Category: Education

A Snapshot of American Discontent

Every morning I read five or six newspapers/websites. In papers like The Washington Post and The New York Times I’m curious about the articles that have generated the most comments from the readership. They often provide a snapshot of American discontent. I read the articles, then go to the “comments” section. I preselect the “Reader’s Picks” because I think this gives me a glimpse of the general tenor of the readership who agree with another reader who cares enough about the article to take the time to express themselves about it. Sometimes those comments coincide with the editorial board members who also pick their favorite comments.

On December 15, 2021 the weekly New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall wrote a story titled How to Tell When Your Country Is Past the Point of No Return. I found the article pretty thought-provoking, so I was curious about the readers comments. Below are the ones that the most readers, including the Times editorial board, agreed with most. The sentiments expressed in the comments says a lot about what issues a good portion of Americans find disturbing, and why.

James Landi commented December 15 Camden Maine Times Pick  An excellent public education system is the absolute necessary cornerstone for a strong foundation of democracy. So sad to say, but we have a government reflecting this structural weakness. I began my teaching career over fifty years ago, and by the early 80s, when Reagan’s blue ribbon national education assessment committee presented “A Nation At Risk,” I, having been a school man by then for over 15 years, needed no convincing. ●Our children are distracted, ●our teachers worn down, and ●our education system is underfunded, underappreciated, and, for decades, good teachers have been fighting a losing battle for kids’ attention. Now we have a new crop of elected officials who are happily engaged in destroying the very foundations of our constitution democracy— the result of ●self-serving, ●power grasping, ●ignorant, ●arrogant “lawmakers” who are representing ●several generations of Americans who don’t have the intellectual power to know the difference.  34 Replies, 1884 Recommended

GI Doc commented December 15  Nashville Times Pick  A pandemic did not mobilize sufficient political will to restructure our absurd healthcare system, Sandy Hook did not mobilize sufficient political will to address ●our absurd gun fetish, and–so far– a violent coup to subvert a free and fair election has not mobilized sufficient political will to strengthen the absurd and obvious weak points in our democracy. Point of no return? More like point of no escape. In those examples above, and many others, take a moment to reflect upon ●which faction of our wide political spectrum is responsible for this toxic inertia. ●Clearly one step in the right direction would be to get money out of politics, but in the meantime, I ask these businesses with their heft of lobbying powers that have traditionally sided with said faction–is it good for business to have a country in such precarious disarray? What does the constant fear of political violence do for consumer confidence? Please don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish.  48 Replies,  1881 Recommend

David commented December 15  Canada,  Times Pick,  So, how many countries have adopted a system like the U.S., not any I can think of. ●Two parties unable to compromise on anything. A country ●where small populations have the same power are much larger ones. The ●ability to change the voting game depending on who is in power. ●Money, money money flowing through the system. ●A system where some get elected and then have to spend most of their time trying to get re-elected rather than serving the people. Get real …no one has a perfect system but yours is unraveling fast…change is the answer…are there any leaders among you to pick up the torch?  52 Replies, 1482 Recommend

Uncle Jetski commented December 15  Moorestown, NJ, In Bush v Gore, we stood down out of respect for the institution of the Supreme Court. In 2016, we stood down out of respect for the Electoral College. We will not stand down again.  33 Replies, 1428 Recommend

Tom J. commented December 15 Berwyn,Times Pick, My point of no return was the period between the onset of COVID through the Jan. 6 attack on the capitol. I can’t forgive without some olive branch from the other side and there has been none. Perhaps others are kinder and more forgiving than me, good for you. I’m done with them.  18 Replies, 1215 Recommend

Rick commented December 15  Cedar Hill, TX Times Pick, The elephant in the room is big money. Both parties are own and controlled by it and until that problem is corrected nothing will change, it is that simple. Seems no one wants to address the hard problem. You don’t vote, you don’t get.  21 Replies, 1161 Recommend

Michael commented December 15 Hatteras Island, Times Pick, Not sure how anything can or will change except to continue our current trajectory. The internet has unveiled what we are. A nation of ●violence, ● lies, ●superficiality, ●propaganda, and ●a fixation on all things money. There is no ‘fix’. We’re operating on autopilot.  16 Replies, 1079 Recommend

Ethan Allen commented December 15  Vermont, The academic analyses quoted here all discuss the theoretical steps and indicators that a tipping point is being reached, in language that suggests the authors are unaware that all the things they describe have not already happened. But they have indeed already happened, which to a sentient reader implies that we have already reached – and likely gone far beyond – this point of no return. The time to write these calls to urgent action was twenty years ago, when Republicans first began to openly disassemble America’s democracy. Their project to make minority rule permanent has been going on at least twice that long, but they have been brazenly acting in the open for at least two decades, when the critical alarm should have been sounded. I’m sorry but all these pleas for the population to take note of incremental damage to our democracy and way of life ring very hollow when the clock is already at one minute to midnight.  13 Replies, 1054 Recommend

The Importance of Critical Thinking

Today we live in what is commonly called the “digital era” or “the information age”. New ideas fly at us unrelentingly and at greater speed than at any other time in human history. Not surprisingly, these new ideas often come to us in ways that tempt us to fire off a quick response, or reaction. And it’s not uncommon to see tragic examples of people who have been lured into doing just that: acting before thinking. It can ruin careers, and lives, creating a world of regrets. Accordingly, never before has it been more crucial that we process these new ideas with as much clarity as possible. If we’re going to maintain any self-determination about how we shape and live our lives, it’s essential that we have the desire and the skills to think critically about the ideas constantly swarming at us.

Propaganda, lies, distortions, manipulation, coercion, and deception in human messaging have never been more pervasive and insistent. (Again, largely because of the unprecedented speed of communication.) Ideas, propositions, and general information constantly bombard us from politics, commerce, social media, and entertainment. Accepting everything pushed in our faces without questioning its validity is as dangerous to our well-being as recklessly handling a firearm.

But what is critical thinking? If you do a quick check on the Internet a Wikipedia entry will give you a single-spaced twenty-something page introduction with a lengthy bibliography. The Oxford English Dictionary will give you (for starters): “The objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.” But if you’re inquisitive enough about the subject to want to learn more, one of the best places to start is with a book written by Dr. Diane Halpern, an American educator and psychologist. Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking is in its 5th edition and has become a standard text on the subject.

While the subject of critical thinking can quickly become an overwhelming topic to explore, Dr. Halpern believes it has two main components: 1) understanding information at a deep, meaningful level, and 2) overcoming fallacies and biases. There are many options about how to start learning to think more critically. Each of us can improve how we do it, and the possible methodologies we employ can vary on a continuum from philosophy to common sense. There’s a path for all of us.

Critical thinking can be taught at any grade level, as long as it’s taught in a way that is developmentally appropriate. It can be learned at any point in life. But it does have some key prerequisites: the awareness that issues we encounter need to be thought through more clearly; the desire to seek the truth and the willingness to suspend biases; open-mindedness; the willingness to suspend judgment; and trust in reason.

Most things of great value in life don’t come to us easily. They require some effort. Often a lot of effort. But the rewards for doing so can be incalculable.

How U.S. Gun Culture Stacks Up With the World

Following facts are highlights from a CNN news story that ran 2021-11-26.

● The U.S. is the only nation in the world where civilian guns outnumber people

● There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans

● About 44% of US adults live in a household with a gun, and about one-third own one personally, according to an October 2020 Gallup survey.

● U.S. firearm manufacturing is on the rise, with more Americans buying guns.

● U.S. has the highest firearm homicide rate in the developed world.

● Almost a third of US adults believe there would be less crime if more people owned guns, according to an April 2021 Pew survey.

● U.S. was home to 4% of the world’s population but accounted for 44% of global suicides by firearm in 2019.

● U.S. recorded the largest number of gun-related suicides in the world every year from 1990 to 2019

● No other developed nation has mass shootings at the same scale or frequency as the U.S.

● As of the date of the publication of this article the U.S. has had 641 mass shootings.

● A gun reform bill in stuck in the U.S. Senate.

Meanwhile in Texas where I live, we have some of the most shockingly irresponsible gun laws in the nation.

● no permit required to purchase handguns or long guns

● a gun owner does not have to register his firearm

● no gun license required to own a firearm

● everyone is allowed to openly care any firearm, no permit required

● everyone is allowed to carry a concealed firearm

● there is no magazine size limit on any firearm

Another thought-provoking read on this subject is Key facts about Americans and guns, a Pew Research Center Survey.

None of this reflects well on the U.S. or Texas. In the long term it invites chaos, and seems demonstrably inconsonant with America’s idealistic claims of being a guiding light to other nations. On the issue of gun culture, we are an example of what should be avoided by other nations, not emulated.

For the People Act of 2021

If you're not familiar with the details of the For the People Act, you should be. I've provided a summary below. Passage of this bill is essential to preserving our democracy and we all should be urging our elected representatives in Congress to work for it, and see that it becomes the law of the land.

Summary:

Rep. Sarbanes, John P. [D-MD-3] (Introduced 01/04/2021)
Sen. Merkley, Jeff [D-OR] (Introduced o3/17/2021

The bill will address voter access, election integrity and security, campaign finance, and ethics for the three branches of government.

● Expands voter registration (automatic and same-day registration)

● Expands voting access ( vote-by-mail and early voting)

● Limits removing voters from voter rolls

● Requires states to establish independent redistricting commissions to carry out congressional redistricting

● Sets forth provisions related to election security, including

  1. –supporting states in securing their election systems
  2. –developing a national strategy to protect U.S. democratic institutions
  3. –establishing in the legislative branch the National Commission to Protect United States Democratic Institutions
  4. –other provisions to improve the cybersecurity of election systems

● Addresses campaign finance

  1. –including by expanding the prohibition on campaign spending by foreign nationals
  2. –requiring additional disclosure of campaign-related fundraising and spending
  3. –establishing an alternative campaign funding system for certain federal offices

● Addresses ethics in all three branches of government

  1. –including by requiring a code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices
  2. –prohibiting Members of the House from serving on the board of a for-profit entity
  3. –establishing additional conflict-of-interest and ethics provisions for federal employees and the White House

● Requires the President, the Vice President, and certain candidates for those offices to disclose 10 years of tax returns.

All these provisions are essential and obvious necessities for protecting the most basic element of democracy: the peoples' voice. The right to vote freely without coercion or manipulation through gerrymandering or bizarre election rules.

Weasel Words

I imagine most people have used Wikipedia. It’s a common go-to site for quick reference to find basic information about almost anything. It’s a free, nonprofit reference site supported by readers’ donations.

In this age of growing feints and deceptions in social media, politics, and the Internet in general, Wikipedia’s entry on “Weasel Words” is a good place to visit from time to time remind ourselves how important it is to be vigilant.

A weasel word or phrase is often used when someone wants to give the impression that something specific and authoritative is being expressed when in fact it is only a vague generalization. Weasel words are invaluable tools for people who want to deceive, and they are essential elements of propaganda. They can also be used to make a statement more ambiguous than it is.

Entire books have been written about weasel words but here are a few examples from the Wikipedia article about them.

“A growing body of evidence . . .” (Where is the raw data for the reader to verify?)

“Up to sixty percent . . .”   (so, 59%? 50%? 10%?)

“There is evidence that…” (What evidence? Is the source reliable?)

“The vast majority…” (75%? 85%? 99%? How many?)

“Questions have been raised…” (Implies a fatal flaw has been discovered; also who raised the questions?)

“Researchers believe . . .”  (Who are they?)

A 2009 study of Wikipedia found that most weasel words in it could be divided into three main categories:[12]

  1. Numerically vague expressions (for example, “some people”, “experts”, “many”, “evidence suggests”)
  2. Use of the passive voice to avoid specifying an authority (for example, “it is said”)
  3. Adverbs that weaken (for example, “often”, “probably”)

As I said, books have been written about weasel words, but these examples give us a glimpse into how easy it is to accept the anonymous voices we hear and read every day if we aren’t vigilant. All of us should be reading critically. And applying critical thinking to everything we encounter on the Internet. Alice’s rabbit hole hides in plain sight just about everywhere today.

(By the way, if I had left off the two words “I imagine” at the beginning of this post, I would have been guilty of using weasel words in my opening sentence.)

The Changing Times

We know that nothing ever stays the same, that change is constant and inevitable. Heraclitus is famously attributed the idea that “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”.

Nothing ever stays the same—except, I think, human nature.

Regardless, one of the ways we survive the constant change is by adapting. Adapt or die is a common cliché. And now, with the arrival of the digital age, we see that not only do things continue to change but we’ve now been introduced to the acceleration of change. Things change faster, monumentally faster, so fast its difficult for many of us to absorb the implications of what those changes are. We see this every day.

But it’s true, too, that change has consequences.

All of these ideas and issues play a significant role in a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly: “A Secretive Hedge Fund is Gutting Newsrooms,” by McKay Coppins. This article tracks the demise of the Chicago Tribune and sees it as a prime example of what is happening to local newspapers all across the nation. Coppins says,

In the past 15 years, more than a quarter of American newspapers have gone out of business. Those that have survived are smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable to acquisition. Today, half of all daily newspapers in the U.S. are controlled by financial firms, according to an analysis by the Financial Times, and the number is almost certain to grow.

Coppins quotes David Simon, a former Baltimore Sun reporter turned screenwriter, and author of the television series, “The Wire,”

“The practical effect of the death of local journalism is that you get what we’ve had,” he told me, “which is a halcyon time for corruption and mismanagement and basically misrule.”

So how do we adapt to this enormous change in our culture if we are to survive? Do we need to adapt? Or do we just watch it happen and live with the consequences?

I urge you to read this article. There’s a lot of food for thought in it. And some alarm bells as well.

An Important Invitation to a Necessary National Debate

Harper’s Magazine has invited America to a season of national self-examination. The cultural struggles we are going through now are signs of progress. They are necessary if we are to continue to grow toward justice. But such changes are not supported by bumper sticker philosophies. They are nuanced and complex, and the following letter is an invitation to open debate about how wisely we guide these changes.

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

July 7, 2020
The below letter will be appearing in the Letters section of the magazine’s October issue. We welcome responses at letters@harpers.org

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.

Elliot Ackerman
Saladin Ambar, Rutgers University
Martin Amis
Anne Applebaum
Marie Arana, author
Margaret Atwood
John Banville
Mia Bay, historian
Louis Begley, writer
Roger Berkowitz, Bard College
Paul Berman, writer
Sheri Berman, Barnard College
Reginald Dwayne Betts, poet
Neil Blair, agent
David W. Blight, Yale University
Jennifer Finney Boylan, author
David Bromwich
David Brooks, columnist
Ian Buruma, Bard College
Lea Carpenter
Noam Chomsky, MIT (emeritus)
Nicholas A. Christakis, Yale University
Roger Cohen, writer
Ambassador Frances D. Cook, ret.
Drucilla Cornell, Founder, uBuntu Project
Kamel Daoud
Meghan Daum, writer
Gerald Early, Washington University-St. Louis
Jeffrey Eugenides, writer
Dexter Filkins
Federico Finchelstein, The New School
Caitlin Flanagan
Richard T. Ford, Stanford Law School
Kmele Foster
David Frum, journalist
Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University
Atul Gawande, Harvard University
Todd Gitlin, Columbia University
Kim Ghattas
Malcolm Gladwell
Michelle Goldberg, columnist
Rebecca Goldstein, writer
Anthony Grafton, Princeton University
David Greenberg, Rutgers University
Linda Greenhouse
Rinne B. Groff, playwright
Sarah Haider, activist
Jonathan Haidt, NYU-Stern
Roya Hakakian, writer
Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution
Jeet Heer, The Nation
Katie Herzog, podcast host
Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College
Adam Hochschild, author
Arlie Russell Hochschild, author
Eva Hoffman, writer
Coleman Hughes, writer/Manhattan Institute
Hussein Ibish, Arab Gulf States Institute
Michael Ignatieff
Zaid Jilani, journalist
Bill T. Jones, New York Live Arts
Wendy Kaminer, writer
Matthew Karp, Princeton University
Garry Kasparov, Renew Democracy Initiative
Daniel Kehlmann, writer
Randall Kennedy
Khaled Khalifa, writer
Parag Khanna, author
Laura Kipnis, Northwestern University
Frances Kissling, Center for Health, Ethics, Social Policy
Enrique Krauze, historian
Anthony Kronman, Yale University
Joy Ladin, Yeshiva University
Nicholas Lemann, Columbia University
Mark Lilla, Columbia University
Susie Linfield, New York University
Damon Linker, writer
Dahlia Lithwick, Slate
Steven Lukes, New York University
John R. MacArthur, publisher, writer

Susan Madrak, writer
Phoebe Maltz Bovy, writer
Greil Marcus
Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center
Kati Marton, author
Debra Mashek, scholar
Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago
John McWhorter, Columbia University
Uday Mehta, City University of New York
Andrew Moravcsik, Princeton University
Yascha Mounk, Persuasion
Samuel Moyn, Yale University
Meera Nanda, writer and teacher
Cary Nelson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Olivia Nuzzi, New York Magazine
Mark Oppenheimer, Yale University
Dael Orlandersmith, writer/performer
George Packer
Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University (emerita)
Greg Pardlo, Rutgers University – Camden
Orlando Patterson, Harvard University
Steven Pinker, Harvard University
Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Katha Pollitt, writer
Claire Bond Potter, The New School
Taufiq Rahim, New America Foundation
Zia Haider Rahman, writer
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, University of Wisconsin
Jonathan Rauch, Brookings Institution/The Atlantic
Neil Roberts, political theorist
Melvin Rogers, Brown University
Kat Rosenfield, writer
Loretta J. Ross, Smith College
J.K. Rowling
Salman Rushdie, New York University
Karim Sadjadpour, Carnegie Endowment
Daryl Michael Scott, Howard University
Diana Senechal, teacher and writer
Jennifer Senior, columnist
Judith Shulevitz, writer
Jesse Singal, journalist
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Andrew Solomon, writer
Deborah Solomon, critic and biographer
Allison Stanger, Middlebury College
Paul Starr, American Prospect/Princeton University
Wendell Steavenson, writer
Gloria Steinem, writer and activist
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School
Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., Harvard Law School
Kian Tajbakhsh, Columbia University
Zephyr Teachout, Fordham University
Cynthia Tucker, University of South Alabama
Adaner Usmani, Harvard University
Chloe Valdary
Lucía Martínez Valdivia, Reed College
Helen Vendler, Harvard University
Judy B. Walzer
Michael Walzer
Eric K. Washington, historian
Caroline Weber, historian
Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers
Bari Weiss
Sean Wilentz, Princeton University
Garry Wills
Thomas Chatterton Williams, writer
Robert F. Worth, journalist and author
Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Matthew Yglesias
Emily Yoffe, journalist
Cathy Young, journalist
Fareed Zakaria

Institutions are listed for identification purposes only.

The ever-changing dangers of the ever-changing Internet.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is sometimes heralded as “the ‘Magna Carta’ of the internet.” It was passed in 1996 to provide websites with incentive to delete pornography, but it has since evolved. It is now effectively a shield that websites use to protect them from responsibility for all sorts of activity on their platforms, from illegal gun sales to discriminatory ads.

This week The Markup reporter Sara Harrison examines the U.S. law that enables both the good and the bad of internet speech, and explores how the law might be reformed to meet the new challenges of the ever-changing Internet.

Excellent article.

In a new era, new challenges and new choices for how we want to live . . .

“The decades of economic injustice and immense concentrations of wealth that we call the Gilded Age succeeded in teaching people how they did not want to live. That knowledge empowered them to bring the Gilded Age to an end, wielding the armaments of progressive legislation and the New Deal. Even now, when we recall the lordly ‘barons’ of the late nineteenth century, we call them ‘robbers.’

 “Surely the Age of Surveillance Capitalism will meet the same fate as it teaches us how we do not want to live. It instructs us in the irreplaceable value of our greatest moral and political achievements by threatening to destroy them It reminds us that shared trust is the only real protection from uncertainty. It demonstrates that power untamed by democracy can only lead to exile and despair.   . . . it is up to us to use our knowledge, to regain our bearings, to stir others to do the same, and to found a new beginning. In the conquest of nature, industrial capitalism’s victims were mute. Those who would try to conquer human nature will find their intended victims full of voice, ready to name danger and defeat it. This book is intended as a contribution to that collective effort.”

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff, (Public Affairs, 2019).

America

While more people are out of work now than at any time since the Great Depression, COVID-19 ravages through the country, and middle class folks are lining up in their cars at food banks, the following news items caught my attention.

I came across this article again recently: These 91 companies paid no federal taxes in 2018, on CNBC. A lot has written about this since then, of course, but even though it’s nearly six months old, the truth of it still makes me seethe as my hair smolders.

Nearly 100 companies in the Fortune 500 had an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less in 2018, according to a new report.

The report looks at the first year since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 went into effect.

The list of companies covers a wide range of industries and includes some of the biggest companies in the United States.

And then there’s this recent news on CNBC:

U.S. billionaires saw their fortunes soar by $434 billion during the nation’s lockdown between mid-March and mid-May [2020], according to a new report.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had the biggest gains.

Bezos added $34.6 billion to his wealth and Zuckerberg picked up $25 billion.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

To help you understand your new world environment, this is essential reading. It can be heavy lifting sometimes. But stick with it. It’s extremely enlightening. And I found it to be a sobering message about the unprecedented challenges we face as citizen of this American democracy, and our new world of global surveillance. Highly recommended.

Knowing the Truth

Novelists typically aren’t held to the same truth standards as journalists. Our “business,” after all, is imagining stories that have never been told before. Mostly, our truths are in the realm of authenticity, making our characters “ring true,” our dialogue seem “natural,” our stories tell the truths of human nature. But being factual isn’t necessarily an essential element to the larger truths we often try to address in our stories.

But lately I’ve been thinking a great deal about “the truth” in reality in this moment of our lives we call the everyday. This is a time in our history when curating “fact” is absolutely essential if we are going to survive as a democratic society and culture. Or, in this time of Covid-19, if we are going to survive at all, literally.

The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Today the digital revolution has made instant global communication second nature to all of us, and as a result recognizing an untruth, or partial truth, sooner rather than later, has become a critical survival skill.

To that end, I’m listing several fact-checking sites offered on the Internet. They are just a few tools among many we need to get into the habit of using in our pursuit of knowing the truth and recognizing the lie. This is excerpted from The 8 Best Fact-Checking Sites for Finding Unbiased Truth.

Media Bias/FactCheck (MBFC News) The website is a bias rating resource, with multiple fake news checking apps and extensions integrating these ratings into their own systems. The site’s reputation means that it has long been a resource that internet users can visit to check the bias in their favorite news websites.

Snopes Snopes started out as a site that mainly dealt with urban legends, myths, common misconceptions, rumors, and conspiracy theories. However, it has expanded to encompass general fact-checking of viral misinformation, including political statements.

PolitiFact  A non-partisan fact-checking website that focuses on political claims made in the US. This includes statements by politicians, political topics such as immigration, and general political news. A global edition of the site tackles stories from other parts of the world.

PolitiFact is a Pulitzer Prize-winning website and was acquired by the Poynter Institute in 2018—a reflection of the site’s commitment to truthful journalism.

FactCheck.org  Not only is FactCheck.org a fact-checking website with an established history of journalistic rigor, but it also partners with Facebook to combat viral fake news. It is a non-partisan fact-checking website which focuses primarily on US politics. It is also a non-profit project—meaning it focuses on information, not the pursuit of profit.

TruthOrFiction.com  TruthOrFiction.com is one of the longest-running fact-checking sites out there. While it initially focused on looking at internet hoaxes and rumors, it has extended its range to include general fake news as well. This includes political stories and viral content.

A misbegotten concept, a tortured idea partly born of slavery, still haunting us today.

I’ve written here before about whether or not it’s time to abandon the long-compromised tool of the Electoral College as a framework for fair and just elections in the U.S.. The subject has come to the forefront again.

As Jamelle Bouie states in his column in The New York Times this morning, The Electoral College Is the Greatest Threat to Our Democracy, “On Sunday, Jared Polis, the governor of Colorado, said he would sign a bill to join the National Popular Vote interstate compact, whose members have pledged to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The Maine Legislature, likewise, is mulling membership and will hold hearings to discuss the issue.”

In his column, Bouie writes clearly about how the Electoral College system is contorting our national elections today. And he writes about the sometimes jumbled set of circumstances that brought about the creation of the Electoral College during the closing days of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It was a compromise concept, and after George Washington’s election during which it seemed to function as hoped, it immediately began to create entanglements in subsequent elections. It has been controversial ever since.

The concept of one-person-one vote has been distorted by the Electoral College since it’s inception. It needs to be reconsidered–seriously–and abandoned.

An existential threat, and our responsibility.

Putin’s One Weapon: The ‘Intelligence State’ ,
Russia’s leader has restored the role its intelligence agencies had in the Soviet era — keep citizens in check and destabilize foreign adversaries.
By John Sipher
Mr. Sipher, a former chief of station for the C.I.A., worked for more than 27 years in Russia and other parts of Europe and Asia.

Build Central America, Not a Wall
Help fix these broken countries so fleeing north won’t seem so urgent.
By The Editorial Board

Both of these stories appeared in today’s (Feb. 25th) New York Times. It’s important to note that each of these articles deals with one of the biggest threats to global peace (and yes, even prosperity) in the 21st Century: instability. Political, economic, and social stability are absolutely necessary for achieving and maintaining a functioning democracy. Any threat to stability is an existential threat, and we need to deal with it swiftly and wisely. And creating stability were none exists, should be high on the list of any democracy’s responsibilities.


Food for thought. There will be a lot more ahead of us. We need to pay attention.

“This planet will not be secure or peaceful when so few have so much, and so many have so little — and when we advance day after day into an oligarchic form of society where a small number of extraordinarily powerful special interests exert enormous influence over the economic and political life of the world . . . Inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable.”

I’ve left off the attribution for the above quote for the moment. Before you know who said it, ask yourself: Do I believe this? If I do, how do I believe that we, in this nation, should go about remedying this unjust imbalance? This is a daunting question. I’m firmly convinced that a large part of the answer involves you and me–personally, beginning with our will to be a part of that change. We can’t leave it up to someone else and expect that change to happen. The will of the people is the heart of Democracy. This is OUR challenge.

Who said the above statement? Bernie Sanders. He was quoted in this Opinion column by Jamelle Bouie in the New York Times. During the next year and a half we’ll be taking the measure of the men and women who say they want to lead this country as the next President of the United States. There will be a lot of quotations ahead of us to mull over.

A Mischief of Grief of Our Own Making

The Migrant Caravan: Made in USA

Roberto SavianoMarch 7, 2019 Issue


Hondurans living at the Iglesia Embajadores de Jesus shelter in Tijuana while waiting for their US asylum applications to be processed, December 2018

The link in the title above will take you to an article in the new issue of the New York Review of Books. United States history in regard to Latin American has largely been patronizing and ham-fisted throughout it’s long, turbulent course. In this article, Saviano has done an excellent job of illustrating that the law of what-goes-around-comes-around is alive and well in our current troubles with our neighbors to the South.

I’ve followed our often inept relationship with Mexico and other, mostly, Central American, countries since I was in high school, and years later I wrote about the Guatemalan troubles of the late 1980s and early 1990s in my novel Body of Truth. Unfortunately, those troubles are still with us today. The circumstances have changed–a little–but the human suffering remains the same.

I wish we had the national will to take our relationship with these countries more seriously. It’s a national failing that we haven’t and don’t. I hope that will change.

Little guy says “No” to the big guy, and a wail of anguished doom rises from an industrial giant.

“BATON ROUGE, La. — It was a squabble over $2.9 million in property-tax breaks — small change for Exxon Mobil, a company that measures its earnings by the billions.

But when the East Baton Rouge Parish school board rejected the energy giant’s rather routine request last month, the “no” vote went off like a bomb in a state where obeisance to the oil, gas and chemical industries is the norm.”

A School Board Says “No” to Big Oil in this morning’s business section of the New York Times is, I hope, a precursor of things to come. It’s an old cliché, but it’s true nonetheless, that democracy [def.: “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people…”, and, as President Abraham Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg Address, “…government of the people, by the people, for the people.”] cannot survive if “the people” don’t pay attention and participate. When members of Congress, elected by the people to represent the people, start behaving like little lords of the realm, rather than public servants, then, the people and democracy are not served.

But “the people” must stay informed. They must follow closely the behavior and actions of the members of Congress who were sent there to represent them. If instead those members of Congress begin to favor anyone (lobbyists and those who pay them, the special interests of industry and big tech) other than the people, then the people must hold them accountable. They must vote them out of office and replace them with someone who will serve the people’s wishes as promised.

The point is, ultimately, it’s up to “the people” to make democracy function as intended. But if constituents forgo their responsibilities to hold their representatives in Congress accountable, then they will become “subjects” not “citizens.”

I hope East Baton Rouge Parish is a sign of the times ahead. We need many like them in every state in the nation. And, by the way, raise a cheer for the school board. I’m proud that it was a board of education that took a stand against the power of big money. Because without education, citizens don’t even know that they should!

The necessity of “thinking differently”.

Here are a couple of new articles from the Opinion page of today’s New York Times that are worth our serious consideration. As I’ve mentioned before, if you want to get a good sense for how the Times‘ readership feels about an article, go to their comments section and click on Reader’s Picks. You might be surprised.

Time to Break the Silence on Palestine, Michelle Alexander, which explores an old controversy that doesn’t seem to budge from it’s firmly implanted beginnings. Or does it? The reader’s comments seem to signal a changing perspective on some fronts.

If 5G Is So Important, Why Isn’t It Secure?, Tom Wheeler. We’re at another “new beginning” with the Internet, and as Wheeler points out, we’re about to make the same old mistakes with a great new opportunity.