The Real Truth Project

A few new thoughs on Climate Change (and Geoengineering "solutions")

2012-02-12T20:43:00.001-08:00

This is in reaction to some discussion I read at http://grist.org/list/tar-sands-magnate-bill-gates-stump-for-geoengineering/#disqus_thread.

One thing few people seem to appreciate is that just about any big aspect of global climate from the gulf stream that warms Europe to the Monsoon could be balanced on a knife-edge, and we don't know how unstable these things are. Unfortunately, there has been too much emphasis on changes in the average global temperature on the order of 1-2 degrees C, and many people imagine the warming would be evenly distributed, when the greater probability is that some places will get a lot hotter, or wetter, or dryer and some maybe even a lot colder. Might it all balance out? That doesn't help so much it built-up areas become deserts and some deserts become the new breadbaskets. To take advantage of the overall potential would require vast redistributions of population. Geoengeneering schemes might plausibly balance the change in average temperature but they won't prevent great shifts from taking place.

It isn't that some elite wants to determine the "proper" temperature. It is an essentially conservative reluctance to roll the dice and spread changes around the world that are a lot more drastic than one would guess from a change of 1-2 degrees C.

Some day hopefully in at least a couple of hundred years, the climate might change drastically on its own, as it's done often in the past, but by then there's a chance we might understand the system well enough to manage it. At this point we don't, and attempting to do so means somebody making decisions for other nations which may not stand for it.

For some of the basis of this point of view, read _With Speed and Violence_ by Fred Pierce, a journalist who is indepent enough to sometimes get on Joe Mann's shit list.

Another thing that makes all this alarming to me is that the right seems to thrive on climate denial very largely because it reinforces the idea that EVERYBODY BUT Fox and friends, the the right wing think tanks are the big liers. See http://therealtruthproject.blo... for elaboration of that.

What are the Conditions for Nonviolent Resistance to Win against Authoritarianism?

2012-01-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

I googled { "Gene Sharp" "Occupy Wall Street" } because I'd just learned of the documentary movie about his work, How to Start a Revolution, and an aside that it was being picked up as the "official" something-or-other of OWS, silly as that may sound

Why silly? Sort of reminds me of states having state birds and state flowers -- seemingly as an absolute necessity (and less mandatorily, sometimes, state muffins). So, should every "movement" have an "official movie".

So in the list of google hits was a 2001 article from The Nation, "Path of Least Resistance" which asked:

Yes, nonviolence is a noble ideal, but do you really think it would stop a Hitler?" Or a street thug, a dictator, a death squad?
Pacifists are long accustomed to these questions, mostly thrown up by self-proclaimed realists. And they get the put-down message: Nonviolence is a creed only slightly less trifling than hippies sticking flowers in soldiers' gun barrels.

Here is what I think, and I can only say this is based on a lot of reading on "totalitarian" regimes ...

(Why the quotes? The idea of "totalitarianism" as an ideology seems wrong to me. Communism, especially, did not start out with that as an ideology; rather it had a fatal flaw of starting out committed to goals that could only be achieved by incredibly concentrated power, but there is just too much to say about this)

... some regimes are impervious, at least in the short to medium run, to non-violent resistance. These are regimes, like North Korea, Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, Nazi Germany, Saddam Hussein's Iraq ... that are in some sort of permanent state of emergency and terror that ferociously attack the slightest indication of insubordination or heresy, and are not afraid to annihilate whole classes of people who had no idea of resisting the government, just to be sure nobody is missed.

A useful book that opened my eyes was <Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938. The eye-opening fact for me was that a huge majority -- something like 90% -- of the original plotters and operatives of the revolution were annihilated mostly by judicial murder. Does this sound like a case of excessive do-gooderism? The nanny state run amok?

The death of Stalin started the USSR on a course of trying to find its way back to normalcy, which was very pronounced in the first years under Khrushchev ... but the status quo was too pathological for one man, and a semi-illiterate peasant and an embarrassment to many in the leadership ... to bring about.

Still, there was an important transition, from total terror eminating from one man, to more of an oligarchy -- rule by a class, ironically, the Communist party. The party had deposed one seemingly absolute ruler, and no leader would again exercize such a balance of terror over even his closest lieutenants as Stalin did. The ruling class came to expect some kind of civility among rough peers. This class became comfortable; committed to a stable and relatively calm life. And over decades, they became more clear headed, and many perceived, in at least some part of their psyche, that the current state of affairs was a farce. But for anyone subject to the judgement of peers, to admit this to anyone else, remained too dangerous and would cause the whole rether comfortable (for apparatchiks) system to come crashing down unless such heretics were quickly expelled and hidden away somewhat, as was done to Khrushchev.

[to be continued]

Global Warming a good thing? Will save us from Ice Age?

2012-01-10T19:44:00.000-08:00

This is priceless.

A story at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16439807

reports that some scientists at Cambridge calculate that carbon emissions and global warming could stave off the next ice age, which would otherwise be due in 1500 years.

Some commentators on sites like Lucianne.com (http://www.lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=659420) and Hotair.com (http://hotair.com/archives/2012/01/09/only-you-can-save-earth-from-the-next-ice-age/)

are getting quite carried away with it; when they get tired of saying global warming is a hoax, they like to say OK, if it's not a hoax, then more C02 and warmer climate is a good thing.

Newsflash: C02 is not a poison (and no climate scientist thinks that it is) -- yes, it makes plants grow. Well, water is not a poison either, but flood victims all over the world (especially this past year) can tell you there is such a thing as too much water.

What the scientists are saying seems quite plausible, but the "hay" that GW deniers are making of it just shows the silly lengths they will go to.

First of all, why are people who largely say there is no significant global warming crowing over an article that says "global warming is preventing an ice age"?

Secondly, the ice age according to the scientists was likely to occur in 1,500 years. Now it may come later or not at all. So what!? It doesn't address one way or the other, whether AGW will be having catastrophic effects in the next 30-100 years.

Maybe in 100 years we'll be in a position to think 1,500 years ahead. Actually I doubt that, but I expect in 1,500 years, if we can make it through the next 100 or so without complete disaster, we will have the technology and theoretical understanding to modify the climate and do a great deal to prevent dangerous hurricanes and tornadoes, floods, droughts, etc.

See RealTruthProject.org and in particular "Corollary to the Big Lie Theory" at http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/07/corrolary-to-big-lie-theory.html

Supposed 3.8% Tax on Real Estate Sold after 2013

2011-11-11T14:14:00.001-08:00

A recent piece of email disinformation received on 11/2/2011 is titled:

Will You Sell Your House After 2012?:

So easy to be ignorant...

Subject: Will You Sell Your House after 2012?
Will You Sell Your House after 2012?
The National Association of REALTORS is all over this and working to get it repealed, before it takes effect. But, I am very pleased we aren't the only ones who know about this ploy to steal billions from unsuspecting homeowners. How many REALTORS do you think will vote Democratic in 2012?
Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8% sales tax on it? That's $3,800 on a $100,000 home, etc. When did this happen? It's in the health care bill and goes into effect in 2013.
Why 2013? Could it be to come to light AFTER the 2012 elections? So, this is "change you can believe in"?
Under the new health care bill all real estate transactions will be subject to a 3.8% Sales Tax.
If you sell a $400,000 home, there will be a $15,200 tax. This bill is set to steal from the retiring generation who often downsize their homes. Does this make your November and 2012 vote more important?
Oh, you weren't aware this was in the Obamacare bill? Guess what, you aren't alone.
There are more than a few members of Congress that aren't aware of it either
http://www.gop.gov/blog/10/04/08/obamacare-flatlines-obamacare-taxes-home
I hope you forward this to every single person in your address book. VOTERS NEED TO KNOW.

"So easy to be ignorant" indeed. There is a tax, but if affects nobody with gross income under $200,000, or $250,000 for married filing jointly. It is on investment income, which includes profit on the sale of a house, and a true illustration would be that if a married couple sold their house for $600,000 more than they paid for it (not likely any time soon), they would be taxed 3.8% of $100,000 -- the first $500,000 of profit being exempt. So if they bought for $1,000,000 and sold for $1,600,000 they would be taxed $3,800. It is next to impossible for anyone selling a house for $400,000 to be taxed anything under the provision -- let alone to be taxed $15,000.

The email uses for authority a posting on www.gop.gov, the "website of the Republican majority in congress" as its authority. While that posting is real, and doesn't totally lie, it is written like advertising copy intended to make you believe much more than it actually says when read carefully.

Where has Wealth Discrepancy Come From And Where is it Going?

2011-11-04T08:31:00.001-07:00

Where does the inequality come from? Could it be that the saying "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer" is right? It has happened in virtually every age and every country. Obviously the dynamic has taken many different forms -- the economy of the middle ages was not that of the "gilded Age" which was somewhat different from the (American) economy of the 1920s, which was somewhat different from that of today. The economies of 18th century France, of the Pharaohs, the Chinese Mandarins, the Aztec lords -- all no doubt substantially different. When power of any sort (including that of money) reaches some critical mass, it will snowball unless there is some counteracting force. The economic dynamic of recent decades (at least) is that if you have a large enough pot of money to invest with appropriate diversification, in periods when the market is rising 20-30% a year, it is obvious what can happen. If you are well enough connected, when the market crashes, you can be one of the early ones to pull out. Then, until the market starts to move again, you sit on your money, or invest in the least risky (and least growth-producing) sectors.

These dynamics have not changed without some kind of intervention. We can look to Britain and the U.S. for cases of orderly intervention, as opposed to spasms of violence (which tend to produce something as bad or worse then the prior regimes).

In the late middle ages, illiterate peasants lived in mud huts while barons lived in drafty stone castles, and were almost as likely as anyone to die of the plague or childbirth. I am no master of how we got from there to today's world, but am pretty sure it involved the barons giving up some of their treasures in a way that lead to public roads and canals (in the early days), and widely available free or subsidized education, and postal systems (in the American case, these from the very beginning subsidized the spread of printed matter). In the nations that followed this policy, the rich were rewarded by having an educated healthy populace available for the development of more and more technologically brilliant and powerful enterprises. The rising tide of welfare of the "99%" lifted all boats, including those of the very rich. The nations that didn't follow such policies, where the rich and powerful tried to hang onto everything, suffered a huge decline in relative strength and succumbed to colonization.

Another saving grace, in the case of the U.S. – the U.S. was exceptional alright; it had a huge public domain — the vast preponderance of potential capital, consisting of public lands belonged to the government, and unlike Russia in the 1990s, a newly minted democracy in a similar position, we did not say “This is terrible — all this property in the hands of government — we have to get rid of it, putting huge chunks into private hands or something terrible will happen”; instead we calmly, or the course of 100 years or so, sold it mostly in small plots to individual farmers, and sometimes even give it free to homesteaders, and we also set aside portions as assets to pay for educational institutions. Why? Because our government had the “general welfare” of the people in mind.

But omigod, that sounds like a welfare state! Well yes, the "welfare state" as conceived by people who see value in it, is not about "welfare", which has curiously become another word for the dole. It is about a state which takes positive actions for the welfare of its citizens. Unfortunately, we have become so unimaginative as to think the only way to do that is to dole out money to those out of work. And the U.S., and even more so Europe, have suffered by creating a class of people with nothing to do and no sense of purpose, which is not in the interest of anyone's welfare.

I'm Making Some Progress on "Knowledge in a Social World" Despite My Ridiculous Isolation

2011-10-31T21:12:00.000-07:00

[Note: this article is cloned from the Owning Our Democracy version.

I am ridiculously isolated; isolated enough to go crazy. This comes partly from being self-employed in the business of selling (mostly used) books via internet and the mail. It wasn't always like this. At my wedding about 25 years ago, there were two large groups of friends, maybe 20-30 in each category: A folk-dance circle based in Redbank NJ, and another group of volunteers for a subgroup of something called "Breakthrough Foundation - Youth at Risk" that I was leading. Back then I spent a few nights out most every week which involved hanging out and talking with friends. I won't try to deal with how I got from there to here -- just giving a sort of "full disclosure". Maybe I'm a social person; maybe not so much.

But I can't remember a time when I didn't see knowledge as a very social phenomenon. What kind of firm foundation for knowledge is it to crawl into ones head wondering "How do I know anything? How can I know anything?" and then to say "Hey I sense these words going around. What can that be but myself, and therefore 'I think, therefore I exist'".

Thomas Berger, The Social Construction of Reality has been an idea in the wind for at least half a century. My reaction to the title was "Yes, of course!" My reaction to the book a big disappointment. I never tried to summarize that book and it's been a long time since I read it, but my first posting in my first attempt at a blog, "The Ontological Comedian", on the author's 's other famous book, was "Berger's Sacred Canopy". I wrote it in December 2005. It was short, and like so many of my other postings, ended with [to be continued].

My second idea for a blog was called "The Real Truth Project". Its manifesto, as presently stated, is:

What is "The Real Truth Project"?
Understanding of the world around us is a survival need -- as much so as food or shelter. Yet we seem barely concerned by the fact that all but the tiniest portion of what we think we know comes packaged and delivered to us from .. other realms that we hardly know even exist. I don't mean some kind of supernatural realms -- I just mean hundreds of thousands (at least) of academics, reporters, teachers, government spokesmen, and sometimes friends, family, and neighbors.

Considering this, it is remarkable that our sense of reality has protected and served us to the degree that it has. In North Korea, to take an extreme example, people are totally controlled through the picture of reality they receive. It is such a radical distortion of reality that a mini-encyclopedia of basic facts about the rest of the world has been made to present to those few who get out, or who visit China. It is called "Welcome to the World", and generally comes on a PC thumb drive or memory card. (SOURCE LINK)

Philosophers of truth/knowledge ("epistemologists") have long debated what we know and how we know it - but under the unconscious unquestioned assumption that we must act as individuals and must take the world just as we find it.

Today, I think we must ask "How can we adjust the world so we might tell at least the most important truths from falsehoods? As an ultra-simple metaphor, think of adjusting a telescope to bring something into focus. It sounds presumptuous, but otherwise, I fear, we are headed toward a brave new world of perfect counterfeiting of reality which will make it far more difficult to maintain our freedom.

I named this blog the Real Truth Project because "The Truth Project" was already appropriated -- by TWO entities. One, a "Focus on the Family" project to promote a "biblical world view"; the other advocating a sort of leftest paranoia -- that the 9/11 attacks were faked by the U.S. government. They call themselves "truthers". It is strange how the phrase the truth is made to serve one or another particular (often obsessive) idea, rather than suggesting the whole staggering business of making words reflect what is going on around us.

It certainly has not to date turned into a "project", and it sort of largely drifted into debunking of political nonsense, esp on forwarded emails, sort of summarized in "My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land".

I also wrote a longish rant about "Epistemologies of the Right - a slapdash prospectus", a much more ambitious attempt at profundity.

Finally, about a year ago, I felt I was maybe zeroing in on something with an "Epistemology of Consensus". Partly, it was Daniel Boorstin who opened my eyes with Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers; in particular revelatory comments on the Enlightenment as a cluster of social phenomena one of which centered around the Royal Society [of London for Improving Natural Knowledge], and its "Transactions", the prototype of all peer-reviewed scientific journals. Getting to know the "Early Modern Period", esp. the English, as key to understanding the ideas of the American Revolution, and some classes at Rutgers in the History of Ideas kept some of my thinking circling in the same vicinity.

When an odd concept pops into my mind which I think may be a useful distinction, yet I've never heard anyone use it, I have from time to time experimented with "googling" phrases that attempt to express it, to see if what if anything has been said about it, and see if I might join in the conversation. So far joining in the conversation hasn't worked out too well. "Ontological Comedian" was one such phrase. I think there might have been only 1 or 2 hits, but it lead me to accidentally discover Ricky Gervais, creator of the original "The Office" series and the IMHO better series "Extras".

And Then Something Happened

My interest in "Epistemology of Consensus" was growing, in part due the Climate Deniers' (some people are infuriated by the associations they make to "Holocaust Deniers" when the phrase comes up. I can only say that there are all sorts of deniers: evolution deniers, God deniers, consciousness deniers, ..., and it is useful to distinguish the deniers from the true skeptics.) frequent use of the meme "science is not based on consensus".

When I tried "Social Epistemology", voila, there was something there. Prior to discovering the Wikipedia article, I found it was the name of a book and a journal by Steve Fuller, and I got the book Social Epistemology. I was disappointed with that book, however. Fuller seemed to be, despite his protestations, too close to a post-modernist. Post-modernism has, by the way, some popularity with religious intellectuals, and, wouldn't you know it, Fuller is a defender of "Intelligent Design".

I was learning that "social epistemology" had been taken in "two divergent directions" by Fuller and Alvin Goldman, and have just today started to look into Goldman and
this really seems like what I've been looking for!!

The decription in its Amazon entry says he creates

"a thoroughgoing social epistemology, moving beyond the traditional focus on solitary knowers. Against the tides of postmodernism and social constructionism Goldman defends the integrity of truth and shows how to promote it by well-designed forms of social interaction. From science to education, from law to democracy, he shows why and how public institutions should seek knowledge-enhancing practices. The result is a bold, timely, and systematic treatment of the philosophical foundations of an information society."

[to be continued]

How to Solve U.S Education Woes (No, Seriously)

2011-10-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

This ramble, or whatever you'd call it, is in response to something in the comment section of a conversation seen and heard at the wonderful "Blogging Heads" web site at http://bloggingheads.tv. In particular, the conversation called Science Saturday: Invasion of the Synthetic Bacteria (beware, dialogue will start up when you click on it)
with Christina Agapakis & Maggie Koerth-Baker. The "blogging heads" format is two usually only slightly famous people each in front of their own computer with skype or something. Technology is often primitive and the variety of background noises amusing. People are often, but not always, paired with opposed politics, but they generally speak in a friendly manner and may have gotten to like each other over a few such conversations (not always; there have been a few snarl fests).

The conversation touched the quality of science education and whether its improvement would have a positive effect on the body politic. Part of one response was

Personally, if I could wave a wand and everyone become knowledgeable on some subject I wouldn't use it for science education but instead to make everyone understand how the United States budget works. That's probably alot more important to the continued well being of the country.

to which I made the following sometimes heated and off-the-top-of-my-head response:

Things I think the education system sorely lacks are
* Critical and analytical thinking (1st step: define them)
* How to learn, both while in school and after
* How the world works, including how to become prosperous. If you know the real
story of how to get rich, then you know how the rich are getting rich, and you can
do what you want with that knowledge, including critique the incentives of the
economic system. The book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, is a good piece of education
in those terms. You don't have to adopt the writer's ethos, but if you want to see
how the real world works, read the practitioners. To be an engineer, you have
to make things; you won't learn how to make things except by making things.
There is this "makers knowledge" without which knowledge of anything is
incomplete to say the least.
* How to do things in teams, in a context other than sports (sports do this, but in a
limited context, and not everyone is good a carrying it over into other fields and
besides some of us don't get the attraction of sports.

In late teens and early adulthood, I had a great aptitude for science and mathematics, but it didn't seem cool, or like it would help save the world, or something ... I took a mathematics course in college for a prerequisite, and was bowled over by a simple thing. A student pointed out a mistake that the professor made, and the professor thanked him and corrected the mistake.

The lesson is, there are some disciplines in which that is possible (try it in an English lit class!). There are some fields, including any that can legitimately be called science, and history that have a core which consists of recreating a reality that really does seem to be out there ... people who go about them a certain way do indeed start to develop a consensus, and develop abilities to produce certain results on purpose. It is hard to tell whether you are reproducing some reality or only think you are, but I think a good sign is when a discipline tends towards a consensus despite the fact that everyone is striving to make their mark and be original, and when the discipline actually helps you interact more effectively with the things you claim to understand. These are the signs that, while we may be blind men, there really is an elephant (if they keep at it long enough, they'll all perceive what any single one perceives and start to form a better theory).

In one of the articles I remember written by a member of the great liberal hating and baiting cult in response to Barrack Obama's TV address to schoolchildren (one of the early signs of what was to come was the movement to keep the children home that day) ... in that article, the writer was railing about Obama's pandering to the education community "fad" of critical thinking.

In my view, the history of science often teaches the essence of science far better than grade school "science classes" do. Those classes (in my experience -- but I don't think it's totally unrepresentative) teach you a lot of facts from on high, with a quick bow to the "scientific method" with which you will understand the methods and culture of science about as well as you will understand irony after an English teacher defines it as "saying the opposite of what you mean".

I got my little subscription to the monthly "All About" books ("All about Butterflies and Moths / Earthquakes / Chemistry / Geology / Dinosaurs / etc.") and read them from about the 2nd through 5th grades, and because they focused on the stories of how scientific discoveries were made, I believe I gained some understanding of the essence of science.

Everyone should be exposed to at least a couple of examples of a complex demonstration with a surprising outcome, such as how 17th century experiments with vacuum pumps lead to some understanding about gasses, temperature, and the particulate nature of matter, or the 19th century experiments with equipment you could hold in your hand that led to some initial understanding of electrons. And they should have do to some of it themselves -- even the simplest damn thing like measuring a flag pole without climbing it, using trigonometry, or getting on the web, and chatting with somebody in 1000 miles away where you exchange observations on the declination of the Sun, or other heavenly bodies, and using this, compute the circumference of the Earth, or follow Christopher Columbus's calculations based on Marco Polo (the relevant passages can be excerpted sparing the student the years it may have taken Columbus to spot them), and like I say follow his calculation that Japan was about 3000 miles west of Europe (which is what he really went around saying, NOT that the earth is round, which educated people knew already). He was wrong of course, but the exercise is fascinating and the fact that he was wrong is a valuable lesson in itself.

History classes should be divided into 2 teams, one to read southerner's experience of "carpetbaggers" during reconstruction, and the other to read "carpetbaggers" experience of southerners (easy to find on the internet these days), then see what sort of consensus they can form of what really happened and what it meant.

Now, having made another ridiculous attempt to set the world right, in the words of the immortal Ian Sholes, "I gotta go".

Some Thoughts in Response to Gorbachev article on "Lessons from the U.S.S.R. coup attempt"

2011-08-30T04:47:00.000-07:00

I made some comments, and got into a bit of a debate in response to Mikhail Gorbachev's article in the Washington Post: "Lessons from the U.S.S.R. coup attempt". Naturally, this becomes a launching point for discussing the whole issue of the liberalization of the USSR in the late 1980s, its subsequent disintegration due to the radical conflict of agendas within its parts (state departments as well as geographical/national units), and the emergence of "Modern Russia".

I started with a response to another writer's comment:

"Gorbachev understood that the USSR was not just falling irremediably behind the US, but that China was coming up behind her like gangbusters, and that to remain competitive his realm needed to escape its totalitarian corset."

It seems to me that this is the most common interpretation in the US, but it is simply not true. The USSR developed the industrial strength to defeat Germany in World War II while going in quite the opposite direction (i.e. towards ever intensified totalitarianism). A dictator can do a lot if he is just fine with ruling his people by terror, and has the fine tuned nerves to do it -- no one was spared under Stalin -- the department heads, the provincial governors, the top military leaders all had swords hanging over their heads. Under Stalin that was the whole essence of the government, and it was not an oligarchy (like the USSR after his death) but a dictatorship. In almost every case I can think of, such true totalitarian systems depended on alienating the rest of the world so you can say in truth "everyone outside (as well as many inside) wants to crush us." Stalin's reign of terror, like that of North Korea today, drew its strength from this sense of being under constant attack.

This kind of rule by terror cannot last forever. The dictator dies and the 2nd tier of government wants to be comfortable. In the USSR, rule by secret police and total centralization was followed by the oligarchic rule of the party (not that the secret police disappeared, but they became subordinate).

So what was Gorbachev? He was someone who managed to reach the top USSR leadership without being dead inside -- someone who believed the essence of the Communist claim that their ideal was to govern for the people. It is one of the bright sides of hypocrisy that a group may go on proclaiming ideals even though they don't live them. And if somebody steps out of line and says (in enough people's hearing) "But we're really just running this country for ourselves, and why not just admit that?" that person gets booted from power.

Gorbachev's inclination was to make government serve its citizens. It wasn't to tinker with putting some aspects of the economy on the Western model so they could compete better, while continuing to totally dominate the people. He introduced and promoted freedom of speech quite early. If you think he "had to to this" to "save Communism", just look at tiny North Korea. He had to tread very carefully, and try to develop a constituency for the new way of life that would defend it before the military and other raw power advocates got scared and engineered a coup. We weren't much help going around crowing about how we were winning the Cold War, and thinking of ways to capitalize on the confusion misconstrued as weakness the USSR was experiencing.
Reagan telling Gorbachev to "Tear down the wall" when G. had already told the East Germans that it wasn't his wall anymore and he wasn't going to defend it for them.

I don't think the abrupt breakup of the USSR helped. Yeltsin did not have the same sort of character as Gorbachev. Anyone who suggests in the midst of what G. was trying to do that it was all about a "cult of personality" is at least part viper.

I just hope some day it can be salvaged.

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One reader responded to this with:
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HalMorris thinks the Soviet Union broke up because it fell into the hands of a sensible, humane leader who wanted his country and system to be more than a tyranny oppressing hundreds of millions. In short, its hand was not forced. It could have continued as a vast prison, matching the US in weapons and maintained its power position in the world. Instead, it chose to abdicate its power, to concede the contest, out of decency and good will.

Such soft headed treacle.

John LeCarre said vividly and sweetly what actually happened: the Red knight bled to death inside his armor.

OK up to the last part. It could have continued as a vast prison, which is proven by the case of North Korea, whose hand we haven't managed to "force" even yet. As for "matching the US in weapons" No I wouldn't claim that, but dirt poor North Korea has remained a fortress walling out the rest of the world, and why should the USSR not have done the same?

He continues

"it chose to abdicate its power, to concede the contest, out of decency and good will."

Very clever way to win an argument - make up ridiculous words to put in the mouth of those you argue with, and say "Wow that guy is really stupid. Look at the stupid thing I just imagined him saying!!"

Gorbachev didn't chose to abdicate anything. He chose to negotiate peace so they could put their resources to better use. He was also promoting and allowing freedom of speech, and holding real elections. This was not a clever ruse -- it was a dangerous thing to do for his own power and survival, as proven by the coup -- to the militarists it just looked like the country was coming apart, and growing weak while the west was starting to disrespect and kick them around, and ultimately they tried to reverse things. But the country had had too much of freedom to simply fall back in line, and the coup plotters found they could not control the military.

These shenanigans led to enough anti-USSR and anti-party sentiment that between the Ukraine, Georgia, etc ready to throw off the center, and the center (Russia) having as its president a man who wanted to take Gorbachev's place (Yeltsin) - they simply declared the top level of government (the USSR) null and void leaving Gorbachev the president of nothing (one of the more interesting coups in history).

So we've "won the cold war" because Russia has no more power except the ability to blow up most of the world. Have you ever heard that to the man with only a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail?

But by all means let's ridicule decency and good will (Marx, Lenin, and Joe McCarthy made careers out of doing just that), and leave the world to the non-soft-headed types like Lenin, Stalin, Putin, Cheney, Rumsfield, and some of the current stars of the GOP

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another writer, not in response to anything I wrote, said:

It is clear Mr. Gorbachev played a major role in ending communism in the Soviet republics. What has not ever really been clear is whether he was wanted to.

During the time Gorbachev led the Soviet Union, he only claimed to be reforming communism, not trying to replace it with democracy. Of course, he would have to say that to become the leader. However, Mr. Gorbachev's actions and comments following the failure of the coup lead me to believe that he really was a dedicated communist, albeit a reform one, and that he took a very dim view of voting, individual rights, markets, etc. Yeltsin and others certainly thought so, and the shunted Mr. Gorbachev aside once they won.

This is the first place I've read where Gorbachev has publicly stated that the fall of communism was a good thing. However, I am still in doubt as to his sincerity. This is not helped by the fact that he speaks of "politices" and "the legislature" as if the Soviet Union was a democracy, instead of discussing the political realities the Soviet Oligarchy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Which I commented on as follows:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Gorbachev as head of the Communist party of course did not talk about ending communism. That would have been a pointless political suicide, besides which, often ideologies change so much as to be unrecognizable without ever changing their label. Even when an ideology is transforming rapidly, it may never be politically safe change the label. Some people on the right in America have been tinkering with the idea of saying "America is a republic, and not a democracy", but that seems like a self-defeating political move, and it seems not to have caught on.

As for saying Gorbachev "took a very dim view of voting, individual rights, markets, etc." -- totally wrong on the 1st 2 and as to "the market": Gorbachev, unlike the Chinese leadership, focused on the most essential kind of change, the changes that would be most difficult to undo, had they had a real chance to take root. Under Yeltsin, Russia suffered a flood of "advisers" whose ideology was "Free Market first, and democracy will follow" (Milton Friedman definitely said something to this effect). Incredibly, they believed that getting all state enterprises into private hands -- **any** private hands was the secret to preventing a return to tyranny. History seems to have proven them wrong. Headlong and chaotic change, regardless of how many people are abruptly out in the cold, is more like the *gateway* to tyranny.

After Stalin, the General Secretary of the party (the real position of power) was not a totalitarian dictator, but was only 1 in the oligarchy. Anyone who strayed too far from what other top leaders were comfortable with could expect to be deposed, as Khrushchev was. Gorbachev chose well what to reform and what to put off dealing with, but there was no guarantee of success as the result proved.

As for "Yeltsin and others certainly thought so", Yeltsin was not an honest man so you don't really know what he thought. He was probably a bit confused and self-delusory, as well as corruptible, and spoke some combination of what was expedient and what he believed in a half-a**ed way, because half-a**ed was they way he thought. Putin was more or less installed by Yeltsin to allow Yeltsin and his cronies to get away with their billions, and escape prosecution for their crimes. This was his regime's most irresponsible act, among many irresponsible acts.

My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land (revision)

2011-08-29T17:25:00.001-07:00

"R. Kelly Garrett randomly surveyed 600 Americans about their online habits, and whether they'd heard—and believed—a number of widespread rumors. He found that the Web does expose us to more rumors. But the Web also delivers more rebuttals,...

"E-mail’s more insidious. Because you’re more likely to believe that rumor forwarded by cousin Rob. And the more you believe something, Garrett says, the more you want to share it with your social network."
[Quote from a Scientific American summary of an article in Human Communications Research. ]

Ever since today's retirees got computers and learned to use email, there is a tradition of keeping a forwarding list of friends to whom you send anything amusing, amazing, touching, or whatever that you happened to receive (often from anonymous sources). Nothing to it just click "SEND", select the list, and click again. Such lists are probably the biggest source of urban myths. For years I received these jokes, strange claims, whatever, and thought nothing of it. It seemed like just a nice easy way for the often home-bound retiree to keep up a sense of community.

My main source was my Mom (who is in her late 70s, and I am in my late 50s). Then she sent me my first classic "Right Wing Forward" which was the beginning of a sort of adventure for both of us, where I would look at an email, figure out, in 5-15 minutes of internet searching, that it was full of lies, and email her back with my conclusions. After about a year and 3 months, I am gratified to get an email where she says:

Dad and I actually talked about this at breakfast, and I am glad to know the truth. At first it just seemed so awful, and then unbelievable. I shouldn't have forwarded it on. More and more I see how "email" is the fuel that supports so many of the things we hear as truth that aren't. It really makes it so hard to know what to believe.

This was prompted by an email, complete with photos, purporting that a couple of Muslim store owners in a Texas mall closed shop for a day, with a notice on their shop window that they were "celebrating the martyrdom" of one of the 9/11 hijackers (1st implausibility: Why wasn't that shop window smashed in?)

My parents are intelligent people - a retired computer systems analyst, and a woman who built her own very successful business after the children were grown. My father enjoyed the iconoclastic view of the American Revolution contained in Kenneth Roberts' historical fiction. As a child, I once asked him "Who is our enemy now?" A natural enough question for a child to ask, and he told me well maybe Russia, but cast some doubt on the idea that we necessarily had to have an enemy, and he clearly saw Russia in a more nuanced light than say Germany in World War II. They were pretty comfortable with the Civil Rights movement and taught me not to use racial epithets, and were glad to see the Vietnam war end, and came to see Nixon as deserving of impeachment. My mother is reading very widely these days, and recently read To Kill a Mockingbird, and was touched by it. She admitted being rather shocked at the frankly racist talk of some of their friends who share their anxieties about the Obama administration.

They view Rush Limbaugh as extreme, and are a little bemused by their friends who do listen to him, but they were ready to believe many claims contained in these emails, that are so extreme that Limbaugh would at most hint at them, such as Obama being a Muslim, or that he pointedly refused to salute or cross his chest during the National Anthem, or that he is a "Marxist former street hustler" (this was in a letter to the editor of their local newspaper, not an email).

An article in Human Communication Research -- see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01401.x/abstract
wasn't available when I initially posted this (I'm updating this article on 8/29/2011). The link may allow you to access the whole article if you have a university account, or are working from a library which has access.

There is a synopsis in a Scientific American podcast from 3/11/2011 at http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=email-beats-blogs-and-websites-for-11-03-10
whose headline declares "E-Mail Beats Blogs and Web Sites for Rumor Mongering" which seems to be a good summary of the finding. The Scientific American summary goes on to say:

R. Kelly Garrett randomly surveyed 600 Americans about their online habits, and whether they'd heard—and believed—a number of widespread rumors. He found that the Web does expose us to more rumors. But the Web also delivers more rebuttals, which can even the field.
E-mail’s more insidious. Because you’re more likely to believe that rumor forwarded by cousin Rob. And the more you believe something, Garrett says, the more you want to share it with your social network.

I'm not sure when the "Right Wing Forward" phenomenon in its present form started, but a blog named "My Right-Wing Dad" (http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com) has archived 1385 (as of 9/11/2010) emails intended to be forwarded and re-forwarded, mostly expressing what I would call a right wing point of view. Many purport to show Obama is a Muslim, or that he made millions of dollars speculating on the BP disaster, or that Islam is an irredeemable "gutter religion" (to borrow a phrase) whose members are pedophiles among other things. They have also helped promote the idea that the Health Reform bill will set up "death panels", and so on.

Because email forwarding of "interesting" or funny or whatever items was for years an accepted practice, and millions of people did it, the sort of emails called "Right Wing Forwards" by "My Right-Wing Dad" fell on amazingly fertile soil, and eventually, someone made a sort of industry out of it -- at least that is what I'm contending, and I think it is very very "important, if true".

I think the implicit assumption with these emails is that somebody, some regular patriotic American, a friend of a friend of a friend just spontaneously put it together and sent it out to his or her friends. But after examining dozens of them, I've concluded that many (maybe about a fourth of what I see at "My Right-Wing Dad") come from one source, or a small group of sources. They are carefully constructed lies, complete with bogus documentation, which are way beyond anything Rush Limbaugh and other public pundits would say, but which, in the minds of their listeners, confirm the general conclusions that they draw. My belief is that the support of hundreds of such flatly false assertions -- ignored by the mainstream press and hence never refuted makes it possible for the public pundits to generate belief in unprecedentedly extreme general conclusions. Most of the rest are probably spontaneous "folk" productions, which I believe act as protective camelflage for one of the most effective propaganda machines since the fall of the USSR.

Looking back in the "My Right-Wing Dad" archive, 2007 (which contains a number of emails from previous years) may be approximately when serious and systematic mass production disinformation emails got started.

Typical of the "old style", fairly innocuous right wing forward is a joke about GW Bush escorting an Iranian Ambassador around Washington:

The Iranian whispered "My son watches this show 'Star Trek' and in it there is Chekhov who is Russian, Scotty who is Scottish, and Sulu who is Chinese, but no Arabs. My son is very upset and doesn't understand why there aren't any Iranians on Star Trek."

President Bush laughed, leaned toward the Iranian ambassador, and whispered back, "It's because it takes place in the future."

This illustrates the sort of "right wing forward" that is neither original nor important -- just a matter "letting off steam" thing for people who hate Iran.

Within the "My Right Wing Dad" collection, at least, the first one that really looks like what I'm talking about is dated 11/01/2007 with subject simply:

FW: Very Important Information

It can be found at http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/2007/11/fw-very-important-information.html.

I will, however, mostly examine the handful of emails that were forwarded to me by my parents. With these I can at least personally attest to their effect on pretty intelligent people. I will say at least a little about each one I received, so I should not be accused of cherry picking the worst ones.

The first one was titled "LOOK OUT, SENIORS!!! Dr. McCaughey on Obamacare on Fred Thompson's radio show--Pass this on"

"I HEARD ABOUT THIS, BUT DID NOT WANT TO BELIEVE IT. WHAT YOU WILL HEAR IN THIS INTERVIEW IS EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BILL. NO WONDER OBAMA WANTS TO GET THIS THOUGH CONGRESS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. WALT"

Its high point is a link to an interview you could listen to on the web, but before that, there is more build-up:

This is an interview from Fred Thompson's radio show, with a doctor
who actually read the 1,000+ page Democrat health bill. If the American people (especially the elderly) knew what was in this bill, there would be a revolution; which is why it is being pushed through this fast.

The House Bill They Don't Want You to Read...

"VICIOUS ASSAULT ON THE ELDERLY"

PAGE 425: MANDATORY REQUIREMENT FOR MEDICARE COUNSELING TO ELDERLY EVERY 5 YEARS

"Counseling session to tell you how to end your life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care..."

Yet, the yellow-dog liberal organization AARP (which claims to be non-partisan-HA!) is supporting Obama's healthcare plan.

Regardless of your age now, you need to plan for your later years. This is a DEADLY plan. To the elderly, it is more of a death-enablement plan than a health-care plan. Listen to the 8-minute attachment - it's an interview with a doctor who actually READ the bill!!

Well, I "actually read" the bill (note: an early version), which turns out not to be such an incredible feat, and I learned some things from reading a congressional bill for the first time. One is about the "1000 page" length. A "page" in this bill contains 24 short lines, and maybe 1/5 as many words as on a typical book page, so the 1000+ page bill would have about as many words as 200 pages of a Stephen King novel.

As to the substance, there is nothing mandatory about the supposedly fearful counseling session -- at least there is nothing about forcing patients to have an interview they don't want. If there is any mandate, it is that the system must make such conselling available. By my reading this "vicious" clause says some very general things about helping people make deliberate choices about end of life care, and suggests the kind of issues you'd want to address if you wanted to have a living will that would be effective -- what you might to say NOT to do if you were brain dead or whatever condition you'd say is the point beyond which you don't want to go.

The next item, dated 8/1/2009 was "Dinner with Obama, a parable". It was the work of a clearly very talented fiction writer. One would think that calling it a "parable" would make it clear that it's somebody's allegory of what they think Obama is all about, yet it was prefaced with "I felt a little sick to my stomach when I finished reading this. Is this really happening and we don't know??? PLEASE respond.........." which I think my Mother wrote. [Note: I am partly including this, as I said, to avoid charges of "cherry picking". While its quality may support my belief in a hard core group of people "mass producing" much of the "forwards" in circulation, it is an "allegory" and can slide out from under the accusation of deliberate falsehood.]

It starts off "Once upon a time, I was invited to the White House for a private dinner with the President. I am a respected businessman, with a factory that produces memory chips for computers and portable electronics. There was some talk that my industry was being scrutinized by the administration, but I paid it no mind. I live in a free country. There's nothing that the government can do to me if I've broken no laws. My wealth was earned honestly, and an invitation to dinner with an American President is an honor".

Then the waiters started taking things off the narrator's plate and eating or drinking them, while Obama said things like "Sorry about that, Andrew is very hungry.

"My plate was whisked away before I had tasted a bite.

"Eric's children are also quite hungry."

With a lurch, I crashed to the floor. My chair had been pulled out from
under me. ...

"And their grandmother can't stand for long."

Finally we get:

"By the way," He added, "I have just signed an Executive Order nationalizing your factories. I'm firing you as head of your business. I'll be operating the firm now for the benefit of all mankind. There's a whole bunch of Erics and Andrews out there and they can't come to you for jobs groveling like beggars."

The whole "meaning" of the article can be summarized as "The writer thinks Obama is a socialist, or is being paid to write as if he thinks this, and he has written a "parable" like a mini-Animal Farm, about what socialism means in his view. No evidence is furnished of Obama's "socialism", so my reaction would be even if it is effective, it can't be used to demonstrate the "mass production" of sophisticated falsehoods.

The next thing, dated 8/14, was another "parable" about an Economics professor, who, being socialistically inclined, decided to "redistribute" test points and give all students the average grade of the whole class. Predictably, grades went from C to D to F. Again, ho hum.

The next item was a link to some sort of scary documentary about Muslim population growth. Fair enough. My main response to Mom was that in Muslim, as in other countries, the more women are educated, the less likely a country is to have runaway population, and ironically in Iran, where strange to say, women are on the whole better educated than men, population growth is now comparable to that of a European country.

The next thing I got, on 10/10 was called "To My Thinking Friends", which seems to be mostly an excerpt from Lee Iacocca's recent book Where Have All the Leader's Gone?. There is some folksy preface material by presumably, the person who found and clipped the excerpt and wanted to pass it along to friends, I.e.:

Here's an idea for Mr. Iacocca -- send every congressman a copy of his new book!

He does make me think, if we could get those in leadership to really work at the solutions something could still bring us back to reality and make the necessary changes!!!!

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He's now 82 years old and has a new book, 'Where Have All The Leaders Gone?'.

Some bits from the Iacocca piece:

'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, ...

And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions of our newly elected President. and on and on and on.

As I wrote in response, "What was passed to you was heavily edited. It is an excerpt from a book PUBLISHED IN 2007, and when you put back in what was edited out, the Iacocca book is largely a VERY VERY VERY scathing criticism of George W. Bush, not of Obama. Here is a pretty typical excerpt:

Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths -- for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster.

Most of the edits were deletions to take references to George W. Bush out. It can be acceptable to leave some things out of a quote, if one doesn't abuse the privilege to totally distort what was said. But there was one and only one addition - the phrase newly elected where he says the press is not asking hard questions of our newly elected President. The piece was written in 2007, and the president was Bush, who was not newly elected, and the phrase "newly elected" was not in the original.

So here we have the best example so far of a blatantly false piece, with many more to come

Next (10/20) I get another one titled: Fwd: CNN News - not Fox -- You won't believe this!!

The lead-in was:

It just keeps getting better.

This is Unbelievable!!!!!

I KNEW this was going to happen. (Obama wasn't lying when he said illegals would not be able to get medical coverage under his ObamaCare plan. His simple fix is to make them all legal first!!)
EVERY ONE--PLEASE TAKE TIME TO LISTEN TO THIS--IT TELLS ABOUT THE BILL GOING THRU CONGRESS RIGHT NOW REGARDING IMMIGRATION.
EVEN CNN IS GETTING UPSET ABOUT THIS!!!!!!
Pass this on after you watch it. NOTICE THAT THIS IS FROM CNN, NOT FOX!!!

CLICK HERE:
This from CNN news: _http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/172
60182/1610997888/name/ftc-vi26.wmv_
(http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/17260182/1610997888/name/ftc-vi26.wmv)

This 2-minute video should be mandatory viewing for every US citizen. If you have never passed anything on before, pass this on! Every American should be outraged!

There is some classic misdirection going on here. A trick used by magicians to get the audience looking in the wrong direction so they won't see the trick. All of this "I'm so upset ... I can't believe it ..." stuff.

But then the link is to a 2007 (must have been a good year!) video commenting on a bill that George W. Bush was promoting at the time, stripped of all the context that would indicate it was from 2007. A good rule of thumb is, if it's from CNN news, try to find a copy on a CNN web site, don't settle for some mysterious You Tube link.

Next (12/3) came "Subject: The Queen's Jet (I will pass this on every time I receive it!)". which goes like:

Queen Pelosi wasn't happy with the small USAF C-20B jet, Gulfstream III, that comes with the Speaker's job ... OH NO! Queen Pelosi was aggravated that this little jet had to stop to refuel, so she ordered a Big Fat, 200-seat, USAF C-32, Boeing 757 jet that could get her back to California without stopping! I understand that a former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, flew commerical most of the time.

Many, many legislators walked by and grinned with glee as Joe informed everyone of what Queen Nancy's Big Fat Jet costs us, the hard working American tax payers, literally thousands of gallons of fuel every week.
[Note: implausable details like this are often thrown into such stories, as if Congressmen went around cackling like comic book villians, and I think this is done with some freedom simply because it would be quite hard to disprove. Another bit of indirection to keep us away from the facts about what plane Pelosi used on what occasion, which is a matter of record]
Since she only works 3 days a week, this gas guzzling jet gets fueled and she flies home to California every Friday and returns every Monday, at a cost to the taxpayers (YOU and ME are those taxpayers!) of about $60,000, one way

This is followed by a lot of naive sounding huffing and puffing as if the writer totally believed the previous lines:

No wonder she complains about the cost of this war ... it might cramp her style and she is styling on my back and yours. I think of the military families in this country doing without and this woman, who heads up the most do-nothing Congress in the history of our country, keeps fueling that jet while doing nothing.

Queen Pelosi wants you and me to conserve our carbon footprint. She wants us to buy smaller cars and Obama wants us to get a bicycle pump and air up our tires. Who do these people think they are??? Their motto is ... Don't do as I do ... JUST DO AS I SAY!

If you think this is outrageous, forward it to all those on your email
list! Keep in mind the figures above do NOT include the cost of plane or
crew ... just the fuel!!! One has to wonder what the total package costs us?

And on top of that ... now she wants to tax our IRA's & 401K's!

PASS THIS ON IF YOU CARE ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL

This is, I think, more of the magician's indirection technique, in this case turning your mind away from the assumption you would otherwise make that it was probably written by some party professional who is good at spinning things, and so should be taken with a grain of salt.

Turns out this is more from the series "Recycled 2 year old articles"; as I wrote:

First of all the story, like so many other such stories, is a couple of years old, and is probably being recirculated now to suggest how Pelosi and the rest of the "Democrat Party" are running rampant now that Obama is in office. That is my speculation, but ask yourself why IS a
2-3 year old story that is pretty well refuted being email-broadcast now?

In terms of substance, [my sources are: http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/jet.asp and
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_nancy_pelosi_order_up_a_200-seat.html] , I wrote:

Epstein, Edward. "Pelosi, Snow slam critics: 'Silly story.'" San Francisco Chronicle. 8 Feb. 2007.
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/08/BAGHNO171A6.DTL)

(The phrase "Silly Story" comes from a quote from Tony Snow, Bush's press spokesman: "This is a silly story, and I think it's been unfair to the speaker".

Why I say it is pretty well refuted -- here's the gist of the refutation:

Post 9/11 the Bush Administration decided the speaker of the house, 3rd in line for the presidency, should make their travels to and from Washington on a military jet (Which explains why Newt Gingrich "sometimes" flew commercial). Because the standard jet would sometimes need to stop for refueling (the previous speaker had less of a problem getting back to Texas vs California), the seargent at arms of the House, a GOP appointee still in office, asked if a jet could be provided that would fly non-stop (if the jet made sense in the first place, on security grounds, it would surely be better for security to travel non-stop). Apparently, the Pentagon didn't "reject" Pelosi's request (which maybe WASN'T even her request) -- some summary of their response is in one of the articles for which I provided links and the gist was "We'll see what we can do but we can't promise".

Since the brouhaha, it appears by the way that Pelosi does not have her own personal plane standing by, but simply has the authority to request one from the Air Force pool or whatever it is, and she has used various aircraft, depending on what was available at the time, and on one occasion what was available was the "200 seater", which the Airforce describes as seating 47.

As for Pelosi going home every weekend, I will go out on a limb and say "I doubt it". Given the intellectual dishonesty of the whole thing, I suspect that was just thrown on speculation that it could be true and it would take work to refute if it wasn't, and to furnish a basis for calculating the largest possible dollar amount that the thing could be costing the taxpayers.

The next item (12/27) was a sort of "soapbox" statement by "Mr. Lou Prichett, formerly of Proctor and Gamble."
I did a little research on Prichett, whom I thought was given an excessive build-up as "one of Corporate America's true living legends, a highly respected, acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers.".
I see most of his views, which consist of very general criticisms of Obama as just wrong, some lazy thinking but I expect he is not lying, but believes what he is saying, so I have no strong objections to it.

Some time passed before I got the next item, on June 6, "Fwd: Joys of Muslim Women and they are not joys"
is a tirade against Islam and its extremely sexist attitudes and practices, which in my opinion contains some truth, at least about how some Islamic societies work. It was said to have been written by Nonie Darwish ("This lady is being targeted by a deathsquad for writing this. All in the name of Allah" it adds).

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/religion/a/joys_of_muslim_women.htm says that according to Darwish, she did not write it indeed, the bottom two-thirds of it refer to her repeatedly in the third person. They say: Darwish confirmed via email that she didn't write the article, though it is, in her words, "to a large extent accurate." She said her 2009 book, Cruel and Usual Punishment, better represents her views, however. I could not find any confirmation that Nonie Darwish has been "targeted by a deathsquad", and I suspect that was piled on the way such things often seem to be piled on in these emails to heighten its seeming importance, and swell the reader's indignation. This is not the sort of open and shut case of lying that I am most critical of, but the style is very similar to many other emails, and I suspect it did come from the same sort of workshop.

Next, on April 12, came "Re: Wall Street Journal Sizes Up Obama - WOW". It is basically a long anti-Obama piece containing fairly typical generalizations. But fairly typically the sender tries to give it unearned weight and credibility by saying:

A short article from the Wall Street Journal that needs to be read by
every level headed American!!!

A "deadly" article regarding Obama, at the Wall Street Journal, which
today is the most widely circulated newspaper in America .

Article from the Wall Street Journal - by Eddie Sessions

Eddie Sessions appears to be a made up name, and the "article" (it would have been an editorial anyway, not an article) never appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The article was actually written by Alan Caruba, and posted on his extreme right wing blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2010/01/obamas-make-believe-life.html. Someone may have copied it, under the name Eddie Sessions, into a WSJ discussion forum.

I next, on June 25, got "Fwd: Fw: Fwd: The Crotch Salute" accompanied by the note: "I know you believe in him, but do you believe in this? It just makes me ill. I'm sorry...............love, mom". There is a picture supposedly of Obama pointedly not saluting or putting his hand over his heart as the national anthem is played, and generals and other dignitaries around. him are making the appropriate gestures. When it was tracked down to a publically posted video clip, it turned out that "Hail to the Chief" was being played, and Obama, appropriately, was not saluting himself.
It was also said to have occurred at the "Ft. Hood Memorial Service", but the same picture had previously circulated as having been taken on an earlier Veteran's Day. The incredibly disrespectful title comes from Obama's holding his hands together in front of him at crotch level.
(There are other emails showing Obama and Michelle are putting their hands on their chests, but using the left rather than right hands. -- supposedly showing their lack of practice in doing it right. A simple case of flipping a photo to its mirror image in photoshop)

There was next an outcry about claimed suppression of news about protests over "construction of a mega-mosque at Ground Zero."

On July 20, I got another piece of sleight of hand using real news footage "Mass Muslim Marriage in Gaza 450 Grooms Wed GIRLS Under Ten In Gaza". http://www.hoax-slayer.com/mass-muslim-marriage.shtml showed by getting to the original source, that there was a mass wedding, but the little girls were not the brides. I also found at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/world/middleeast/31gaza.html?_r=3 photos of another such occasion with a lot of young girls dressed in white and and explanation that in fact the brides are out of sight and they are "war widows".
(For a more thorough look at this piece, see http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/07/re-mass-muslim-marriage-in-gaza-450.html.

On August 11, there was "Michelle Came Home From France", which claims that a couple of Arab guys in a Blockbuster Video informed the anonymous poster that The First Lady did not accompany Obama to Saudi Arabia because "Obama is a Muslim and therefore he is not allowed to bring his wife into countries that adhere to Sharia Law." This is backed up by a "Middle Eastern Expert" who has a Master's degree from Bob Jones University. He's written a couple of books on Jihad but they don't sound impressive, and he does not seem to have any academic affiliation.

To top it off, I got, on September 4, this choice item:

In Houston,Texas at the Harwin Central Mall:
The very first store that you come to when you walk from the lobby of the building into the shopping area had this sign posted on their door. The shop is run by Muslims. Feel free to share this with others.
In case you are not able to read the sign below, it says

"We will be closed on Friday, September 11, 2009
to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Ali"

Imam Ali flew one of the planes into the twin towers.
(Nice huh? )

Try telling me we're not in a
Religious war!

THIS HAS NOT BEEN AROUND....SO MAKE SURE IT DOES!

No one named Imam Ali flew a plane into any building on September 11. Imam Ali died in the 8th century and is the martyr most revered by Shiite Muslims and these shopkeepers were celebrating his anniversary.

Bachmann and her unfounded claim that Iran planned to divide up Iraq

2011-08-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

An article by Eric Black appears on both his blog on Minnesota online news source MinnPost.com ("Bachmann and her unfounded claim that Iran planned to divide up Iraq"), and on Salon.com ("The words you'll never hear Michele Bachmann say: 'I was wrong'")

The gist of is, Black posted a statement made by Bachmann to St. Cloud Times reporter Lawrence Schumacher, in a taped interview with which is (was) available as a podcast, to wit:

"[Iran is the trouble maker, trying to tip over apple carts all over Baghdad right now because they want America to pull out]. And do you know why? It’s because they’ve already decided that they’re going to partition Iraq.
"And half of Iraq, the western, northern portion of Iraq, is going to be called the Iraq State of Islam, something like that. And I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it’s meant to be the training ground for the terrorists. There’s already an agreement made.
“They are going to get half of Iraq and that is going to be a terrorist safe haven zone where they can go ahead and bring about more terrorist attacks in the Middle East region and then to come against the United States because we are their avowed enemy.”

The 1st sentence [in brackets] could be true. The rest is apparently completely unfounded. Black who had previously had cordial relations with the Bachmann, contacted her to ask how she was privy to this information.

The upshot is, she never explained how she knew; she made only a vague retraction, of sorts, and she and right wing radio talker Jason Lewis, began to attack Black's journalistic integrity. Lewis described Black as “on bended knee” to the “lesbians” who want to dump Bachmann.

Comment on "Arctic 'tipping point' may not be reached"

2011-08-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

There is a huge amount of chatter on the web about a BBC sourced article from 8/5/2011:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14408930?print=true

Right leaning web sites seem to be ecstatic, as if it confirmed their denial of global warming.

BUT a couple of quotes from the article:

I don't say that our current worries are not justified, but I think that there are factors which will work to delay the action in relation to some of the models that have been in the media.

The above quote is pretty close to a summary of the article's overall message. Do you even find it easy to understand? Does it add up to "Global warming is a hoax?" Another quote:

I think the effect of temperature and global warming may cause a change in the general wind systems which maybe will delay the effects of the rapidly rising temperatures a little bit.

Hmmm, the very author the latest refutation of Global Warming has used "global warming" in a sentence as if it were something to be taken for granted.

Frankly, I never heard of the "Arctic tipping point" before, and from the above, it must not be synonymous with "Global warming". We could explain it as Professor Peabody (or Rocky and Bullwinkle fame) would: "arctic for arctic and tipping point for tipping point". See? obvious, everybody can figure out what it means.

But seriously, we are observing dramatic shrinkage of the Arctic sea ice; the article doesn't deny this. The "tipping point" in this context seems to be a point at which arctic ice melt would accelerate, due to some feedback, apparently related to something called "albedo". I.e. the ice reflects the sunlight so the less of it there is, the more the sun warms the water, and so less ice, and so more sunlight ... in a cycle.

So, some climatologists have apparently been warning of this possibility, but I have never heard it mentioned as a necessary condition for a really bad scenario.

If you go to books.google.com and type "arctic tipping point" you get 5 hits -- 5 books in their database mention this phrase. If you type in "greenland ice cover" you get 62.

If you type "antarctic ice" "global warming" you get 7,970 instances of the 2 phrases appearing on the same page of a book.

My conclusion: the viral passing around of pointers to this article (Google{"Arctic 'tipping point' may not be reached"} ==> 117,000 hits) is due mostly to a lot of people going off half cocked, who haven't seriously thought about what the article means.

The (Republican?) [Anti]Confidence Game

2011-08-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

[a fragment of debate]

If we take seriously the idea that the mood of the country (confidence or panic) can have a huge effect on the market, the genius of FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" becomes clear.

On the other hand does anyone dare suggest that 2-1/2 years of a war against the president that showed its hand with the urging of parents to keep their children home from school the day he made a special address to schoolchildren -- that these years of calling the president a Marxist, a thug, a secret muslim, not an American citizen, an elitist intellectual an incompetent fool, a wild ideologue, a care-nothing triangulator, and predicting doom for the country if he isn't stopped -- does anyone dare suggest that this is all bound to have a profound negative effect on the economy?

I expect to hear from the right their shock and dismay that anyone would criticize their line of talk, and equating criticism of their line of talk with a call for Stalinist censorship.

Watch this space.

Oh come on, HalMorris, we all know Obama's handlers are all from Wall Street. Do you remember all the fears of what a Catholic would do in the Presidency when JFK got elected? You got it, right into the Cuban missile crisis. How can we expect any different from Obama? And what if a Mormon got elected President? We have nothing to fear...... Lee in Rhode Island

My Counter-Response:
Now that's a profound argument -- or rather device of implying "you know I'm right and you're wrong and you're just being -- stubborn? silly? whatever". Next comes: "we all know" -- a more obvious version of the same.

Not a productive way to have an argument. I'm pretty sure you don't know I'm right so I won't insult you with "Oh Come on" or "We all know".

What's with all these comparisons to Catholic or Mormon? What are we talking about, his race?

Anyway, I was around in Kennedy's day, though fairly young, and I'm a pretty serious historian, and what I see is a unique, up to this point in American history orchestrated campaign by Fox and other right wing media, right wing propaganda tanks, pseudo grass roots organizations like "Citizens for Prosperity", and anonymous but well coordinated emailers (note link here) and crazy or cynical bloggers -- all of which has become "the news" for a huge segment of the population -- probably less than, but close to a half.

The trouble is, 99% or more of what we know is second hand, and that can't be helped no matter how hard one tries, and most of us aren't even trying, but reading or listening to whatever we happen to read or listen to without questioning it, and thinking if gives us a pretty good idea of what's going on. Up til now, my reading is that we've had a balance of institutions, which we never as a people consciously planned or designed, not so great that we, e.g., consistently elected the best people for president, but giving us a close enough view of reality that we would not do anything as bad as what the Germans did to themselves in the 1930s. I think we've depended on luck, however, and can't take that for granted any more, which is part of why I've tried (feebly so far as I'm barely keeping solvent while working 80 hrs a week) to create a "truth project" (http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/).

Whatever our ideologies, I think we all have a stake in not merely being clever in distinguishing truth seeking from manipulation -- that will never be adequate -- but in structuring the flow of information such that we have some hope of really understanding what's going on. Scientific institutions managed to do that, and that is more key to their success than a particular way of doing experiments called "the scientific method". I think they have built up a methodology that works, as long as there actually is a reality to be observed (Hence history really does make progress, while literary criticism has no such common reality so it runs around in circles).

In what is happening to us politically, there is a reality to be observed though we are a long long way from being able to observe it with any confidence.

Passing Comment on Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism

2011-08-12T18:09:00.001-07:00

It's a terrible flimsy book. It has the tone of a book that set out to prove one thing, selecting whatever seems to support the thesis and ignoring those that don't; it is not a book that explores an issue to see where the facts will lead. It is nauseatingly dishonest. Goldman says he really doesn't mean Nazis, that they are a special case, yet all most people know of the book is the title and the cover with its smiley face with a Hitler moustache

Part of the problem is that Goldberg takes Fascists at their word -- I can't think of a fascist movement that did not start out wooing some segment of the disenfranchised; often the jobless & the bitter. They were the people who were up for grabs. So they start out saying they're for the little people, but the talk is also dominated by ranting about the people they hate: the foreigners, the intellectuals; the people who aren't "regular folks".

Also, Fascists, as well as totalitarians of the left, should be largely judged by their tactics, which always include "divide and conquer": promote hatred between ethnic groups (Hitler), purges based on ideological purity (Stalin); promote the idea that most of the world is ready to squash your nation (Hitler, Stalin); hatred of an elite that does not have that much real power, but can be portrayed as feeling superior to the regular folks (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot).

From comment section: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/12/health-care-law-individual-mandate-ruling_n_925507.html

Corporations Can Serve as Made-to-order Scapegoats the Rich and Irresponsible

2011-08-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

Corporations can do one thing that people can't do: disappear (without actual pain or death) taking with them the responsibilities for decisions that the PEOPLE running the corporations made. They can go bankrupt turning thousands of pensions into smoke without the actual decision makers suffering a loss in credit rating. Or they can threaten to dissolve, making pensions go up in smoke, and then accept a counteroffer from the government to "restructure" carrying forward a limited set of its obligations -- e.g. the pension plans could be halved.

One reason for greater irresponsibility on Wall Street is, I believe, the change from traders making money by investing their own money, and as an adjunct, advising others, to the salaried trader, making more money in the form of a salary than most of the old traders could dream of by "managing" other people's money. They get commissions and bonuses when stocks and bonds increase in "value", and the is no consequence to them (save a short stint of unimployment in the worst case) if the "value" evaporates over night. When the trading corp. goes out of business, those victimized by reckless decisions have no "person" to sue to get their money back because it was handed across an unbreachable wall to the salaried traders. One thing that facilitated this change was drastic reduction in the upper tax brackets over the last 30 years. It was in the past impractical to make that sort of money in the form of salary. Maybe that made some sense. Maybe it is a "moral hazard" for a corporation to be able to throw such sums of money over a wall (to the corporation's chief decision makers) where it is forever out of claims for "mere malpractice" -- only proof of criminality by the salary receivers can provide a remedy.

The simplest type of corporation is an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) because limitation of liability is the one universal feature of corporations.

NOTE: "Scapegoat" is used here in the traditional sense, not the modern more abstract sense: I.e. the company that is liquidated is like the biblical scapegoat:

Throughout the year and on the Day of Atonement, the record of all the sins of the Israelites was transferred to the Tabernacle by the blood of the sacrifices. On the Day of Atonement, the tabernacle was cleansed of all the accumulated sins by the ritual described in Leviticus 16. At that time the high priest confesses the accumulated sins of the Children of Israel to the scapegoat which is then sent into the desert wilderness. The Tabernacle and the Children of Israel were thus cleansed of sin. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoat)

Works just fine for the perpetrators, but doesn't do much for the victims.

On the "Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism"

2011-08-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

An opinion piece that just came out in Forbes recently "New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism" cites an article published in "the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing" by "Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models."

The editorial is written by "James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute" and the implication is that it summarizes Spencer's 15 page article.

Problems I have in accepting this:

The "peer-reviewed journal" has been in existence for 3 years, publishing once a year. It is "open access" and writers must pay to have their articles published. Its subject is the extremely general topic of gathering data from a distance via passive wave sensing, radar, etc. There is no indication of special ability to judge a climatological article.
The 567 word editorial contains the phrase "alarmist computer models" eleven times, one each of "alarmist climate models" "alarmist global warming theory", "alarmist" and "alarmism". These phrases and words and their repetitions make up 7% of the words in the text -- 6% consists of just repetitions of "alarmist computer models". If you ignore all that and just look for the argument, it is frankly hard to follow. E.g. "the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted." I can't help but wonder whether the writer is really snowing the reader with a lot of impressive sounding words and it not trying to be as clear as possible.
I also tried reading the original article by Roy Spencer (more on him later), and in my opinion it is more dense with obscure and equations than most other articles I've examined by people whose primary field is climatology. The main conclusion is that the article doesn't really scream out Conclusive Proof Global Warming a Hoax. Rather it, like probably hundreds of peer reviewed articles, looks at a subset the same NASA data that everyone discussing satellite findings has to use, applies a theoretical model of unknown value, certainly contested by some, and concludes that more of the sun's energy is being reflected back into space than we would expect based on some studies that support AGW.

We live in a very different news environment that of, say, 20 years ago. It is much more dominated by opinion pieces by people with no claim to being investigators trying to get at the truth, and no reputation along those lines to worry about. We used to pick up the newspaper, and know what part of it was reporting, and what part was the "opinion" or editorial page, and having sampled that section, most of us knew what to expect, and that editorials took all sorts of wild positions and should be taken with a grain of salt. Even looking this article up in Forbes online, I see nothing to nothing to distinguish it from straight reporting which it definitely is not.

Also, aside from the quality of the article, there was a time when one could look at a headline (outside of the hysterical tabloids), and expect it to reasonably represent the case made by the article, so even by skimming the headlines we could get reasonable idea of what is happening and what is being said by credible sources at a given time.

Here we have, with the apparent authority of Forbes magazine, a piece by lawyer and propagandist for a "Think Tank" that in the past worked with tobacco companies to combat perceptions of the dangers "second hand smoke", making a screed of an argument based on a "peer reviewed" paper with less than sterling credentials that presents a much more ambiguous case than the Forbes piece represents, topped with a headline that claims far more than the article does, and tries to make it sound like the study has NASA support whereas it is just one of many analyses of NASA data most of which draw a different conclusion.

Towards the end the Forbes writer writes "Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth’s atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict". This is the worst sort of misleading spin. Why? Because the hundreds if not thousands of peer-reviewed articles that, taken together, support AGW, all use real world data usually in combination with one or more models, no more nor less than the article cited.

Development of the WWW - a Challenge to government hating revisionists

2011-08-09T20:58:00.000-07:00

I wrote a version of the following on BloggingHeads.tv in response to one of those comments I've been hearing lately belittling the government's role in developing the Internet.

You really don't know what you're talking about here. I've noticed this "The Internet wasn't a product of the government" business becoming a regular talking point maybe just in the last few months.

I know what the Internet was like in 1996, not to mention in the late 80s, and I know what AOL was like, as well as Microsoft's attempts at serving up networking. It was basically everyone going to one central place, which tried to set up various club rooms, and it was looking rather successful until the Internet hit it like a tidal wave.

w.r.t. ohreally's obseration: "And not just any government. Commie European goverments at that!"

Sorry, this is not true. European Standards Organizations tried to unite into one big mother of all standards organizations, and proclaimed that something called OSI was the future. For years (late 80s and early 90s) the computer industry was sure that OSI was going to be the universal infrastructure, but it too was made mostly moot by the Internet.

The internet's claim to fame was its ability to set up a peer-to-peer network that could scale to any size. Microsoft and AOL showed no sign of an attempt to do this. I think they kind of liked the centralized model as opposed to an anarchic super foundation of world wide networking. [OSI was supposed to solve that problem but remained, I think, still too dependent on big central stations probably the influence of how telecom systems looked at the time].

The internet was created by some strange bedfellows -- the Defense department setting up a growing "backbone network" while spreading money around to universities, where long haired hackers tried out idea after idea. It was the beginning of the sort of collaboration that lead to Linux. Someone would think of a way to solve some technical problem, or make something work better, and write an RFC, generally just a few pages long, about solving that one problem. You would search in vain for anything like RFCs in the planning for OSI. An RFC was a "Request For Comments", and there were periodic meetings, virtual or face to face where the RFCs were discussed and either adopted or not.

Another essential piece was the UNIX operating system and the C and later C++ language. Each was originally written by one or 2 people and had a cleanness that reflected that. Together, they made small computers (for those days), the size that a University *department* could own, or own several of, that created a friendlier program development environment than anyone had seen before on these cheap (for the time) machines that could support several, or up to a few dozen, people writing programs on the new interactive terminals, sharing their work across a well organized and flexible file disk system suitable for decentralized work.

Where did UNIX and C come from? From the "Telephone company", AT&T, a massive regulated monopoly -- they and the government negotiated how much money they could make -- almost a part of the government, which paid hundreds of scientists to carry out pure and semi-pure research. Other byproducts include the transistor and the laser, and the astronomical discovery that led to understanding the expanding universe. I once met a Bell Labs scientist who specialized in liver metabolism. This is not how normal companies, obsessed with quarterly profits do things.

The status of UNIX and C was very peculiar. Due to its special status, AT&T could not sell software, but any University could get a copy for the cost of the tapes. Soon, universities started brewing their own highly improved versions of UNIX which were fed back to Bell Labs. At some point in the early 80s, as AT&T was being "deregulated" (strange word for its being chopped up into separate regional companies and one central R&D entity), and this led to a lifting of the ban on selling UNIX, which had grown into a really superior development environment (esp. for research and engineering, not for accounting).

At this point, the high end version of the PC, the "workstation" with the best and biggest visual displays ever seen, made to be used by one engineer were spawned by a coming together of ex-Bell Labs peoples, ex-university computer hackers, and the corporate infrastructure of Silicon Valley, which had grown fat off of government aerospace contracts.

Just to step aside for a moment, this is all very quirky. At one point, the strange regulated nature of the AT&T monopoly played a necessary role. Later, their deregulation played another essential role. Colonels and pot smoking UC Berkeley students collaborated. It doesn't add up to a really clean case for any ideology, but it is something maybe a Burkean conservative could love the way Burke loved the English Common Law.

Another powerful thing, I think, was the system of regular "USENIX" (UNIX User's group) conferences where corporate, university, and maybe sometimes military people got together to trade stories of the latest neat thing they had done with UNIX and C. A lot of ideas were freely promulgated in a sort of "gift" economy, or "marketplace of ideas", with the sort of push and pull and feedbacks that Hayek was fond of.

So in the 1990s you had the hardware built on AT&T's transistors, developed to a high degree by both computer companies serving normal markets, and aerospace electronics companies; you had the culmination of 10 years of guys thinking about what a world wide network would look like; you had great advances in how much data could be pumped over a wire, and later over glass fiber using lasers, you had laser printers for quickly developed handsome documentation. At the end of this cycle, prior to commercialization, the WWW and browser were created (ancestors of Firefox, Chrome, IE,..), and use of networked computing for collaboration among scientists of all types (no longer just computer scientists) physicists, chemists, and the folks mapping the human genome created a subculture of people doing networked computing and communication through email and jointly maintained databases.

This is your mere infrastructure, without which the Internet we know today would have been unthinkable

Some of the Best and Worst Reporting on the Oslo Norway Massacres

2011-07-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

BloggingHeads.tv had an excellent conversation online between Michael B. Dougherty of The American Conservative and Michelle Goldman (distinctly liberal and feminist) of the Daily Beast and other venues. It is at http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/37669.
These are just two earnest people grappling together over what to make of such an event and looking a bit shocked and grief-stricken. One of the shocking things to these two was how coherently he wrote (though with a good bit of lifting of passages from other works). He seemed nothing like the obviously insane shooter of Congress Rep. Giffords. Dougherty (who admits he or his periodical are quoted by the apparent mass killer Breivik), says based of the first fragments he got of Breivik's saying or writing, he did not believe he was a "Christian Fundamentalist", and apparently Dougherty was right despite part of Breivik's manifesto indicating that part of his dream was a "Christian monoculture". The two seemed to agree that, besides Muslims, he seemed obsessed with a sense of "emasculation" by the feminist culture.

Meanwhile, HotAir.com, which was founded "to provide content and analysis you can't get anywhere else on a daily basis" has next to nothing to say about the whole thing. There only piece on it was titled "Norway, with a substantial rate of gun ownership, is normally noted for non-violence". Right, a hundred schoolchildren gunned down at camp provides such a nice segue to a reminder of their theories that the more guns, the less crime. But the main theme of the article was "Well you can just bet that the liberals will be whining for gun control and more civility". Better to make a preemptive strike on liberals reacting to what they haven't said yet. Once you let them speak you then have to argue with real people rather than strawmen, which is always a pain in the ass.

I've been cruising a lot of new media lately, and intend to attempt some regular coverage and commentary.

My Take

2011-07-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

I've tried this a few times before, but here goes.

I am strongly influenced by the view of Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice, that

People should get the fruits of their labor (though what that means is less obvious than some think).
There is such a thing as justice in distribution, and it is a lot less arguable when dealing with the very young who haven't yet "earned" or "deserved" very much.
"The greatest good to the greatest number" cannot be totally ignored.

He says none of these can be completely ignored, and there is no obvious way to balance them. (He is also very conscious of the need for dignity and freedom, but the three points come mostly from thinking about justice in terms of possessions.).

He also is wary of the effort to design a "perfect system". Ideas of justice at least from Bentham to Rawls have had a strong tendency to go in that direction. Maybe it seems like that's the whole point of thinking about justice in such a global way. We stand back and look at the whole world, and think, argue, think more, and maybe come up with something. And the urge to "do something" comes, we are still "standing back" and looking at the globe as if we were God, saying "how to fix this". And I think that is where Sen (and I) see things going wrong.

However, rather than being purely philosophical, he points out (or asserts at any rate) that there is an overwhelming amount of injustice in one of the three senses that can be addressed with very little harm to the other two.

To my best understanding, there are around a billion people in the world living in the direst poverty, making $1 a day or less. He points out that basic education, in the poorest countries, is cheap, because you train people in those countries (or provinces) to to the teaching and they don't demand that much income. Somehow we often seem to prefer building infrastructure, which can be as expensive to do in the poorest countries and in the richest.

Besides this sort of discussion which might inform decisions on justice in any imaginable, or past, present, or future, world of human beings, we must look at the world as it is here and now, and this reveals some very special characteristics unlike anything seen in the past. In more then one way, I see a means to make things better in the form of a window that may be open for only a short while.

In a very short time (maybe a few decades or generations), we could very well have too many people for the Earth's resources to support. Technology could continue to mitigate this danger in various ways (cf. the "Green Revolution"), but it cannot do so forever.
The poorest, least educated people have the most children.
Countries that have become well educated, especially where the women are educated, have tended to drastically reduce birthrate. An interesting example is Iran. Much is said about high birthrates among Muslims, but Iran has a low birthrate like that of a European nation (In the 80s, after the revolution, they had a "baby boom" but that is over now). Iran gives us something to think about if we consider Muslim high birthrate to be inevitable.

[To be continued]

"They All Do It (Distort the News)" "The New York Times is Notorious"

2011-07-21T08:43:00.000-07:00

This is running through my head since I was listening to a conversation on the Radio. The guest is discussing the Murdoch media, giving an example of a story that was spun in a ridiculous way to attack Gordon Brown (the last UK Prime Minister).

A woman called in sounding agitated saying (see title), and "If you know something about a story and read the NY Times coverage you just won't recognize it." A question I'd have asked her is 'what is the objective source she's been reading that gives her some basis for saying the NY Times coverages is distorted?' Granted, the NY Times is "notorious" in the sense that a large percentage (maybe around half, maybe more) incessantly says that the NY Times is notorious for distorting the news. If so many people say it then that's a sort of notoriety by definition. But we can be sure that nothing like that number of people actually reads the Times, much less reads the Times, and has access somehow to the raw facts making them qualified to make that judgement.

Obviously she is hearing a version of the news different from what is in the Times. But on what basis does she have such confidence in her version?

On what basis does anyone have confidence in their version?

How do I know what I think I know? I think my version of reality is fairly well grounded -- granted, I may be wrong about some pretty significant things, and I must always ask the question "How can I be more sure? Or perhaps find my errors and discard them?" To many people, the answer seems as simple as turning to their favorite news source and saying, "See, this is what's really happening so obviously you have it all wrong."

Does anyone have an answer? I have a few. But I've had enough exposure to the the sources I think that woman listens to to know that counterarguments to everything I might say have been given to her and repeated over and over again. No matter which side you are on, you might be able to see a valid way to get out of the mess, so I want to engage people with different versions of world political reality from mine. Mostly what both sides are doing is name-calling. Except some people are trying to discover what's really going on and report it. I really believe there are a lot of people like that, but what's my basis for saying they're hear rather than there?

Please do comment.

Response to "Western insensitivity causes terror"

2011-07-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a response to a comment that was made w.r.t. a BloggingHeads.TV conversation video (or "diavlog" as they call it) -- the "diavlog" was:
Lessons Learned: Terrorism and Politics (David Schanzer & Eli Lake

The audio conversation made slight reference to the idea that public burnings of the Koran and the like actually impede the struggle against violent Islamic fundamentalism.

Part of the comment to which I was responding was - "Semantic games like this underscore how flimsy this 'Western insensitivity causes terror' silliness from the left actually is."

Silliness indeed. This is the classic straw-man technique, "as seen on TV" (FOX especially), the right wing commentator gives an idiotic characterization of what "liberals" think, then rants about the stupidity of the stupid non-quote that he invented. Note the impressive prologue to the non-quote "Semantic games like this underscore how flimsy ...". Not bad, I have to admit. Could have been written by an English major.

I don't believe one "liberal" in a hundred would agree to such a stupid statement as "Western insensitivity causes terror". This is just idiotic Ann Coulter style right wing slander.

Now, do you think everything has exactly one cause? If there was a violent insane drunk in a bar waving a gun, and someone shouts "Hey you a**hole, I f**ed your sister" and the guy gets an enraged look and pulls the trigger, would you go screaming "liberal apologist" to me if I said to the shouter (who wasn't the one shot, as is likely to be the case), "That wasn't helpful".

You've seen the movie where the crazed guy is holding hostages and the hostage negotiator is talking to him real carefully. Would you call the negotiator a "liberal a**hole" because of that?

The particular people who slash random people's throats to prove they're serious and then fly planes into the WTC are beyond the efficacy of any sort of tactful interaction -- the only thing possible is to kill or disable them. But the Muslim population as a whole has divided attitudes and beliefs, and so can be like an individual who may go in more than one possible way.

There really are Muslims like some of those in Egypt, etc., who are just mad that there is no normal economic life in their country, and the main model for what they're looking for is the West, and plenty of them think about what Mohammad said maybe once a week, and the rest of the week are concerned about getting by somehow, or getting their kids education or whatever. If you read How to Break a Terrorist by Matthew Alexander, who got the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq tracked down and killed, he got to one guy by getting medical attention that his wife badly needed. That is clearly impossible in your cartoon world of uniformly woman-hating Muslim men.

Now, as to Schanzer and Lake's wondering where this growing hate and uniform lumping together of anything Muslim comes from? A great deal of where people get their ideas is not from anything you would recognize as even "new media"; it's stuff like emails that are designed to look like they happened to come from a friend of a friend.

I wrote a piece on the general phenomenon (one of several actually) called "My Not-Really Right-Wing Mom and her Adventures in Email-Land".

and a specific Muslim related example "RE: "Mass Muslim Marriage in Gaza 450 Grooms Wed GIRLS Under Ten In Gaza" and there are just scores of such emails out there including all the ones that "prove" Obama is Muslim.

Fear and Uncertainty Started with '08 Election and Just Gets Worse and Worse

2011-07-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

Posted to Salon.com (re http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/07/08/us_economy_obama_1/index.html)

It began with the lies that we might elect a president who was a secret Muslim, who "pals around with terrorists", the nice innuendos making the linkage "Community Organizer" == kinda like Acorn == "Eager to help White-Slavers" .... And in mainstream media, that he's a Marxist for God's sake!
If I even considered the lies that my retired parents get in their email-box every day (http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-not-really-right-wing-mom-and-her.html) that they, bright moderate people most of their lives, need me to debunk with a 5 minute look on the web, or if I believed Liberals are really Fascists, that the Obama campaign logo was adapted from some Nazi SS thing, or believed half the WSJ editorials, or the crap that shows up on dozens of right wing blogs, or the crap that shows up when the right wing "minute men" invade the comments sections of other blogs and news sites.
If I believed all that, would I think this is a good time to start a business? To buy a new home even at an incredible bargain rate (with my savings cut by 1/3-1/2 in the '08 crash).
Would I even need this debt ceiling thing to give me an extra push, not to mention two years of remarkable natural disasters, an oil gusher in the Gulf, and extreme uncertainty about what all that "Arab Spring" stuff means, and the driving up again of oil prices caused by that.

Hayek vs Hayek vs Von Mises

2011-07-10T16:54:00.000-07:00

Hayek was in my view not nuts enough, or at least The Road to Serfdom isn't (his views might have gotten more "fundamentalist" later). E.g. quoting The Road to Serfdom:
“The preservation of competition [is not] incompatible with an extensive system of social services — so long as the organization of these services is not designed in such a way as to make competition ineffective over wide fields.” and "There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision."
see http://eisenhowersocialist.blogspot.com/2010/07/was-hayek-secret-eisenhower-socialist.html
In the actual book, Hayek seemed to me like someone worrying about reasonable things to worry about though possibly not taking sufficient account of the fact that the England of 1945, which inspired some of his dread, had just been at war for 6 years and escaped by the skin of their teeth.
The Road to Serfdom is, I think, more iconic because of its title, and because of the Readers Digest condensed version that reads more like the 10-minute version of Atlas Shrugged then like the original book, but had a circulation of perhaps 8 million. I can't help thinking that many people who speak of TRTS with reverence either read the Readers Digest version or knew someone who did.
There is also, by the way, a COMIC BOOK version which was published in the Saturday Evening Post, and made into a pamphlet by General Electric. (See http://whatwasthecoldwar.blogspot.com/2010/07/illustrated-comic-book-in-fact-road-to.html)
Von Mises is another matter. Anyone who spends so much time developing his own special epistemology is, like Ayn Rand, up to no good (She wrote a whole book on "Objectivist Epistemology"). And his whole system, as I understand it, stands upon one or 2 supposedly "self evident" and incontrovertible facts, so I am not surprised about Michelle Bachmann and her "beach reading".

More on my sad state PLUS Trickle up Economics.

2011-06-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

So, I'm trying to figure out what to make of this blogging business. What probably drives me the most is that possibility of helping the state of the world in some way. Yes, that long, long, long shot. If you buy lottery tickets, you forfeit your right to make fun of me (in my opinion).

Also, there's the possibility of getting in stimulating conversation with someone -- not as long a shot, though it hasn't worked out so far.

I thought I was getting a real handle on something that's been distorting our politics, as reported in My Not-Really Right-Wing Mom and her Adventures in Email-Land. I actually set out, quixotically you might think, (and the results support that characterization) to try to alert someone with the ability to do something about it, such as the NPR "On the Media" program, and various "debunking" bloggers like Snopes and less well known folks. I tried floating a "plan of attack" to various people, of which Detailed Thoughts on Possibility of Unmasking Phoney-Folksy (and full of clever deception) Emails is a pretty good example. I got quite frenzied leading up the the 11/2010 election, but made no impact.

So here we are more than ever, it seems to me, living in a disorienting media and especially "new media" landscape that is largely being played like a violin by super rich folks who are jealous of the power (mostly potential it seems) of democratic government.

My operating principal might be "I'm not so sure we really have to be at war with each other". I thought that about the USSR, and think that now about (vague but hard to do without concepts:) the "West" and the "Islamic world". And I think that about

people like me who think we can and need to quite a few critical things (besides policing and making contracts and intellectual property meaningful) through the agency of democratic government (versus)
people who want a government "small enough to drown in the bathtub" as the radical conservative Grover Norquist likes to say. Want an example of a government small (or maybe not so much small as weak) enough to drown in the bathtub? The Weimar Republic, and it was drowned in the bathtub, and the results were horrific.

Well, you see how I feel about it anyway. I think we should talk about "trickle up economics". Before what we call modernity, Dukes and Barons and Kings and such were vastly richer than the common people, which must have given them some satisfaction. But they had to live in drafty stone castles, and be subject to the black plague and the most awful lingering diseases of old age that started at around age 40 if not earlier, and due to the scarcity (and indivisibility) of positions, had a tendency to murder one another so as not to slip down one rung (or several rungs) of the ladder.

Why do today's richest .01% live so much better lives? Why can they live in climate controlled houses bigger and more comfortable than the old castles? Why do they enjoy all the exotic and wonderful food of the world, fly all over the world, suffer so little from disease; enjoy life to the age of 80 and older, with new hips and knees when they need them? It is because over the last several centuries, the nations of the world (sometimes to the dismay of their 18th, 19th and 20th century counterparts) found ways to educate most; perhaps the vast majority of people, not just the rich few who could have multiple tutors. And the nations invested in public works, and public transportation. The patchwork of private or locally owned roads and bridges gave way to a seamless network of highways.

Also, quite recently, in the U.S. in particular the GI bill and highly subsidized state colleges helped make the technological explosion of the last few decades possible.

It takes a huge educated middle class to create the world we in the most developed countries live today.

That is trickle up economics. The reason I think maybe we won't always have to have the thousands of right wing think tanks and movement and pseudo-movements waging war to bring about a government that can be "drowned in the bathtub" is I believe believe broad based prosperity (not the widening gap between rich and poor of the last several decades) is in everyone's interest, and think there has to be some way this will penetrate even the minds of most of the super-rich, and their political allies.

So for the moment, I've talked myself out of being depressed.

Side issue from a discussion on Bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/36837

2011-06-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

Re: Obama's Afghanistan Speech (Heather Hurlburt & Eli Lake)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diane1976

I have a feeling the US did a lot to create the terrorist threat in the first place.

Well, yes; I think it's pretty much part of a long train of reactions to the ineffective way we handled the Cold War -- relying too exclusively on force. It still pays to read The Ugly American, written by a couple of early cold warriors frustrated just this issue. If spent at least as much time on brilliant individuals promoting U.S. by spreading useful knowledge and appropriate technology, as it did on the sad examples. (the irony nobody remembers is that the "ugly American" was one of the beautiful examples -- he just had a homely face).

We'd have done much better for far less money, and probably prevented 9/11, if we'd gone to Pakistan and Afghanistan and provided alternative educational opportunities to blunt the impact of those Wahabi Arabs with their suitcases full of case setting up Madrassas all over those to nations.

Sadly, it's just easier to sell violence as being done to protect us than to sell any number of more effective approaches that can be cast as "give aways

Another Tangent: "Now that people are finally criticizing Obama"

2011-06-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

Re: The Week in Blog: Pulchritudinous Edition (Bill Scher & Matt Lewis)

chamblee54 wrote on 06/17/2011 at 12:48 PM

Quote:

Mr. Lewis says that the decline in Mr. Bush's popularity started during the Democratic debates in 2003.
I suspect the reason for this decline (in popularity polls, which imo are meaningless) is the fact that we were not greeted as liberators.

Mr Lewis (Matt) was making an analogy with Obama's falling poll numbers coinciding with the emergence(?) of the Republican field of dreamers:

The way I remember it, probably both played a role, and the growing problems in Iraq did a lot to encourage Democratic criticism. Bush had a long second honeymoon, and through the days of "shock and awe", there would be tentative criticism, say, by NPR with retired and semi-retired generals saying "not enough troops", and from day to day hints that "Uh-oh, this is where it stops being a cakewalk", which the next days news seemed to refute. I was frankly hoping, like Thomas Friedman, that this gambit would work out even though I doubted we should have done it in the first place.

As I recall, the looting of the great museum started a widespread "What the hell?" reaction, and for me things fell in place. The Iraq invasion, besides being poorly justified (and simultaneously with the looting we had growing evidence that the "WMD" justification was bogus), was a stunt. The low troop strength was supposed to demonstrate that "Hey, we can do this with one hand tied behind our back, so watch out, Iran, you're next", and a lot of people were starting to die for that stunt.

So in mid-to late '03, with these and other "facts on the ground" coming together, the dam started to break, and some people's pent up anxiety and others' anger from the start at the country's being railroaded into something stupid, started to find voice from the Democratic candidates.

Well, Matt, it's gracious of you to admit to Bill's insight into an alternative explanation (to the "Now, finally someone's leading the way in criticizing Obama" notion).

All in all, a stimulating discussion.

Brief comments on "McCarthyism"

2011-06-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

A tangential contribution to "The Week in Blog" at

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/36856

which featured a conversation between Bill Sher and Matt Lewis mostly on the Republican presidential hopefuls. So, decidedly tangential

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry

Citation, please. The term McCarthyism gets thrown around so often and for so many reasons that it has lost any historical meaning.

Right, McCarthyism had nothing on today's great liberal hating and baiting cult. Read Ted Morgan's Reds, e.g. His very convincing (to me) argument is that there was a great deal of soviet infiltration of the government, esp. from just before the war to a few years after, but Truman had pretty effectively suppressed it, despite Republican claims to the contrary. That most "McCarthyism" had nothing to do with McCarthy, but was the work of HUAC and the Truman administration. That McCarthy was just an arrogant reckless lying power seeker who started by taking already investigated and resolved cases and obscuring this fact with claims that he couldn't reveal the details for fear of endangering some brave patriot informer.

Most American Communists and "fellow travelers" were weeded out by three major waves of disillusionment: First the Stalin "show trials" and other less showy purges which ultimately wiped out most of the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution (See Cohen's Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution). Then the pact with Hitler's Germany, and subsequent (temporary) division of the spoils of Poland. and Third, stories coming from Eastern Europe of the USSR acting as an occupying power not that differently from the Nazis. For some of those very close to it such as Arthur Koestler and George Orwell, the Spanish Revolution was another deep shock, though for most it was remembered as a great moment of the "United Front".

So by the time McCarthy came along there was very little to do but make people pay with decades of blackballing for the mistakes of their youth. There could have been a sane investigation of what people believed and did, and why. It could have been quite illuminating, but we were digesting the shock of the sudden explosion of new "red states" (or rather nations), and the population under communist rule multiplying by a factor of 5 or 10 overnight for reasons we didn't understand, and the bloody and undecided Korean War.

These past episodes can actually tell us something if we would devote to them some of the time most of us seem to spend on "Action" novels and movies to which we are drawn because an autonomous part of our brain is hungry for understanding of the world's evils and dangers.

The Truth About Me

2011-05-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

Would it be helpful for me to attempt a verbal self portrait - to try to say who I am? For some reason, I think it would. I think maybe I've had it with trying to speak "truth" as a disembodied voice. People are drawn to stories, and for better or worse, I think stories often act as keys to unlock our understanding. And a story demands at least one character.

I'm a guy trying to make sense of where the world is headed, and to see if there's any possible way I can make it better. I'm not a billionaire or world leader or an academic superstar or famous. I do not even have a "cult following". It would even be totally reasonable to say my life has been unsuccessful, up to this point, and why should that change?

I live in northwest New Jersey on the border between suburban and rural. The area is hilly and resembles the Catskills or Poconos, have a modest house which is not "underwater" (financially or otherwise), but about half paid for. I live with my wife and cat on Lake Hopatcong, a 6 miles long lake which is pretty built up and full of motorboats in the summer, and I like to kayak in a cheap red plastic job. The big boats sometimes throw up waves that I can catch and ride. Someday maybe I'll join some hiking/biking/kayaking group and get out with some people in a more unspoiled setting, but for now I kayak alone, which is very soothing mentally and very good exercize.

For the last 9 years I've been a struggling online book seller. Before, I was a moderately successful computer software engineer, first doing various projects for Bell Labs, and then working for Amdahl computers and a software company they spun off, troubleshooting and finding and fixing design flaws in their version or UNIX. And I spent a few years as a doctoral candidate in Mathematics at Ohio State University, and believe (and I know colleagues believed), I could have had a career following through on that, so I wasn't driven out by failure but more by utter confusion about what my life was about. A friend from the time said I really wanted to be Harry Seldon, a character from Isaac Asimov's The Second Foundation, about a rather monkish secret group of men who over a few hundred years, give a series of nudges to events (think "butterfly effect"), according to Seldon's plan, which I think minimizes the duration of a "dark age" that he predicted (maybe I'm a little off but it's close enough for giving a sense of the fictional character Harry Seldon). He wasn't quite right; rather I grappled throughout much of my life with the desire to, using language we didn't have back then, in 1981, put a meme out into the world that would "go viral" in such a way as to transform things much for the better. Almost always I was conscious of the seemingly absurd audacity of the idea, and so kept tackling smaller things but never feeling fully engaged with them.

Meanwhile (while pursuing this hard-sciencish academic and engineering path), I was drawn into an avocation of studying history. I got started around 1980 with an account of the "Old Bolsheviks" who dreamt up the Russian Revolution -- and their near extermination under Stalin, and then kept going for a few years of reading on that time and place, trying to get a sense of why it all happened.

Later, I studied in a less intense way, other catastrophes involving totalitarian (such as those of Mao and Hitler)

[to be continued]

Making Sense of "Liberal Fascism" Part 1

2011-04-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

Jonah Goldberg is right on one important count. Liberals (along with most human beings, though he doesn't point that out) tend to use ideological labels without any real clarity about what they mean, simply as pejoratives. The one thing that seems to never change is the bipolar nature of our politics. Republicans may shift from being the party of "America First" (meaning, in the late 30s and very early 40s, "Leave Hitler and the problems of Europe alone) to being the most hawkish and interventionist party, ever since some time around 1950. Democrats may go from being the party of states rights to being the most prone to promote federal projects and universal national social policies.

It is as old as our nation. John C. Calhoun made a radical switch from national centralist to the most extreme of states righters as abolitionism began to grow in the North.

Goldberg declares in his introduction "Angry left-wingers shout that all those to their right ... are fascists. Meanwhile besieged conservatives sit dumbfounded by the nastiness of the slander." He then writes a 487 page specious argument to "prove" that everyone to his left is a fascist.

The book is published in 2007 when the idea of "besieged conservatives" dumbfounded by nastiness seemed and still seems comically inappropriate. To me, it appears that movement conservatives have mined the history of the left in America for tactics, both to scold the left for using them (even if it was mostly decades ago) and to make energetic use of them for the right. For example, the victimhood pose - those poor innocent besieged and dumbfounded conservatives.

The Mises Review of the Ludwig von Mises Institute is surely more hostile to government interventionism (which is almost synonymous with "fascism" as Goldberg used the word). But they do seem to have higher standards of intellectual rigour.

Their review, at http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=326
starts with "Jonah Goldberg has ruined what could have been a valuable book" and concludes "Although Liberal Fascism contains much important information, its many mistakes require that it be used with extreme caution. Jonah Goldberg should acquire a more accurate knowledge of history before he presumes to instruct others." (after several specific examples of what the reviewer calls "howlers").

Goldberg has stretched the word "fascist" so it seems to include any vision of nationwide improvement that might involve the government. For consistency he should probably include public education as a fascist institution, but since the belief in public education isn't limited to liberals that would be inconvenient. He does however give broad hints that vegetarianism and movements against cruelty to animals might be fascist -- at least they were favored by certain Nazis.

No wonder he can speak of "smiley face" fascism, and put a cute smiley button on the cover with a Hitler moustache. He seems not to understand what has made fascism (and Nazism and Stalinism which he coyly stays away from) seem like an abomination to most people. The fact that some liberals have also been too loose in their use of words like "fascist" should not excuse this.

I should make it clear that I am not in the business of determining the true definition of fascism, or essence of fascism. We tend (due, I think, to the structure of our minds) to think that where there is a word, there must be a true meaning of that word. This does not serve us well in the overwhelmingly complex and open-ended world that we live in.

At least if we want to understand what people are saying, we have to accept, for the moment at least, what they mean by words they use -- even, perhaps, how they use a word in a particular context. When the Marines are "looking for a few good men", they don't mean five or six.

Ultimately, if there is any point in talking about, or listening to someone talk about Fascism, aside from trying to describe and analyze some historical events, then we must try to understand what they mean by it. I said "talking about, or listening" but in fact I seen no reason to talk about fascism, because it means too many different things to too many people. And when I hear someone else talking about Fascism, I at best take it with a grain of salt, as their definition of, or more likely their associations with the word are likely to be fuzzy, so generally the use of the word "Fascist" makes me doubt the clarity of the speaker's thinking, or worse, makes me suspect the speaker just uses labels to paint somebody else's philosophy or actions as evil.

What you will do, by calling someone or something Fascist, if the namecalling sticks, is to associate the person or entity with whatever the listener thinks of as fascism". In that spirit, I would like to explore the "meanings" of fascism in the people's minds.

What Goldberg does, basically, is to give "Fascism" a much broader meaning that what people think of when they hear the word, then announce that liberals are fascists, without any attempt to change what people think of when they hear the word.

I want to examine the qualities of fascism neglected by Goldberg, but which will affect what people hear when they hear that "Liberals are Fascists". Maybe few people can articulate these qualities (which is why Goldberg's book is effective) but if they were to analyze all the impressions they have gotten from books and movies, these things would show up

Ideological absolutism:
National or Racial Exclusivity: and a messianic sense of the nation's mission or fate which excludes, or may include the conquering /exterminating of other states, ethnicities, classes, or other excluded groupings.

Notes From the Radical Center

2011-03-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

One problem with the idea of "Radical Center" or "Radical Middle" is that there are too many radical centers. A lot of people have taken up one or the other as a slogan (or "brand", I might say -- but I'd rather not).

The feeling of belonging to one or another side of a momentous conflict is so seductive and feels so natural and right. I think it is a sort of feeling of "coming home" and being "at home". Our true home, however, the environment to which we seem best fitted, is the Stone Age, and we can never get back there.

To be blunt, there is something about being, or thinking we are, on one side of a momentous conflict that tends to make us stupid. It is so much more comfortable to feel one belongs to the Donkey Clan with its long history of standing up to (and sometimes dominating) the Elephant Clan -- or vice versa belonging to the Elephant Clan etc.

Or, belonging to the clan of progress, of throwing off old prejudices or its opposite, the clan of opposition to the insane/wicked/dangerous/... direction that the world will go in if we don't stop and look to the past. I am trying to describe both clans as they would tend to describe themselves (something rarely done), rather than trying to define both sides from within one of them.

So my "standing for the center" is a shorthand for saying I above all distrust, the standard extreme positions the place and time I live in, and would recommend this sort of critical attitude to those in other times and places.

Also, any pure and simple ideology that fails to ask, when in power, "Is this really working?" is likely to become dangerous. So whenever we perceive ideologies tending to make people blind to reality, that is something that should be addressed with passion by my ideal radical centrist.

While I don't believe in "triangulation" and consider it mostly a standard slander that extremists use against centrists, I do put a lot of stock in respectful argument. It may lead to mere compromise, but ideally it may also lead to the right approach for the circumstance. It is almost always safe to say that either side of any broad dichotomy can be right sometimes and wrong other times. Whether it is no taxes and shrinking government vs using government in various ways and someone having to pay for it; whether it is internationalism vs isolationism, or unilateralism vs consensus and alliance building, or freedom vs restraint, I say both sides of every pair is right some of the time, and it is when both sides tend to argue respectfully that we are most likely to see government grow when it is needed in some way, and pruned when functions that are no longer useful; to use force when appropriate and only when appropriate and to balance freedom and independence with the broadest practical spread of general well-being, and sufficiently equal opportunities to not end up with a de facto caste system.

When in place of mutual respect, there is each side demonizing the other, or the sort of "party discipline" that leads to "winner take all" government, then we get a dangerous sort of lurching back and forth between extreme options, and projects that take time and consistency to succede are started and abandoned, causing wasted time, money, and too often lives.

[to be continued?]

"Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy" says Media Research Center

2011-03-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

The Media Research Center (MRC) article titled "Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy" starts off with:

Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start - and no one seems to have noticed.

On April 8, a group he's funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros's goal for such an event is to "establish new international rules" and "reform the currency system." It's all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for "a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order."

The MRC provides a pointer to the event website:

http://ineteconomics.org/initiatives/conferences/bretton-woods

where INET (the Soros organization in charge of it) bills it as simply one in a series of international conferences.

The MRC describes its purpose as "to bring balance to the news media... and neutralize [the impact of "liberal bias"] on the American political scene.

Why then does the MRC deliberately present a yearly conference as the launching of the New World Order?

Soros gave his opinion, in strong terms granted, that the worst worldwide recession in several decades revealed a need for a reorganization of the global financial system.

But it goes way beyond spin to say, as MRC does that he "wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system." and "In two short weeks, he is going to start and no one seems to have noticed."

Why is this event "unreported"? Because it is a conference of 200 mostly academic economists, with no apparent representation by actual world leaders, which is going to generate a lot of presentations world leaders, if they take the time, may or may not find persuasive.

George Soros has taken some bold actions, but to spread the fear that he can "reorganize the global financial system" goes way way beyond bias. It is systematic misrepresentation.

In the 1980s, the supposedly "left wing" Soros set up organizations in the ex Warsaw pact countries to assist them in making the transition to personal freedom and free trade. He named the central organization of all those he set up after Karl Popper's book title "The Open Society and its Enemies". Soros is deeply indebted to Popper, who in the 1940s joined with Friedrich Hayek and other intellectuals in warning against totalitarian systems -- explicitly naming the Soviet Union in this class, as well as Nazi Germany.

Soros believes the financial system, like our highway system needs a system of rules to avoid spinning out of control. After the great Ponzi scheme-like bubble that ended in the 2008 crash, why do so many people start yelling "Marxist" whenever they hear this?

If the financial system can be reformed in a useful way the reform would have to be international in scope. Otherwise those who want to profit from financial bubbles can simply shop for the country with the loosest regulations. We can go crazy when an international group talks about trying to harmonize the various currencies and have some rules to keep speculation from turning into con atristry, but the financial system is international and there's no escaping that.

Reply to Mona Charen (National Review Online) on "Obama’s Selective Anger"

2011-03-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

[Mona Charen's opinion piece contrasts a recent event, the slaying of an Israeli settler family in, I think, the West Bank (to which the President showed insufficient outrage in her opinion) with the reaction with the strong protests made to Israel when a major West Bank settlement project was announced on the day the Israeli prime minister visited the U.S.]

If you think Obama ignores Muslim extremist violence, or for that matter the "death cult [of Palestinian extremists and madmen]" I suggest reading or rereading some of what he said before a large mostly Muslim audience in Cairo:

"extremists... have killed people of different faiths – more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam..."

"Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve."

"Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed"

"violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered."

"Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist."

It is not so inappropriate to deal with actions like killing families as they sleep mostly with a combination of silent contempt, and force whenever force can serve a purpose. When someone perpetrates a deliberate insult to our polities on the day their prime minister visits the US, a long and forceful telephone conversation seems appropriate. The Israelis are intelligent largely rational people who will pay some attention to what we say.

Does NRO (National Review Online) really not get this?

The Trouble with "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend", Historic Examples

2011-03-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

Arthur Zimmerman, German Foreign Secretary in the 2nd half of World War I might serve as the "poster boy" for troubles with the principal that "The enemy of my enemy if my friend". By inviting Mexico, via telegram, to "enter into an alliance with Germany against the United States in exchange for which she would regain 'her lost territory in Texas...'", he helped to finally bring the U.S. into the conflict. He then played a major role in helping Lenin and a trainload of his followers reach an increasingly unstable Russia, where they did, just as he hoped, push Russia over the brink, practically eliminating the Axis' Eastern front.

Germany lost the war anyway, and Soviet Russia remained its biggest problem throughout most of the rest of the century.

But it took the Cold War to show just how much destruction could be wreaked by this principle. In summary, by cultivating a motley assortment of backward nations as allies against the USSR, we either spread misery, or at least made the U.S. appear responsible for the misery of much of Latin America, the Near East, and Southeast Asia, and saddled countless poor nations with no experience of democracy with far greater powers of destruction than they could ever have developed for themselves.
[to be continues?]

The Image of Nazism in the Minds of My Generation

2011-03-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

My generation was brought up, in the 50s and early 60s, pretty largely on the mythos of World War II movies.
The bad guys in that conflict were presented as a lot of extremely uptight looking guys whose every aspect or act screamed precision -- their hair, their uniforms, their way of speech, constantly affirming their obedience and reverence for the chain of command with "Yes Sir!"s,"Heil Hitler!"s, and elaborate and precise salutes, and scurrying around obeying orders like machines.
What were we told (by example) to do with this vision? Blow it up! Blow up everything in sight! Mow them down! And who was doing all this blowing up and mowing down, but a bunch of rather slovenly, loose-natured guys, with their uniforms rumpled or half-discarded and usually needing a shave and washing-up. Their leaders, all the way to the top of the field command, were generally shown living by a general directive (blow up and mow down), but otherwise, often displaying creativity; not visibly answerable to anyone; often disobeying the letter of command while obeying its spirit, and the general directive. Often, too, the "enemy" was shown with rigid obedience as their Achilles heel.
These movie Nazis were a caricature of authoritarianism, structure, and obedience. Ruthlessness was a somewhat less prominent feature, and sometimes we were ruthless ourselves (though with a certain etiquette about our ruthlessness that the Nazis lacked). Mostly, these mythical visions did not look at what really caused the Germany of the 30s and early 40s to act in such a bizarre and awful way; the structure of the sickness and/or evil that spread through and seized that society. When we did pay attention to other aspects of the "enemy" society, besides their machineline precision, the aspects stressed were extreme ruthlessness and racism.
What narrative could be better calculated to raise a generation like mine? One which celebrated rebellion, and had a simplistic revulsion towards authority and obedience; wanted to, symbolically at least, blow up structure and authority; show ourselves the antitheses of Nazis by acting imaginatively and often anarchically.
There were other ways of reacting to the mythos that we were shown, which could be gone into and rationalized. Obviously some were reacting in different ways than that described, like joining ROTC and/or being obsessed with anti-Communism, or wearing suits and striving for material success -- but there is surely a plausible relation of cause and effect between the narrative and the anarchic side of my generation.
While we bere being taught this mythos of rigid Nazism and the virtue of blowing it up, we were also being taught (more overtly) to revere the flag; to stand up and put our hands over our hearts when the national anthem is played; to wear neat clothes and neat haircuts; to stay in line, elect leaders, and often obey them, once elected. We formed teams and played by rules. But all this, when examined closely, could be reasonably interpreted as just a milder, or more subtle version of the mythos of Nazism that we were presented with, and a large portion of my generation saw it in just that way.

"We Will Shoot More Police in Arizona" and Other Email Idiocy

2011-03-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

Have you seen this picture, accompanied with a caption somewhat like the following?

It has been circulated via chain emails. Is the picture real or photoshopped? There hasn't been a conclusive answer as far as I can tell. One thing that has been demonstrated is that the the caption is untrue in the version I saw. The background is the LA Times complex, which means that whoever added "Picture taken by one of my friends in Phoenix yesterday ..." had to have been lying. This is a pattern I've often noticed with anonymous chain emails. If a picture, or story gets wide circulation, and succeeds in working a lot of people up, then it will get reused, with whatever changes are necessary, the next time there is a news event which it can be fitted to.

It is part of a very big phenomenon I described in My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land. There is also a web site called "My Right Wing Dad" devoted to simply collecting thousands of such emails.

The picture by itself means little or nothing. The signholder could be as uniquely crazy as Jared Loughton (see "Crosshairs, Blood Libel, and Rabid Partisans"); for that matter, it could be a liberal-baiter who wrote the sign himself. It reads like a parody in my opinion, but consider this: if the sign holder was truly one of the protesters, and spent any amount of time displaying it (as opposed to posing once for the picture), why are no other pictures of the same guy. If it represents the views of the marchers, are there pictures of any others with similar messages?

Why does is matter? Why are millions of people passing this stuff around? As to what motivates it, I believe the philosophy goes back at least 30 years to what Terry Dolan, one of the founders of NCPAC, said of their strategy:

"A group like ours could lie through its teeth, and the candidate it helps stays clean.". Washington Post, August 10, 1980 (quoted by Wikipedia).

The power of PACs, and of skunkworks of "dirty tricksters" is truly wondrous.

An indispensable element of these emails, which I've been studying for a couple of years, is the phony folksy lead-in which gives the impression this was just passed along by a "concerned" friend of a friend, not from some junior Machiavelli in a boiler room somewhere.

Various tricks are used to "prove" authenticity, not the least of which is the manufactured outrage -- as in another of the variations cited by http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/azprotest.asp:

I know john personally! THIS IS LEGIT!
The photo was taken at a protest 5/1/10 in Phoenix!

I for one am OUTRAGED by this photo, taken the next day after a Pinal County Sheriffs Deputy was shot by Mexican Drug Runners with an AK-47 just a few miles from my home. THIS CRAP IS TAKING PLACE "IN MY BACKYARD"! YOU PEOPLE in other states Need to shut the hell up, and actually READ THE PROPOSED LAW for yourselves, and NOT LISTEN TO THE RACEBAITERS like Sharpton and OBAMA!

READ IT FOR YOURSELF THEN DECIDE IF IT IS RIGHT OR WRONG!!!!

I have about had enough.

Why do I say "manufactured" outrage? In this case, there is the lie of personal knowledge that the photo was taken in Phoenix when in fact the scene is Los Angeles.

If you are not one of the people who swallows this sort of thing whole, let me just say that these things are effective. They get past peoples skepticism because they seem so amateurish, like somebody just got fed up and in impotent rage, put it all together and sent it out to his or her little informal club of people who exchange interesting emails. But when most of the emails like this I've seen contain elaborate deceptions (See "My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land") it makes more sense to think the composer was interested in changing public opinion for a certain political result, not in sharing their genuine personal outrage as they claim.

NRO Article "The OIC and the Caliphate" by Andrew McCarthy

2011-02-27T09:34:00.000-08:00

My comments on the article at
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/260786/oic-and-caliphate-andrew-c-mccarthy

TO NATIONAL REVIEW IN RESPONSE TO ANDREW C. MCCARTHY ARTICLE
Mr. McCarthy has at least one thing in common with certain mullahs. Sometimes it seems like every other word he says is infidel. Well not exactly, but his version. Approximately half the article consists of dubious claims about what either progressives or "Islam" believes.

It doesn't leave much room for saying what he thinks (aside from what he thinks other people think), and indeed he provides no practical recommendation - the closest he comes is, after ridiculing the idea of a "battle for hearts and minds" (which Gen. Petraeus has shown is essential for winning wars, or at least salvaging them from total catastrophe) ... he tells us that Attaturk's secularization of Turkey was accomplished by "one of those quaint military wars...". Typical innuendo ("That's how a liberal would see it" - apparently); it's easier than giving any clue as to how Attaturk's revolution is a model for anything that is happening today.

The article is full of "Islam this" and "Islam that". OK, "know your enemy" is an important part of conflict, but Mr. McCarthy's sweeping generalities apply to only some parts of the Muslim world, and the more we address the Muslim world as if they are all the enemy of the west, the more they will be driven to unite and really be at total war with the West.

Suppose Mr. McCarthy is right, then what recourse is there? Can we take out the whole Muslim world even if we somehow decided that was the right and moral thing to do? No, we are simply in a quandary with no escape, unless there is to be an apocalypse orchestrated by God.

But he is not right (see article here), and we simply must find and forge ties with the saner elements of the Muslim world, and wage a long fierce but patient struggle to isolate the fanatics who would gladly bring on the apocalypse.

Andrew McCarthy's books include

If we are unaware of the sane and human side of the Islamic world, we will simply remain in an impossible situation with no way of mitigating the worst possibilities of world with 1.5 billion Muslims. Are we forced to choose between the apocalypse and waiting till the tide engulfs us? The following books offer insight into the human side of Islam, and demonstrate that there are effective means of winning the support of non-fanatics.

QUOTE: "There could be a powerful international women's rights movement if only philanthropists would donate as much to real women as to paintings and sculptures of women"
This book has plenty to say the very worst things happening to women in the world. Chapters include "Rule by Rape" and "The Shame of 'Honor'", and it certainly doesn't shy away from misogyny in the Muslim world.
But it doesn't stop there -- with no hope unless maybe the "hope" of converting (or if not that, then what?) 1.5 billion Muslims -- an idea as impossible as it is inhumane, and based on inability to see that there are many Muslim cultures.
Indeed the last chapter, which can be read online, is "Four Steps You Can Take in the Next Ten Minutes."

A True Story that reads like an incredible adventure: In 1993, an unemployed mountain climber, on a mission to climb K2, is separated from his party and becomes lost. After much wandering and nearly dying from exposure he stumbles into a Pakistani village unreachable by road. Villagers take him in and nurse him back to health. Seeing the poverty and illiteracy there, he promises to return in a year and build a school there. He leaves after consulting with locals on what it will take and the cost of materials.
   Needless to say, he cannot build a school by himself, but will bring material and some expertise, and expect the villagers will do most of the work.
   He spends much of the next year soliciting donations from prominent people. After 1,000 letters he gets one check, for the whole amount that he needs, from an electronics entrepreneur and former mountain climber.
In the two years it takes to build one school, a small core of fierce supporters is drawn to Greg Mortenson, the one-time adventurer. But some of these supporters want schools for their own villages. Ultimately, this leads him to found the Central Asia Institute, which has now been responsible for educating over 50,000 Pakistani children, as Mortenson became fluent in many languages, and adept at getting around in the back country.
   One condition for the Central Asia Institute's help in building a school is that "A village must agree to increase girls’ enrollment by 10% a year". "Mortenson believes, as do many experts, that providing education for girls directly helps to lower infant mortality and bring down birth rates—which in turn reduces the ignorance and poverty that help fuel religious extremism."

More than a sequel to Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson has carried his work into Afghanistan, including building a girl's high school in the village of Mullah Omar, head of the Taliban since before 9/11. His organization, which is almost entirely made of of Afghans and Pakistanis, has by now built over 130 schools which are educating 50 thousand students, the majority girls, and has also built community centers for village women. Virtually all the work of the CAI is done, and the decisions are made, by a diverse group of Afghan and Pakistani ex-Mujahadeens, ex-cabdrivers, ex smugglers and warriors and you name it. You definitely see a different side of the 1.5 billion people, and countless different cultures, that call themselves Muslim. Many of these men took on impossible projects so their daughters, and sometimes wives, can be educated. The propaganda that tells us Islam is 100% a horror show is self-defeating and taken to its logical conclusion, can only appeal to those who eagerly await Armageddon. After 200 years of 'Reformation', Catholics and Protestants mostly stopped declaring holy war on eachother (tho in Northern Ireland it lasted almost to the present day). It can and must happen with Islam.

Bangladeshi-born Muhammad Yunus is another believer in improving society by empowering women. In 1973 he was an economics teacher in Tennessee with an American wife. Shortly after Bangladesh became independent, in a time of severe famine, he returned to his newly independent native country.
After some years there founded the Grameen Bank, the original blueprint for "Microlending" which is now a worldwide phenomenon. It started with money out of his own pocket to provide tiny loans to poor villagers, especially women, and has grown and diversified enormously in the last 35 years. The loans must be for specific business purposes (such as buying a supply of bamboo for making stools), and loan recipients are required to belong to support groups, which have helped maintain the extraordinarily high rate of loan repayment.
Yunus is no fan of government programs for the poor, but believes passionately in his trademark form of "social business" which is something in between the normal non-profit, and corporations which are legally obligated to maximize profits no matter what.
Some of Grameen's enterprises have included the "Telephone Ladies" who for a time were likely to be the only owner of a phone (cellular) in a village, and who made the phones available for a fee. Something like the old style payphones that those villages never had -- at a fraction of the cost.
The "Micro Lending" which Yunus made famous, has been imitated by groups all over the world, and I believe the total scale of this kind of operation had gotten into the billions of dollars.

History of the Shiite-Sunni split. Particularly interesting at a time when people believe an email that says the martyr "Imam Ali" flew one of the planes on 9/11 (it turns out Imam Ali was a founding prophet of the Shiites, who died before 800 AD, and so did not live long enough to participate in the 9/11 attacks - see "My Not-Really Right-Wing Mom and her Adventures in Email-Land"

To Take Control of Your Own Destiny, Take Control of How You See the World

2011-02-27T07:29:00.000-08:00

Take Control of How You See the World. Huh? You may ask, or maybe just "easier said than done".

The most common human reaction, when we begin to feel like we have been systematically lied to by the "mainstream" whatever, is to quickly jump ship to some leaky lifeboat of a new system of explaining everything (or at least everything that matters), which, more likely than not, will be more of a deceitful mind-controlling system than the one we started with.

I call this pseudo-skepticism. It might also be called "Out of the frying pot, into the fire". If we drop the assumption that the "new system" will be worse, we can call it an epistemological break.

Cases in point:

France, late 19c: From awe of the king, and belief in the Catholic priests to one system, then another (the French Revolution went through several distinct epistemological breaks, or at least changes in who controlled the center of action, and tried, at least to define truth (their ideology). The last couple of phases involved were most preoccupied with trying to kill off ideological rivals. The epistemological break became so extreme and disorienting that time was redefined: the year was declared to be "Year 0", and a new calendar, abandoning the names of months associated with the old "superstitions" was declared. It did not stop until Napoleon was emperor, which started a new era in which millions would die.
Russia, 1917 and thereafter: From awe of the Tzar, and belief in the Russian Orthodox priests to belief in Marx and Lenin's all-encompassing all-explaining system, and belief in the "Dictatorship of the proletariat", and giving all power to the most ruthless faction so they could nationalize and/or redistribute everything, and ultimately to worship of the new "Red Tzar", Stalin whose power was unimaginably beyond that of the old tzar.
U.S. 1970s: From mainstream Christian to Jim Jones disciple to mass suicide.

In the U.S., we have had plenty of epistemological breaks by one faction or another which separates itself, sometimes physically (or just with mental armour), and goes into their own separate reality. The results are sometimes amusing (in a sad way) but occassionally horrific.

So far, we have been luck not to see a mass stampede of an epistemological break taking the whole nation on some nightmare ride.

Sometimes I use the internet to go in search of people who might be thinking along some of the same lines that I am.

I struggle to find words for a lot of my thoughts. Sometimes a phrase emerges, and I go looking on the internet for instances. One such phrase was the "Echo Chamber Effect" -- I don't think I knew the actual phrase when I tried to put my finger on something that was bothering me -- which lead to a post on this blog, and also an odd relationship with a blogger who always refers to Obama as Il Duce. He had written something about the Echo Chamber Effect before I did. I think he's wildly misguided on most things (at least the ones he talks about on his blog), but we manage to have conversations from time to time.

A wikipedia article on "Echo chamber effect" begins with:

The term "media echo chamber" can refer to any situation in which information, ideas or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission inside an "enclosed" space. Observers of journalism in the mass media describe an echo chamber effect in media discourse. One purveyor of information will make a claim, which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and repeat again (often in an exaggerated or otherwise distorted form) until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true.

My friend, the Christian Libertarian (and I suspect Jonah Goldberg disciple) "The Lurking Vulture" starts off his meditation on the subject with:

In what perhaps may be an apocryphal quote, Pauline Kael is supposed to have said regarding the landslide victory of Richard Nixon over George McGovern in 1972, "I can't believe Nixon won. I don't know anybody who voted for him

From my echo chamber posting:

Part of the point of a "Truth Project" is the hope that people on both sides of many issues - those who aren't active and conscious propagandists at least, really would want to know the truth if it turned out that everything they think is wrong ... if they'd even consider the possibility.

But here is what worries me:

There is something a little special about the internet. If you have to find books and magazines in libraries and bookstores (unless you only go to Islamic bookstores / Christian bookstores / "Radical" bookstores ...) you go to a store and you have to at least walk by books and magazines with other points of view. On the internet, you can go to your favorite blog, and never go anywhere except via links from that blog (or from your other favorite blog).

I have been an autodidact on a number of subjects, especially history. Autodidacts, by coming at a field without being plugged into the culture of the field, sometimes have brilliant insights. There are, however, many more crackpots.

I spent a few years long ago studying mathematics with people on their way to doctorates, and got a real appreciation for pedagogy from that. I'd have gotten nowhere without the culture of professors and textbook writers who have thought deeply about how to pass on the subject.

History was more autodidact-friendly, although an awful lot of autodidact historians have a bug up their ass about some particular obsession, which usually makes for really annoying and not very enlightening historians.

Often the idea of the autodidact serves as a romantic idea that lets us fantasize that we don't need other people.

I found an article,

Autodidactic and Alternative Schooling Meta-Learning

The author has put some deep thought into what makes self-learning work or not work.

I think maybe I will do better to work with google hits on:

google { facilitating self-learning }

(1) Facilitating self-learning or autodidacticism, and (2) the attempt to restructure the world of media(?), and also our cultural biases and practices, so that individuals will have a greater tendency to converge on truths, rather than separating into warring "echo chambers" are, I think, closely related enterprises.

[to be continues]

Back to Truthology: "The Real Truth Project" Needs to Become a Reference Site

2011-02-25T20:12:00.000-08:00

I still believe in the critical need for work on "Practical Epistemology", or maybe I should drop the Latinism and call it Truthology.

A blog should be a small part of that project.

About 15 years ago, I started the web site EarlyRepublic.org, or JMISC.NET (one is a synonym for the other) to explore and try to understand and share understanding of the period around the 1830s, with frequent excursions a couple of decades in either direction. The title page said "Tales of the Early Republic", and I spent a lot of time looking at "miscellaneous" period documents, and, on an email list called "Jacksonian Miscellanies", publishing excerpts from these documents, with some commentary. There were newspaper stories on spontaneous combustion, some very odd poetry, which was welcomed as filler material for newspapers in those days, a dueling manual (A high percentage of "Southern Gentlemen", including many congressmen had fought at least one duel -- in the majority of cases nobody died though injuries were common). I got to have a mailing list of several hundred people, including many of the best historians of the era. After a year or so I began going to conferences of the leading historians of the era, and in time it seemed to me that around half the people I met there were aware of my work, and very encouraging.

I started out not knowing anything about this period. What it took was a lot of patience, reading historians past and present, but always going back to the original sources when I wanted to make a contribution, finding something that cast a surprising light on things, and putting it into one of my "Jacksonian Miscellanies" posts. And meanwhile, gradually building a encyclopedic framework for jotting down detailed information as I learned of it. What was New York like in 1830? Well for one thing, New York much less than half of Manhattan Island -- not the other way around. What sort of roads existed between Boston and Portsmouth, Maine. When were they first connected by railroad? What were the issues of religious controversy? I built up a file of particular schools and colleges, small town, even particular churches and who had served as minister there and what their politics were. I never knew enough to write a work giving important insights into some particular issue, but could hold my own in conversations with historians.

Ultimately, I need to build up TRTP (The Real Truth Project) to be something like that. And it is mostly too abstract for me to try to deal with the issue of truth in general. If I spent too much time on that plane, I would probably end up building all encompassing ideologies, like those of Karl Marx and Ayn Rand, that in my opinion cause people to lose sight of the real world, with disastrous consequences.

So there will have to be more specific sub-projects, one of which, is to try to map the landscape of America's (especially, and sometimes the world's) wars of ideas.

The resources will be extremely incomplete for some time to come, but I hope there will some useful things from the beginning.

Where to begin? I am going to take a look at "Watcher" organizations that try to map out the vast landscape of organizations characterized as "Right" and "Left". Those who lean more or less "left" have organizations that try to compile a picture of funding sources in the network of organizations on the "right". And vice versa.

E.g., the "Media Matters Action Network" has a section called "Conservative Transparency" (http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency)which collects information on "conservative" or "right" leaning organizations of all sorts.

I am developing my own understanding of it at this link.

Other groups that watch and analyze other groups include:

Source Watch at http://www.sourcewatch.org ("left").
Capital Research Center at http://www.capitalresearch.org/ ("right").

OK, that's a wrap - a not insignificant start I hope.

"Freedom Through Violence?" a Chapter from Gene Sharp's From Dictatorship to Democracy

2011-02-24T21:17:00.000-08:00

The Entire book is available for download from a link on this page:

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html

I won't say much, but would like to draw attention to the last paragraph:

Even when successful, guerrilla struggles often have significant long-term negative structural consequences.... If the guerrillas should finally succeed, the resulting new regime is often more dictatorial than its predecessor due to the centralizing impact of the expanded military forces and the weakening or destruction of the society’s independent groups and institutions during the struggle — bodies that are vital in establishing and maintaining a democratic society.

What is to be done [when faced with dictatorship]? The obvious possibilities
seem useless. Constitutional and legal barriers, judicial decisions,
and public opinion are normally ignored by dictators. Under-
standably, reacting to the brutalities, torture, disappearances, and
killings, people often have concluded that only violence can end a
dictatorship. Angry victims have sometimes organized to fight the
brutal dictators with whatever violent and military capacity they
could muster, despite the odds being against them. These people
have often fought bravely, at great cost in suffering and lives. Their
accomplishments have sometimes been remarkable, but they rarely
have won freedom. Violent rebellions can trigger brutal repression
that frequently leaves the populace more helpless than before.
      Whatever the merits of the violent option, however, one point
is clear. By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very
type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superior-
ity. The dictators are equipped to apply violence overwhelmingly.
However long or briefly these democrats can continue, eventually
the harsh military realities usually become inescapable. The dictators
almost always have superiority in military hardware, ammunition,
transportation, and the size of military forces. Despite bravery, the
democrats are (almost always) no match.
        When conventional military rebellion is recognized as unrealis-
tic, some dissidents then favor guerrilla warfare. However, guerrilla
warfare rarely, if ever, benefits the oppressed population or ushers in
a democracy. Guerrilla warfare is no obvious solution, particularly
given the very strong tendency toward immense casualties among
one’s own people. The technique is no guarantor against failure,
despite supporting theory and strategic analyses, and sometimes
international backing. Guerrilla struggles often last a very long
time. Civilian populations are often displaced by the ruling gov-
ernment, with immense human suffering and social dislocation.
     Even when successful, guerrilla struggles often have signifi-
cant long-term negative structural consequences. Immediately, the
attacked regime becomes more dictatorial as a result of its coun-
termeasures. If the guerrillas should finally succeed, the resulting
new regime is often more dictatorial than its predecessor due to the
centralizing impact of the expanded military forces and the weaken-
ing or destruction of the society’s independent groups and institu-
tions during the struggle — bodies that are vital in establishing and
maintaining a democratic society. Persons hostile to dictatorships
should look for another option.

Has Dr. Gene Sharp, "Clausewitz of Nonviolence" Been the Biggest Inspiration and Guide for Nonviolent Revolutions for 3 Decades?

2011-02-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

Has Dr. Gene Sharp, "Clausewitz of Nonviolence" Been the Biggest Inspiration and Guide for Nonviolent Revolutions for 3 Decades?

That's the question I've been asking myself since this morning, when I first heard of him in an NPR interview? He has written perhaps a dozen or more books, most of which can be downloaded online. And the movements in Libya and Egyptian may have learned (largely by way of Serbians who struggled against Slobodan Milosevic) their style of peaceful regime change from Sharp.

Dr. Sharp, who gives much credit to Gandhi, created the Albert Einstein Institution which has actively trained and advised people all over the world who are trying to free themselves, and has written "how to" books like 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action. (The Iranian regime accused their own pro-democracy activists of using over 100 of the 198 methods).

It is too much for me to digest right now, so I'll just suggest a couple of links. One is the a New York Times article which provides a concise but detailed account of the workings of the Egyptian revolution so far: A Tunisian-Egyptian Link That Shook Arab History.
You can read a very recent short interview with Sharp on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty., or a longer article on him here.
Oddly, there are a couple of very interesting reflections on Sharp in Scientific American (or their web site at least) by science journalist John Horgan:

How George W. Bush rejected my "Sharp" idea for countering terrorism

and

Egypt's revolution vindicates Gene Sharp's theory of nonviolent activism.

The first SciAm article points out that Sharp was once funded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) who subsequently, unfortunately, ignored him.

This DARPA episode, and the Bush admin's rejection of Horgan's "outside the box" idea of distributing Sharp's writings to "fundamentalist Muslims and others who might be at risk of becoming terrorists" -- these two cases illustrate, I think, the self-defeating attitude looked at in "(What Was the Cold War?) The Man With Only a Hammer".

To me, it seems very important that Dr. Sharp does not advocate non-violence for its "virtuousness", but rather because it is most effective. He says

Peaceful protest is best, he says — not for any moral reason, but because violence provokes autocrats to crack down. “If you fight with violence,” Mr. Sharp said, “you are fighting with your enemy’s best weapon, and you may be a brave but dead hero.”

I might add that the nonviolent approach as pursued in Egypt, with all the discipline and meticulous planning it requires complements the forging of a new structure to replace the oppressive regime, while violent revolutions too often leave things in chaos, which then is replaced by a regime which is either naturally oppressive, or, in the course of turning the chaos into something orderly becomes oppressive.

At the moment, Gene Sharp's books prices have gone into the stratosphere, as they were mostly out of print, and he has suddenly gotten so much attention.

It may be best to see what free downloads are available at The Albert Einstein Institution web page.

The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement by Eric Heubeck

2011-02-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement (http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/FreeCongressEssay.html)

by Eric Heubeck

This seems to have been basically Paul Weyrich's vision for movement conservativism from around 2000. It was written with the guidance of Weyrich by Eric Heubeck. It used to be posted on the Free Congress Foundation / Center for Cultural Conservativism website till they decided not to give it so much exposure, so now we must get it from a snapshot archived at http://web.archive.org/ on 7/13/01.

Let me just throw out a few quotes to whet your appetite:

This essay is based on the belief that the truth of an idea is not the primary reason for its acceptance. Far more important is the energy and dedication of the idea's promoters--in other words, the individuals composing a social or political movement

... conservatives have failed to devote the proper amount of energy to developing an alternative cultural world-view opposed to the dominant leftist one... (well, that's no longer true)

Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them.

We will attack the very legitimacy of the Left. We will not give them a moment's rest. We will endeavor to prove that the Left does not deserve to hold sway over the heart and mind of a single American.

We will use guerrilla tactics to undermine the legitimacy of the dominant regime. We will take advantage of every available opportunity to spread the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with the existing state of affairs. For example, we could have every member of the movement put a bumper sticker on his car that says something to the effect of "Public Education is Rotten; Homeschool Your Kids." This will change nobody's mind immediately; no one will choose to stop sending his children to public schools immediately after seeing such a bumper sticker; but it will raise awareness and consciousness that there is a problem. Most of all, it will contribute to a vague sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction with existing society.

In terms of our long term prospects, because we will be seen as a purely defensive movement, not interested in imposing our views on anyone, only interested in being left alone, we will surely gain the sympathy of the public.

Our goal should be to teach the cultural elite, and all people, to find meaning in their lives outside of politics. (I think it is clear from the context that he means their cultural elite, rather than the cultural elite. It's like Fox saying "This media does this/that -- oh but we're not the media"

Movement Must Serve as a Force of Social Intimidation in Its Intermediate Stage

We must create a countervailing force that is just as adept as the Left at intimidating people and institutions that are used as tools of left-wing activism but are not ideologically committed, such as Hollywood celebrities, multinational corporations, and university administrators. We must be feared, so that they will think twice before opening their mouths.

We must always operate based on this cardinal principle: Leftists are never morally responsible for the evil they commit; ... We must learn to treat leftists as natural disasters or rabid dogs.

We will initially operate according to the belief that it is more important to win over the elites (or create a new, better one) than to build up a mass movement. Furthermore, it is more important to have a few impassioned members than a large number of largely indifferent members.
(Right, that was the distinction Lenin made between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks - the Mensheviks wanted to put up with all that useless rabble).

The new movement must be, in part, exclusive and elite. It must not be afraid to pass along a body of knowledge that is not readily accessible to and understandable by everyone. The strong appeal of a feeling of exclusivity and superiority will give our members a reason to endure the slings and arrows of popular disapproval.

The New Traditionalist movement will appeal to the masses, but not immediately. The ideas of the masses never come from the masses.

We must recognize that literature and philosophy do not appeal to the masses. This is why we must develop ways to spread our philosophy using non-rational means--especially the moving image.

There must be a common repository of books and movies that everyone in our movement is familiar with and inspired by, so anyone can quote a line that will be recognized by everyone else. Young people already do this, only with the wrong movies, songs, and other products of popular culture. ... The films Braveheart and Gladiator are possible examples from current popular culture

There is no medium more conducive to propagandistic purposes than the moving image .... A skillfully produced motion picture or television documentary has ... the power to bypass not only the old prejudices ..., but also the innate skepticism of the viewer, the resistance to new ideas. Rational arguments simply do not have this power, and all arguments made in print tend to appeal to the rational, critical faculties of the mind to a greater or lesser degree.

Movement Must Be Based on the Transmission of Ideas, Not Their Creation

This movement is not about the creation of ideas, it is about the transmission and dissemination of ideas. (Hence endless repetition)

Ideas ... do not have an impact in direct proportion to the truth they contain. (This is certainly true and realistic, in a realpolitik sort of way, but if the person who says this is shocked, shocked, that the other side is using propaganda rather than rational argument, we ought to have a good laugh over that).

The Movement Must Be Willing to Appear Obnoxious

Our movement must be highly provocative. The thing we have most to fear is that we will be ignored. (I'm sure Sol Alinski couldn't have said it better).

We need more people with fire in the belly, and we need a message that attracts those kinds of people. As Plato said, "madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human."

Putting the debate in terms of mere freedom, the "leave us alone" mentality, does not inspire apocalyptic fervor.

The rest concerns the setting up of elite study groups, and how to attract the sort of lukewarm fellow travellers, by means of book clubs, and such devices, so that new candidates for the real workers can be spotted and recruited.

Our people must learn to have contempt and scorn for the wider society, and reject it in all ways. This will never happen so long as our people seek accommodation with it.

It is important that we form fully well-rounded people who feel that they are lacking nothing that the dominant leftist culture can offer them. For example, sports leagues will be included for young people in the intermediate stage, in order to bring in people who might not otherwise be interested in joining.

Focus on The Big Short by Michael Lewis

2011-02-18T17:50:00.000-08:00

After reading Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker, I doubt we could find a better guide to just how we got into the current economic mess. The book was put together from interviews with investors who made a lot of money in the crash. They saw what was rotten about the system, and some at first tried to issue a warning to stop it, but, that being futile, they saw what holes trillions of dollars worth of wealth were about to pour out of, and were there with buckets catching some of it. I take no position on whether we should admire them or not, but at least one could say they knew in a concrete way what was going on, and later were willing to talk about it. To start reading the 1st chapter, click on small rectangle below which will say "Full Screen View" when you point your cursor at it.

The Hayne-Webster Debate, an Experiment in Hypertext Style

2011-02-17T20:14:00.000-08:00

Debate is at http://jmisc.net/hwdebate.htm in case you want to skip the following:

For once, I'd like to step back from arguing with bits and pieces of misinformation (or what appears so to me), and look at the question of truth per se, or what steps we might take to reconstruct the world so we have a better chance of getting at the truth, and so acting better in our individual and collective self interest. No idea of a "master plan" of "reconstructing" the world should be tried. It would be like repeating the mistakes of Lenin and his successors. Rather, perhaps we could all become familiar with practices that nudge the world just a tiny bit in the right direction. Practices like not putting up with as much imprecise, vague, and just plain emotion driven language as we have to every day.

10 or 15 years ago, I tried to make a little demonstration of one small approach.

For many years, I maintained and expanded a large web site to collect all sorts of thoughts, analysis, and original source material related to the U.S. in the early 19th century.

One of the most successful things I did was to try to put a "zoom lens" on one formidable historical document, the record of the Hayne-Webster debate. At least I've heard from quite a few professors who assigned it for class reading.

In an introductory essay, I tried to explain my vision of "A New Connection Between Original and Secondary Texts"

I also claim, and hope to demonstrate, that when authors learn the art of using online media, it will change the way history is experienced by the reader. When reading secondary sources, those who wish will immediately glance at the source material which the author has cited, thus benefit from a specialist's reflections on the material, without spending hours trapped in the author's head. One can go out; walk around in the original text, and breath, and think, freely. One can say "I see what he/she means, but I would read it a little differently." Reading can become an active, creative, thought process.

If you want to know more, just go to the page at http://jmisc.net/hwdebate.htm.

"Obama & The Human Stain" (from Canada Free Press)

2011-02-16T11:46:00.000-08:00

This Jewel can be found at http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/33270.
It is very badly argued in my opinion, but someone I care about was much taken with it, so I feel a need to say something about it.

The whole title is "Obama & The Human Stain: Or How Political Correctness Gave America a Con-Man President". I was wondering how much notice this publication got, so did these checks:
Google { "Canada Free Press" } ==> 245,000 hits (up from 207,000 earlier today)
         Their motto is "Because without America there is no Free World"
Google { "Obama & The Human Stain" } ==> 883 hits

Well, the article is only 2 days old. It is posted in full on Lucianne.com (with enthusiastic discussion) and has several links from sodahead.com. Obviously these are two of many, but are one's I'm familiar with (the person I care about frequently reads Lucianne.com).

The major claims:
Claim 1: (implied) Obama owes his election to "PC". This comes in the form of a question: Could Barack have been elected president without the doctrine known as Political Correctness? The author's answer, without giving any reasons is that the "vast majority of Americans" know this. Oh, before giving that answer, he asked rhetorically "Or is simply to ask the question an unforgkivable act of racism?". This illustrates, in my opinion, how people who read only right wing news sources get their ideas about how "liberals" think. Rush Limbaugh, for one, spends more time telling listeners what Liberals think, than he does telling what he thinks.
   Claim 2: "Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism", and it was invented (much as the evil southerners played by Lloyd Bridges and Burl Ives invented sharecropping and the KKK in just one little conversation in the mini-series Roots) by the Frankfurt School, a bunch of disappointed Marxists, in the 1920s and 30s. It turns out that the slogan "Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism" goes back about 20 years, maybe to Pat Buchanan, or perhaps he got it from someone earlier. The best I can make of this is that "Political Correctness" has come to stand for all sorts of things, and especially Post-modernism, which the Frankfurt was very instrumental in bringing about. I have never known PC to stand for anything other than an often excessive avoidance of old pejorative labels or doctrines (such as inherent mental or moral differences between races) that have come to be associated with past horrors like the Nazi Holocaust.
    Claim 3: Obama is a "malignant narcissist" which is a very bad thing.

In Philip Roth's The Human Stain, a professor wonders out loud whether 2 students registered for his class, who never showed up, were real or "spooks". Because they just happen to be black unbenownst to the professor, he is duly crucified. The writer tends to make a lot of associations that don't add up to anything; e.g., he seems to think The Human Stain is particularly relevant because both Barack Obama and the professor (mischevously and un-PC-ishly named Coleman Silk) are of mixed race (the professor's part-black ancestry is unknown, which is the Great irony(!!) of the book).

The article writer manages to work in, in the space of 2 pages, four bits of seeming erudition meant, I think, to impress, but in my opinion, one after the other fails to serve any real purpose in the essay. There is

Philip Roth's "tome" as he calls it. OK the book address PC, which the writer claims is the key to Obama's election, and it has a mixed race protagonist. But the discussion of The Human Stain does nothing to support the claim about Obama and PC. I'm afraid it may just be emotionally gratifying because Human Stain free-associates with "black" as well as with "bad". Also a mixed race professor happens to get crucified, hoisted on his own petard, which I expect the author would like to see happen to Obama.
He also introduces Melville's The Confidence Man, only as far I can see as a fancy way to call Obama a Con-man. He even shows off that he knows something about a real like case that help to inspire the book. But does he give any example of Obama acting as a con-man? No; much less relate any such example to Melville's subject. He just says "like with Obama, the scam could not be pulled off without well-meaning but fatuously (that will send some people to the dictionary!) naive people ready to be conned. Did he fail to notice that in many if not most cases, the big con is based on the greed of the victim, who thinks he has by some luck been given a secret advantage over other people. No, in his circle to mention that would be politically incorrect, because greed is good.
We are to be impressed again by her knowledge of the Frankford School, though no more is said about them than could be found in a one volume encyclopedia. It's just that they were evil Marxists, and they invented PC. I'm old enough to have observed PC evolving -- the awkward stumbling over "man vs person", chairwoman or chairperson, "black", "Persons of color", Afro-Americans, and most recently, "slaves" must be replaced with "Enslaved persons". It can go too far, and people on occasion get hurt, as they get hurt by other sometimes useful things, like automobiles. If it is all totally dismissed with contempt, we will again see Sambo and big-nosed ugly caricatures of Jews in our editorial cartoons. Won't that be great? The point seems to be I suppose that everybody was cowed from being critical of Obama out of "PC" because he was black. That's not the way I remember it. I've never seen the image of a presidential candidate and later president so trashed. The thing one will get crucified for is saying there is the least element of race in it when Obama is called an "alien"; when it is said that he is obsessed with colonialism and vengefulness towards white, "proven" by writings of his father, for whom he seems to have faint and mixed feelings despite the title of the book, if one actually reads it.
Finally, we have an "expert" on narcissism, Sam Vaknin who sees signs of this "full-blown mental disorder" in Obama. Perhaps I should go further into this, but not today I'm afraid.

Finally, in a summary, the piece breaks down into pure unsupported raving, and says "he must be impeached from office for the survival of the American Republic".

OK, but can you tell us why, and avoid saying "everybody knows"?

"WEDDING RING BEING REPAIRED, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WATCH"?

2011-02-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

Another email making the rounds, or it was last December (2010) courtesy "MyRightWingDad.com":

In a press conference last week Obama was not
wearing his wedding ring nor was he wearing his watch.

When noticed, his staff said his ring was out for repairs.

No reason was given for the missing watch.

So it’s just a coincidence that Muslims are forbidden
from wearing jewelry during the month of Ramadan???

Can't possibly be that, because although he hasn't gone to a
Christian church service since entering the White House, we
know he's a committed Christian 'cause he said so during the campaign.

Check http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/ramadan.asp
to see why every word of it is false, starting with the fact that there is no Muslim prohibition on wearing jewelry during Ramadan.

USPS New 44-Cent Stamp Celebrates a Muslim holiday

2011-02-13T17:36:00.000-08:00

Claims like this have been around, especially in the forwarded email channel at least twice. One such forwarded email says

President Obama has directed the United States Postal Service to REMEMBER and HONOR the EID MUSLIM holiday season with a new commemorative 44-Cent First Class Holiday Postage Stamp.

See http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/2011/01/fw-do-not-buy.html http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/2011/01/fw-do-not-buy.html for the full email.

What is the truth? There are a couple of excuses for saying this has a grain of truth. One is that anybody can send off a picture to Zazzle.com, say of your new baby, or cat, or some mysterious Arabic writing, and Zazzle.com will produce a real usable stamp. E.g.

which was the image used in the email. See http://www.snopes.com/politics/stamps/eidstamp.asp.

The email says it is the second time a stamp honoring an Islamic holiday has been issued, leaving the reader to assume Obama "ordered" the previous one.

The truth can be checked at

http://www.usps.com/news/2001/philatelic/sr01_054.htm

It was issued on September 1, 2001 which turned out to be very bad timing. If any president was responsible it was the then current president GW Bush.

How widespread is this misinformation?
Google { "Stamp Celebrates a Muslim holiday" } ==> 33,000 results
I assume mine will be among them sortly, but see how long it takes you to find one of these links that isn't repeating the story as gospel.

I have been checking out emails like this for a couple of years, since my mother started forwarding them to me. Nearly all the ones she forwards contains elaborate deceptions just as this one does (there are a lot of jokey emails that don't claim to reveal some new fact, but she sends the ones that do make some shocking claim).

My observations of such emails are summarized in My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land.

On the article "Social Scientist Sees Bias Within" by JOHN TIERNEY

2011-02-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

On the article "Social Scientist Sees Bias Within" by JOHN TIERNEY.

I don't find any problem with the article per se, though I suspect some people are reading too much into it. The gist of the article is the vast majority of social scientists are to say the least, liberal. The social scientist of the title says:

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

IMHO, sometimes an organization does exercize bias towards a group of people, and sometimes there are alternative explanations.

The article points out that

Larry Summers, then president of Harvard, was ostracized in 2005 for wondering publicly whether the preponderance of male professors in some top math and science departments might be due partly to the larger variance in I.Q. scores among men (meaning there are more men at the very high and very low ends). The outrage ultimately led to his resignation.

Possibly a huge overreaction (there could be important facts in the case I don't know), Anyway, I suppose the Obama administration is to be commended for taking him on as director of the National Economic Council? Summers is about to return to his Harvard professorship (no longer as president) because if he stayed away any longer he would lose his tenure.

Why would social scientists be liberal? What is the point of being a social scientist unless it has some potential application. What would such applications look like? Maybe tending in the direction of "social engineering"? Anyway, the discipline seems to be largely about understanding, and dare I say, the diversity of human culture. It is not about a "good vs evil" world view, which I think might put off many varieties of conservative.

[to be continued?]

"Oh Why Can't a Climatologist Be More like an Economist?"

2011-02-12T19:51:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but you'll just have to imagine this being sung by Rex Harrison to the tune of "Oh Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?"

Honest to God, this is a bit obscure if you're not a heavy reader of climate blogs, but Ross R. McKitrick, one of the most vocal critics of the idea that global warming is in progress, is largely anthropogenic, and needs to be counteracted, has put out a short paper titled "CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN CLIMATE SCIENCE: SOME PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS FROM AN OUTSIDER" holding economists up as positive role models for climate scientists. He writes:

2. The Key to Intellectual Freedom in Economics: No Society Statements
I am a member of the American and Canadian Economic Associations. The AEA Constitution commits it to (emphasis added):
The encouragement of perfect freedom of economic discussion. The Association as such will take no partisan attitude, nor will it commit its members to any position on practical economic questions.
Likewise the CEA constitution forbids issuing statements:
The Association has for its object the advancement of economic knowledge through the encouragement of study and research... and the furtherance of free and informed discussion of economic questions. The Association as such will not assume a partisan position upon any question of practical politics nor commit its members to any position thereupon.
Economists believe that freedom of discussion requires a prohibition on our major societies issuing position statements. There is wisdom in this!

It seems to me this is making a virtue out of necessity, since there is in fact such a lack of consensus among economics at least on any topic beyond Economics 101 that all Hell would break out if such associations issued synopses of the findings of the economics community. More remarkably, he adds:

Suppose the International Monetary Fund (IMF) created an economics version of the IPCC, which proceeded to issue an Assessment Report and Summary for Policymakers every five years that was promoted as the consensus view of what “every mainstream economist believes.” Suppose further that the IMF was committed to one particular school of economic thought, such as New Keynesianism, that they ensured that all the lead authors of the IMF report were dedicated New Keynesians, and that the report inevitably concluded the New Keynesians are right and their critics are wrong (or do not even exist). And finally, suppose that the IMF report was sponsored and endorsed by government departments who benefited by promotion of New Keynesian ideas, and that major funding agencies and university oversight agencies also began to endorse, support and promulgate the views in the IMF report.

It should be obvious that all of this would, over time, degrade the intellectual climate in the economics profession. It would do so even if New Keynesianism is true—and moreso otherwise. Members of the research community would be forced to respond to the warped incentives created by such a dominant institution by embracing, or at least paying lip service to, New Keynesianism. Over time it would be costlier and costlier to be publicly identified as a critic of New Keynesianism, and as critics became marginalized by political forces the IMF’s declaration of a “consensus” would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This almost made me lose my breakfast. The IMF is famous or infamous for its stong-armed promotion of what has been called the "Washington Consensus", the author of which describes as "motherhood and apple pie" and "not worth debating".

This author, John Williamson, might find some real consensus (at least among non-Marxists) w.r.t. his original statement, but in actuality, "Washington Consensus" has come to stand for a far more extreme set of principals which (sometimes misapplied) by the IMF and World Bank have dictated to various countries in economic distress, sometimes heavy modification of their very constitutions. Moreover, there is now much questioning of these principals, including by Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank president and Nobel Laureate, who sees the two organizations (IMF and WB) as having done much to wreck the economies of those countries.

Economists as models for not trying to impose dubious theories on the world? Reeeally!?

Bill Freeza (RealClearpolitics) says 'Egypt Needs Free Enterprise More Than Democracy'

2011-02-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

Bill Freeza (RealClearpolitics) says 'Egypt Needs Free Enterprise More Than Democracy'

This much makes some sense:

~~The deepest malady afflicting the Egyptian people, and most other underdeveloped countries for that matter, is not lack of the vote.~~ It's the inability to open a bakery without spending two years hacking and bribing your way through a bureaucracy designed to stomp on independent businesses. It's the impossibility of getting clear title to the land your home is built on. It's the indignity of being told that you can't sell vegetables without a fistful of permits issued by corrupt and inaccessible political appointees. It's the dashed dreams that come from earning a college degree then finding out that the only jobs available are government jobs reserved for the well-connected.

Sorry - I don't grant that this is necessarily the "deepest malady". But extreme corruption in general, and regulation and licensing requirements, when their main effect is to garner bribes are serious impediments to a good life based on market principles. Just how "the impossibility of getting clear title to the land your home is built on" fits in seems unclear. The 19th century American South had a big problem with conflicting titles, which stemmed from weak government which left it to individuals to survey and define land plots.

This "market capitalism before democracy" may have worked in some cases, but it has also left terrible wreckage, and unstable and/or dangerous nations in its wake. In the case of Russia, 1990-91 was the high point of democracy and freedom of expression. From there it was all downhill as a swarm of economists descended on the country, with the message, reinforced by international pressure, that the whole economic system must shift from government to private hands at a breakneck pace; that to fail to do this would result in the loss of their burgeoning democracy. The opposite happened; as giant state enterprises were put in the hand of the few individuals who were most well placed (often due to being party hacks or KGB agents in the past), an oligarchy developed capable of concentrating everything, including the media, in the hands of a few people who inevitably became kingmakers. This is the origin of the resurgent Russia that worries us today, which is far from an ideal democracy.

Suggested sources:

"Ohio Mother is Modern Day Rosa Parks". Not Quite.

2011-02-07T18:58:00.000-08:00

"Ohio Mother is Modern Day Rosa Parks"
So says Kyle Olson, writing for Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com.

I would expect most people to see something admirable about a poor woman being willing to break the law (a school residency requirement) to get her children into good schools.

Still, comparison to Rosa Parks seems like hyperbole, and an example of what I often see which is the right finding some black person whose views or actions reinforce their ideas, promoting them to the ranks of James Meridith and Martin Luther King, and liberals who don't agree with these assessments must just be racists.

Today's education system is badly in need of a shot of imagination, or perhaps we need a public conversation about what school should mean and aim at. And I am in favour of experiments that may challenge or even sometimes shame the existing public systems. There have been many cases where vouchers and private or charter schools have done remarkable things for children with poor prospects. Today, any such system is put under a microscope. Maybe private enterprise can pull this sort of thing off, but can it do it for a whole nation? Or might today's stellar private schools not scale well, like the model Chinese villages and other model institutions "for show", also in the USSR that convinced so many often intelligent people that Communism was the hope for the future?

Sometimes, when government subcontracts things, I think you get the worst of both worlds. Neither the private armies used by George W. Bush, nor the private prison industry is getting a lot of praise these days. Not to mention for-profit colleges and business schools that take government money.

Our whole education system needs reform. I am very much afraid that, done on a nationwide scale, an arms length education system to which the government gives money but doesn't supervise could be far worse than the system we have now; except perhaps that it might be more responsive to the most demanding parents, but what about the children of other parents? Maybe there is no substitute for taking responsibility for our public institutions and making them work. If that seems like a utopian dream, vouchers as the salvation of our education system seems like one to me.

"Right to the answering machine"?

2011-02-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

This is interesting.

While Stephen L. Carter says, in TheDailyBeast.com, that Egypt Proves Bush (Doctrine) Right, while Ian Fletcher on the Huffington Post writes "The revolts in the Middle East, however they ultimately turn out, are a stunning repudiation of the Bush Doctrine." and continues:

The problem, of course, is that even if democracy is a good thing, shoving it down somebody's throat at gunpoint is extremely likely to make them gag ...

This was first observed 200 years ago, when the armies of revolutionary France tried to "liberate" Germany and only succeeded in convincing the Germans for another 150 years that democracy was an alien and hostile import unsuited for them.

I'm not totally convinced of that piece of analysis, but it does seem rather consistent with reactions in some parts of the Islamic world. Maybe Egypt will, bucking the trend, pull off some sort of "velvet revolution", or maybe the Muslim Brotherhood, grandfather of most of the worst movements in the Muslim world, will seize power, or maybe the current regime will rearrange the chairs and somehow regain equilibrium.

And now, Sarah Palin, who was stumped when asked a couple of years ago what she though of the Bush Doctrine, has this to say:

"We need to find out who was behind all of the turmoil and the revolt and the protests so that good decisions can be made in terms of who we will stand by and support."

"This is that 3 a.m. White House phone call and it seems for many of us trying to get that information from our leader in the White House," ... "It seems that call went right to the answering machine. And nobody has explained to the American public what they know."

"To find out who was behind it"? She can't conceive of its being broadly based and spontaneous? That does fit with a bipolar "War between good and evil" view of the world. The statement just seems incoherent to me, like she just had to have something to say. The administration should just tell the American public (and the world) "what they know", confusing and contradictory as it may be (and possibly dangerous to certain parties). Given how quickly things are moving and changing, does this mean we need an old fashion call-by-call sportscaster (preferably from the days of Radio) in the White House?

I've listened to what Leslie Gelb has been saying; not sure I like all of it, but this:

President Obama has got to learn the fundamental rule of dealing with careening crises: State your basic principles and then shut up publicly! (Meaning, just boringly repeat your mantra daily.)

has merit.

Huffington Post and BigGovernment.com Agree (sort of) on: Christina Aguilera's National Anthem

2011-02-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

From the Huffington Post:

WATCH: Christina Aguilera Totally Messes Up National Anthem

From BigGovernment.com (Hollywood annex):

Christina Aguilera: The NFL Knows How to Honor America, Hollywood Can’t Even Remember the Words

The only difference is, John Nolte, the BigGovernment/BigHollywood (hmm, I wonder if Breitbart and McDonalds wil come to blows over ownership of the the word "Big"?) seems to think it proves something about the Hollywood liberal mentality; he concludes: "What a contrast. No wonder the NFL and country music continue to thrive as DVD sales sink and pop music collapses". Apparently the NFL has nothing to do with who sings the National Anthem at the Superbowl.

What the heck is the 'truth to power” “linear model of policy making'

2011-02-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

I was just adding my 2 cents worth on http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/06/lisbon-workshop-on-reconciliation-part-v-the-science-is-not-settled/#comment-39029 (on Judith Curry's Climate, etc. Blog) w.r.t. her statement : 'Settled science is important politically if you are pursing the “truth to power” linear model of policy making.'

Can anyone offer any elaboration on this?

My comment:

Google { “truth to power” “linear model of policy making” } ==> 8 hits
3 are hits on this article; 2 others are quotes of this article.
When I hear the phrase “truth to power” (often on right wing blogs though I realize it has a longer history with the left), I reach for my nerf-ball bat.
Your (J.Curry’s) statement ‘Settled science is important politically if you are pursing the “truth to power” linear model of policy making. This is a bad model for something as complex and uncertain as the climate system.’
is intriguing, but I have a lingering suspicion it may be a sort of strawman to hold up to ridicule.
Anyway, please elaborate.
P.S. removing the word “linear” I get 38 hits. Just “Truth to power strategy” gets 4 hits, so I doubt I am alone in being somewhat mystified.

I expect there will be more hits in the near future due to these comments of mine.

David Stockman (Reagan's 1st budget director) on Bank Deregulation (Part of Reagan Centennial hoopla)

2011-02-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

Worth quoting, from an interview at:
http://www.salon.com/news/the_real_reagan/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2011/02/04/reagan_war_on_poverty

What do you think about the thesis that the deregulatory impulses that received such a huge boost under Reagan contributed to Wall Street's recklessness ... and laid the groundwork for the financial crisis?
"The only thing that was seriously deregulated during the Reagan era was banks, and that was the wrong thing to deregulate. Surface transport deregulation was started by Carter and we finished it, airline deregulation was already done by the time we came in. And those were the right things to do. But in the case of financial institutions, banks are not free enterprise businesses, they are wards of states, they have the right to create money out of thin air. They have to be regulated, and they have to be kept out of the speculative use of deposits that are guaranteed by the taxpayer, by the FDIC. And in the '90s, the Clinton administration joined in on this, with the elimination of Glass-Steagall and all of the other remaining restraints on the banking system. That was a tragic, terrible error; it was a confusion of the free market with a set of institutions that are inherently dangerous. And as a result of bad monetary policy interacting with the deregulation of depository banking you created a witches' brew that ended up predictably in the meltdown of 2008."

Obama Selling out the Brits' Nuclear Secrets?

2011-02-05T15:55:00.000-08:00

That's the conclusion drawn from the latest Wikileaks releases, at least on countless right wing blogs and a few newspapers including the UK Daily Telegraph and New York Daily News.

google {wikileaks trident start treaty} gets 33,000+ hits though the story only broke today, and I can find almost nothing among these hits but stories of blogs and a few newspapers that take for granted that a terrible betrayal has occurred.

The key allegation is that the U.S. in Start negotions with Russia promised to provide the serial number of every Trident missile the US provides to Britain.

I've had a hard time tracking down any actual source documents but here, perhaps is the source of that key assertion:

URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/london-wikileaks/8305116/GENEVA-AGREED-STATEMENTS-MEETING.html
13. (S) The second was an agreed statement on the transfer of Tridents II SLBMs to the United Kingdom. Begin text: Document of the Russian side February 9, 2010 Agreed Statement On the movement of SLBM "Trident-II" missiles, transferred by the US to equip the Navy of Great Britain The Parties agree that, in order to increase transparency in relation to the use of "Trident-II" SLBMs, transferred by the United States of America to equip the Navy of Great Britain, the United States of America shall provide notification to the Russian Federation about the time of such transfer, as well as the unique identifier and the location of each of the transferred missiles. The Parties agree that, upon conclusion of the life cycle of "Trident-II" SLBMs transferred by the United States of America to equip the Navy of Great Britain, the United States of America will send notification to the Russian Federation about the time and method of elimination, as well as the unique identifier for each of the transferred missiles.

To me this sounds like not revealing British secrets but promising information on future actions by the U.S. Government. Read carefully: "upon conclusion of the life cycle of "Trident-II" SLBMs transferred by the United States of America to equip the Navy of Great Britain, the United States of America will send notification to the Russian Federation about the time and method of elimination, as well as the unique identifier for each of the transferred missiles."

It is also claimed in the Telegraph and elsewhere that the US requested UK permission to share information of the UK's nuclear program and were refused. They then clearly imply that we did what the UK refused to authorize. For them to make this claim, I would assume there is some cable or cables in which the US requested permission to share something about the UK's capabilities and they said no. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is no relation whatsoever between whatever the UK asked us not to share, and any info about missiles we might give to the UK at some time time in the future. It sounds as though they are at the moment our nukes. And no nuclear treaty could fail to address future plans by either the US or Russia to transfer nuclear weapons to other nations.

If there really was the huge betrayal implied by the Telegraph and other sources, I would expect at the least to hear some statement of disapproval by the Conservative British Prime Minister.

Come Monday (it is Saturday, the first and possibly only day on which this story is being actively circulated), if nobody in any responsible US news source is talking about this, I expect a high proportion of the millions who read these blog stories will conclude it is just the usual coverup by the "MSM" of anything damaging to the liberal cause.

If you doubt this, I hope somebody will take a poll to see how many Americans still believe the Obama admin spent $200 million a day on the recent India trip. I knew someone who was steaming over this (which broke conveniently just before the November election) and pointed out that was hundreds of thousands per day per member of the delegation. Apparently some minor Indian official said something he may well have believed, and that was the whole source of the non-story. What, you never heard of this? It was being peddled by Michelle Bachmann among others.

Again, how many people still believe it? It think it is a question well worth answering and not too challenging for a polling organization operating on more than a shoestring.

This is like many stories I've written about in the past: Millions of people end up believing them, while the "MSM" by ignoring them or being unaware of them is made to look (to these millions of people) like they are the dishonest ones and it doubly feeds the paranoia of a growing segment of the population.

The Real Truth about Hayek's Book: Road to Serfdom

2011-01-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

Never mind the title - I am just poking at the visceral way we are drawn to dramatically phrased promises to reveal "The Real Truth", or something like that, especially with hints that this is just for you, the people who aren't easily duped. I think we are hard-wired that way -- at any rate, I can feel my own blood rising a bit looking at some book title promising to reveal "What they don't want you to know", or "The secret history of X", and in our political debates, whether it's Hayek's book, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascists: the Secret History of the American Left..., An Inconvenient Truth, or The Real Anita Hill, this handy way of getting our attention has been leaned on heavily. I'd hate to have to guess how many books has "secret history" in their title.

And so, F. A. Hayek, writing originally in 1944, and very alarmed, for excellent reasons, at the way the world was going, promised to reveal the counterintuitive (to some people) truth that the shining path to the future that supposedly ran through the abolition of private ownership was a "Road to Serfdom", and that all government "planning" puts us on a slippery slope leading to that "Road to Serfdom". I agree up the the italicized part, but beyond that, have a lot of problems, and I'm afraid so did Hayek. Does a national road system or education system involve this "planning", which, he indicates we must avoid at all costs? Apparently not, since he admits (at least in 1944) that these may be necessary and legitimate. He even says, in this book, at least, that public "safety net" measures - even specifically naming universal health insurance might have a place in a nation that is not on the "road to serfdom".

I would start by saying, in substantial agreement with Hayek: In my opinion all hard core socialists and Communists failed to see that, whatever bad effects the unequal distribution of wealth may have, their alternative: "ownership by the people" was an imaginary construct more suited to mystical Hegelians, Fascists, and Nazis than to supposedly clear thinking hard headed materialist socialists.

But while "peoples ownership" of all property (or even just the "means of production") is a glib and impossible idea, we can and must talk about how the difficult business of making the "peoples' ownership" of our democratic government -- the Res Publica which is the origin of the word "republican" -- to make this "ownership" as real and substantial as possible. Can I demonstrate that this "ownership" is really workable? Not really, not now and maybe never, but I'm pretty positive there is no good alternative to wrestling with what it means to "own" a democracy. And yes, there is no other way of looking at this than as something we have to face collectively.
To be continued, and continued, and continued...

Crosshairs, Blood Libel, and Rabid Partisans

2011-01-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

For anyone who didn't know, the "blood libel" of which Sarah Palin accuses the left-of-Fox media was the claim that Jews used the blood of Christian children in some dark rituals. Naturally it was useful for rousing the populace for an anti-Jewish pogrom. Well, Sarah, there is no dirty spread of rumors about things you never did, being used to drum up a Pogrom against you. This is just people quite openly criticizing you for some things that you did say or do. I haven't found anyone saying you "caused" Jared Loughton to go over the edge outside of some hotheaded nobodies who post things in blog "comments" sections.

Should nobody ever say "this sort of rhetoric is over the top?" Is that so bad that you have to compare your critics to the Cossacks who killed Jews and flattened their villages in old Russia? Several people are actually killed and Congresswoman Giffords has a bullet hole through her head and this is what you think of? Taking preemptive aim at anyone who dares to criticize inflamatory rhetoric.

When the right is criticized for hateful or inflamatory rhetoric, they always point to somebody calling Bush a Fascist or worse. Somebody, yes, but potential presidential candidates and major spokesmen for your movement? Not that I'm aware of, and for what it's worth I don't like it and think they should shut up too.

Are the apologists for looking at races through a rifle gunsight, for "don't retreat, reload" rhetoric, and "fire a fully automated M16" fundraisers, etc. equally ready to defend 60s/70s radicals and radical wannabees who called police "Pigs"? Will they say with equal assurance that that didn't contribute in any way to the rash of cop-killings around that time? Would they jump down the throat of anyone who said "we don't want to hear this sort of abuse"? If a cop-killer was insane would they swear that he could not possibly have been influenced by a climate of hate?

The common complaint on the right is how instantly Palin's gunsight ads, and Jesse Kelly's "Shoot a fully automatic M16" and "help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office" fundraisers. Well, these were very big news when they happenned, and had direct relevance to Giffords so people just thought of them immediately. They didn't have to search the internet as was done to find an unknown liberal saying Giffords was "Dead to him/her" for, of all things, voting against keeping Nancy Pelosi on for a few more days. Google "is dead to me" (WITH the double quotes around it) and see if you can find a case where the implied meaning what "somebody should shoot XYZ".

Charles Krauthammer, January 12 (?) editorial, alluded to three "rabid partisans" who "blame" the recent shooting on Sarah Palin, yet each has made some statement to the effect of "It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members".

People have, however been saying for some time now that the systematic racheting up of anger and hatred, the labeling every progressive as a "fascist" or "traitor", the cartoons that make Obama look like the "Joker" or a vampire (not in one cartoon, but as a regular feature on Michelle Malkin's site) -- these things are apt to inspire some hateful and/or unstable person to violence. So when a horrendous act of violence does occur, and is even aimed at one of the primary targets of such campaigns, people are apt to say "Well, that's what I was afraid of, now can we talk about toning it down?" And people are sincere when they ask that -- it is not an opportunistic pouncing on a chance to launch an attach on conservatives -- an absurd interpretation which the right started promoting the minute someone raised such a point, which is to say almost immediately after the news of the shooting came out.

Anyone listening to the "rabid partisans" on NPR today would have heard a segment in which an expert said the extreme abuse of marijuana combined with paranoia and/or schizophrenia enormously increase the chance of violent action. They are actually looking at this from a variety of different angles because that is what they do.

This is an angry message but there is not the slightest hint that anyone should be the target of violence, nor have I called anyone anything for which violence might be an appropriate response, such as "fascist" or "rabid". And anyone on either side who does this sort of thing is, in my opinion, playing a dangerous game.

On Death and "Death Taxes"

2010-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

By my reading of history, it is very hard to know what strategic move will have the best impact, but, having said that, I don't think I'd mind seeing the tax bill rejected.

I'm much more concerned with framing the issues accurately. George Lakoff excited me at one time, but he needs a shot of James Carville's adreneline or something. As it is, he is putting people to sleep, so let me give it a try.

The inheritance tax is double taxation IF AND ONLY IFF we are a nation of dynasties. The basic philosophy of our tax system is that money is taxed when it changes hands in a meaningful way. Taxing the dead is of course meaningless; no individual is being taxed twice; it is only the dynasty that gets taxed twice. From the point of view of a nation if individuals equal before tha law, the inheritance tax is a tax on having a big pot of money fall into your lap; NOT a tax on dying. To abolish the death tax (and to a lesser extent to drastically weaken it) is to put ourselves on the road to a dynasty based society; i.e. plain old 18th century aristocracy, if we weren't pretty far down that road already.

The Great Harold Lewis Resignation Non-Event.

2010-10-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

I followed the global warming discussions, probably from about 1980 to some time in the 90s -- not very closely mind you -- picking up Scientific American in the Optometrist's office or when I happenned to be in a library -- as it went from "Hey, some people think this" to "Looks rather convincing" to Yeah, but ..." to "Yeah, it's probably true" to "Everybody who can read the literature is pretty convinced". It was a normal scientific debate, it went from speculations to apparent solidity much the same way the continental drift debate went a couple of decades earlier. Now I did, just the other day, see a guy in a ballcap that "Stop Plate Tectonics" (I'm not making this up, as Dave Barry would say, although he would be making it up and I'm not). It wasn't particularly political back then. When it it turn into the supposed giant conspiracy?

Hal (ironic eh?) Lewis may be quite competent for an ex-physics professor of no great distinction who's been retired probably 20 years, or he may be losing his marbles. It's not uncommon at that age for even truly brilliant people to get somewhat obsessed with how bizarrely different the world looks from when they were young and think it's all going to Hell in a hand-basket. Hell it's hard for me to think about "hooking up", and it pains me to hear someone say "one of the only" -- that expressions started about 15 years ago ("One of the few" dammit or yes, you can say "one of only 10" or something like that but "one of the only" sounds meaningless though it is really no more or less idiomatic than expressions I was brought up on.

All I'm saying about Prof. Lewis's resignation is that it's not very newsworthy, and if people are going gaga over it and declaiming "The MSM is suppressing this very important event", it makes me wonder "What's up with that" to coin a phrase.

And when it comes to the big news events that put the "final nail in the coffin of AGW", I've just looked at quite a few of them and each one seemed to depend on weak arguments, or misunderstanding what some scientist said, or the old standby, beating up on Al Gore.

The "Cap and Trade" idea, which has been operating in the northeastern states based on state laws for some years now, is a sort of artificial market. The right to emit X tons of carbon into the atmosphere is no more nor less of an artificial market than all the various forms of "Intellectual Property". It's an idea thought up by people who long ago bought into the idea that markets can make things happen that central planning would make a mess of.

Waste disposal is and always has been problematic for the most simple and obvious sort of market system. If my local government wants to charge me $10 to pick up the TV I want to put on the curb, I'll be tempted to put it in somebody else's dumpster or something. People used to use any old spot in the woods, and probably still do in parts of WV, where I grew up.

Political parties usually lie to get voted into office, not to get voted out. So why are most liberals holding on to the need to do something about global warming? My theory is it's because they believe in it and can't in conscience claim not to. The alternative sounds to me like cartoon logic, like Crabby Appleseed ("rotten to the core") wants to steal all the snow in the world or some such.

Detailed Thoughts on Possibility of Unmasking Phoney-Folksy (and full of clever deception) Emails:

2010-10-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

This is an email to Timothy Jost, who was concerned with how "Death Panel" and other wild myths got spread about the healthcare reform act.

I listened with interest to what you had to say with Julie Rovner on Morning Edition, 9/3. I'm glad you are looking into this matter, but I don't think it is a simple as "People combing the Web found these microchips and saw this implantable medical device registry as an attempt to implant microchips in people," Jost says. "And then the rumor expanded to say that all people who signed up for the public plan that was in that bill would have to have a microchip implanted."

My belief, based on what I've seen, is that these wild rumors get much, and possibly most of their strength from carefully planted disinformation which looks to people like "Email from a friend of a friend". I am 58 years old and have never seen such wide belief in preposterous claims (nearly all of which seem aimed at bringing down the Obama presidency and/or Democrat majority in Congress).

In spring and Summer of 2009, as Town Hall meetings on Health Care were being shouted down all over the country, I started getting emails from my parents which they and their friends seemed to see no reason to doubt.

It is my impression, based on a strong similarity in general approach and content, that a very high proportion of these come from one source or a handful of sources.

There is a website that collects and categorizes these emails, called MyRightWingDad.com

I would like to test that hypothesis but do not have the means -- I work 80 hours a week just to keep my head above water, but if you know of any academic or journalist who might take an interest in this, I'd like to pass along some ideas:

1) Might some kind of textual analysis show a high probability that the emails or many of them, come from the same source? As I said, hundreds can be found archived at MyRightWingDad.com.

2) Part of my hypothesis is that these emails are making a big difference, and if not exposed are likely to have a big impact on the coming election. I believe there are a couple of ways to test this.

A) A simple starting point might to ask people in a poll to list some of the most surprising things they have learned from "new media" sources that aren't being reported by the mainstream media, with a multiple choice question about WHICH sources provided the information (e.g. various categories of blogs, **email forwarded by
a friend**, talk radio, ...).

B) A more difficult but really convincing approach would be with the help of a site that monitors these emails, using much more extensive polling, to determine whether some set of untrue beliefs are more widely held when the claims are being circulated in emails, and to see if they peak and then trail off as the that particular rumor starts making fewer appearances.

If this could be established, then I think it should be possible to find someone to take on the more difficult task of finding the sources. I think they get much of their power from the idea that they are the "people's grapevine" as opposed to all those biased new sources.

Thank you for your work, and any attention you may give this. What I really need is someone with the means (financial/institutional) to do something, or if not that, to find some forum of people some of whom might be able to take action in response to a convincing case.

TRYING TO DEMONSTRATE/EXPOSE MASS PRODUCTION OF "RIGHT WING FORWARD" EMAILS

2010-10-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

This is a brief summary of some things I've been writing on this blog:

I think a good case can be made that a very high volume of political emails -- those that say "Forward to 10 friends if you care anything about this country" are

(1) being churned out en masse, and constantly recycled by a small group of
activists,

(2) are highly reliant on carefully devised deception, and

(3) are having a very large impact on public opinion in the U.S. -- enough to have a major impact on elections.

I also have in mind strategies for learning more about them, so as to get some objective factual data on

(1) how widely they really are read and believed, and

(2) their possible origins.

I believe much of the appeal of "New Media" in which I include these emails, comes from the belief that it is a sort of "people's media" and hence more trustworthy than what is put out by mainstream institutions. That might make these emails, which never reveal who wrote them, particularly vulnerable to exposure, especially to demonstrations that they are full of deliberate cleverly devised deceptions and lies.

This seems to me very urgent. If interested in pursuing this, or knowing more of my rationalle for these conclusions, or even referring me to someone likely to take an interest, write to me: hal@panix.com.

The Latest in Email "News" Madness

2010-10-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

Over the last months, I have tried to shed some light on photographic "proofs" that (1) the President will not salute or make any gesture when the National Anthem is Played, (2) Gaza Palestinians held a mass marraige of 450 grown men to girls under the age of 10, and (3) a couple of Texas Muslim Shopkeepers Posted notice on their store window that they were taking the day off to celebrate the martyrdom on one of the 9/11 suicide hijackers (named "Imam Ali" -- who actually died in the 8th century, not on 9/11/2001).

So what's the latest? Well, there is this claim that "President Obama's finance team and Nancy Pelosi are recommending a 1% transaction tax on all financial transactions.". This is prefaced with
"I checked this out on www.truthorfiction.com and it is mostly TRUE!! This is just astonishing! When are we going to get this IDIOT out ..."
Actually, what "TruthOrFiction" Reports is that there is such a proposal -- NOT that it is being pushed by the Obama Team or Pelosi, but rather "The bill was sponsored (and introduced on 2/23/2010) by Democratic Congressional Representative Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania and says that it is to "establish a fee on transactions which would eliminate the national debt and replace the income tax on individuals.". So the truth is that there is one crackpot Democrat (the bill has only one sponsor) who thinks putting a 1% tax on each and every financial transaction (ATM withdraways, checks, any sale whatsovever ...) will pay off the national debt while allowing income tax to be abolished, which actually, if it were true, would be good news. Nancy Pelosi may have said, back in December 2009 (before it was introduced?) that it "had some merit -- This, according to "Real Clear Politics". If this was introduced in February 2010, and has gone nowhere, why are we hearing about it now? Because it's been so long since it was last floated about that most email recipients will have forgotten about it by now. This is a common tactic. We get links to YouTube videos with no date, denouncing some immigration bill. Why no date? Because it was introduced in 2007 and supported by Bush, and has nothing to do with the present and President Obama.

I should say something about the "Sic-ing the UN or poor Arizona". Yes, the US is complying with a UN resolution for nations to submit statements about their human rights records. Try actually reading the "29-page Universal Periodic Review". It is mostly full of how wonderful American freedoms are. E.g.:

... the most enduring contribution of the United States has been as a political experiment. The principles that all are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights were translated into promises and, with time, encoded into law. These simple but powerful principles have been the foundation upon which we have built the institutions of a modern state that is accountable to its citizens and whose laws are both legitimated by and limited by an enduring commitment to respect the rights of individuals. It is our political system that enables our economy and undergirds our global influence. As President Obama wrote in the preface to the recently published National Security Strategy, "democracy does not merely represent our better angels, it stands in opposition to aggression and injustice, and our support for universal rights is both fundamental to American leadership and a source of our strength in the world."...

Somewhere, it mentions Arizona:

A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.

This is the sole reference to the Arizona Law -- a far cry from inviting the UN to send attack helicoptors to Arizona.

More to come, probably, but I have to stop for now and try to make a living.

"Obama Crotch Salute": Lies, Damned Lies and Right WIng Forwards

2010-10-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

A recent posting on this blog:

"Mass Muslim Marriage in Gaza 450 Grooms Wed GIRLS Under Ten In Gaza"(http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/07/re-mass-muslim-marriage-in-gaza-450.html) illustrated how real news photos can be used to illustrate totally made up stories.

I use the expression "Right Wing Forward" to refer to a phenomenon I explained inMy Not-Really Right-Wing Mom and her Adventures in Email-Land

Of course not all misleading forwarded emails come from right wing, or whatever you would call it, sources.

NPR's "On the Media" radio magazine did a story on false rumor-mongering emails, and (bending over backwards to be "fair-minded", IMHO), they only mentioned a spate of email slurs against Sarah Palin. Such slurs were very much in the news just after the Palin nomination. Still, if there is a well-oiled machine for putting out patently untrue Left Wing attack emails by the hundreds, please show me some evidence.

Re the use of the term "Right Wingers"-- to me, whoever is responsible these emails (not to mention the more extreme blogs) behave more like 60s/70s "Yippees", and they want to tear down existing institutions and traditions, so I am unable to call them conservatives. Frankly, conservativism is something we could use, but there are precious few real conservatives left -- certainly very few to be found in the Republican party.

Anyway, I wanted to show another example of the tactic used in a whole class of emails, of pairing real news photos with made-up stories to which too many people have the reaction"Pictures don't lie" and accept the whole story.

The most recent "Crotch Salute" email consisted of a picture and a one-paragraph preface:

At the Ft. Hood  Memorial Service.

The  Crotch Salute Returns.....

I'm sorry folks, but  is this the turkey that was elected President of our
country?  You  know, the United States of America ?  I do believe that
saluting the  flag goes with that, and also to honor the servicemen who  died, or
is he above that? Shower us all with flowery words and dazzle us  with B.S.
but actions speak louder.

This stinks!!!

and it claims to illustrate the myth that Obama pointedly fails to salute or cross his heart when the national anthem is played.

Supposedly, it shows Obama at the Fort Hood shooting memorial service, but it is the same picture used earlier to make the same claim about a Veterans' Day, 2009 ceremony.

In the previous use of the same picture, the text says:

Subject: Picture from last week's Veterans Day Ceremony
Check out this latest picture from Veterans Day Ceremony, 11/11/09, Arlington National Cemetery. It may be the National Anthem or the Flag being presented, but EVERYBODY in the picture is either saluting or has his hand over the HEART ... except ONE.

You form your own opinion.

The picture has been traced to newsreel footage of Obama standing with his hands folded in front of him (hence "crotch salute"), while as one can tell by viewing the full footage, "Hail to the Chief" is being played, and 3 officers on the stand are saluting and one civilian has his hand over his heart.

Feel free to dispute what is really going on in the picture, but I offer a couple of refutations of the claims in the emails:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_obama_non_salute.htm

and

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/the-crotch-salute-returns/blog-312535/

"Sodahead", which seems to be if anything anti-Obama, had presented one variant of this email with no comment, implying agreement with its message, but tucked in among the many expressions of outrage at the "disrespectful" president, was this comment, presented in full:

I have to interject, not because I support BHO (Obama) , but because there are so many real things to be upset about. The left can ignore the REAL issues when false rumors are spread that have been discredited by snopes, urbanlegends, and ever other fact checking site (and backed up by actual video of the events). It gives them ammunition and could lend credence to libs who argue that those opposed to Obama are just extremists who will 1. lie to manipulate the public and 2. say and believe anything.It doesn't help the cause and makes us seem like loons.

The pictures were taken at the Wreath Laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day, 2009. It was taken as Hail to the Chief was playing just as he took his place on the stage. They were saluting him, and whether we like it or not, it's not appropriate for
him to salute himself. You can verify this yourself if you fast forward to 11minutes into the ceremony: video of the whole ceremony is at http://www.sodahead.com/unite...

Again, whether we like it or not (and I think we all can agree that we SHOULD like it when the president behaves appropriately), he saluted at all the right points and put his hand over his heart during the national anthem. He did this both at the Memorial day ceremony AND at
the Ft Hood ceremony (video of that is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?... and on Fox).

We need to cross check and double check everything before we post. Although I believed it too when I first saw the photos, I realize that the more honest and forthright we are, the better our own moral standing when it comes to fighting the things that are truly wrong and devastating to our country.

In case you think I'm just making up a random defense, please watch the videos and search the internet for keywords: "ft hood" obama salute (you can add "hoax" or "snopes" to see related videos and to see photos of moments before and this one was taken.

Please don't flame me...I believe that the number one hope for America right now is that people are willing to research claims and discover the truth. I just want what they read from us to be 100% true, in contrast to the lies they may discover when they research things 'political leaders' have said or even what they hear from the mainstream media.

I've already sent a correction out to everyone I forwarded this to (and I forwarded the email I got to my entire mailing list!!). I think it'd be a good idea for us all to do that, because when they discover someone lied about the date and the events, some people will assume we're liars, will shut down, and won't listen to anything else.

If I thought this kind of thing was being turned out by an uncoordinated set of individuals misunderstanding the news, or it could be explained by the "telephone effect" -- each time you retell a story it is likely to get embellished until it bears no resemblance to the original -- I'd say it's sad but what can we do?

Granted, I believe many anti-liberal emails are indeed written by regular people exorcizing their outrage and displaying their cleverness -- e.g. Obama in a beret which is actually a giant acorn cap. But I think it takes a different sort of person to turn out such cleverly constructed deceptions.

But I have just seen far too many such emails full of deliberate deceptions and lies which are uniformly well written with no spelling errors and the deceptions are very clever. Emails like this are not the work of amateurs.

"New Definition of 'Kick'" (Right Wing Forward of the Day)

2010-09-26T18:49:00.000-07:00

Brief comment on recent "email making the rounds" captured on

http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/2010/09/fw-kick-ass.html

This has tables and references to "generally accepted accounting principles" (GAAP) (the "GAAP" in parentheses - sounds impressive huh?)

I can't critique these convenient claims which add up to proof that BP must have been secretly crowing over putting one over the President when they set aside $20 billion to address the damages from their big spill.

Just be aware that in the anonymous emails (if anyone knows where to find "Jim Green" with no title, association, or geographical location, I'll retract that label), it is very common to make up any facts that advance the argument.

Check out:

http://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/messagetopic.asp?p=20772942

and if anyone really knows anything about accounting and wants to comment on this, please do.

Why Would a Right Wing Source Make Up a Phoney 'Charles Krauthammer' Speech? And What Might This Say About Right Wing Forwards?

2010-09-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

I started this blog with far broader, and more exploratory and less argumentative aims than just trying to combat "Right Wing Forwards" and their misinformation. But I suspect their effect is far beyond what most people imagine, and there is a near-total lack of media focus on them.

I've recently noticed a subclass of the Right Wing Forward which may shed some light on them. Many of them seek, in one way or another, an air of legitimacy through putting outrages statements in the mouths of people who never said them. But one type of RMF makes up whole speeches or editorials by right wing celebrities. Why not let these people speak for themselves?

There is an email centered on a purported intimate speech by Charles Krauthammer (the original that I received is at http://www.panix.com/~hal/RWF/counterfeit-krauthammer.txt), which is shown to be made-up at:

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/Charles-Krauthammer.htm

Summary of the eRumor:
A forwarded email with comments by journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner and
Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer about President Obama.
The Truth:
Charles Krauthammer has issued a statement about this eRumor saying it is
"neither accurate nor authoritative."

He said the email is "somebody putting his own ideological stamp on and
spin on my views."

Krauthammer said, "One giveaway of the superimposition of someone else's
views on mine is the rather amusing use of phrases that I never use. To
take just a few examples randomly: 'God forbid,' 'far left secular
progressive,' 'this is the first president ever who has chastised our
allies and appeased our enemies!' 'no country had ever spent themselves
into prosperity,' and, the real doozy, 'states rights.'"

He said his views are clearly spelled out in a series of columns that can
be found on his web site.

My mother was rather impressed with the email. One clue to why someone faked a Krauthammer speech is one of her comments that she'd read some of his articles but "always found it a little confusing what side he was on".

So it seems like Krauthammer for people who don't read Krauthammer and wouldn't, because they'd find him too abstract or something. But they've heard of him as a great intellectual, and are primed to be impressed by his thoughts if they can understand them.

From a 2007 Christopher Hayes article in The Nation titled "The New Right Wing Smear Machine":

For a certain kind of conservative, these e-mails, along with talk-radio, are an informational staple, a means of getting the real stories that the mainstream media ignore. "I get a million of them!" says Gerald DeSimone, a 74-year-old veteran from Ridgewood, New Jersey, who describes his politics as "to the right of Attila the Hun." "If I forwarded every one on, everyone would hate me.... I'm trying to cut back. I try to send no more than two or three a day. I must get thirty or forty a day."

I think part of the key may be the need for volume: what seems to be effective is such a constant high-volume flow of these messages that people will (1) come to rely on them as an alternative news source (for stories that the mainstream media is "suppressing", like that Obama is a Muslim), and (2) even to those who are somewhat skeptical, there is just so much, and it seems to be stuff that friends of friends of friends simply transposed from some source, that some of it is bound to be true.

The web site MyRightWingDad.blogspot.com has archived, by my count of some weeks ago, 1285 emails of this general type. I believe somebody has a need to crank out a lot of stuff to make this work, so all sorts of shortcuts are taken. It helps that they are mostly false, because if they were true, they wouldn't be "adding" to the general public knowledge. All sorts of articles, speechs, chopped scrambled, or just collections of thoughts that someone thinks a celebrity might have said -- Jokes about Obama that Jay Leno never actually made, have to be thrown into the mix. If Obama is accused of having committed some outrageous behavior (with "photographic proof") on Memorial Day 2009, the same picture and context (except some details) will reappear on Labor Day, 2010.

[to be continued??]

My Not-Really Right-Wing Mom and her Adventures in Email-Land

2010-09-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

"R. Kelly Garrett randomly surveyed 600 Americans about their online habits, and whether they'd heard—and believed—a number of widespread rumors. He found that the Web does expose us to more rumors. But the Web also delivers more rebuttals,...

"E-mail’s more insidious. Because you’re more likely to believe that rumor forwarded by cousin Rob. And the more you believe something, Garrett says, the more you want to share it with your social network."
[Quote from a Scientific American summary of an article in Human Communications Research. ]

Dad and I actually talked about this at breakfast, and I am glad to know the truth. At first it just seemed so awful, and then unbelievable. I shouldn't have forwarded it on. More and more I see how "email" is the fuel that supports so many of the things we hear as truth that aren't. It really makes it so hard to know what to believe.

R. Kelly Garrett randomly surveyed 600 Americans about their online habits, and whether they'd heard—and believed—a number of widespread rumors. He found that the Web does expose us to more rumors. But the Web also delivers more rebuttals, which can even the field.
E-mail’s more insidious. Because you’re more likely to believe that rumor forwarded by cousin Rob. And the more you believe something, Garrett says, the more you want to share it with your social network.

The Iranian whispered "My son watches this show 'Star Trek' and in it there is Chekhov who is Russian, Scotty who is Scottish, and Sulu who is Chinese, but no Arabs. My son is very upset and doesn't understand why there aren't any Iranians on Star Trek."

President Bush laughed, leaned toward the Iranian ambassador, and whispered back, "It's because it takes place in the future."

FW: Very Important Information

"I HEARD ABOUT THIS, BUT DID NOT WANT TO BELIEVE IT. WHAT YOU WILL HEAR IN THIS INTERVIEW IS EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BILL. NO WONDER OBAMA WANTS TO GET THIS THOUGH CONGRESS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. WALT"

Its high point is a link to an interview you could listen to on the web, but before that, there is more build-up:

This is an interview from Fred Thompson's radio show, with a doctor
who actually read the 1,000+ page Democrat health bill. If the American people (especially the elderly) knew what was in this bill, there would be a revolution; which is why it is being pushed through this fast.

The House Bill They Don't Want You to Read...

"VICIOUS ASSAULT ON THE ELDERLY"

PAGE 425: MANDATORY REQUIREMENT FOR MEDICARE COUNSELING TO ELDERLY EVERY 5 YEARS

"Counseling session to tell you how to end your life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care..."

Yet, the yellow-dog liberal organization AARP (which claims to be non-partisan-HA!) is supporting Obama's healthcare plan.

Regardless of your age now, you need to plan for your later years. This is a DEADLY plan. To the elderly, it is more of a death-enablement plan than a health-care plan. Listen to the 8-minute attachment - it's an interview with a doctor who actually READ the bill!!

"My plate was whisked away before I had tasted a bite.

"Eric's children are also quite hungry."

With a lurch, I crashed to the floor. My chair had been pulled out from
under me. ...

"And their grandmother can't stand for long."

Finally we get:

"By the way," He added, "I have just signed an Executive Order nationalizing your factories. I'm firing you as head of your business. I'll be operating the firm now for the benefit of all mankind. There's a whole bunch of Erics and Andrews out there and they can't come to you for jobs groveling like beggars."

Here's an idea for Mr. Iacocca -- send every congressman a copy of his new book!

He does make me think, if we could get those in leadership to really work at the solutions something could still bring us back to reality and make the necessary changes!!!!

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He's now 82 years old and has a new book, 'Where Have All The Leaders Gone?'.

Some bits from the Iacocca piece:

'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, ...

And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions of our newly elected President. and on and on and on.

Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths -- for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster.

Next (10/20) I get another one titled: Fwd: CNN News - not Fox -- You won't believe this!!

The lead-in was:

It just keeps getting better.

This is Unbelievable!!!!!

I KNEW this was going to happen. (Obama wasn't lying when he said illegals would not be able to get medical coverage under his ObamaCare plan. His simple fix is to make them all legal first!!)
EVERY ONE--PLEASE TAKE TIME TO LISTEN TO THIS--IT TELLS ABOUT THE BILL GOING THRU CONGRESS RIGHT NOW REGARDING IMMIGRATION.
EVEN CNN IS GETTING UPSET ABOUT THIS!!!!!!
Pass this on after you watch it. NOTICE THAT THIS IS FROM CNN, NOT FOX!!!

CLICK HERE:
This from CNN news: _http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/172
60182/1610997888/name/ftc-vi26.wmv_
(http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/17260182/1610997888/name/ftc-vi26.wmv)

This 2-minute video should be mandatory viewing for every US citizen. If you have never passed anything on before, pass this on! Every American should be outraged!

Next (12/3) came "Subject: The Queen's Jet (I will pass this on every time I receive it!)". which goes like:

Queen Pelosi wasn't happy with the small USAF C-20B jet, Gulfstream III, that comes with the Speaker's job ... OH NO! Queen Pelosi was aggravated that this little jet had to stop to refuel, so she ordered a Big Fat, 200-seat, USAF C-32, Boeing 757 jet that could get her back to California without stopping! I understand that a former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, flew commerical most of the time.

Many, many legislators walked by and grinned with glee as Joe informed everyone of what Queen Nancy's Big Fat Jet costs us, the hard working American tax payers, literally thousands of gallons of fuel every week.
[Note: implausable details like this are often thrown into such stories, as if Congressmen went around cackling like comic book villians, and I think this is done with some freedom simply because it would be quite hard to disprove. Another bit of indirection to keep us away from the facts about what plane Pelosi used on what occasion, which is a matter of record]
Since she only works 3 days a week, this gas guzzling jet gets fueled and she flies home to California every Friday and returns every Monday, at a cost to the taxpayers (YOU and ME are those taxpayers!) of about $60,000, one way

This is followed by a lot of naive sounding huffing and puffing as if the writer totally believed the previous lines:

No wonder she complains about the cost of this war ... it might cramp her style and she is styling on my back and yours. I think of the military families in this country doing without and this woman, who heads up the most do-nothing Congress in the history of our country, keeps fueling that jet while doing nothing.

Queen Pelosi wants you and me to conserve our carbon footprint. She wants us to buy smaller cars and Obama wants us to get a bicycle pump and air up our tires. Who do these people think they are??? Their motto is ... Don't do as I do ... JUST DO AS I SAY!

If you think this is outrageous, forward it to all those on your email
list! Keep in mind the figures above do NOT include the cost of plane or
crew ... just the fuel!!! One has to wonder what the total package costs us?

And on top of that ... now she wants to tax our IRA's & 401K's!

PASS THIS ON IF YOU CARE ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL

First of all the story, like so many other such stories, is a couple of years old, and is probably being recirculated now to suggest how Pelosi and the rest of the "Democrat Party" are running rampant now that Obama is in office. That is my speculation, but ask yourself why IS a
2-3 year old story that is pretty well refuted being email-broadcast now?

In terms of substance, [my sources are: http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/jet.asp and
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_nancy_pelosi_order_up_a_200-seat.html] , I wrote:

Epstein, Edward. "Pelosi, Snow slam critics: 'Silly story.'" San Francisco Chronicle. 8 Feb. 2007.
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/08/BAGHNO171A6.DTL)

(The phrase "Silly Story" comes from a quote from Tony Snow, Bush's press spokesman: "This is a silly story, and I think it's been unfair to the speaker".

Why I say it is pretty well refuted -- here's the gist of the refutation:

Post 9/11 the Bush Administration decided the speaker of the house, 3rd in line for the presidency, should make their travels to and from Washington on a military jet (Which explains why Newt Gingrich "sometimes" flew commercial). Because the standard jet would sometimes need to stop for refueling (the previous speaker had less of a problem getting back to Texas vs California), the seargent at arms of the House, a GOP appointee still in office, asked if a jet could be provided that would fly non-stop (if the jet made sense in the first place, on security grounds, it would surely be better for security to travel non-stop). Apparently, the Pentagon didn't "reject" Pelosi's request (which maybe WASN'T even her request) -- some summary of their response is in one of the articles for which I provided links and the gist was "We'll see what we can do but we can't promise".

Since the brouhaha, it appears by the way that Pelosi does not have her own personal plane standing by, but simply has the authority to request one from the Air Force pool or whatever it is, and she has used various aircraft, depending on what was available at the time, and on one occasion what was available was the "200 seater", which the Airforce describes as seating 47.

As for Pelosi going home every weekend, I will go out on a limb and say "I doubt it". Given the intellectual dishonesty of the whole thing, I suspect that was just thrown on speculation that it could be true and it would take work to refute if it wasn't, and to furnish a basis for calculating the largest possible dollar amount that the thing could be costing the taxpayers.

A short article from the Wall Street Journal that needs to be read by
every level headed American!!!

A "deadly" article regarding Obama, at the Wall Street Journal, which
today is the most widely circulated newspaper in America .

Article from the Wall Street Journal - by Eddie Sessions

There was next an outcry about claimed suppression of news about protests over "construction of a mega-mosque at Ground Zero."

To top it off, I got, on September 4, this choice item:

In Houston,Texas at the Harwin Central Mall:
The very first store that you come to when you walk from the lobby of the building into the shopping area had this sign posted on their door. The shop is run by Muslims. Feel free to share this with others.
In case you are not able to read the sign below, it says

"We will be closed on Friday, September 11, 2009
to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Ali"

Imam Ali flew one of the planes into the twin towers.
(Nice huh? )

Try telling me we're not in a
Religious war!

THIS HAS NOT BEEN AROUND....SO MAKE SURE IT DOES!

Comments on another "Proof" that Obama is a Muslim

2010-08-31T12:20:00.000-07:00

Owing to my extreme lack of free time, I am posting an email to my "not really right-wing Mom", essentially unedited. The email that she found alarming follows my comments

It's hard to deal with on a point by point basis. To find any stats on how often wives accompany husband heads of state on state visits is difficult. I suspect they
frequently don't. It's not clear what she'd do there -- probably be kept out of public sight as are all women in Saudi Arabia.

There are a lot of dubious "facts" that I find very difficult to check on, but why is it believable that Obama is a Muslim? If he was, there would be much more solid
evidence than this coming out. Why does a Muslim attend a Christian church for a decade or 2? Are there scads of stories of his refusing pork on campaign stops? No
and there are stories of him sampling exotic ham in a New York food shop. It seems to me you have to believe Obama was invented just to become the U.S. president and
do all the terrible things some people imagine he will do. That sort of thing just doesn't work except in thriller novels and movies He's been in the U.S. since he
was a young boy, but they can't find a couple of dozen credible people to say they saw him perform this or that Muslim activity? The very fact that they have to
resort to such convoluted logic to "prove" he's a Muslim is practically a proof that he's not.

As with the other stories, nobody comes forth as the author.

The "Middle Eastern Expert" has a Master's degree from Bob Jones University. He's written a couple of books on Jihad but they don't sound impressive, and he does not
seem to have any academic affiliation.

I doubt whether Shepard Smith (1 "p", not 2) said any of what follows.

ON GOOGLE:
site:foxnews.com "shepard smith" ==> 126,000 hits
site:foxnews.com "shepard smith" "michell Obama" ==> 3,820
site:foxnews.com "shepard smith" "michelle obama" france arabia ==> 25
None of the 25 hits looks like it would match.

As for Obama's being unable to order deaths of Muslims, in the first place he has many times authorized deaths of Al Qaeda and Talibal leaders by drone attacks. 2nd
more Muslims seemd to be killed by other Muslims than by anyone else. 3rd, several Muslim countries like Iran, Iraq are, like China and the US among the last
countries to practice the death penalty.

> > >> Interesting.....newsworthy!
> > > >
> > > > Sheppard Smith, Fox News.
> > > > "If you check President Obama's last trip
> > > > over-seas, his wife left just after their visit to France . She has
> yet
> > > > to accompany him to any Arab country. Think about it. Why is Michelle
> > > > returning to the states when 'official' trips to foreign countries
> > > > generally include the First Lady."
> > > >
> > > > Here's one thought on the matter.
> > > >
> > > > While in a Blockbuster renting videos I
> > > > came across a video called "Obama". There were two men standing next
> to
> > > > me and we talked about President Obama.
> to
> > > > me and we talked about President Obama.
> > > > These guys were Arabs, so I asked them
> > >> why they thought Michele Obama headed home following the President's
> > > > recent visit to France instead of traveling on to Saudi Arabia and
> Turkey
> > > > with her husband. They told me she could not go to Saudi Arabia,
> Turkey
> > > > or Iraq. I said "Why not,(?) Laura Bush went to Saudi Arabia, Turkey
> and
> > > > Dubai." They said that Obama is a Muslim and therefore he is not
> allowed
> > > > to bring his wife into countries that adhere to Sharia Law. Two
> points
> > > > of interest here:
> > > >
> > > > 1) I thought it interesting that two
> > > > American Arabs at Blockbuster believe that our President is a Muslim,
> who
> > > > follows a strict Islamic creed.
> > > > 2) They also said that's the reason he
> > > > bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. It was a signal to the Muslim
> world,
> > > > acknowledging his religion.
> > >>
> > > > For further consideration, here is a
> > >> response from Dr. Jim Murk, a Middle Eastern Scholar and expert on
> Islam.
> > > > This is his explanation of what the Arab American's were saying.
> > > >
> > > > "An orthodox Muslim man would never take
> > > > his wife on a politically oriented trip to any nation which practices
> > > > Sharia law, particularly Saudi Arabia where the Wahhabi sect is
> dominant.
> > > > This is true and it is why Obama left Michelle in Europe. She will
> stay
> > > > home when he visits Arab countries. He knows Muslim protocol; this
> > > > includes, bowing to the Saudi King. Obama is regarded as a Muslim in
> the
> > > > Arab world, because he was born to a Muslim father; he acknowledged
> his
> > > > Muslim faith with George Stephanopoulus. Note that he downplays his
> > > > involvement with Christianity, by not publicly joining a
> > > > Christian church in D.C., and
> > >> occasionally attending the chapel for services at Camp David. He also
>
> > > > played down the fact that America is a Christian country and said,
> > > > unbelievably, that it was one of the largest
> > >> Muslim nations in the world, which is
> > > > nonsense. He has publicly taken the side of the Palestinians in the
> > >> Muslim nations in the world, which is
> > > > nonsense. He has publicly taken the side of the Palestinians in the
> > > > conflict with Israel and he ignored the National Day of Prayer,
> something
> > > > no other President has ever done.
> > > >
> > >> He is bad news! He conceals his true
> > > > faith to the detriment of the American people."
> > > > Jim Murk, Doctor of Philosophy in Middle
> > > > Eastern Culture & Religion.
> > >>
> > > > ACTIONS speak louder than words.
> > >>
> > > > Another interesting item regarding Sharia
> > >> Law..
> > > > Why has Barack Hussein Obama insisted
> > >> that the U.S. Attorney General hold the trials of the 911 Muslim
> > > > Terrorists in Civilian Courts as Common Criminals instead of as
> > > > Terrorists who attacked the United States of America?
> > > >
> > > > If the Muslim Terrorists are tried in
> > > > Military Tribunals, convicted and sentenced to death, by LAW, Barack
> > > > Hussein Obama, as President of the United States, would be required
> to
> > > > sign their Death Warrants. He would not be required to sign the death
> > > > warrants if they are sentenced to death by a Civilian Court .
> > > >
> > > > Recently, Muslim Jihadist, Army Major
> > > > Hassan slaughtered non-Muslim, soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas rather
> than go
> > > > to Afghanistan and be a part of anything that could lead to the
> deaths of
> > > > fellow Muslims. He stated that Muslims could not and should not kill
> > > > fellow Muslims.
> > > >
> > > > Is the motive for Barack Hussein Obama's
> > > > insistence on civilian trials, to make sure he doesn't have to sign
> the
> > > > death warrants for the Muslim Terrorists? Why would he, as President
> of
> > > > the United States, not sign the death warrants for Muslim Terrorists
> who
> > > > attacked the United States and murdered over 3,000 U. S. Citizens on
> > > > 9/11? Could it be that he is FORBIDDEN by his RELIGION to authorize
> the
> > > > execution of Muslims?
> > > >
> > > > Think about that! Open your eyes, ears
> > > > and mind to who the President is, how he behaves and what he is
> doing.

Overview of "Right Wing Forwards"

2010-08-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

(See http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/06/to-my-not-really-right-wing-mom-in.html,
http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/06/detailed-responses-to-fake-wall-street.html,http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/06/examination-of-claim-that-obama-knew.html,
or http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/07/re-mass-muslim-marriage-in-gaza-450.html
for some background)

Am I nuts to see this phenomenon as a major source of the insanity that permeates our politics today -- the labeling of anybody who'd consider a return to 40% tax brackets for multimillionaires as Marxists or at the least "dangerous ideologues" (I'm not suggesting the 90% that was still hanging around in Eisenhower's day, that only started being cut down by Kennedy)?

In the 1st Spring and Summer of the Obama administration, I started getting these things
forwarded from my parents, who were always Republican, but never inclined to this sort of
extremism, and my mother, at least seemed totally taken in by them, and this was exactly when
"tea partiers" started going to congressman's "Town Hall" meetings to discuss the issues of
health care, and drowning out any voice but their own.

My strong impression is that there is quite a consistency to a large number of these messages
that indicates someone is churning them out regularly -- someone who absolutely knows he or they
are spreading lies, and I am trying to come up with tactics for exposing it en masse, but
nothing will happen unless first my intuition can be confirmed that this having a tremendous
impact, and may well be a sine qua non of the Tea Party movement.

I think this tool is being wielded like one of those utterly brilliant on-the-cheap
tactics, that when nobody suspects their existence can turn the world upside down -- like, say,
getting suicidally inclined fanatics to learn how to pilot an airliner, taking over planes with
a handful of men with boxknives -- too little metal to trip the old metal detectors, and you
know the rest.

Yes, it's an extreme comparison, but frankly if Americans lose all ability to think clearly and govern this country sanely, the results can be (or have they already been?) far greater than the damage done by all the terrorists in the world.

I have a notion of how to test the hypothesis fairly cheaply (beyond my means, but cheap as polling studies go), which I've tried to share with various parties.

"Epistemology of Consensus"

2010-08-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

This is still very sketchy and evolving, but I'm putting it out just in case someone stumbles upon it and has a reaction.

I wanted to explore the phrase "Epistemology of Consensus". Has it inspired any serious philosophical current?
At the time I posted this, I found just seven google hits for the phrase.

Here is some exploration of the idea which may seem like wild ravings, but I post it in case someone stumbles across it who sees some kind of sense in it, especially if they will send me their thoughts.

I think as a practical matter, the way we decide what we think we know in our everyday lives is very much a matter of epistemology of consensus.
Also, another posting http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/07/atheism-agnosticism-and-lock-in-clause.html
suggests that in early stages of human development we relied on quite a PURE epistemology of consensus.

The Enlightenment helped spawn a "meme" (not, I think, a gratuitous use of that overused word) that is quite the opposite of Epistemology of Consensus. Now Enlightenment philosophers had good reason for attaching the consensus of their time, but this has become a sort of cliche, and frequently in my opinion, applied inappropriately -- the idea of the lonely genius who alone understands how it works -- surrounded by nattering idiots. This is often how the Glenn Becks of the world seem to see themselves (They think they're Galileos!!).

Daniel J. Boorstin however gave an accessible alternative view of the Enlightenment in The Discoverers, when he gave institutions, like first scientific journal, the Journal of the Royal Society, the salon movement, and other institutional constructs a central role.

Summary of the Seven Google Hits I Found (on 8/9/2010):
+ http://www.jstor.org/pss/2706493 (Human Nature and Truth as World Order Issues by Miriam Steiner).
+ {VERY LONG URL}
+ ASTRO.TEMPLE.EDU/~msolomon/cv.doc (Miriam Solomon CV):
+ www.springerlink.com/index/p445753171j4g376.pdf (Article or chapter:
"From New Technological Infrastructures to Curricular Activity ...
Contained in book Designs for Learning Environments of the Future
2010, 233-262, DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-88279-6_9 (Springer-Verlag).
+ http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=26348438
(Excerpt from _Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays_,
Russell Hittinger 1992

If there exists a law of nature, it presumably exists
independent of our theories about it. But our theories about it
have so drastically restricted the meaning of 'nature' in human
actions to a political epistemology of consensus about basic good
or needs, that discourse about the role of the virtues, as comple-
tions rather than mere recognitions of needs, will have to find a
language other than that of modern natural law theory.

+ http://hidinginyourcupboard.blogspot.com/2008/03/dont-believe-everything-you-read-about.html
+ existenceisidentity.blogs.ie/category/philosophy/
(Uses "Epistemology of Consensus" as an epithet directed at Paul Krugman).

MY THOUGHTS: The hits probably represent several different people's independent coining of the phrase. Not surprisingly, it occurs as a term of abuse in
HTTP://existenceisidentity.blogs.ie/category/philosophy/ written by a Von Mises-ian pseudo-skeptic who is "skeptical" about the consensus of the scientific community, but swallows the "Oregon Petition" whole.
NOTE: I've been toying with this phrase pseudo-skeptic, as it seems so many people from the Glenn Beckians to new-Agers (and there are indeed New Age - Glenn Beckian - NRA members -- like some friends of ours who edit a "Metaphysical newsletter", where by metaphysics I think they mean what I would call "Weird shit").
Anyway, the pseudoskeptic, as I look at him, tends to be skeptical about "mainstream" sources of news, theories, or wisdom, while latching onto some collection of arbitrary sources with far less claim to rigor than the sources they are so skeptical about. (Not to say the mainstream is beyond criticism)

Codevilla's "Ruling Class" Really the New Scapegoat Class?

2010-07-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

Well, the Spectator, proud purveyor of "The Largest Selection of Liberal-baiting Merchandise on the Net!" is at it again. I have to say something about this piece of schlock by Angelo Codevilla, even if I can only eke out a half hour to do it in. It worked to call all liberals and people with some sense of history "elites", so why not move on to the next level. Next, let's say they have "Protocols" for taking over and enslaving the world. Meanwhile, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Personally, I'm more concerned about the people with the money to buy and sell politicians, or just buy their own way into office, or finance Propaganda Tanks and other organizations that pick a key election, where an insufficiently obedient Republican or a Democrat on shaky ground, and determine its result. I'm concerned about the multi millionaires who welcomed Georged W. Bush into their ranks with do-nothing board memberships and the like. I'm concerned about Bernie Madoff who blew up enough of other people's money to run the Russian government for a year, and I'm worried that the "legitimate" game is not so different from his.

Sure, some of these people went to the same schools as Obama or whoever, but Codevilla is just using that to confuse matters. He really isn't focused on the galloping concentration of wealth and real power; he wants to put down the person who can say "I've worked all my life trying to understand this (aspect of history say), and I think that should count for something". Glenn Beck can tell you all about it in 10 minutes. It almost sounds like we're warming up for a Cultural Revolution, or, since we all like hyperbole these days, a genocide of the well educated, as in Cambodia.

Stop looking for scapegoats. Let's try to find the real keys to power. Most revolutions look like a few power geniuses stampeding a big chunk of the population into lynching the people who provide what stability there is, and it sometimes looks to me like the Tea Party movement could be taken in that direction.

Yes, there are "Perils of Revolution", as Mr Codevilla says, but for the 2 or 3 decades, nearly all the revolutions have been managed by Chicago School style economists who want to put unlimited power in the hands of whoever can make the most money by whatever means; who naively believe that whoever has the most money must have produced the most value. This has been going on from Chile to Argentina to Russia, and now, I'm afraid that revolutionary campaign has its hands around the throat of America.

We don't need "politics of resentment" broadcast by either the left or right. The world is what it is, and there's nobody but us to try to make it better. I like the title of a self-published book I once read "There's No Justice, Just Us".

Some thoughts on JournOlist and the teapot calling the kettle racist (and any other term of abuse t

2010-07-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts I posted on http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein, but I think they got pretty much buried in the avalanche of abuse. Quite a few ideas I've expressed before, but I can't hold a candle to some people when it comes to being repititious.

Ezra,
The best argument for a closed list is what an open list discussion looks like **THIS**.
"Racist, Racist, I dare you to call me a racist you racist".
Maybe the right has closed lists. Maybe they need them less because they can outshout anybody, and never tire of saying the same things over and over again. I'm sure some groups of operatives do because they *truly* don't want people to know what they're saying. Now they're going to dare you to open your full archives, to provide 100 times as much fodder to be SHERRODed (I don't think it will catch on, but the right can talk about "Borking").

I'll wager that right wing journalists don't need anything like Journolist -- even the conspiratorial Journolist of their wild imaginations because they (right wing journalists) are an integral part of the whole right wing movement, with its conferences and other venues in which tactics for pushing this agenda or smearing this or that person are discussed openly.

I think there is a huge unexamined side of the right wing noise machine is ripe for journalistic investigation: the emails that try to look like they are from a friend of a friend.

A year ago I started getting emails my parents' friends had forwarded to them. There would be lists showing who had previously forwarded the item to the friend, and so on, but it was never clear who put it together.

My parents have always been pretty mainstream Republicans. My Mom still has some admiration for FDR and Truman, and feels Nixon got what he deserved, and they are far from ready for the revisionism that says we were "stabbed in the back" by liberals over Vietnam. She has just gotten through reading 3 Cups of Tea and loved it.
They live in a wealthy retirement community with mostly college educated people (ages generally 60-80 and up) who've run small to middle sized businesses and the like.

And they and their friends were getting, and believing in the emails with the links to YouTube videos proving Obama deliberately failed to salute the flag when generals and cabinet members around him were saluting. My mother is distressed and saying "What can you say to defend a man like that?" Actually they were saluting the president while "Hail to the Chief" was played. The email was called "The Crotch Salute" because of the awkward position of Obama's hands. Googling "crotch salute" I get 11,400 hits so it has gotten around and precious few of the hits have anyone debunking it.
They get "parables" in which Obama is portrayed as a smooth Marxist/Mafia thug. And other parables with simplistic economic implications.
They contain bits like "what if I were to tell you that Obama wants to dismantle conservative talk radio through the imposition of a new "Fairness Doctrine. that he wants to curtail the First Amendment rights of those who may disagree with his policies via internet blogs..."

Would you say, "C'mon, that will never happen in America ." (this one is a sort of 12 part call-and response thing).

They received a tirade against Obama by Gene Iacocca which was really a 3 year old anti-Bush screed with selective omissions and just one addition.

Some of them have gotten clever enough to say "Approved by Snopes" when in fact Snopes called them a fraud.

They take an essay from a right wing crazy site and call it an "article" (they never distinguish between "article" and op-ed) from the prestigious WSJ.

It seems the right wing propaganda apparat has 3 parts: (1) The Emails where everything EVERYTHING I've seen has been full of blatant lies. (2) wild bloggers who deal in stuff that has a shred of something to back it up (they can't help it if some pure and simple lies get into their comments section (http://eisenhowersocialist.blogspot.com/2010/05/climate-change-and-energy-policy.html)
(3) Finally the stars, who avoid sue-able libel, and deal in interpretations rooted in millions of under the radar words that THEY don't have to risk saying.

Assuming I'm right about the right wing emails, etc., how can the lies and their sources be exposed?

I think first of all, people are vastly underestimating the impact. I'd propose ongoing polling. Watch them as they emerge and circulate. http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/ can help with that, and just poll 1000 (maybe less would do) people soon after something emerges to ask whether they believe whatever is being stated. No need, I think, to say anything about where they would have gotten the idea.

Another course of action without the big cost of polling is, don't let Rush and Glenn off the hook. Call and ask "What do you think of Obama's refusal to salute the flag". (http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/07/get-email-with-extreme-anti-obama.html) I believe their hope, and certainly what serves them best, is for these things to remain invisible to all but their partisans, and certainly not make publicity for them to get publically debunked.

If 10% of people are believing a ludicrous lie that is important news. If one can find out where the lies are coming from (there is too much similarity in style for me to believe they come from random "concerned citizens"), that is even more important news.

As for the "anything goes" blogs, I think they need to be taken seriously too. Here, unlike with the right wing emails, there is nothing secret to unmask. One way to take them seriously is to try to determine the size of their readership - some of them no doubt advertize their 'hit rates'. Also, the idea of polling applies equally well to them. And likewise putting more visible right wing (which I say because "Radical Conservative" is an oxymoron) commentators on the spot.

For an example of Rush&co studiously ignoring the "Final nail in the coffin of the global warming hoax", see http://eisenhowersocialist.blogspot.com/2010/05/climate-change-and-energy-policy.html

The Real Truth Project

A few new thoughs on Climate Change (and Geoengineering "solutions")

What are the Conditions for Nonviolent Resistance to Win against Authoritarianism?

Global Warming a good thing? Will save us from Ice Age?

Supposed 3.8% Tax on Real Estate Sold after 2013

Where has Wealth Discrepancy Come From And Where is it Going?

I'm Making Some Progress on "Knowledge in a Social World" Despite My Ridiculous Isolation

And Then Something Happened

How to Solve U.S Education Woes (No, Seriously)

Some Thoughts in Response to Gorbachev article on "Lessons from the U.S.S.R. coup attempt"

My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land (revision)

FW: Very Important Information

Bachmann and her unfounded claim that Iran planned to divide up Iraq

Comment on "Arctic 'tipping point' may not be reached"

The (Republican?) [Anti]Confidence Game

The Republican [Anti]Confidence Game

ONE RESPONSE:

Passing Comment on Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism

Corporations Can Serve as Made-to-order Scapegoats the Rich and Irresponsible

On the "Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism"

Development of the WWW - a Challenge to government hating revisionists

Some of the Best and Worst Reporting on the Oslo Norway Massacres

My Take

"They All Do It (Distort the News)" "The New York Times is Notorious"

Response to "Western insensitivity causes terror"

Fear and Uncertainty Started with '08 Election and Just Gets Worse and Worse

Hayek vs Hayek vs Von Mises

More on my sad state PLUS Trickle up Economics.

Side issue from a discussion on Bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/36837

Another Tangent: "Now that people are finally criticizing Obama"

Brief comments on "McCarthyism"

The Truth About Me

Making Sense of "Liberal Fascism" Part 1

Notes From the Radical Center

"Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy" says Media Research Center

Reply to Mona Charen (National Review Online) on "Obama’s Selective Anger"

The Trouble with "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend", Historic Examples

The Image of Nazism in the Minds of My Generation

"We Will Shoot More Police in Arizona" and Other Email Idiocy

NRO Article "The OIC and the Caliphate" by Andrew McCarthy

To Take Control of Your Own Destiny, Take Control of How You See the World

Autodidactic and Alternative Schooling Meta-Learning

The author has put some deep thought into what makes self-learning work or not work.

I think maybe I will do better to work with google hits on:

google { facilitating self-learning }

[to be continues]

Back to Truthology: "The Real Truth Project" Needs to Become a Reference Site

"Freedom Through Violence?" a Chapter from Gene Sharp's From Dictatorship to Democracy

Has Dr. Gene Sharp, "Clausewitz of Nonviolence" Been the Biggest Inspiration and Guide for Nonviolent Revolutions for 3 Decades?

The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement by Eric Heubeck

Focus on The Big Short by Michael Lewis

The Hayne-Webster Debate, an Experiment in Hypertext Style

"Obama & The Human Stain" (from Canada Free Press)

"WEDDING RING BEING REPAIRED, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WATCH"?

USPS New 44-Cent Stamp Celebrates a Muslim holiday

On the article "Social Scientist Sees Bias Within" by JOHN TIERNEY

"Oh Why Can't a Climatologist Be More like an Economist?"

Bill Freeza (RealClearpolitics) says 'Egypt Needs Free Enterprise More Than Democracy'

"Ohio Mother is Modern Day Rosa Parks". Not Quite.

"Right to the answering machine"?

Huffington Post and BigGovernment.com Agree (sort of) on: Christina Aguilera's National Anthem

What the heck is the 'truth to power” “linear model of policy making'

David Stockman (Reagan's 1st budget director) on Bank Deregulation (Part of Reagan Centennial hoopla)

Obama Selling out the Brits' Nuclear Secrets?

The Real Truth about Hayek's Book: Road to Serfdom

Crosshairs, Blood Libel, and Rabid Partisans

On Death and "Death Taxes"

The Great Harold Lewis Resignation Non-Event.

Detailed Thoughts on Possibility of Unmasking Phoney-Folksy (and full of clever deception) Emails:

TRYING TO DEMONSTRATE/EXPOSE MASS PRODUCTION OF "RIGHT WING FORWARD" EMAILS

The Latest in Email "News" Madness

"Obama Crotch Salute": Lies, Damned Lies and Right WIng Forwards

"New Definition of 'Kick'" (Right Wing Forward of the Day)

Why Would a Right Wing Source Make Up a Phoney 'Charles Krauthammer' Speech? And What Might This Say About Right Wing Forwards?

My Not-Really Right-Wing Mom and her Adventures in Email-Land

FW: Very Important Information

Comments on another "Proof" that Obama is a Muslim

Overview of "Right Wing Forwards"

"Epistemology of Consensus"

Codevilla's "Ruling Class" Really the New Scapegoat Class?