Emergent GOP Election Tactics

The New York Times reports that the continuing rise of Elizabeth Warren is prompting GOP propagandists to ratchet up their dark free speech tactics against her. The NYT writes:

An email from the Republican National Committee on Tuesday offered a clear preview of how the party would seek to undermine her if she becomes the Democratic nominee: “It’s not just her heritage Fauxcahontas has been lying about to get ahead. Like her false claim of Native American status, this is another example of Warren seemingly shifting the facts of her life story for personal gain.” (Ms. Warren has said she did not advance her career by identifying herself as Native American, an assertion backed up by an extensive Boston Globe investigation.)

“The more examples like this that surface, the more it will stick with voters that this is someone who cannot be trusted,” Ms. Harrington [a GOP operative] said.

Regardless, the Republican National Committee dismissed Ms. Warren’s description of losing her job, citing a 2007 interview in which she discussed her public-school teaching career but did not mention being forced out, as well as records showing that the school board had approved a contract for Ms. Warren for the next school year.

The NYT points out that the president will “tear down” any Democratic nominee for 2020, just as he did to political opponents in both parties in the 2016 election. Conservatives are also now rejecting as a lie, Warren’s story about losing a teaching job in 1971 because she was pregnant. Warren stands by her story, but that has put her on the defensive, arguably weakening her credibility. It is clear that the GOP will smear, lie and do anything possible to destroy any credible political threat to the president.

The hypocrisy here is obvious. None of the lies that the president has inundated the American people with ever since he announced his candidacy have much or any negative impact on the perceptions of the president's honesty or trustworthiness among most conservatives. For the most part, conservatives accept the president’s lies and deceit as harmless or non-existent, but they will find every democrat lie and amplify it into something hideous.

In a another article, the Washington Post reports that although Facebook has been active in trying to tamp down on disinformation on its platform, it codified a loophole last year. Politicians will continue to be allowed to lie as much as they want on Facebook. Facebook will continue to try to stop regular people from spreading viral falsehoods, but politicians have a green light to be liars.

The reason for Facebook’s move is obvious. WaPo writes:

This decision, put into place last year, has sparked a sharp backlash this week among Democrats, who complain that it gives President Trump free rein to use major social media platforms as disinformation machines. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a leading presidential candidate, made this point in a Facebook ad Thursday in which she joked that the company had endorsed Trump, adding that its policies allow “a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people.”

Warren’s ad was the latest salvo in a growing campaign by Democrats to pressure social media companies to curb Trump’s ability to push demonstrably untrue information on their platforms. Last week, Democrat Joseph Biden asked Facebook to remove a Trump campaign ad that made false claims, prompting the company to refuse on the grounds that political speech is not covered by the expansive fact-checking system it put in place after the 2016 presidential election.

Facebook is probably not endorsing the president so much as it is trying to protect its revenues, profits and freedom from regulations and vindictive politicians who want to lie to the public. Regardless of what they may say to the contrary, probably most American companies operate on the immoral premise that anything that threatens revenues and profits is immoral and is to be avoided whenever possible. For the most part, the business of business is privatizing profit as much as possible and externalizing costs and risks as much as possible. Making America a better, more equitable place is not on the agenda. That immoral mindset dictates that Facebook allows politicians to be liars.

Facebook users: Caveat emptor -- GOP lies will keep coming. The question is whether democrats will respond in kind, and if they do, whether on balance it would help them or hurt them. The guess from here is that it would probably hurt more than help. To some extent, maybe that reflects an ideological asymmetry in attitudes toward political lies.

SOMETHING TO PONDER

SOMETHING TO PONDER:

When we take off our partisan hats, and stop demonizing the other side as "all evil" and our side as "all good", what would the difference be in our thought patterns?

After all this Forum invites us to look at politics a bit differently:
Pragmatic politics focused on the public interest for those uncomfortable with America's two-party system and its way of doing politics.

So is it time for a multiple party system in the U.S. of A ?

What to YOUR mind would that look like?

Well, for me, it looks like this: we have a multiple party system, except they get drowned out by the two big ones.

AND if you split your vote, you might end up not getting the government you want.

Example: in 2016, I voted Green (Jill Stein), much to my disgust, because my vote might have been one of those that put Trump in the White House.

SO QUESTIONS ABOUND:

Do we vote our conscience or do we vote pragmatically? Do we hold our noses and ONLY vote Progressive because we are tired of the Middle, or do we vote Democrats no matter who the candidate is just so we can defeat Trump?

HOW do we get to a place, where there will be viable alternative to the two party system? OR are we stuck with what we have? AND IF SO, what do we do about it so OUR voices get heard.

I have a theory: we as a nation are NOT ready yet to go full Progressive, we need to find a way to get the Progressives to support Moderate Democrats to win back the White House, after which we can start thinking about taking the Dems further left.

WE SIMPLY CAN NOT AFFORD THE LUXURY of voting third party, like I did last time, or of splitting the Left, if we want to have a civil nation again, but the question remains:

What, IF anything, can we as a people do, to change the system we have for the future, so more voices can be heard?
SAME question can be asked of Rightwingers: is it time for a separate party that advocates for Conservative ideals but will stop appealing to only the Far Right?

Any radical ideas out there??

Queering Politics Part 1: Social Factionalization

Any time we create stricture around behavior there must be people who subvert it. 

This is necessary both so we can define the boundaries for the behavior in the first place (what it means to be a "citizen" of the group or society), but also so those boundaries can change over time in response to changing circumstance.

This is true of queerness but also of madness and of criminality.

Without social stricture around sexuality we could not have queerness. Queerness would serve no purpose. We might still have same sex attraction and sexual behavior but we'd have no boundaries around it, no way to define it, and there would be no subversion - no taboo - to it. Therefore it becomes socially neutral.

Without legal criminal codes we could not have criminals. Criminals would serve no purpose. We might still have things like theft and murder, but we'd have no boundaries around it, no way to define it and there would be no social subversion to it. It becomes socially neutral. The crime of homosexuality begat the legalization of it - the crime helped change the law.

Without the concept of sanity we could not have madness. The mad would serve no purpose. We might still have things like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder but we'd have no boundaries around it, no way to define it, and there would be no social subversion to it. It becomes socially neutral. The madness of homosexuality begat the normalization of it.

We create these groups not only for the purpose of sorting and categorization, but also to influence behavior. Membership to a group comes with a social contract. However, outgroups can and sometimes will alter the behavior of an ingroup over time by whittling away at the edges of it. This force is stronger the larger or dominant the outgroup is. Consider the Christians in early Greece and Rome, and the adoption of pagan holidays, but even minority outgroups can agitate to change ingroup parameters over time. Consider queer rights movements and other civil rights movements did in the US.

Trump defends abandoning the Kurds by saying they didn't help the US in WWII

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/trump-defends-abandoning-the-kurds-by-saying-they-didnt-help-the-us-in-wwii/ar-AAIxwW2?li=AAggNb9&ocid=mailsignout

President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to abandon the Kurds to a Turkish military incursion in Syria by saying they didn't help the US during World War II.

This came amid reports Turkish ground troops were crossing the border into Syria following airstrikes that began earlier in the day.

"They didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy," Trump said of the Kurds. He added, "With all of that being said, we like the Kurds."

Earlier in the day, Trump in a statement released by the White House said he did not endorse the Turkish military operation and thought it was a "bad idea." But he did not reference the Kurds once, nor did he signal any immediate response from the US to thwart Turkey's actions.

The Trump administration on Sunday abruptly announced the US was withdrawing troops stationed in northeast Syria ahead of a Turkish operation. The move has been broadly condemned in Washington, including by top congressional Republicans and former Trump administration officials, as many feel Trump paved the way for Turkey to go after key US allies.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces bore the brunt of the US-led campaign against ISIS, losing roughly 11,000 fighters in the process.

On Wednesday, when asked by reporters whether he felt the Syria retreat and treatment of the Kurds sent a poor message to other potential US allies, Trump said, "Alliances are very easy." The president said it "won't be" hard for the US to form new partnerships.

As an adult and knowing what you know now…

-Was there ever really any hope for humanity’s continued future existence?

-As a species, were we / are we destined to fail?

LET’S IMAGINE

Imagine these things, for example:

• A “model planet” that environmentally thrives, utilizing the virtually free resources that nature provides (wind, solar, hydro, bio) to yield a relatively pristine and beautifully balanced ecosystem, with no waste.

• A species that joins together, across the globe, to work in harmony, advancing itself ever upward through continuous free higher education, healthy living, positive role models, and promoting universally constructive rather than destructive value systems.

• Reasonable population control mechanisms, encouraged for, and based on, planetary resource sustainability

• A sharing of and distributing of planetary resources, fairly, so there are no more hungry bellies or people living in squalor.

Off the top of my head, these would be some positive forces, IMO.   

So, what’s the problem?  Why can’t this be our modus operandi?  Where did we go wrong?  Give me your list of reasons.

“Some men see things as they are and ask why.  I dream of things that never were and ask ‘why not’?” –Robert F. Kennedy

Thanks for posting and recommending.

The Morality of Lies in Politics

The anti-bias ideology I believe to be more effective, efficient, sustainable and civilized for politics is grounded in four core moral values, (i) respect for relevant facts and truths, (ii) an attempt to apply less biased reason to the facts and truths, (iii) reasonable reliance on those factors in service to the public interest, and (iv) reasonable compromise with political opposition under existing circumstances. Those moral values are intended to redistribute some power from elites and wealthy interests to the masses. They also act as a barrier against the rise of authoritarian and corrupt leaders because such leaders usually or always rely heavily on lies and deceit to gain and maintain power.

I have been arguing that using dark free speech[1] is immoral and usually damaging to good things such as democracy, the rule of law, honest governance and civil liberties. That raises the question of whether there is a sound rationale to believe that lies, deceit, unwarranted emotional manipulation and other propaganda tactics are often immoral.

Not surprisingly, scholars had considered the moral implications of lying and deceit. Robert K. Fullinwider wrote this in 2007 about an analysis of lying by Sissela Bok in her 1978 book Lying: Moral Choice in Private and Public Life:

Here is the case that Sissela Bok makes for the Principle of Veracity – a principle asserting a very strong moral presumption against lying. What, she asks you, would it be like to live in a world in which truth-telling was not the common practice? In such a world, you could never trust anything you were told or anything you read. You would have to find out everything for yourself, first-hand. You would have to invest enormous amounts of your time to find out the simplest matters. In fact, you probably couldn’t even find out the simplest matters: in a world without trust, you could never acquire the education you need to find out anything for yourself, since such an education depends upon your taking the word of what you read in your lesson books. A moment’s reflection of this sort, says Bok, makes it crystal clear that you benefit enormously by living in a world in which a great deal of trust exists – a world in which the practice of truth-telling is widespread. All the important things you want to do in life are made possible by pervasive trust.

The work of Bok and others has been summarized. Thoughts on the morality of lying include:

• Lying is bad because it treats those who are lied to as a means to achieve the liar's purpose, rather than as a valuable end in themselves Many people think that it is wrong to treat people as means not ends 

• Lying is bad because it makes it difficult for the person being lied to make a free and informed decision about the matter concerned, which can lead people to base their decisions on false information  

• People may suffer damage as a result of lies 

• People lose ome control of their own lives because a lie can lead them to make a decision that they would not otherwise have made

Is it rational to extend the scope of immorality to include all of dark free speech in politics, which is broader than just political lying? Bok defines a lie as an intentionally deceptive message in the form of a statement. Deceit can be based on statements that are true, partly true and on information that is hidden (lies of omission). Is that immoral? Fomenting unwarranted emotional responses, e.g., unwarranted fear, distrust or bigotry by inflammatory or insulting rhetoric, usually leads to a state of mind that makes lies and deceit easier to accept. Is doing that immoral?

Acknowledgement: My thanks to PD at the Books&Ideas blog for recommending the links given in the discussion and mentioning the work of Sissela Bok.

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), and (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. (my label, my definition)