dear Americans: your country is doomed. (part 3)

Continued from part 1 and part 2.

The symptoms of an ailing body politic, treated at the expense of the solving the fundamental processes of political organization: elections, the media, and education. How they inter-relate is straightforward:

1. The educational system fails, on average, to impart necessary critical thinking skills.
2. Without these critical thinking skills, we are poorly equipped to deal with the media’s propagation of massive amounts of information, misinformation, advertising, and propaganda.
3. Without a clear understanding of reality that comes from processing the world around us, we can’t act effectively within (and/or against) a political system that is intentionally designed to work against us. We are also easily divided, distracted. and exhausted by the endless supply of crises that mask the core problem – control over the political apparatus.
4. Whomsoever controls the political apparatus exerts control over education. Go back to 1.

Straightforward, of course, but also a vicious circle that makes it challenging to identify the most vital pressure point for a political revolution to hit. And if I talk about pressure points, it’s because a slow-burn political revolution risks getting snuffed out all to easily. What we need is a spark.

Education

There’s no question that education reform is critical, since education is the foundation of any society. Education is also about more than schools. As Henry Giroux puts it at CounterPunch:

At issue here is the need for progressives to recognize the power of education in creating the formative cultures necessary to both challenge the various threats being mobilized against the ideas of justice and democracy while also fighting for those public spheres, ideals, values, and policies that offer alternative modes of identity, thinking, social relations, and politics. But embracing the dictates of a making education meaningful in order to make it critical and transformative also means recognizing that cultural apparatuses such as the mainstream media and Hollywood films are teaching machines and not simply sources of information and entertainment. Such sites should be spheres of struggle removed from the control of the financial elite and corporations who use them as propaganda and disimagination machines.

But the problem with reforming education, other than the sheer scale of the challenge given the patchwork of educational systems throughout the country, is that it is a generational effort. We can’t spontaneously re-educate an entire population, and it takes time to put the framework in place to educate the next generation in a way that will yield the political results that we want. Simply put, education is not a pressure point.


The Media

Reforming the media is also a formidable challenge considering that the majority of the media is owned by a few large corporations. Yet as polls have consistently shown over the years, most people don’t trust the media. According to Gallup’s 2016 survey, “Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year.”

The poll, interestingly, points to Republicans (pushed by Trump’s campaign) as a driving force in this mistrust. It also shows that the sentiments spans age groups.

Tangling out the causes of why people don’t trust the media is an essay in-and-of-itself, but the gist is that the media has increasingly blurred the line between ideology and partisanship over the years at the expense of actual journalism. It’s one thing for the media to report from a particular ideological position, particularly when that position is clearly articulated. Jacobin Magazine, for instance, is a socialist magazine, just as Forbes is capitalist.  No one reading either of those publications would be confused by the filter through which the news is discussed. But not all news sources need to start from any ideological position except for the Gold Journalistic standard of reasonably impartial reporting. Nevertheless, whether specifically ideological or ostensibly impartial, both are comprised when the media crosses over into partisan combat that applies a double set of standards. Just as Fox News tends to be reluctant to criticize Republicans, the more liberal-leaning establishment media struggles with mustering criticism of Democrats. The Gallup poll points to how upset conservatives/Republicans are with the media for their heavy criticism of Trump and light criticism of Clinton. But the complaint doesn’t come solely from the Right; leftists have argued against the media’s treatment of Bernie Sanders and third-party candidates in favor of Clinton, just as they criticized the media for providing Trump with a yuuuge (and free) platform on which to campaign, before finally deciding to do something approximating truth-to-power journalism.

Profit and the political interests of the corporate/wealthy classes go some way into explaining the partisanship posturing. So, what to do about it? Support independent journalism? Absolutely. Create new media that exemplifies the old-school values of journalism? Sure, but building a new source of journalism that can provide reasonable, impartial, and expansive reporting in a way that cuts through partisan bickering is a big medium-term undertaking. While it’s definitely a pressure point, in that whoever controls information shapes perception of reality, it’s not a fast-acting one.

The Elections

The proposals for reforming elections aren’t new; instant run-off, public campaign financing, and impartial districting that minimizes gerrymandering. They also aren’t especially complicated; in that they can be enacted through legislation and implemented fairly quickly. Unlike reforming the media and the educational system, which involve dealing with a number of intangible factors, electoral reform is eminently practical. It’s definitely a pressure-point, and one that can be hit on for the most immediate results.

The Pressure Point

If you’re tired of the same old politicians, and frustrated with a system that produces the same old politicians putting forth the same old failed policies, then breaking the duopolistic system is essential. Indeed, by giving voters greater influence over politicians – through votes and by mitigating the influence of lobbyist money – it should, in principle, yield policy results closer to what voters want. Whatever your cause – the environment, black lives, the war on drugs, guns, abortion right – progress boils down most immediately to the extent voters can influence elections instead of being manipulated by them. Given how widespread discontent with the political situation is, electoral reform can, with some marketing, be a cause embraced by people across the political spectrum.

But let’s be clear that electoral reform is only the first step, a movement that is part of a larger strategy and also concurrent with efforts at creating better media and a more effective educational system. It also isn’t a cure for bad politics; it is “merely” progress. Democracy is itself a problem, as Crimethinc argues, but not the only fundamental structural problem with our society. Bearing that in mind, activists would do well to unite and fight this single fight together, in numbers that make a difference, and use their success as the foundation for the next steps – progress on their specific causes.

The next question is: what are the chances of a political revolution?

dear Americans: your country is doomed. (part 2)

Read part 1 here.

In searching for a fulcrum, there are 3 general areas in which I believe we need to focus our attention:

Elections. Setting aside the questionable validity of democracy as a form of social politics (see Crimethinc) as well as the nonsense of the Electoral College, the mathematical fact remains that the majority-wins method of counting votes is antithetical to the representative and popular functions elections are supposed to provide. The proof: in an election with more than two candidates, a candidate can win with a minority of votes. For a duopolistic system, this is ideal because it makes it structurally easy to politicize third parties out of the process. Throw in money, gerrymandering, corporate lobbying, prejudicial Voter ID laws, and biased electoral institutions (such as the Commission on Presidential Debates) and it’s clear that the electoral system isn’t about empowering people to choose their representatives on their own terms. It simply isn’t designed for it. Instead, the system – as it was when voting rights were confined to white male property owners – the US electoral system is a means of keeping the people on a leash, and the leash in the masters’ hands. The fix would be easy enough for those who want to reform US democracy: instant run-off voting, public campaign financing, and debates open to all candidates. Until people agitate for it, however, the system will remain a game of five card stud poker with voters only being dealt two cards to play.

If that’s too sunny for you, let’s return to the questionable validity of democracy as a form of social politics with a question: what political power does a citizen actually have? Answer: the vote. That’s it. Once elected, politicians can work the government apparatus to pass and enforce laws as well a direct agencies to function in a particular way. Citizen input is not required. Of course, lobbying is an activity that’s open to us…but who has time to forego a paying job to continually exert pressure on the government towards this or that policy goal? And protesting is an intensive activity that requires strategy and resolve, two qualities hard to get in a productivity-obsessed economy. Unless you’re a paid lobbyist, chances are that you’re too busy running your own life to be able to engage the political process via lobbying, let alone orchestrate direct actions. This isn’t a bug; it’s a specific feature of democracy, and politicians know how to exploit it.

But the problem is even deeper than that, as Mike Lofgren explains in his essay Anatomy of the Deep State:

…there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself.

If the presidential and congressional power that is shaped by popular elections, however loosely, is only the surface of the vast apparatus of power that is unaccountable and bureaucratic, then it what sense is voting a meaningful expression of popular power over the government? Answer: it’s not all that meaningful.

The Media. Corrupt and purposefully dysfunctional elections are bad enough, but a corrupt and corrosive media that misinforms citizens is worse. Noam Chomsky famously described the workings of the US media as propaganda in his essential Manufacture of Consent, but the recent election cycle offers many other examples. For instance,the condescending, nearly non-existent coverage of third-party candidates. Even NPR, notable for its sanity in the carnival of contemporary journalism, routinely fails to cover perspectives outside of the Democrat/Republican duopoly. Like most of the mainstream media, it perpetuates a set of government- and corporate-friendly assumptions irrespective of partisan politics.

The media’s propagandist role, along with discussions around the value and consequences of the Fairness Doctrine and its rescinding, is only part of the problem, as is the fact that our distance from newsworthy events makes it difficult to serve as our own fact-checkers. The consolidation of media into a handful of a few powerful corporate conglomerates is another as it comes with a consolidation of editorial direction. News stories selected and edited to fit a political agenda are subject to an even baser criterion: profitability, which affects not only advertising but the way news is produced to give audiences what they want rather than what they need. The news is a commodity, in other words, and not a public service. With the commodification of news has come an explosion of opinion, commentators whose job is to fill the airtime of a 24-hour news cycle with “analysis” that is rarely expert but nevertheless reliably forceful and tailor-made to fluff the audience.

But wait, as the infomercials say, there’s more: the Internet. Yes, it’s a marvel of communications that makes the Tower of Babel look like a high school science fair project. Yet it also amplifies the very worse cognitive biases we are prone to simply as a matter of psychology. If you don’t agree with reality, it’s easy to find a website that will adjust it to your liking.

Of course, there are some excellent sources of information and expert analyses out there. There are, however, countless more sources of bad opinions and distorted, if not outright fabricated, facts. The challenge is to sort out the signal from the noise. Combined with the forces of consolidated media ownership and commoditization with the sheer volume of “information” (or hyperdata, which is a non-informative simulation of information) and we see the crux of the crisis: an inability to agree on what constitutes reality, let alone agree on how best to resolve problems. (And I acknowledge the philosophical problem of arguing for an “objective reality,” but leaving aside the metaphysics let’s consider reality as our shared, verifiable experience of the world.)

Education. Education is a complex topic, of course, and a generational challenge. The struggle between public and private is a crucial battleground, but the question is timeless. What is the purpose of education, and what results do we expect from it? Partly, education has the role of indoctrination, which is only bad when it’s the wrong ideas being indoctrinated. (There’s a whole debate in that, naturally.) Education is also about, or should be, about teaching critical thinking skills and scientific literacy – in a word, Reason. Sometimes, it isn’t a particular perspective that is important but how one reaches that perspective and the extent we have the humility to change our perspective when presented with new evidence. Given the structural problems underlying the patchwork of educational systems, from funding to teacher training and retention, it’s not surprising that outcomes are wildly uneven even before we consider how politicized education is. It seems pretentious to suggest that “the people” are uneducated, and it’s clearly a risky proposition because it depends entirely on what we rate as “educated.” There’s also the risk of overestimating the effects of education, since many societies have been ruined by educated but morally or emotionally deficient political classes.

But the problem can be stated that while people may not necessarily be uneducated, they might be mis-educated, a phenomena that is obscured by the relentless focus on metrics and other so-called innovations resulting from applying the industrial revolution to the classroom model. In short, the problem is a lack of critical thinking capable of mitigating our cognitive biases along with a lack of humility in terms of our knowledge and capacity for reason. The problem isn’t confined to opinions based on faulty reasoning and bad facts, but extends to the cultural attitude that we must preserve our sense of rightness - our prestige and our power - over reality.

There’s more to be said, of course, about any of these three elements; these are just a sketch. The next question is: what does it all mean when put together?

To be continued…

dear Americans: your country is doomed (part 1)

The election cycle draws closer to its fireworks finale and, as Admiral Ackbar might say, “It’s a trap.” On one pole of the duopoly we have Trump, whose rise was made entirely possible by the confluence of the media, celebrity culture, the GOP’s moral bankruptcy, and the Democratic Party’s Machiavallian political maneuverings. There is nothing surprising about Trump himself. The surprise is that, after lavishing so much attention on him, the media has suddenly decided to do some actual dredging during the traditional electoral month of surprises. Of course, this suggests how blind, stupid, or both the media was in claiming shock that Trump was the Republican nominee. A few early primary wins, along with dramatic escapes from normally fatal controversies, should have been a cue that this wouldn’t be a “normal” election. But fuck all that. The commentary on Trump ranges either from banal expressions of outrage or shock, shock that the GOP’s sociopathy has been flying its freak flag so blatantly. Of course we have to denounce the criminal, the immoral, the injustice. But when the whole effort itself becomes a smug exercise tantamount to munching on popcorn while the city burns, Trump commentary and coverage deserves this scene from Happy Madison:

While Trump’s denunciators congratulate themselves for their moral acumen, there’s Hillary Clinton and the DNC. The eMails released by Wikileaks confirm – albeit to a great yawn by Big Media – that neither care about progressive issues, and both are institutionally sociopathic. The primaries were heavily biased against Sanders, who ironically turned out to be a paper tiger. Wall Street, the Oil Industry, and the accumulation of wealth for the few at everyone else’s expense – it’s all there too. And so is Clinton’s utter failure to pay more than lip service to the Left, if even that, and articulate a positive vision.Democrats represent the very problem of which the GOP is only the most cartoonish expression.

None of that, however, quite compares to the unprecedented challenges we face on a human scale; anthropogenic climate change, the nuclear arms race, global economic instability, environmental collapse…the list goes on until utter despair settles in. Taken individually, each challenge demands a movement, a collective and strategic action. But how many movements can we support as individuals? Activism for a single cause can require tremendous effort and engagement, which is why signing petitions and donating money is such an accessible alternative to joining the front lines.

Thinking of this, I wonder if there isn’t a single fulcrum that we can push against, or at least a smaller set of pressure points we can needle to affect systemic change. How can we act – and I admit I’m not asking an original question – if we see all the problems listed above as symptoms of the same fundamental disease? Is it possible to focus our efforts on a root cause and, in the process, make it easier to achieve progress on multiple fronts?

To be continued…

Stop ACTA

ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which has less to do with counterfeiting than protecting intellectual property rights. Negotiated in secret, mostly by unelected officials, represents a threat to freedom of information, net neutrality, and the internet as we know it. And countries like the US, Canada, and others have already ratified it. Watch a video here:

ACTA comes to a vote in the European Parliament. According to La Quadrature, this is the last opportunity to keep ACTA from coming into force.


Learn more at La Quadrature's ACTA page. 

new column: Sorry, but I’m Skeptical About a ‘Day Without a Gay’

December 10th is supposed to be a Day Without a Gay - call in "gay" day, if you will. I love the spirit of it, but I think it is a strategic error.

Okay, so who am I to talk strategy? My attempt at activism, the Always Choose Love Initiative, didn’t quite go according to plan. Maybe the tee-shirts were too expensive. Maybe tee-shirts in general didn’t suit people’s fancy. I definitely should have had buttons and stickers. (I do now, but more on that later.) At the very least, I don’t have Obama’s capacity to inspire. But having frankly admitted my limitations, I still don’t quite agree with the current strategy underlying Prop. 8 opposition. At the very least, I’m sitting on the fence.

Read the rest of Sorry, but I’m Skeptical About a ‘Day Without a Gay’

a reminder to vote NO on prop 8

Important update! No on Prop 8 Campaign Under Attack! Please Donate!

noonprop8.com went down for a while yesterday. As I suspected, it was a victim of a cyberattack. Geoff Kors explains, and asks for donations:

Beginning last night and continuing this morning a coordinated cyber attack on the No On 8 website prevented some donors from being able to contribute. This attack is being investigated by federal authorities. Fortunately, there was no breach in security and we are again able to accept contributions online.

As if that attack isn't outrageous enough, at a recent Prop 8 rally an official campaign spokesman actually compared the right of same-sex couples to marry to the rise of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany. Watch the video.

This insanity needs to stop. Prop 8 needs to be defeated. It's wrong. It's unfair. The people supporting it are fanatical, intolerant and willing to do and say anything to eliminate our rights. Period.

We cannot let them succeed.

Let's do this once and for all. Help us reach our goal of $3 million by Friday.

Tony Perkins, national crusader in the effort to eliminate the right to marry, has said the battle to pass Prop 8 is more important than the presidential election. The result is that they have raised $4.5 million in the last two days and purchased another $2 million in advertising.

That's how critical this fight is to the other side. That's how much they care.

I believe you care more. So what more are you going to do?

Call, write and talk to your friends and family. It's vital you ask them to donate at noonprop8.com today!

Make another donation.

We cannot allow this cyber attack to prevent us from having the resources necessary to get our message on the air -- especially when the other side is buying $2 million in ads a day. Please, donate now at noonprop8.com

I know we can succeed. We have to.

In solidarity,

Geoff Kors
Executive Committee Member
No On 8

Calling All Californians! Always Choose Love...and Help Defeat Prop 8!

Dear Friends:

Gay marriage is legal in California thanks to a recent California Supreme Court ruling.

But it might not be for long.

The Forces of Intolerance have gathered to place a measure on the November ballot – Proposition 8. Their goal: deny gays and lesbians the right to marry the person they love. Their method: amend California’s constitution to define marriage as being solely the union between a man and a woman.

This will not do. Discrimination simply has no place in California.

If you’re like me, though, you don’t have money trees growing in the backyard or 28 hours in your day. So what can we do other than fundraise? What can we do to get INVOLVED given our busy lives? Answer: the Always Choose Love Initiative.

It’s simple, really. Call it wearable activism:

1. Buy a t-shirt at cafepress.com/loveinitiative
2. Wear the t-shirt
3. Tell others
4. Stay informed at loveinitiative.blogspot.com

No complicated mass protests, no fundraisers; just people wearing t-shirts, creating awareness about a critical civil rights issue – and defeating Prop 8 on November 2^nd. When you go to cafepress.com/loveinitiative, you’ll find a choice of t-shirts at prices ranging from $9 to $20 featuring the Always Choose Love logo. No profit is being made here; this is a grassroots labor of love all the way. Just pick your favorite style and you’re set!

So please join me in campaigning against Prop 8. Buy a t-shirt. Wear it. Tell others. That’s all there is to it. Let’s make the Always Choose Love Initiative a phenomenon to be reckoned with.

Because in the end, the choice is simple: Love or Prop 8. Together, standing strong, we’ll send a message to California: Always Choose Love.

Thanks for your help and support. We can do it!

Frédérik Sisa

send karl rove to jail!

A video and petition, courtesy of Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films:

http://sendkarlrovetojail.com/

mormons join the fray

So the Mormons are wading into the fray surrounding gay marriage in California. They’ll join a coalition of churches and “other conservative groups” in pushing for the passage of the “California Marriage Protection Act,” which would amend California’s constitution to define marriage as being solely the union of a man and a woman.

But a group of gay and lesbian Mormons called Affirmation is rejecting the Mormon church’s political action, rightly calling it “interference.” Affirmation’s executive committee phrased it well in a statement to California Mormons:

“As Mormons, we believe that respect for civil law and acknowledgment of individual freedoms is sacred. The California law affects civil marriage; it has no effect on any religious institution or religious official. To seek to revoke these basic protections in the name of God denies the fundamental freedoms on which our country was built. Constitutional law has always been about protecting civil and religious freedoms, not the denial of those freedoms.

We urge California voters to act in favor of freedom. Vow to Vote No.”

The key word is freedom. Freedom to live. Freedom to love. Freedom to marry. With a government defined as being by the people and for the people, using government to tell individuals who they can or cannot marry is contrary to valuing freedom. And Affirmation is absolutely correct in pointing out that this is a civil matter, not about how private religious institutions handle their own affairs. No one is telling churches what to do.

This is a as good a time as any to hint at a activist project I’m hoping to launch once I know what the amendment’s proposition number is. I (tentatively) call it the Always Choose Love Initiative, and it’ll be my way of raging a guerilla campaign to let people know what’s really at stake with the so-called California Marriage Protection Act: true love and meaningful freedom. Stay tuned!

BTW, here’s the official text of the proposed amendment – a lonely line prefaced by several letters. And here is a listing of the propositions slated for November 4.

a flag to march under

I've been feeling for some time the need to do something. And by something, I mean Something Important...something that can help deal with the serious, even critical, problems we face. But what? The environment? Gay rights? Abortion rights? The war(s)? There are so many Big Issues that it's hard to know where to start and what to do, especially given the time constraints that come from having a j-o-b.

To some extent, I'd like to think that my work as a columnist for The Front Page Online is achieving something, anything. I'd like to think that, however modestly, I'm genuinely reaching out to people. Maybe I even succeedin changing a few minds or offering some genuinely tasty food for thought every so often. But even the most generous and reality-defying metrics require me to admit that I'm not yet a major voice in the chorus. This isn't intended to indulge a woe-is-me kind of attitude, but merely to say that I'm feeling the need to pull an Emeril and kick things up a notch. Hence the dilemma of which flag to march under.

I'm already resolved to make a major effort to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage here in California. And I'm also determined to get more active in regards to global warming. But I'm still overwhelmed by how interconnected a lot of these issues are. It seems that working to resolve one set of problems requires making progress on another set; a vicious circle.

This lead me to thinking that perhaps there is a fulcrum around which all the Big Issues move, something which, if changed, would make it easier to move forward several critical areas. Then, on hearing some discussions associated with the National Conference for Media Reform put on by a non-profit called Free Press - it's in Minneapolis this year - I realized what that fulcrum is: the media. From the revelations that the Pentagon was propagandizing the American people through the use of friendly analysts embedded in the media to the media's grand failure in asking critical questions regarding the lead-up and execution of the Iraw war, there is something seriously wrong with the media. And when people are getting corrupted information from a corrupted, profit-driven, highly consolidated media, it's no wonder we have difficulties making informed, rational decisions involving hugely complex issues like global warming.

Since I already have a foot in the media, media reform advocacy makes a lot of sense. Now the trick is to take this notion, this need to DO something, and actually translate it into actions.