Electoral reform + the best issue for wagers

== Electoral fixes ==

Am I alone in liking the recent Democratic Party presidential debates? I like the well-tuned level of mutual probing.  I like the exposure given to future important cabinet members. And one whole year ahead of the 2020 DP convention, I see no rush to "narrow the field." Sure, there are some I wish would go away. Delaney, Gillibrand for example. But Williamson's bizarro trip has swung toward harmlessly entertaining, and possibly slightly helpful pulling in more of the Goop Community.

Does anyone else wish Lawrence Lessig, who failed to make the debate cut under far-harsher rules back in 2016, had been onstagethis time? Lessig’s Equal Citizen campaign asks the mass brain - (you folks) - to offer debate questions via hashtag #askaboutdemocracy. 
     
I submitted one. Every Democratic proposal - from climate action and Health Care to student debt, consumer protection, equal rights and repairing democracy - can be supported not just morally, but by fair appraisal of facts. That's why the top agenda of today's right is fomenting hate toward all fact-using professions! From science, medicine, teaching and journalism to the "deep state" officers of law, military and intelligence agencies. Since (almost) every Democratic proposal is supported by facts, shouldn't we combat the War on Fact first? 

Hence my question to candidates:

"What would you do to restore Americans' ability to get past today's fog of confusion that's spread deliberately by right wing media and their foreign sponsors, and get back to negotiating based on demonstrable verifiable facts?" 

Sound impossible? See a dozen ways we can fight back for the very concept of objective, verifiable reality.

And here’s another encouraging item: researchers found that "psychological resistance" to fake news could be increased by having the subjects play an online game. In the browser game, called Bad News, launched in February 2018, players become propaganda producers. They are allowed to manipulate the news and social media, invoking anger and fear. Tactics at their disposal include twitter bots, conspiracy theories, impersonation and photoshopped evidence. Still, while they use such Machiavellian approaches to attract followers, the players must maintain a "credibility score" to continue to be persuasive.

Huh. Find anyone who used that phrase “credibility score” before my novel EARTH, wherein it had a very similar purpose and use. Anyway, it’s not too soon to lure every “susceptible” you know into playing this game.

Meanwhile...

Workers in mostly red states aren’t seeing minimum-wage hikes, even though local lawmakers passed them. State-level officials and legislators in Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin have all invalidated wage increases passed by cities, costing nearly 350,000 workers a total of $1.5 billion per year, a study finds. Even the smartest Democrat hasn’t figured out how to package this… and a myriad other travesties… so that our red neighbors wake up and remember who their parents’ favorite living human was.

== The acid test ==

WAGERS can be effective! But start with a wriggle-proof bet that corners denialist cultists and their Exxon/Russia/ Saudi/Koch masters. If you prove glaciers are retreating and every U.S. Navy officer is fretting the warming, they’ll just beat a retreat to the next magical incantation. (“Cow farts!” one idiot snarked at me, as a voodoo protective spell.) See my posting: Fight disinformation with wagers!

Above all, two words send every Fox-head fleeing: “ocean acidification.” They stammer and change the subject. There’s no goalpost shifting. Use those two words for wagers! 

Here goes. Demand your denialist cultist either refute these charges or pay up:

1. Acidification and eutrofication are killing the oceans and thus our planet. The Black and Caspian Seas are almost dead. The Mediterranean, Caribbean and East China Seas, plus the Gulf of Mexico are dying, as are much of the Pacific and Atlantic. Eutrofication is inarguably from human pollution. 

2. Acidification happens when you add Carbon-Dioxide to water (prove it with a 2 minute experiment! A straw, a glass of water and a swimming pool test strip.)

3. The source of rapidly skyrocketing CO2 is humans burning fossil fuels. Period. 

4. Foreign meddlers - coal barons, petro-boyars and oil-sheiks warring on our children for short-term greed - have stymied US creative response by ordering the GOP to slash R&D, thwart sustainables, block sensible legislation and mileage standards that saved us billions at the pump. They cancelled NASA and NOAA satellites, suppressed scientists. They ordered actual words, like “Earth” and “climate,” banned at federal agencies. (Part of the larger GOP war on all fact-professions.) 

Of course, there are more climate effects than acid-burnt and fertilizer-choked seas. (Red America is hard-hit!) But those two words “ocean acidification” are especially effective. They leave no room for even a squirming, wriggling, incantation-spewing confed-foxite to escape. And hence, you start here.

Demand your foxites either bet on points #1-4 above (and pay $) or admit their side is monstrous… or else (the usual result) they flee in panic while you get to slash their credibility before witnesses, by casting after their scurrying butts a single, manhood-demolishing hex-word: 

“Coward!”

 

== A structural improvement that matters ==

From cowards back to heroes and another Lessig project. The Maine legislature passed a bill for “ranked-choice voting” in selecting electors for President. The "we're the opposite of Florida" state has passed a number of intelligent reforms - this one long pushed by Lessig's Equal Citizens campaign. 

If more states did this, the folks who dream of fostering 3rd party candidates could do their thing without screwing us up, as they did with their preening Nader and Jill Stein gestures. It would prevent many (not all) kinds of noxious outcomes. We need it nationwide.

It is also the way that people of the UK should have a second Brexit referendum. The insipid Remain vs. Leave dichotomy never captured the public's want, which would win any multi-choice, RCV-style poll: 

"Remain, if the EU negotiates some changes like better residency sovereignty."

Lessig urges you to send the Maine governor (@GovJanetMills) a tweet saying we need RCV for president. 

Optimists aren't the ingrate betrayers.

I just finished 9 weeks of relentless speechifying around the globe, from the Arctic and Russia to South China to LA, to a dozen events in DC. More than 25 talks! Culminating in last week’s commencement at UC Santa Cruz (Crown College.) Time to get back to writing.

== But first…

Two minutes. Watch this, you Americans. Two minutes for your country. (And you others, learn from this!) As for those cardboard election mailers you were getting, and will get again, come November? Do what you should do with anything received over the web. Start by looking at the return address. (The "paid-by" is usually some made-up shill phrase.) 

There's lots more we need to do, to shred the veil of lies. But that should only be a start. 

It truly is simple. One party wants a return to the campaign accountability laws that worked mostly-well in the past. Ronald Reagan was elected under them, by the way. Vote for that party and against the one that has adopted wholesale cheating supported with acts of war by foreign powers.

Better yet, join Lawrence Lessig's campaign to bring all the funding into the light.

== Is there any protection from the inevitable meltdown? ==

With Paul Ryan announcing his retirement (to spend time with family), and the last professionals leaving a White House in full melt-down mode, talk of a bill to protect Robert Mueller is going nowhere, because GOP pols are desperately afraid of Rupert Murdoch. And yes, just in time, the Murdochs are getting a huge, cash war chest of $70 Billion they can spend on perverting the Enlightenment. Thanks a bunch, Mickey.

What happens when a toddler with presidential powers enters full panic mode? What are the skilled and grownup men and women of the officer corps, the civil service, and adults both in and out of the "deep state" to do, when faced with a life-or-death choice between their duty to all of us, and the chain-of-command?

There is a solution! It can pass, quietly, in a three sentence resolution from both houses. Far less daunting or traumatic than impeachment, it would give our military officers and others a place to turn, if they are ever given "spasm" commands.

Three sentences -- that could be slipped into almost any bill -- that would quietly let us sleep at night. Give it another look... and pass it along to anyone you know who might know someone who knows someone...

== We haven’t lost… yet ==

Long ago I learned something from my friend Ray Bradbury... that people want to be optiminstic, but they are worried about looking naïve or foolish. Still, they can be chided into seeing the advantages of a positive attitude.

Hated on by both the far-left and the entire-right, Steven Pinker dares to beat the drum of optimism in an era of stylish cynicism and self-indulgent gloom. He and I choose different examples, and reasons to feel guarded hope. But first, ponder this Pinker excerpt:

"Consider the U.S. just three decades ago. Our annual homicide rate was 8.5 per 100,000. Eleven percent of us fell below the poverty line (as measured by consumption). And we spewed 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 34.5 million tons of particulate matter into the atmosphere.

"Fast forward to the most recent numbers available today. The homicide rate is 5.3 (a blip up from 4.4 in 2014). Three percent of us fall below the consumption poverty line. And we emit four million tons of sulfur dioxide and 20.6 million tons of particulates, despite generating more wealth and driving more miles.

"Globally, the 30-year scorecard also favors the present. In 1988, 23 wars raged, killing people at a rate of 3.4 per 100,000; today it’s 12 wars killing 1.2 per 100,000. The number of nuclear weapons has fallen from 60,780 to 10,325. In 1988, the world had just 45 democracies, embracing two billion people; today it has 103, embracing 4.1 billion. That year saw 46 oil spills; 2016, just five. And 37% of the population lived in extreme poverty, barely able to feed themselves, compared with 9.6% today. True, 2016 was a bad year for terrorism in Western Europe, with 238 deaths. But 1988 was even worse, with 440."

Pinker has mountains of such examples, enraging those who think that only hand-wringing guilt trips can possibly motivate people to take action to improve things further.

Fools. It's confidence that spurs action, not despair! See his new book: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.

Along these lines, famed statistician Hans Rosling's final book (published posthumously): Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, explores the upward trend of human progress, which Bill Gates calls "One of the most important books I've ever read."  As a matter of fact, Bill Gates is giving a free ebook of Factfulness to all 2018 college graduates.

Have things improved? Enjoy this vivid video of Hans Rosling: 200 Countries, 200 years in 4 Minutes -- joyfully detailing statistical progress across the globe, over decades.

Here's an example or two of my own.

If you were around in 1985, when Star Trek IV came out, would you have bet that in 2018 all species of whale would still be around, and in greater numbers than ever? 

Oh, but can they survive long with idiots denying that the oceans are going acid? It's not to late to stop the bad trend and save the good. It's that mix of confidence-building accomplishment with urgency that might empower us to save the world.

Seriously, any of you who would trade places with any generation of our ancestors need to get a grip. Try actually, actually confronting the facts of feudal oppression, inquisitions, and the plain reality that nearly all of those forebears had experienced the smoke, blood, screams and terror of a burning city or village, not once in their lives, but several times. 

Spoiled rotten, do not add ingratitude to your list of faults. Confront your place on the slope of progress! Gaze briefly (with Pinker's help) across how far we've come... then dig in your feet and get to work climbing further.

== Infopacalypse? ==

Which brings us to another big perspective... and what it says about our disruptive era.

A member of our comment community corrected my impression that the American democracy has lasted longer than the Athenian:  

“Athenian democracy lasted from around 594 BC when Solon instituted the Ecclesia to when Phillip II conquered Athens in 338 BC, a total of 256 years. It started in revolution because a very small elite had turned all the others into debt slaves. Solon made the very deep reforms thereby avoiding civil war. It lasted for through many existential crises but was eventually brought down by hubris brought about by empire, a lost war and afterwards a general slump into insignificance all in 256 years. Our democracy started in 1788 so if democracies have a lifespan then we will reach our end around the year 2044. In the critical stage Athens produced Pericles, the best of leaders, but it also produced Alcibiades who was brilliant, from the best family and had been a pupil of Socrates but was totally devoid of principles. Who is our Alcibiades these days?” 

Well, yes, sort of. Athens went through wilder swings, across those 256 years, including stretches when the oligarchs resumed control, and others when democracy resembled more a mob than a deliberative assembly of adults. (In fact, the U.S. has gone through swings, as well, which I call "phases of our ongoing/recurring Civil War.")

Much of this came to mind while watching Mark Zuckerberg testify to Congress.  I've been to Facebook twice, in the last year or so, advising one of the teams trying to come up with ways to make facts and reliability more a part of that online roiling stew. (In EARTH (1989) I predicted social media would become a morass of self-reinforcing echo-chambers.) Alas, people keep inviting me to come and consult... and never take my simple advice.

== How to defend Truth ==

Which brings us to this chilling revelation about foreign electoral meddling and our current "Infopocalypse Now.”

Those with less education are more biased by false information - even once they know it's false. Scientific American recently published an excellent analysis of the research on fake news, misinformation, and cognitive ability. The nut of it is this: those with low cognitive ability are more likely to believe false information even after they've been explicitly told it's false.

Cognitive ability also correlates with education, which teaches meta-cognitive skills - the ability to monitor and regulate one's own thinking, which can be used to combat the effects of misinformation on worldview.

Among the disturbing findings:

· The Trump campaign targeted low cognitive-ability voters.

· Repeated exposure is more convincing than one-time exposure.

· Fake news is more viral than real news.

Case in point: "The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now. But now they're setting records. They're at a record level." - Donald Trump, to Reuters, quoted on msn.com.

You and I find it hard to believe we are members of the same civilization – nay, species – as people who are able to murmur such an incantation, knowing full well that – if they allowed any fact person to speak, the nostrum would prove diametrically opposite to truth. The word “Idiocracy” comes to mind.

But is this surprising? The Confederacy always relied upon this: Aristocrats pay for propaganda to get the most dimwitted whites to march off and fight for the rights of the richest.

And yes, this is using democracy to destroy itself. When the war on all fact professions is done, and the aristocracy is the only power left standing, you can bet that democracy will be curtailed. The one thing puzzling me is how - once all the fact and skill professions are pounded down - the feudal lords expect that strategy to ultimately go well for them.

(Source: Berit Anderson's SCOUT site and the Strategic News Service).

== And finally... ==

Ex-Speaker John Boehner Joins Marijuana Firm's Advisory Board. Seriously. How many times have we seen this? These guys scream at Martin Luther King... then later proclaim themselves to be his heirs. They cry out: "cars don't cause smog!" And "it's okay that rivers catch fire!" And "tobacco is good for you!" And "Russia is our pal!"  And "glaciers are expanding!"... and a jillion other fact-hating nostrums.  Then, when utterly disproved and the delaying tactic is used up?

It's "who, me? I never!" 

The last thing they'll admit it that being always, always, always wrong should affect a jerk's credibility.

Experts and reformers aren't always right! But you troglodytes have such a horrid record that you bear the burden of proof.  And hence your all-out war on every single fact-using profession.

Light-up, John. Inhale. Maybe it will deaden the dull ache in some residual stump of a soul, after a lifetime spent betraying your nation, world and civilization.

The Depth of Denial - Some zillionaires can see what's coming

First a political aside: is anyone else wondering about the absence of Paul Ryan from GOP's nomination circus? Ryan (R-Wis.) is House Ways and Means Chairman and one of the most powerful legislators in America.  He was also his party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, significant since the Republican Party's normal rhythm is to give the presidential nomination to the Next Guy... whose "turn it is"... either whoever came in second last time, or else the VP nominee. Yet Ryan dropped from the national radar.  

A fact highlighted by John Boehner's sudden departure as Speaker of the House, second in line to inherit any vacated presidency. Ryan declined Boehner’s job. So... what's up? I doubt any "skeleton in the closet" hypothesis. He's still young -- in his forties with small kids... with more chances on the horizon.  Moreover, as unambiguously one of the smartest living Republicans, Ryan may have rightfully seen himself as a poor fit for today's GOP frenzy-asylum -- in which all compete by pushing the envelope of craziness. Too much Barry Goldwater, too little Savanarola or Jefferson Davis or Nehemia Scudder or carnival barker to fit in with this crowd. 

Perhaps Ryan sees his "turn" in 2020... when (we can all pray) the madness abates a bit. 

In fact, today let's now turn and look at some other conservatives who want no part of lunacy. Who see civilization as something good for them, maybe worth compromising for.

== Some of the "trillies" are smart enough to see self-interest ==

Did you see first this in Existence? Some of the smarter members of our world oligarchy are starting to worry about torches, pitchforks and tumbrels -- tentatively discussing how to save their own skins from revolution. 

In a New York Times Op-Ed, former marketing conglomerate CEO Peter Georgescu writes: Capitalists Arise: We Need To Deal with Income Inequality. Joined by his friend Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot, Georgescu warns his fellow 0.01 percenters that “[w]e are creating a caste system from which it’s almost impossible to escape.” The column raises the specter of “major social unrest” if inequality is not addressed. In June, Cartier chief Johann Rupert — worth an estimated $7.5 billion — delivered the same message to his wealthy colleagues, telling them that the intensifying inequality and what it portends “keeps me awake at night.” He told his fellow elites that “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us.”

Here’s a telling passage, relating today’s inequities to those during the Great Depression, the last time a skyrocketing aristocracy had to ponder its own best interests in a larger light: 

“Georgescu and Langone’s mission perhaps finds its best Depression-era analog in Joseph Kennedy, the millionaire father of the eventual president John F. Kennedy, who said of the Depression that “in those days I felt and said I would be willing to part with half of what I had if I could be sure of keeping, under law and order, the other half.” Kennedy, like many (but hardly all) of his elite colleagues, knew that capitalism had to be bridled if it was to survive.”

Pause and ponder this. Is a classic, pyramidal-feudal society - the blatant aim of many oligarchs - even tenable anymore, in an era when an enraged middle class will have all the technical skills in the world? So far, that anger only simmers, repressed by political theater, distractions and everpresent hope. But where do the would-be lords (reflexively and unthinkingly obeying 6000 years of aristocratic habit) think re-pyramidalization can possibly lead, this time?  When brainy kids will have a copy of Marx at one elbow and a bio-synthesis machine at the other, capable of concocting any organic compound and even viruses?  Will gated resorts and robot butlers suffice, in such a future?  Clearly, the smartest and wisest "trillies" (as I call them, in EXISTENCE) can tell things are different, this time.

== Or, are any of them really noticing? ==

Elsewhere, I have compiled a long list of biometric traits that are useful or effective at distinguishing one human being from another.  These range from fingerprints and retinal or iris scans to face recognition, hand-bone ratios, voiceprints, walking-gait, linguistic-semantic habits... all the way to the otto-acoustic sound emissions that many of us radiates involuntarily from our eardrums.  

Now comes news that just sitting in a room you'll leave a unique panoply of bacteria that can be attributed to you!

What does this have to do with the super-rich? Well, read the following and see if you can guess:

"Walking into E at Equinox, nothing seems out of the ordinary from a normal trip to the Columbus Circle gym location – that is, until you approach the retina scanner.... Privacy is a big draw for those with the means to purchase the $26,000 membership – about 50 people at the New York location, according to Garcia — which nets members two private training sessions a week and unlimited access to the facilities, as well as access to Equinox’s Fit3D body scan-technology, which allows both the member and the T4 coach the ability to have a 3D view of the member’s anatomy, offering an objective baseline of various body measurements to craft their program around...."

Um okay.  So rich people are paying high rates in order to offer up their bodies to be measured in every conceivable way, so that unvetted parties will have every single biometric ... ah, I see you are getting it.  But do they?

Safety-through-concealment is a fool's fantasy -- even for elites.

== But the myopic are steering ==

While we discuss billionaires who are sane enough to see which way the wind blows… read here - Where Presidential Candidates Stand on Climate Change - how some are stepping up to counterbalance the lunacy propelled by short sighted coal-Koch-petro-sheiks and lords. Take Tom Steyer, who spent $74 million in the 2014 elections to support Democratic candidates who made climate change a critical issue in their campaign. And Republican businessman Jay Faison will put $175 million behind the campaign of a conservative who embraces the need to combat climate change, according to Politico.

Not the ideal situation, of course, which would be to take the bulk of corrupting money out of politics, the aim of Larry Lessig's campaign. (Join!) Still, perhaps indicative that not all zillionaires are myopic about their own self-interest.

Another amazement from the same article? Who would imagine that Bobby Jindal would come across as the sole sane conservative... at least in the one issue of climate change?  Well, after Katrina, you'd have to be utterly delusional to be a denialist.  But isn't that a modern GOP job requirement?  Read here a survey of the demmie and gopper candidates' position on this vital issue.

== It's human nature at the tiller ==

Oh, but once you put aside a few sapient fellows out there, the chief trait we see at the top of the oligarchic pyramid is a standard reflex observed in nearly all apex aristocrats, across the dismal 6000 years of failure-feudalism -- a rationalization that their luck derived from superiority. Entitlement correlates with inherent right to rule... even to cheat.

An enlightening article portrays the ten multi-billionaires who meddle most in U.S. politics.  Left out?  The sub-rosa influence of three vast, foreign money pools.  First, the Saudi Royal House and related petro-princes who have had a huge say – some might say control – in the GOP infrastructure created by the Bush Clan, and who are co-owners of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox empire. Second, the Chinese government, which ensures that Sheldon Adelson’s by-far most profitable casino properties are the ones in Macao, providing a pipeline of “profits” he can use to influence US politics.  And finally, the network of Swiss and other banking havens that will lose big, if international treaties on financial transparency ever pass – over fierce objections by the Republican Party. 

All of those groups fear one thing above all else.  That electoral reform in the U.S. will eliminate cheating and restore Periclean citizen sovereignty and honest American institutions.  That is their nightmare, and the biggest thing they donate gushers to prevent.

== Snippets: revealing the depth of denial ==

Growing disconnect: U.S. worker productivity rose 22% from 2000 to 2014; pay and benefits just 1.8%.

New NASA data indicates that sea levels have risen four inches in the last two decades:

Hilarious warped messages.  Both the best-yet Bad Lip Reading (of the recent GOP presidential debate) and a classic of Ronald and Nancy Reagan urging kids to get on crack.   And let’s be fair.  There are some rib-tickling bad lip readings of dems, too!

Oh but it is not equal. Consider this: How conspiracy theories poisoned the Republican Party.

And finally... The museum memorial to the heroes of flight UA 93 is open, at last.  The citizen militia that won the War on Terror – and I mean that, at every level – the very day it began. The only problem is that the memorial should be on the Washington DC Mall.

And having plumbed the depths of denial (a river in Africa) that will do for politics... for a little while.

Lessig for President? Let's struggle free of cheating, dogmatism and bought elections.

First, I am proud to know Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig, who has been the most successful opponent of big money in politics, gaining a following and some real traction in his campaign to raise public awareness.  Now Lessig  says that if he can crowdsource $1 million by Labor Day, he'll leave Harvard and enter the Democratic primaries. "He'd be a single-issue candidate, campaigning for a legislative package that would undo restrictive voting laws, make Election Day a national holiday, bar the gerrymandering of congressional districts, and finance elections through public matching funds or vouchers for small donors." 

Lessig's running mate would in-effect be the Real Candidate, because Larry intends to resign office the day after signing such a bill into law. A law that would then free up the political process to deal with all our other major issues, on a basis of negotiation on their merits, and not who has purchased the most politicians.  Secretly, many Senators and Congressfolk want this too, as it would eliminate the endless tedium of fundraising that now takes more of their time than legislating.

(Note: I just signed up for one of Larry's crowdfunding donations. I hope some of you will, as well. You only pay if he reaches his million dollar threshold.  Say I sent you!) See his book: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It.

Yes!  This is exactly the sort of role I envision also for two other admirables who don't really want to serve -- Jerry Brown and Jon Stewart. Dive in guys! And show us what an idea fest the demo-party debates could be, as opposed to the 16 dwarves and Trump on the other side, mostly parroting whatever Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes tell them to... or else making Fox the issue, without shedding any real light.

== Trumpapalooza ==

The staying power of Donald Trump will not last, but it remains transfixing, the way you cannot tear your eyes away from a catastrophe.  This Salon article -- Donald Trump is the last whimper of the angry white man: What's really behind his stubborn lead -- plumbs some fascinating explanations:  "Two facts about all this deserve special notice. The first is that the tenor of Trump’s rhetoric has been directly related to the trend in his poll numbers — the wilder and harsher the former, the higher he has climbed in the latter. The second is the desperate (and largely futile) struggle of our political media to make some sense of the first fact."

Some attribute the pyrotechnic rage of lower-middle-class white males to an inchoate sense that the nation's demographics are removing their sense of entitled paramountcy. Others ascribe it blatantly to Rupert Murdoch's relentless -- Saudi funded -- assault on trust in any and all American institutions or loci of expertise (hence the "War on Science" actually includes all Smartypants Elites, from teachers and civil servants to economists and law professionals).  Or is it exactly and precisely the same syndrome that plantation lords used, to get a million poor whites to fight and die for them in one of the earlier phases of our ongoing civil war?

Can this demographic really forget that their fathers -- the soldiers and workers of the Greatest Generation -- adored one living human above all others -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt? (Whom Rupert's shills portray as Satan Incarnate)? Maybe, at a deep level, they remember this, and perhaps the favorite thing Trump is doing is spurning all the GOP's bribing fat cats (he can afford to) and finally casting doubt on the Cult of Fox?

There you have my advice for Donald Trump. Make Rupert Murdoch a core issue! Divert from the Fox pretty faces. Congratulate Megyn Kelly for her well-earned bonus. But Rupert has no loyal following. He has painted himself into a corner.  He and Roger Ailes are sitting ducks for a hunter who does not need their network or their money.

(Late word... now a few pundits are reversing themselves and wondering -- Might Donald Trump be the new Reagan? Yipe!)

== How ideology shapes our views ==

“One of the key trends in public opinion over the past few decades has been a growing divide among Republicans and Democrats into ideologically uniform “silos.” A larger share of the American public expresses issue positions that are either consistently liberal or conservative today than did so two decades ago, and there is more alignment between ideological orientation and party leanings.” -- Americans, Politics, and Science Issues, from the Pew Research Center.

When it comes to science, the results are mixed:  “Americans’ political leanings are a strong factor in their views about issues such as climate change and energy policy and whether government should finance research, but much less of a factor when it comes to issues such as food safety, space travel and biomedicine. At the same time, there are factors other than political party and ideology that shape the public’s often-complex views on science matters. For instance there are notable issues on which racial and generational differences are pronounced, separate and apart from politics.”

Again and again, I point out that we are navigating between a political Scylla and polemical Charybdis. And while the current version of (hijacked) American conservatism has gone flat-out loco… there are also some loonies on the other extreme who do less harm, but only quantitatively. Qualitatively – crazy is still crazy.

This invariably leads to mail, decrying that my attempts at “balance” break up what must be a uniform dogma, to oppose the right’s current madness. That breaking ranks hurts the good “side.” How ironic!  Since I do believe there is a level where war is a correct metaphor. And in this phase of the recurring American Civil War, it is imperative that the re-igniting Confederacy not prevail.

And yet, I have seen the wretched effects of left-wing insipidities. If it were only by serving as examples of PC-police bullying, for Beck and Hannity to point at while rallying their troops, that would be plenty.  But that isn’t the worst crime that leftists regularly commit.  The most harmful one is preaching endless gloom and despair.

I urge you all to read this eloquent and heartfelt and passionately intelligent essay - A letter to my dismal allies on the U.S. left - by one of the finest journalists in the world, Rebecca Solnit, who is definitely to the left of me. And yet, who shares my belief that our lefty allies regularly seek the sanctimony high of righteous gloom, and thus help demolish the very pragmatic, incremental reforms that can save and improve the world.  That have done so much to make life better for millions and billions, across the last several generations.  

“O rancid sector of the far left, please stop your grousing! Compared to you, Eeyore sounds like a Teletubby. If I gave you a pony, you would not only be furious that not everyone has a pony, but you would pick on the pony for not being radical enough until it wept big, sad, hot pony tears. Because what we're talking about here is not an analysis, a strategy, or a cosmology, but an attitude, and one that is poisoning us. Not just me, but you, us, and our possibilities.”

She goes on: “An undocumented immigrant writes me: "The Democratic party is not our friend: it is the only party we can negotiate with." Or as a Nevada activist friend put it: "Oh my God, go be sanctimonious in California and don't vote or whatever, but those bitching radicals are basically suppressing the vote in states where it matters."  And:  “People who told me back in 2000 that there was no difference between Bush and Gore never got back to me afterward.”

Do read this essay!  Pass the link around and keep it in your pocket to read aloud to these flakes, in fall of 2016. 

Nevertheless, I have a way to say it all more fiercely and penetratingly, with just five words:  

“It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.”

Our entire civilization teeters around getting those reforms of Larry Lessig passed, and especially getting Citizens United reversed, so that we do not descend into some kind of cyberpunk version of feudalism.  One party wants that to happen.  The other does not. And you prima donnas out there who think there is any justification for “they’re all the same”?  You are stupid-crazy people.

== What would a sincere conservatism try to do? ==

Back when conservatism still contained some cogent-sane elements, Barry Goldwater asked a significant question.  (Paraphrasing.)

“Let’s assume that the liberals see some genuine problems – poverty, tainted food, bad drugs, false advertising, unsafe factories, inadequate access to education and health care – but we on the right disdain paternalistic “solutions” that come via government’s alphabet soup.  Welfare, the FDA, FTC, OSHA, Medicare, and so on.

“Instead of denying problems exist… or vaguely arm-waving faith that blind markets will solve all things… shall we examine HOW markets  actually solve some problems?  And look at ways to enhance that process?”

It struck Barry G like a blow. Insurance. For those who can afford it, insurance creates a betting market that causes people to seriously re-assess their risk factors. Making it marginally less necessary for paternalistic government to do the same thing for you.  

Goldwater looked around and found one area wherein insurance companies were truly doing their jobs, actively working with clients to reduce risk exposure, and thus eliminating much government oversight. Industrial fire prevention. Through a number of very involved institutes, like Underwiters’ Labs… and by requiring meddlesome company inspections… the insurance industry had reduced bureaucratic supervision from Washington. The theory actually worked! 

So why hadn’t the same effect happened in other realms of insurance?  Why didn’t companies demand to see their clients’ refrigerators and medicine cabinets?  Might that cause the FDA to “wither away,” the way OSHA stopped bothering much with industrial fire prevention?  It sounded good, in theory!  Goldwater proposed to fund studies of how the insurance biz might be encouraged to move in this direction…

… and he got no support at all.  Not from democrats, who like their alphabet soup solutions… and none at all from republican colleagues, who got money from insurance executives who like things just as they are, with civil servants doing all the hard, regulatory work. Most surprisingly, Barry got no backing from libertarians!  Why, after all, try to tweak capitalism’s rules so that markets solve problems, when the far more satisfying incantation is to just screech at evil government, 24-7, and never admit that there are bona fide problems that need solving, one way or another.

Goldwater gave up.  And late in life he denounced the hijacking of his beloved conservatism by genuine monsters.

But let’s get back to insurance.  Have a look at this item:  “Rarely does a document prepared by an insurance group read like an apocalyptic screenplay. But it does happen. In this case, Lloyds, a storied insurance market put out a report outlining the potential global meltdown that could occur if parts of the food supply chain failed.

“So why do insurance companies care? Because they're the ones that are betting against disaster. If something goes wrong, they're the ones that have to pay out claims.”

Can Citizens Become a Political Force?

Is there one thing that an average US citizen can do, right now, to help end the current phase of America’s ongoing civil war?

Only a few days are left in the crowd-funding campaign for Lawrence Lessig’s citizen-centered Super Pac: MAYDAY-PAC. Aimed at changing the playing field, so that raw money is less of a force in U.S. politics.

Mayday PAC was started by my colleague, Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig (co-founder of Rootstrikers and Creative Commons) — a “super PAC” using the power of kickstarted funds from ordinary citizens to fight the power of big money donors that control America's political system.

You are summoned! To spend one minute – in a minuteman-tradition – to make a difference.  Make a donation  to help reduce the power of influence in politics -- they have five days left to meet their goal.

Start with the excellent 2013 TED talk by Professor Lessig called "We the People ...and the Republic We Must Reclaim" -- with over a million views.

Lessig's ideas are further expounded in his ebook, The USA is Lesterland: The Nature of Congressional Corruption -- "a map for a democracy we could reclaim."

Summarized by Lessig: "Less than 1/20th of 1% of America are the “relevant funders” of congressional campaigns. That means about 150,000 Americans, or about the same number who are named “Lester,” wield enormous power over this government. These “Lesters” determine this critical first election in every election cycle—the money election. Without them, few believe they have any chance to win. And certainly, neither party believes it can achieve a majority without answering the special demands these “funders” make. Our Congress has thus become dependent upon these funders. In this sense, we are now “Lesterland.”"

Or view Steve Wozniak's 3-minute video: America's Operating System is Broken.

I am just passing this along for now, for your awareness. I haven’t delved in very far, as yet or done due diligence. But something of this kind is clearly needed.