For starters though... The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat. The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate. The FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.
But that's all "deep state" propaganda, right? Riiiight. Half a million civil servants, two million teachers, a quarter of a million journalists, a million scientists and science-related workers, a quarter of a million intel and military officers and FBI/law professionals... all in on it together, with a degree of secrecy and competence never before displayed by any government. Uh huh.
== Our Hearts Bleed ==
After every mass shooting, everyone trots out their own nostrums and prescriptions. Oh, I agree on the top priority: defeating Trumpism and the Putin-puppeteer behind it.
My own proposal is that we weaken the opposition to reasonable gun laws by actually listening to what passes for moderates in the gun-clutching opposition. We'll make better progress if we offer a a way to resolve gun owners' fear of a "slippery slope to confiscation." There's a germ of a reasonable fear that we should at least try to understand.
My own proposal is that we weaken the opposition to reasonable gun laws by actually listening to what passes for moderates in the gun-clutching opposition. We'll make better progress if we offer a a way to resolve gun owners' fear of a "slippery slope to confiscation." There's a germ of a reasonable fear that we should at least try to understand.
But my own top contribution has for 25 years been a demand to punish attention-seeking murderers by taking away their NAMES. The Greeks understood this. After the New Zealand shootings, it looked as if the idea might take hold.
== Bleeding Red ==
Let's move on to another kind of bleeding -- the accelerating flight of every remotely sane individual from the Trumpist mess. “Will Hurd, the House's Only Black Republican, Won't Seek Re-election In 2020.” And that makes what? Nine GOP representatives retiring, six in the last week?
Are these gestures? Acts of honor? Buyouts? Or might something else in the offing? Stated Hurd: "I left a job I loved in the CIA as an undercover officer to meet what I believed to be a need for new leadership in Congress on intelligence and national security matters…. I want to use my experience to focus on these generational challenges in new ways. … I will stay involved in politics to grow a Republican Party that looks like America."
There are volumes worth pondering in each of those sentences And yes, I sniff something I’ll hint at, below. But one factor is that Texas is becoming unfriendlier to the Party of Cheating that gerrymandered its lock on power over the Lone Star State. Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran has already announced she was seeking this Texas seat again. In the mold of Amy McGrath, who is America's best chance to chase away the nation's worst traitor. Proving yet again my earlier point that this is time for a broad coalition, not splitter puritanism.
But the bleeding continues. What is to be made of the sudden departure of the US Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats? And the even more sudden retirement of the current deputy director of national intelligence, Sue Gordon, who Trump banned from some White House briefings? To be clear, the new appointee, Joseph Maguire, the current Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, is a retired admiral and an apparently solid guy. (I always find the Navy reassuring, as when Adm. Mullen joined Def.Sec Gates, replacing Donald Rumsfeld during those almost-as-treasonous Bush years.)
Ah, but here’s a question we never used to ask. Who will be the acting director? Sue Gordon was a career CIA officer who should have - by law - been made acting DNI. Apropos to a reality star president, Trump has turned to “acting” officials who are not always vetted by Congress. Think about that.
Also leaving, U.S. ambassador to Russia John Huntsman, a former Utah governor and 2012 presidential candidate, who served as ambassador to China in 2009. A sometime libertarian candidate, as well, Huntsman is known as something of a non-foxite (i.e. somewhat sane) Republican. “Huntsman's departure comes as Fiona Hill, the top official on Russian affairs at the National Security Council, is also expected to leave her post this month.”
And yes, there must be more to this recent wave than just professionals unable to stomach things-Trump anymore -- a “great judge of character” who has been later “betrayed” by the same “great guys” more often than any ten other administrations, combined.
Shall I tell you what I sniff? Watch. Watch for a move at least partly led by Mitt, some time in the late fall or winter.
== The Last Gasp of Sane Republicans? ==
Shall I tell you what I sniff? Watch. Watch for a move at least partly led by Mitt, some time in the late fall or winter.
== The Last Gasp of Sane Republicans? ==
Oh. Keep an eye on the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, which released Volume 1 of its report on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election; it states that “the Russian government directed extensive activity, beginning in at least 2014 and carrying into at least 2017, against U.S. election infrastructure at the state and local level.”
Read this report about the report, which elaborates and confirms Robert Mueller findings of all-out war against our institutions. One chilling quote: "… pro-Kremlin bloggers had prepared a Twitter campaign, #DemocracyRIP, on election night in anticipation of Secretary Clinton's victory.’ …If Russia's preferred candidate does not prevail in the 2020 election, the Russians may seek to delegitimize the election.”
Read this report about the report, which elaborates and confirms Robert Mueller findings of all-out war against our institutions. One chilling quote: "… pro-Kremlin bloggers had prepared a Twitter campaign, #DemocracyRIP, on election night in anticipation of Secretary Clinton's victory.’ …If Russia's preferred candidate does not prevail in the 2020 election, the Russians may seek to delegitimize the election.”
Relevant to today's topic -- this report was issued by one of the few islands of sanity left in the Republican-controlled Senate, a committee wherein a cabal of Democrats and a few residually adult-sane Republicans (RASRS) refused to be controlled by Moscow Mitch McConnell, and instead did their duty.
== Conspiracy madness and our ruined immune system ==
Okay, now down to the promised stuff... conspiracies! We need to get ready for the tsunami of election interference, meddling and lies, much of it in the form of deep faked images etc. Our salvation will come from experts who appraise lies with modern tools… which is why Fox/KGB shills wage all-out war on fact-checking services. To see how bad it can be… and how some of YOUR friends on YOUR side may be susceptible, read about QAonon:
“Traditionally, the audience for conspiracy theories are those who feel marginalized from ordinary politics and are disengaged. Now the most prominent conspiracy proponent is, arguably, the world’s most powerful person.”
This article about QAnon is so (scarily) consistent with what I’ve said in The Postman, in Earth and in Existence and also The Transparent Society.… that webs of citizenship have to be built upon some sense of common narrative and the sort of trust that arises out of open information flows.
“Traditionally, the audience for conspiracy theories are those who feel marginalized from ordinary politics and are disengaged. Now the most prominent conspiracy proponent is, arguably, the world’s most powerful person.”
This article about QAnon is so (scarily) consistent with what I’ve said in The Postman, in Earth and in Existence and also The Transparent Society.… that webs of citizenship have to be built upon some sense of common narrative and the sort of trust that arises out of open information flows.
“Much as there’s a robust online community extending the narrative of virtually any TV show, movie or beloved work of fiction, QAnon’s bakers are taking the narrative sketches offered by Q (the mythical, John Galt-like supposed Trump insider who offers QAnon tantalizing bits of Truth) and extending them into a rich and detailed fantasy world. While there’s ample fan fiction about well-loved stories like the Harry Potter series or Star Trek, many fanfic aficionados choose to extend flawed texts, fixing their shortcomings and amplifying their strengths. It’s far more fun to write fanfic for a bad show than for a perfect one, and the narrative put forward by Q on 4Chan and 8Chan is deeply flawed. It is filled with events that haven’t transpired and predictions gone wrong.
“What is perhaps most remarkable about QAnon is how resilient it has been to obvious setbacks, including the inconvenient truth that neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama have been arrested.” … “Most of the popular QAnon podcasts feature sponsored advertising, notably products like emergency flashlights designed to help listeners survive the social upheavals destined to come about during The Storm.”
Ah, Holnism.
“With revelations about the use of Facebook groups by the Russian Internet Research Agency to create conflicts between groups of Americans and force cleavages within left-wing movements, it’s clear that the social media/news loop is being manipulated. What may be more relevant is the fact that these systems are also useful to those acting “in good faith”—i.e., not misrepresenting their identities or intentions—towards horrific ends.”
The author of this piece - Ethan Zuckerman - speaks of this ever-expanding tide of dangerous fantasy as “the Unreal.” He cites Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in Merchants of Doubt — that the strategies employed by tobacco companies about the harms of their product or oil companies about anthropogenic climate change were not designed to sway audiences to the corporate narrative, but to generate sufficient doubt to paralyze effective action. But clearly the conspiracy-nutter vanguard of the Unreal has surged beyond any constituency’s mere need for status quo protection. We are in a realm where the only possible outcome may be the chaos I described in The Postman.
Zuckerman concludes with 1-paragraph summaries of a number of earnest books and studies of the problem of what I call “online Nuremberg rallies” — echo-chambers of the fervent seeking only reinforcement of their drug high of sanctimonious rage.
== Soulutions, anyone? ==
Alas, the one thing we do not get from Zuckerman, or any other commentator on this problem, is a plausible proposed solution. Fact checking services like Snopes can support the majority of citizens who believe in such things, and perhaps nibble some of the more-sane out of those rallies. Dedicated debunking sites like QAnon-Anonymous can help a little. But they will not penetrate any major infection scabs with cleansing light.
What this author lacks - along with almost every other paladin of enlightenment - is any clue about the emotional dynamics and vulnerabilities at work here:
- Soa - Suspicion of Authority. We all share this reflex, trained by generations of Hollywood films. We may differ over which pack of elites are conspiring to become Big Brother, but we’re all sure it’s somebody! Start with this premise and you can forge a connection with your beloved, conspiracy-nut uncle. If he’s at all within reach of redemption, then try this first! You might draw him into an actual, actual (and maybe even fun) argument!
Ask him what’s more plausible, a conspiracy by Wall Street cheaters, KGB agents-turned-Russian-mafia-oligarchs, casino moguls, slumlords, Saudi princes and inheritance brats…
...or a conspiracy by all three million members of the so-called “deep state” of civil servants, teachers, journalists, scientists, FBI-intelligence officials and members of the U.S. military officer corps?
Well, when you put it that way, both scenarios seem utterly insane plots from a bad 1970s thriller! Only…
...or a conspiracy by all three million members of the so-called “deep state” of civil servants, teachers, journalists, scientists, FBI-intelligence officials and members of the U.S. military officer corps?
Well, when you put it that way, both scenarios seem utterly insane plots from a bad 1970s thriller! Only…
…only the first one is proved to be true, top to bottom, with mountains of open evidence. And such an alliance of oligarchies and criminal gangs is wholly consistent with 4000 years of brutal feudalism that the American Revolution was all about escaping.
Your uncle may not be convinced, but starting with your shared fundamental reflex — SoA — will give you an opening.
On the other hand, if he’s a real QAnon asshole… go after his other main driver.
On the other hand, if he’s a real QAnon asshole… go after his other main driver.
- Machismo - a desperate need for a manly, stalwart self-image, standing up the the rising tide of nerds and uppity females. There is a direct answer to this sort of small-ball overcompensating macho bluster. The counter-meme that I have found most effective is wagers!
The one area where these guys accept the primacy of verifiable fact is in bar bets. So, demand that he escrow $5000 with an attorney for stakes, then settle on a fact-based bet revolving around something verifiable/falsifiable.
I suggest ocean acidification, which can be tested with simple tools... a straw and a glass of water and a swimming pool test strip. A trip to the local beach.
“If you’re so sure that climate change is fake, then why not offer up fair stakes, then take my money? Any weaseling out of this means you don’t actually believe any of your bluster.”
Nothing demolishes macho better than the devastating word: “coward!”
The one area where these guys accept the primacy of verifiable fact is in bar bets. So, demand that he escrow $5000 with an attorney for stakes, then settle on a fact-based bet revolving around something verifiable/falsifiable.
I suggest ocean acidification, which can be tested with simple tools... a straw and a glass of water and a swimming pool test strip. A trip to the local beach.
“If you’re so sure that climate change is fake, then why not offer up fair stakes, then take my money? Any weaseling out of this means you don’t actually believe any of your bluster.”
Nothing demolishes macho better than the devastating word: “coward!”
