Category: propaganda

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, language, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

It’s gratifying to see people who’ve directly experienced her as an active step-parent to commend Kamala Harris’ love and commitment to her step-kids. Her husband Doug Emhoff’s first wife Kerstin said, “For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.” And Harris’s stepdaughter Ella Emhoff also spoke out: “They have good communication between the three of them. They are really a unit, like a three-person parenting squad. It’s really cool.”

They made their remarks in response to the revelation of Republican VP candidate J.D. Vance’s inane 2021 comment, as reported in Time Magazine:

The controversy stems from a 2021 Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson, while Vance was running for the Ohio senate seat he later won. “We’re effectively run in this country—via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs—by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” Vance, who has a wife and three children, told Carlson. “How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environmenl, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, media-general, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , ,

Along with every other decent human being, I deplore political violence. And as much as I despise his politics AND his character, I wish Donald Trump a speedy recovery from the wound inflicted by a would-be assassin with an assault rifle.

BUT that doesn’t mean we need to stop campaigning. It doesn’t mean we should fail to make the most of the opportunity that this criminal’s attack on another criminal creates. And it certainly doesn’t mean we should slink off with our tails between our legs because the MAGAs tell us “this is not the time!” It’s never the time, according to them.

And it absolutely doesn’t mean we should roll over play dead, and abandon hope just because Biden had a bad night in the recent debate or just because Trump may get sympathy votes for getting shot. Trump (who is only 3-1/2 years younger, by the way) had a bad night too, if you filter against fact-checking. He spewed blustery nonsense for 90 minutes, nearly all of it either blatantly false or totalitarian fantasy.

Here’s what we should be saying at every possible chance:

It’s time for the United States of America to stand behind the value of not getting shot by a random psycho at a school, a movie theater, a supermarket, a religious service, a concert, or anywhere else. And Trump cannot lead that effort. After all, he:

By contrast, President Biden issued a powerful Executive Order promoting gun safety and managed against the odds to gain passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which he calls “the most significant bipartisan gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years.  The Act provides communities with new tools to combat gun violence, including enhanced gun background checks for individuals under age 21, funding for extreme risk protection orders and other crisis interventions, and increased mental health resources to help children impacted by gun violence heal from the resulting grief and trauma.” If Biden chooses to step down, the Democrat who will challenge Trump in November is also likely to favor sensible gun laws. The Democratic Party as a whole has been advocating common-sense gun safety for many years.

Finally, let’s remember three very important things:

First, just because the MAGA crazies have taken over the Republican Party doesn’t mean they’ve taken over the minds of mainstream Republicans. We see this in the typical 20 percent that Nikki Haley continued to draw even after she suspended her campaign! And I’ve also seen it in my conversations with many Republicans who tell me they don’t like Trump’s character, his lack of understanding of the issues, his massive narcissism, his open racism, his lack of a moral compass, etc. His support is weak even in his own party, in other words. Many could easily defect—as more than 100 prominent Republican have publicly pledged—to RFK, Jr., to the Democrats, to a Republican write-in, to to the Libertarians, or simply leave that space blank on their ballots.

Second, the Republican positions on many issues are wildly out of step with mainstream views. They oppose women’s reproductive freedom, LGBT rights, immigration (even legal immigration), voting rights, rights to protest against repressive governments, environmental protection, labor rights, and more. Both the Republican platform and the truly sinister Project 2025 (written largely by people who worked in Trump’s administration) embrace these extremist proposals—as do, apparently, a majority of the Supreme Court, which recently gutted environmental protection, declared Trump immune from prosecution for “official” acts, and of course, a year ago, overturned Rowe v. Wade—becoming the first Supreme Court to remove a constitutional right. And if that weren’t enough, Trump himself has alienated and insulted many large constituencies—veterans, people with disabilities, women, Palestinians, Muslims, Latin Americans, to name a few—and, starting January 6, 2021, thrown even some of his most loyal supporters like former Attorney General William Barr and former Vice President Mike Pence under the bus.

And third, Trump is not an attractive candidate to swing voters. He is now a 34-count convicted criminal and was found in civil court to have committed sex crimes. His rambling, off-topic speeches and compulsive lying could be evidence of serious mental decline. And of course, both men have a track record. Trump got little done besides his economy-crushing tax cut, while Biden, for all his flaws, has made huge progress on the economy, on recovering from the pandemic, on the environment, and on the US’s position as a world leader. On every issue where Biden has been bad (especially Gaza), Trump is demonstrably worse for progressives.

So let’s get out there and mobilize people to vote Democratic—including spreading the word about the huge negative impact of Trump’s proposals to people who don’t always vote for Democrats. Despite its problems, we still have a democracy worth saving!

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today, the United States of America marks the 248th anniversary of its founding. But this, year, I can’t celebrate.

But Monday, on its last day of the term, a bizarre Supreme Court decision essentially returned the country to monarchy. They put one person—the President—above the law, immune from prosecution even for extreme corruption and extreme violence, as long as they were acting in an official capacity.

In a stinging dissent joined by Brown and Kagan, Justice Sotomayor examined the consequences:

Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

As Heather Cox Richardson noted, this case is legally known as Trump. v. United States. How apt.

It’s worth reading the original accusations in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence that we mark today; many sound amazingly relevant, especially if Trump manages to gain power again.

Like our forbears of 1776, we are once again called to resist tyranny. But today, we know that nonviolent resistance is more effective and longer lasting than armed struggle. And we know more than 200 ways to be nonviolent activists. In the pre-Internet, pre-pandemic era. Gene Sharp identified 198 ways. Many more have been found in recent years. The challenges are figuring out what makes strategic sense against a corrupt Supreme Court, how to organize to prevent a Trump victory, and what to do if he does take power again.

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By Posted on Posted in Consumer Issues, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Ethics: General, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Media Ethics, media-general, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , , , ,

Yes, it’s true. Thursday’s “debate” was a debacle, an atrocity. And yes, Democrats have a right to indulge in some panic. But a more helpful response is to demand that the mainstream media start covering the real issue in this campaign: That American democracy is under threat by Donald Trump, who was the worst president in history according to experts and who has devolved into a raving lunatic who has openly talked about the totalitarian regime he would impose this time.

For months, much of the mainstream media has consistently painted Biden in a poor light while for the most part refusing to set the same standard in evaluating Trump. A particularly horrific example was the time one of the Washington Post’s newsletters made a chart that compared how old Biden would be at the END of a second term with how old Trump would be at the BEGINNING of a second term. They are only 3-1/2 years apart.

Yet, while the New York Times and Washington Post were going on about the need for Biden to step aside, the Philadelphia Inquirer was one of the few voices in the mainstream press saying that Trump, not Biden, is the one who should leave the race. Their reasons are not just the 30+ lies he confidently uttered during the event (you can’t really call it a debate). It’s everything he’s done in the last several years. The man is a felon, a self-admitted sexual predator, an inciter of a treasonous riot, an open bigot, a thuggish bully, and a narcissistic example of Id running amok with no Superego to rein it in. Trump is known for confidently putting out total bullshit—kind of like some AI tools that tell us to eat a rock every day. Trump wanted us to drink chlorine bleach during the pandemic, after all.

While under both the insurrection and incompetence clauses of the Constitution Trump shouldn’t have even been allowed on the ballot, he’s there. And if he leaves, we may not like the results. If, say, Nikki Haley were to replace him as the Republican candidate, she could actually win on the basis that she wouldn’t be as bad as Trump. And she wouldn’t–but she might very likely be as bad as or worse than the second-worst president, George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, as Lawrence O’Donnell points out, the Dems have no viable candidate in reserve. When LBJ left the race much earlier in the cycle, in March, 1968, Humphrey didn’t have enough time to gather accolades or dollars. He also notes that there was pressure on Bill Clinton to withdraw in 1992 and on Trump to do so in 2016, yet both men won. AND he faults the debate moderators for failing to ask important questions like what the heck Trump was doing during those three hours of silence on January 6, 2021, or to probe deeper on Trump’s nonsensical answers and outright lies, including his obvious lack of understanding of what a tariff is.

Seth Abramson says that getting Biden to exit would grant Trump’s deepest wish and wonders why nobody’s asking if this is a good idea, considering how much Trump and his henchmen are talking it up—and he doesn’t see any path to a victory by any other Democrat.

The Dems would start by attacking each other in a “circular firing squad” that only helps the Republicans. Any convention result will leave a wide swath of disaffected voters.  It just doesn’t make sense.

Mind, I’m no fan of Biden. There’s a long list of betrayals of progressives that I’m not at all happy with. But I believe that this race is much less about who we want to be president than whether we want democracy or fascism, and what the Supreme Court will look like. It’s also about who progressives would rather be pressuring, and there’s no question that we’d secure more wins under Biden than Trump.

And Heather Cox Richardson says Trump steamrolled Biden with a technique called the “Gish Gallop”:

It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.

It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has. It is similar to what Trump did to Biden during a debate in 2020. In that case, though, the lack of muting on the mics left Biden simply saying: “Will you shut up, man?” a comment that resonated with the audience. Giving Biden the enforced space to answer by killing the mic of the person not speaking tonight actually made the technique more effective.

So instead of trying to dump Biden, let’s demand that the media:

  1. Point out every lie either candidate utters
  2. Give some space to Trump’s crazy “word salad” campaign speeches that make absolutely no sense
  3. Examine the consequences of each of his fascist-inspired policy proposals
  4. Fact-check the next debate in REAL TIME.

And let’s remind everyone we know that this election is not about choosing a saint but choosing the better opponent who will enable the most positive change.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Environment, Ethics in Government, language, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , ,
  • If you have a socially or environmentally conscious business…
  • If you are an activist on any issue…
  • If you work in any way to better the lives of disempowered people—whether the disempowerment is social, cultural, medical, geographical, or any other cause…

Please read this next paragraph VERY carefully. It’s from today’s Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson (emphasis added):

How religion and authoritarianism have come together in modern America was on display Thursday, when right-wing activist Jack Posobiec opened this weekend’s conference of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., with the words: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”

This is a major Washington conference of influencers. Take it seriously! That is one of many ways fascism rears its ugly and dangerous head. Trump actually quoting Hitler, repeatedly, without attributing him is another. A series of Supreme Court decisions and new repressive state laws add more heads to this horrible Hydra.

The good news is they can’t do this without our help. Staying home on Election Day helps the wannabe fascists. And since most parts of the US don’t have ranked-choice voting yet, so does voting for a third-party candidate in the general election. Oh, and showing up helps our cause and hurts theirs. Show up to lobby your Members of Congress and your state and local elected officials. Show up in the streets to participate in protests against harmful policies or support demonstrations for those you favor. And show up to vote!

If, as I do, you disagree enough with Biden’s policies that you have a hard time voting for him, show that in the primary. Show up to vote and don’t vote for him. Either leave the president line blank or vote for an alternate candidate. My Primary is March 4 and I will either vote for Dean Phillips, who is slightly left of Biden, or write in Green Party candidate Cornell West.

But I recognize that Biden, barring some major development like a major health crisis, will be the nominee. And even though I live in a reliably Blue state, I recognize that his likely opponent will contest the results if they are anything less than an overwhelming victory for Biden.

And let’s not forget that Trump has promised to be even worse on immigration—and on many issues—than he was during his time as President.

I want that margin to be as big as possible, so come November, I will cast my vote for democracy and against fascism, despite Biden’s betrayal of his campaign promises on issues that include unnecessarily harsh positions on immigration and his relentless support of the brutal regime in Israel and its devastation of Gaza, despite his energy policy that doesn’t do nearly enough to curb fossil fuel and embraces the false narrative that nuclear power is part of the climate solution (I’ve written a book on this; nuclear is a problem, not a solution), and despite many other reservations.

Remember the prophetic words of anti-Nazi Pastor Martin Niemöller

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

And speak out! Speak out for the socialists, the trade unionists, and the Jews. Speak out for Arabs and Muslims, for immigrants from anywhere, for people in the LGBTQ community, for those with disabilities, for those who Trump has threatened with retribution that includes rounding up and detaining opponents.

Speak out. For democracy. For decency. Speak out, ultimately, for yourself.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I finally got around to watching Jon Stewart’s return monologue. Yuck! I was a fan of Jon Stewart but this is ageist crap! Yes, Biden is old. So is Trump, as Stewart admits. While I have plenty of bones to pick with Biden (and I’ve been in the streets protesting some of his policies, especially around immigration and the Gaza war), we don’t have ranked choice voting in US presidential elections. And that means that absent some deep and unpredicted shift in the political landscape, either Biden or Trump will be elected in November.

There are many reasons to vote for Biden over Trump. While flawed (as we all are), he’s a basically decent person who has mostly used his time in office to better the lives of ordinary USArians and to improve the condition of the world. And despite a completely dysfunctional Congress, he has still managed to:

Now, about his opponent:

 

Bias Against Biden

Biden is not an existential threat to democracy. Biden was handed a government in complete chaos that had burned bridges with many of its allies and built back a functional government that honors its promises. Biden is about the good of the country, while Trump appears to be mostly concerned with leveraging his position for profit and inflating his already overweight ego. And Biden’s record of accomplishment after three years in office far outstrips Trump’s four years. 

So please tell me why the media is constantly dissing Biden because of his age and a perceived lack of mental acuity that by any reasonable standard is in better shape than Trump’s. How is it, for example, that the Washington Post (a liberal newspaper that prides itself on good journalism) actually ran a chart comparing how old Biden would be at the END of a second term with Trump’s age at the BEGINNING of a second term. 

I have that chart in an email dated February 9, 2024 entitled “The 5-Minute Fix: How should Democrats address Biden’s unpopularity?”; I can’t find it on washingtonpost.com and therefore can’t link to it. Because it’s copyrighted material, I can’t reproduce it here, but I’d be glad to forward that newsletter to anyone who requests it through the contact form. I can also link to the February 10th Today’s Edition Substack  newsletter by Robert Hubbell that mentions this chart along with five front-page New York Times stories about Biden’s age. And these are the liberals! WTF?

 

Proof that Age Doesn’t Matter

Finally, let’s look at five among thousands of models for aging with power:

  • Grandma Moses had a 25-year career as a painter, BEGINNING AT AGE 76
  • Pete Seeger was still writing and recording songs well into his 90s
  • Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa at age 76
  • My friends Frances Crowe and Arky Markham were both still activists on their 100th birthdays
  • Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn and sexologist Dr. Ruth Westheimer were working on the sexuality of old people into their 80s (disclosure: I was a VISTA organizer for the Gray Panthers in 1979-80 and met Maggie once when she was 75)

You are never too old—or too young—to make a difference. Jon Stewart should know better, and so should we. Work to get ranked-choice voting and other reforms such as those outlined at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/its-time-to-talk-about-electoral-reform/ (scroll down to the section entitled “A range of possible electoral reforms”).

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Diversity, Environment, language, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Science, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I often find myself disagreeing with, disappointed in, and even demonstrating against President Biden’s policies.

And yet, assuming he’s the candidate in November, he will get my vote. I admit he might not if the US had adopted ranked-choice voting. But until it does, a vote for any third-party candidate is a vote for the main opponent of your preferred candidate. More importantly, I believe that the bad things Biden has done have been part of his own effort—sometimes accurate and sometimes off-base—to leave the world  better than he found it. He is, fundamentally, a good person, And despite never having a majority in both houses of Congress, he’s done quite a bit of good as president:

  • Shepherding a phenomenal economic turnaround, the best post-COVID economy in the world, and creating or recovering hundreds of thousands more jobs
  • Replacing skepticism with science on topics ranging from global climate change to the safety of COVID vaccines
  • Restoring US leadership on the world stage after it was torn to shreds by his predecessor
  • Supporting labor, the middle class, the poor, and the disenfranchised—and doing his best to hold big corporations and the super-rich accountable for dong their part
  • Championing the right to vote—and the right to have that vote properly counted

As I write this BEFORE the first primaries and caucuses, that opponent is likely to be the orange-haired former president. Yeah, the guy who is facing more than 90 felony counts, who has bragged about a history of sexual abuse (and been accused of many others and found liable in one he didn’t admit to). The serial liar who was caught in 30,000 false statements just during his four-year presidency. The narcissist who thinks rules and laws don’t apply to him. The person who stacked the Supreme Court with people who have undermined the values shared by most US citizens, overturned longstanding legal precedents, and for the first time in modern history, stripped away the rights of whole classes of people.

And, let’s not forget, the man who has promised that if he is elected, he will focus not on governance, not on the economy, not on human rights—but on revenge against his perceived enemies, active harassment of people who might be a different color, ethnicity, political philosophy or religion, and who repeatedly uses language straight out of Hitler.

Yesterday, Christmas 2023, both men issued Christmas messages. Robert Hubbell devoted his daily newsletter to these messages—and their contrasts couldn’t be more stark. Biden spoke of unity, teamwork, kindness, and hope. But DT used his bully pulpit to wish that those he perceives as “EVIL and SICK…THUGS” (which includes the military and those who favor electric cars) “ROT IN HELL” (capitalization is his).

Please make sure you’re registered to vote. That your friends know why you will vote for Biden. And that the records of these two men while in office leave no choice.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Mindset, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Today, I spent two hours with my heartstrings tugged at a concert of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus—where Palestinian teens and 20-somethings from East Jerusalem sing—and compose—together with their Israeli Jewish counterparts from West Jerusalem. In June 2014 (a time of relative peace), I attended an equally moving concert in the Galilee (northern Israel) by Diwan Saz, a modern combo whose performers that night included a 10-year-old Bedouin boy (with a gorgeous voice) and a Chassidic rabbi, among others.
Those hopeful events seem far away an out of reach as we mourn the tragic and avoidable loss of over 4000 lives on both sides this month.
We have to somehow prevent even greater losses of life—and to reset!
Ultraorthodox Jews protest in London for Palestinian rights. Photo by Alisdare Hickson from Woolwich, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ultraorthodox Jews protest in London for Palestinian rights. Photo by Alisdare Hickson from Woolwich, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Let’s start with some points I hope everyone can agree on:
  1. Innocent people have been killed and hurt for decades, and nothing will bring them back
  2. The violence has not worked, no matter who commits it
  3. Both Arabs and Jews have claims on the land going back thousands of years
  4. They also claim common ancestry with both honoring a heritage that started with Abraham. They eat very similar foods, speak languages with many cognates, and have both had to adapt to the harsh desert that surrounds them.
  5. It is long past time to find a workable solution
From that very rudimentary framework, could we perhaps evolve to:
  1. We all are carrying deep hurts. An eye for an eye doesn’t just leave everyone blind, because it will eventually leap from eyes to other things. So an eye for an eye, ultimately, leaves no one standing. Can we accept not only that the past is filled with violence, cruelty, and the spewing of hatred/dehumanization—but that all sides would benefit from moving past this?
  2. Can we look to the world for other examples of long-standing hostility and violence transforming into something better—such as the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa and Sierra Leone and the peace process in Northern Ireland?
  3. Can we finally break the cycles of fear, hatred, and grief that seem to lock everyone into ever-deeper and more destructive cycles of violence?
  4. Can the barriers—both physical and psychological—between the two cultures be removed so that Israelis and Palestinians who are kept apart by laws and physical barricades learn to work, play, and live together; there already are several small projects that are a great start, such as:
  • Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salam, a cooperative multicultural village;
  • Numerous other musical collaborations, including  Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and many lesser-known ensembles;
  • Combatants for Peace, which presents touring programs featuring one person who fought in the Israeli army and another who was involved in the Palestinian resistance, now working together for peace despite some of them experiencing injuries, imprisonment, and all of them mourning the loss of friends and family members in the conflict

It takes great courage to organize for peace when the leaders of both communities feed their population an unending diet of hatred for the other side. In the Middle East and around the world, many people have been killed for trying to make peace.

I have visited Israel and Palestine twice and have family and friends (both Palestinian and Israeli) in both  Israel and Palestine (in the West Bank). I’ve stayed in the homes and hotels of Palestinians, with a Chassidic family, in a Druze village, a Transcendental Meditation village, a kibbutz, and an Israeli settler community on the West Bank. I’ve met with a blogger in Ramallah and with leaders of several Israeli peace organizations. I’ve also participated in Middle East peace groups in the US going back to the early 1980s. The vast majority I’ve talked to over the years, no matter what their ethnic or religious heritage, just want peace. The governments are not giving it to them. Surely there are better ways to solve things than yet another war in a long and brutal series of wars!
Perhaps we can take our cue from songwriter Nerissa Nields, who answers the old labor union song “Which Side Are You On? with “The world says ‘you can figure it out. Haven’t you noticed I’m round?‘”
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By Posted on Posted in censorship, Ethics in Government, language, Politics, propaganda, Sexuality and Gender, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

No—but he may as well be. When I was a kid in the 1960s, we were told that Soviet schools (especially during the Stalin years) were places of indoctrination, not learning. They were propaganda factories churning out children whose world view was all about how great our then-enemy (and again enemy, since it invaded Ukraine) was—who would grow up to be dupes, unquestioning of their country’s moral, economic, and military superiority, etc. The same was true—and this we know as fact—of the schools the Nazis ran.

Of course, US schools, and the schools of pretty much any country, have also served a propaganda function. Schools are designed to raise children who would be complicit in or even participate in such things as the US’s involvement in numerous imperialist wars. Those wars are attempts to prop up a deadly version of capitalism whose place in developing countries was to exploit the resources—and not to worry about how many of the locals were killed or brutalized in the process. And again, the US was not alone. Ask in India about the Brits, in Congo about the Belgians, in South Africa about the Dutch, in Armenia about the Turks, in First Nations in Canada and the US about the history of their relations with White-run governments.

These days in most of the US and in other democracies, a more nuanced version of history is taught. History usually recognizes the moments where a country went astray, looks at the reasons, and at least casually discusses the consequences.

But in Florida, starting this month, that is no longer true. Heather Cox Richardson devoted her newsletter this morning to exploring the white supremacist fantasy that Florida now calls history and requires its teachers to teach. And I call the Florida curriculum a total distortion of truth. Read her column! It’s crucial to understand what’s going on in the battle for our children’s minds and souls.

Of course, this rogue state under Ron DeSantis has had a problem with truth telling for a while. It has a nasty habit of censoring anything that makes someone—at least a conservative White, cis, hetero, and male someone with no disabilities—a little uncomfortable. This is the state where it’s illegal for a teacher to mention LGBT folks, let alone that we are normal and part of the diversity that makes our country great. (I identify as bisexual so I include myself in that community.) Where it’s illegal for a teacher to point out that systemic racism still exists in the US. Where book banning has taken more than 300 books out of classrooms and libraries. And where DeSantis forced curriculum and management changes at a well-known progressive college in the state system that resulted in another progressive college, an expensive private school near me, offering to accept students from there at the same low tuition cost they’d been paying (and several accepted).

Unfortunately, while its approach is extreme, Florida isn’t alone. Other states are passing similar laws in a foolish counterrevolution that will dull the ability of its students to think, to make ethical choices, and ultimately, to show leadership. In addition to the obvious consequences of attacking human rights of those other than conservative White, cis, hetero, and male, this regressive path, in my opinion, leads to intellectual stagnation and the US falling behind other countries in the quality of our science, invention, and achievement. So in both moral and practical terms, it’s a disaster.

Fight for our right as a nation to have a REAL education! Support teachers and librarians! And most importantly, vote the censors who would drum critical thinking out of our children and turn them into compliant automatons out of office!

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, language, Media Ethics, Mindset, propaganda, Psychology, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bothsidesim, as you might have guessed, is the mainstream media’s tendency to pretend that reporting objectively requires covering “both sides” with equal weight. But here are a few problems with that approach:Free scales of justice judge justice illustration

  1. Often, there are many more than two sides. Bothsidesism pushes other voices and more nuanced analysis to the margins, just as the two-party system that drives most US politics. Not everything can be separated into either/or, black/white, environmentally friendly/environmentally harmful. A great example would be US Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s, where Justices would frequently write concurring opinions that raised issues and perspectives outside the “official” opinion (this is less true of the current court, which disposes of many cases in the “shadow docket“).
  2. When there are just two sides, one side may be well-reasoned and make a compelling case, while the other puts forth “alternative facts“–in other words, lies–to build a case based on demagoguery or deceit. (The link goes to an NBC clip of then presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway, 2 minutes in, introducing the term in an interview early in the term of the 45th US president–and the interviewer, Chuck Todd, calling her out immediately.)
  3. Bothsidesim turns any contest of ideas into a “horse race” where the issues get swept aside in favor of who appears to be the better debater.

The current “debate” over DT’s federal indictment in the document-hiding case shows what happens when bothsidesim runs amok–and this is NOT about Republican vs. Democrat.  While some media fall all over themselves to cry, “both sides did this,” quoting hyperpartisan pols like Ted Cruz, there is a lot of similarity between the approaches of Republican former VP Mike Pence and Democratic former VP (now president) Joe Biden, and basically none between either of them and DT.

What differentiates the cases of Pence and  Biden from DT’s is simple: The two former VPs immediately notified government agencies and cooperated fully, while DT reportedly was personally involved in hiding documents and telling the government there were no more. It took Pence’s team just three days to turn over the documents; Biden’s response was even quicker, and the documents were delivered one day after discovery.

DT falsely claimed all the documents had already been turned in and stalled so long that the government sent in the FBI to retrieve them. Also, DT’s document trove reportedly includes important military secrets, and DT showed these to people who were not authorized to see them–potentially putting our country and its military at risk.

It’s interesting that some of the most sycophantic yes-men of the DT years–not just Pence but also former Attorney General William Barr and former National Security Advisor John Bolton–have broken with DT over his handling of the matter.

The astute historian Heather Cox Richardson provides an equally current example thousands of miles outside the US. She quotes Timothy Snyder, a Yale scholar of authoritarianism on the recent Russian attack on Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka Dam:

Snyder warned journalists not to “bothsides” the story by offering equal time to both sides. “What Russian spokespersons have said has almost always been untrue, whereas what Ukrainian spokespersons have said has largely been reliable. The juxtaposition suggests a false equality,” he wrote. “The story doesn’t start at the moment the dam explodes. For the last fifteen months Russia has been killing Ukrainian civilians and destroying Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, whereas Ukraine has been trying to protect its people and the structures that keep them alive.” “Objectivity does not mean treating an event as a coin flip between two public statements,” he said. “It demands thinking about the objects and the settings that readers require for understanding amidst uncertainty.”

Let’s hope that becomes the mantra for journalists everywhere.

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