Book Review: Escape From Freedom

Erich Fromm - 1974

Context

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a German Jew who fled the Nazis and settled in the US. He was a co-founder of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He wrote Escape From Freedom in 1941 in response to what he was as the sources of authoritarianism in the human condition and the grave threat to freedom this aspect of humans posed to democracy. 

This review is based on the original 1941 Foreword and a newer 1965 Foreword (9 pages). They lay out his vision of humanity and the source of threats to democracy that are inherent in modern civilization. I focus on the two Forewords because they describe Fromm's desire or goal for the human condition that is basically identical to what I came to believe about what might be possible and have tried to convey here as pragmatic rationalism. In essence, Fromm recognized and articulated the intellectual framework for pragmatic rationalism in 1941, about 70 years before I came to also see the same threat and to some extent, its human origins. 

What Fromm saw clearly that I did not fully understand, only sensed, was the social unease that leads some or many people to need to escape from freedom into the comforting arms of reassuring demagogues and authoritarians or dictators and their reassuring lies, deceit, emotional manipulation and motivated reasoning. This need for psychological comfort and tribe is apparently universal in all societies.

Review

Given the urgency of the situation in 1941, Fromm interrupted his much broader life long investigation of the human condition in modern civilization. In Escape From Freedom, Fromm focuses on the meaning of freedom for modern man. After Escape, he wrote The Sane Society which expanded on the themes he laid out in Escape. In The Heart of Man, Fromm focused on the origins of hate and destructiveness. 

In the 1941 Foreword, Fromm wrote: 

"Pointing out the significance of psychological considerations does not imply, in my opinion, an overestimation of psychology. .... It is the thesis of this book that modern man, freed from the bonds of pre-individualistic society, which simultaneously gave him security and limited him, has not gained freedom in the positive sense of the realization of his individual self; that is, the expression of his intellectual, emotional and sensuous potentialities. Freedom though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated, and thereby, anxious and isolated. This isolation is unbearable and the alternatives he is confronted with are either to escape from the burden of his freedom, or to advance to the full realization of positive freedom which is based upon the uniqueness and individuality of man. .... the understanding of the reasons for the flight from freedom is a premise for any action which aims at the victory over the totalitarian forces." 

In the 1965 Foreword, Fromm wrote: 

"Escape From Freedom is an analysis of the phenomenon of man's anxiety engendered by the breakdown of the Medieval World in which, in spite of many dangers, he felt himself secure and safe. .... modern man is still anxious and tempted to surrender his freedoms to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton. .... There can be no doubt that in this last quarter of a century the reasons for man's fear of freedom, for his anxiety and willingness to become an automaton, have not only continued but have greatly increased."

Fromm goes on to point to nuclear weapons, the nascent rise of fast thinking computers and fast acting giant corporations, and overpopulation are all factors that tend to undermine a comfortable Medieval-type sense of self and social place that some (most?) people need. 

He goes on to firmly reject the criticism that despite psychological insight and knowledge, that science cannot be translated into social progress and benefit:

"It becomes ever increasingly clear to many students of man and of the contemporary scene that the crucial difficulty with which we are confronted lies in the fact that the development of man's intellectual capacities has far outstripped the development of his emotions. Man's brain lives in the twentieth century; the heart of most men still live in the Stone Age. The majority of men have not yet acquired the the maturity to be independent, to be rational, to be objective. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that man is all by himself, that there is no authority which give meaning to life except man himself. .... How can mankind save itself from destroying itself by this discrepancy between intellectual-technical over-maturity and emotional backwardness?

As far as I can see there is only one answer: the increasing awareness of the most essential facts of our social existence, an awareness sufficient to prevent us from committing irreparable follies, and to raise to some small extent our capacity for objectivity and reason. We cannot hope to overcome most follies of the heart and their detrimental influence on our imagination and thought in one generation .... At this crucial moment, however, a modicum of increased insight -- objectivity-- can make the difference between life and death for the human race. .... Progress in social psychology is necessary to counteract the dangers which arise from the progress in physics and medicine."

 Does any of that sound familiar to people who are familiar with Dissident Politics? Most of that sounds very familiar to me. The social goals Fromm articulates, just a small increase in objectivity and reason, are identical to one key goal of pragmatic rationalism. The hope is the same: try to coax humanity away from self-annihilation and toward long-term sell being and survival. The tactic is the same: teach people self-awareness so they can better understand themselves and better defend themselves against the reassuring dark free speech[1] that demagogues and tyrants know is the path to power and wealth.

Dang, I feel vindicated once again. What a great book.

Footnote: 

1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)

A Conservative Culture War Grounded in Arrogance, Ignorance, Disrespect and Lies

Rand Paul - arrogant, ignorant, disrespectful

A Washington Post article discusses the way senator Rand Paul (R-KY) treated Rachel Levine, the physician nominated to become the Biden administration’s assistant secretary of health in her confirmation hearing. 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), however, seemed more interested in talking about children’s genitals.

“Dr. Levine, you have supported [minors] being given hormone blockers, and surgical reconstruction of a child’s genitalia,” Paul said, in a tirade in which he also conflated genital mutilation (a horrifying practice that public health experts view as a human rights violation) with the transition-related surgeries chosen by some transgender individuals to help their bodies conform with their gender identity.

Levine, who most recently worked as Pennsylvania’s top health official, is transgender. If her nomination succeeds, she will become the first publicly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. She would have been within her rights to be enraged by Paul’s ignorance, but she responded on Thursday by repeating a steady message: “Transgender medicine is a complex and nuanced field,” she said twice. It was composed of “robust research,” and standards of care. She would be happy, she said, to come to Paul’s office and discuss the issue in-depth.

She repeatedly thanked him for the opportunity to answer his questions, even the demeaning ones.

She kept her hands folded on the table, while Paul jabbed his finger in the air and dismissively scoffed, “If you’ve ever been around children — 14-year-olds cannot make this decision.” (Levine is a pediatrician who created the Penn State Hershey Medical Center’s adolescent medicine division. Paul is an eye doctor.)

Paul did not seem at all curious about the medical matter at hand, in which he had no expertise. He was instead “alarmed” and “outraged.” He claimed to be worried about the children, but paid no heed to guidance of medical organizations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics — that recommend treating gender-diverse children by affirming their gender identities.

In Paul’s telling, children chose to be transgender because of peer pressure, or pressure from doctors. In his world, those children would be fine if only doctors like Levine would deny them treatment. That bill had inspired similar reactions from Republican lawmakers. 

Paul’s stand against medical treatment for transgender kids occurred on the same day that the House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on the Equality Act, a bill that would amend the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. 

“Equality for who?” demanded Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) from the House floor Wednesday night. “Where is the equality in this legislation for the young girls across America who will have to look behind their backs as they change in their school locker rooms, just to make sure there isn’t a confused man trying to catch a peek?” 

Boebert then meandered on to “liberal indoctrination camps — also called colleges and universities — and “radical ideology,” and she warned that the left would “imprison” and “take [the] children” of anyone who disagreed with them. (emphasis added)

Yes, indeed. Children choose to be transgendered because of peer and doctor pressure, just like homosexuals do. It's those darned liberal indoctrination camps. You know, the ones called cities and urban areas. They're infested with enemies of the people and the state, such as democrats, liberals, the LGBQT community, people who oppose the ex-president and other evil miscreants. Those radical liberals want to take the children from good people and turn them into transgendered people.

One can only wonder at the fact that evil people in the liberal indoctrination camps outnumber the patriots in the rest of the country. Could this deranged crackpottery be mostly a matter of some combination of irrational fear, arrogance, ignorance, disrespect and lies? 

Lauren Boebert (R-CO) - arrogant, ignorant, liar

The Dynasty Starts with the Golden Calf

Some kneeled before this monstrosity and prayed, presumably for it to run 

again in 2024, and maybe also to smite the democrats and send them to hell

Images of a man kneeling in prayer before a gold painted statue of the ex-president at the CPAC meeting in Florida yesterday was jarring to say the least. It was another reminder that the fascist GOP is not just fascist. It is also a personality cult that worships a man who tried to overthrow the US government by force on 1/6. The cult leadership seems to be coalescing around the idea of a family dynasty.

Vox comments on the unfolding horror in the fascist GOP:

A recent poll found that Donald Trump Jr. was one of the most popular choices for the 2024 nomination, doing better than Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley combined. On Fox News Thursday night, former GOP House member and Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows openly proclaimed that it’s still Trump’s party — either Donald, Donald Jr.’s, or Ivanka’s. 

In the Bible, the Golden Calf story ends with a furious Moses destroying the idol — dumping its ashes into water and forcing the Israelites to drink it as punishment. In theory, the voters in 2020 could have been the party’s Moses, the loss of the White House and the Senate their bitter ashwater. And yet, here they are, still building idols of a false god.

President Ivanka T. What an awful thought. This country and democracy are in deep, deep trouble.

Conservative activists actually believe this thing is cool and inspiring:

the golden star-tipped scepter is an inspiring touch, horror inspiring  

Americans Remain Largely Dissatisfied With U.S. Gun Laws

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 42% are satisfied with the nation's gun laws, 56% dissatisfied
• 69% of Republicans/leaners, 22% of Democrats/leaners satisfied with gun laws
• 68% of Democrats/leaners want gun laws to be stricter

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Fifty-six percent of Americans say they are dissatisfied with U.S. gun laws and policies, marking the ninth consecutive year of majority-level dissatisfaction since the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. At the same time, 42% of U.S. adults express satisfaction with U.S. gun laws.

Gallup has asked Americans about their satisfaction with specific issues, including the nation's gun laws and policies, each January since 2001, except for 2009-2011. In 2001, 38% of the public was satisfied with U.S. gun laws. Satisfaction rose in subsequent surveys, hovering near 50% from 2002 through 2012, but since then, it has generally held near 40%. The highest dissatisfaction, 62%, was recorded one month after the December 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.

The latest findings are from a Jan. 4-15 Gallup poll that preceded President Joe Biden's Feb. 14 call for "commonsense gun law reforms" on the third anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. His proposed changes include background checks on all gun sales, bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and more accountability for gun manufacturers.

Biden's desired stricter gun measures are very similar to those that Congress failed to pass after the Newtown mass shooting, when Biden was serving as Barack Obama's vice president. That vote in Congress laid bare Republican lawmakers' unwillingness to support new gun restrictions. Since then, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have generally become increasingly likely to express satisfaction with U.S. gun laws, while Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have become less likely to be satisfied. Two exceptions to this occurred in 2014 and 2016, when Republicans' satisfaction fell amid calls for stricter gun laws.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are now more than three times as likely as Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to say they are satisfied with the nation's gun laws and policy, 69% vs. 22%. This 47-percentage-point gap in satisfaction is in line with those since 2018. Before that, the average party gap was 22 points.

A follow-up question, asked only of those who said they were dissatisfied with current gun laws, explored what respondents would like to see happen to those laws. Given that dissatisfaction with gun laws is primarily seen among Democrats, it follows that people who are dissatisfied prefer stricter rather than more lenient laws.

As Biden calls for stricter gun laws, 41% of the public is dissatisfied with current gun laws and wants them made stricter; 8% are dissatisfied and want them to be made less strict; and 7% are dissatisfied but want them to remain the same.

While 69% of Republicans say they are satisfied with U.S. gun laws, 68% of Democrats are dissatisfied and want them to be stricter.

Bottom Line

Americans continue to express more dissatisfaction than satisfaction with U.S. gun laws, and partisans remain sharply divided in their views. The public's calls for more gun control have tended to be in reaction to mass shootings, as have lawmakers' attempts to pass stricter gun laws.

After the nation's deadliest mass shooting, in Las Vegas in 2017, the Trump administration banned bump stocks, which make semi-automatic rifles able to fire like machine guns. Trump also indicated that he was open to stricter gun laws after the Parkland, Florida, shooting, but he never took action on that. Likewise, Trump said in 2019 that he would look into changing background checks in the wake of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, but ultimately he declined to push for any changes.

The latest proposal from Biden, however, comes when the U.S. has not seen a mass shooting in recent months. Biden has worked to make the nation's gun laws and policies stricter since he was a U.S. senator and helped pass the Brady bill and the now-expired assault weapons ban. However, he faces an uphill battle in trying to get a bipartisan deal now, given the nation's current political divide and the availability of the legislative filibuster.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/329723/americans-remain-largely-dissatisfied-gun-laws.aspx

 

Why Senate Republicans Fear Native American Deb Haaland

Deb Haaland - democrat, New Mexico

An opinion piece in the Washington Post highlights the intractable, ferocious animosity the GOP has toward democrats, liberals and some things that most Americans support, e.g., protecting national parks. This is more evidence of the depth and breadth of the intolerant, unforgiving culture and political war America the hard core right is openly waging against American government and society. We are hopelessly entangled in this animosity for the foreseeable future. The author, Julian Brave NoiseCat, writes:

Alexander Stuart, the third interior secretary, once declared that the United States’ mission was to “civilize or exterminate” native people. The Interior Department has done much to carry out that terrible mission, with the seizure of tribal lands, forced assimilation of Native American children and much more. So it is impossible to understate the significance — particularly to Native Americans — of the fact that President Biden has nominated a Native American woman, New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland, to head the department that manages much of the land and resources taken from native nations and maintains relationships between those nations and the U.S. government.

“The historic nature of my confirmation is not lost on me,” she said. Indeed, we have had many interior secretaries with close ties to powerful men in the C-suite and on Capitol Hill. But we have never had an interior secretary who tended to traditional gardens, cooked for pueblo feast days and stood with the Oceti Sakowin Nation at Standing Rock in defense of tribal treaty rights.

Perhaps as a consequence, Haaland’s nomination has proved particularly contentious, as Republican senators, many from Western states, used the hearing to attack, sometimes with remarkable animosity, what they misleadingly portrayed as her extreme views on fossil fuels and national parks.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the senior Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, shouted over Haaland, accusing the congresswoman of wanting to legalize drugs to replace tax revenue from oil and gas. (Haaland backed legalizing and taxing cannabis as a congresswoman, but never advocated doing so instead of taxing fossil fuels.) Montana Sen. Steve Daines — who, like Barrasso, has received more than $1 million in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies — demanded Haaland retract a tweet stating that “Republicans don’t believe in science.” (In 2019, Daines said, “To suggest that [climate change] is human-caused is not a sound scientific conclusion.”)

Utah Sen. Mike Lee expressed his dissatisfaction with the designation of Bears Ears as a national monument, asking whether Haaland thought it was “appropriate for stakeholders, people who have some sort of economic interest in the land or some sort of connection to the land ... to be involved in the national monument designation process.” Lee was apparently unaware that the nominee’s Pueblo relatives are among the tribes that consider Bears Ears a sacred place, tracing their connections to the land to time immemorial.

Haaland appeared unperturbed. We Indians, after all, are well-practiced in the art of accommodating and poking fun at our antagonists; we’ve been doing it for hundreds of years. When Daines asked the secretary-designate why she co-sponsored a bill protecting grizzly bears in perpetuity, Haaland responded with forthright charm: “I imagine, at the time, I was caring about the bears.”

Conservatives have portrayed Haaland as a divisive partisan, but in 2019, she introduced the most bills with bipartisan support of all House freshmen. On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska — a conservative congressman from an oil state — introduced Haaland as a strong nominee and friend who works across the aisle and whose perspective as a native person is needed at Interior. “Anyone who thinks we’re going to call off fossil fuels immediately is smoking pot,” he added — a rebuke to environmentalists, yes, but also to his colleagues in the upper chamber.

What Haaland actually brings — and what the Republican Party seems to consider so dangerous — are experiences and perspectives that have never found representation in the leadership of the executive branch. In fact, Republicans’ depiction of the first Native American ever nominated to the Cabinet as a “radical” threat to a Western “way of life” revealed something about the conservative id: a deep-seated fear that when the dispossessed finally attain a small measure of power, we will turn around and do to them what their governments and ancestors did to us. (emphasis added)

That speaks for itself.

White privilege also gives the radical right 

license to lie and slander

Do Images and Words Matter?

T****'s vision of land management:

a huge pile of coal

Biden's vision of land management:

not a huge pile of coal

The New York Times writes:

Days after President Biden took office, the Bureau of Land Management put a scenic landscape of a winding river at the top of its website, which during the previous administration had featured a photograph of a huge wall of coal.

At the Department of Homeland Security, the phrase “illegal alien” is being replaced with “noncitizen.” The Interior Department now makes sure that mentions of its stakeholders include “Tribal” people (with a capital “T” as preferred by Native Americans, it said). The most unpopular two words in the Trump lexicon — “climate change” — are once again appearing on government websites and in documents; officials at the Environmental Protection Agency have even begun using the hashtag #climatecrisis on Twitter.

And across the government, L.G.B.T.Q. references are popping up everywhere. Visitors to the White House website are now asked whether they want to provide their pronouns when they fill out a contact form: she/her, he/him or they/them.

It is all part of a concerted effort by the Biden administration to rebrand the government after four years of President Donald J. Trump, in part by stripping away the language and imagery that represented his anti-immigration, anti-science and anti-gay rights policies and replacing them with words and pictures that are more inclusive and better match the current president’s sensibilities. 

“Biden is trying to reclaim the vision of America that was there during the Obama administration, a vision that was much more diverse, much more religiously tolerant, much more tolerant of different kinds of gender dispositions and gender presentations,” said Norma Mendoza-Denton, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an author of “Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies.”  

Now, officials in Mr. Biden’s administration are using Mr. Trump’s own tactics to adjust reality again, this time by erasing the words his predecessor used and by explicitly returning to ones that had been banished.  

“The president has been clear to all of us — words matter, tone matters and civility matters,” said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary. “And bringing the country together, getting back our seat at the global table means turning the page from the actions but also the divisive and far too often xenophobic language of the last administration.”

One can reasonably think that if a republican is elected as president in 2024, 2028 or later, the pictures of coal and incivility will displace what Biden is doing. This political and social war is not over. It's not close to over. The pile of coal vision could very well win and bring the American experiment to an end as fascists gain the upper hand in their desperate, fear-driven escape from freedom into the comforting arms of a dictator.  

Biden's gesture is good and necessary, but it probably won't change many minds.

As attorney general, Jeff Sessions ordered his department to use the term “illegal alien” 

in all communications when describing someone who did not come to the 

United States through legal means.

Credit...

Where Does Reality End and Overreaction, Hyperbole and Lies Begin?

Coup: a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government

Coup attempt: an attempted sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government

Since the 1/6 coup attempt, the MSM has been referring to the event as a riot, an attack, an invasion, an insurrection and the like, but not as a coup attempt. In politics, reality is often or usually a complex and variably fuzzy thing. But by the end of the day, it was clear to me that an actual coup attempt had been intentionally fomented by the ex-president and carried out according to his direct orders. That personal reality seemed to be clearer than most things in politics. The evidence included videos of violence broadcast in real time, and the people involved saying they were there to kill come people in congress, stop validation of an allegedly fraudulent and illegitimate election with an intent to keep the ex-president in power. If that isn't a coup attempt, what is it? That the effort failed, or even was doomed to fail, makes no difference.

One can see that calling it an insurrection would consonant with the House impeachment article. But more fundamentally, at its core, the 1/6 event was an attempt to overthrow the government. Information that has come to light since the 1/6 event generally points to it being a coup attempt. 

Was it an overreaction or hyperbole to see 1/6 as a coup attempt? Was it a lie? Is that true now in light of information that has come to light so far?

The Boogaloo Bois, Boogs or Goons

ProPublica reports on one of the groups that participated in the coup attempt.

Hours after the attack on the Capitol ended, a group calling itself the Last Sons of Liberty posted a brief video to Parler, the social media platform, that appeared to show members of the organization directly participating in the uprising. Footage showed someone with a shaky smartphone charging past the metal barricades surrounding the building. Other clips show rioters physically battling with baton-wielding police on the white marble steps just outside the Capitol.

Before Parler went offline — its operations halted at least temporarily when Amazon refused to continue to host the network — the Last Sons posted numerous statements indicating that group members had joined the mob that swarmed the Capitol and had no regrets about the chaos and violence that unfolded on Jan. 6. The Last Sons also did some quick math: The government had suffered only one fatality, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, who was reportedly bludgeoned in the head with a fire extinguisher. But the rioters had lost four people, including Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran who was shot by an officer as she tried to storm the building.

In a series of posts, the Last Sons said her death should be “avenged” and appeared to call for the murder of three more cops.

The group is part of the Boogaloo movement — a decentralized, very online successor to the ­­militia movement of the ’80s and ’90s —­ whose adherents are fixated on attacking law enforcement and violently toppling the U.S. government. Researchers say the movement began coalescing online in 2019 as people — mostly young men — angry with what they perceived to be increasing government repression, found each other on Facebook groups and in private chats. In movement vernacular, Boogaloo refers to an inevitable and imminent armed revolt, and members often call themselves Boogaloo Bois, boogs or goons.  

In the weeks since Jan. 6, an array of extremist groups have been named as participants in the Capitol invasion. The Proud Boys. QAnon believers. White nationalists. The Oath Keepers. But the Boogaloo Bois are notable for the depth of their commitment to the overthrow of the U.S. government and the jaw-dropping criminal histories of many members.  

Mike Dunn, a 20-year-old from a small town on Virginia’s rural southern edge, is the commander of the Last Sons. “I really feel we’re looking at the possibility — stronger than any time since, say, the 1860s — of armed insurrection,” Dunn said in an interview with ProPublica and FRONTLINE a few days after the assault on the Capitol. 

“It was a chance to mess with the federal government again,” he said. “They weren’t there for MAGA. They weren’t there for Trump.” Dunn added that he’s “willing to die in the streets” while battling law enforcement or security forces.

Mike Dunn

So, was 1/6 a coup attempt or something else, e.g., a coup attempt and an insurrection? Is it hyperbole to call it that, or a lie? Does it matter what 1/6 is called?

Ted Cruz Loses All Of His Marriott Award Points

Bethesda, Maryland – Marriott International Inc. announced last night that it has revoked the thousands of Marriott Award Points Texas Senator Ted Cruz accrued over the years. The drastic move by the company that has over 30 brands, 7,484 properties, and over 1.4 million rooms is due to Senator Cruz jetting off to Mexico while millions of Texans are suffering from the effects of the recent winter storm.

Marriott Award Points Morality Clause

Marriott CEO Andrew Canard pointed out everyone who participates in the awards program agrees to its terms and conditions. And like many other programs offered by major hotel chains that reward members with free rooms and extra amenities, there is a morality clause.

“If a participant in the program engages in a heinous crime, we can’t be seen offering such an individual perks,”  said Mr. Canard. “It would damage our brand. Unfortunately, Senator Cruz decided to abandon his constituents in their hour of need. We had no choice but to nullify whatever awards he earned.”

Mr. Canard also stated Cruz earned himself as well as his wife a lifetime ban from Marriott. The two join a small list of people who are never welcome at any of the Marriott properties. Even though the entire list isn’t publicly known, it is rumored that former President Donald Trump and Melania will never be allowed to enter a Marriott property again.

Cancel Culture Gone Amok?

Senator Cruz immediately went on social media to decry what he called “The latest attack by the SJW cancel culture on God-fearing Americans.” Even though he publicly apologized for running out on millions of Texans who had no heat, no electricity, and no water during a natural disaster, Cruz believes his inalienable right to be a jerk is being attacked by the hospitality conglomerate.

Under normal circumstances, other conservative lawmakers and pundits would be quick to support a fellow fascist. But Ted Cruz is so unlikeable that no one is backing him up. One anonymous aide to the Texas senator pointed out a hard truth: “When Ted Cruz loses the support of the KKK, you know it’s serious.”

Other organizations are still deciding what to do. There are rumors Chuck E. Cheese will soon revoke all pizza and gaming privileges to Ted and his wife, as well as their children.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/2021/02/ted-cruz-loses-all-of-his-marriott-award-points/

 

Perseverance Descent Video

 This is from a New York Times article:

The car-sized Perseverance rover is about 10 feet long (not including the robotic arm arm), 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall (about 3 meters long, 2.7 meters wide and 2.2 meters tall). It weighs 2,260 pounds (1,025 kilograms) on Earth. Mars gravity is about 38% of that on Earth. Does that mean it weighs only about 859 pounds on Mars?

This interactive graphic gets into the details of what is on and in the rover.

Secrecy and the Supreme Court

Everything degenerates, even the administration of justice, nothing is safe that does not show it can bear discussion and publicity. .... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton, 1834-1902

Power cloaked in unwarranted opacity, tends to accelerate, harden and deepen corruption. The Supreme Court has an awful lot of power and it is awfully opaque. That opacity can hide an awful lot of corruption, including partisan politics. Hidden corruption in government deceives and betrays the public. -- Germaine, 2021

Context

A couple of recent Supreme Court (SC) decisions led me to want all nine justices impeached and removed. The first was the SC dismissal of lawsuits against the ex-president for violating the emoluments clause. The court "reasoned" that the case was moot because he was out of office. The reason he was out of office was that the SC refused to rule in the case while he was in office. As I saw it, the court intentionally dragged its feet to protect a deeply corrupt president for partisan political purposes. To protect the ex-president, the court went against its own precedent of allowing cases against politicians out of office for their crimes. None of the three democrats on the court dissented, so I concluded they too voted to defend the indefensible. I wanted all nine impeached and removed from office for that grotesque failure of duty to defend the rule of law.

More recently, the SC unanimously voted to allow prosecutors access to the ex-president's tax and financial documents. Once again, the court intentionally delayed issuing this for months to protect the beast while it was still in office. And again, there was not one word of explanation, including nothing from any of the three democrats. The SC just tossed its nasty thing into the punch bowl and was above explaining the delay to us unwashed masses of fools and mushrooms. Given the secrecy and lack of explanation for the protective delay, that too looked like indefensible politics and another attack on the rule of law. I wanted all nine impeached and removed for that dereliction of duty.

A long standing personal complaint is excessive opacity in the functioning of federal courts, especially the powerful SC.

Secrecy & the Supreme Court

A 1973 paper, Secrecy and the Supreme Court: On the Need for Piercing the Red Velour Curtain, discussed the rationale for secrecy of SC operations and decisions. The paper noted that Judge Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965) argued that, although there is a legitimate need for the public to know how the court operates, the SC could not open itself up to public scrutiny without ceasing to function effectively. Huh??

In reaction to that, common sense flares up and reflexively retorts to Frankfurter: That is sheer nonsense. SC justices are appointed for life precisely to insulate them from public opinion and partisan politics. What the hell are you blithering about?  

Despite that common sense reflex, the paper's authors point out that the Frankfurter rationale, if that's what it is, "has met with virtually unanimous approval." So much for common sense.

The paper's authors write:

Our thesis may be simply stated: basic democratic theory requires that there be knowledge not only of who governs but of how policy decisions are made. .... We maintain that the secrecy which pervades Congress, the executive branch and courts is itself the enemy. .... For all we know, the justices engage in some sort of latter-day intellectual haruspication[1], followed by the assignment of someone to write an opinion to explain, justify or rationalize the decision so reached. .... That the opinion(s) cannot be fully persuasive, or at times even partially so, is a matter of common knowledge among those who make their living following Court proclamations.

The authors go on to level a slew of ferocious criticisms of SC secrecy and sloppy thinking and writing. They point to political expediency as the core but hidden source of court decisions. They cite one commentator as describing the practice of opinion formation as "scholarly astrology." They argue that "the very fact that students of the Court exhibit a desire to gain a better understanding of the Court is ample proof that the opinions are inadequate to explain the decision making."

Some factors that can make the process opaque and the product shoddy include a need for compromise to get at least five votes. That can lead to murky thinking and writing. A major source of opacity and confusion arises when judges work backward from conclusions to reach principles instead of using principles to draw conclusions. In other words, judges often decide based on their opinions, biases and values, not on relevant legal principles. They smash the round pegs in their own minds into the square holes of legal principles, often at the partial or complete expense of facts, true truths and sound reasoning. The rationale that secrecy is needed for the decision-making process is not explained, just asserted: "Justice W. J. Brennan states that the conferences are carried out in "absolute secrecy" for "obvious reasons" and avoids any further elucidation of the matter. .... It is the validity of that notion that is challenged in this article."

What are the obvious reasons? Just blurt them out so that we can decide what to believe for ourselves.

Maybe the sources of muddled language and incoherent thinking cannot be avoided. Humans are human, not Vulcans, the Borg, Klingons or goldfish. The situation would be much more understandable and forgivable if some of the secrecy was lifted and the public allowed to see more of how and why decisions are made. That would go a long way toward easing the kinds of suspicions some people have, like me, that SC justices are more corrupt politician-ideologues in black robes than honest, unbiased interpreters of the law.

Footnote: 

1. Haruspication: the act or practice of divination from the entrails (guts) of animals slain in sacrifice, mainly sheep and poultry livers; haruspicy had its heyday as a religion in ancient Rome  

There is a scientific link between lower levels of cognitive intelligence and being homophobic, a study has found.

 Researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia, drew correlations between those who record a low intelligence quotient (IQ) score and those who express bigoted, prejudiced views.

This connection, scientists wrote in the journal Intelligence, is the first to connect the dots between lower cognitive ability and homophobia.

In comparing the two data sets, researchers found that the lower a person’s cognitive intelligence was found to be, the more likely they were to be homophobic.

“Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice,” they concluded.

more details:

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/02/09/homophobe-intelligence-study-queensland-university-australia/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289617303628

Increasing Recognition of the Immorality of Lying?

A Washington Post article, Impeachment is over. But other efforts to reckon with Trump’s post-election chaos have just begun, commented about the real world consequences of deceiving people:

“There has to be some consequence for telling these lies — because when you lie to people, they take action based on what they think is true,” said Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican who received threats after false allegations of fraud in the counting of the city’s votes. “Because it’s such a dangerous new thing that occurred, there has to be some reconciliation. Moving on isn’t enough. .... Meanwhile, a variety of groups and individuals who say they were harmed by lies told about the election are pursuing lawsuits.”

That is the first time I can recall any politician publicly saying something like that. Maybe the consequences of lies in politics are starting to dawn on some politicians and voters. Maybe lawsuits will help drive the moral message home. Maybe.

One politician the message has not fazed in the slightest is you-know-who:

On Tuesday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, sued Trump, Giuliani and members of two extremist groups, arguing that their rhetoric caused the Jan. 6 riot in violation of an 1871 law that bars violent interference in the performance of Congress’s duties. Thompson is being represented by the NAACP, which said other members of Congress are expected to join.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller has rejected the effort, saying in a statement that “the facts are irrefutable” that Trump “did not incite or conspire to incite any violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6th.”

It's not just about lying and truth: “We should have burned it all.”

America is in the midst of a ferocious political and social war over facts, true truths, sound reasoning, tolerance and social comity. For millions of conservatives, the ex-president has normalized lies, falsehoods, crackpot motivated reasoning, intolerance and racism as acceptable means to achieve sacred goals. For clear headed conservative leaders, the goals are concentrated power and wealth via anti-democratic fascism and white supremacy. For deluded rank and file conservative voters the goals are defense of democracy, truth and the American way, roughly white Christian Nationalism for some or most.

Racist doctor in Miami, Jennifer Susan Wright, outraged at 

being asked to socially distance in a store by a hispanic 

man so she attacked him;

she is being charged with a hate crime;

“This is not going to be Biden’s America, this is my America.

We should have burned it all.”

Mission accomplished: Racism normalized

Book Review: A Lot Of People Are Saying

The 2019 book, Book Review: A Lot Of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, is an explanation of the rise of a new kind of conspiracy thinking that falls short of being conspiracy theory. The book is short (176 pages, paperback version) and easy to read. The authors are Russell Muirhead, Professor of Democracy and Politics, Dartmouth College, and Nancy L. Rosenblum, Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government, Harvard University.

The book was published before the 1/6 coup attempt and how the now fascist GOP responded to it so far. The authors were thus not influenced by those watershed events in American politics. Those anti-democratic events directly negate a few of the assertions the book's arguments are based on. Nonetheless, the overall analysis and arguments that Muirhead and Rosenblum make remain mostly untouched. This book offers a reasoned vision of what is happening right now and just how damaging and dangerous this species of dark free speech is.

What is new conspiracism?

Classical conspiracy theory, which can be true or false, attempts to make sense of political events by positing evidence, reasoning and a theory that explains the events. There is some proportionality between evidence and the explanation. There is an honest attempt to find evidence to fit the theory or to make evidence fit a theory. Conspiracy theories (i) are typically attached to an ideology or political theory, and (ii) provide an explanation. Sometimes the investigation is flawed by external factors such as partisanship, confirmation bias and/or motivated reasoning, but at least there is an attempt to offer explanations that better fit the facts. Classical conspiracy theories include ones to explain the 9/11 attacks. The drafting and content of the Declaration of Independence arose from a conspiracy theory among Americans about the evil, tyrannical intentions of the British government toward America. 

“The incendiary purpose of the conspiracy theory in the Declaration remains. On July 4, 2017, National Public Radio issued one hundred tweets that together contained the full text. Twitter followers identified as Donald Trump supporters were confused. They read the Tweets as inciting violence against the administration. ‘So NPR is calling for revolution. Interesting way to condone violence while trying to sound patriotic.’  ‘Your implications are clear.’ ‘Glad you are being defunded. You never had been balanced on your show.’ And the omnipresent charge: ‘Fake news.’”

By contrast, new conspiracism dispenses with an explanation and a political theory. Bare assertions are legitimized by online repetition and affirmation or ‘likes’. That is the thin oxygen that gives new conspiracism its life and power. 

“Yet the new conspiracism discards this defining purpose [of explaining an event]. Not only does the new conspiracism fail to offer explanations, there is often nothing to explain. .... The typical form of the new conspiracism is bare assertion .... Another example of sheer allegation is ‘birtherism’. .... Today, ‘fake’ is the most familiar example of bare assertion: fake news, fake FBI reports .... Fakeness is not a matter of error, after all, but of malignant intent. .... In addition to shedding explanation, the new conspiracism sheds political theory. It does not offer an account of what is threatened. It does not offer an account of the constructive political change that should follow from exposing the danger. .... The new conspiracism is not defending ultimate values; often the stakes are low, of the moment, and no values are articulated at all.”

Bare assertions typically come by way of one or both of two rhetorical tactics, the ominous question and innuendo. The ominous question, e.g., did the authorities test for this or do that in their investigation of the allegedly mysterious death of Antonin Scalia in Texas: “‘My gut tells me there is something fishy going on in Texas.’ No specific accusations are made, and no falsifiable assertions are ventured. The ‘just asking questions’ tactic substitutes for argument, evidence and explanation.” 

In the 2016 election, the ex-president used innuendo against Ted Cruz by repeating a National Enquirer article that suggested without evidence that there was a connection between Cruz’s father and Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK’s assassin. The ex-president said “Even if it isn’t totally true, there’s something there.” 

New conspiracism is often mixed with classical conspiracy theory, making it more difficult to understand and deal with. In that regard, it constitutes some of the very best dark free speech that mixes some facts and/or truths with lies and/or motivated reasoning. 

A lot of people are saying

New conspiracism relied heavily on repetition, forwarding and liking Tweets and public affirmation such as ‘a lot of people are saying’.

“What Trump, for instance, wants is not the architecture of an organized political party or even an organized movement but a throng that assents to his account of reality. ‘You know what’s important’, he said about his fantasy of illegal Clinton votes, ‘millions of people agree with me when I say that.’ Affirmation of his reality is the key act .... This helps us understand just how the internet is vital for the new conspiracists and how their use of it is different from classical conspiracists’. .... Repetition is the new conspiracist’s oxygen, and it sometimes seems, its whole purpose.”

The goal of new conspiracism: delegitimation

The authors argue that delegitimation of democracy, government officials, the press and other democratic institutions is the main goal. By constantly asserting false realities and crackpot motivated reasoning, the new conspiracists disorient people and imposes a constant burden on them to keep rejecting the attacks. This is not the same as reasonable mistrust, which is healthy for a democracy.  

“Where mistrust is a necessary element of democratic accountability and widespread mistrust is a sign of democratic failing, delegitimation is an active assault on democracy. Delegitimation exists when a political opposition that is mistrusted is come to be seen as a public enemy, for example. We are learning what delegitimation looks like. Authorities are cast as hostile elements .... Officials are ‘so-called’ officials .... They are demeaned and undermined, threatened, and declared criminal or traitorous.”

How to fight against it

The authors here are like some or most others who have written on the topic of political dark free speech. People and politicians have to constantly speak truth to the lies and nonsense. Politicians have to be more transparent to reduce the size of targets for conspiracism. Politicians have to be more assertive about “enacting democracy,” which they define as both acknowledging concerns there may be in conspiracism but firmly pointing out that the beliefs are false and democratic government is not out to enslave the American people. They admit that some republican politicians (1) acknowledge the public concerns, but fail to defend democracy, or (2) say nothing at all. Both of which are inherently anti-democratic. 

Interestingly, the authors concede that closed minds cannot be reached. Instead, open minds are the target for the difficult task of trying relegitimize and repair what has been delegitimized and damaged.

The weakness that runs through this book has to be made clear. The 1/6 coup attempt and how the GOP responded thereafter directly contradicts some of what the authors were thinking and arguing. They did not foresee in 2019 what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. In my mind, the 1/6 coup attempt changed the new conspiracism the authors articulated to a newer and more virulent form. That virus mutated on 1/6 and it got a lot nastier than the original strain. We really need a new and better vaccine.

Oops! I accidently took a "nasty" pill this morning :-O

Let's play "What's wrong with this picture?"

(Hint: See arrow) 😉

Is Spirituality Hard Wired or Something Else?

Is God in there somewhere?

Scientists have been trying for decades to answer the question of whether spirituality or religious belief arises among humans solely in the brain or both in and out of the brain. Either way, there is a postulated role for hard wiring or neural pathways as a necessary component. It is therefore reasonable to think that spiritual and religious experiences are hard wired to some extent, but that culture and life experiences can affect those perceptions. 

The nature vs nurture contribution is unknown and probably very hard to assess. Studies with twins indicate some role for nature (genes and inherited innate hard wiring). What culture and life experience can do is alter hard wiring to some unknown extent. The brain partially rewires itself all the time in response to life experiences.

The following shows some of the struggles that science is having in dealing with spirituality and how to describe it and do research on it.

A 2009 review article comments:

To figure out whether the main empirical question “Is our brain hardwired to believe in and produce God [the producing point of view], or is our brain hardwired to perceive and experience God? [the perceiving point of view]” is answered, this paper presents systematic critical review of the positions, arguments and controversies .... allowing consciousness/mind/spirit and brain/body/matter to be seen as different sides of the same phenomenon, neither reducible to each other. .... A methodological shift from “explanation” to “description” of religious experience is suggested.

Thus, based on the reasoning set out above, we can construct the following definition of religious experience: religious experience is the very moment of experiencing of ultimate divine reality or ultimate divine truth, a transcendence of events or universe, timelessness, spacelessness, and divine being and/or union with it in any combination with an accompanied memorable feeling of reality, emotions and thoughts with a religious content. We use the word “religious” instead of “mystic” or “spiritual”, because “religious” in our opinion is a narrower concept and also adds a cultural dimension.

It seems that religious experience was and is a world-wide phenomenon. According to Burkert (1996) in prehistoric times no groups of people lived which had no religious experience (judging by the existence of religion). At the same time, groups existed which have no demonstrated such attributes of human culture as agriculture, clothing, money, laws and writing.

Arguments for a “producing” point of view

A “producing” point of view (sometimes it is referred as neuroscientific and/or cognitive) is a reductionistic one and can be summarised as follows: our brain is structured so as to provide us with experiences that make us believe there is a God, but this belief may merely be the result of internal brain activity and our interpretation of it.

Argument 1: It has been reported that the intense activation of the frontal and temporal cortices and limbic system, as well as (de)activation of the parietal cortex give rise to religious experience (for the full list of brain areas and structures and for the references, see Table 4). .... The formulation of argument 1 is weak because the findings on which it is based are correlative in nature, and as such, they tell us nothing about the cause-consequence relationships. .... It follows from this brief critical review of the arguments for a “producing” point of view that observed neuroscientific arguments tell us nothing about the true nature of religious experience or God.

Arguments for a “perceiving” point of view

The “perceiving” position (sometimes it is referred as theological) can be summarised as follows: our brains have the capacity to perceive God, and since our brain is designed to attune us to reality, this points to the likelihood that there is a God.

Argument 1: If the human brain enables humans to have religious experience, to perceive and believe in God, then it should be a reason for this experience (Joseph 2001). .... Religious experience may co-evolve with any other human phenomenon (for example, deactivation-mediated abstract reasoning, Previc 2006) which increases the survival of the organism. On the other hand, religious experience and practice themselves may have a protective effect on human communities and thus may also increase their survival. However, this reasoning tries to explain how religious experience has been preserved in human evolution but not the reason for the origin of religious experience. 

As it follows from critical review of the arguments for both the “producing” and “perceiving” points of view the main empirical question “Is our brain hardwired to believe in and produce God, or is our brain hardwired to perceive God?” remains unanswered.

A 2016 assessment of the state of the art indicates that spirituality is both hard wired and an adaptation. The Brain Blogger wrote:

The question of whether religion has been “hardwired” into our brains or an evolutionary adaptation has been debated for decades, however, more recently we have uncovered scientific underpinning for both possibilities.

Barrett equates religion to language acquisition where “we come into this world cognitively prepared for language; our culture and upbringing merely dictate which languages we will be exposed to.” Brain Blogger’s own Dr. Jennifer Gibson discussed how “the brain seems predisposed to a belief in all things spiritual” back in 2008.

As the original question remains unanswered, we are early… the neuroscientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena remains in its infancy. There is mounting evidence of a biological correlate to these phenomena, however, this does not necessarily negate an actual spiritual component.

A 2020 review article comments:

Neurotheology originated from brain-scan studies that revealed specific correlations between certain religious thoughts and localized activated brain areas known as “God Spots.” This relatively young scholarly discipline lacks clear consensus on its definition, ideology, purpose, or prospects for future research. .... God Spot research is poised to move beyond observation to robust hypothesis generation and testing.

The field of neurotheology emerged from metabolic brain-scan discoveries, made in a few pioneering laboratories, showing that specific areas of the brain become more metabolically active when people have religious experiences (d’Aquili and Newberg 1999; Newberg et al. 2002; McNamara 2009; Newberg 2010, 2018). Scholars have responded to these findings in various ways, ranging from intrigue, to indifference, and to dismissive labeling of these areas as “God Spots” in the brain.

The field is unsettled. Physical structures in the brain, neural pathways or hard wiring, are believed to be necessary for religious or spiritual experience, but those concepts that are hard to define and pin down. One can be doubtful that a spiritual component outside the brain is involved. But that belief is probably subject to the criticism that it is too reductionist and/or contradicted by sufficient evidence. Maybe so, but I continue to doubt it. 

RINO Hunts, McConnell's Calculations and Fox News vs Democracy & Consumers

These short pieces clearly indicate the future path of American politics for the foreseeable future. They also reveal a lot about the moral basis on which mainstream conservative politics and most of the business community operate.

After RINO hunts, only the left is left

Moderate republican - extinct

Disloyal republican - nearing extinction

Bloomberg Businessweek writes:

The start of Donald Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial is the latest reminder that although he’s left the White House, the former president hasn’t vacated his role as the dominant figure in the Republican Party—and the most divisive one. Republicans had hoped to spend the Biden era stoking tensions between moderate Democrats like the new president and the rising faction to his left. Instead, it’s the GOP that’s quickly fractured over the question of whether its members should remain in thrall to Trump or seek to move on from him.

“Many of you are hacked off that I condemned his lies,” Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, whose state party plans to censure him, said in a video defending his criticism of Trump. “Let’s be clear: The anger in this state party has never been about me violating principle or abandoning conservative policy. I’m one of the most conservative voters in the Senate. The anger’s always been simply about me not bending the knee to … one guy.”

Make no mistake, when Sasse says he is one of the most conservative voters in the Senate he means it, He is a radical right authoritarian or maybe something worse, e.g., a semi-fascist. He is not close to moderate by any reasonable definition. GOP voter loyalty to the party has shifted to the ex-president. Even radical conservatives people like Sasse are facing extinction unless they join the fascist cult.[1] That is where mainstream American conservatism has moved. 

Biden has no GOP moderate wing to try to work with. All that remains is a few tribal radical right authoritarians like Sasse and the majority fascist personality cult. Biden has no choice but to act without GOP support or do nothing. 

What McConnell wants

NPR's Michele Martin interviewed investigative journalist Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, about his ambitions.

Martin: So how closely tied to whatever victories Trump did achieve was Mitch McConnell?

Mayer: Oh, McConnell has been incredibly important to Trump. He's made Trump's administration look like it was competent because they got legislative victories and these judges through. .... And so this turn against Trump is really dramatic in the final day just before Biden was to be inaugurated.

Martin: So what do you think was the cause of that shift?

Mayer: Well, if you look at McConnell's career, there's really one theme running through it from start to finish, and it's always his self-interest. He doesn't act out of sort of moral principle, particularly. He's always calculating what the angles are for him and for his party. And so he's got his eye on 2022. He wants to get back into being the majority leader. That's what he lives for, really. And he's now come to think of Trump as standing in the way.  

What Trump has done is split the coalition that has kept the Republican Party in power for many of the past few decades. It's a coalition between big-business Republicans, sort of the establishment wing, and the social conservatives that are in the evangelical wing of the party and sort of white reactionaries. And Trump is taking those in one direction, and McConnell is getting heat from the business community and the other because after the Capitol mob rebellion and insurrection, the business world said, forget it, we're not supporting these people anymore.

Again, there is no hope of bipartisanship on the horizon anywhere in the fascist GOP. McConnell was not acting out of constitutional principle or public interest in breaking from the ex-president. He was, as always, acting in self-interest and party interest in the name of personal political power. That came at the expense of all other interests. The GOP has rotted to its core. For the time being, it appears that the business community that had been supporting the GOP even while it morphed into demagogic radical right authoritarianism seems to have stopped short of supporting full-blown fascist cultism.

Fox is invincible, really!

To faze the Fox, you have to unFox your box

https://unfoxmycablebox.com/

Some sources have reported that Fox News ratings have dropped in the wake of the Nov. 3 election and the 1/6 coup attempt. Consumers are angry and agitating to boycott advertisers, but that is futile. An NPR broadcast of On the Media reports that unless Fox is deplatformed, consumer backlash will not faze Fox. OTM points out that Fox became more extreme over the last year or so. It downplayed COVID and supported election fraud conspiracy theories. Fox was busy bringing dangerous previously far-right fringe lies to the mainstream. In recent weeks activists and journalists have called on advertisers and cable providers to pressure Fox to moderate or get kicked off the air.

Well over 90% of Fox revenues come from cable providers who pay Fox to be in their lineup of cable channels. The only way to faze the Fox is to get it deplatformed and booted off cable. Us consumers are the ones who financially support Fox and the poison it routinely injects into American society and politics. 

That is galling, to say the least. It shows exactly what the morals of the business community and especially the cable news industry are. Specifically, their morals are profit. Social and political poison is of no significant concern, i.e., lip service does not count.

Footnote: 

1. A blog post at Patheos, Kinzinger’s Family Letter: God, the GOP and Conservative Media, describes just how vicious, reality-detached and incoherent at least some of the fascist GOP cult is. This is both sad and terrifying:

There are three legs to the stool upon which public opinion over Trump and the impeachment sits: God, the GOP as a tribal entity, and conservative media in its incurably rabid form. Nothing exemplifies this more acutely than the letter that Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican House Representative who voted to impeach Trump, received from his own family. It’s a pretty torrid and shameful affair.

Kinzinger voted with his conscience, he did the correct moral thing, and he has been disowned by his family and claimed to be possessed by the devil for doing so.

In the two-page letter, Kinzinger’s family said he embarrassed their name by breaking with Trump, called Democrats the “devil’s army,” and rebuked him for losing the respect of several conservative talk show hosts. They also accused him of falling for the Democratic party’s alleged “socialism ideals.”

“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” the letter dated January 8 read. “We were once so proud of your accomplishments.”  

“You should be very proud that you have lost the respect of Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Greg Kelly, etc., and most importantly in our book, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh and us!”

Honestly, we have got to unFox our box.