This is a running commentary on contemporary social, political and religious issues. From the Introduction of James Comey's book "A Higher Loyalty -- Truth, Lies and Leadership" "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary" Reinhold Niebuhr
A friend sent the
sentiments below to me. She is one of the nicest people I know who
lives the words on the sign. It is good advice for the New Year and
I
will try to perfect its thought although I know at times I will fall
short. We can only try to do the best we can with the life we were
given making the
best effort we can to transform the injustice and inequality suffering
of others into justice and equality for the world entire.
I must
confess. I want to reflect the characteristics of a Heather Hier who
gave her life in Charlottesville protesting against right wing
nationalism and extremists. She stood for the causes in which I
believe. I feel, in part, that I am like the person they say she was.
She was a person who stood for justice, had empathy for the poor and
wanted to provide hope to those who had none.
It
is the injustice of the Trump presidency I cannot bear. It is the lies
and the fact that he stands for the 2% richest while he says he stands
for the opposite. He is using, I believe, this presidency and the
people who should not support him, for one thing -- the money he can
make from it and them. I get infuriated by the injustice he has
perpetrated, the minorities he has hurt and the death his policies will
cause against those who can tolerate these injustices the least.
I am angry at the lies Trump tells but I am even angrier at the persons
who believe his lies and cement a low base that supports him. I am so
saturated with anger, fear and disbelief at this unjust and
unfit-for-the-presidency man who captured the the most powerful office
in the world that sometimes I verbally Vesuvian erupt when the situation
does not warrant I should. I fear I become more like the hardened
opposition I loathe then the people with whom I truly identify. So I
will say here, I am sorry for those things I say in anger; things that
should not be said by me. I say them because I am frightened for the
first time in my life by my country in which I had so much hope. This
nation which is capable of much humane social change has become
in this era at times unrecognizable to me. I begin to feel hopeless
that those in this nation who need help will not get it or, indeed, have
the things for which they worked so hard get taken away by the richest
among us who want it all and found a leader in a zero conscience Trump
who will give it all to them and take his helping of it as well.
The
last thing I would want is to become so hardened in my position that
like the opposition I do not see the real forest through the trees. The
real lush forest of our nation, I believe, is its ability to change and
to rescue those who face hardship in this nation and those who face it
in the nations of their births; those who face poverty, disease,
disenfranchisement and death in nations they once called home. Facebook
offers one the ability to state one's beliefs in a public forum. It is
so powerful that things stated in the heat of debate with faces hidden
from view can make one immune and not listen to opposing beliefs and
worse say things one would not say to another's face. I do not want to
become like that. I want to stand for humane policy, for understanding,
for empathy, for inclusion and, perhaps, most of all for the tolerance I
would want others to bestow upon me.
In
this New Year I will at least try to not say unto others that which I
would not want to said unto me. I will, in this New Year, I hope, try
to do better.
Happy New Year to all my friends and even to those who are not.
Though
the tax bill was the only piece of major legislation Trump was able to
get passed this year, the 45th president got plenty done
Donald Trump on Inauguration Day.
Patrick Semansky/AP
Last week, after the mad dash to pass the GOP tax bill and
last-minute scramble to fund the government, President Trump finally had
a moment to pause and reflect on his first year in office. And, as he
does when he has a thought, he tweeted
about it: "So many things accomplished by the Trump Administration,
perhaps more than any other President in first year. Sadly, will never
be reported correctly by the Fake News Media!"
The thing is: he's not entirely wrong. It's true the tax bill was the
first and only piece of major legislation he was able to get passed
this year – an almost unimaginable reality, considering his party has
control of both chambers of Congress – but even without many actual
bills to his name Trump has gotten quite a bit done this year. Starting with his very first act in office.
The
Federal Housing Administration was poised to cut mortgage fees the week
Trump was sworn in, a move that would have made home ownership more
accessible and less expensive for everyone across the board, but
especially for the poorest Americans – "the forgotten men and women" he
often spoke of on the campaign trail. Mortgage lenders, home builders
and real estate agents were united in their support for the move, but
Trump scrapped it an hour after the inauguration. His reason, outlined
in a letter from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was
vague: "more analysis and research" was needed to assess how "potential
market conditions in an ever-changing global economy" could impact
future rates, the agency said. Reportedly,
there was no reason. The decision was motivated by the fact that Trump
didn't want anything – no matter how popular or uncontroversial – going
through if it was endorsed by President Obama. The FHA decision was,
ultimately, emblematic of Trump's first year in office: a symbolic move
chiefly motivated by spite that had serious, negative consequences for
actual people. In this case, the change would mean as many as 40,000
buyers couldn't buy a home in 2017, according to estimates by the
National Association of Realtors; the week after the decision, mortgage applications dropped 3.2 percent.
Ironically,
Trump has been most successful at the very thing he criticized Obama
for – extensive use of executive orders to achieve his policy goals.
And, for all his high-profile legislative belly flops, since assuming
office nearly a year ago he's managed to do an incredible amount of
damage – to the environment, health, education, civil and labor rights –
entirely outside of Congress.
Here's a rundown.
Health careTrump failed, repeatedly, to repeal the
Affordable Care Act, but with the help of a Republican-controlled
Congress, he has found ways to undermine the law. The tax bill Congress
hastily approved just before the end of the year included a provision
repealing Obamacare's individual mandate to buy insurance. The mandate,
originally devised by the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation, imposes
a penalty on anyone who doesn't buy insurance as a way to incentivize
more individuals to get coverage, expand the risk pool and drive down
costs. It's unclear what repealing the mandate will do, but economists
believe it will drive up health care premiums, causing the ranks of the uninsured to swell by almost one-third, or an estimated 41 million people, by 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
ImmigrationJohn
Kelly's tenure as the head of the Department of Homeland Security was a
short but busy one. He oversaw the implementation of and court
challenges to Trump's Muslim ban. The Supreme Court ruled in December
that the full revised ban, restricting travel to the U.S. from six
majority-Muslim countries plus North Korea, could go into effect while
challenges to the law work their way through the court system. (A
handful of government officials from Venezuela and their family members
are also banned by the order.)
The Muslim ban has received the
most attention, but Trump also has managed sweeping reversals of
Obama-era immigration policies. Under Trump, ICE is hiring thousands of
new agents (it plans to double in size by 2023) and enlisting the help of local police,
expanding the criteria for deportation and fast-tracking deportation
hearings. Kelly withdrew an Obama-era memo, never implemented, that would have protected the parents of U.S. citizens from deportation and suspended a proposed visa that would have encouraged entrepreneurs from other countries to remain in the U.S.
Pending
action by Congress, Trump will end the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program, or DACA, which granted protected status to 690,000
people who came to the U.S. as children.
He ended a program that granted temporary legal residence to children who fled to the U.S. from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras,
impacting more than 2,700; ordered 2,500 Nicaraguans and 60,000
Haitians with provisional residency to leave the country over the next
two years; slashed the number of refugees the U.S. would accept by more
than half, from 110,000 to 45,000; and imposed new screening procedures
that could drive that number even lower. Refugee resettlement this year
dropped precipitously – as of October, 1,242 and arrived in the U.S. in
2017, compared to 9,945 the previous year.
Sessions reversed discrimination protections
for transgender workers and did away with a rule that would have ensured
homeless transgender individuals could choose to stay at the
sex-segregated shelter that matched their gender identity. He also
issued new guidance on the interpretation of religious freedom, a move that civil rights advocates worry will give religious groups grounds to discriminate against LGBT people.
Trump's EPA greenlit completion of both the Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines. The Keystone XL, according to a report produced by Obama's EPA, will increase and accelerate
the rate at which greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere,
worsening climate change. Construction also threatens habitats of a
number of endangered species, including the whooping crane and swift
fox. The Dakota Access pipeline threatens the safety of drinking water.
Trump reduced Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments
by two million acres, introducing the possibility of future oil and
natural gas exploration, mining and logging in an area sacred to local
Native American tribes. He lifted an Obama-era moratorium on coal mining on public lands,
signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to
re-examine a ban on offshore drilling and revoked an order protecting
the northern Bering Sea region in Alaska. Though he probably
doesn't realize it, Trump benefits from doing so many ridiculous things
that his crises steal attention from each other. Recall the overwhelming
year of Trump. Watch below.
My Comment: This
article makes my head explode. If you are not feeling the same effects
I wonder why. What composes the character of a man that would
reintroduce cancer and other disease causing chemicals into the
environment and open up gorgeous pristine areas with beautiful scenery
killing animals that live there to the spoliation and pollution of oil
drilling and gas exploration two known causes of global climate change.
Does this ignorant Cretan president with his evil numb heart and his
know nothing family not enjoy breathing? Do you not want your family
to enjoy good health? This man is not only a malevolent danger to us
but to future generations if his policies remain intact. I do not know
how if one loves their family or even cares about oneself anyone on
planet earth could call themselves in this modern era Republican and be
proud. Our nation has enacted post WWII many life threatening policies and conducted the killing field of slaughter all over the world of which I have often been an ardent critic but never did I think the majority of this nation's heart was was cruel, unjust and without an ounce of character or conscience until now that it has seen fit through an electoral college flue to elect this Trojan Horse Trump. He is a killer with zero conscience, hides his face under a metaphor KKK sheet and is said to alleged have a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf at his bedside. The fact that can believe that true tells one all one nees to know about the content of this man's rancid character. RESIST BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
I
do not have the ability to do something
like that nor the psychological daring it would take to do it.
However, this man probably did more to impact our cause, to collect the
anger no furiousness against not only this Republican economic horse
dung bill but the lies about the Republicans' everything under the
sun as well as a bill they name in Orwellian fashion the "Tax Cut and
"Jobs" Act" which is, in reality, the opposite of what these Republican
liars and con
men named it. More appropriately it should be called "The
Middle-class Jobs Cut and Tax Act for the Rich" bill. I say good for you,
Robert Strong.
What a great Dickensian name for the deliverer of such a profound and
correct
response. Millions of us salute and bless you, Mr. Strong, for having the guts to do what
millions upon millions of American middle class, working class and the poor would have loved to be
able to do! Time Magazine, name Robert Strong "Man of the Year!"
you are to blame in extremis for starting the Trump campaign of
chaos on its road to failure. Bannon, take advice from allegedly
your Catholic faith "Do not criticize someone with a speck in his eye
when you have a log in your own."
Bannon, you
characterized the essence of the American public in error. You thought
it was reflective of how you feel about life. You took an extremist
right wingnut part of the electorate which was always there but on the
political periphery, ratcheted it up and gave it a screaming voice
using Trump as its mouthpiece. It is why Trump lost the popular vote
by 3 million. An Electoral College fluke did not give you the beating
heart of our democracy. The extremist anger you hold elected Trump
because those who hold that anger are not only are angry but many
are haters of "the other" a left over from history. Lincoln Rockwell
(one of the first American Nazis who was gunned down by one of his own),
George Wallace, Bull Connor and others were always there but got
nowhere because when all is accounted for most American hearts, as Anne
Frank might have said, are basically good and because the arc of our
history is long and bends toward justice in the long run justice
prevails. Your Republican Party has been turned, over many election
cycles since Nixon's Moral Majority, into the Party of hate so the
Democratic opposition has a glowing chance now to not only in one
election crush Republicans but destroy in the process the Republican
Party as we have known it in the modern era. It
will take time to disinfect this poison and cleanse it from our body
politic but it will be done. This nation did not fight WWII for
nothing. We fought it, won it and stopped fascism in its tracks. That is
the true essence of our people and you missed it. You
have shown what happens when the Republican Party goes extremist right.
It is ultimately rejected because some of those others you hate so
much who need the help that only government can provide will
organize with their allies and rise up to defeat you. Count me in as
part of that electoral insurrection. Moreover, isolationism and
"America first" foreign policy does not work. We are an economically
global society affected by world business and opinion. We must take
part in world discourse understanding its needs as well as our own and
we must acknowledge science which will have the last word.
I don't know what made you and Trump, as I see you, the
psychologically sick bestial creatures that you are but to have
inflicted your hate on our once decent hearted people makes me feel
profound sadness not for you but for our nation. You and all you
represent will be defeated soundly soon. Never again,
I hope,
will our nation fail to stop those with a political agenda filled with
psychological malady, perfidy, treason, and the exclusion of "the
other." Our forebears came here to achieve a better life, to breathe
free and for shelter from death itself. Lady Liberty tells us that.
I
thought if Trump had changed his mantra and moved to the left of his
extremist right positions, ditched his hateful rhetoric and policy,
stopped tweeting alienating nearly everyone here and many around the
world he actually could have had a charismatic and decent presidency.
History would have judged him more kindly. Instead he will leave
office shamed and history throughout the ages will define him with a
harsh verdict. It will define him as a political
American
exception to the
general
American
rule. The fault, paraphrasing Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar,"
dear Bannon, is not in the stars but in you!
If you get a chance to listen to Al Franken's departing speech I
recommend you do so. It was wonderful and touched on everything you
might think he would. A tear fell from my eyes as he came to the end.
I
still think it was a cave by Democrats to give in to Republican
attempts to unseat one of the best and most powerful of progressives in the history of the Senate.
He as he said he was influenced by the great progressive Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone.
Being the ardent Democrat I am I am never surprised at the lengths to which Republicans
will go to lie to stop progressive policy from becoming law. In the end, though, besides
Franken's first accuser whom I allege was a right wing plant and who
broadcasts a right wing radio show there were others, it seems, who accused Al
Franken. Only he knows the truth of the claims. If some were, in fact,
true and I do not know that they were, he would himself have to
be blamed for
sewing the seeds of his own demise just as I thought Hillary did by not
understanding what she knew that Republicans will go to Herculean
lengths to bring down Democrats especially the Clintons and especially
for the presidency. Hillary's insistence on using private email for
government business to stop FOIA requests was foolhardy not just to her
but to those of us who saw and worked hard for her as president. How
much better would she have been than Trump?
If persons who want to run to support progressive policy especially if they run for higher office they must now make
damn well sure they do not bestow Republicans with a gift to foil Democratic attempts and never,
most especially, send emails subject to possible subpoena or indictment
later showing scurrilous content and/or profane images. This is the time in
which we live. We must be sure never to give the unprincipled opposition ammunition which they will use against us and shoot to kill!
This blogger says it all: "Nunes, the Republicans, and Fox
Republican Media are doing all they can to undercut Mueller, even trying
to find justification to bring charges against agents investigating
Trump and against folks on Mueller's team, including Mueller. The
nation was founded on three "separate but equal" branches of government,
the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. Republicans are so
determined to not lose their president that they are willing to crush
the legitimacy of the Judiciary branch to do it. If they do, this will
be unprecedented, and a grave assault on our democratic form of
government."
My Comment: Two
agents on the Mueller team back in July communicated in a form they
should not have. Mueller instantly fired them. But that is not enough
for Republicans. They are blowing this up like a hot air balloon
waiting for it to explode. Some Republicans not connected with the
Intelligence Committee are taking or should I say stealing classified
documents taking them into another room and combing them for bias
against Republicans and Trump. Who allows one wily nily to take
classified documents they should not have and walk into another room to
examine them? What gives them the right to do that in a NON bipartisan
fashion? Answer: They have no right. Fox News and Company are
disparaging in hysterical form, the pinnacles on which this nation
stands keeping the blaze of discord bright.
Another
group of Republicans will be investigating Hillary's connection with
uranium they say she authorized to be sent to Iran. This has been
disproven.
Republicans
with no Democratic votes passed a tax document full of errors which
must be corrected. Healthcare has been demolished in the most secretive
way and millions will lose coverage. Some even many will die. Senator
Mark Warner ranking member of the Senate investigating Russian hacking
of the 2016 election gave a riveting speech in the Senate warning
Republicans and Trump not to touch Mueller, and impede the process of
his investigation. He warned Trump not to fire Mueller, he said,
"before it's too late." My question is before it's too late for what?
It
feels like the Republic is on a civil war precipice of anarchy. Trump,
empowered from his tax win, fires the flames of tweeting discord which
could translate into electoral violence if Trump fires Mueller
and/or Rosenstein both Republicans. When Senator Warner said resist the
forces trying to fire Mueller "before it's too late" the most important
question before us is: Does "before its too late" mean our nation is
dying?
We
know Republicans and especially Trump lie and they lie all the time.
Here is the reality world analysis of the mammoth tax cut for the rich
they just passed and not the fantasy land analysis that Donald Trump and
his Republicans say it is.
Trump and his merry men are selling this latest legislative horror as a tax cut for the middle class and called it the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017." Unless you have been living on Pluto you know that is a lie. It is most definitely not a tax cut for the middle class but It is
a humongous tax cut for the 2% wealthiest and an ultimate tax increase
for the middle class and the poor. It most definitely will not, as
trickle down economics never does, create jobs. The tax cuts for the
rich are for corporations where they have slashed the rate for them from
35% down to 21%. This humongous cut for corporations along with other
giveaways to the rich like the Estate Tax repeal and as the Washington
Post said "talking about closing the loophole of "carried interest"
isn’t the same as closing it" which they didn't. This horrific tax bill
will add 1.5 trillion dollars to the deficit. Someone has to pay for
it. The question is who or what.
You
may think Republicons hate deficits and, of course, they say they do.
Because they say they do when the deficit balloons 1.5 trillion dollars
more because of the tax cut Republicans will try to say they must cut
spending to fill the hole since deficits according to Republicanland are
so bad. Where do you think Republicans will want to go to fill the tax
cut hole in the evil deficit they themselves exploded? Will they cut
the military source of our greatest spending? No. They will never
advocate for a trimming the military's budget since Republicans have
never found a war they did not like to send our troops in which to die.
Wars cost money .... big money.
Naturally,
Republicans will say the deficit they raised must be cut by trimming
"entitlements." I loathe that word "entitlements" because if you are
receiving Social Security and Medicare you did not take a handout rather
you paid for it when you worked. No matter, Republicans will try to
convince you that these must be cut or even eliminated in favor of block
grants or whatever pro Wall Street Ayn Randian bs thing they can come
up with in their life-long attempt at privatizing everything. Why would
they want to do that? Simple answer Republicans do NOT let me repeat
NOT care about you, your retirement or your health and as George Carlin
said "at all, at all, at all." "They are", he said "coming for it all
and", he said, "they'll get it, they'll get all of it!" Again Youtube
George Carlin's "American Dream" to get in touch with perceptive
Realityland.
I
want those, who experienced in 2007 the Great Recession, to imagine if
Social Security and Medicare were not available to you? The answer is
you would die and who would care? Surely not Republicans. They do not
care a whit about you. Now understand that following great economic
booms like we are in now is often a bust in the form of a Great
Recession or even if severe enough another Great Depression. This takes
time to happen and I think one should make no mistake that it will and
it may even be worse than the 1929 Great Depression as Trump has seen
fit to executive order all regulations out of everywhere with tax cuts
for the wealthiest 2%. What could possibly go wrong with a Wall Street
unchained?
Do
not be fooled by these mendacious merchants of mayhem and greed. The
tax cut for which they just voted is not for you it's for them, their
family's inheritance, their buddies on Wall Street and the corporate
donors that keep their cash coffers overflowing with pay for play cash
so Congresspersons can stay in power. They did it for their donors who
demanded it or else. Or else what? Or else they pull their money from
them. Welcome to Citizen's United America an America that does
not care about, as Jesus said, the least of these. They do care about
the richest of these though and you can take that reality to the bank!
Al Franken
solidified my opinion on the dozens upon dozens of men both here and
around the world who are being accused of sexual harassment by dozens of
female accusers. Those who know me understand I am an ardent feminist
and yet ... and yet ... these massive accusations of sexual harassment
are levied against men who fall from positions of high status and even
ones who are not among the 2% richest fall as if they are feathers on a
shelf that come down with one breeze. I am a feminist because I love
civil liberties and want them protected at all cost.
I
examine our nation once an example of a modicum of judicial fairness
devolve into a Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" episode, an Orwellian 1984
nightmare novel, a Hawthorne "The Scarlett Letter" shame and an Arthur
Miller's "The Crucible" where fair play gives way to public hysteria
that smothers the accused who has no right to a rational defense. A
man has the basic Constitutional right to face his accuser(s), be
provided evidence of such accusations and compose a defense in front of
an impartial jury before they melt into tears and resign their
positions. Even in the case of sexual harassment process must prevail.
Some process, as Mika Brezezinski on "Morning Joe" so correctly states,
needs to be enacted to preserve the shred of this nation's civil
libertarian due process rights that are left before the Trumpian train
wreck will have killed all of them.
The
horrific train crash near Seattle yesterday is a metaphor for our
nation. It has gone off the rails while the Constitution that has
propped it up and protected it for over 240 years is coming down.
Much
depends on what happens to the Abuser in Chief Trump who has been sued
and quietly settled a complaint of egregious attack on a young girl.
The Billy Bush Access tape is evidence that mounts against the
emoluments flouter Trump but Al Franken first accused by a right wing
talk show host is not allowed to produce evidence of his innocence and
be heard. Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, is investigating the other
egregious Constitutional abuses the flimflam artist president has
allegedly committed. When through, one will need a wheel barrel to
carry the final report and/or indictments to read. I suspect Muller
will not be through with Trump at Christmas nor will he exonerate him
hopefully ever.
Good
and humane policy in our nation is being trampled and crushed by unfair
tribal loyalties, division and human discord around the nation ignoring
due process. Our nation is spinning out of control and revisiting the
McCarthy era. Paraphrasing Joseph Welch confronting Joe McCarthy the
accuser of Communists in every corner of government -- "At long last
have you no shame?" At long last, Republicans who pass an egregious
humongous tax bill that unfairly gives Trump and his billionaire cronies
massive tax breaks and killing healthcare while eventually sticking the
middle class with the bill and Democrats who indicted Senator Franken
without benefit of hearing have you no shame either? McCarthy is dead
but his era is still at work. Sad!
In response to Mr.
Golden's December 15, 2017 opinion in the Metro West Daily News "Recognize Jerusalem as Capital of
Israel" linked below I could not disagree with him more. I have been an ardent
supporter of Israel up until two things occurred: (1) Netanyahu visited
the Republican congress and insulted president of the United States
Barack Obama who did not invite him (2) Trump, a sad excuse for a
president, took it upon himself to overrule even his advisors to do the
most utterly egregious thing he could - declare the capital of Israel
Jerusalem. It was the most insane piece of what passes for "foreign
policy" this know nothing unfit-to-be president president could do.
Announcing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was reckless if not
stupid. Just how does one think the Palestinians will react to that?
Will they say alright we give up it's yours. I suspect not. Already
two have been killed over this statement, many wounded and I am sure
more will be even in other lands. The intifada, once quiet, may now
resume. Jewish people may be murdered as well. The peace process no
matter how difficult should be pursued. It is the only way short of
eternal war killing many.
Trump
already has blood on his hands and will have more. I cannot think of a
more irresponsible, foolhardy, reprehensible and downright dangerous
statement for Trump to make. Then again it's Trump who did that not
because he cares about Israel and certainly not Jews no matter how
Jewish his window dressing orthodox son-in-law is. He is playing to his
puerile supporters to gain his stuck- in-cement base's support of 35%.
Trump cares nothing for anyone's life but his own. Sad!
Robert
Reich is 100% absolutely correct. You should read and send this to all
whom you know. Get this message out to every American everywhere. It
is truth, it is exactly correct and it is what George Carlin in his
Youtube "American Dream" so presciently said. Google it.
The con has been set by the greatest con man ever -- Donald Trump. Shame on us for voting this habitual liar
and Constitutional flouter as president. We should all be embarrassed
by a man who lies every time all the time. The "tax cut" is one of the
most horrific pieces of legislation in the history of this nation.
Ultimately it will, of course, kill people with the exception of the top
2% richest. The distribution of wealth will go even more to the top 2%
wealthiest and as much as Trump says it will be bad for him IT WON'T
believe me. Billionaires will make out like the bandits many are. The
middle class will in short order know they have been had properly had.
Read this and learn!
My
Comment: This is a fabulous
article a friend sent me and right on the money so to speak linked
below. The media and its
incessant algorithms sweep over us like a tsunami. We must break away
from it and I too try only to return. It's a vicious cycle, promoting
crudity, coarsening of culture and a removal of the individual from
well everything except his i phone, computer and himself. People's
heads are
buried in them because great minds have figured out the algorithms that
turn us on (and out.) Will this truly be the death of America as we
knew it or could its strength honed 250 years ago by genius men of
their time survive it? I don't know. Here are some extrapolations from
it.
Quotes to whet your appetite.
So now we
reward people, as if they were lab rats, with little tiny morsels of
reward, whether they’re coupons, clickbait headlines, discounts, special
offers, prizes, and so on, and somehow, they always come back for more.
We don’t really know why — and so we don’t know what fire we’re really
playing with, that we’re toying with the basics of human neurobiology
itself, that every click’s effect is something like a heroin injection,
dopamine triggering adrenalin surging through the system. This
dopaminergic, which is to say, unidimensional approach to human
potential, is a behaviourist approach to human potential, and it is a
linear approach to human potential: the presumption is that through
systematic rewards that trigger just one kind of experience, over and
over again, fight-flight, adrenaline high, addictively, people can be
trained to become…what, precisely? I’ll come back to that.
And
yet the result even for us, the masters of this dopaminergic approach
to human possibility is a vicious cycle. We have to offer ever more
intense and more fleeting rewards than the next person. This is Amazon’s
game, Facebook’s game, Tinder’s game, Instagram’s game more or less.
Swipe. Don’t let it get away! There’s an endless universe of stuff out
there, and you’d better click now, unless you want to wander lost in it
forever. “You need your pretty little fix now, don't you?”, the
algorithm whispers. You’ve heard it and I’ve heard it, and we’ve both
responded desperately, too.
So what should we be doing? Giving people ways to express themselves. Not
their “better selves” or their “true selves” or any of the rest of it.
Just themselves. Aren’t we doing that? No. Are you kidding? We’ve
created a performative game, in which true self expression is mocked,
scorned, thwarted, and stifled. I’ll
leave that topic for the future. Suffice it to say that algorithmic
addiction is one the gravest new problems of now.
Dahlia Lithwick is a brilliant writer about the courts and analyzer of the law for Slate.
She has appeared many times on The Rachel Maddow Show and gives on
point well spoken analysis of many legal and court issues. The article
linked below she wrote on the alleged harassment of Judge Alex Kozinski whom she first met when she was a clerk for the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She discuses her response, silence to it and indicts herself for remaining silent about it for so long. Few
of us, though, I believe, should judge the path other women have chosen
to respond or not to the sexual harassment behavior of powerful men.
I
am not a lawyer but worked in milieus of the very powerful who could
fire me on a whim thereby cutting off my venue for survival forcing me
to go on the hunt for another job not easily acquired. Sometimes when
the opportunity presented itself I would argue in support of a workplace
issue that favored my employer rather than incur its wrath by arguing
for what I thought the morally right opposite position should be.
It
happens whether about sexual harassment or something else that we are
too fearful of the powerful who can determine almost literally whether
we eat or starve even live or die. I was then sometimes, if you will, a
self-admitted kisser upper because I simply never wanted, using the
cliche, to rock the boat and threaten the wrath of the more powerful.
Other times it was because it simply is not in my nature to do so. As a
Jewish woman I believe some of it, too, is in my ethnic survivalist DNA.
What will we take and how demeaning will it be to ensure we even live. I
may be way out in left field with that analysis because we know sexual
harassment crosses all ethic lines. For me, though, it is just one more
explanation among many why we do what we do.
There is no one on planet earth who
would LOVE the teen predator Roy Moore to lose more than I would. I do, however, believe Roy Moore
will win and sadly so.
What is happening to our nation under Trump is
sickening and soon when they pass the middle class obliterating tax bill
all those middle, working and lower class whites will realize what they did by
voting Trump Republican.
Maybe
someday the southern states which need government
help the most and get it will realize they are stepping on their own
toes by voting Republican. Trump does not care one fig about
them. He is in the presidency for the bucks and even one of his
children said his father was not about loving them he was about making
money. When one realizes that all the news that is fit to print makes
sense.
Alabama, I pray, I know futilely, should vote their economic and healthcare interest by turning from screaming red to a
beautiful blue. Make the south great!
Yes,
I am a Jew who once gave Israel my entire support until most especially
now with Trump doing the unthinkable making Jerusalem the capital of
Israel knowing it would provoke violence around the world and ostracize
this nation from humanity's hug once again. Of course, it
has provoked violence most especially in Gaza but even in NYC where the transit bomber
said that Trump's
words on Jerusalem, in part, compelled him to strap a bomb around his
body
and attempt to blow the subway rail line up and innocents with it.
Horrific
and though the event small I suspect it brought chills down the spines
of those of us who lived through
9/11 and even ones who did not. Any bomb exploded in NYC does that to
me. I paste the video link below entitled "Growing up in the Gaza Strip
in the Dark" because I have reexamined the Palestinian plight which I
have done
periodically throughout the years but never more so then now.
Listen to that story linked below and
empathize with the conditions that provoke so many Gazans to violence when
desperation reigns and the fatal Trumpian Injustice Disease spreads.
I wish, though wishes will not make it so, both sides would take a breath and come to
compromise for a two state solution where each major religion shares a
part of Jerusalem and two states one Palestinian and one Israeli, share it as its capital. What would the sound of the silence of peace feel
like? Nirvana defined in part by Webster's Dictionary as "place or state of oblivion to care or pain," .... to that I say Amen!
