Day: August 13, 2021

Closing Thought–13Aug21

I have been watching our politics and the whole silly process for decades…..and in that time I have noticed just how prevalent lies and silliness the whole process has become.

Today the silliness has gone from true concern for the nation to a dialogue on issues that do not exist….all in all a waste of time and a policy of obstruction…..leading the way in this stupidity is the GOP…..

How can this be?

Political misinformation — whether “fake news,” conspiracy theories or outright lying — has often been attributed to widespread ignorance, even though there are numerous examples of 20th-century propaganda aimed at those most attentive to politics. Books like Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” began to challenge that notion, as did the 1991 study of media coverage of the first Gulf War with the memorable bottom line, “the more you watch, the less you know.” In the age of social media, scholarly explanations have shifted to discussions of “motivated reasoning,” which could be defined by Paul Simon’s line from “The Boxer”: “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

But the ignorance perspective has a deep hold on us because it appeals to the Enlightenment notion that we are motivated to pursue truth. We are “the thinking animal,” right? The important part of that expression may be “animal.” Human beings have an evolutionary history, and deception is commonplace in the animal world because it confers evolutionary advantage. There’s good reason to believe we’re not so different, other than the fact that humans are ultra-social creatures. In ancestral and evolutionary terms, being part of a successful social group was every bit as essential as food and water. So deception among humans evolved from group conflicts. That’s the thesis of a recent paper called “The Evolutionary Psychology of Conflict and the Functions of Falsehood” by the Danish political scientists Michael Bang Petersen and Mathias Osmundsen and American anthropologist John Tooby.

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/08/a-terrifying-new-theory-fake-news-and-conspiracy-theories-as-an-evolutionary-strategy/

For some the “need for chaos” and the desire to watch the country “burn” are driving forces…..

Sadly NOTHING will change before I take a dirt nap…..and the country will be the victim of it’s own stupidity.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

agitator populus scriptor

That ‘White Privilege/Supremacy’ Thing

The debate over CRT has brought the whole idea of ‘white supremacy’ to the forefront of the national dialog….some of the findings may surprise my reader…..

America’s battle over “critical race theory” reminds us of an ugly truth about the enduring white supremacy that’s long defined this country. In a potent racist backlash moment against the rising Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, many states have moved in Orwellian “Big Brother” style to entirely ban discussions of structural and institutional racism from K through 12 and college classrooms. And much of the public is on board with this agenda, as July polling from Ipsos reveals that 36 percent of Americans support “a ban on CRT in public schools.” This includes 23 percent of Democrats, 34 percent of independents, and 54 percent of Republicans. The opposition is based on toxic ignorance. In the case of the one group in which a majority supports the CRT ban – Republicans – only an average of 30% of respondents can provide correct answers across 7 factual questions that Ipsos asked about CRT. This is hardly surprising – when has bigotry ever been about being factually informed about the people you dehumanize

America’s culture of white supremacy is longstanding, and not confined to the Republican-right. Recent polling reveals that large numbers of Americans can be classified as white nationalists, including members of both parties. An October 2019 Associated Press poll found that 22 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans agreed that “a culture established by the country’s early European immigrants” is “important” “to the United States identity as a nation.” Such sentiment draws on classic white nationalist sentiments that identify white “European immigrants” as central to the national “culture” and “identity” and what it means to be American.

Similar to AP’s 2019 poll, a University of Virginia poll from 2018 revealed that 35 percent of Americans, including 26 percent of Democrats, 29 percent of independents, and 51 percent of Republicans, agreed that “America must protect and preserve its White European heritage.” The poll revealed much about American denialism, as only 8 percent of respondents were willing to admit in the survey that they support “white nationalism,” despite the alternatively worded question above serving as a functional equivalent for white nationalism, and demonstrating that 35 percent of respondents agreed that “America” as a nation should define “its” identity via “White European heritage.” Put another way, the discrepancy here suggests that while only 8 percent of Americans admit they are white nationalists, another 27 percent “fit the bill,” but are unwilling to openly identify as so for fear of the stigma that comes along with it.

Rise of the Right: White Supremacy and the Myth of the “White Working-Class”

Republican politics has jumped on the victim hood of white people since Trump made it fashionable…..

Republican politics have become so animated by white victimhood in the Trump era that any honest accounting of racial injustice in U.S. history is almost certain to draw conservative ire. Indeed, I found that the share of Republicans who think there’s too much Black history taught in schools increased by 30 percentage points from 2000 to 2018. But when you combine the rise of white identity politics in the GOP with its mischaracterization of critical race theory as tantamount to anti-white indoctrination, it’s even easier to see how a relatively obscure framework emerged as a leading issue in Republican Party politics. Moreover, the war on critical race theory suggests that the white grievance politics Trump helped activate isn’t going anywhere; rather, it’s a key part of the GOP strategy moving forward.

How The Rise Of White Identity Politics Explains The Fight Over Critical Race Theory

Like the article stated it is not just the GOP that is concerned over the loss of any power by whites…..but it seems to be more rabid within those that identify themselves as Repubs….even to the point of armed resistance…..

Nearly half of Republican voters believe there will come a time when the so-called “American patriots” will “have take the law into their own hands,” the findings of a new survey reveal.

The survey highlighted the following:

“Support for fundamental principles such as free and fair elections, free speech, and peaceful protest are nearly unanimous among both Democrats and Republicans. Their views on other democratic values, however, differ dramatically. Over half of Republicans (55%) supported the possible use of force to preserve the “traditional American way of life,” compared to 15% of Democrats. When asked if a time will come when “patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands,” 47% of Republicans agreed, as opposed to just 9% of Democrats.”

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/gop-patriotism-survey/

That survey tells me that the GOP members are running scared for some reason….most of which is made up to energize an ignorant base.

This is disturbing….and I fear for this country as it has been in the past….the future without change of thought is heading for a fall…..and that fall has come from internal strife….we can blame NO ONE but ourselves.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”