Barely three weeks ago Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway was rightly ridiculed after she complained that the media "want to go with what’s come out of his mouth rather than what’s in his heart.” She was, of course, asking a great deal of the press and public. Obviously, voters ought to judge any and every candidate for elected office by the words that come out of the candidate's mouth, doubly so for a candidate with no political history to evaluate.
The words of candidate Trump were as inflammatory as they were vague. President-Elect Trump's words were often self-contradictory, as he flip-flopped his way through his own shock that he'd actually won. Conway didn't want us to judge those words, but Trump is no longer a mere candidate or electee. Trump is now President of the United States of America, and his words are fast becoming deeds. The reality his words are weaving is a horror to behold. The heart that Conway wanted us to image is now laid bare. It isn't pretty.
The beast he is conjuring is now taking shape. The wall along the Mexican border was not just idle campaign rhetoric but is now a presidential order, a vast boondoggle to be paid for by American taxpayers. Some unspecified reprisals will be made against the economic well-being of Mexico just so Trump can claim to have made Mexico foot the bill. Trump is now trying to run aspects of the U.S. economy by command, a totalitarian experiment in economics with outcomes none can predict. Science has been subordinated to political propaganda by the sweep of the presidential pen, requiring studies and publications to be approved by members of Trump's cabinet. The National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be defunded because Trump in particular and Republicans in general disapprove of that high-brow, cultural stuff. Parts of the Department of Justice that focus on protecting women and minorities, including the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) are on the chopping block. The list goes on and daily expands.
Day by day Trump's beast will take on more form. Gleeful minions will chant "Trump! Trump! Trump!" even as the beast turns and gores them. No matter. The minions are quite willing to immolate themselves as long as those "others" are destroyed too, as long as scary brown people and Muslims are kept out of "our" country, as long as globalism and internationalism and the development of other economies are all curtailed, as long as women go back to the kitchen and queers go back in the closet and those nasty intellectuals get their comeuppance, as long as we can all say "Merry Christmas" again instead of "Happy Holidays." Welcome to the Trumpocene!
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
"Arendt" that Twain
One of my longtime favorite recognitions to fellow conversationalists' interesting stories and anecdotal experiences replete with strange twists or surprise endings has been at times an approving nod—but almost always adding this brief note of poetical contrast:
"Yes, truth is stranger than fiction."The wisdom expressed in the sublimely short one-line should be recognized as the work of Mark Twain, one of America's fininest in the art of letters, lecturing, journalism, storytelling, and satire. Itis one of just many on the subject of truth (and its contradiction, falsity) penned by the mustachioed wordsmith.
"When in doubt tell the truth.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
Get your facts first,then you can distort them as you please.
Carlyle said 'a lie cannot live.' It shows that he did not know how to tell them.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics."I admittedly had been missing what now I find more interesting in that aphorism: the second part,
"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't,"because it touches closely on two threads in the fabric of history of the campaign, transition, and now, presidency of Donald Trump. One thread is the misrepresentations, falsehoods, alternative facts, conspiracy theories, and just. plain. lies—fictions, in other words, have need to have been at least possibilities. The other thread is the fact—the "truth"—is the invariable failure to disavow, admit to, or contradict the fictions, even when presented with uncontroversial and unambiguous evidence of their falsity. This is the truth of the impossible, the truth that is not limited to the possible: perhaps a truth important to him for other goals that may need justifying, perhaps a truth to be held onto as evidence of his own genuineness, his infallibility. Perhaps confronting and bowing to the facts would, in his mind, be a show of weakness or lack of heroic character.
Or maybe this "truth unobliged to the possible" is a page from an old playbook, a dictator's handbook of sorts. Some interesting quotations from Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism and other troubling comparisons were among a recent reading on the Open Culture website.
"The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied t them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.""The great analysts of truth and language in politics," writes McGill University political philosophy professor Jacob T. Levy "including George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Vaclav Havel can help us recognize this kind of lie for what it is...saying something untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a startling display of power over them. (This is displayed in the co-mouthpieces of the Trump administration, Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spice. Each capable of out-trumpeting Trump himself when called on.) It's something that was endemic to totalitarianism."
The sheer number of deceits plays a role n the process of control. The following may be the most insidious of all propaganda and psycho-manipulative techniques. "She [Arendt] also recognized the function of an avalanche of lies to render a populace powerless to resist, the phenomenon we now refer to as "gaslighting"
The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed."This deserves repeating: "the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world..is being destroyed." The stability of our collective psyche is being tested. Our individual neuroses are being aggravated; and increased stress within the self and among our fellow citizens is finding expression through harmful avenues of release.
Some minimize or flatly deny any motivation of the Trumpian campaign of mendacity—claiming his obsession with picayunish details of crowd sizes (particularly at his inauguration) and his popular vote count in the general election—to nothing more than an innocent but hyper-inflated ego rationalizing away the unfavorable numbers. Just Trump being Trump. But an examination of these seemingly trivial obsessions uncovers a codified language at the ugly heart of this charade, a message of jingoistic nationalism,revulsion to the dark-skinned hoards overrunning America, his intentions to control public information, and subordination the value, usefulness and honesty of entire networks of intergovernmental agencies and departments. For the authoritarian personality, mere victory is not enough, not short of total victory is necessary.
"Arendt's analysis of propaganda and the function of lies seems particularly relevant at this moment. The kinds of blatant lies she wrote of might become so commonplace as to become banal. We might begin to think they are an irrelevant sideshow. This, she suggests, would be a mistake.******************************************
Thelonious Monk, another American genius in the arts—jazz composer, pianist, and band leader, once said "The piano ain't got no bad notes." His contemporary and fellow musical genius Miles Davis offered this modification: "There are no wrong notes in jazz; only notes in the wrong places." Though words contain more information, notes in a musical composition function in a similar way to words in a sentence or paragraph , serving as individual elements resulting in an emergent creation when grouped together, larger and more complex than the sum of their individual elements. So while any word we choose in making statements of fact or opinion is both possible and acceptable (Monk), the arrangement (Davis) can end up being a thing of beauty, incomprehensible gobbledegook, or anti-truths and alt-facts.
Mark Twain, witnessing todays's power abuses through communicative manipulations might say we are in immediate need of music lessons; while at the same time he would relish the manna of fresh material for maxims on truth and lies.
Monday, January 23, 2017
"We want to make our products here?"
In a meeting with business leaders this morning, Trump reiterated his goal of bringing manufacturing "back" to America. "We want to make our products here," he stated. The President seems determined to implement policies he feels will bring this about, through a program of massive deregulation and one or another kind of import tariffs. These are in line with major campaign promises.
Increasing jobs in the U.S. is a laudable goal. But many would feel better about this if Mr. Trump were an economist, or himself knew something about manufacturing and trade in the 21st century, or had appointed people with such expertise to his cabinet. Sadly, no such expertise is in evidence.
There's a certain kind of logic here, albeit vague. In theory, just the right mix of import duties and eliminated regulations could increase manufacturing jobs in the United States. But the scenarios with that outcome would also tend to reduce workers' wages and increase environmental pollution. While that would also tend to make U.S. goods affordable worldwide, retaliatory import tariffs by other countries could easily cancel that out.
The administration seems to be under the sway of a number of myths, a few of which are explored below.
MYTH#1: "Burdensome" regulations were invented out of thin air by ivory-tower intellectuals.
One can argue any particular regulation endlessly, but the fact is that many regulations placed on manufacturing and other business activities have arisen from experience and necessity. Such regulations include things like minimum wage laws, workplace safety regulations, fines for environmental contamination, honesty in advertising, and warranties of product fitness. The elimination of "70 to 80 percent" of existing regulations (Trump's words), will have consequences to businesses and to the well-being of most Americans.
MYTH#2: There are millions of good manufacturing jobs out there waiting to "return" to the United States.
The "offshoring" of manufacturing certainly has moved jobs out of the U.S. and into other countries. But it is important to remember that at the same time both the productivity of manufacturing workers and the skills they need have dramatically risen worldwide. A factory that once needed thousands of minimally skilled workers today needs a few hundred workers with significantly greater technical skills. The result is that returning manufacturing operations to the United States will never recreate anywhere near the same number or kinds of jobs that existed here as recently as the 1960s.
MYTH #3: There is such a thing as "manufactured here" in the 21st century.
Consider this graphic from the Warwick Business School in the U.K.:
The chart illustrates the supply chain for a relatively simple and inexpensive product, tennis balls used at Wimbledon. It shows that ten different countries are involved. Wool from New Zealand is shipped to the U.K. where it is turned into felt weaving that is shipped to the Philippines. Also shipped to the factory in the Philippines are clay from the U.S., silica from Greece, petroleum byproducts from China, sulfur from South Korea, zinc oxide from Thailand, and more. These materials are formed into tennis balls in the Philippines, then go to Indonesia for packaging in the familiar tins, and these are then sent to Wimbledon.
Companies do this because it is cost-effective, resulting in a final product that is price-competitive in a given market. The cost factors that accumulate through the supply chain are many, including the wages and benefits of different kinds of workers in different countries, environmental protections and worker safety regulations, import duties, taxes, and transportation costs. Yet the total costs remain low to a degree that probably could not be achieved by a single business operating within a single country.
Tinkering with these systems is one thing. A major revamp, executed by people with limited understanding of how things really work, is terrifying. A critical consideration is that both regulations and multi-national supply chains have tended to develop organically, rather than through big-picture planning. That is, each regulation has tended to arise in response to a real-world problem at a particular place and time, and each step in a supply chain has tended to develop from the immediate needs of one particular part of the system, without regard to other steps or players. The risks of allowing amateurs to attempt a deliberate reorganization of the entire system are high.
Increasing jobs in the U.S. is a laudable goal. But many would feel better about this if Mr. Trump were an economist, or himself knew something about manufacturing and trade in the 21st century, or had appointed people with such expertise to his cabinet. Sadly, no such expertise is in evidence.
There's a certain kind of logic here, albeit vague. In theory, just the right mix of import duties and eliminated regulations could increase manufacturing jobs in the United States. But the scenarios with that outcome would also tend to reduce workers' wages and increase environmental pollution. While that would also tend to make U.S. goods affordable worldwide, retaliatory import tariffs by other countries could easily cancel that out.
The administration seems to be under the sway of a number of myths, a few of which are explored below.
MYTH#1: "Burdensome" regulations were invented out of thin air by ivory-tower intellectuals.
One can argue any particular regulation endlessly, but the fact is that many regulations placed on manufacturing and other business activities have arisen from experience and necessity. Such regulations include things like minimum wage laws, workplace safety regulations, fines for environmental contamination, honesty in advertising, and warranties of product fitness. The elimination of "70 to 80 percent" of existing regulations (Trump's words), will have consequences to businesses and to the well-being of most Americans.
MYTH#2: There are millions of good manufacturing jobs out there waiting to "return" to the United States.
The "offshoring" of manufacturing certainly has moved jobs out of the U.S. and into other countries. But it is important to remember that at the same time both the productivity of manufacturing workers and the skills they need have dramatically risen worldwide. A factory that once needed thousands of minimally skilled workers today needs a few hundred workers with significantly greater technical skills. The result is that returning manufacturing operations to the United States will never recreate anywhere near the same number or kinds of jobs that existed here as recently as the 1960s.
MYTH #3: There is such a thing as "manufactured here" in the 21st century.
Consider this graphic from the Warwick Business School in the U.K.:
Companies do this because it is cost-effective, resulting in a final product that is price-competitive in a given market. The cost factors that accumulate through the supply chain are many, including the wages and benefits of different kinds of workers in different countries, environmental protections and worker safety regulations, import duties, taxes, and transportation costs. Yet the total costs remain low to a degree that probably could not be achieved by a single business operating within a single country.
Tinkering with these systems is one thing. A major revamp, executed by people with limited understanding of how things really work, is terrifying. A critical consideration is that both regulations and multi-national supply chains have tended to develop organically, rather than through big-picture planning. That is, each regulation has tended to arise in response to a real-world problem at a particular place and time, and each step in a supply chain has tended to develop from the immediate needs of one particular part of the system, without regard to other steps or players. The risks of allowing amateurs to attempt a deliberate reorganization of the entire system are high.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
From Protest to Power
Participating in the Women's March this Saturday was a powerfully uplifting experience. The March in my town, as in so many others, exceded attendence expectations, giving thousands locally a chance to stand in solidarity with millions globally. As so many of the speakers in Washington emphasized, we must now do more to move from protest to power. Resistance must be ongoing if we are to limit the certain excesses of Trump and his cadre of oligarchs.
To reemphasize some of what others have already emphasized, we need to join groups that are doing the things we think are important and are now at more risk than ever. The groups we choose depend on individual budgets and values, but could include the ACLU, the NAACP, NARAL, NOW, Planned Parenthood, labor unions and those advocating fair treatment of immigrants. One of the most important features of these groups is that they publish newsletters and other information about legislation and other government action affecting their members.
We need to invest time and energy in communicating with our representatives in state and federal government. Elected officials conduct a great deal of government business on the assumption that their constituents neither know nor care what is going on; it is up to us to let them know that is not the case. Every call, email, and letter counts. Too many of us, especially with more progressive values, are shy about this. Now more than ever we need to practice active citizenship.
Above all, we need to stay informed. Since Trump's opponents have been by far the better informed and more politically aware portion of the electorate, we are at risk of complacency. We need to rise above that. The battle is no longer just about the ignorance and inexperience of Trump and his appointees. The entire administration will be cutting and establishing programs, setting public policy, and spinning disinformation along the way. We need to make a conscious effort to consume reliable sources of news and information, to be willing to dig into the history of issues and debates, to understand how ordinary Americans are affected by the changes that are sure to happen. We need to bring what we know forward into our interactions with others, especially our elected representatives. Drop the crap from your Facebook feed. Set Google News, if you use it, to favor the sources you prefer. Spend less time reading the fringe news, whether on the Left or the Right, and put more time into reading deeply from the Center. Individual choices may vary, but I've come to rely heavily on the Washington Post, the Guardian, BBC, The Hill, and The Atlantic.
To reemphasize some of what others have already emphasized, we need to join groups that are doing the things we think are important and are now at more risk than ever. The groups we choose depend on individual budgets and values, but could include the ACLU, the NAACP, NARAL, NOW, Planned Parenthood, labor unions and those advocating fair treatment of immigrants. One of the most important features of these groups is that they publish newsletters and other information about legislation and other government action affecting their members.
We need to invest time and energy in communicating with our representatives in state and federal government. Elected officials conduct a great deal of government business on the assumption that their constituents neither know nor care what is going on; it is up to us to let them know that is not the case. Every call, email, and letter counts. Too many of us, especially with more progressive values, are shy about this. Now more than ever we need to practice active citizenship.
Above all, we need to stay informed. Since Trump's opponents have been by far the better informed and more politically aware portion of the electorate, we are at risk of complacency. We need to rise above that. The battle is no longer just about the ignorance and inexperience of Trump and his appointees. The entire administration will be cutting and establishing programs, setting public policy, and spinning disinformation along the way. We need to make a conscious effort to consume reliable sources of news and information, to be willing to dig into the history of issues and debates, to understand how ordinary Americans are affected by the changes that are sure to happen. We need to bring what we know forward into our interactions with others, especially our elected representatives. Drop the crap from your Facebook feed. Set Google News, if you use it, to favor the sources you prefer. Spend less time reading the fringe news, whether on the Left or the Right, and put more time into reading deeply from the Center. Individual choices may vary, but I've come to rely heavily on the Washington Post, the Guardian, BBC, The Hill, and The Atlantic.
Friday, January 20, 2017
American Experiment Takes a Detour
A 550-Word History
“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.” Shakespeare, Macbeth
Father Fred. Queens. Rental housing. Department of Justice. Housing discrimination settlement. Manhattan envy. Loan. Trump Organization. Trump brand. Casinos. Hotels. Trump Tower. Trump Princess (yacht). Junk bonds. Bankruptcies (x6). Over-leveraged. Central Park. Rape. Murder. Central Park 5 (Black youth). NY Times full-page ad. Trump :restore death penalty. Convictions overturned. Trump Shuttle. Trump Place. Trump Steaks. Trump Wine. Trump University. Trump ego. The Apprentice. WWE. Don King. New Jersey Generals. Dennis Rodman. Miss Universe. Dressing rooms. Celebrity Trump. Trump lawsuits: 3500 (plaintiff/defendant combined). Stiffing workers. Short-paying suppliers. Trump resorts. Trump golf courses and clubs. Trump hair. Mar-a-Lago compound. Lawsuit. Municipal tax credits manipulator. Twenty-five million dollar Trump University settlement. Billion dollar business loss. Unknown IRS tax credit. Non-disclosure of Federal Income Tax filings. Audit in progress. Reform Party. Birtherism. Long-form birth certificate. Investigators to Hawaii. Make America Great Again. Mexico. Rapists. Crime. Drugs. The Wall. NAFTA. TPP. Paying for shipping jobs out. Tweets.Terrorism. Ban Muslims. Register Muslims. Monitor mosques. Deportation force. Bomb ISIS. Torture. Muslims in New Jersey seen celebrating 9/11 attacks. Waterboard. Take out the families. Populist. Right wing. Rallies. Hooliganism. Xenophobia. Nationalism. Orange tan. Obamacare repeal. Great plan to replace. Executive order cancellations. Climate change denial. Exit Paris Climate Agreement. Brexit booster. Trade wars. Border taxes. America First. Lower taxes on corporations. Increase military spending. Spend more. Tax less. Reduce deficit. Dismantle Iran nuclear agreement. Nuclear Triad. Supports West Bank settlement. Tough on crime. Blue lives matter. Urban blacks. What’s to lose? Second Amendment and 2 Corinthians buff. No birthright citizenship. Pro-life. Women should pay. Megyn Kelly. Bias. Blood. Eyes. Wherever. Victim of press. Snowflake. Lying Press. Blacklisted news outlets. Washington Post . Buzzfeed. Huffington Post. Politico. Loose cannon. Lyin’ Ted. Little Marco. Low-energy Jeb. Small hands, big...Loosen libel laws. Mock disabled reporters. Deny. Bully. Paul Manifort, campaign director. Russia. Melania plagiarism. Mitt Romney’s malleable conscience. Crooked Hillary. Emails. Benghazi. Find emails, Russia! Russian finds emails. Clinton Foundation. Play-to-pay. Bernie Sanders. Socialist. Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton victims. Sexual harassment. Locker room talk. Groping. More accusations. Late night Tweets. Attack pageant contestant. Lawsuits. Trump narcissism. Trump abuses. Election rigged if he loses. FBI announces looking at Weiner’s emails. Hillary emails. Trump wins. Margin: -2.8 million votes. More tweets. Unhinged. Election rigged. Campaigned for electoral swing state vote. Ben Carson. Mock knife/belt buckle story. Nominated for HUD Secretary. Chris Christie. Bridgegate. First selection for VP. Prosecuted Jared Kushner’s father. Pushed out of transition team. Rudy Giuliani played for sucker duh. Rick Perry, Dept. of Energy (yikes nukes). Betsy DeVoss, Public Ed enemy No.1 and grizzly-shootin’ head school marm. Steve Bannon. Breitbart. Rabble-rousing possible supremacist. Mike Flynn. Islamaphobe. Mnuchin, empathy-free mortgage buzzard. Secretary of Treasury. Rex Tillerson, Exxon Texan. Putin podnah. Sarah Palin who? Saving 800≠2000 Carrier jobs. CIA, FBI, others reveal Russian hacking of DNC. Election not rigged. Someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. Dangling participle or fat-shaming. Or the Chinese. Putin denies. Shawn Spicer. Latino-free cabinet is no problem. Buzzfeed reports Russian dossier on Trump activities. Russian hotel. Trump. Peeing prostitutes. Fake news. Disgrace. CNN denied questions in press conference. Star-studless inaugural fête. Women’s March possible larger draw. Lowest-ever approval rating. Highest ever IQ presidential cabinet. Many positions still unfilled. Hit the ground running. Monday.
You are now entering the Trumpocene. Prepare to eject.
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