While most people if asked would say that “We just had an election,” the truth is we just lost a huge and possibly decisive battle in the War that Russia launched against America many years ago. (see Trump’s first visit to the USSR - arranged for by the Russian government - in 1987)
It is a tragedy of historic proportions that the America…
While most people if asked would say that “We just had an election,” the truth is we just lost a huge and possibly decisive battle in the War that Russia launched against America many years ago. (see Trump’s first visit to the USSR - arranged for by the Russian government - in 1987)
It is a tragedy of historic proportions that the American news industry has failed to report that we have been at war for all these years. 😢💔
DJT seems to be Putin's Puppet... Yes we had an Election of the Ignorant, and UnInformed... We now have Orange Nero that answers to a Russian Tyrant that wants to destroy this Country... I speculate that the Majority of DJT Voters get their News from the Right-Wing InfoSphere where Outrage is Manufactured... The biggest source of Information for most seems to be Entertainment, and Spectacle... Public Education has declined Severely since Reagan... It all seems that it was manufactured to bring about an American Decline... I Hope To See An American Renewal...
I'm disappointed to see some of our fellow commenters sticking only with the negative -- what fools Americans voters turned out to be, how badly informed, badly educated. All true enough, but I want to reserve more of my energy for your-also looking forward -- your "hope to see an American renewal."
Thus mine more specifically to that a bit below here in the comments.
And mine more regularly here as to getting rid of the crippling hold standardized testing has on American schools, and the need, contrary to that, to free teachers for more humanities, and for higher standards and more practice in essay writing so much better to see "others" as individuals in the mess we inhabit.
I’m with you on standardized testing! No Child Left Behind was really no child left untested! The high stakes tests have parents paying for classes to get their kid into all the “important” places. A child that studies all summer to get into the gifted program doesn’t belong in the gifted program. Just let the teachers teach and the students learn. Standardized testing reduces education to a training program. I love teaching but watching it devolve makes me glad I’m about to retire instead of just starting a career.
“There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the ‘practice of freedom’, the means by which men and women deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world”.
Phil, one of the things I love about this somewhat transient group of commenters is that we all believe that this Trump administration could be a disaster for the US.
Once in a while, a troll tries to join the group, but when 99.9% of the commenters reject their ideas, none of them stick around for long.
Even though our state is the oldest in the country, the people of ME pride themselves on education. Not all of them of course, but the majority do.
but I believe he was correct. We have tried to nationalize education by forcing a limited curriculum on all students when, with the vast amount of money we spend on education, should focus on the needs of each individual.
My grandparents graduated from a one room school house and I would argue had a better education that many of the kids do today. The schools had the freedom to set their calendar around the needs of the community by allowing students to help out at home during the harvest and when needed in the community. Older students helped younger students which benefited everyone.
Like you Phil, I am not a fan of standardized testing. We took the Iowa Basics Test and the the Stanford test every year but our advanced notice was no more than a day or two. I'm not sure what information it provided the school system to improve the schools and that was back in the 1960's and early 1970's.
David Brooks, you may know, Gary, has an Atlantic piece out now on U.S. ed.
It's all too heavily geared to producing more elites good at taking those tests.
I took them. Back in the early 1960s. They weren't too many. But even then I could sense how they wanted people much better at handling abstractions and logical categories, linearity causality and consistency. I remember once I took an important one by penciling-in all my answers by letter "B."
School counselors caught this and urged me please to re-take. They knew from other tests I'd taken diligently that my IQ was fairly high. Funny this is, I did re-take. And the results gave me tuition free university years.
One of the many things the standardized tests don't measure is what I call "MQ" or motivational quotient.
My elementary school class had about 30 students and around 20 of us were together from 1st through the 6th grade and most of the 20 even graduated from high school together. One of my classmates, had near perfect scores year after year and even got "free tuition" for college.
He ended up getting two masters degrees. Not to denigrate food service workers but he spent his entire career as a cook in various rest homes.
When we spoke with him when we were all in our late fifties he was shocked that almost all of us owned our own homes and didn't rent.
And I know many other people that were very good test takers that lacked the motivation to compete in the world for monetary compensation.
I'm not judging him-- just saying many people are not motivated by money or what our society accepts as being successful, which in my opinion would be a major component of MQ.
Great comments regarding the state of Iowa. My husbands mom and dad were from Iowa.
I have never encountered such hardworking, strongminded, determined, intelligent.....kind, generous people anywhere. Their families are strong and supportive of one another.
They do not sit and wait to be taken care of ...they form healthy family plans to work together, to train their sons and daughters as they work outside jobs while farming huge acres of land driving big tractors from early am to noon and beyond. They care for their animals working to implement better practices of care and production. They plan for the future generations TOGETHER.
If the citizenry of Iowa do not farm directly they teach, sell insurance, are involved in some form of healthcare, etc.
The Iowans I have met are giving, caring, hardworking, problem solving people who enjoy life and take care of one another.
I recall someone saying that Trump did not win, misinformation did. Yeah, it's more complicated, but somehow we have let the integrity of our politics slip a a lot in my lifetime, or so it seems to me. Nixon's abuses of power seem more tame by comparison. We should always be taking a very hard look at what seems to be the current "normal". Slavery was "normal" once upon a time, and 12 US presidents are said to have held slaves.
It seems to me we've let the integrity of our electorate slip. We've become so ignorant and distracted we are unable to defend ourselves, our families and our country. We've blinded ourselves with adulation of the almighty $$. Yes, we've become a nation of Apprentice viewers not able to distinguish between the real and the fake. Looks like we're in for one of life's hard lessons.
Since I like to Travel, and Talk to People that I meet, A Common Thread among the Immigrants that I meet from Farm-Workers to Techies is: Americans Cannot Take Care Of Themselves Anymore... In their opinion we need Immigrants to perform much of the Work in this Country... U.S. Education does indeed to be improved if 1/2 of High School Graduates cannot Read at 6th Grade Level... Curriculums should be improved to include the Humanities, including Civilizational Classics, Civics, Sports, and the Arts... All this was considered a Good Education... Not all People are suited for College... We should encourage Vocational Training with Apprenticeships... The End-Goal is to Build a Robust Society where EVERYBODY Contributes, and has an Ownership Stake... This Sense of Ownership would Alleviate the Sense of Despair that many feel, and contributed to DJT's Electoral Victory...
Expanding opportunities for all to prosper, to achieve at least a minimal level of comfort would eliminate a lot of despair. That's what "The Square Deal" and the "New Deal" tried to do and Project 2025 aims to eliminate in favor of neo-feudalism. Letting the Musks of the world shape our choices and is naturally frustrating, and frankly a lot of the richest want it all.
Education can take many forms, but as far as I can see it is more useful if it cultivates and acquisition of cognitive tools that increase one's overall skills for negotiating life, including the foundations of a marketable trade.
Also, enabling the minimal skills a responsible citizen needs to contribute to managing a DIY government. If it is really to be a functioning "government of the people, by the people, for the people", don't we need some basic training before getting behind the wheel?
Education empowers the educated. That should be the point.
JL, I think that the proper term is DISinformantion. It was not intended to "mislead," it was intended to (and successfully, I might add) "inform" people with outright lies and fabrications. It was done with malicious intent to create a false perception of facts.
This U.S. penchant for quantifying, commodifying everything has spread worldwide, J L.
Serves the oligarchs, billionaire classes, and market-mad corporations and their stockholders fairly well. Is all, as you say, fairly "normal."
But all these countries pushing the U.S.-style standardized testing are also dropping their humanities in school. More dutifully to abide our living dead elites.
Reality presents itself quantitatively and well as qualitatively, and both can be critical to accurately mapping/understanding reality. In the end quantity becomes a quality, from the number of protons in an atomic nucleus to the budget of the EPA. When Trump declared that more than 100% of current administration's new jobs were going to unregistered immigrants, that should have set off more national alarm bells than it apparently did. It just does not add up.
Yet there is the old saw that figures don't lie but liars figure. Inadequately educated people often seem to have an impression that a claim is more trustworthy or more useful if you slap a number on it without necessarily grasping what (if anything) the number reveals. Some things are counted up easily, like peas in a pod. Others resist quantification. I don't think that tests like the SAT are useless, but I am certain that they reveal far less than than what many people want to think. It's quick and easy. It gives the illusion of objectivity by imposing conformity upon genetically and behaviorally unique individuals. It finds only what it seeks and misses things that matter that are ignored in plain sight. A human being is a TERRIBLE thing to waste.
There is a lot of negative to be paying attention to and it is not about the voters per say, but the incoming administration. Here is concentration camp, fascism expert Andrea Pitzer talking about what to expect.
Beverly, I am also going to recommend Andra Watkins. She is writing also about some things one can do to protect oneself. She has a series on Purposeful disengagement. I first saw Andrea Pitzer on one of her links. https://andrawatkins.substack.com/
Andra is also writing about the Christian Nationalist elements of the government because she is an expert and after having read Project 2025, she is explaining the CN language because all of the people that wrote. it are CNs. My Project 2025 book club was very appreciative of what she has to teach about this world. The one that our incoming government is trying to make over as CN Theocracy. Thus the nominees.
Phil, the more I think about this election, I am coming to suspect that rather than how badly the voters performed in this election, and how badly the Democrats handled the election, that the Democrats played by one set of rules and the RepubliKKKans played by a different set. I think that the flood of disinformation fed to the RepubliKKKans was but one component. I am still concerned with the statements "Vote for me this time, you'll never have to vote again" and "I have all the votes I need" and I wonder what else may have been afoot. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, and I suspect that there is some chicanery involved that at least bears looking into.
Another is that the fact that a woman was running for President is another; there are people in this country not ready for a woman to be its leader. The Democratic primary in 2008 communicated that we were more ready for a Black man than a white woman. My guess is that contributed to some of the undervote of Democrats for Harris as compared to Biden.
I don't think that American voters are "fools", I think that in a variety of ways, they have been manipulated and disinformed. Something that cannot be overlooked is that about a third of the eligible population did not vote. That has got to be addresses.
Ally, your statement that you don't think American voters are fools really resonates with me and with the long post I put above. I admit that the MAGA dressed head to toe and following Trump from rally to rally is weird--but it took more than all those votes for him to win. I don't want to jump on the finger-pointing bandwagon that is all over the liberal internet pundits, but after meeting with a Trump voting friend this week, I believe that we didn't reach the voters in the fly-over states. I honestly don't think "vote to save democracy" reached these people, I think they considered that too abstract! And your point about the non-voters--absolutely! (I wrote many letters for "VoteForward" which does not endorse any candidate, just encourages people to vote). I have a sibling that didn't vote because she was "sick of all the politics" and said it's been too much/too long. I wish that campaigning was banned until about 6 months before an election. I'm simply worn out.
I have a sibling that didn't vote because she was "sick of all the politics"
I have friends and acquaintances that said the same; that politics is just so distasteful that they just want to distance themselves from it as much as possible. And most of these much better than average educated people. It seems to be self-protective isolation, but a very poor strategy. It appears to me that for a very long time our society has failed to adequately stress that government of, by and for the people absolutely requires public (and individual) engagement, at the very least to vote, as wisely as possible. How, after all, did the ugliness of American politics (or at least such an in-your-face ugly side of it) get to be that way? How much ugliness are we willing to tolerate?
I have a sister that did the same, and also felt torn between her husband (a racist, misogynist who'd never vote for Harris) and her son who is a never-Trumper.
Years ago, it may have been 2000, Garrison Keeler and a talking head were discussing the 2000 election, trying to figure out why the Democrat had lost.
Garrison Keeler commented that the polling had indicated the losing candidate was coming on strong the last few weeks.
Harris v Trump was a marathon and Trump had a 3 1/2 year head start. Kamala did almost every thing right as far as I can tell. But Trump told the same lies about the economy being a "mess" and the country being a "mess" since he left the White House. Of course, there never was any truth to it, quite the contrary, but these low information voters couldn't be bothered with checking out the facts for themselves.
I think we are all fools to some degree, but maybe wisdom begins with recognizing it and caring about doing better. A great quotation from incoming president Lincoln"
"If the politicians and leaders of parties were as true as the people, there would be little fear that the peace of the country would be disturbed. I have been selected to fill an important office for a brief period, and am now, in your eyes, invested with an influence which will soon pass away; but should my administration prove to be a very wicked one, or what is more probable, a very foolish one, if you, the people, are but true to yourselves and to the Constitution, there is but little harm I can do, thank God!"
Humility, not hubris. Is not acknowledgement of our own capacity for folly the foundation of wisdom? And sorting though what truly matters? There are plenty of (some degree of) predators out there, but in my experience most people are equipped with better angels that can get lost when life become too much of a game, when ego ceases to be self-examined. We have seen sociopathy and folly infect society after society around the globe at one time or another, yet somehow often miss the obvious point. We are running out pf space and time to play such games without seriously disastrous results but autocracy and oligarchy thrive on on and encourage it. Concerted good faith and empathy might reverse it, but that's gong to be harder since the election.
I have noticed that when I do a Google search (as I frequently do here when someone says "does anyone know <fill in the blank>" and I trundle off to look it up) that the first thing that pops up is an "AI Overview". DISGUSTING.
On 11/21 Politico's Anthony Adeagar & many folks have reported Biden's 220th lifetime appointment to the Federal bench for a total 220 as of 11/21.
Welcome with me the new federal Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylania -- GAIL A. WEILHEIMER.
Last night "after midnight" SHARAD DESAI was appointed the new Federal Judge for the U.S. District Court in Arizona.
Other prospective Federal Judges are in line to be voted on by the Senate before Thanksgiving likely with "unanimous consent" as Senator Cruz is off in Cancun or wherever.
I know what I am thankful 🙏 for this year & will say so at the Family dinner table.
Thanks to a deal Schumer made with Republicans that only allows District Court Judges to be appointed. NO Appellate Court Justices. Considering the numbers I don't think Schumer made such a great deal.
Understand. But, Federal Appellate Judges start at the U.S. District court level usually with a Magistrate 'sidekick' Judge to handle the daily urgent criminal matters like the arraignment of David Depape the Perp who attacked Paul Pelosi.
I have practiced before Presiding District Court Judges such as the Presiding Judge of the Northern District of California, Marilyn Patel.
Judge Patel overturned the infamous WWII racist, Fred Korematsu case. Korematsu's family was there to witness the rare historical correction of Fred's bogus case based on fraud.
****************************
BTW, the "State of California" (hey, that's me) also prosecuted David Depape. So let's recap per NPR on 10/29/24 (hey... less than 1 month ago).
First, a San Francisco jury (yup, we still have them) where the crime occurred found the hammering Perp guilty of aggravated kidnapping, first degree burglary & false imprisonment of an 82 year elder.
Sentence? Life imprisonment. Depape's oral argument before the sentencing Judge, "I am a psychic" did NOT work. Take note of the in pro per's legal error. The Perp should have argued: "I am psychotic".
Anyway, we will never see David on the streets of SF again.
JL, so true, but let's say that the rule of law is only for the bottom half, not for white collar folks, unless they are democrat. It is why they constantly go after the IRS.
That's the problem. We as a society have not been adequately defending equal justice under law. The nation was on board with it more or less) post Gilded Age and pre-Reagan, but have been since been letting it slip. "Citizens United" (legalized de facto bribery) should have triggered and organized anti-corruption movement but did not. Government is not "the problem"; corruption is.
I suspect most of Trump’s voters don’t get their news anywhere. They’ve been raised Republican and conservative and just vote R down the line because they think it will somehow save them. If they read real news how can they accept all the sexual assaults. Jim Jordan has never been held accountable for his part in hundreds of boys and young men being sexually assaulted. Why did Clooney’s story disappear. Trump has never been held accountable, Epstein was his fall guy. Kavanaugh investigation squashed, Hegseth bought off, Gaetz getting to go scott free and the list goes on. All those good religious people who just don’t care what happens to innocents. The morality of this country is so dismal but all they see is job, paycheck, bills and they live in that bubble.
Exactly. And in concert with present circumstances, and the great advantage of hindsight, we equip ourselves to advance the mission (should fortune smile) ever further.
I would change your Nero to Caligula but at this stage it’s almost a moot point to make. Add a touch of Pol Pot, Idi Amin to all the other dictators in the world and there have been some true horrors for trump and his henchmen to emulate.
I have said that Putin was given a gift by the American voting public that he has been working for his entire life. It is the destruction of the USA, which Trump, who I had originally told my family when he was running for office was a Russian asset, or Melania was, or both, and my family would tell me that that I read too much spy stuff, is handing to him by destroying the US. I am interested in Spycraft because I had a family divided in two by the Soviets running the DDR in Germany. By the time Germany reunited, our family members in the East were all shells of human beings.
it's hard feeling like we are Cassandras. But it is obvious what is coming - the dismantling of American democracy, headed by a malignant narcissist who only views things from how it will benefit him. He's still selling tchotchkes with his branding on them - all sales final, no promises of actual delivery.
Steve, is it really the American news industry? I guess you can call them that, but isn't corporate media a more apt description.
To your point, yes the corporate media has failed the American people just as the social networks have, by failing to highlight Trump's incompetence and lack of support from virtually everyone that has ever worked with him.
The oligarchs are winning. Even Bezos has totally gone to the dark side. There are several thousand people in the US that have the power to buy an election for their puppets and if they don't obey, poof, their power is gone.
Oligarchs won the Senate seats in MT, OH and FL. Ron DeSantis, who is very close to being as incompetent as Trump, has enriched himself and daily overreaches his power.
We owe all of this to the entirety of conservative leadership. They sat quietly while he ran rough shod over the norms, ethics, and Constitution the first time.
We not only lost against Russia, we lost the Civil War (finally the elitists and racists prevailed ). Unless it’s recognized as the insurrection against the laws and Constitution that it is, and protections are taken before the inauguration, there will be no legit midterms.
While most people if asked would say that “We just had an election,” the truth is we just lost a huge and possibly decisive battle in the War that Russia launched against America many years ago. (see Trump’s first visit to the USSR - arranged for by the Russian government - in 1987)
It is a tragedy of historic proportions that the American news industry has failed to report that we have been at war for all these years. 😢💔
DJT seems to be Putin's Puppet... Yes we had an Election of the Ignorant, and UnInformed... We now have Orange Nero that answers to a Russian Tyrant that wants to destroy this Country... I speculate that the Majority of DJT Voters get their News from the Right-Wing InfoSphere where Outrage is Manufactured... The biggest source of Information for most seems to be Entertainment, and Spectacle... Public Education has declined Severely since Reagan... It all seems that it was manufactured to bring about an American Decline... I Hope To See An American Renewal...
I'm with you, Apache.
I'm disappointed to see some of our fellow commenters sticking only with the negative -- what fools Americans voters turned out to be, how badly informed, badly educated. All true enough, but I want to reserve more of my energy for your-also looking forward -- your "hope to see an American renewal."
Thus mine more specifically to that a bit below here in the comments.
And mine more regularly here as to getting rid of the crippling hold standardized testing has on American schools, and the need, contrary to that, to free teachers for more humanities, and for higher standards and more practice in essay writing so much better to see "others" as individuals in the mess we inhabit.
I’m with you on standardized testing! No Child Left Behind was really no child left untested! The high stakes tests have parents paying for classes to get their kid into all the “important” places. A child that studies all summer to get into the gifted program doesn’t belong in the gifted program. Just let the teachers teach and the students learn. Standardized testing reduces education to a training program. I love teaching but watching it devolve makes me glad I’m about to retire instead of just starting a career.
“There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the ‘practice of freedom’, the means by which men and women deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world”.
-Jane Thompson
Phil, one of the things I love about this somewhat transient group of commenters is that we all believe that this Trump administration could be a disaster for the US.
Once in a while, a troll tries to join the group, but when 99.9% of the commenters reject their ideas, none of them stick around for long.
Even though our state is the oldest in the country, the people of ME pride themselves on education. Not all of them of course, but the majority do.
I'm not sure if you recall the book, "Small is Beautiful; A Study of Economics as if People Mattered" by EF Schumaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful
but I believe he was correct. We have tried to nationalize education by forcing a limited curriculum on all students when, with the vast amount of money we spend on education, should focus on the needs of each individual.
My grandparents graduated from a one room school house and I would argue had a better education that many of the kids do today. The schools had the freedom to set their calendar around the needs of the community by allowing students to help out at home during the harvest and when needed in the community. Older students helped younger students which benefited everyone.
Like you Phil, I am not a fan of standardized testing. We took the Iowa Basics Test and the the Stanford test every year but our advanced notice was no more than a day or two. I'm not sure what information it provided the school system to improve the schools and that was back in the 1960's and early 1970's.
David Brooks, you may know, Gary, has an Atlantic piece out now on U.S. ed.
It's all too heavily geared to producing more elites good at taking those tests.
I took them. Back in the early 1960s. They weren't too many. But even then I could sense how they wanted people much better at handling abstractions and logical categories, linearity causality and consistency. I remember once I took an important one by penciling-in all my answers by letter "B."
School counselors caught this and urged me please to re-take. They knew from other tests I'd taken diligently that my IQ was fairly high. Funny this is, I did re-take. And the results gave me tuition free university years.
"To B or not to B"? Why not A,C or D.
One of the many things the standardized tests don't measure is what I call "MQ" or motivational quotient.
My elementary school class had about 30 students and around 20 of us were together from 1st through the 6th grade and most of the 20 even graduated from high school together. One of my classmates, had near perfect scores year after year and even got "free tuition" for college.
He ended up getting two masters degrees. Not to denigrate food service workers but he spent his entire career as a cook in various rest homes.
When we spoke with him when we were all in our late fifties he was shocked that almost all of us owned our own homes and didn't rent.
And I know many other people that were very good test takers that lacked the motivation to compete in the world for monetary compensation.
I'm not judging him-- just saying many people are not motivated by money or what our society accepts as being successful, which in my opinion would be a major component of MQ.
Phil, it's not difficult to see your very intelligent. You don't have to have IQ evidence.
Gary Loft,
Great comments regarding the state of Iowa. My husbands mom and dad were from Iowa.
I have never encountered such hardworking, strongminded, determined, intelligent.....kind, generous people anywhere. Their families are strong and supportive of one another.
They do not sit and wait to be taken care of ...they form healthy family plans to work together, to train their sons and daughters as they work outside jobs while farming huge acres of land driving big tractors from early am to noon and beyond. They care for their animals working to implement better practices of care and production. They plan for the future generations TOGETHER.
If the citizenry of Iowa do not farm directly they teach, sell insurance, are involved in some form of healthcare, etc.
The Iowans I have met are giving, caring, hardworking, problem solving people who enjoy life and take care of one another.
Yes, my grandchildren spent all their time being trained to pass those tests. That’s it. No focus on real education.
I recall someone saying that Trump did not win, misinformation did. Yeah, it's more complicated, but somehow we have let the integrity of our politics slip a a lot in my lifetime, or so it seems to me. Nixon's abuses of power seem more tame by comparison. We should always be taking a very hard look at what seems to be the current "normal". Slavery was "normal" once upon a time, and 12 US presidents are said to have held slaves.
It seems to me we've let the integrity of our electorate slip. We've become so ignorant and distracted we are unable to defend ourselves, our families and our country. We've blinded ourselves with adulation of the almighty $$. Yes, we've become a nation of Apprentice viewers not able to distinguish between the real and the fake. Looks like we're in for one of life's hard lessons.
Since I like to Travel, and Talk to People that I meet, A Common Thread among the Immigrants that I meet from Farm-Workers to Techies is: Americans Cannot Take Care Of Themselves Anymore... In their opinion we need Immigrants to perform much of the Work in this Country... U.S. Education does indeed to be improved if 1/2 of High School Graduates cannot Read at 6th Grade Level... Curriculums should be improved to include the Humanities, including Civilizational Classics, Civics, Sports, and the Arts... All this was considered a Good Education... Not all People are suited for College... We should encourage Vocational Training with Apprenticeships... The End-Goal is to Build a Robust Society where EVERYBODY Contributes, and has an Ownership Stake... This Sense of Ownership would Alleviate the Sense of Despair that many feel, and contributed to DJT's Electoral Victory...
Expanding opportunities for all to prosper, to achieve at least a minimal level of comfort would eliminate a lot of despair. That's what "The Square Deal" and the "New Deal" tried to do and Project 2025 aims to eliminate in favor of neo-feudalism. Letting the Musks of the world shape our choices and is naturally frustrating, and frankly a lot of the richest want it all.
Education can take many forms, but as far as I can see it is more useful if it cultivates and acquisition of cognitive tools that increase one's overall skills for negotiating life, including the foundations of a marketable trade.
Also, enabling the minimal skills a responsible citizen needs to contribute to managing a DIY government. If it is really to be a functioning "government of the people, by the people, for the people", don't we need some basic training before getting behind the wheel?
Education empowers the educated. That should be the point.
JL, I think that the proper term is DISinformantion. It was not intended to "mislead," it was intended to (and successfully, I might add) "inform" people with outright lies and fabrications. It was done with malicious intent to create a false perception of facts.
Yup
This U.S. penchant for quantifying, commodifying everything has spread worldwide, J L.
Serves the oligarchs, billionaire classes, and market-mad corporations and their stockholders fairly well. Is all, as you say, fairly "normal."
But all these countries pushing the U.S.-style standardized testing are also dropping their humanities in school. More dutifully to abide our living dead elites.
Reality presents itself quantitatively and well as qualitatively, and both can be critical to accurately mapping/understanding reality. In the end quantity becomes a quality, from the number of protons in an atomic nucleus to the budget of the EPA. When Trump declared that more than 100% of current administration's new jobs were going to unregistered immigrants, that should have set off more national alarm bells than it apparently did. It just does not add up.
Yet there is the old saw that figures don't lie but liars figure. Inadequately educated people often seem to have an impression that a claim is more trustworthy or more useful if you slap a number on it without necessarily grasping what (if anything) the number reveals. Some things are counted up easily, like peas in a pod. Others resist quantification. I don't think that tests like the SAT are useless, but I am certain that they reveal far less than than what many people want to think. It's quick and easy. It gives the illusion of objectivity by imposing conformity upon genetically and behaviorally unique individuals. It finds only what it seeks and misses things that matter that are ignored in plain sight. A human being is a TERRIBLE thing to waste.
There is a lot of negative to be paying attention to and it is not about the voters per say, but the incoming administration. Here is concentration camp, fascism expert Andrea Pitzer talking about what to expect.
https://youtu.be/BwFZpROLvX4?si=vMCBnJVpzAcbSvHn
Here is Olga Lautman laying out the worst of what can happen.
https://open.substack.com/pub/olgalautman/p/now-that-america-elected-a-dictator?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
My advice is plan for the worst, hope for the best.
thanks, these links are extremely helpful
Beverly, I am also going to recommend Andra Watkins. She is writing also about some things one can do to protect oneself. She has a series on Purposeful disengagement. I first saw Andrea Pitzer on one of her links. https://andrawatkins.substack.com/
Andra is also writing about the Christian Nationalist elements of the government because she is an expert and after having read Project 2025, she is explaining the CN language because all of the people that wrote. it are CNs. My Project 2025 book club was very appreciative of what she has to teach about this world. The one that our incoming government is trying to make over as CN Theocracy. Thus the nominees.
May I encourage the support for Andra's work here? It is extremely important !
I see her in my timeline, will pay more attention.
Phil, the more I think about this election, I am coming to suspect that rather than how badly the voters performed in this election, and how badly the Democrats handled the election, that the Democrats played by one set of rules and the RepubliKKKans played by a different set. I think that the flood of disinformation fed to the RepubliKKKans was but one component. I am still concerned with the statements "Vote for me this time, you'll never have to vote again" and "I have all the votes I need" and I wonder what else may have been afoot. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, and I suspect that there is some chicanery involved that at least bears looking into.
Another is that the fact that a woman was running for President is another; there are people in this country not ready for a woman to be its leader. The Democratic primary in 2008 communicated that we were more ready for a Black man than a white woman. My guess is that contributed to some of the undervote of Democrats for Harris as compared to Biden.
I don't think that American voters are "fools", I think that in a variety of ways, they have been manipulated and disinformed. Something that cannot be overlooked is that about a third of the eligible population did not vote. That has got to be addresses.
Ally, your statement that you don't think American voters are fools really resonates with me and with the long post I put above. I admit that the MAGA dressed head to toe and following Trump from rally to rally is weird--but it took more than all those votes for him to win. I don't want to jump on the finger-pointing bandwagon that is all over the liberal internet pundits, but after meeting with a Trump voting friend this week, I believe that we didn't reach the voters in the fly-over states. I honestly don't think "vote to save democracy" reached these people, I think they considered that too abstract! And your point about the non-voters--absolutely! (I wrote many letters for "VoteForward" which does not endorse any candidate, just encourages people to vote). I have a sibling that didn't vote because she was "sick of all the politics" and said it's been too much/too long. I wish that campaigning was banned until about 6 months before an election. I'm simply worn out.
I have a sibling that didn't vote because she was "sick of all the politics"
I have friends and acquaintances that said the same; that politics is just so distasteful that they just want to distance themselves from it as much as possible. And most of these much better than average educated people. It seems to be self-protective isolation, but a very poor strategy. It appears to me that for a very long time our society has failed to adequately stress that government of, by and for the people absolutely requires public (and individual) engagement, at the very least to vote, as wisely as possible. How, after all, did the ugliness of American politics (or at least such an in-your-face ugly side of it) get to be that way? How much ugliness are we willing to tolerate?
I have a sister that did the same, and also felt torn between her husband (a racist, misogynist who'd never vote for Harris) and her son who is a never-Trumper.
Agreed!
Years ago, it may have been 2000, Garrison Keeler and a talking head were discussing the 2000 election, trying to figure out why the Democrat had lost.
Garrison Keeler commented that the polling had indicated the losing candidate was coming on strong the last few weeks.
Harris v Trump was a marathon and Trump had a 3 1/2 year head start. Kamala did almost every thing right as far as I can tell. But Trump told the same lies about the economy being a "mess" and the country being a "mess" since he left the White House. Of course, there never was any truth to it, quite the contrary, but these low information voters couldn't be bothered with checking out the facts for themselves.
I think we are all fools to some degree, but maybe wisdom begins with recognizing it and caring about doing better. A great quotation from incoming president Lincoln"
"If the politicians and leaders of parties were as true as the people, there would be little fear that the peace of the country would be disturbed. I have been selected to fill an important office for a brief period, and am now, in your eyes, invested with an influence which will soon pass away; but should my administration prove to be a very wicked one, or what is more probable, a very foolish one, if you, the people, are but true to yourselves and to the Constitution, there is but little harm I can do, thank God!"
Humility, not hubris. Is not acknowledgement of our own capacity for folly the foundation of wisdom? And sorting though what truly matters? There are plenty of (some degree of) predators out there, but in my experience most people are equipped with better angels that can get lost when life become too much of a game, when ego ceases to be self-examined. We have seen sociopathy and folly infect society after society around the globe at one time or another, yet somehow often miss the obvious point. We are running out pf space and time to play such games without seriously disastrous results but autocracy and oligarchy thrive on on and encourage it. Concerted good faith and empathy might reverse it, but that's gong to be harder since the election.
people aren't even thinking (for themselves) anymore. The young people let AI write for them.
It seems many of the old people are nostalgic for "olden days" without the clarity of the injustices of our historic past.
I have noticed that when I do a Google search (as I frequently do here when someone says "does anyone know <fill in the blank>" and I trundle off to look it up) that the first thing that pops up is an "AI Overview". DISGUSTING.
Read Dan Rather's STEADY. I put the link in the comments.
You mean "A big win for propaganda"? I was just looking for a good spot to put it. I'm afraid he's absolutely right. A very clear-eyed analysis.
Decline of rule of law and holding the powerful accountable in any case. Their egos displace room for any other loyalty or consideration.
On 11/21 Politico's Anthony Adeagar & many folks have reported Biden's 220th lifetime appointment to the Federal bench for a total 220 as of 11/21.
Welcome with me the new federal Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylania -- GAIL A. WEILHEIMER.
Last night "after midnight" SHARAD DESAI was appointed the new Federal Judge for the U.S. District Court in Arizona.
Other prospective Federal Judges are in line to be voted on by the Senate before Thanksgiving likely with "unanimous consent" as Senator Cruz is off in Cancun or wherever.
I know what I am thankful 🙏 for this year & will say so at the Family dinner table.
Thanks to a deal Schumer made with Republicans that only allows District Court Judges to be appointed. NO Appellate Court Justices. Considering the numbers I don't think Schumer made such a great deal.
Understand. But, Federal Appellate Judges start at the U.S. District court level usually with a Magistrate 'sidekick' Judge to handle the daily urgent criminal matters like the arraignment of David Depape the Perp who attacked Paul Pelosi.
I have practiced before Presiding District Court Judges such as the Presiding Judge of the Northern District of California, Marilyn Patel.
Judge Patel overturned the infamous WWII racist, Fred Korematsu case. Korematsu's family was there to witness the rare historical correction of Fred's bogus case based on fraud.
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BTW, the "State of California" (hey, that's me) also prosecuted David Depape. So let's recap per NPR on 10/29/24 (hey... less than 1 month ago).
First, a San Francisco jury (yup, we still have them) where the crime occurred found the hammering Perp guilty of aggravated kidnapping, first degree burglary & false imprisonment of an 82 year elder.
Sentence? Life imprisonment. Depape's oral argument before the sentencing Judge, "I am a psychic" did NOT work. Take note of the in pro per's legal error. The Perp should have argued: "I am psychotic".
Anyway, we will never see David on the streets of SF again.
JL, so true, but let's say that the rule of law is only for the bottom half, not for white collar folks, unless they are democrat. It is why they constantly go after the IRS.
That's the problem. We as a society have not been adequately defending equal justice under law. The nation was on board with it more or less) post Gilded Age and pre-Reagan, but have been since been letting it slip. "Citizens United" (legalized de facto bribery) should have triggered and organized anti-corruption movement but did not. Government is not "the problem"; corruption is.
Agree 100% with you, Apache. Education has been a prime target of the plotters.
I suspect most of Trump’s voters don’t get their news anywhere. They’ve been raised Republican and conservative and just vote R down the line because they think it will somehow save them. If they read real news how can they accept all the sexual assaults. Jim Jordan has never been held accountable for his part in hundreds of boys and young men being sexually assaulted. Why did Clooney’s story disappear. Trump has never been held accountable, Epstein was his fall guy. Kavanaugh investigation squashed, Hegseth bought off, Gaetz getting to go scott free and the list goes on. All those good religious people who just don’t care what happens to innocents. The morality of this country is so dismal but all they see is job, paycheck, bills and they live in that bubble.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
Life Is For Living... We Honor Those In The Past That Have Made The World A Better Place...
Exactly. And in concert with present circumstances, and the great advantage of hindsight, we equip ourselves to advance the mission (should fortune smile) ever further.
I would change your Nero to Caligula but at this stage it’s almost a moot point to make. Add a touch of Pol Pot, Idi Amin to all the other dictators in the world and there have been some true horrors for trump and his henchmen to emulate.
I have said that Putin was given a gift by the American voting public that he has been working for his entire life. It is the destruction of the USA, which Trump, who I had originally told my family when he was running for office was a Russian asset, or Melania was, or both, and my family would tell me that that I read too much spy stuff, is handing to him by destroying the US. I am interested in Spycraft because I had a family divided in two by the Soviets running the DDR in Germany. By the time Germany reunited, our family members in the East were all shells of human beings.
it's hard feeling like we are Cassandras. But it is obvious what is coming - the dismantling of American democracy, headed by a malignant narcissist who only views things from how it will benefit him. He's still selling tchotchkes with his branding on them - all sales final, no promises of actual delivery.
Aren't democracies entitled to defend themselves? Or do they just have to roll over and take it because of one election?
Good question
Steve, is it really the American news industry? I guess you can call them that, but isn't corporate media a more apt description.
To your point, yes the corporate media has failed the American people just as the social networks have, by failing to highlight Trump's incompetence and lack of support from virtually everyone that has ever worked with him.
The oligarchs are winning. Even Bezos has totally gone to the dark side. There are several thousand people in the US that have the power to buy an election for their puppets and if they don't obey, poof, their power is gone.
Oligarchs won the Senate seats in MT, OH and FL. Ron DeSantis, who is very close to being as incompetent as Trump, has enriched himself and daily overreaches his power.
All media are owned by billionaires ...Eg. the 1%.
spot on
Corporate Media is the better term. What they are serving up is NOT news.
We owe all of this to the entirety of conservative leadership. They sat quietly while he ran rough shod over the norms, ethics, and Constitution the first time.
We not only lost against Russia, we lost the Civil War (finally the elitists and racists prevailed ). Unless it’s recognized as the insurrection against the laws and Constitution that it is, and protections are taken before the inauguration, there will be no legit midterms.
Putin won!! If we survive, it may take a miracle. But American will get exactly what they deserve for being ignorant dupes.
There are so many threads to follow. This is one good one.
You got that right, Rickey.