Thoughts about ill-will in American politics

Rhetoric from MAGA (America's authoritarian radical right) consists almost completely of ill-will toward its opposition.[1] There is a lot of evidence to support that assertion. In view of the evidence, one can see that as being a fact, not mere opinion. For example, JD Vance recently publicly said that he will lie to the public as a means to draw attention to all the horrible things being done to the Americans people. He did not specify what the horrible things are or why lies were necessary to get the job done, when facts and reason work just fine for sane people.* He used that "reasoning" to justify vicious lies about falsely alleged illegal Haitian immigrants (they are not illegal) eating house pets (none have been eaten). That clearly consists of both lies and Great Replacement Theory racism. 

* One can reasonably believe that Vance sees himself, DJT and the MAGA movement generally as populated by sane people. If asked, that is what he will say.

In malicious mendacity like that, where is the good ill or good faith? There is none as far as I can tell. There is cynical ill-will for sure, but where is the good will? 

The same argument can be leveled at the MAGA rank and file. Many or most of them have been argued to joyfully revel in the discomfort and pain their arrogant lies, racism, bigotry and slanders inflict on innocent targets. From my blog post yesterday:

MAGA likes inflicting pain on its political enemies. It likes and enjoys creating these ridiculous and absurd memes. It loves to provoke people who are on the outside. It’s part of the joy of this MAGA movement that can include this extreme aggression online. The people who are in on the joke [Haitians eating dogs and cats in Springfield Ohio], the core MAGA people who are pushing the memes out, look, if it’s true, great. If it’s not true, who cares? They’re having a good time.

From what I can tell, there is a lot of truth in that argument. Much of the MAGA rank and file seems to be having a darned good time, or at least they act that way. Listen to them talk. They like pissing off attacked and slandered people and groups.

In response to all the ill-will, joyful or not, what reactions among the lied to, slandered, attacked and crackpotted upon are fair and reasonable? From what I can tell from science and personal experience, emotional and moral impulses give rise to most of the reactions among groups and individuals that MAGA attacks, insults, lies and slanders. As usual, the range of responses is quite broad, probably ranging from boredom and/or indifference to seething outrage and/or intense fear.

Some argue that the center and left are not sufficiently empathetic toward MAGA compared to other groups. Well, isn't that to be expected? Sure it is. Most attacked and/or insulted people will tend to emotionally distance themselves from attackers in emotional/moral self-defense. In those situations, negative feelings like anger and resentment toward abusers will override empathy for many or most people. In these moral assessments, one needs to be cognizant of who is the attacker and who is the attacked. 

I have experienced exactly that kind of self-defense and democracy defense response. Early on, e.g., 2016 to about 2018, I had some empathy for the rank and file. I accorded the MAGA rank and file less moral responsibility for supporting DJT, because I saw them as deceived, manipulated and betrayed by MAGA dark free speech. I accorded MAGA elites ~85% of the blame and ~15% to the rank and file back then. But now after years of accumulating evidence proving that DJT is extremely dangerous and thoroughly morally rotted (and a convicted felon), I accord the rank and file 45% of the blame and the elites 55%. Although blame assessment in politics for things like this is mostly a subjective assessment, maybe I should nudge the blame estimate to ~50:50.

When it comes to the MAGA rank and file, I lost my empathy. In my opinion, mostly amounts to just being a sane human being under attack.

Q: Is it reasonable or morally justifiable to lose empathy for all of MAGA, elites and rank and file, in the face of a perceived deadly MAGA attack that is grounded mostly in ill-will, was unprovoked and is implacably opposed to my core moral values?***

*** My core moral political values: support for and belief in pluralistic, secular democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law, fact, true truth, sound reasoning, etc.

Footnote:

1. What about ill-will from the left aimed at the right and center? Yes, some liberals express ill-will toward conservatives and/or the very different MAGA wealth and power movement.* Examples include, stereotyping and insulting language, e.g., "idiot[s] out on the farm", uneducated, racist, homophobic. How prevalent that is in the non-MAGA world is unclear. But the prevalence of ill-will is shown by overwhelming rank and file MAGA support for DJT. That is quantified by opinion polls. One cannot rationally, or in good faith, argue that support for Harris and Dem politicians amounts too a mindset as about equally driven by ill-will as minds that support MAGA.

* Real pro-democracy conservatives are not MAGA -- they have left the GOP or been RINO hunted out by some combination of the elites and the rank and file. The rank and file, not the elites, voted Liz Cheney out of power.

Is liberal ill-will qualitatively and quantitatively about the same as MAGA ill-will? From what I can tell, most conservatives do not convey nearly the same level of ill will and mendacity that MAGA does. Fact-checkers provide significant evidence of ill-will in the MAGA movement. In my firm opinion, lies** and slanders are direct evidence of ill-will. And to me, lies are direct evidence of moral rot, ranging from mild immorality to flat out evil. Political lies aimed at political opposition tend to, probably usually do, attack and/or insult the target. 

** Lies are intentional and knowing, unlike honest mistakes that are unknowingly based on false information, insufficient information (ignorance), or unintentionally flawed reasoning. 

My emotional and moral assessment:

Lies = ill-will and ranging from immoral to evil

Honest mistakes = good will and moral

One commentator about the joy of being MAGA; Miscellaneous

NYT columnist David French opines (not paywalled) on how he currently sees the enormous appeal of DJT to the MAGA rank and file. French lives in rural Tennessee, surrounded by MAGA people, so he has a metric buttload (50 butt-tons) of relevant personal experience. He writes:

To understand MAGA, we have to understand the joy and sense of belonging that the movement bestows upon its adherents. .... The lie that Haitian immigrants are eating pets — appeal to his followers’ “sense of gleeful transgression.”

If you’re on the outside, your experience with MAGA is all of the anger projected outward. So you see MAGA as almost entirely an angry movement.

MAGA likes inflicting pain on its political enemies. It likes and enjoys creating these ridiculous and absurd memes. It loves to provoke people who are on the outside. It’s part of the joy of this MAGA movement that can include this extreme aggression online.

The people who are in on the joke [Haitians eating dogs and cats in Springfield Ohio], the core MAGA people who are pushing the memes out, look, if it’s true, great. If it’s not true, who cares? They’re having a good time.

Clip of TikTok: I don’t know about you, but I’m Voting Donald Trump, baby.

Clip of Donald Trump Jr.: “You know, honestly, I’m waiting for Merrick Garland to indict my father for being part of an assassination. You know, that’s what’s next.”

Jesse Watters: “It’s a conspiracy.”

They’re trashing our body politic. They’re wrecking, in many ways, the G.O.P., but they are having a good time and hey, the people they’re making mad, they don’t like them anyway.

And you might think for a minute that, well, wait, this can’t go on forever. Surely, surely the majority of Republicans, when they know they’ve been had, when they know these are lies, will stop paying attention to these memes. They’ll reject this method.

And the really sad answer is that the Republican response to Jan. 6 and the Big Lie showed us the tolerance that Republicans have for dishonesty and for lying if it is directed against their hated Democratic enemies. (emphasis added)

The opinion touches on two other joyful MAGA crackpot memes, one of which is exuberant fun with non-existent election fraud now that early voting has started in some places.

So, there we have it from one commentator: MAGA folks are just having fun and don't care about truth. Since they don't like the rest of us anyway, so why should they give a fig about truth or lies? It's all just good clean fun at our expense. C'mon people, lighten up!

French: They’re wrecking, in many ways, the G.O.P. 

Response: What?? The GOP has been wrecked in many ways at least since 2016. Wrecked puts it waaay too mildly. Blown to smithereens is closer to the mark.

Once again an uncontrollable compulsion to ask about moral responsibility for adult American citizens bubbles up from the bowels of my unconsciousness.  

Q: If what French writes is mostly correct, and most of the MAGA rank and file (i) really is having joyous fun at our expense and at the expense of targeted groups, e.g., falsely accused Haitian immigrants who are allegedly illegal immigrants eating people's dogs and cats, (ii) does not like us, (ii) does not care about truth or lies, and (iv) will vote for the lying, fornicating, pussy-grabbing, kleptocratic dictator-thug and convicted felon DJT, are these MAGA folks just good, honest people and patriots who deserve our respect and good will? Or, it is time to call a spade a spade, and openly speak the actual truth that most of the MAGA rank and file is bigoted, pro-dictator and a dangerous but joyful enemy of American democracy, and people like you and me who oppose DJT and his radical kleptocratic authoritarianism? 

Q: Once again, is Germaine off his rocker, over the top, insanely deluded by identity politics, hoodwinked by pragmatic rationalist hyper-partisanship, or otherwise beguiled and missing the mark?

Darned Germaine and his double darned pragmatic rationalism . . . . grumble, grumble . . . . . darn it.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

A peanut from the gallery commenting on the faux horror of dogs and cats being eaten in Ohio: The campaign seems to have stumbled into a strange unintended message: “Let’s go to war with Taylor Swift to stop Haitians from eating dogs.” At least that's less worrisome than their other stated goals. (good point, peanut)

WaPO: Why Big Tobacco is betting on Trump -- As the industry fights a ban on menthol cigarettes, a Reynolds American subsidiary has become the largest corporate donor to the main pro-Trump super PAC  (good 'ole brass knuckles capitalism -- it supports a dictator-kleptocrat as long as its profits are protected and to hell with public health, honest government, democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law, the environment, etc.)

WaPo: Hezbollah leader says device attacks are an ‘act of war,’ as Israeli warplanes fly over Beirut -- In his first remarks since thousands of electronic devices exploded across the country, Hasan Nasrallah said that Hezbollah suffered “a major blow,” but that his forces would not stop attacking Israel as long as the war in Gaza continued -- “The enemy transgressed all boundaries and redlines,” Nasrallah said in a widely anticipated speech Thursday evening local time about the attacks, which killed at least 37 people and injured nearly 3,000 when pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices exploded simultaneously on Tuesday and Wednesday across Lebanon. The attacks were “a major assault on Lebanon, its security and sovereignty, a war crime — an act of war,” he added, and they dealt an “unprecedented blow” to Hezbollah and Lebanon. (Hm, the stench of another new war is in the air . . . . Hezbollah complaining about transgressing all boundaries and redlines? Ha, that's the pot calling the kettle black -- leaders in the Middle East are all stupid, spoiled, corrupt monsters)

WaPo on demagogic dictatorship: Putin wants Russia’s youth to become ultranationalist patriots. Many are all in. -- Young Russians are embracing Kremlin propaganda, reshaping the Ukraine war narrative with ultranationalist views and seeing themselves as patriotic truth defenders.  (Hm, the stench of fascism is in the air . . . . Putin is turning Russian children into vicious monsters -- once again, witness the power of dark free speech)

Enthusiastic little Russian patriots training

to genocide (the verb) the Ukrainians to death

The Independent: Trump claims audience ‘went crazy’ for him at his debate with Harris – but there was no audience -- Donald Trump appeared on Fox News show Gutfeld! to talk about his September 10 debate with Kamala Harris -- Trump referred to the nonexistent audience. “And the audience was absolutely– they went crazy,” he said.
 (good 'ole Faux News, always a reliable source of bullshit, lies, slanders, crackpottery and more lies and slanders, just like DJT is a good source for the same)

Salon: Georgia's abortion ban killed a young mother. The Christian right now blames the victim -- Anti-choice activists argue that if Amber Nicole Thurman had submitted to forced childbirth, she'd still be alive -- Republicans and Christian right activists don't want to take responsibility for the loss of this healthy young mother of a 6-year-old boy. Instead, they're casting blame on everyone else: the doctors in the Georgia hospital, abortion providers in North Carolina, and, though they will deny doing so, they're blaming Thurman herself. Thurman chose abortion. They're blaming her choice for her death. (I bet that forced birth supporters knew this day was coming and had their response to blame the dead woman planned in advance -- they knew the day would come when they would need to try to get ahead of criticism of their brutal forced birth laws -- good  'ole Christian nationalism, its as cruel and brutal as it is kleptocratic)

LGBQT Nation writes about the authoritarian MAGA wealth and power movement going from He did not say what he said, to Us MAGA politicians did not do what we just did: GOP senator rages at CNN host because she correctly said his party blocked the IVF protection bill -- He claimed that the IVF bill would give fertility treatments to trans women in his bizarre and angry rant x (Good grief! Treating trans women? The horror, the horror . . . . .)

Memory lane: Those were simpler,

happier times

Happy days: A supreme court 

nominee hearing in the US senate

BOMBSHELL REPORT!!

 

Judy Byington: Now Is The Time. Trust The Plan. Pray. “The Enormity Of What Is Coming Will Shock The World” President Donald Trump! Restored Republic via a GCR: Update as of Tues. 17 Sept. 2024

https://amg-news.com/bombshell-report-judy-byington-now-is-the-time-trust-the-plan-pray-the-enormity-of-what-is-coming-will-shock-the-world-president-donald-trump-restored-republic-via-a-gcr-updat/

Not sure who Judy is, but damn, she has figured it all out - as per the following:

WARNING!!!

At This Very Moment in New York UN Global Elites Were Positioning Themselves To Completely Control People of the World via Passage of the Global Digital Compact, or the Illuminati’s Great Reset

Meanwhile…

On Monday Trump Announced the Launch of World Liberty Financial Crypto Exchange, the Apparent Precursor to 130 Sovereign Countries’ Gold/Asset-Backed Global Currency Reset Which Ensured The People Would Have Complete Control Over Their Own Monies & Provided Freedom From Debt For All

Checkmate!!!

Judy Note: Right now the 79th U.N. General Assembly was meeting in New York to consider putting their stamp of approval on a document called the Global Digital Compact. If passed, the Compact would give the U.N. Secretary-General totalitarian control over all people across the Globe, overriding governments and trampling individual freedoms.

I’m only an outside observer, but with Trump head of the Global Military Alliance which was arresting thousands of corrupt Deep State Globalists, it’s pretty obvious to me that the two recent Trump Assassination Attempts were Homeland Security- FBI-Biden Administration Inside Jobs.

  On 29 Sept. 2019, Barack Obama was executed by firing squad at GITMO. Donald Trump just leaked undeniable evidence exposing Obama practicing Satanic Sacrificing Rituals alongside other powerful figures—GAY men and PEDOPHILES like Oprah, Clinton, and more! Tucker Carlson had released multiple videos that showed the Satanic blood rituals, child sacrifices and much more Devil oriented things which took place under the White House. Recorded in 2008, videos expose Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton, Prince Andres, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and many more engaging in Demonic activity and Child Sacrifice.

For more insight, click on the above link. And enjoy! 

Thinking in sadness and fear about what is being forced on us

I have a long list of posts I want to do. But this is stuck in my head, so I'll write about it. This is my personal take on the terrifying mess we are in. 

Given the vast stretches of wasteland and mindless to insulting garbage that dominates American cable TV, various drama series from Europe have a lot of appeal. They are usually very well produced, written, cast and acted. Most of the series about life and events from ~1900 to the end of WW2, have central themes of (i) war, (ii) various forms of bigotry, (iii) the corruption, brutality and evil that humans do, and (iv) the endless fight against all the myriad forms of human badness and evil. The Europeans seem to have been and probably still are significantly preoccupied with such matters. 

One can see why. That's where two huge, bloody wars were fought.

Although these series are all fiction, it is obvious that the badness portrayed is inherent in the human condition. In my opinion, these series are fiction but they portray quite plausible human reality. There aren't excursions into the supernatural. Just events that one can easily envision as coming from a core of truth.

La Otra Mirada (A Different View) was made in Spain in Spanish with English subtitles. It is a series about a girl's school in 1920s Spain in Seville. It brilliantly portrays the struggle of women to slowly, painfully break free from all the heavy constraints on their freedoms and power to control themselves and live as they wish. The brutality and intolerance of men, and some sympathetic, complicit women, in opposing that slow progress is made crystal clear. The series is heartbreaking in how it shows the wreckage and vast waste of a society dominated by men and by religious (arrogant, heavy-handed Catholicism), political ideology (insane, arrogant fascism), and deeply ingrained misogynistic social norms, all of which oppressed and denigrated women and their role in society. 

The British series Foyle's War dives into the social and political chaos that started with WW2 in Britain. All the badness that humans, mostly men, can inflict on others is laid out in great detail. Sometimes the attackers force the attacked to into untenable situations that force a sacrifice core moral principles of the defenders of what is good and decent. They are dragged down to the level of behavior of the attacking human monsters. Only good and moral intentions differentiate the defenders from the monsters. Although Foyle and and the other characters fictional, Anthony Horowitz the show's creator, said that many of the storylines are grounded in real life.

Hotel Portofino is a British series about a fictional British family who run a hotel on the Italian Riviera during the 1920s after WW1. Poison and badness of the bigotry and misogyny and the arrogant political extremism, i.e. fascist Blackshirt thugs, are clear. Some regular people are swept up in Facsist horrors as aggressors, while others are victims. Some willingly participate or are silently complicit aggressors. Many innocent oppose as best they can. As is routine in these series, some of the rich (elite) men are scoundrels who cheat on their wives and/or are thieving moral scumbags. Wealthy businessmen are commonly portrayed as cruel, greedy pigs, often thieves, and usually misogynists too. Those thugs could not care less about politics, other than trying to avoid it entirely, unless it can make them more wealthy and powerful. Not surprisingly, the fascist ideologues cannot be reasoned with. They mindlessly ruin lives and murder with no moral qualms. They see as their behaviors as a sacred, infallible service to a cause far higher than mere individual well-being. 

____________________________________________________________________

What is the point of that? 

This is the point: In drama series like those three, all the poison, lies, brutality, bigotry, misogyny, hate, greed and mindless cruelty come across loud and clear. Political and religious extremism are common carriers, i.e., moral justifiers, of what an old roommate of mine liked to call awfility (awfulness). Those series show things like criminals stealing food from hungry civilians, murders, corrupt military leaders and businessmen, and ghastly betrayals of innocent wives, other people and nations, often with lethal results for some of the innocents. Heck there is even desecration of corpses and water torture scenes. What is morally and practically good or defensible is simply not a concern to the bad people. They are at war, either their own personal war (criminals and the insanely greedy) or war "for the greater good" (fascists and Nazis). Weakness in the rule of law for elites, including judges and powerful business people, but not average people, also comes across loud and clear.

A sane person just can't miss all that stuff. Just can't.

So, what is on my mind is probably obvious to readers who have made it this far. 

When I look at the traits and behaviors that arrogant, aggressive ideologues, extremists, liars and grifters, especially the elites in those series, I get a feeling of empathy for what the fictional victims experienced and lost. More to the point, I also feel sadness and fear about what most Americans will experience and lose if the American 2024 elections come out the wrong way. Those series convey the same kinds of emotional poisons and bad behaviors that America's radical right authoritarian MAGA movement and its morally rotted leader DJT now attack us innocents with. Just like in the fictional series, (1) American elites know exactly what they are doing and why, (2) there is confusion and splits in rank and file society, much of which is deceived and betrayed by the knowing elites. 

Recent polling indicates that DJT has a slightly better than even chance of winning the electoral college -- he is +2% as of July 19.

A modern American version of what those fiction drama series show can happen here. We can lose our freedoms to some form of bigoted, kleptocratic authoritarian government with a brutal, wealthy White male Christian Taliban to enforce God's infallible moral requirements on us (but not themselves of course -- morality is purely optional and pick and choose for the elites). Maybe MAGA thugs won't march in the streets and seek out opponents to murder or beat senseless, but there will be brutality and corruption on a vast scale, dwarfing the shocking level of corruption that plagues our society, government and commerce today.

That we are being attacked like this and on the verge of losing our country to unspeakable, corrupt radical right authoritarian darkness makes me sad and fearful. I very much hope that my sadness and fear are misplaced. With some luck, they are.

Blog note: Links to comments broken

Yesterday Disqus comments to posts here, all of which automatically go to my gmail, got messed up somehow. When I click on the View Reply button in my Disqus emails I get this error message from clicktrackingurl.

My ability to find and respond to comments is crappy compared to normal. I may not respond to some comments I would normally respond to. Sorry. I posted my bug report to Disqus this morning. Kieran responded saying they are experiencing apparently the same issue. 

Grumble, grumble . . . . . . 

Happening today - Patriotic Fashion Show Tuesday, September 17th

https://theamericafirstwarehouse.ticketspice.com/america-first-fashion-show

https://www.theamericafirstwarehouse.com/

 

About supreme court justice lies; Little bits

 A Kansas City Star opinion comments:

There’s still one recourse for Supreme Court 

justices who lied at their confirmations

First it was overturning Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Then it was the recent ruling in Snyder v. United States, allowing public officials to in effect take bribes in the way of “gratuities” and “rewards.” And now it is the recent ruling in Trump v. United States, which holds that presidents should enjoy “absolute immunity” for so called “official acts,” which in essence means that a president could even commit premeditated murder, and it would not be a crime — as long as the president declared the murder an “official act.” The lunacy of this court is mind boggling. People all over the country, and even around the world, are rolling their eyes in disbelief that the Supreme Court of the United States would do such a thing — but it did. People feel that there is nothing that can be done about Supreme Court justices who obviously lied during their Senate confirmation hearings when they testified under oath that “nobody is above the law” — including the president. Chief Justice John Roberts testified at his confirmation hearing: “No one is above the law under our system and that includes the president. The president is fully bound by the law.” Justice Samuel Alito testified at his confirmation hearing that “no person in this country is above the law, and that includes the president and it includes the Supreme Court.” Justice Neil Gorsuch testified at his Senate confirmation hearing, “No man is above the law.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh testified at his confirmation hearing, “No one is above the law in our constitutional system.”

In essence, all these justices committed perjury at their Senate confirmation hearings, which is a crime under Title 18 of U.S. Code. Under the law, witnesses commit perjury “after having taken an oath” to testify under penalty of perjury if they “knowingly and willfully” make “any material false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” with respect to “any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress.” Under the law, the perjury committed by these justices at their respective Senate confirmation hearings could subject them to fines or imprisonment of up to five years, or both.

The liars may be "subject" to prosecution. But with Merrick Garland The Traitor in charge of the DoJ, one can confidently predict there will be no prosecutions. Not even an investigation. The DoJ Manual, whatever the heck that is, comments on perjury laws, which apply to regular people, but not people like federal court nominees, DJT and other rich and/or powerful elites:

Perjury -- Overview Of 18 U.S.C. §1621 And 1623 Violations

Several Federal statutes criminalize perjury and related false statements. The two most commonly used statutes for perjury offenses are 18 U.S.C. §§ 1621 and 1623. Section 1621 is the traditional, broadly applicable perjury statute, and is used to prosecute perjuries committed before legislative, administrative or judicial bodies. Section 1623, added in 1970, eliminated some of the proof problems associated with these difficult prosecutions, but Congress limited its applicability to false statements before Federal courts and grand juries. (emphasis added)

Well rule of law fans, there you have it. Congress neutered its own useless perjury law that was intended to give the law some teeth. Instead, we got milquetoast. That tells us a lot about deep moral rot in our government.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Elon Musk Writes, Then Deletes, a Post Musing About Threats to Biden and Harris -- Hours after what the F.B.I. called a second attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, Elon Musk wrote on his social media site — and then deleted — a post suggesting it was odd that nobody had tried to kill President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Musk said the post on X had been intended as a joke.

Ah good, it was just a joke.  /s

Leon, as the demented DJT called him, Musk is a shameless liar.

_________________________________________________________________

Russia Ramps Up Air Assault on Ukrainian Cities -- The Ukrainian authorities on Monday said that they had repelled a “massive” Russian attack on Kyiv in the early morning hours. They said it was the eighth attack on the Ukrainian capital in just over two weeks, in what appears to be an escalation by Russia of its long-running air campaign against the city.

This is just a reminder, that if the war does not end in a peace settlement, the Ukraine will be pulverized into the stone ages, even if the Russian military is corrupt and inept. Sooner or later the Ukraine will no longer be able to defend itself. Then the Putin genocide will commence.

Too bad the US and the West torpedoed a peace agreement when one was possible. Now it is very likely too late, just like it is very likely too late for a "two-state solution" for Palestine. Just my hopefully wrong opinion.

_________________________________________________________________

Portage County Ohio sheriff: 'Write down the addresses' of Kamala Harris supporters who display yard signs -- Sheriff Bruce D. Zuchowski, who took office in 2021, made the remarks in Facebook posts shared to two separate accounts on the night of Sept. 13. "When people ask me...What's gonna happen if the Flip - Flopping, Laughing Hyena Wins?? I say...write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards! Sooo...when the Illegal human "Locust" (which she supports!) Need places to live...We'll already have the addresses of the their New families...who supported their arrival!" Zuchowski wrote.

Hm, that's a sheriff talking. Sheriffs have a lot of power. Too bad he is a foaming at the mouth radical right authoritarian thug. The rule of law is rotting away before our eyes in real time.

_________________________________________________________________

Calls for J.D. Vance to resign after he admits that he created pet-eating story about immigrants -- Fact check: J.D. Vance did not create the pet-eating story about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, but he has admitted to amplifying and spreading these unsubstantiated claims. Origin of the claims: The rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio appear to have originated from far-right activists, local Republicans, and neo-Nazi groups before Vance echoed them.

Well, aren't far-right activists, local Republicans, and neo-Nazi groups a reliable source of accurate, nuanced, properly contextualized and empathetic information and news? Not? Oh, never mind. It's election season.

_________________________________________________________________

Salon writes:

Donald Trump is openly running a 

Great Replacement Theory campaign 

Donald Trump made clear on the Philadelphia debate stage this week, as he has throughout his three presidential campaigns, a basis of his run for office. Trump is running on the platform that non-white immigration is an existential threat to the nation. This time around, Trump has made his primary message, the so-called Great Replacement Theory (GRT), more vivid than ever. It is therefore of existential importance in understanding the stakes of this election to have clearly in mind what has happened in the past when GRT has been the central driving narrative both of individuals and of states.

According to the Great Replacement Theory, the nation’s greatness, its traditions and its practitioners, are existentially imperiled by an influx of foreign races, ethnicities or religions. The foreign elements are sometimes described in the narrative of GRT, as vermin or diseases.

GRT was central to the official Nazi motivation for the genocide of the Jews of Europe. Hitler blamed the loss of World War I on Jewish betrayal of Germany. But this betrayal, for Hitler, was intimately connected to the Great Replacement Theory, via the introduction of Black soldiers in the French army subsequently occupying the Rhineland, the so-called “Black Horror on the Rhine.” In Mein Kampf, Hitler writes:

It was and is the Jews who bring the Negroes into the Rhineland, always with the same secret thought and clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily resulting bastardization, throwing it down from its cultural and political height, and himself rising to be its master.

Aw geez, now we're reduced to quoting Hitler. But if the shoe fits, hit someone with it. Hm, wrong quote. I wonder, did Hitler equate being Jewish with being non-White? Seems so. Is there a historian in the house? Anyone? Ah, Perplexity raised its hand. So, what do you have to say about that? Perplexity says:

It's kind of you to ask. Let me say this about that: Hitler and the Nazis did view Jews as a distinct "race" that was separate from and inferior to the "Aryan race" they considered to be superior. Nazi ideology was based on racist theories that divided humanity into different races, with the "Aryan race" considered superior. The Nazis classified Jews as a separate, inferior race, not just a religious group

 

Well history fans, there you have it. The origin of the GRT, at least according to one historian.

Serious trauma in toxic social media content

The WaPo published a sad, frightening opinion in artist-drawn pictures about what it is like to moderate social media content. The opinion is one of a WaPo picture series called Shifts, an illustrated history of the future of work: 

‘I quit my job as a content moderator.

I can never go back to who I was before.’

Alberto Cuadra worked as a content moderator at a video-streaming platform for just under a year, but he saw things he’ll never forget. He watched videos about murders and suicides, animal abuse, child abuse, sexual violence and teenage bullying — all so you didn’t have to. What shows up when you scroll through social media has been filtered through an army of tens of thousands of content moderators, who protect us at the risk of their own mental health.

Although Perplexity makes it sound like content moderation is a huge expenditure to businesses, one of its search results indicates that Facebook spends a paltry ~1.5% of revenues on content moderation. Content reviewers are often provided by third-party contractors. Content moderation involves nuanced decisions, especially for issues like hate speech or misinformation. Unfortunately that can't be fully automated, at least not yet. So, human moderators take mental damage from the filth and shocking cruelty that some immoral or evil people post online.

Well, that's just how exuberant American markets running free wild and butt naked do things. Perplexity, and at least some radical anti-regulations economists/plutocrats, say they spend huge amounts on content moderation. So what is a high, medium or low business cost is in the beholder's eye, right?

Some interesting reader comments about the WaPo opinion piece to consider:

1. What is happening to this content moderator is called secondary trauma and it is serious. Anyone who works with trauma victims is vulnerable to it, including myself as a Child Protective Services social worker.

2. Nothing brings out the dark side of human behavior quite like anonymity. So much evil is caught and punished only because the bad behavior was witnessed. Even then, people will claim innocence. But be forewarned, every video of animal abuse, specifically, indicates a future human abuser / killer. That's a historically consistent connection. [I wonder if that is true]

3. I am generally opposed to AI, but this is one case where the use of a tool that would identify and report any abusive videos or links to them is beneficial. Human memory and exposure to violence and abuse attacks the psychological system and all bodily systems in a detrimental manner. Computers are clearly the answer in this situation.

Another point to consider: The discussion above ignores toxic social media content that has helped poison and radicalize much of American politics. That is an entirely different kind of immoral/evil content. 

Q: What, if anything at all, should be done about people posting brutal filth and evil online, e.g., (i) get rid of anonymity, (ii) force social media companies to spend more on content moderation and research on how to prevent and treat trauma, (iii) force social media companies to find ways to make AI do all or essentially all of the content moderation, (iv) something else, (v) some combination of all the above, (vi) nothing at all because our exuberant, butt naked free markets are handling the problem beautifully, or (vii) completely eliminate all content moderation and let millions of voices spew the beauty of 100% unrestrained free speech as some free speech absolutists want?

__________________________________________________________________

Un-numbered footnote:

A personal anecdote to consider if you are not yet in TL/DR mode:

In law school, I took two semesters of family law and one of criminal law. That was all in 1 year. At the end of that year, I developed significant insomnia. It took several years for it to go away. I attributed my insomnia to the nightmares that morphed out of various horrific court cases and decisions we had to study and internalize to some extent. Some of the cruelty and sheer savagery from some of what we had to learn was traumatic to me. In particular, the savagery in family law was shocking. Some parents heartlessly used their kids as tools of war between themselves. Child wreckage was all over the place. Some parent were simply vicious monsters who enjoyed literal physical and/or mental torture of their children, some as young as 2 or 3. Sometimes the kids got murdered, some got starved, some got repeatedly beat up, and a few got all three. 

I recall a guest speaker in two class sessions, a prominent San Francisco appeals court attorney who represented women in divorces in wealthy families. He had to carry a concealed, licensed gun to protect himself from enraged rich husbands and the thugs they sometimes hired to do "mischief." The husbands who failed to hide their wealth from the forensic accountants the attorney hired usually wound up extremely pissed off. They had to pay a lot more than they wanted to pay in the divorce settlement. That enraged some of them and they threatened to kill the wife's attorney and/or the wife. Most rich husbands in this attorney's line of work took serious measures to hide wealth any way they could think of. Description of real life murders were involved in those class sessions. I could go on and on and on about horrors like this, including other speakers with equally horrific stories of savagery and brutality. But cap off this anecdote, after taking those three classes, I firmly decided I would never, ever go into criminal law, or especially the even more horrific family law.

Note that I did not watch videos of savagery and slaughter that social media content moderators have to watch. I experienced horrors and sadness only by reading about then and hearing about them in lectures. That's a softer form of exposure. The intensity of my exposure to mayhem and horrors was less than content moderators, but it still really got to me. 

Mental gymnastics: Comparing modern people to historical figures

In writing a response to a complex set of comments this morning, a mini-epiphany hit like a ½ ton of bricks, assuming it isn't some kind of self-delusion. "Reputable" comparisons I recall between historical figures and modern day people always or almost always include comparison-weakening caveats that go something like this:

It's important to note that these are controversial comparisons made by critics. Supporters of the criticized modern person would strongly reject any parallels to bad, e.g., Nazi or fascist, historical figures or policies, e.g., genocide, mass murder, etc. The situations are very different historically and contextually.

There it is -- very different historically, contextually and controversially. You can't reliably compare a modern monster to a historical monster because history, context and/or controversy. All monsters have to be monstrous in the same ways, with the same quantity and degree of damage or evil and little or no controversy? Right? 

Hm. Maybe not right. In my opinion, that deflects from a factor that is at least as important. Is there something else that is fundamental and informative in addition to history, context and controversy? From what I can tell, at least some controversy always attaches when bad people are accused of doing bad things, e.g., DJT says he is not a crook and liar. They all deny their badness, or justify it as not bad because it's necessary, or even morally right on its own.

Is that caveated "reasoning" always mostly true or incomplete and thus often misleading? Consider this tussle I had with Perplexity this morning, where I asked about a comparison between (i) Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi SS and the mass-murdering inventor of the Nazi holocaust, and (ii)  callous, modern day MAGA freak Steven Miller, inventor of less ghastly things. Here is a follow-up question to what struck me as an unsatisfactory initial analysis[1] that Perplexity made in its comparison of Himmler with Miller, which I did not ask for but got anyway:

Follow-up Q: In your answer comparing Miller to Himmler, you say that "the situations are also very different historically and contextually", but doesn't a better, reasonable comparison include consideration of their callousness and authoritarian mindset [as much or more] than history and context?

A: You raise an important point about comparing historical figures based on their personal characteristics and mindsets rather than just historical context. When examining the similarities between Stephen Miller and Heinrich Himmler, there are indeed some concerning parallels in their authoritarian tendencies and apparent lack of empathy [apparent lack of empathy??, how about obvious lack]:

Both Miller and Himmler have demonstrated a willingness to propose and implement harsh policies targeting vulnerable groups. Miller has been a key architect of restrictive immigration policies, including family separations at the border. Himmler, of course, was instrumental in carrying out the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities.

They share an apparent callousness toward human suffering resulting from their policies. Miller has shown little concern for the welfare of immigrants and refugees affected by his proposals. Himmler was notoriously ruthless in pursuing Nazi racial ideology.

Both exhibit authoritarian mindsets, favoring centralized power and control. Miller advocates for expanded executive authority on immigration, while Himmler helped build the Nazi police state.

They demonstrate an "us vs. them" mentality, portraying certain groups as threats to be controlled or removed [a common authoritarian justification for bad to horrendous behavior]. Miller focuses on immigrants, while Himmler targeted Jews and other Nazi-defined "undesirables".

Both rose to positions of significant influence at relatively young ages by aligning themselves with authoritarian leaders (Trump for Miller, Hitler for Himmler).

Q: Here's the mental gymnastics question of the day, what is more important in making comparisons between different people in politics or history, alive and/or dead?:

1. Context, history and policy or behavior differences

2. Mental similarities, including considering degree of extremism, and degree of  authoritarianism, i.e., likely intended behavior in view of constraints by relevant context, e.g., level of personal and political power, and degree of public, political and/or institutional support and opposition, social context

3. Both carry about the same degree of importance, both are necessary to reasonable, less misleading comparisons

Footnote:

1. My initial, pre-epiphany question asked for a photo comparison of Himmler and Miller, who I thought looked a lot alike. The Perplexity "history and context" response knocked me off that thought because it prompted my mini-epiphany. But, Perplexity did cough up a photo of chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, who Perplexity apparently "decided" offered a better physical comparison:

One is Goebbels, the other Miller --

can you guess which is which?

Himmler ...................................................... Miller              .

Bonus mental gymnastic questions:

Q: For what it is worth, if anything at all, what is the closer (1) facial comparison, and (2) policy comparison with Miller, Goebbels or Himmler?

Q: Is Germaine off his rocker?

Update on drone warfare

An important opinion (not paywalled) by Raj M. Shah (managing partner of Shield Capital) and Christopher Kirchhoff (helped build the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit) the NYT published comments on the sloth-speed of innovation by America's bloated, arrogant, deceitful military:

A.I. Is Changing War. We Are Not Ready.

In the opening battle of the First Matabele War, fought between 1893 and 1894, roughly 700 soldiers, paramilitaries and African auxiliaries aligned with the British South Africa Company used five Maxim guns — the world’s first fully automatic weapon — to help repel over 5,000 Ndebele warriors, some 1,500 of whom were killed at a cost of only a handful of British soldiers. .... initial accounts of its singular effectiveness correctly foretold the end of the cavalry, a critical piece of combat arms since the Iron Age.

We stand at the precipice of an even more consequential revolution in military affairs today. A new wave of war is bearing down on us. Artificial-intelligence-powered autonomous weapons systems are going global. And the U.S. military is not ready for it

 

Weeks ago, the world experienced another Maxim gun moment: The Ukrainian military evacuated U.S.-provided M1A1 Abrams battle tanks from the front lines after many of them were reportedly destroyed by Russian kamikaze drones. The withdrawal of one of the world’s most advanced battle tanks in an A.I.-powered drone war foretells the end of a century of manned mechanized warfare as we know it.

Techno-skeptics who argue against the use of A.I. in warfare are oblivious to the reality that autonomous systems are already everywhere — and the technology is increasingly being deployed to these systems’ benefit. Hezbollah’s alleged use of explosive-laden drones has displaced at least 60,000 Israelis south of the Lebanon border. Houthi rebels are using remotely controlled sea drones to threaten the 12 percent of global shipping value that passes through the Red Sea, including the supertanker Sounion, now abandoned, adrift and aflame, with four times as much oil as was carried by the Exxon Valdez. And in the attacks of Oct. 7, Hamas used quadcopter drones — which probably used some A.I. capabilities — to disable Israeli surveillance towers along the Gaza border wall, allowing at least 1,500 fighters to pour over a modern-day Maginot line and murder over 1,000 Israelis ....

Yet as this is happening, the Pentagon still overwhelmingly spends its dollars on legacy weapons systems. It continues to rely on an outmoded and costly technical production system to buy tanks, ships and aircraft carriers that new generations of weapons — autonomous and hypersonic — can demonstrably kill.

Take for example the F-35, the apex predator of the sky. The fifth-generation stealth fighter is known as a “flying computer” for its ability to fuse sensor data with advanced weapons.

Yet this $2 trillion program has fielded fighter airplanes with less processing power than many smartphones. It’s the result of a technology production system bespoke to the military and separate from the consumer technology ecosystem. The F-35 design was largely frozen in 2001, the year the Pentagon awarded its contract to Lockheed Martin. By the time the first F-35 was rolling down the runway, technology’s state of the art had already flown far past it. This year, the iPhone 16 arrives. Today, the F-35 is slowly progressing through its third technology upgrade with newer, but far from state-of-the-art, processors. The core issue is that this slow hardware refresh cycle prevents the F-35 from fully taking advantage of the accelerating advancements in A.I.

China, of course, doesn’t need a Defense Innovation Unit; Xi Jinping and his predecessor, Hu Jintao, mandated that civilian technology be available to the People’s Liberation Army. This top-down, state-run economy is chasing quantum computers, nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons, and lofting into orbit its own 13,000-satellite equivalent to Starlink.

This is the civilizational race we’re in.

The way to win against both China and low-cost weapons in Ukraine and the Mideast is to unleash our market-based system so that scrappy, fast-moving product companies and the venture funds that back them revitalize our military’s technology pipeline. .... The question now is whether we can achieve this transformation in time to deter the next great power war and prevail in the more contained conflicts that threaten to envelop the U.S. and our allies.

“The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: Too late,” Douglas MacArthur declared hauntingly in 1940. Eighty-four years later, on the eve of tensions not unlike what preceded prior great power conflict, we would do well to heed MacArthur’s warning.

There seems to be some truth in this. I'm not sure how big a deal a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon would be, since regular-sonic nuclear weapons can do the job just fine. But the author's point about a major threat from swarms of AI drones rings true. I've posted about weaponized drones the US military is developing several times. From what limited information I looked at, the US military is trying to convert to drones. 

What I do not know is whether the US effort is too little and too slow as the authors warn. From what I can tell, there is little chance of international treaties to limit mechanized drone weapon development and deployment. The US military strongly opposes that. So, like it or not, drone warfare probably will largely replace regular weapons of war. Probably sooner than later. Who knows, maybe swarms of AI-driven drones can be produced and used to intercept nuclear tipped ICBMs. 

I do not know how this will play out. To me, this has a bad feel to it. That's just me and my early warning system (brain-mind) going off. It has not always been wrong. Is there a weapons engineer in the house? Grumble, grumble . . . . . .

Hand-held US anti-drone weapons in development use shotgun type pellets, 

nets, lasers, microwaves or rifle-mounted RF and/or GPS jammers 

Detecting animal self-awareness; Global warming warning ≠ weather; Some headlines

A fascinating research paper in Nature published another bit of data suggesting that at least some animals have some degree of self-awareness. Self-awareness refers to the capacity to focus on oneself and identify one’s own existence. This paper correlates self-awareness of body size with aggression behavior. This data is based on teaching cleaner fish self-awareness using a mirror. Cleaner fish clean (eat) dead skin and parasites off the skin and other surfaces of bigger animals who intentionally stop by for occasional cleanings. The Nature abstract says: 

Abstract

Animals exhibiting mirror self-recognition (MSR) are considered self-aware; however, studies on their level of self-awareness remain inconclusive. Recent research has indicated the potential for cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus) to possess a sophisticated level of private self-awareness. However, as this study revealed only an aspect of private self-awareness, further investigation into other elements is essential to substantiate this hypothesis. Here, we show that cleaner fish, having attained MSR, construct a mental image of their bodies by investigating their ability to recall body size. A size-based hierarchy governs the outcomes of their confrontations. The mirror-naïve fish behaved aggressively when presented with photographs of two unfamiliar conspecifics that were 10% larger and 10% smaller than their body sizes. After passing the MSR test, they refrained from aggression toward the larger photographs but still behaved aggressively toward the smaller ones without re-examining their mirror images. These findings suggest that cleaner fish accurately recognize their body size based on mental images of their bodies formed through MSR. Additionally, mirror-experienced fish frequently revisited the mirror when presented with an intimidating larger photograph, implying the potential use of mirrors for assessing body size. Our study established cleaner fish as the first non-human animal to be demonstrated to possess private self-awareness.

As usual, the normal caveat applies to all or nearly all new research findings: further investigation into other elements is essential to substantiate this hypothesis. 

Two points I submit for your consideration:

• This exemplifies how science struggles with the study of consciousness and mind generally. Using mirrors to look for signs of self awareness. Scientists have been using mirrors to look for signs of self-awareness in animals for over 50 years. The mirror test, also known as the mirror self-recognition (MSR) test, was developed by psychologist Gordon G. Gallup Jr. in 1970. 

• Studying consciousness, free will, and other aspects of the mind is challenging for science. Consciousness and subjective experiences are inherently first-person phenomena that cannot be directly observed or measured by third-party scientists. This creates difficulties in obtaining objective data. Studying consciousness involves using consciousness to examine itself, which can lead to circular reasoning and logical paradoxes. There is still no scientific explanation for how subjective, qualitative experiences arise from physical brain processes. Bridging this explanatory gap remains a major challenge.

1-minute cleaner fish video

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

We probably all suspect something like this, but it's worth mentioning. Mother Jones reports:

If Trump Wins in November, Life on Earth 

Is Likely to Get Far, Far Worse

The consequences of this election could extend for millennia

Here is the biggest thing happening on our planet as we head into the autumn of 2024: The Earth is continuing to heat dramatically. Scientists have said that there’s a better than 90 percent chance that this year will top 2023 as the warmest ever recorded. And paleoclimatologists were pretty sure last year was the hottest in the last 125,000 years. The result is an almost-clichéd run of disasters: Open Twitter/X anytime for pictures of floods pushing cars through streets somewhere. It is starting to make life on this planet very difficult, and in some places impossible. And it’s on target to get far, far worse.

Here’s the second-biggest thing happening on our planet right now: Finally, finally, renewable energy, mostly from the sun and wind, seems to be reaching some sort of takeoff point. By some calculations, we’re now putting up a nuclear plant’s worth of solar panels every day. In California, there are now enough solar farms and wind turbines that day after day this spring and summer they supplied more than 100 percent of the state’s electric needs for long stretches; there are now enough batteries on the grid that they become the biggest source of power after dark. In China it looks as if carbon emissions may have peaked—they’re six years ahead of schedule on the effort to build out renewables.

And here’s the third biggest thing in the months ahead: the American presidential election, which looks as if it is going down to the wire—and which may have the power to determine how high the temperature goes and how fast we turn to clean power.

Donald Trump gave an interview last week, in which he laid out his understanding of misrepresentation and lies about [my correction of the error] climate change:

You know, when I hear these poor fools talking about global warming. They don’t call it that any more, they call it climate change because you know, some parts of the planet are cooling and warming, and it didn’t work. So they finally got it right, they just call it climate change. They used to call it global warming. You know, years ago they used to call it global cooling. In the 1920s they thought the planet was going to freeze. Now they think the planet’s going to burn up. And we’re still waiting for the 12 years. You know we’re down almost to the end of the 12-year period, you understand that, where these lunatics that know nothing, they weren’t even good students at school, they didn’t even study it, they predict, they said we have 12 years to live. And people didn’t have babies because they said—it’s so crazy. But the problem isn’t the fact that the oceans in 500 years will raise a quarter of an inch, the problem is nuclear weapons. It’s nuclear warming…These poor fools talk about global warming all the time, you know the planet’s going to global warm to a point where the oceans will rise an eighth of an inch in 355 years, you know, they have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s weather.

No, global warming is not weather. It is global warming, i.e., climate change.

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

Headlines:

Taylor Swift's endorsement of Harris sends more than 400,000 visitors to Vote.gov

Laura Loomer's response to Lindsey Graham urging Trump to ditch her? 'We all know you're gay' -- Loomer is a key DJT advisor and an ultra-radical right authoritarian, White nationalist, crackpot and liar

Nutty radical Laura & her nutty 

radical gay friend Lindsey

"Appalling and extremely racist": Trump's embrace of Laura Loomer is blowing up in his face: "How racist is Laura Loomer, the far-right extremist, 9/11 conspiracy theorist and trusted ally of Donald Trump? Enough to make Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., call her out as racist." -- Hm, that sounds pretty racist.