Authoritarian tactic: Pick or create a wedge issue, lie and disinform to scare, anger and divide, damage democracy more

In its request, the National School Board Association called violence and 

threats over COVID-19 mandates a "danger to civic participation."

Arguably there are three main forces of anti-democratic power, dark free speech, unwarranted secrecy and corruption, that are relentlessly attacking democracy, truth, social cohesion and trust, among other pro-democratic forces. The anti-democratic forces overlap, but all are being used to deceive, disinform, polarize and divide the public. 

The point is to attack democracy, social cohesion, truth, and other values and institutions of democracy. Pro-democratic forces and institutions stand in the way of American radical right authoritarian's relentless quest for power and wealth, so they are attacked and undermined.

The New York Times writes in an article, Energizing Conservative Voters, One School Board Election at a Time, that radical right lies about critical race theory have “torn apart one Wisconsin suburb.” 

Little more than a year ago, Scarlett Johnson was a stay-at-home mother, devoted to chauffeuring her children to school and supervising their homework.

That was before the school system in her affluent Milwaukee suburb posted a video about privilege and race that “jarred me to my core,” she said.

“There was this pyramid — where are you on the scale of being a racist,” Ms. Johnson said. “I couldn’t understand why this was recommended to parents and stakeholders.”

The video solidified Ms. Johnson’s concerns, she said, that the district, Mequon-Thiensville, was “prioritizing race and identity” and introducing critical race theory, an academic framework used in higher education that views racism as ingrained in law and other modern institutions.

Since then, Ms. Johnson’s life has taken a dramatic turn — a “180,” she calls it. She became an activist, orchestrating a recall of her local school board. Then, she became a board candidate herself.

Republicans in Wisconsin have embraced her. She’s appeared on panels and podcasts, and attracted help from representatives of two well-funded conservative groups. 

Ms. Johnson’s rapid transformation into a sought-after activist illustrates how Republicans are using fears of critical race theory to drive school board recalls and energize conservatives, hoping to lay groundwork for the 2022 midterm elections.

Education leaders, including the National School Boards Association, deny that there is any critical race theory being taught in K-12 schools.

“Critical race theory is not taught in our district, period,” said Wendy Francour, a school board member in Ms. Johnson’s district now facing recall.

Teachers’ unions and some educators say that some of the efforts being labeled critical race theory by critics are simply efforts to teach history and civics.

“We should call this controversy what it is — a scare campaign cooked up by G.O.P. operatives” and others to “limit our students’ education and understanding of historical and current events,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

But Republicans say critical race theory has invaded classrooms and erroneously casts all white people as oppressors and all Black people as victims. The issue has become a major rallying point for Republicans from Florida to Idaho, where state lawmakers have moved to ban it.  

Things got worse. Protesters showed up outside the home of the district superintendent; relationships among neighbors began to fray. School board meetings, formerly dull affairs, dragged on for hours, with comments taking on a nasty and divisive tone.

“We’ve been called Marxist flunkies,” Ms. Francour said. “We have police attending the meetings now.”

In recent weeks some professional news sources have started to report that there is a well-funded national campaign coordinated by major multi-millionaire and billionaire-backed radical right political groups. The goal is to attack democracy and truth by spreading disinformation and fomenting fear, anger, bigotry, distrust, polarization and so forth. School board meetings and local city council meetings are prime targets for this coordinated fascist propaganda campaign to attack democracy and truth.

The groups include ones financially backed by the fascist Koch political action Leviathan. NPR has been among the sources who are starting to report on this nationally coordinated fascist attack on democracy. According to NPR reporting, critical race theory is one of the wedge issues that over 150 national radical right groups have focused their disinformation efforts on. Lies about election fraud, COVID, immigration, gun control, persecution of Christians, and tyranny from Democratic socialism or communism are other wedge issues that fascist demagogues are using to win power nationally. The effort appears to be quite effective with many average people. Affected people are successfully becoming scared, angered, enraged, distrustful and intolerant due to the fascist disinformation campaign. 

The national coordinators provide local radical right groups with money, e.g., for protest signs, expertise to establish a presence in social media and sophisticated talking points grounded in lies, deceit and other dark free speech. Local groups use their social media presence to rile people up and get them to attend public meetings to express their unfounded but sincere fears and rage.

All of this is happening with the blessing and open support of the FRP (fascist Republican Party) and quietly by a lot of anonymous business community funding. The Democratic Party appears to be mostly unaware of this major onslaught, or it has has rationalized the threat into insignificance. Meanwhile, average people on the receiving end of these increasingly vitriolic and personally threatening lies and slanders from enraged but deceived conservatives seem to be getting pushed back from a presence in public fora that are under fascist attack. People being attacked try to defend themselves with truth and reason, but conservative terror and rage completely sweeps that aside and into oblivion.

One other observation from recent reporting by several sources merits mention. More observers of what America’s radical right and the FRP is doing are referring to it as fascism. I am not the only person to see this and apply the same label. More people are waking up to the seriousness of the threat and seeing it for what it actually is. A fascist takeover of democracy can happen in America.

To say the least, things are not going well for democracy and truth in local politics outside the beltway. That mirrors what is going on with the FRP inside the beltway.

Questions: 

1. Can a fascist takeover of American democracy happen in, say, the next 6-8 years?

2. How can people in public positions that are under attack by radical right lies, deceit and slanders defend themselves, or are they on just their own and have to get out of the kitchen if the heat is too high, e.g., from themselves and/or their families being threatened with physical violence?[1]

3. Is the Democratic Party and/or law enforcement doing too little in defense of democracy and truth, and if so, what can or should it or they be doing? 

Footnote: 

1. No, I am not making this stuff up. For example:
From Congress To Local Health Boards, Public Officials Suffer Threats And Harassment

Death threats and intimidation of public officials signal Trump’s autocratic legacy

‘A dark, empty place:’ Public officials face personal threats as tensions flare

Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers

Opinion: Republicans are siding with the angry mob

FBI to investigate threats made against school board members, teachers

National school board group seeks federal help with threats against public school officials

Virginia school board meeting Oct. 2021

arrests were made

Despite arrests, parents were pissed off about 

transgendered children, critical race theory and 

whatever other else was on the terror, rage and hate menu

Business: Externalizing risk and damage while privatizing profit for the elites

Contaminated residential parcels near the Chemours chemical factory in Fayetteville, N.C. More than 4,000 homes qualify for under-sink water treatment systems.

The New York Times writes in an article, How Chemical Companies Avoid Paying for Pollution, on how chemical companies externalize human risks and environmental damage in their quest for profit above all other concerns:

DuPont factories pumped dangerous substances into the environment. The company and its offspring have gone to great lengths to dodge responsibility.

Brian Long, a senior executive at the chemical company Chemours, took a reporter on a tour of the Fayetteville Works factory.

Mr. Long showed off the plant’s new antipollution technologies, designed to stop a chemical called GenX from pouring into the Cape Fear River, escaping into the air and seeping into the ground water.

There was a new high-tech filtration system. And a new thermal oxidizer, which heats waste to 2,000 degrees. And an underground wall — still under construction — to keep the chemicals out of the river. And more.

“They’re not Band-Aids,” Mr. Long said. “They’re long-term, robust solutions.”

Yet weeks later, North Carolina officials announced that Chemours had exceeded limits on how much GenX its Fayetteville factory was emitting. This month, the state fined the company $300,000 for the violations — the second time this year the company has been penalized by the state’s environmental regulator.

GenX is part of a family of chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. They allow everyday items — frying pans, rain jackets, face masks, pizza boxes — to repel water, grease and stains. Exposure to the chemicals has been linked to cancer and other serious health problems.

To avoid responsibility for what many experts believe is a public health crisis, leading chemical companies like Chemours, DuPont and 3M have deployed a potent mix of tactics.

They have used public charm offensives to persuade regulators and lawmakers to back off. They have engineered complex corporate transactions to shield themselves from legal liability. And they have rolled out a conveyor belt of scantly tested substitute chemicals that sometimes turn out to be just as dangerous as their predecessors.

PFAS substances are known as “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and can accumulate in the environment and in the blood and organs of people and animals.

Most Americans have been exposed to at least trace amounts of the chemicals and have them in their blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Research by chemical companies and academics has shown that exposure to PFAS has been linked to cancer, liver damage, birth defects and other health problems. GenX was supposed to be a safer alternative to earlier generations of the chemicals, but new studies are discovering similar health hazards.

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was going to start requiring companies to test and publicly report the amount of PFAS in the products they make. It is an early step toward regulating the chemicals, though the E.P.A. has not set limits on their production or discharge.

Chemours argues that most of the pollution in North Carolina occurred long before it owned Fayetteville Works. DuPont, which built the factory in the 1960s, claims it can’t be held liable because of a corporate reorganization that took place several years ago. DuPont “does not produce” the chemicals in question, “and we are not in a position to comment on products that are owned by other independent, publicly traded companies,” said a DuPont spokesman, Daniel A. Turner.

If the ex-president had been re-elected in 2020, as he still claims he was, the EPA would not be starting to regulate these dangerous chemicals. And, if chemical companies put human health first, the EPA would not need to regulate them because they would not be used much or at all.

Like their attitude about climate science and global warming, fascist Republican Party (FRP) elites do not believe that chemical pollution is a human health problem. In their minds, environmental damage is a grossly overblown non-issue. Regulations are out of the question. So is honesty. 

Questions: 

1. In view of core radical right dogma that free markets always do better than any government, is it fair or accurate to argue that the FRP opposes regulation of chemical pollution and honesty about its existence because the profit motive trumps both human health concerns and environmental damage? 

2. If the FRP was in control of the White House, (i) would the EPA be starting data gathering in a process to regulate PFAS or GenX chemicals, and/or (ii) would this kind of reporting be attacked as fake news and lies from the failing “enemy of the people” New York Times? If there is an enemy of the people, who or what is it?

3. Are the American people too spoiled, ignorant and/or deceived to tolerate EPA regulations that cause some loss of convenience or functionality in consumer products that contain toxic chemicals? Does it matter if most of the harm occurs with local people and the local environment where they are made? 

2,854 PFAS contaminated sites in the US

blue dots - contaminated drinking water

purple dots - military sites

red - other sites

Something’s really wrong…

This is what we’ve come to:

pic.twitter.com/kGsjP1Hbii

My name is Michele Fiore. I'm running for Governor of Nevada. We don't need more weak, compromise, blue blazer Republican politicians. That isn’t me and never will be. I will never stop fighting. Join the fight: https://t.co/k9QWQjPn6v pic.twitter.com/JuKbwZeXCg

— Councilwoman Michele Fiore (@VoteFiore) October 19, 2021

Comments?

The business of business: The vaccine business, just like the used car business

A baby squid - not  in the 

COVID vaccine

The business of business is business, usually meaning profit above all other concerns. Other concerns include human well-being and pollution. Businesses generally do their business by privatizing and trickling profits up, and socializing or externalizing human, social and environmental costs and damage. And, all this fun and games thing is routinely done in as much secrecy as business can manage it, leaving the public clueless and business free to copiously lie about how it does its standard operations and how much it is concerned about externalities like human, social and environmental damage and costs. 

It's a win-win for business and a lose-lose for the public interest or common good. The radical right loves it. So do businesses, which have bought and paid for this kind of a political-commercial system.

Although most libertarians and other anti-government ideologues vehemently deny it, the business of government is protecting the public interest. As the radical right ideologues see it, the business of government is getting out of the way of business so that unregulated markets can run free and wild, thereby best serving the public interest. That is about a crackpot of a faux reality as arguing against taking the COVID vaccine because there are tiny living creatures with tentacles in it, currently my favorite bit of COVID crackpottery.

In the vaccine, allegedly -- 

by a crackpot radical right politician

Speaking of standard business operations and the COVID vaccine, the New York Times writes:

A report released Tuesday by Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group that gained access to a number of leaked, unredacted Pfizer contracts, sheds light on how the company uses that power to “shift risk and maximize profits,” the organization argues.

The Manhattan-based pharmaceutical giant has maintained tight levels of secrecy about negotiations with governments over contracts that can determine the fate of populations. The “contracts consistently place Pfizer’s interests before public health imperatives,” said Zain Rizvi, the researcher who wrote the report.

Public Citizen found common themes across contracts, including not only secrecy but also language to block donations of Pfizer doses. Disputes are settled in secret arbitration courts, with Pfizer able to change the terms of key decisions, including delivery dates, and demand public assets as collateral.

Sharon Castillo, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, said that confidentiality clauses were “standard in commercial contracts” and “intended to help build trust between the parties, as well as protect the confidential commercial information exchanged during negotiations and included in final contracts.”

Aspects of the contracts are not uncommon, including the reliance on arbitration courts and clauses designed to give companies legal protections. Pfizer’s price for its vaccine, as low as $10 per dose in Brazil, appeared to be lower than some competitors’ prices.

Pfizer has formalized 73 deals for its coronavirus vaccine. According to Transparency International, a London-based advocacy group, only five contracts have been formally published by governments, and these with “significant redactions.”

“Hiding contracts from public view or publishing documents filled with redacted text means we don’t know how or when vaccines will arrive, what happens if things go wrong and the level of financial risk buyers are absorbing,” said Tom Wright, research manager at the Transparency International Health Program.  

The contract reached with Brazil prohibits the government from making “any public announcement concerning the existence, subject matter or terms of [the] Agreement” or commenting on its relationship with Pfizer without the prior written consent of the company.

“This is next-level stuff,” said Tahir Amin, an intellectual property lawyer who co-founded I-Mak, a nonprofit global health organization.

Pfizer exerted control over the supply of vaccine doses after contracts were signed. The Brazilian government was restricted from accepting donations of Pfizer doses or making its own donations. Pfizer also included clauses in contracts with Albania, Brazil and Colombia that it could unilaterally change delivery schedules in the case of shortages.

It is true that confidentiality clauses are “standard in commercial contracts” and “intended to help build trust between the parties, as well as protect the confidential commercial information exchanged during negotiations and included in final contracts.” By that reasoning, the public is not a party to the contract and is told nothing other than what a company chooses to say. No wonder confidentiality is so dominant in commerce. Both parties to a contract can say whatever they want, true, false, crackpot or most anything else and there is no way for the public to know the real truth. 

Arbitration courts operate in secrecy, unless the contract specifies otherwise. Contracts rarely specify otherwise. 

In my opinion, dark free speech (DFS) is the most potent weapon that authoritarians and self-serving people and entities or businesses have to go about their business in secrecy. Secrecy, assuming it is different from DFS and not a subset of it, is probably the next most potent weapon. Secrecy is close to DFS in anti-democratic power, arguably close to tied for first. 

Questions:

1. Which is more powerful and deceptive, (i) public ignorance grounded in a combination of secrecy and the kind of DFS called “public relations”, (ii) public ignorance grounded in DFS (lies, emotional manipulation, crackpot motivated reasoning and the like), or (iii) are they about the same?

2. The contracts the NYT discusses were leaked and Pfizer did not want that information to become public: Did the secret contract terms mostly protect legitimate corporate needs, or did they mostly hide things that Pfizer wanted to keep from the public? What damage did this leak of contract terms cause Pfizer, e.g., loss of legitimate trade secrets, or was it mostly just embarrassing information that caused public relations damage?

3. In moral philosophy, deceit and unwarranted opacity are sometimes argued to be anti-democratic because they deprive people of their right to decide and behave on the basis of facts and truth. Power flows from the deceived to the deceivers. Are contracts like those that Pfizer coerced governments to sign more anti-democratic than pro-authoritarian, or are they something else, e.g., politically or socially neutral?

The tentacles . . . 

the tentacles . . . .

On Free Expression, Free Societies and Laws

We're dealing with so much Dark Free Speech these days that I thought it might be productive to rant on the topic of free speech, and the nature of freedom, and what makes us free.

I'd argue that "free speech" enshrined as a right, the way it is in the US particularly, is pretty problematic.

I have a hard time with the liberal idea of (near absolute) freedom of expression.

It's too easy for bad actors, like fascists to poison the institution with what Germaine has coined "Dark Free Speech" - the kind of vax misinformation, and politically violent brinksmanship we see coming out of the talking heads today.

In The Torah, there are a set of laws which outline a way for someone who is not Jewish to lead a "righteous life" - that is, to play in the street of life and dodge most of the traffic. There are only like 7 of them and they're all pretty easy to follow.

The most difficult might be the most important for social stability: Establish laws, courts and a system of justice.

Absolute free speech is lawlessness. That's what happened to GETTR and Parler. That's what's happening offline as well.

The opposite of the law is not freedom - it is lawlessness - it's own kind of bondage. The rules set us free. That's why we have them. They elevate us.

Humans are self-domesticating, but not automatically so. Right now a great number of us are undomesticating or going "feral" human.

The laws, our social contracts, and belief systems domesticate and civilize us. We aren't born that way.

I like to say everyone's an anarchist at birth, some of us just don't grow out of it. I say that as an anarchist, although not of the infantile variety I just alluded to, at least not since childhood. My anarchism allows for rules, it's simply that the rules flow from the bottom up rather than top down.

Everyone needs rules if they are to live a reasonably satisfying life. It's part of being human.

If we wanted to free our speech, we'd protect it, by explicitly ruling out bad behavior.

People that are concerned about censorship need to understand that we censor every day, all over the place, and that this too is one of the conditions of civility and civilization. 

Online forums are moderated, and nobody loses their shirt. Canada and much of western Europe have laws against many kinds of Dark Free Speech, and if anything, those countries are arguably freer than we are.

Rules are important.

Jordan Klepper chats with T**** supporters in Des Moines

This is a 6 minute video of an interview with some T**** supporters at a recent political rally in Iowa. This arguably constitutes more evidence to support a belief that (1) some or maybe most of the ex-president's supporters are deceived, manipulated and betrayed, and (2) T**** and fascist Republican Party elites intentionally deceive, manipulate and betray them.

Images in the video include a T**** with a blazing machine gun sitting on a velociraptor dispensing righteous justice to Democrats and other evil anti-American miscreants. That's straight from sacred fundamentalist Christian nationalist dogma. That is exactly or close to how many or most of those people see reality.

Questions: 

1. Are some of the ex-president's supporters deceived, manipulated and betrayed, or are they pro-democracy patriots valiantly fighting against the evil socialist tyranny of Biden and the Democrats?

2. Is it morel likely that (a) Democrats who support Biden and the Democratic agenda are evil socialist tyrants, some or most of whom are deep state pedophiles or (b) some significant plurality or an outright majority of the ex-president's supporters are deceived, manipulated and betrayed?