I still believe:
In representative democracy where the people own their government, Congress writes laws, the President enforces those laws, and the Courts ensure laws and enforcement are consistent with the letter and spirit of our Constitution;
In a “United States” where state and local governments, while free to govern their jurisdictions, stay within the bounds set by the federal government and work together to establish consistent conflict-free reciprocity of law; and
A well-informed electorate, provided accurate and unbiased information, is essential for sustaining a functioning representative democracy, and it is the responsibility of the media to act as the informational “fourth branch” of government (the whistle-blower) to prevent hidden agendas and corruption thus allowing “The People” to cast well-informed votes.
The Truth About KXL
Good Afternoon Amy,
All right-wing talk is basically false. It is mostly subtle and indirect propaganda designed to protect the interest of the funding industries. It, predictably, changes character depending on the power structure in DC. Let’s examine the Keystone XL Pipeline issue as an example.
The Keystone XL pipeline project has become the epicenter of an enormous environmental, public health, and civil rights battle. It is an environmental game of ping pong, a stop-start story from the time it was proposed in 2008, through more than 10 years of dogged citizen protest and various conflicting legislative and executive orders. The path for this controversial oil pipeline has never been smooth with more money spent in campaigns for and against than the cost of the pipeline. It was hoped that the disastrous project was done in November 2015, when the Obama administration vetoed the pipeline. But Trump reversed course and signed an executive order to advance KXL and the issue came back to the fore.
Here is the truth about the tar sands export pipeline that has become one of the foremost political controversies of our time. The KXL pipeline extension, proposed by the Canadian oil company, formally TransCanada, in 2008, would transport 830,000 barrels per day of the planet’s dirtiest tar sands crude to gulf coast refineries in Texas to be processed and sold on global markets. KXL is an expansion of the foreign company’s existing Keystone Pipeline System, which sends Canadian tar sands crude from Alberta to various processing hubs in the middle of the United States. KXL would result in a reduction of tar sands crude coming into the US.
Alberta’s sticky deposit called tar sands contain bitumen, a gooey type of petroleum that can be converted into fuel. But, extracting oil from tar sands comes at steep environmental and economic costs. In the mid-2000s, with oil prices souring to $150 bbl, oil companies ramped up production and sought ways to move their product from Canada’s remote tar sands fields to midwestern and Gulf Coast refineries. Since then, fracking and conservation have created an oil oversupply that has driven oil prices below $50 bbl. The US has become energy independent and no longer needs this dirty expensive to produce tar sand crude.
Tar sands crude is thicker, more acidic, and more corrosive than conventional crude, and this ups the likelihood that a pipeline carrying it will leak. One study found that between 2007 and 2010, pipelines moving tar sands oil in Midwestern states spilled three times more per mile than the U.S. national average for pipelines.
The impact of a foreign company building a pipeline through the heartland of our country in order to profit that foreign company has caused sustained protests from environmental organizations; Indigenous communities; religious leaders; and the farmers, ranchers, and business owners along its proposed route concerned about their property rights.
The pipeline does not create US jobs. Actually, in the long run it would eliminate jobs. Once built, the pipeline would essentially bypass the US and benefit only foreign companies. The State Department report concluded the project would require fewer than 2,000 two-year construction jobs and that the number of jobs would hover around 35 after construction and those might be foreign workers.
The pipeline would likely result in higher US gas prices because most of the Keystone XL oil would be sent to markets overseas reducing the amount currently being processed in Midwest refineries.
While most voters understand the property rights, economic, and environmental downside to KXL and approve of killing the project, the right-wing propaganda, mostly funded by the transnational oil companies and Saudi Arabia, continue to push the false narrative that KXL creates jobs, lowers gas prices, and helps energy independence.
I hope these truths will help you counter the lies told by right-wing propaganda sources.
Until we know truth
Good Afternoon Amy,
What is honesty and truth – essay #1?
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality. Something is ‘true’ if it accurately represents reality.
There is a problem to consider because in the real world nothing is absolute. There is no purely binary way of looking at things. If false is the opposite of true, then a falsehood and a truth are opposite. But a simple example contradicts the binary logic view. The truthful claim ‘this 100° cup of coffee is not hot,’ does not translate to the opposite that ‘this cup of 100° coffee is cold.” Clearly context and clearly defined terms are necessary to establish truth.
Political propaganda exploits a flaw in human thinking to distort and obscure meaning so as to deceive. The false dilemma fallacy is often used in deceive and fool people.
The false dilemma fallacy is a manipulative tool designed to polarize the audience, heroize one side and villainize the other. It is common in political discourse as a way of strong-arming the public into supporting controversial legislation or policies. It is a trick based on the binary choice problem.
The abortion issue is rife with deceptive rhetoric. It provides an excellent example of the false dilemma fallacy in politics. Let’s look at a bit of pro-life propaganda: Those who seek to pass laws restricting abortion say ‘life’ begins at conception, but that is both false and deceptive. It is false because sperm and egg are living prior to conception. It is deceptive because they are equating ‘life’ and ‘person.’ If someone agrees with ‘life begins at conception,’ they might be persuaded that abortion is the taking of a life and thus killing a person. The objective is to control the political discourse by lionizing ‘pro-life’ and demonizing abortion. These “false dilemma” arguments are so effective that people, thus radicalized, can be compelled to terrorist behaviors and even suicide bombing.
The January 6th, 2021 attack on the US Capitol had its roots is an array of falsehoods designed to control people using fear that government is the enemy and Trump is the savior. Driven by the big-lie that the election was stolen, and that Democrats and cowardly Republicans were responsible a mob of radicalized believers, incited by Trump, stormed out Capitol. As with all radicalized terrorists they believed they were heroes and those opposing them were cowards and villains.
These examples show how falsehoods is used to brainwash people and incite, even good people, to deadly terroristic behavior.In order to mitigate future domestic radicalization to mob violence, it is necessary to first answer the original question: What is truth?
Attack On Capitol Was Planned
Hi Amy,
I’m not a journalist. I’m just a guy with the access to information, like everyone else. I read reports and listened to recordings. I cross-checked for accuracy and consistency among various media. This is a compilation of what I discovered.
The attack on the Capitol was planned! Authorities investigating the siege of the Capitol made more arrests amid revelations from a white supremacist monitoring group that the attack was openly planned online for weeks. This was in no way spontaneous riot. Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group tweeted that the riot came after a month of "rampant strategizing and incitements to storm and occupy Congress and kidnap/arrest lawmakers." Protesters were urged to come prepared. "Consider bringing zip ties" and make citizens arrests.”
Up to 40,000 Trump supporters, flown in and bussed in from all over the country, were assembled outside the White House and stirred into a frenzy by scheduled slate of speakers, Trump Jr, Alabama congressman Mo Brooks, Rudy Giuliani, and finally Trump.
Donald Trump Jr., warmed up the audience, warning Republican members of Congress who did not back the pro-Trump efforts: “We’re coming for you!”
Rudy Giuliani told the crowd to march to the Capitol and “exercise combat justice.”
Mo Brooks said: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” and asked the throng of all white Trump supporters if they were “willing to sacrifice their blood or lives as their ancestors had done.”
Trump stepped on stage and told the crowd “be there, it will be wild!” He said, “Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. And we want to be so nice. We’re going to have to fight much harder. We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” He went on, “When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed play by very different rules. “
Trump said, “I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do, and I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to.” He said Republicans who did not go along with his effort to overturn the election - Mr. Pence as well as senators like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who did not join in the objections led by Mr. Hawley and Mr. Cruz - were actually the ones being courageous, implying they were putting themselves at risk by not backing Trump’s effort to overthrow the election. The crowd understood and during the riot, the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence. Hang McConnel.” A noose was found at the Capitol.
“You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can’t let that happen,” Trump said “These are the facts that you won’t hear from the fake news media. It’s all part of the suppression effort. “We must fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
“We will never give up; we will never concede,” Trump said to thunderous applause from the increasingly angry crowd, “We will stop the steal. We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol…We’re going to give our Republicans, the weak ones…the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
Later, during the riot, from the safety of the White House he said, “We had an election that was stolen from us. We won a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away, from all of us—from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election.” To the rioters, “We love you. You’re very special,” he said as white supporters stormed through the Capitol threatening representatives, destroying property, causing deadly violence, waving Confederate flags, wearing battle gear, armed, carrying explosives, and displaying white nationalists’ symbols. Trump continued, “You’ve seen what happens. You’ve seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel.”
It does not take a genious to see that Trump intended to overturn the election using an insurrection of violent followers. It is disturbing to read how Capitol security was reduced prior to this attack and how some officers even aided and abetted the rioters by letting them pass and even giving them direction to locations of interest within the Capitol. It is also disturbing to see some media downplay the seriousness of this attack on the US Capitol implying a false-equivalency to other rallys, marches, and protests.
Trump Cult Attack on US Capitol
Good Afternoon Amy,
I am making this journal entry a day late because Jan 6th displayed the ugly consequence of the post-truth climate that has been a decades-long strategy of radical-right, with the complacency of the media and centrist politicians.
The U.S. Capitol descended into chaos and violence Wednesday, Jan 6th as hundreds of pro-Trump rioters swarmed the building, leaving four people dead, scores injured (included 56 officers), millions in damage, vandalism of historic items and forcing the Senate to evacuate and the Vice President Mike to be ushered to safety.
The mob broke through barricades, forced Congress to evacuate and abruptly suspend a ceremonial event affirming that President-elect Joe Biden won the November election. Police officers drew guns as rioters tried to break down doors into the House chamber. Pence was seen rushing out of the Senate chamber as throngs of Trump's rioters surrounded the Capitol. One woman was fatally shot, and three other people died in "medical emergencies."
The media was flooded with images of protesters skirmishing with police officers, and multiple reports of violence inside the Capitol as some rioters broke windows, battered down doors and postured in the Senate chamber. Images from the clashes were rife with disturbing hate symbols: a photo of a noose that had been hung on the west side of the Capitol, protesters waving Confederate flags or using white power gestures. There were disturbing images of police officers posing for selfies with rioters.
Improvised explosive devices were found on the Capitol grounds, several law enforcement officials said. Officers were in the process of destroying the devices, and it was not clear whether they were functional. At least one was made of a small section of galvanized pipe. Five weapons were recovered from the complex.
Former President George W. Bush condemned the violence in a statement and indirectly criticized Trump and his supporters. "It is a sickening and heartbreaking sight. This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic. I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement, inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes."
Former President Barack Obama excoriated Trump in a statement and denounced the violence, calling it "a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation. Right now, Republican leaders have a choice made clear in the desecrated chambers of democracy. They can continue down this road and keep stoking the raging fires, or they can choose reality and take the first steps toward extinguishing the flames. They can choose America."
Former President Jimmy Carter said, "This is a national tragedy and is not who we are as a nation," while Bill Clinton tweeted, "The match was lit by Donald Trump and his most ardent enablers, including many in Congress, to overturn the results of an election he lost."
Vice President Pence called it "a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today: You did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people's house.”
Dan Eberhart, a prominent donor to Trump and the Republican Party, sharply criticized the protests and the president. "If President Trump wants to have any kind of political future within the Republican Party, he needs to condemn the violence at the Capitol and stop claiming the election was stolen. The desecration of the Capitol is not going to be forgotten.
Schumer, who is poised to succeed McConnell as majority leader, sharply criticized the protests but squarely placed the blame on Trump: "Make no mistake. Today's events did not happen spontaneously. This mob was President Trump's doing — incited by his words, his lies. - his responsibility, his everlasting shame."
The chaos erupted after Trump spoke to a large crowd in front of the White House. He angrily vowed never to concede to Biden and baselessly asserted that the election results were fraudulent.
Interviews with rioters clarified Trump’s lies caused this to happen. One rioter said, "I just felt compelled to be here, because it seems like our republic is slipping away from us," Bjorklund said. He added that there were "mountains of evidence of fraud" and detailed conspiracy theories about voting machines using software made by Dominion Voting Systems. "We don't believe they're honest, true voters," Theresa Reilly said "There's a lot of cheating going on, and I think everybody knows that, including Democrats." Her husband said that even without "doing too much research," it’s clear "something's up" with the November election results.
Descent into Oligarchy
Hi Amy,
I am very frightened for the future of our country. During my short lifetime, I have watched a steady deterioration in journalistic integrity, political ethics, and honesty, accompanied by a growing climate of distrust, incivility, division, and disconnect from reality.
As I indicated in earlier posts, I believe this fall is rooted in the partisan power struggles and ongoing corporate-funded Russian-model propaganda. The on-going plan of replacing truth and reality with chaos and delusion to brain-wash people into a tribal-identity contest where values, facts, and reason are irrelevant is working.
This post-reality world undermines rule-of-law, the Constitution, and the democratic process. As that foundation is eroded away the void is filled with unaccountable authoritarian bad players. Journalist have been neutralized by the flood of disinformation, lies, conspiracy, and doubt. No institution remains to protect society from the new-authoritarians who are shielded from liability for their bad behavior.
Every President, from Reagan to Trump has taken more power from the people, rendering the other branches of government impotent. Trump has pulled back the curtain on this ever-advancing assault on the People’s government and democracy.
There is no evidence that Biden or Congress will take any action to reverse this descent into an authoritarian-headed corporatocracy. Their power is built on the corrupt system. They will not reform campaign finance laws, enact rules to improve the ethical functioning of Congress, pass laws to limit the powers of the executive branch, or reign in media participation in public deception. And if these things do not happen our descent will accelerate. We will be doomed.
How much time does this grand experiment in freedom and democracy have left? I am 72 years old. Can the USA, as it was envisioned, last to the end of my life? I hope it does. But....
Noise Canceling Headphones
Good Afternoon Amy,
In my first three posts, I talked about “viruses of the mind,” using memegineering to infect people with false memories, how we live in a deliberately designed post-truth environment, and my own frustration at having no influence. I am a problem-solver. I’ve always enjoyed identifying a problem and trying to work out a solution. The first step in solving a problem is to clearly define the problem.
The problem: How can I exert political influence in this post-truth tribal-identity environment? Millions of people have tried and failed using the traditional methods like running for office, backing a candidate or issue, raising money, protesting, and expressing their concerns in a media. I have tried those solutions to no avail. Einstein succinctly stated that insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. I am not insane. I have a painfully clear understanding of the problem and of my own inadequacy to affect change as a player. I am aware that in the post-truth cacophony any signal only adds to the noise.
The solution lies in canceling the noise rather than adding to the noise. Society needs to be given noise-cancelling headphones so the truth can be heard. Campaigns, social media posts, corporate media, fact checkers, pundits, Bloggers, talking heads, think tanks, cable news, broadcast news, politicians, etc, are just adding to the noise. Screaming “shut the fuck up” just adds more noise. So how can one little insignificant person “change the world.”
A whisper can drown out a shout.
Tomorrow, I will explore solutions.
Brain Washing
Good Day Amy,
Brain washing, marketing, manipulation, propaganda, and memegineering are all terms that mean controlling people by shaping their thoughts in a way that compels them to behave as needed. People are just animals responding to stimuli. How a person responds to a stimulus is based on sensual input filtered through stored memories. Or think of a person like a computer running a program of memories. The person is given input then the memories (the program) processes the input to produce output. The goal of propaganda is to program people with a set of memories (beliefs) that causes them to behave according to predetermined set rules. Like Pavlov’s dog trained to drool when a bell rings, people are trained to exhibit predictable responses.
Stimulus response happens naturally. If you eat a spoiled piece of meat and get sick the memory of that experience will cause a negative reaction when offered a similar looking, smelling, or tasting food in the future. False memories are just as powerful at controlling behavior as are real memories. You eat an orange slice, get violently ill and are told by a doctor that you are violently allergic to fresh orange. Even if you were manipulated, that “false memory” will alter your eating behavior. If you are convinced by a story on the internet that vaccines cause autism, you will not want to have your child vaccinated. Learned stimulus response controls a person’s behavior.
Propaganda is the strategy of controlling people by filling their minds with false memories (false beliefs) to produce a planned response. The idea is to create an information ecosystem that dictates what a population sees and hears. In our fragmented media environment, it is not possible to expose everyone to the same false information, so manipulating a majority “reality” is takes a different approach.
Propaganda today, like content on Fox News is more about pushing conspiracy theories, contradiction, misleading spin, and mistrust. The main goal is to undercut the very notion of truth and establish information chaos. By opening the information space to every kind disinformation reality is destroyed. With no coherent truth available politics is transformed into a tribal-identity contest. Conspiracy and cults thrive in this environment. Bad actors like Trump can get away with claiming “everybody is lying to you, but me.”
Frustrating Lack of Influence
Good Afternoon Amy,
I confess that my lack of influence in the world is exacerbated by the realization that those with the most influence are unscrupulous immoral liars. To me, that seems counter intuitive. How can evil deceptive frauds be the most influential?
I think about the power of Fox News and right-wing propaganda machines. They are responsible for Trump. I do not mean just getting him elected. It is painfully obvious that his thoughts and behavior are the result of right-wing media programming. He is the manifestation of right-wing propaganda. And it is not just Trump Republican politicians all across the country and in every position parrot the talking-points of right-wing media as do all regular consumers of right-wing propaganda. Most disturbing is that these people are “true believers” and are filled with hate, fear, and anger because they are programmed with false beliefs.
Because I am an independent-minded reasoning soul, I tend to be naïve about the power of propaganda to influence people. I cannot fathom how people allow their minds to absorb myth, lies, and conspiracy as real. Their minds become a cesspool of false memories, disinformation, and absurd beliefs. My notion that I can offer these people the truth using logic and facts is as absurd as the beliefs they hold.
Tomorrow I will explore the nature of propaganda and influence. Am I to accept that I cannot be a counter influence or are there vaccines and treatments that can prevent and cure viruses of the mind?
Two Pandemics 2020
Good morning Amy.
Yesterday ended a very strange year in America. Two very contagious and destructive viruses ran rampant across our country.
The Virus of the body, COVID-19 pandemic killed 350,000, mostly older Americans, and infected an estimated 60 million. Terri and I caught the virus in late January but were fortunate to have only mild symptoms. While there were conspiracies that this was an engineered disease, the best evidence indicates it evolved in an agricultural sitting and jumped to humans. It is continuing to evolve but so far, the new strains are not more deadly. It is important to note that the new vaccine made history not only because of a 95 percent efficacy rate at preventing COVID-19, but because it is the first vaccine ever approved for human use based on RNA technology.
Genetic engineering. Traditional vaccines inject inactivated virus proteins called antigens. The antigens stimulate the body’s immune system to recognize the specific virus and produce antibodies in response.
RNA-based vaccines do not introduce an antigen, but instead inject a short sequence of synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) that is enclosed in a specially engineered lipid nanoparticle. Once the mRNA is in our body it “instructs” the protein synthesis machinery in our cells to produce a piece of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein.
While the virus does not appear to be engineered, the vaccine is a genetically engineered nano code that alters body protein production.
The virus of the mind, Trump-2020 infected an estimated 75 million and caused serious, possibly unrecoverable, brain damage to millions of Americans.
A meme is an idea or behavior encoded in the mind. Memes spread from person to person from close personal contact. Harmful memes (virus of the mind) cause false beliefs and imitation of destructive behaviors. Symptoms of infection are the occurrence of shared false beliefs and imitation. Humanity has cultivated viruses of the mind to manipulate people and steer cultures for thousands of years. George Orwell’s 1984 highlighted how language is used to insert false information into people’s minds and use those false beliefs to control people. Cults, religions, cultures, and political ideologies rely on memes to perpetuate a ruse.
Memetic engineering is an emerging science based on the design and distribution of memes used for marketing. The advent of social media, mass communications, and AI systems’ ability to collect and analyze big data, have revolutionized the ability of mind control.
Like COVID-19 it seems unlikely that TRUMP-2020 was a designed virus, but rather evolved from an unfortunate confluence of right-wing memes cultivated in the Trump petri dish. It has grown into an extremely dangerous disease for which there is no cure. Most people seem to possess natural immunity and it is not clear if the infection will run its course with symptoms fading over time in the infected.