The Tribe Explained - update

Here's a bit more on Agnotology from Wired Magazine.

"People always assume that if someone doesn't know something, it's because they haven't paid attention or haven't yet figured it out," Proctor says. "But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth—or drowning it out—or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what's true and what's not."

I get into arguments all the time.  Usually online, but sometimes, I just can't let some random comment by some random acquaintance slide by unchallenged.  I also have a few drinkin' buddies and when we get together, it's time to play "What's Yer Fuckin' Problem?".  It gets pretty heated on occasion, but we're still good friends and at least nobody's ever hit anybody.  I've been trying to work on tempering my more aggressive impulses.  I wouldn't say that I have a short fuse for the most part, but there are definitely some things that'll set me off, and this idea of WIllful Ignorance is at the heart of the matter for me.

I'm always looking for obscure (or just different) and seemingly unrelated concepts; trying to find ways of mixing ideas together to come up with something new or at least something that pushes me forward in my own development in whatever small way is possible.  I guess I tho't everybody did the same, and I should hope that most still do, but it's pretty apparent that an awful lot of folks don't.

Anyway, my new synthesis has to do with putting Agnotology together with the ice cream scene from Thank You For Smoking.  I can argue with somebody who is impervious to the facts all I want, but I'm never going to change his mind.  So the point of the exercise is not to wear myself out on him, but to argue in a way that could influence whoever else might be listening.

The Tribe Explained

From David Roberts at Grist:

It's a numbingly familiar pattern in media coverage. The conservative movement that's been attacking climate science for 20 years has a storied history of demonstrable fabrications, distortions, personal attacks, and nothingburger faux-scandals -- not only on climate science, but going back to asbestos, ozone, leaded gasoline, tobacco, you name it. They don't follow the rigorous standards of professional science; they follow no intellectual or ethical standards whatsoever. Yet no matter how long their record of viciousness and farce, every time the skeptic blogosphere coughs up a new "ZOMG!" it's as though we start from zero again, like no one has a memory longer than five minutes.

He starts off talking about how "Climategate" has triggered 5 separate investigations, and all 5 have come back in total agreement that there's nothing there to get excited about.  Then he gets to the good stuff about how it doesn't matter what the facts are because The Tribe has already made its point, the Press Poodles have dutifully reported the bullshit contentions as if they actually mean something, and a few of us are left wondering if there might be something to the charges after all (kinda the point, y'know?).

So what really got me though is that this phenomenon of staying willfully ignorant has a name - Agnotology.

The lesson we've learned from climategate is simple. It's the same lesson taught by death panels, socialist government takeover, Sharia law, and Obama's birth certificate. To understand it we must turn to agnotology, the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt. (Hat tip to an excellent recent post on this by John Quiggen.)

I'm having trouble getting this post wrapped together so it can make the kind of sense to a reader that I think it does to me.  (I get a little too amped up when I learn something new like this)  Read the two pieces.

Wisconsin

There's a bunch of polling results coming out now, indicating Gov Walker is losing in the court of public opinion - most of them are running something like 60-40 against his attempt to bust the unions.

So here's what I'm wondering:  how long before his consultants tell him it's OK to claim victimhood at the hands of the big bad, all-powerful unions?  DumFux News has guys calling the protesters thugs, and the union workers freeloadin' losers.  It's gotta be getting close to the time they switch it around and try depicting the unions as the fat cats and the poor little ol' Guvner as besieged on all sides by the evil greedy proletarian commies.

Hey, Colorado

Feeling a little sentimental I guess.  One of the favorites I used to sing to the kids at bedtime.

The Cost Of War

From WaPo

Without once referring to his son's death, the general delivered a passionate and at times angry speech about the military's sacrifices and its troops' growing sense of isolation from society.

"Their struggle is your struggle," he told the ballroom crowd of former Marines and local business people. "If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight - our country - these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation."

My first reaction is, "blow it out your ass, General."  I don't like that being my first reaction, but there it is.

There are lots of people losing their businesses, their jobs and their homes because when the military goes off to war, it leaves giant holes in local economies.  Do you think the people in towns like Fayetteville aren't aware of the cost?

Some dozens of people have been murdered by veterans returning with PTSD - a condition that is deliberately ignored by the military in many cases, with many service members being discharged and untreated for it;  many dozens of veterans have committed suicide.  Are the families of those dead soldiers and those murder victims somehow unaware of the cost of these wars, General?

And what about those of us who try to keep track of what's going on?  What about people who were against the wars in the first place, but who go right on paying their taxes, and waving their flags, and donating money to veterans' relief funds?  Every fucking day, General.

I can only imagine how lousy it must be for you to have had a son killed in a war you think nobody cares about.  And I pray every minute of every day that I never have to do more than imagine it.  But you're doing what you signed up to do, General Kelly.  So do it.  Or resign your commission and stop doing it.  But either way, stop whining about it.  And stop walking around with your chest all puffed up, trying to act like you're more important than what you claim to be fighting for.

The Turn Around

via Political Carnival:

Yes, it's class warfare alright.  It's the guy making $500k convincing the guy making 35 that the guy making 50 is fuckin' him over.

Classic.

The Take Away

St George of Carlin

Japan

What if all those horrible problems Japan has been dealing with over the last 20 years turn out not to be such big problems for the average Japanese citizen.  What if the "problems" have been all about the US FInancial Press needing to propagate certain articles of faith concerning American Capitalistic Exceptionalism.

Certainly anyone who visits Japan these days is struck by the obvious affluence even among average citizens. The cars on the roads, for instance, are generally much larger and better equipped than in the 1980s (indeed state of the art navigation devices, for instance, are more or less standard on many models). Overseas vacation travel has more than doubled since the 1980s. The Japanese boast the world's most advanced cell phones, and the biggest and best high-definition television screens. Japan's already long life expectancy has increased by nearly two years. Its Internet connections are some of the world's fastest -- something like ten times faster on average than American speeds.

Eammon Fingleton (via theatlantic.com) tells only the story of how Japanese business and government both have lots of leeway in how they can report their numbers, and he thinks that explains everything.  But am I to understand that nobody in the US (or in the rest of the whole fucking world) was smart enough to catch onto this?  Me thinks something else may be afoot.

Here's a coupla little tidbits that get tossed off as if they mean nothing - but could mean quite a bit:

True, not all of Japan’s indicators are equally impressive. The Tokyo stock market, for instance, has never recovered from its 1990s slump. Neither has the real estate market. (In the latter case, however, there is a silver lining in a major boost living standards, in that young home buyers now get far more space for their money. In any case the implosion since 1991 has merely restored some sanity to valuations that had previously become—very temporarily—outlandish).

On the negative side, there is also the fact that Japan’s economic growth rate, as least as calculated officially, has averaged little more than 1 percent a year in the last two decades. For those who propound the “stagnation” story, this is their strongest card. But it does not accord with the common observation— undeniable to those who have known the country since the 1980s—that the Japanese people have enjoyed one of the biggest improvements in living standards of any major First World nation in the interim…

So Japan has been cookin' along for 20 years, boosting their trade surplus by $194 Billion, and making a 65% gain in Yen vs Dollar; which means the standard of living for the average guy improves, plus life expectancy goes up by 2 years.  But somehow, life in Japan must really suck according to everything we hear from our Press Poodles because neither their stock market nor their real estate market is performing at a robust pace.  And there it is. "Little Guy makes out OK, Big Guy OK too" just doesn't fit the standard narrative here in the US.  We have to have "Ownership heroes defeat evil labor goons, our daughters are safe now".

This is such a crock of shit.

A Librul Press?

Horseshit.  Study after study, they keep finding exactly the opposite.  There was a big study in 2001 or 2002 looking at press coverage of the 2000 election that showed the majority of stories about Gore were negative and that the majority of stories about Bush were positive.  Fact.

Now, we get a picture of what's happening as the attempt to dismantle healthcare reform moves through the courts.

Part of the difference can be explained - the rulings upholding the law are in favor of the status quo, so that's pretty boring,  But the rulings against it make for big splashy headlines.

Or maybe it's just that the Press Poodles need to sell advertising (by pushing a point of view that pleases their owners) and they really don't give a shit about explaining what anything actually means.

Some Early-Morning Paranoia

I really want the "rough men standing ready" to have whatever they need to keep the bad guys away - I count myself among those to be criticized for abjuring violence while people are committed to doing violence in my name.  I have some strongly conflicting thoughts about that, but for now, I'll just have to accept the situation as a paradox of life on this planet in the 21st century, and continue trying to do the small things I can do each day that should accrue over time towards real change.

Anyway, I think it's a really dismal prospect that some people in our military forces always seem ready (even eager) to pull some horrendously shitty things on us.

from Rolling Stone

The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.

American citizens and our representatives in Congress are being targeted as "enemy".  I'm still able to feel some confidence that the worst of these power drunk assholes will be rooted out eventually, but this is another great example of why we have to be a lot more careful about building and maintaining a professional military.

Gained In Translation

Every successful politician has a good handle on the concept of Coded Language.

Sometimes, the links get pretty broad - Family Values can mean just about everything from Abstinence Only and Creationism to bombing the shit outa brown people to make the world safe for Americans at home.  You get to fill in the blanks on that one any way you want.

Other terms and phrases can be a little more specific:
Real Americans = dumbass rednecks
Service to America = Cops, Firefighters and Military ONLY - no bureaucrats allowed

You get the idea.  Anyway, continuing on my premise that no issue is ever really about what the politician says it's about, here's the basic idea behind the phrase "it's about jobs" when sleazoids like Scott Walker and John Kasich use it.  Plainly put, it means they intend to take one fairly decent job (teacher, building inspector, project manager, etc) and turn it into 2 or more really crappy jobs.  This is a huge push to reorganize and redefine public sector jobs.  And we might as well be outsourcing City Hall's HR Dept to Wal-Mart.

Springtime In Detroit?

General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) today announced its calendar year 2010 results marked by $4.7 billion of net income attributable to common stockholders for its first full year of operations.

Revenue for the calendar year was $135.6 billion. Automotive cash flow from operating activities was $6.6 billion and automotive free cash flow was $2.4 billion, both reflecting the impact of a $4.0 billion voluntary cash contribution to the company's U.S. pension plans.

"Last year was one of foundation building," said Dan Akerson, chairman and chief executive officer. "Particularly pleasing was that we demonstrated GM's ability to achieve sustainable profitability near the bottom of the U.S. industry cycle, with four consecutive profitable quarters."

Wait just a dang minute.  This is Gummint Motors; this is where all them commie unionist bastards are suckin' the federal teat dry; this is totally against what DumFux News says is even possible.

Barron's

BTW: all this good news was left over after GM paid back $700 MILLION in US Treasuries.  Still a long way to go, but they should at least get an Atta Boy once in a while.

Say What?`

This is what passed for "thinking" in the Jr Bush administration.

"We were not there in Afghanistan to eradicate corruption, or to end poppy cultivation. We were not there to take ownership of Afghanistan’s problems, tempting though it was for Americans of goodwill. If, as some have contended, we never had a plan for full-fledged nation building, or that we under-resourced such a plan, they were certainly correct. We did not go there to bring prosperity to every corner of Afghanistan. Our more modest goal was to rid Afghanistan of al Qaeda, and replace their Taliban hosts with a government that would not harbor terrorists... " - Donald Rumsfeld; pg 682 of his memoir.

Look, Don - you really can't accomplish the 2 things you say we went there to do, without doing the things you say we didn't go there to do.

I think you should continue your service to this great country of ours by scheduling a nice long trip to Spain as soon as you can manage it.  They'll take really good care of you.

fuckin' putz

About Wisconsin - update

I still haven't heard anybody on the union side say they're expecting more, or asking more, or demanding anything more.  Walker and DumFux News and East Blogistan keep trying to paint the unions as greedy bastards out to fleece the innocent taxpayer.  Bullshit.

Here it is, straight up:
What the protesters and the unions and the Wisconsin Dems are fighting for is pretty simply their rights (and ours, btw) under the First Amendment.
The right of association
The right to peaceable assembly

A Saving Grace?

We know that outfits like US Chamber of Commerce and the Koch Boys are working hard to get a certain control over politics here in the US.  It's just too obvious not to be the case.  We also know that they're willing to spend gi-normous amounts of cash buying people like Clarence Thomas to help them keep it "legal".  We know all that, and we've (I've) been assuming they intend to concentrate on owning the process here in the US - but what about the rest of the world?  There's way too much going on in way too many places where big American Companies have big deal interests at stake.

How much will these Corporations have to spend, in how many different countries, to ensure their interests are looked after?

Maybe I'm just hoping for rescue here, but isn't there something happening right now that will eventually make it impossible for a global oligarchy to consolidate power?  And isn't there some probability that it could all change without the kind of apocalyptic collapse that so many keep telling us is inevitable no matter what we do?

What if this scenario of economic implosion is the Big Lie that keeps us in thrall either to the Bosses who tell us to ignore the man behind the curtain and get back to work;  or to the Anti-Bosses who tell us the whole thing blows up if we do as the Bosses tell us?

World conquest has been tried for as long as there's been a world to conquer.  And somehow, the world remains undefeated.

Random Question

If evolution is "just a theory" and nobody can actually prove it's for real, how do we explain selective breeding?

About Wisconsin - update

Oh look.  Here's something else it's not supposed to be about.

From Democratic Underground - with an embedded link to the HuffPo article.

While there has been significant attention devoted to the fact that Walker's 144-page budget repair bill would strip away collective bargaining rights for public employees, the site "Rortybomb" points out a less noticed provision that would allow the state to sell or contract out any state-owned energy asset in no-bid deals with private corporations.

About That Wisconsin Thing

To be clear, I don't much like unions.  I also don't dislike them.  My thing is always about the balance of power.  I don't like anything that gets too big or too powerful.  So it's about trying to make sure there's always something to act as a counterweight to whoever holds the majority position in the power struggle du jour.

For whatever reason, Gov Walker has picked this fight.  There is, to be sure, a problem with all or most governments' budgets in that they're not taking in enough revenue to cover all the outlays - again, for whatever reason(s).

My point is that the real fight in Wisconsin has practically nothing to do with the current condition of the state's budget.  It's important to remember that almost nothing is ever really about what a politician says it's about.

Walker has proposed a budget that asks public employees either to take a hit on salaries and bennies, and/or to do without any increases - and it appears there's not much push back on any of that.  So we can kinda put aside all of this deflecting nonsense about how the unions are busting the budget with outrageous demands, or killing the chances of the noble politicians to get things back on track, or whatever the consultants have told them say.

What we're left with is another baldfaced attempt to chip away at everybody's rights.  Plain and simple.

Something else to remember:  we're deep into the Supply Side Economy.  It's a fairly simple notion.  If you flood the market with a huge supply of anything, you force the price down.  That goes for Labor too.  The greater the number of people trying to get a given job, the less you have to pay whoever you hire for that job.

We Are All Madisonians Now

It should prob'ly say "We are all Wisconsinites", but then I couldn't draw an allusion to James Madison.

So anyway,  Gov Walker is really under the gun here.  It's fun to watch him try to sell his pseudo-populist bullshit while being so obviously on the payroll of the Privatizing Looters.

I'll try to explain myself in a minute, but first, I want to point to something.  Look at this, by way of Democratic Underground, and then ask yourself, "isn't this what Free Market Capitalism should actually look like"?  Seems to me we've been buying a phoney-baloney substitute for a good long time.

As a hardcore Randian Zealot, I'm not in favor of "the collective", but that's not what's going on here - our understanding of 'evil collective' vs 'righteous competitor' has undergone a polar reversal.  Ayn Rand's big thing was always that power would be balanced naturally thru straight up competition; and that collectives would always usurp power thru the stifling of competition by force of arms.  Guess which 'side' is willing to use the government's monopoly on deadly force to coerce our cooperation with its plans to take, use and maintain power.

I'm not talkin' Dems vs Repubs here, but I have to say (for right now anyway), the Dems are starting to wake up a little; and that I think there're more of them who are a bit more willing to hew a little more closely to principles of honor and public service.  I realize there was a lot of equivocation in that last sentence, but I think it's even more important now than ever that we look for whatever slight differences we can find - and then throw as much support as we can muster behind any politician who's willing to dispense with the usual bullshit and talk to us about real policy choices, and the effects of those choices on real people in the real world.

This is likely to be pretty brutal for a while.