Erika Jordan

"And you can map it on a scan."

1. there
2. are
3. no
4. simple
5. 10-word
6. answers
7. for
8. the
9. important
10. questions

It's Been A long Fight, Ladies

That's why it pays to be skeptical. I'm not saying we should go full brain worm, but everything is subject to review and updating.

Philosophizing

Fear is a universal emotion,

common among all sentient beings.

We all walk with fear - all day every day.

But here's the point:

Never ask your fear for directions.

Extinction Burst

Mary Trump

If Donald can, in any way, benefit from your death, he will facilitate it.

More On The Hero Bots

The cancer of Artificial Invincibility

Today's Dana

We are in need of some national therapy - and maybe that's what we're doing.

I've been thinking lately that In the past, so many "on the left" criticized this country so harshly, that it made a lot of people "on the right" knee-jerk their way into thumping their chests and wrapping themselves in the flag and doing all those annoying love-it-or-leave-it things they used to do.

Well, kids, the script done flipped. "The left" is where you find the flag-wavers now. The pundits said it after the Dems' convention: Democrats have reclaimed the flag, and patriotism, and love of country as a badge they can wear on their sleeve.

And that leaves an asshole like Trump to further twist that old patriotism on the right into an even uglier configuration so he can go on taking advantage of otherwise decent folks, leading them to believe they're righteously justified in tearing down the one thing that makes it possible for Trump (and them) to behave like such assholes in the first fuckin' place.

There's a lot more "political thinking" crashing around in my brain right now, but it's such a big roiling jumble that I can't unravel it - I can't get it to smooth out enough to make it sound like anything but foil-hat nonsense.

(Not that I think anything I ever say makes any sense to anybody. Shit - I can't make even get it make sense to myself half the time)

Anyway - therapy

Understanding The Daddy State

Splitting:

Everything is either

all and only good

- or -

all and only bad 

Projection:

Rule 1 (Every accusation is a confession), mashed up with Rule 3 (Every dire prediction is a veiled threat).

Splitting per Donald Trump:

The economy's in the tank, immigrants are running amok, The FBI is out to get me,

and and and.

Nothing about America is good - everything is bad - so America is a shithole country.

Trump's Projection:

Trump tells us how awful everything is here in USAmerica Inc, and since everything Trump says is some sort of projection, it's not unreasonable to assume he's actually talking about how he intends to turn us into the fucked up place he says this country is. And he can count on the rubes to assume he's talking about making life miserable for everybody but them.

 

This guy's not the best speaker anybody's ever heard, but he knows his shit.

• When you're explaining the beauty of your elegantly nuanced position, you're losing.
• When the other guy is back on his heels because you've got him explaining his comment with the coded racist shit hidden in it, you're winning.

I'm sorry we've gotten ourselves into the unbelievably shitty spot where we have to accept the practicability of that kind of totally fucked up False Equivalence - but here we are. We have to learn how to deal with it, and (hopefully) turn it to our advantage.

Toxicity

She could just as easily be talking about Republicans.

A Reason Why

"... the further towards the extrinsic end of the spectrum people travel, the more likely they are to vote for a rightwing party."

To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer

US culture is an incubator of ‘extrinsic values’. Nobody embodies them like the Republican frontrunner

Many explanations are proposed for the continued rise of Donald Trump, and the steadfastness of his support, even as the outrages and criminal charges pile up. Some of these explanations are powerful. But there is one I have seen mentioned nowhere, which could, I believe, be the most important: Trump is king of the extrinsics.

Some psychologists believe our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world.

People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.

Trump exemplifies extrinsic values. From the tower bearing his name in gold letters to his gross overstatements of his wealth; from his endless ranting about “winners” and “losers” to his reported habit of cheating at golf; from his extreme objectification of women, including his own daughter, to his obsession with the size of his hands; from his rejection of public service, human rights and environmental protection to his extreme dissatisfaction and fury, undiminished even when he was president of the United States, Trump, perhaps more than any other public figure in recent history, is a walking, talking monument to extrinsic values.

We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the cues and responses we receive from other people and the prevailing mores of our society. They are also moulded by the political environment we inhabit. If people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values. This, in turn, permits an even crueller and more grasping political system to develop.

If, by contrast, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end. This process is known as policy feedback, or the “values ratchet”. The values ratchet operates at the societal and the individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of insecurity and unfulfilled needs. These extrinsic values then generate further insecurity and unfulfilled needs.

Ever since Ronald Reagan came to power, on a platform that ensured society became sharply divided into “winners” and “losers”, and ever more people, lacking public provision, were allowed to fall through the cracks, US politics has become fertile soil for extrinsic values. As Democratic presidents, following Reagan, embraced most of the principles of neoliberalism, the ratchet was scarcely reversed. The appeal to extrinsic values by the Democrats, Labour and other once-progressive parties is always self-defeating. Research shows that the further towards the extrinsic end of the spectrum people travel, the more likely they are to vote for a rightwing party.

But the shift goes deeper than politics. For well over a century, the US, more than most nations, has worshipped extrinsic values: the American dream is a dream of acquiring wealth, spending it conspicuously and escaping the constraints of other people’s needs and demands. It is accompanied, in politics and in popular culture, by toxic myths about failure and success: wealth is the goal, regardless of how it is acquired. The ubiquity of advertising, the commercialisation of society and the rise of consumerism, alongside the media’s obsession with fame and fashion, reinforce this story. The marketing of insecurity, especially about physical appearance, and the manufacture of unfulfilled wants, dig holes in our psyches that we might try to fill with money, fame or power. For decades, the dominant cultural themes in the US – and in many other nations – have functioned as an almost perfect incubator of extrinsic values.

A classic sign of this shift is the individuation of blame. On both sides of the Atlantic, it now takes extreme forms. Under the criminal justice bill now passing through parliament, people caught rough sleeping can be imprisoned or fined up to £2,500 if they are deemed to constitute a “nuisance” or cause “damage”. According to article 61 of the bill, “damage” includes smelling bad. It’s hard to know where to begin with this. If someone had £2,500 to spare, they wouldn’t be on the streets. The government is proposing to provide prison cells for rough sleepers, but not homes. Perhaps most importantly, people are being blamed and criminalised for their own destitution, which in many cases will have been caused by government policy.

We talk about society’s rightward journey. We talk about polarisation and division. We talk about isolation and the mental health crisis. But what underlies these trends is a shift in values. This is the cause of many of our dysfunctions; the rest are symptoms.

When a society valorises status, money, power and dominance, it is bound to generate frustration. It is mathematically impossible for everyone to be number one. The more the economic elites grab, the more everyone else must lose. Someone must be blamed for the ensuing disappointment. In a culture that worships winners, it can’t be them. It must be those evil people pursuing a kinder world, in which wealth is distributed, no one is forgotten and communities and the living planet are protected. Those who have developed a strong set of extrinsic values will vote for the person who represents them, the person who has what they want. Trump. And where the US goes, the rest of us follow.

Trump might well win again – God help us if he does. If so, his victory will be due not only to the racial resentment of ageing white men, or to his weaponisation of culture wars or to algorithms and echo chambers, important as these factors are. It will also be the result of values embedded so deeply that we forget they are there.

Getting Played

In every conflict or crisis or disaster or whatever - the first reports are always wrong in one way or another. Details are missing, or numbers aren't accurate, or any of the Who What When Where Why How type questions that good journalists are supposed to live by are missing or unanswered or answered wrong.

It all has to be fact checked and cross checked and double checked. And all that takes time and skill and cooperation between colleagues and sources and competitors.

Eventually, in a few hours or a few days or a few weeks, we start to get a clearer idea of what happened - and why when who how etc.

Social media short circuits that time honored and vital process.

Maybe somebody wants it that way. And that would mean somebody wants it that way for a reason.

I may be paranoid,

but that don't mean

nobody's out to get me

Q Stuff

On a tip from a poster at r/QAnonCasualties:

The Narcissist's Prayer

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

Babies

It wasn't your fault.

Know that.

Take it in, and just know it.

It wasn't your fault.

I fucking love me some nerds.

BioSpace:

Researchers Pinpoint Reason Infants Die From SIDS

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) accounts for about 37% of sudden unexpected infant deaths a year in the U.S., and the cause of SIDS has remained largely unknown. On Saturday, researchers from The Children's Hospital Westmead in Sydney released a study that confirmed not only how these infants die, but why.

SIDS refers to the unexplained deaths of infants under a year old, and it usually occurs while the child is sleeping. According to Mayo Clinic, many in the medical community suspected this phenomenon could be caused by a defect in the part of the brain that controls arousal from sleep and breathing. The theory was that if the infant stopped breathing during sleep, the defect would keep the child from startling or waking up.

The Sydney researchers were able to confirm this theory by analyzing dried blood samples taken from newborns who died from SIDS and other unknown causes. Each SIDS sample was then compared with blood taken from healthy babies. They found the activity of the enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) was significantly lower in babies who died of SIDS compared to living infants and other non-SIDS infant deaths. BChE plays a major role in the brain’s arousal pathway, explaining why SIDS typically occurs during sleep.

Previously, parents were told SIDS could be prevented if they took proper precautions: laying babies on their backs, not letting them overheat and keeping all toys and blankets out of the crib were a few of the most important preventative steps. So, when SIDS still occurred, parents were left with immense guilt, wondering if they could have prevented their baby’s death.

Dr. Carmel Harrington, the lead researcher for the study, was one of these parents. Her son unexpectedly and suddenly died as an infant 29 years ago. In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Harrington explained what she was told about the cause of her child’s death.

"Nobody could tell me. They just said it's a tragedy. But it was a tragedy that didn't sit well with my scientific brain.”

Since then, she’s worked to find the cause of SIDS, both for herself and for the medical community as a whole. She went on to explain why this discovery is so important for parents whose babies suffered from SIDS.

"These families can now live with the knowledge that this was not their fault," she said.

In the study, the researchers wrote, “This finding represents the possibility for the identification of infants at risk for SIDS infants prior to death and opens new avenues for future research into specific interventions.”

As the cause is now known, researchers can turn their attention to a solution. In the next few years, those in the medical community who have studied SIDS will likely work on a screening test to identify babies who are at risk for SIDS and hopefully prevent it altogether.

Shame And Guilt

It's always hard for me to separate the act from the actor.

Like when your kid does something horrible and you have to make sure you're focused on correcting the behavior, and not attacking the kid.

TheraminTrees

Sometimes, the most courageous thing you can do is simply to survive, and tell the story - that in itself is a way of looking for a little help, which is a pretty brave thing to do.

Psych Lesson

Homo homini lupus est

Mass Psychosis - After Skool

Logic can be met with logic. Illogic cannot. It confuses those who think straight.

The big lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more of an emotional appeal than logic and reason.

While the people are still searching for a reasonable counter-argument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault them another.

-- Joost Meerloo, Rape Of the Mind

Faux Nobility

Eventually, Capitalism comes down to rich people spending less time doing the actual work, and more time concocting a reasonable-sounding rationalization for being self-centered rent-seeking assholes.

Veronika Tait, PhD - Psychology Today:

Republicans and Democrats explain wealth in different ways. In a survey by Pew Research Center, participants were asked why a person is rich. The majority of Republicans said a person is rich because they worked harder, whereas most Democrats said that it was because they had advantages in life. On why a person is poor, most Republicans attributed it to a lack of effort, whereas the overwhelming majority of Democrats said it was because of circumstances beyond control. So which is it?

Recent findings show that only half of today’s 30-year-olds earn more than their parents. However, 90% of children born in 1940 earned more than their parents. Rather than the ‘rags to riches’ fairytale so many of us want to believe in, opportunities vary widely depending on the occupations of one's parents. Researcher Michael Hout found that social mobility is far from the norm.

Some may argue that the current generation experiences lower ambition and greater entitlement compared to generations past. However, the data indicates that millennials earn 20% less than baby boomers did at the same stage of life, despite achieving higher levels of education. While business leaders work hard, it’s difficult to defend the jump in the ratio of pay between a company’s CEO and their average worker at 30:1 in 1978, skyrocketing to 299:1 in 2014.
- and -

With ideals of meritocracy reinforced in American culture, it is tempting to assume that those who are wealthy have worked hard and fairly earned their affluence. But that wouldn’t tell the whole story. One study from 2017 found that 60% of wealth is inherited rather than worked for. There are also stories of executives exploiting workers, such as Jeff Bezos, who recently purchased the most expensive home in California and whose workers reported peeing in plastic bottles because they could not use the bathroom during their shift. 

Some advantages had by the successful are less visible. For example, I worked hard to receive academic scholarships and ultimately earned a Ph.D. in Social Psychology with no debt. However, it would be unfair for me to not also acknowledge my own privilege at play in my accomplishments. My parents never handed me a wad of cash, but they did raise me with clean water and sanitary living conditions, adequate nutrition, a stable environment, a strong support system, quality healthcare, and a lack of childhood trauma.

Evidence suggests that simply having wealth, whether earned or by luck, increases one’s justification for it. Also known as the Just-World Fallacy, those who are on top of the social ladder, that is, those with money, power, and influence, believe the world is just. Those in the middle think the world is somewhat just, and those at the bottom believe the world is unjust.

Researcher Paul Piff cleverly demonstrated this by giving some participants a clear advantage in a game of Monopoly such as giving them extra money. When he asked participants why they (inevitably) won, they described how they had made smart decisions, and downplayed their privileged position.

Those who believe the world is just, that is, believe you get what you work for, are more likely to justify inequality and victim-blame. If those who are wealthy are automatically seen as good, it is assumed that the poor must have done something to deserve their misfortune.

Sarah Kendzior:"When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live."

 

About That Letter

45* sent a 6-page letter to Pelosi ranting and raving about what a horrible thing it is to impeach him, and generally indulging himself in his usual whiny-butt pussy crapola.

Salon asked some folks who're supposed to know about such things to take a swing at what the letter reveals about the author.

Dr. Lance Dodes, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry (retired), Harvard Medical School, currently training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He is also a contributor to “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.”

Mr. Trump's letter shows his incapacity to recognize other people as separate from him or having worth.

As he always does, he accuses others of precisely what he has done, in precisely the same language. When confronted with violating the Constitution he says his accusers are violating the Constitution. When others point out that he undermines democracy, he says they undermine democracy. Through these very simpleminded projections he deletes others' selfhood and replaces who they are with what is unacceptable in himself.

The letter also has a remarkable list of boasts about what he says are his successes, stated as facts, with no acknowledgment that Speaker Pelosi has a vastly different view (about gun control, appointing judges who conform to his views, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement, etc). It is as if her independent views are unworthy of noting or existing. She is treated as invisible in his eyes.

Dr. Justin Frank, former clinical professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center, and author of “Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.”

When I first read Donald Trump’s six-page letter to Speaker Pelosi, I marveled at the ease with which he shared what goes on in his mind openly, and without reservation. His letter is the quintessential example of how professional victims actually think. They turn the prosecutor into the persecutor.

Trump’s letter is just such an expression of entitled, delusional grievance. He accuses Pelosi of injuring his family, but it is his nepotism that exposes his older children to public scrutiny and his teenager (to whom he refers as “Melania’s son") to life in a fishbowl. More damning, in making her a public figure, he subjected the First Lady to humiliation. He knew full well he paid a stripper $130,000 not to talk about their affair and was surely aware that this and other unsavory behaviors would surface when he sought the presidency.

Trump is a con artist who succeeds by tricking his marks into not seeing the con. But the biggest mark — bigger than the GOP and his base — is himself. He believes the lies he tells, the delinquent traits he disavows. It’s what psychoanalysts call delusional projection. We see it the simple sentence he wrote to the speaker: “You view democracy as your enemy.” Trump confirms my findings published in "Trump on the Couch." But now his defenses are writ large, because instead of changing in moments of crisis, people become more the way they are. Trump has reverted to the most familiar means to cope with fears of being caught, punished and humiliated.

Finally, the letter is a treasure trove for psychiatric residents who want to study the psychotic mind. Trump’s paradoxical sleight of hand makes him think he can hide in plain sight. But he can’t anymore. This is why he accuses Pelosi of hating democracy: It is he who hates a system that promotes the idea that no one is above the law.

Dopamine Addiction

A new one for me: Charlie & Ben podcast.

The sex talk is of particular interest to me (of course), but the segment following that - all about social media and the little jolts of happiness we feel when we get the thumbs up or the little red heart or whatever.

It gets a little iffy when they dive into YouTube and media control, but mostly it's really good.

Fascinating.

In Plain Sight

If what you've done was perfectly innocent in all respects, then you don't need to blame anybody for it.

Peter Wade, Rolling Stone, via MSN:

According to a report on Saturday, a source told Axios that the president told House Republicans during a conference call on Friday: “Not a lot of people know this but, I didn’t even want to make the call. The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about an LNG [liquified natural gas] plant.” Axios also reported that the president’s quote was confirmed by two other sources.

Earlier this week, Politico reported that Perry is expected to announce his resignation from the administration by the end of November.

Trump has been trying to sell that the call was not intended to put any pressure on Zelensky to investigate the president’s political foes, but was instead “perfect.” The news of the call along with the withholding of congressional approved funds by Trump moved Speaker Nancy Pelosi to accelerate the already-in-motion impeachment inquiry, and it now appears now that Trump might be looking for an out or a scapegoat.

Axios went on to report that this might not be the end of Trump’s blame Perry strategy, with one source telling them, “more of this will be coming out in the next few days.”

Congressional Democrats are already interested in a trip Perry made to the Ukraine in May when he attended Zelensky’s inauguration in place of Vice President Mike Pence. Further, according to Axios, the House’s subpoena of Rudy Giuliani includes documents related to Perry and Ukrainian leaders.

Random Notes:

• Eventually, in 45*'s world, it comes down to him vs you. I think he sees everything through the filter of Jungle Rules. Kill or be killed. There's no right or wrong - only survival.
• His "company" is an elaborate false front. There are no partners; no close advisors; no best friends and confidants.
• A narcissist knows deep down that he's a bad guy, but the very large and fragile ego that always goes with narcissism won't let him admit any of that so he projects it all unto everyone around him. He sees everyone else as untrustworthy precisely because he knows himself to be untrustworthy. And that puts him on an island all alone all the time.

Cult45

There are always reasons for any given behavior. Those reasons are often ridiculous - at least they seem pretty ridiculous to "normal" people - but it's possible to understand these things.

Bobby Azarian, PhD - Psychology Today:

6. The Power of Mortality Reminders and Perceived Existential Threat

A well-supported theory from social psychology, known as Terror Management Theory, explains why Trump’s fear mongering is doubly effective. The theory is based on the fact that humans have a unique awareness of their own mortality. The inevitably of one’s death creates existential terror and anxiety that is always residing below the surface. In order to manage this terror, humans adopt cultural worldviews — like religions, political ideologies, and national identities — that act as a buffer by instilling life with meaning and value.

Terror Management Theory predicts that when people are reminded of their own mortality, which happens with fear mongering, they will more strongly defend those who share their worldviews and national or ethnic identity, and act out more aggressively towards those who do not. Hundreds of studies have supported this hypothesis, and some have specifically shown that triggering thoughts of death tends to shift people towards the right.

Not only do death reminders increase nationalism, they may influence voting habits in favor of more conservative presidential candidates. And more disturbingly, in a study with American students, scientists found that making mortality salient increased support for extreme military interventions by American forces that could kill thousands of civilians overseas. Interestingly, the effect was present only in conservatives.

By constantly emphasizing existential threat, Trump may be creating a psychological condition that makes the brain respond positively rather than negatively to bigoted statements and divisive rhetoric.

In this video, I explain this in greater detail, and offer a potential solution to the problem.

So, yeah - dude's got a sing-song speaking style that gets pretty annoying pretty fast. For my own bad self, I'm trying to put aside my Sales Guy Training and ignore such things in favor of concentrating on the content.

One thing: it's interesting to me that the theme - perceived existential threat - is a recurring thing, and it meshes well with the old BBC documentary from 2006 (The Power Of Nightmares - Adam Curtis).

Here's your assignment on background:

The antidote, as per usual, is interaction with "the other side". Unfortunately, my experience of those interactions is that in order to have any chance at a meaningful exchange with a Red Hat or some other "conservative", I end up having to do most of the thinking for both us - just so we can have a civil discussion. 

But that almost inevitably means my debate partner is going to accuse me of being some snobby PC elitist even though it's very likely he's someone fully engaged in deliberate ignorance (regarding one topic or another) and refuses even to learn some of the basics of public discourse, eg: Logical Fallacies.

I have to insist that facts are facts. And I have to insist that my insistence on those facts is not justification for anyone to cop out and say "Both Sides Are Just Being Intractable".

Your feeling vulnerable (because of whatever threat you believe is "out there") doesn't negate the moral and ethical norms that have to be in place so we can live together in a civilized manner.

"And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." --JFK