Propaganda Wars

One Like Click Begets Another

I have really come to hate memes, especially political memes. This is not a new feeling, but the election cycle has helped my antipathy bubble to the surface more easily of late. They are frequently mean-spirited and almost always the enemy of critical thinking. Wherever you fall on the political spectrum matters not. We all have our own life stories that have brought us to how we perceive our world. But having a world view, wherever it may fit on the political spectrum, does not excuse us from actually thinking and examining, examining critically, the propaganda we put out there in the hope, however vain, that we will influence someone else.

You can be, and quite possibly are, both the purveyor and victim in these social media propaganda wars. Let’s say you “like” or “share” a post from some site (Fox News, Breitbart, “End the Fed,” on one side or MSNBC, Occupy Democrats and the misnamed but clearly partisan “Non-Partisan Report” on the other, just to name a few). It doesn’t mean there’s no truth in the breathless story or meme, but propaganda is just a partial truth – and that truth has its own agenda. 

Blindly clicking, sharing, reposting, without actually checking the facts or to see if there is another side, does two things. First, it ensures that anyone who is not already in the choir will start tuning you out. It may seem counterintuitive, but if you’re a parent, or teacher, you already know that constantly yelling at people, and most of this stuff is no more than yelling, results in less listening and more tuning out. There are several names that pop up on my Facebook newsfeed that I barely even bother to look at anymore because it’s the same old, same old. Even if there is value to what is being posted, I guarantee I won’t see it because I stopped listening 643 posts ago. 

The second thing it does is to establish you as a target for even more posts like the one you just shared, liked, or reposted, miring you more firmly in a quagmire of your echo chamber, and in some cases the conspiracy rabbit hole. Once there, it becomes almost impossible to climb out, to start thinking for yourself, to critically analyze information, because all you’re being fed is variations of the same meal. That’s not healthy, either literally or figuratively. It certainly discourages the very important question, “What if I’m wrong?” And that is a question which needs to be asked much more frequently, not less, in the future.

Examining Greatness

Sometime Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, people are going to be unhappy with the outcome of the presidential election. Over half of the electorate, in fact.

I confess I don’t know what “Make America Great Again” means. I guess my key questions are, “If we are no longer great, when were we great? When did we start becoming great? Is there a year or event that marks our retreat from greatness? When we were great were things great for everyone, or even almost everyone?” My father thought the 50's were great, but then he was a white male working in corporate America, successfully navigating a path upward through the large group of people who comprised the middle class. I tried to remind him that the time that was great for him wasn’t necessarily that great for everyone. Kind of like my brother who, every Thanksgiving, opines, “Ham, probably the perfect food.” To which I always add, “Unless, of course, you’re Muslim or Jewish.” He response is a shrug. If it’s not his problem, it can’t possibly be a problem, right?

Back in the 1980s I felt lonely and isolated as the Reagan Revolution ushered in a decade of conservatism. I was who the polls said I was, the minority opinion. I said that if you wanted to predict the outcome of an election, find out who I was supporting and pick the other candidate. Of course, Reagan conservatism didn’t resemble anything like what ideologically conservative purists of today envision for the country; I didn’t like the direction he wanted to push the country (backward, IMO), but he recognized that he was the leader of a diverse nation and that slow movement, based on compromise and statesmanship, was not just the proper course, but the only course.

For better or worse, depending upon your POV, he succeeded in his big picture goals and slowed, but certainly did not stop, the progressive (fine, leftward) drift of the country. President Reagan spoke Conservative (and to conservatives) but was, at his core, a centrist, as were his successors, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. At the risk of underestimating him, if George W. Bush had philosophical position, I could never figure it out. He struck me as something of a puppet of the neocons, especially in terms of foreign policy, rather than his own man. Despite the rantings of the alt-right, Barack Obama has also been a centrist. (Center always looks farther to the left or right than it really is if your POV is left or right.)

Hilary Clinton is many things (and if you don’t recognize that your own biases, one way or the other, fuel your perception, why are you even reading this?), but will be, if elected, a centrist. I admit that I do not understand Donald Trump, politically or any other way, because his positions on issues have been all over the map from year to year, decade to decade. His current supporters’ rationalization that he is somehow now a conservative conveniently ignores history. Should he be elected, I would expect a similar roller coaster ride, and not just in the stock market. I do worry that he could tilt the Supreme Court in a direction that sees the past through rose-colored glasses. That alone may be enough to have you vote for or against him. It’s enough for me to oppose him, but there’s more that I might share on my decision in the next day or two. Or not, because I’m not trying to change minds as much as clarify my own thinking.

Amendment 6: Voter ID

We live in a complex world, an increasingly complex world. That will not change any time soon. Or at least we should hope not, because if life becomes simple, then that means that life as we know it has changed dramatically, probably irreversibly, and all those hallmarks of civilization that we take for granted are no longer available.

Constitutional Amendment 6 on the (Missouri) November ballot will almost surely pass, despite opposition from the non-partisan League of Women voters and a lonely group working against it. Amendment 6 is the Voter Identification one. Seems simple. Ah, but there’s the rub. Simple in a complex world is anything but.

I was probably leaning toward voting for it myself. Getting a photo ID to vote didn’t strike me as such an onerous a task, and if (when) the amendment passes, groups will arise to ease the process. In fact, the Law of Unintended Consequences may kick in, as it always seems to, and those groups may actually end up registering more people because that’s what true believers do. And, ironically, it may create more of the problem than the one it purports to correct: voter identification fraud. Because the cheaters (and there is virtually zero evidence of this type of fraud) will now have a checklist if they want to try to game the system. There will be less oversight, not more of the increased applications that will follow its passage. Remember, most of those espousing this so-called reform also oppose any new government spending.

But the reason I plan to vote against Amendment 6 is because of my mother-in-law. I should point out that she’s my late mother-in-law who lived in Illinois and won’t be voting any time soon. (Conspiracy theorists may insert their snarky if delusional comment here.) But this law would have probably disenfranchised her. You see, she never had a birth certificate. And Amendment 6 requires that as one of the few types of acceptable forms of identification.

We don’t know where she was born, we don’t know who either of her birth parents are. Her “adoptive” (extra-legal) mother just disappeared one day and showed up a few days later with a baby and refused, even on her death bed, to give any information. My MIL surrendered her driver’s license (just in time, says a grateful community) and, as a non-driver lacked that ID, as well. Could she have jumped through the hoops needed to get a voter ID? Of course. Would we have helped her? Of course. But why, after years of voting, paying taxes, being a productive citizen, should we, the state, place this burden on her? To solve a problem (Voter ID fraud) that is virtually non-existent? While it’s a moot point because she died almost 8 years ago, she’s not alone and would not deserve to be disenfranchised. Oh, and as a denizen of Southern Illinois, would likely have voted Republican.

I Just "Unfriended" Donald Trump

Full disclosure: I never was friends with Donald Trump. Shocking, I know.

Not long ago I wrote about how I was going to start deleting Facebook friends if they showed disrespect by saying or implying I was stupid,or disloyal, or immoral, or whatever because I did not share their POV on aparticular candidate or cause. Because I’m not as quick as I used to be*, it took a while before I realized that is EXACTLY the MO of Mr. Trump. If you disagree with him you’re a loser, disloyal, stupid, or whatever insult pops into that incredibly coiffed head. If you run a privately held company I guess you can get away with that. But I don’t see that playing well with other countries or leaders both within and outside of our country. 

And while I have a multitude of objections to Mr. Trump and his vision of what the USA is supposed to look like, it is what I see as the potential disaster to American relations with other countries that frightens me the most. I understand that because he appears to be strong he has a certain appeal, especially among those who feel like we get played by the rest of the world or feel like they’re losing ground. It is frustrating to feel like you don’t have the control you once had. 

But like the parent of an adolescent, that control was an illusion anyway. We may be the biggest, toughest kid on the block, but there are lots of kids and they’re all saying, “You’re not the boss of me!” Trying to bully them into doing what we want, when we want, ignores that we are not, have not been for some time, self-sufficient. It also manifests an attitude of superiority that fosters resentment instead of respect and makes cooperation in solving shared problems even more difficult. Other countries have their own agendas and self-interest; those won’t change just because we want them to.

We can rail against globalism, international trade agreements, a shrinking world, but, the fact of the matter is, all of those are the new reality. Actually, they’ve been the reality for a long time; this election is not a time machine and that train left the station years ago and it’s not turning around. Our economy, your portfolio and savings if you have them, probably even your job, will suffer if we try to economically punish either our enemies OR, heaven forbid, our friends. And exactly how many friends will we have left shortly into a Trump presidency? As a candidate, Mr. Trump frightens even our long time allies and trading partners!

We are interdependent, and will continue to be. We cannot build walls, either physical or metaphorical, protecting us from the world any more than Prince Prospero could seal out the Red Death (Edgar Allan Poe reference, if you’re interested, and an apt Donald Trump analogy, IMO). It remains to be seen if we’re alone in the universe, but we sure are not alone in the world (see previous post about foreign reaction to Mr. Trump that we personally experienced, even before he secured the nomination), and no one likes a bully. We cannot, our economy cannot, afford to alienate every country that doesn’t do what we tell them, not without hurting our own interests at least as much as theirs. Probably more, because we have so much more to lose. 

Poor countries that lose 10% of their economy will remain, well, poor. But what happens if we our economy takes even a 5% hit? Think that won’t affect you? Think again, bucko. That number, to put it in Trumpeter terms? HUGE! Be careful what you wish for. I’d suggest you better make sure you have another cup from which you can drink before you throw the one you think is ugly against the wall. I just know that you and I have a much better chance of being collateral damage in an international economic collapse than Mr. Trump, because, for him personally, losing 10-20% of his wealth just makes him, well, less rich; he’ll recover if he is half the businessman he claims to be. You know who else will be okay? The other rich people. They have the resources to ride out the storm, but unless you’re among ‘em, your odds are not good, because we regular folks are the 9^th Ward in Hurricane Donald.
*Second disclosure: I’m not really THAT slow. I have been sitting on this for a while now.