Friday, July 31, 2015

Stupidity and the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Thomas Jefferson once stated that democracy and a republican form of government will not survive without an informed and thinking citizenry to support it. The United States has thrived and approached this ideal when education and critical thinking among Americans is high, and as suffered when these qualities wane. A very good example of the correlation can be found in Esquire columnist Charles P. Pierce's book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. On the other side are the cranks exemplified by Ignatius Donnelly, who spent a lifetime trying to prove Atlantis once existed, and the con artists like P.T. Barnum, whose career of spectacle had the goal of simply separating fools from their money. Pierce then described the phenomenon of Rush Limbaugh, who lies somewhere in between but also dangerously apart from these two examples and is described by Pierce as simply a charlatan. Donnelly had fantastically silly ideas but they existed as a harmless curiosity. Barnum sold his audience a spectacle and profited handsomely from it but was not trying to build a movement out of it. Limbaugh and his countless clones on radio, in print, and on TV however, have harmful ideas that they sell to their gullible audiences for profit and to change society in ways that destroy freedom and impoverish the masses.

What does this have to do with PB & J? This story has popped up in many people's social media news feeds, claiming with little evidence that a school principle in Oregon deemed the sandwich racist. This automatically activates frames in the minds of gullible readers. Before the internet and social media these things traveled more slowly and usually started "I heard that..." followed by some outrageous claim. It took effort to repeat, and the audience was right there to roll their eyes or challenge the claim. But in today's world of "going viral" a stupid story about what may or may not have happened far away can be presented without context and manipulated by con artists and demagogues at will; then it can be repeated nearly infinitely and almost without effort to the feeds and inboxes of idiot america. This urban legend about racist sandwiches provides an interesting insight to Twain's adage:
The invention of the telegraph in Twain's day sped up the exchange of information in a way second only to the internet. Even if access to this revolutionary medium was limited to actual journalists, one need only shout "Remember The Maine" to know how the hare of lies can do incredible damage while the tortoise of truth tries in vain to put out the fires of sensationalism and yellow journalism. Although the US is unlikely to declare war on Spain over a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich, claims such as the ones made in this story play into an established narrative drummed up by unscrupulous conservative culture warriors going back at least to William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale. This is the contest of tradition stubbornly resisting change that picked up a great deal of speed and followers during the Great Backlash against desegregation, social justice, and other values of the 1960s.

The only link provided in the conservative post article is to another, exact replica of the story on Mr. Conservative.com. This one provides no links or source material whatsoever, but it does feature a gawdy proliferation of ads. So, while a google search for "peanut butter and jelly banned" produced a plethora of hits from right wing sources including fox news and the daily caller that are slightly more informative that the two wannabes first cited, they proceed from the same mistaken assumption that political correctness and racial tolerance has gone too far and an out-of-touch bureaucrat took arbitrary and unnecessary action that will slippery slope it's way into and across the entire nation. The actual story is from 2012, but seems to have flared up again in the wake of actual outrage over the official presence of the confederate flag on statehouse property in Charleston after Dylan Roof shot 9 people in a church there. "What next?" is the usual refrain, what next will you out of control liberals that have so much power to disrupt tradition do to wreck schools and things?

Politifact first debunked the story in 2012 because right wingers were clutching their pearls over that other great sin of liberals, spending tax money on frivolous projects. It was rated "pants on fire" then, it is still a ridiculous lie, but that does not matter. Two of the first comments on the undated mr conservative story debunk the misrepresentation but are ignored by the other commenters. Snopes rates the story completely false and fabricated out of deliberate manipulation of the principal's comments.

I wish it were as easy to say "use common sense" when exposed to the propaganda of charlatans but even the idea of "common" sense is gone when a significant number of the gullible simply make up their own facts and reject anything that does not conform to their existing prejudices. The worst part is that on line, the gullible idiots who fall for it every time just do not suffer the shame that once afflicted people in public. On the internet you can be insulated from any point of view you don't like, and experience no consequences for being fooled. On that note, it is perhaps best to quote Twain again; for he was the Great American Jester, telling the foolish uncomfortable truths during our last "Gilded Age." 
*Fingers comfortably but firmly inserted in ears* Nah, nah, can't hear you.

Monday, July 20, 2015

As if on Cue...

Fun with real-life examples. Social media is a great thing, but it has unhinged people that really should keep their mouths shut. I saw a short article from Salon where Rush Limbaugh was defending Trump, that's odd in itself but of course he was just bloviating on how the "drive by" media was supposedly getting it wrong about what Trump said about McCain, except for one time. But in the post's Facebook comments I found a gem of the true believer. Commenting on a Salon article inevitably brings trolls, which is why I rarely do it. Commenter Gary said what most rational people believe:
What does it say about conservatives that this guy leads polls because of racist statements. You can say it wasn't racist because he was only talking about illegals all you want. If the majority sees it as racism, then it's racism. Words have meaning.

Trump will not win the following demographics:

- Latinos
- Blacks
- Gays
- Women
- youth (18-27) they hate racism

So what you have to ask is can Trump be elected president by only racist white men? I don't think so. It's a numbers game and the math is against him.
So right away we were treated to Chad Eirhart "Racist statements"!!!!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Actually, yes Chad. When your hero refers to an entire ethnic group as "criminals, rapists, and infectious diseases" you are being racist.

He immediately followed up with "Get a clue, nimrod.
LOTS of Americans of every skin color and background understand how dangerous open borders are." 

After someone added that Trump will have a hard time getting the military vote (not that servicemembers, their families, or veterans are any more a monolithic group than an ethnic group) Chad chimed in "
  • Why?
    Military families understand better than most what a snake McCain is.

  • Chad Eirhart McCain just helped King Barry pave the way for Iran to get nukes and ICBMs.....
    News flash, morons:
    The Iranians don't need ICBMs to threaten Israel or Syria or Egypt; they need them to threaten US.
Finally concluding "I'm fairly certain that 
-Latinos
-Blacks

-Gays
-Women
-youth (18-27)
don't like going up in a nuclear fireball any better than us white folks do."


I don't need to debunk or expose the fallacies here do I? Good, okay moving on. So far, this authoritarian meat puppet seems to be the only one, and he hasn't earned any "likes" for his grotesque support of his messiah. So I guess there is that. 

I just wanted to toss this guy in with the true believers that ThinkProgress just profiled.

Is Donald Trump a Distraction?

As usual, I am late weighing in on the multiply-bankrupted scion of unworthy privilege Donald Trump. I was planning to write an analysis of Jeffrey Tucker's opinion piece at Newsweek called Is Donald Trump a Fascist? but the site told me I had somehow used up my free pageviews for this month despite rarely visiting Newsweek.com by the time I was actually able to sit down and write. If someone could find a transcription somewhere and send me the link I would be very appreciative because I can't remember enough of it to speculate. Luckily, Trump made another whack tastic comment this weekend that can reveal a bit about where his candidacy is headed.

Ben Cohen at The Daily Banter put it this way:
Over the weekend, Donald Trump not only defied one of the biggest no-nos in America political culture, he smashed it over the head and literally urinated on it. Speaking to at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, Trump astonishingly questioned John McCain’s war hero credentials, saying to the audience: "He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured."
 Cohen and many other commentators then called on Trump to apologize, I read it as the people outside of the right wing making this call out of decency but those inside the echo chamber making a big mistake by demanding an apology. Drew Westen has been trying for years to get Democrats and Liberals to stop demanding apologies when some right winger makes a rotten pronouncement or right wing government does something horrible. The reason is simple, it makes you look weak and the target of the demand look strong. By now, people outside the echo chamber should know that to be a "conservative" in America means never having to say you're sorry.

So what happens when the script is flipped and the perennially aggrieved and offended right wingers actually have to demand an apology from the monster they created? Maybe it is too soon to tell, but we can take some cues from the authoritarian personality to get a clue how Trump's words affect his followers. But more generally, a political partisan reacts differently from someone more loosely affiliated. The partisan reasons differently, for example, the "tea party" was supposedly formed out of disgust with government bailouts. It did not matter to the partisan that it was one of their own who did most of the bailing out of well-connected wall street bank. For one thing george w. bush was deeply unpopular and therefore cast out of the movement, for another it was the more-generalized "government" doing the "rescues" because the conservative movement never actually controls government, it can only ever occupy offices but never truly own it. An authoritarian is very afraid, often paranoid, that "they" are coming to get him or her whoever that particular they may be. The three defining traits of an authoritarian according to a leading researcher on the subject is self-righteousness, aggression, and traditionalism; and they look for leaders who will share their prejudices.

Trump first jumped in the muck of partisanship with his birtherism. He therefore established himself as upholding the tradition of "legitimate government" in the eyes of tea partiers. How vulgar you want to be in accusations is subjective concerning this endeavor, and trying to connect the irrational ideas that conservatives argue about is pointless. As Altemeyer explains, authoritarians exercise compartmentalized thinking like a computer where the files do not touch. They can call one idea up and then another that is completely inconsistent with the first. Such as when they attacked John Kerry's military service but went berserk if John McCain was criticised on any foreign policy matter because of his military service. Kerry was an illegitimate veteran, because he was a Democrat, Bush was a great leader despite his failure to serve overseas or even complete the cushy National Guard term he secured. I am not trying to prove these personality traits, the research is clear that enough Americans reason this way that it warps any serious attempts at discussion, and that it is getting worse.

What is interesting is that now the argument is completely within the right wing, will they split into factions over this latest inflammatory Trump remark? I could see a slide into a civil war on the right over Trump's attack on McCain, with people that are simply republican partisans taking the McCain side, and the out and out authoritarians casting their allegiance to a man characterized by Cohen this way:
In Trump’s world, that type of money [his supposed $5-10 billion fortune] makes a man a God. Services to ones country, a life dedicated to politics, great works of charity etc etc do not compute as success in Trump’s eyes – it is just money, and who has the most. To him, John McCain and all the other Republicans never became billionaires so they are mere mortals not worthy of competing with him. Despite the national outcry, Trump is not interested in what anyone thinks about him, because in his world, no one has the right to challenge him.
If there is one thing Altemeyer's research shows, it is that the authoritarians he studied are looking for, waiting and hoping for, a man on horseback to take over the country and purge the rottenness out of it. And low and behold, Trump presents himself as that man, the strong leader who will enforce conformity along lines the authoritarian likes; an elite who isn't afraid to act better than the rest of us.

It will be a dangerous game for those on the left to watch. It is nice to see this much distraction and chaos in the republican party, but God help us if Trump actually won because any tiny sense of restraint in his followers to attack immigrants, gays, African-Americans, Liberals, etc. will be gone and we will see just how much authoritarian aggression is out there.

Propaganda with Personality

To start out with, I will say that Salon.com is a mixed bag of news, stuff, and garbage. For every article that is actual journalism or hard-hitting opinion/activism there is a fluff piece about pop culture or something from an obscure academic studying societal taboos like doing it in the butt. Sometimes I wish they could categorize their articles a little better. Sometimes I wish the actual "liberal" media in Salon was stand alone, so that good writers like Bob Cesca were not crammed in with dreck like 9 reasons why not having kids was the best life decision I've ever made. I understand that click-bait headlines and aggregation are the keys to getting page-views and therefore revenue, but shoehorning the silly in with the serious does Salon no real favors. On the whole, I like them, even if the overly complex site causes my computer to freeze occasionally and you have to sift through some chaff to find the wheat.

That said, one of my favorite things on Salon are their book excerpts. While simply cutting and pasting a passage from some out of the way tome and slapping a click-bait headline is not exactly cutting edge, there is something slightly compelling about a snapshot of the prose. Actual book reviews are certainly better, but just jumping into a subject without context is almost like a roller coaster ride for an academic. The book in question is called Unaccountable: How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt our Finances, Freedom, and Security but Salon's excellent and no doubt well-compensated headline writers (snark) introduced it this way: The propagandists have won: What Fox News and the pornography revolution have in common. But whatever, Salon is a relatively mainstream medium and these excerpts are a way for professors, aspiring academics, and serious researchers to get their work in front of some eyeballs that might otherwise never get out of the ivory tower. I had a similar reaction to this excerpt of Michael Kimmel's Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era and immediately put the book on hold at the library.

First of all, fox is not actually mentioned in the article. And despite Jenna Jameson's somewhat menacing backwards glance at Sean Hannity's derpy mug in the headline picture, author Professor Janine Wedel is rather uninterested in either of them for the purposes of analyzing news media. Porn is used as a stand in for what Wedel is really getting at, the average American's quest for authenticity and sincerity in world that is increasingly stage-managed and performance centered. "Corporate nice" is the term I may not be alone in using to describe the phenomenon. When you walk into a fast food restaurant or a big box store and encounter staff who ask as nicely as possible "how may I help you?" and always say thank you for shopping here, etc. Or the tone used by spokespeople in TV commercials. It is scripted, it is fake; we know this, the biggest freedom customers seem to have sometimes is being rude to the poor people trying to earn a living working off management's script.

In this excerpt Wedel describes a sea change in the porno industry as now being "DIY" and that the industry's customers are demanding a more "real" experience from their products but leaves out the ridiculous idea of "reality television" as an example. Mainstream flame outs by reality TV stars such as the bearded swamp dwellers on Duck Dynasty or the Duggars notwithstanding, millions of Americans tune in for each week's sampling of carnival sideshows without fail. But the "reality" under real discussion is the news.
The sea change in porn might seem to be of little consequence to those who don’t indulge in it. And yet it pulls back the curtain on the personalization of the media and Internet and why today’s top power brokers, clothed as they are, can operate willy-nilly beyond accountability—and get away with it. Unlike with other arenas like finance or health care or national-security policy, however, we, the public, can hardly make a convincing case that the sweeping changes in the media just happened without our complicity. We have been, and are, ever-more-active participants in sowing this unaccountability.
The idea of unaccountable, elite, power-brokers making changes in wide swaths of societal fabric is certainly unsettling for a democracy; it is even troubling for a capitalist economy in that the public is being served products and services that they do not actually want but are manipulated into accepting or even demanding ones that suit these elites better. Purists that say "kill your TV" are really not helpful in this regard, as many or even most people cannot be persuaded to put down the fancy gadgets much less the now quaint ones like television that they see as enriching their lives. The genie of media will not be put back in the bottle. Therefore what people outside the mainstream media but who still participate in the political and social discourse need to do is encourage and cultivate more discerning taste. Then the direction of causation can be made more apparent to the audience. If consumers of media are really driving the personalization of the news that Wedel believes is easing the imposition of greater unaccountability, then there is no reversing it. A pro-democracy bent will come off to most people as unappealingly as the aloof hipster who is always better than thou.

But if the personalization and accompanying manipulation is really the result of elite power-brokers imposing these vulgar media choices, then raising people's expectations and demand for good entertainment and news from media could bring the rickety edifice down. A good bullshit detector is the first line of defense against being manipulated. A strong network of critical thinkers multiplies the detection of that Grade A American bullshit.

So I am going to pick up this book in the new future and try to get as much out of it as possible. Hopefully I can write a proper review as well.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Word to the Wise

Walker is the new choice for people who thought that Harding and Coolidge were not radical enough in their defense of the rich. He appeals to haters who want war.
He wants war--although he never served; he wants a seven day work week--although he has never had to sweat to support his family.
His hero is Ronald Reagan. A mind closed to evidence, hateful of facts, professing a maple-syrup piety blended with huge doses of insincerity. Both represent short-sighted goals, appeal to the selfish in people, and gladly cast all social betterment before their own ambitions.
Walker preys upon the gullible. He happily serves the interests opposed to public well being. If you want an example of Walker's economic world, check out Kansas. If you want to see his educational world, look at Texas.
For those who champion mediocrity, mendacity, and greed, then Walker is your man.

-Lincoln Log