere in the States where it was a capital offense to teach a native American to read. Those obsessed with attaining absolute power want Orcs, not engaged citizens.
We hear a lot of words, such as "liberty" and "free market", etc.. without much discussion of the details of what they mean, how they work, and what is necessary to achieve or refine them. So much of our public political dialog feels like the empty puffery of commercial advertising, meant to skirt serious scrutiny. What, in terms of detail, does a phrase such as "Make America Great Again" even mean? Or is it an insubstantial slogan? It's not entirely the "GOP" doing it either. Even the email I get from politicians I support seems too much of a sales pitch and to little a substantive report. Replies to what I send to them often seem quite oblique to what I wrote about.
Thanks for this. I don't have tv, so find news on my computer when I can, and tend to radio and written forms. I had no idea this brilliant series was on PBS. This young (to me) man has really pinpointed the problem at root of the the problems we have. I've heard these things before but here he puts it in a context that connects some dots. So already today I have been made more fully aware, and now I recognize one of the things I might be able to make a difference about. BTW: our select board made a shuffle earlier this summer that resulted in a man being chair who is as uninformed about the structure and function of government as anyone I've met.
A group of us are attending meetings and calling him out on his errors, because the board itself is tippy-toing to keep the peace. I think he might be waking up, but I suspect his pride will result in his not running for re-election. He has stated himself that he is not really suited for "this being available all the time to deal with things". It is unfortunate that he has been put in the position he is in, because, gosh, that's part of the deal when you become a public elected official.
Amazing, the dirth of civics courses. I remember mine really well. Victor Wattner used the word "facetitous," the first time I had heard that word, to describe a politician's words. But, more to the point, James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me" is amazing. It was my daughter's high school history book (2002.) I have it and am reading it again. No wonder we don't know nuthin'. Many of us were taught nuthin'. I recommend this book for every one of us. Loewen died in 2021. I regret not writing to him to thank him for that book. [The older I get (83) the more regrets pile up.]
We all need to supplement our school experience with writings and talks by people like Loewen; we actually need to un-learn some of what we were taught - sometimes by distortion, sometimes by omission - and fill in some of the many intentional blanks left in our schooling at a critical point in our lives. It's eye-popping, as the real truth often is, but we can't be 'educated' or 'well-informed' without learning the un-edited version of what passed for education decades ago.
As though a driving school introduced you how to work the stereo and not the accelerator, steering wheel, and brakes. Part of this seems to me to be a push from corporatism to drop any school-based preparation for life in general, and focus on vocational training. They don't want the impediment of robust democracy and certainly don't want "woke".
Public service is a calling. If a job requires some education to toil long and hard for a barely adequate wage because that job is necessary for the common good, that job is a calling.
The member of the sedition caucus who represents my House district in NC is a political opportunist. He has never had a thought not put into his head by the RNC. My district is rural and poor, but he thought he could be an adequate representative because he had a vacation place at the beach in our district. He has since moved down here. Vacation places on the NC coast have never been cheap. He could not imagine trying to raise a family on the pay of a teacher and an auto mechanic working to pay the mortgage on a 3 bed, 2 bath house. Those are the fortunate ones. My rep is just interested in his own wellbeing, the rest of us are just a means to an end for him. BTW, he isn't married and isn't raising a family.
Sounds like an RNC plant. We have one in our Norther Michigan/Upper Peninsula district. U.S. Rep Jack Bergman is from Louisiana (where he and his wife still pretty much live), and he is owned by Enbridge to keep Line 5 running oil and gas through Lake Michigan. We have TWO excellent Democratic candidates to oppose him - I am contributing to and rooting for both, while explaining to "good" Republicans why Bergman is so bad for them.
What did he do to win the election? Misdirection plays, away from his constitutents' social and economic needs with abortion, immigration, racism, etc.?
And so many people just don't give a "damn". They don't want to care about their lively hood. I hate the term, "God will provide. And, I give it to the Lord."
The corporate buying of legislators and judges permitted by Citizens United has much to do with the moral rot we are witnessing in Washington. I don't see the House Judiciary Committee taking up that concern under Gym Jordan's extraordinarily partisan leadership.
I have a friend who was teaching a college class in China on the American political system. He was explaining about lobbyists when the class broke out in laughter. He asked why they were laughing. The Reply? They said that it was nothing more than legalized bribery.
In today’s climate I think more and more of Winston Churchill’s response when someone asked him whether the German attack on the Soviet Union made that country an ally of Britain. Churchill, a lifelong, virulent anti-Communist, said, “If Hitler invaded Hell, I should at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” I advise against litmus tests or examination of purity among those on our side in a fight to save the national, literally.
Making sure our stables are safe and clean is sound maintenance. But training and grooming and running good races with strong horses is the business of politics. I worry when our talking about the cleanliness of our candidates or restrooms, seemingly, gets the press coverage. I'd reu the day when our concession speechs brag that at least you can eat off the stable floors and our defeated candidate got 5-star approval from the "Citizens for No Dark Money."
The un-healthcare industry only makes money when we are sick and the food industry supplies foods that are highly addictive to make us sick so the un-healthcare industry can stay profitable. And they feed our politicians MONEY and that keeps politics sick, that is not representing their constituents.
This seems either naive, or right off the chaos agent script. "We can't deal with the corrupt fascist GOP until all Democrats are squeaky clean and ideologically pure" is utter bullshit. .
I say how about we DON'T paralyze Democrats with eternal infighting while the GOP runs roughshod over democracy. Rather, how about we immediately get to work purging government of the worst hypocritical, corrupt, anti-democratic fascists from the bottom up, regardless of which political party they claim to belong to.
It's said that herding Dems is like herding cats, and this "we can't criticize them unless/until we're perfect" is exactly the kind of divisive crap that proves the pudding
I certainly agree with you about the need for transparent funding, especially of Democratic party candidates who purport to serve the people rather than the oligarchs. Questionable funding from moneyed interests results in two things: people who refuse to vote for the leading candidate, for instance Hillary Clinton in 2016, despite the obvious consequences; and people who, seeing this dynamic, incessantly blame Democrats who made that choice instead of working on raising standards for fundraising, or on promoting viable and uncorrupted candidates for 2024 and beyond.
The start of authoritarianism is when common sense withers away and get replaced with misinformation. And this, some Republicans seems to have borrowed a leaf from the authoritarian regimes who have considered digital superhighway as a tool for misinformation to breed unrest and sway voters. Internet can disrupt democracies and at the same time, destabilise dictatorships. In April 2018, Facebook was embroiled in a Cambridge Analytica Scandal where personal information of almost 87 million was targeted for political gain. Since then, it has been established that data breaches of 50 million Turkish, 198 Americans, 55 million Filipino, and 93 million Mexicans have occurred.
Russians have Internet Research Agency, backed by GRU military intelligence and uses tactics like narrative laundering (legitimization of created narratives through repetition citations across media), and boosterism (repetitive content reinforcing the perception that a certain narrative represents a popular point of view).
These are digital tools that Republicans have mastered in the recent past and have created their own repeated narratives.
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By using Twitter, right-wing Republicans want to cut off their attention from the public and divert it to FBI and DOJ, and brand them as liars. This digital tool was used by Iran recently.
Iran, as per the Atlantic Council, has deployed digital influence tools. Iranian sock puppets started operating in 2010 and have grown gradually in recent years, with Facebook identifying (recently in 2020) that approximately "2,200 assets directly affected six million users. Similarly Twitter identified 8,000 Twitter accounts responsible for roughly 8.5 million messages.
"During the January 2018 nationwide protests in Iran, Twitter bots attempted to discredit widely shared videos of rallies, while pro-regime accounts guided protestors to the wrong locations and sought to convey that protests were small and localized."
Edwin - I think I got my first memorable taste of dis-information during the first Iraq war, when Saddam Hussein filled the news feeds with lie after lie, spin on top of spin. It occurred to me that if one can change truth, turn lies into facts in the eyes of enough people to matter, then you have power. An ill gotten power, a corrupt power corrupt to its core. Hard to explain, but I felt a senses of alarm. I guess I place alot of importance on evidence-based reality (part of the reason I am not religious), and that serious danger lurks when nations alter truth for their own interests. Since then, I have watched the Republican Party swallow this tactic hook, line, and sinker. As I have stated before, a political party whose whole platform is based on something other than modern reality (climate denial being the most important example), such skullduggery is necessary to convince a voting public that it is right. It is a test of the literacy of the voting electorate - do they collectively have a good BS meter. I am afraid that they (we?) may fail that test. Already did once in 2016.
And "Fahrenheit 451." There are people and places banning books or trying to, following in the steps of totalitarian countries. Look at Germany under Hitler. Look at the Soviet Union and Russia today. Look at Belarus. Look at China. Look at Kyrgyzstan. Look at Iran. Look at Florida. Wait until they build a wall to keep people in. Right now they lure retirees with their no taxes, so that people's retirement money is stretched further. That is until the sea wall washes over their property destroying it or just floods them out. Then they say they cannot have certain books or thoughts taught in universities and schools, so Floridians can be ignorant. Will they start banning reading books? Will they ban reading the internet? Apparently a Federal Court Judge just gave credence to the idea that a Federal Court cannot restrict books, but can they make sure that that same court will not uphold Florida banning books? [In]Justice Terry A. Dougherty is the name of this man. Congress needs to pass laws restricting social media anyway. Then, the President doesn't have to.
True. Remember once something is accepted and normalised, it becomes part of the society and norms of the society are hard to break-it takes ages. Now with the digital superhighway, politicians can easily reach thousands of people in a few minutes with fabricated information and convince the public without proof. The main tool is appealing to emotions of the people and not their logic. With this, they can win them with ease with the use of misinformation. In Kenya, the opposition told their supporters that their results were stolen despite the Supreme Court deciding and concluding the case. And worse, they believed them and demonstrated.
In Kenya, I would expect that kind of thing to happen from time to time. The average Kenyan still has far less education than the average American, and presumably less understanding of the political system. Perhaps, also, many in the electorate have been burned before with corrupt politicians. Am I wrong? I am not a Kenya expert by any means. I believe the ignorant mind (willful or not) is ripe for a dis-information campaign. This is what baffles me with the political situation in the USA. We should know better. The forces of dis-information should be no more than background radiation here, but instead it is a force that can take hold of the nation.
James, and yet, we educated Americans accepted Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and were dumb enough to elect him.
I do not think we have anything over anyone!!!!
Obviously, we as humans are vulnerable to "mob" influence and less likely to really look at the total candidate.....observing character, experience in governing, general respect for women and other humans, ability to work with all Americans and world leaders....FOR FREEDOM!
Somehow. An average Kenya is less educated than the average American, but the millenials are burgeoning in numbers in terms of those who are educated. Recently, the highest number of tiktik users comes from Kenya at 54% more than any other country across the world. But, I have realized that no matter what level of education, disinformation can hit anyone like a plague. The only difference is that when someone thinks for the second time, they may obliterate themselves from misinformation. But, only a few people can do that. Trump tried in 2021 and almost succeeded in selling lies were it not for Facebook and Twitter to ban him.
I agree that norms are hard to break. I was watching a show in Germany, where they were discussing how hard a time many East Germans had adapting when Germany reunified East and West into one nation again. They discussed that it would take 3 generations to really move beyond the cultural differences of the two parts of Germany. I have seen this in action. Three generations is 60 years, so that is kind of what we are looking at in terms of breaking norms.
I remember that very well and I screamed to High Heaven: Even if Saddam had WMDs he wouldn't use them because he knew that he would be irradiated by superior forces and that would cost him everything. Saddam was cruel, but not stupid, like us. We were stupid to buy into Bush's Big Lie. Millions of humans are now dead or suffering because of Bush and the gang around him.
Perhaps the biggest lie of the Iraq War was the eventually proven-false propaganda about the Kuwaiti baby incubators, which whipped up American public hatred against Iraq and support for Bush's evil war:
Interesting perspective on how wrong testimony and campaign propaganda ignited Iraq War. But, what happened to intelligence? Did the then president believed in false media reports? How did the secret service carry out its work? Did Bush only wanted to test its might?
My understanding is that this was deliberate propaganda to get the American people to support Bush's plan to crush Iraq, because Iraq under Saddam Hussein was successfully industrializing.
If you are interested and have the time, you might be interested in the book "The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf."
Around the same time, with George H.W. Bush as President, was the Shock Therapy genocide against Russia. This killed all the old people and more. If you have the interest and the time, you might check the book "Genocide: Russia and the New World Order" by a Russian minister under President Boris Yeltsin:
This happened during the ongoing I.M.F. genocide against almost all of the Third World countries. Quoting from the 100-page resignation letter of senior I.M.F. official Davison Budhoo:
"To me resignation is a priceless liberation, for with it I have taken the first big step to that place where I may hope to wash my hands of what in my mind’s eye is the blood of millions of poor and starving peoples. ...The blood is so much, you know, it runs in rivers....
"The charges that I make touch at the very heart of western society and western morality and post-war inter-governmental institutionalism that have degenerated into fake and sham under the pretext of establishingand maintaining international economic order and global efficiency....
"Will the world be content merely to brand our institution as among the most insidious enemies of humankind? Will our fellowmen condemn us thus and let the matter rest? Or will the heirs of those whom we have dismembered in our own peculiar Holocaust clamor for another Nuremberg?
"I don’t mind telling you that this matter has haunted me; it has haunted me particularly over the past five years. It has haunted me because I know that if I am tried I will be found guilty, very guilty, without extenuating circumstance...."
HCR refers to "the removal of disinformation during the pandemic." Did such "removal" go far beyond disinformation and suppress any public talk that questioned the party line that the new, experimental covid vaccines were "safe and effective"?
John - my wife is part of the medical community, and she is in the know. She watched in an overwhelmed hospital how people died horribly from that disease, one after another, and felt how helpless we were for a time. When you are in that position, you have a unique perspective on something like Covid 19, as opposed to those who poo-poo'd it saying it was a liberal ploy. The Covid-19 virus was a very scary thing, at the beginning especially. It was looking like it might be similar to some of the fictional movies made where huge swaths of human population were wiped out. Surely you recall hospitals in Italy racking and stacking corpses in the hallways. Meat locker trucks in the streets of New York storing the dead. There was every reason for the pharmaceutical community to pull out all the stops and get a vaccine developed without a moment to lose. That they did so as quickly as they did is just amazing. Were shortcuts taken? Yes as I understand it. Was it worth it - hell yes. Upwards of 4000 persons per day were dying at the time, in the US alone. Did it put humans at risk? No reliable evidence that is the case. There was also every reason for nations to lock up, and protect its citizens from something that was going to kill them. That Trump resisted this is a crime against humanity that will unfortunately go unpunished. And importantly, there was every reason to go after those who would misuse the free speech rights we have to endanger everyone. Like you. Your continued efforts here to deny the seriousness of that pandemic and attack the actions of a nation to try to get on top of it are despicable. You have decided in your own mind what went down, and seek anything you can find to back it up. You will not find any institution with any credibility that shares the crap you link to. I do not have time for covid deniers of any color or flavor. None of us should.
James, love and appreciation to your wife, and to all medical professionals who endured this horror!!!! COVID damaged all of us in one way or another as well as our "worldwide family".
I remember the piles of bodies....so many dying that they could not be cared for in a timely manner. Our whole world experienced this horror.
@John Schmeeckle, thank you for identifying the kind of disinformation that needs to be suppressed. The articles you cite are bullpucky, full of pseudo science, intended to stir fear and distrust. Your post demonstrates the problem of disinformation perfectly.
Unfortunately, the digital rules and regulations are still inconsistent with how to deal with misinformation. Social media completely closed public discourse on jow safe and effective vaccines were. I don't know now how digital stakeholders will regulate varying opinions given that only mainstream companies are mostly not questioned because they are known. The unknowns with tested and proven methods are censured strictly. The articles that you shared reflects the non-uniformity of tackling misinformation from a large swamp of data in the Internet.
I understand that Africa has coped with Covid-19 without the widespread use of the experimental western vaccines. Perhaps you might have a comment on the following:
The first article I linked reported on a research paper co-written by the Director of a Center at the Harvard Medical School.
@James Wheaton:
If you pack a lot of people with a respiratory infection together in an enclosed space, deaths accelerate dramatically. The real culprit is the ongoing shutting of hospitals, so we no longer have the resources to deal with this type of epidemic.
Your false statements about my point of view and what I have posted here are defamatory. I have reported your post.
@John R: There is no intellectual content in your foam-at-the-mouth tirade. You speak like a Silly McCarthyist Orwellian Troll (SMOT).
@John Schmeeckle. You continue to be the perfect exemplar of the spreaders of disinformation that social media hope to eliminate. You link to articles from fringe conspiracy theorists, whose claims have not held up to scientific scrutiny. These “experts” you cite have been dismissed by the scientific community because they use pseudo-science to generate fear and ignorance. They threaten to do real damage to communities by leading them to doubt life-saving medical care. Promoting such quackery is immoral, and dangerous. I’d say you should know better, but perhaps this is all you know. You are a reflection of that of which you accuse others, “There is no intellectual content in your foam-at-the-mouth tirade. You speak like a Silly McCarthyist Orwellian Troll”. I wouldn’t have put it like that, it’s a bit too Monty Python in it’s absurdity. But those are your words. Why do you do this?
For those whom we are engaging through my newsletter, I am greatly indebted to you. You are on 🔥. I wholeheartedly welcome you too by subscribing for free.
Edwin, I could appreciate your contributions a lot better if I didn't feel constantly pressured to join your newsletter. If you are interesting enough, I will, but I also need to be careful not to overload. I would love to know more specifics about how your observations of African history and current affairs can help us understand our own better. I am not as well-versed in African affairs as I feel I should be and as I learn, I am realizing how much more connected to Africa we are than our history tells us. I truly appreciate your expanding on that in your posts. But I have a resistance to the "hard sell". Your posts will draw people in. No need for hard sell.
Wooow! I really appreciate your feedback and I am grateful having you here. Actually, am currently researching on African affairs (perhaps that you don't know). From history, politics, economy, social life, local culture, language, individuals, to technology, I will expound them. I am sorry that I haven't written enough because I have been working on them for some days because research is time-consuming and indeph. Expect more and welcome once again.
Andrew Korybko's substack focuses on Russia, and he has a lot to say about Russia and Africa. Sometimes he is persuasive, but I've had occasion to publicly disagree with him. He says that Russia has been fighting a proxy war with France in northwestern Africa. Whether you agree or disagree with his assessments, it might be useful for you to know what others are thinking about:
In the aftermath of the 2016 election, I registered as a Democrat (after decades of being unenrolled, voting in Democratic primaries, and voting for Democrats because the Republicans were so awful) and got involved in the Democratic Party politics at the local level. It's been interesting and educational, but I'm on my way out. All the best candidates are Democrats, but the Democratic Party in my state (same as yours, Betsy: MA) is bloated and hidebound, while the state legislature, with Dem supermajorities in both houses, is a national embarrassment (especially the House of Representatives) . It now looks to me as if the most effective way to restore (or maybe create from scratch) democratic values to the Democratic Party is by organizing outside it to kick its butt. (Still haven't decided if I'm going to the MassDems convention in September, but I did send in my registration.)
A dispiriting reminder of the constant creep towards fascism that we need to resist. I just got an e-mail tonight from a group of progressives concerned about the unwillingness of the Democratic National Committee even to permit discussion about dark money in the party's elections. Not, perhaps, as egregious as the RNC using the wrong flag, but still, a self-imposed silence by the leaders of the Democratic Party, leading me to wonder what we can do to restore our democratic values to our party.
Yes, the fight against oligarchy is deep. Too many Democratic electeds receive major funding from what we used to call “special interests.” We need to clean house by electing Democrats to their seats who transparently use their legislative power for the wellbeing of their constituency and the nation. For instance, I don’t want a senator misrepresenting me by opposing universal healthcare because a major donor is big pharma. And if we live in a glass house we can’t attack the corrupt GOP opposition.
Added 7/6: How many votes did Hilary Clinton lose when it was revealed that she and Bill received over $125M in speaking fees after he left the presidency, 1/5 of it in the two years before her presidential run, including $675K for three speeches to Goldman Sachs? Was it legal, yes. But how could people trust her to advocate for them rather than Wall Street? Did that stop me from voting for her against Trump? No. But Democrats can and must do better. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/us/politics/in-race-defined-by-income-gap-hillary-clintons-wall-street-ties-incite-rivals.html
If we take "government of the people, by the people, for the people" seriously, and I think it is crucially important that we do, we need to be as a whole, far better informed and far more engaged (myself included) to realize that famous phrase in a meaningful sense. WE need to know what's going on, WE need to think about and discus consequences, and what kind of world we want to live in.
Picking the best representatives in the world won't bring that vision to fruition if we are not adequately aware and frankly riding herd on what our hired agents are doing in our name. It not just, elect Biden, or whoever, and he or she will figure it out for us. As we might engage any sort of expert, we definitely need to offload some of the horse work and engage the special expertise required in governing to fiduciaries. But a manager who snoozes while a project drifts off its mission, or is co-opted by self-serving opportunists, is simply not doing the job. WE collectively, are the ultimate managers of our own society's fate. Isn't that what democracy means? And a career in public service needs to be a calling, not a power play; by the people, for the people. No?
If you can't consistently and resolutely serve the public's interests, don't even think about taking a public sphere position. WE the People have too much at stake.
JL, I concur that being a public servant is (or can be) “a calling” of sorts. You are not in it for the money—public servants (the vast majority) likely make close to a living wage—just enough—there are no riches in public service, unless you leverage/take advantage (ick!) of your position (then, to me, you’ve stopped being a public servant & have become an opportunist). There are legions of folks working in the public sector that diligently, some even passionately, do their job to little or no fanfare….but then again, fanfare is not why they do the job…an occasional nod of approval or thanks is quite enough to know you are appreciated. I suggest books by Michael Lewis, such as The Fifth Risk & The Premonition that speak, in part, to the worker-bee public servants that most Americans don’t know have their backs. IMHO it can be a right livelihood.
Trump is the perfect example being the absolute antithesis of public servant. He being the perfect symbol for all that is wrong in the country. A grifter rises to the highest office? Impossible! Proof of something seriously wrong. He unleashed the worst element of our fellow Americans. Our job as patriotic citizens is to counter that hate with information and concerns for what is underlying such discontent.
Harvey Kravetz: He's the ex Self-Servant in Chief!
Hahahahaha….thanks for this!
Yes, we have no idea the constant drip, drip, drip of subtle pressure on local government to favor special interests, but when it isn't resisted, it becomes a fait accompli.
I once had a telephone appointment with a parent regarding her kid’s student aid…we had a lengthy conversation and I outlined information, made suggestions, I got specific and detailed, etc. Toward the end of our time, she said to me that I should be “a consultant” with the information & expertise I had & that folks would certainly be interested in what I had to offer. I paused for a beat or two before I replied that most of our “clients” (students/parents) seeking student aid for college were not in the position to pay for consultations and that I did what I did for free to whomever made an appointment with me. She was quiet for a moment (awareness dawning no doubt) and said, to paraphrase from memory, “oh, yes, of course”. I wasn’t upset, really, at what she suggested, but it was just such an anathema thought to me as not to ever be entertained….I mean, really, what???? Would have never occurred to me!
The Premonition is a superb book about the public health people who worked to fight COVID. It's also a good read. I haven't read The Fifth Risk.
J.L..picking up on that thread, it reminds me of Lincoln's clear statement about what the Civil War meant: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Right now we are in fact engaged in a second civil war. We need to realize that. When more than 50 million Americans still support a person who actively tried to topple the government, we're involved in a "civil war." Some of the "Confederates" are on the inside, to wit: Jim Jordan, Josh Hawley and other MAGA members. What can we do as individuals? Get involved with the local Democratic Party and work like hell to get people registered to vote and to the polls on election day.
Josh Hawley, " sprinting like Bambi" away from the mob he saluted hours before on Jan. 6, is now sprinting into the arms of "virulent antisemitic white" supremicists. Run, Josh, run. And disappear.
YES! WOrk like hell to register folks (especially high school students) to vote!
And get them interested in politics and the truth!
Kids of a certain age become skilled at detecting BS, and aspiration. We often lose our edge when we become routinized and invested in the status quo, but all ages need to be collaborating for democracy to work.
When Democrats, pushed by social movement could no longer reconcile their egalitarian aspirations with smug, oppressive "DIxiecrats", the former "Party of Lincoln" saw an opportunity to recruit fanatical, angry army of would-be Confederates who wouldn't let it go. The R party has since fanned the embers of the first Civil War. Old Scratch himself might just as well have appeared in a puff of pink smoke, "Soul for Power" contract in his hand. "Truth and Reconciliation" never let the fire out of the first conflict, sustained to this day though too much winking at the supremacist impulse.
The larger conflict, the tension between compassion and narcissistic abuses of power is likely as old as our species, probably older.
"It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings" - Lincoln
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-brief-but-spectacular-take-on-knowing-your-power This link takes you to a segment of PBS NewsHour called "Brief but Spectacular", where a young man named Ben Sheehan talks about our woeful ignorance, which he hopes to help correct. According to a survey he cites (Pew, I think?) less than 50% of Americans queried could name the three branches of government. Civics is only a required course in 8 of the 50 states!! That is outrageous, but totally believable.
The pressure from Republicans like Lynn Cheney, wife of Dick and mother of Liz, to eliminate civics as unnecessary was strong when she was president of the National Council of the Humanities from 1986=1993. That's one reason I was astounded with Liz stood up against Trump's disregard for the Constitution. A lot of people in political office are clueless about public education, especially in poorly funded areas. A student who has weak reading skills can't infer how the government should function by studying American history. It has to be taught.
I am repeatedly reminded of Orwell's Newspeak. I recall my mother reading of somewhere in the States where it was a capital offense to teach a native American to read. Those obsessed with attaining absolute power want Orcs, not engaged citizens.
We hear a lot of words, such as "liberty" and "free market", etc.. without much discussion of the details of what they mean, how they work, and what is necessary to achieve or refine them. So much of our public political dialog feels like the empty puffery of commercial advertising, meant to skirt serious scrutiny. What, in terms of detail, does a phrase such as "Make America Great Again" even mean? Or is it an insubstantial slogan? It's not entirely the "GOP" doing it either. Even the email I get from politicians I support seems too much of a sales pitch and to little a substantive report. Replies to what I send to them often seem quite oblique to what I wrote about.
J L--Our country's zeigtest is governed by bumper stickers and memes.
Progwoman: To paraphrase Rogers and Hammerstein, Civics like hate, "has to be carefully taught."
Thanks for this. I don't have tv, so find news on my computer when I can, and tend to radio and written forms. I had no idea this brilliant series was on PBS. This young (to me) man has really pinpointed the problem at root of the the problems we have. I've heard these things before but here he puts it in a context that connects some dots. So already today I have been made more fully aware, and now I recognize one of the things I might be able to make a difference about. BTW: our select board made a shuffle earlier this summer that resulted in a man being chair who is as uninformed about the structure and function of government as anyone I've met.
A group of us are attending meetings and calling him out on his errors, because the board itself is tippy-toing to keep the peace. I think he might be waking up, but I suspect his pride will result in his not running for re-election. He has stated himself that he is not really suited for "this being available all the time to deal with things". It is unfortunate that he has been put in the position he is in, because, gosh, that's part of the deal when you become a public elected official.
Amazing, the dirth of civics courses. I remember mine really well. Victor Wattner used the word "facetitous," the first time I had heard that word, to describe a politician's words. But, more to the point, James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me" is amazing. It was my daughter's high school history book (2002.) I have it and am reading it again. No wonder we don't know nuthin'. Many of us were taught nuthin'. I recommend this book for every one of us. Loewen died in 2021. I regret not writing to him to thank him for that book. [The older I get (83) the more regrets pile up.]
Here's Loewen a few years ago talking about this: https://www.google.com/search?q=Richard+Lowen+More+Lies+My+Teacher+Taught+Me&oq=Richard+Lowen+More+Lies+My+Teacher+Taught+Me&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l2.27320j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:7855392e,vid:9sNUczwsrw8
We all need to supplement our school experience with writings and talks by people like Loewen; we actually need to un-learn some of what we were taught - sometimes by distortion, sometimes by omission - and fill in some of the many intentional blanks left in our schooling at a critical point in our lives. It's eye-popping, as the real truth often is, but we can't be 'educated' or 'well-informed' without learning the un-edited version of what passed for education decades ago.
Wow! Thank you for this. I am going out onto the patio, light up a cigar, and have a great experience with Jim Loewen.
I've always bristled at the snarky title of that book. Teachers are required to adhere to the curriculum as decided by the school board.
Granted, the title could have been better, such as "How our history books misled us" or "How you were lied to by your history books."
As though a driving school introduced you how to work the stereo and not the accelerator, steering wheel, and brakes. Part of this seems to me to be a push from corporatism to drop any school-based preparation for life in general, and focus on vocational training. They don't want the impediment of robust democracy and certainly don't want "woke".
Public service is a calling. If a job requires some education to toil long and hard for a barely adequate wage because that job is necessary for the common good, that job is a calling.
The member of the sedition caucus who represents my House district in NC is a political opportunist. He has never had a thought not put into his head by the RNC. My district is rural and poor, but he thought he could be an adequate representative because he had a vacation place at the beach in our district. He has since moved down here. Vacation places on the NC coast have never been cheap. He could not imagine trying to raise a family on the pay of a teacher and an auto mechanic working to pay the mortgage on a 3 bed, 2 bath house. Those are the fortunate ones. My rep is just interested in his own wellbeing, the rest of us are just a means to an end for him. BTW, he isn't married and isn't raising a family.
Sounds like an RNC plant. We have one in our Norther Michigan/Upper Peninsula district. U.S. Rep Jack Bergman is from Louisiana (where he and his wife still pretty much live), and he is owned by Enbridge to keep Line 5 running oil and gas through Lake Michigan. We have TWO excellent Democratic candidates to oppose him - I am contributing to and rooting for both, while explaining to "good" Republicans why Bergman is so bad for them.
Dr. Bob Lorinser:
https://www.votedrbob.com/
Callie Barr:
https://callieforcongress.com/
What did he do to win the election? Misdirection plays, away from his constitutents' social and economic needs with abortion, immigration, racism, etc.?
President Obama said much the same thing. We the People have gotten a bit lazy as citizens. It’s time to wake up.
Well stated and critically important for us all. I am nudging more emphatically the friends who employ the ‘head in the sand’ method.
And so many people just don't give a "damn". They don't want to care about their lively hood. I hate the term, "God will provide. And, I give it to the Lord."
J L Graham--So true. The only caveat is that there aren't very many qualified people who want to subject themselves to the miseries of public office.
Gary, getting rid of, overturning, Citizens United would be a start…..now THAT’S one SCOTUS “take back” I’d support!
The corporate buying of legislators and judges permitted by Citizens United has much to do with the moral rot we are witnessing in Washington. I don't see the House Judiciary Committee taking up that concern under Gym Jordan's extraordinarily partisan leadership.
I have a friend who was teaching a college class in China on the American political system. He was explaining about lobbyists when the class broke out in laughter. He asked why they were laughing. The Reply? They said that it was nothing more than legalized bribery.
Richard, maybe the Chinese students are more insightful and honest about our political system than we are.
They are very intelligent and have no stake in the matter, therefore complete objectivity.
We've known that at least since I was in junior high in the 50s. And it's been addressed, to no avail. It works too well for those who benefit.
As long as SCOTUS is overturning established law why not revisit the interpretation of the 2nd amendment.
In today’s climate I think more and more of Winston Churchill’s response when someone asked him whether the German attack on the Soviet Union made that country an ally of Britain. Churchill, a lifelong, virulent anti-Communist, said, “If Hitler invaded Hell, I should at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” I advise against litmus tests or examination of purity among those on our side in a fight to save the national, literally.
Making sure our stables are safe and clean is sound maintenance. But training and grooming and running good races with strong horses is the business of politics. I worry when our talking about the cleanliness of our candidates or restrooms, seemingly, gets the press coverage. I'd reu the day when our concession speechs brag that at least you can eat off the stable floors and our defeated candidate got 5-star approval from the "Citizens for No Dark Money."
The un-healthcare industry only makes money when we are sick and the food industry supplies foods that are highly addictive to make us sick so the un-healthcare industry can stay profitable. And they feed our politicians MONEY and that keeps politics sick, that is not representing their constituents.
This seems either naive, or right off the chaos agent script. "We can't deal with the corrupt fascist GOP until all Democrats are squeaky clean and ideologically pure" is utter bullshit. .
I say how about we DON'T paralyze Democrats with eternal infighting while the GOP runs roughshod over democracy. Rather, how about we immediately get to work purging government of the worst hypocritical, corrupt, anti-democratic fascists from the bottom up, regardless of which political party they claim to belong to.
John M. Kelly: Yes. Exactly. Sacrificing the pragmatic and possible for a quixotic commitment to perfection.
It's said that herding Dems is like herding cats, and this "we can't criticize them unless/until we're perfect" is exactly the kind of divisive crap that proves the pudding
So true--and so frustrating. The aging Naderites are still self-righteously blind to the damage their sophomoric idealism has done to this country.
I think the last sentence should read "And if we don't live a glass house (transparency) we can't ..." .
I certainly agree with you about the need for transparent funding, especially of Democratic party candidates who purport to serve the people rather than the oligarchs. Questionable funding from moneyed interests results in two things: people who refuse to vote for the leading candidate, for instance Hillary Clinton in 2016, despite the obvious consequences; and people who, seeing this dynamic, incessantly blame Democrats who made that choice instead of working on raising standards for fundraising, or on promoting viable and uncorrupted candidates for 2024 and beyond.
And if we live in a glass house we can’t attack the corrupt GOP opposition.
WELL SAID!
I come from a family of far left Democrats. Both the Democrats and the Republicans were full spectrum, right to left.
We were and are always active in politics. I am now unaffiliated.
The "leadership" of the DNC is leading us down a path toward what was Republican left status.
You know how many Republicans are leftist.
The start of authoritarianism is when common sense withers away and get replaced with misinformation. And this, some Republicans seems to have borrowed a leaf from the authoritarian regimes who have considered digital superhighway as a tool for misinformation to breed unrest and sway voters. Internet can disrupt democracies and at the same time, destabilise dictatorships. In April 2018, Facebook was embroiled in a Cambridge Analytica Scandal where personal information of almost 87 million was targeted for political gain. Since then, it has been established that data breaches of 50 million Turkish, 198 Americans, 55 million Filipino, and 93 million Mexicans have occurred.
Russians have Internet Research Agency, backed by GRU military intelligence and uses tactics like narrative laundering (legitimization of created narratives through repetition citations across media), and boosterism (repetitive content reinforcing the perception that a certain narrative represents a popular point of view).
These are digital tools that Republicans have mastered in the recent past and have created their own repeated narratives.
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By using Twitter, right-wing Republicans want to cut off their attention from the public and divert it to FBI and DOJ, and brand them as liars. This digital tool was used by Iran recently.
Iran, as per the Atlantic Council, has deployed digital influence tools. Iranian sock puppets started operating in 2010 and have grown gradually in recent years, with Facebook identifying (recently in 2020) that approximately "2,200 assets directly affected six million users. Similarly Twitter identified 8,000 Twitter accounts responsible for roughly 8.5 million messages.
"During the January 2018 nationwide protests in Iran, Twitter bots attempted to discredit widely shared videos of rallies, while pro-regime accounts guided protestors to the wrong locations and sought to convey that protests were small and localized."
Political class historically use lies and digital tools have amplified who they are. Truth is an alien in politics.
Absolutely 💯
Edwin - I think I got my first memorable taste of dis-information during the first Iraq war, when Saddam Hussein filled the news feeds with lie after lie, spin on top of spin. It occurred to me that if one can change truth, turn lies into facts in the eyes of enough people to matter, then you have power. An ill gotten power, a corrupt power corrupt to its core. Hard to explain, but I felt a senses of alarm. I guess I place alot of importance on evidence-based reality (part of the reason I am not religious), and that serious danger lurks when nations alter truth for their own interests. Since then, I have watched the Republican Party swallow this tactic hook, line, and sinker. As I have stated before, a political party whose whole platform is based on something other than modern reality (climate denial being the most important example), such skullduggery is necessary to convince a voting public that it is right. It is a test of the literacy of the voting electorate - do they collectively have a good BS meter. I am afraid that they (we?) may fail that test. Already did once in 2016.
That is what makes Orwell's 1984 such a powerful book. It illuminates how we can just switch the information and create a new reality.
And "Animal Farm."
And "Fahrenheit 451." There are people and places banning books or trying to, following in the steps of totalitarian countries. Look at Germany under Hitler. Look at the Soviet Union and Russia today. Look at Belarus. Look at China. Look at Kyrgyzstan. Look at Iran. Look at Florida. Wait until they build a wall to keep people in. Right now they lure retirees with their no taxes, so that people's retirement money is stretched further. That is until the sea wall washes over their property destroying it or just floods them out. Then they say they cannot have certain books or thoughts taught in universities and schools, so Floridians can be ignorant. Will they start banning reading books? Will they ban reading the internet? Apparently a Federal Court Judge just gave credence to the idea that a Federal Court cannot restrict books, but can they make sure that that same court will not uphold Florida banning books? [In]Justice Terry A. Dougherty is the name of this man. Congress needs to pass laws restricting social media anyway. Then, the President doesn't have to.
Linda: A emphatic "yes" to each of your points.
True. Remember once something is accepted and normalised, it becomes part of the society and norms of the society are hard to break-it takes ages. Now with the digital superhighway, politicians can easily reach thousands of people in a few minutes with fabricated information and convince the public without proof. The main tool is appealing to emotions of the people and not their logic. With this, they can win them with ease with the use of misinformation. In Kenya, the opposition told their supporters that their results were stolen despite the Supreme Court deciding and concluding the case. And worse, they believed them and demonstrated.
In Kenya, I would expect that kind of thing to happen from time to time. The average Kenyan still has far less education than the average American, and presumably less understanding of the political system. Perhaps, also, many in the electorate have been burned before with corrupt politicians. Am I wrong? I am not a Kenya expert by any means. I believe the ignorant mind (willful or not) is ripe for a dis-information campaign. This is what baffles me with the political situation in the USA. We should know better. The forces of dis-information should be no more than background radiation here, but instead it is a force that can take hold of the nation.
James, and yet, we educated Americans accepted Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and were dumb enough to elect him.
I do not think we have anything over anyone!!!!
Obviously, we as humans are vulnerable to "mob" influence and less likely to really look at the total candidate.....observing character, experience in governing, general respect for women and other humans, ability to work with all Americans and world leaders....FOR FREEDOM!
Anyone who accepted Trump as a presidential candidate and was dumb enough to vote for him was not educated.
Somehow. An average Kenya is less educated than the average American, but the millenials are burgeoning in numbers in terms of those who are educated. Recently, the highest number of tiktik users comes from Kenya at 54% more than any other country across the world. But, I have realized that no matter what level of education, disinformation can hit anyone like a plague. The only difference is that when someone thinks for the second time, they may obliterate themselves from misinformation. But, only a few people can do that. Trump tried in 2021 and almost succeeded in selling lies were it not for Facebook and Twitter to ban him.
Perhaps, when you get a chance, you might take a look at my reply to James Wheaton's post:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-5-2023/comment/18201098
Yes, I reply. Let me read
I agree that norms are hard to break. I was watching a show in Germany, where they were discussing how hard a time many East Germans had adapting when Germany reunified East and West into one nation again. They discussed that it would take 3 generations to really move beyond the cultural differences of the two parts of Germany. I have seen this in action. Three generations is 60 years, so that is kind of what we are looking at in terms of breaking norms.
I remember that very well and I screamed to High Heaven: Even if Saddam had WMDs he wouldn't use them because he knew that he would be irradiated by superior forces and that would cost him everything. Saddam was cruel, but not stupid, like us. We were stupid to buy into Bush's Big Lie. Millions of humans are now dead or suffering because of Bush and the gang around him.
Perhaps the biggest lie of the Iraq War was the eventually proven-false propaganda about the Kuwaiti baby incubators, which whipped up American public hatred against Iraq and support for Bush's evil war:
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/5/how_false_testimony_and_a_massive
Interesting perspective on how wrong testimony and campaign propaganda ignited Iraq War. But, what happened to intelligence? Did the then president believed in false media reports? How did the secret service carry out its work? Did Bush only wanted to test its might?
My understanding is that this was deliberate propaganda to get the American people to support Bush's plan to crush Iraq, because Iraq under Saddam Hussein was successfully industrializing.
If you are interested and have the time, you might be interested in the book "The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf."
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-This-Time-U-S-Crimes/dp/1560250712
Around the same time, with George H.W. Bush as President, was the Shock Therapy genocide against Russia. This killed all the old people and more. If you have the interest and the time, you might check the book "Genocide: Russia and the New World Order" by a Russian minister under President Boris Yeltsin:
https://www.amazon.com/Genocide-Russia-New-World-Order/dp/0943235162
This happened during the ongoing I.M.F. genocide against almost all of the Third World countries. Quoting from the 100-page resignation letter of senior I.M.F. official Davison Budhoo:
"To me resignation is a priceless liberation, for with it I have taken the first big step to that place where I may hope to wash my hands of what in my mind’s eye is the blood of millions of poor and starving peoples. ...The blood is so much, you know, it runs in rivers....
"The charges that I make touch at the very heart of western society and western morality and post-war inter-governmental institutionalism that have degenerated into fake and sham under the pretext of establishingand maintaining international economic order and global efficiency....
"Will the world be content merely to brand our institution as among the most insidious enemies of humankind? Will our fellowmen condemn us thus and let the matter rest? Or will the heirs of those whom we have dismembered in our own peculiar Holocaust clamor for another Nuremberg?
"I don’t mind telling you that this matter has haunted me; it has haunted me particularly over the past five years. It has haunted me because I know that if I am tried I will be found guilty, very guilty, without extenuating circumstance...."
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oJzvpfFzIKu76oE1CkzZlarRiVpYIggFMFzSt6OgHx0/mobilebasic
Brilliant analysis. This should distributed widely
Thanks @seth you can share
I welcome you to my newsletter
Edwin Kiptoo Ngetich,
HCR refers to "the removal of disinformation during the pandemic." Did such "removal" go far beyond disinformation and suppress any public talk that questioned the party line that the new, experimental covid vaccines were "safe and effective"?
Over at Twitter, I have been compiling a thread with links to articles by or about credentialed medical researchers who question or challenge this party line: https://twitter.com/john_schmeeckle/status/1571451172744994817
Links to some of these articles:
'Unethical’ and up to 98 Times Worse Than the Disease: Top Scientists Publish Paradigm-Shifting Study About COVID-19 Vaccines
https://archive.ph/2022.09.11-161633/https://www.theepochtimes.com/unethical-and-up-to-98-times-worse-than-the-disease-top-scientists-publish-paradigm-shifting-study-about-covid-19-vaccines_4723122.html
And from the Netherlands:
Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (VAIDS): “We should expect this immune erosion to become more widespread”
https://www.frontnieuws.com/vaccin-verworven-immuun-deficientie-syndroom-vaids-we-moeten-verwachten-dat-deze-immuunerosie-zich-op-grotere-schaal-zal-voordoen/
Toxicology expert warns that mRNA COVID jabs could ‘sterilize an entire generation’
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/molecular-biology-expert-warns-mrna-covid-jabs-could-sterilize-an-entire-generation/
Explosive Increase in Cardiac Symptoms after Second Injection
https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/explosive-increase-in-cardiac-symptoms
John - my wife is part of the medical community, and she is in the know. She watched in an overwhelmed hospital how people died horribly from that disease, one after another, and felt how helpless we were for a time. When you are in that position, you have a unique perspective on something like Covid 19, as opposed to those who poo-poo'd it saying it was a liberal ploy. The Covid-19 virus was a very scary thing, at the beginning especially. It was looking like it might be similar to some of the fictional movies made where huge swaths of human population were wiped out. Surely you recall hospitals in Italy racking and stacking corpses in the hallways. Meat locker trucks in the streets of New York storing the dead. There was every reason for the pharmaceutical community to pull out all the stops and get a vaccine developed without a moment to lose. That they did so as quickly as they did is just amazing. Were shortcuts taken? Yes as I understand it. Was it worth it - hell yes. Upwards of 4000 persons per day were dying at the time, in the US alone. Did it put humans at risk? No reliable evidence that is the case. There was also every reason for nations to lock up, and protect its citizens from something that was going to kill them. That Trump resisted this is a crime against humanity that will unfortunately go unpunished. And importantly, there was every reason to go after those who would misuse the free speech rights we have to endanger everyone. Like you. Your continued efforts here to deny the seriousness of that pandemic and attack the actions of a nation to try to get on top of it are despicable. You have decided in your own mind what went down, and seek anything you can find to back it up. You will not find any institution with any credibility that shares the crap you link to. I do not have time for covid deniers of any color or flavor. None of us should.
Well said, Jay. Give your wife my “thank you for your service” regards.
I replied here:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-5-2023/comment/18200589
James, love and appreciation to your wife, and to all medical professionals who endured this horror!!!! COVID damaged all of us in one way or another as well as our "worldwide family".
I remember the piles of bodies....so many dying that they could not be cared for in a timely manner. Our whole world experienced this horror.
I replied here:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-5-2023/comment/18200589
Agree 💯
I replied here:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-5-2023/comment/18200589
I replied here:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-5-2023/comment/18200589
@John Schmeeckle, thank you for identifying the kind of disinformation that needs to be suppressed. The articles you cite are bullpucky, full of pseudo science, intended to stir fear and distrust. Your post demonstrates the problem of disinformation perfectly.
Credentialed by whom? Too easy to label someone an "expert" or a "top scientist"; depends on who is doing the labeling in the first place.
I replied here:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-5-2023/comment/18200589
Unfortunately, the digital rules and regulations are still inconsistent with how to deal with misinformation. Social media completely closed public discourse on jow safe and effective vaccines were. I don't know now how digital stakeholders will regulate varying opinions given that only mainstream companies are mostly not questioned because they are known. The unknowns with tested and proven methods are censured strictly. The articles that you shared reflects the non-uniformity of tackling misinformation from a large swamp of data in the Internet.
I replied here:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-5-2023/comment/18200589
@Edwin Kiptoo Ngetich:
I understand that Africa has coped with Covid-19 without the widespread use of the experimental western vaccines. Perhaps you might have a comment on the following:
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-health-pandemics-united-nations-fcf28a83c9352a67e50aa2172eb01a2f?fbclid=IwAR2Ot49B7h2NyhE876AiQ1ojOhX2zAQazUvHmGlcwdmbwdhNjgxO2J56N3c
@Ann W:
The first article I linked reported on a research paper co-written by the Director of a Center at the Harvard Medical School.
@James Wheaton:
If you pack a lot of people with a respiratory infection together in an enclosed space, deaths accelerate dramatically. The real culprit is the ongoing shutting of hospitals, so we no longer have the resources to deal with this type of epidemic.
Your false statements about my point of view and what I have posted here are defamatory. I have reported your post.
@John R: There is no intellectual content in your foam-at-the-mouth tirade. You speak like a Silly McCarthyist Orwellian Troll (SMOT).
@John Schmeeckle. You continue to be the perfect exemplar of the spreaders of disinformation that social media hope to eliminate. You link to articles from fringe conspiracy theorists, whose claims have not held up to scientific scrutiny. These “experts” you cite have been dismissed by the scientific community because they use pseudo-science to generate fear and ignorance. They threaten to do real damage to communities by leading them to doubt life-saving medical care. Promoting such quackery is immoral, and dangerous. I’d say you should know better, but perhaps this is all you know. You are a reflection of that of which you accuse others, “There is no intellectual content in your foam-at-the-mouth tirade. You speak like a Silly McCarthyist Orwellian Troll”. I wouldn’t have put it like that, it’s a bit too Monty Python in it’s absurdity. But those are your words. Why do you do this?
The SMOT blathers absurdly about "fringe conspiracy theorists."
Interesting. Let me read and respond accordingly
I have a 70-year old nephew who believes that Dr. Fauci created Covid-19 and that he is a heavy investor in Pfizer.
Why? Because that is the info he gets from Fox, Newsmax and OAN. He believes that all the other outlets are Fake News.
For those whom we are engaging through my newsletter, I am greatly indebted to you. You are on 🔥. I wholeheartedly welcome you too by subscribing for free.
Edwin, I could appreciate your contributions a lot better if I didn't feel constantly pressured to join your newsletter. If you are interesting enough, I will, but I also need to be careful not to overload. I would love to know more specifics about how your observations of African history and current affairs can help us understand our own better. I am not as well-versed in African affairs as I feel I should be and as I learn, I am realizing how much more connected to Africa we are than our history tells us. I truly appreciate your expanding on that in your posts. But I have a resistance to the "hard sell". Your posts will draw people in. No need for hard sell.
Wooow! I really appreciate your feedback and I am grateful having you here. Actually, am currently researching on African affairs (perhaps that you don't know). From history, politics, economy, social life, local culture, language, individuals, to technology, I will expound them. I am sorry that I haven't written enough because I have been working on them for some days because research is time-consuming and indeph. Expect more and welcome once again.
Andrew Korybko's substack focuses on Russia, and he has a lot to say about Russia and Africa. Sometimes he is persuasive, but I've had occasion to publicly disagree with him. He says that Russia has been fighting a proxy war with France in northwestern Africa. Whether you agree or disagree with his assessments, it might be useful for you to know what others are thinking about:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/russias-newfound-appeal-to-african
Yes, i want to get different perspectives. Let me check and get back to you.
In the aftermath of the 2016 election, I registered as a Democrat (after decades of being unenrolled, voting in Democratic primaries, and voting for Democrats because the Republicans were so awful) and got involved in the Democratic Party politics at the local level. It's been interesting and educational, but I'm on my way out. All the best candidates are Democrats, but the Democratic Party in my state (same as yours, Betsy: MA) is bloated and hidebound, while the state legislature, with Dem supermajorities in both houses, is a national embarrassment (especially the House of Representatives) . It now looks to me as if the most effective way to restore (or maybe create from scratch) democratic values to the Democratic Party is by organizing outside it to kick its butt. (Still haven't decided if I'm going to the MassDems convention in September, but I did send in my registration.)