American Beliefs at War

 

A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.                                                                             Robert Heinlein                                                                        writer, aeronautical engineer  

    The norm shattering of the last four years, as much of an assault on American values as it has been, is coming now to its dark maturity. 

    Beginning with his inauguration he worked to divide America. Now Donald Trump prepares to take America to war.

    The examination ahead will be frank, and difficult to abide so before we begin with a few scenes from a recent walk on the shore. May they be pleasing and soothe our troubled hearts.

History is the only register of crimes and misfortunes.                                             Voltaire

    Trump's behavior since being rejected by a record number of Americans has been to sabotage the nation. People were shocked to learn he explored options for a war against Iraq after replacing top military command officials.

    He continues to violate the Presidential Records Act by destroying files and papers. Some staff have surreptitiously tried to tape and stash documents.

    His delay in transition will only worsen the pandemic he ignored and lied about. It puts our national security on uneven ground.

    Trying to leverage his bent for an authoritarian control of the government he's signaled his supporters to refuse to accept the legitimacy of the new government. His supporters march and violence follows. It is the type of thing we see in some nations and we have seen it in history. 

    The "Brown Shirts" and the Storm Division paramilitary supporters of populist demagogue and madman Adolf Hitler began with demonstrations and street fights in 1924. 

     They were "militias," supporters of a movement leader who demanded loyalty. The appeal was based on grievances, anger  and division.

    Fix in your mind how Trump took over the Republican party by bullying and grievance. Adolph Hitler went from outsider and built a non conventional base of the disaffected. His Nazi movement, a fringe element, gained enough power in the Conservative coalition,  that it could not rule without him. That was in 1932. By 1933 Hitler was elected Chancellor and he dismissed the Parliment.

        The Nazi Party established control of the courts and controlled the judges. Those who spoke against him were run through a mock judicial process. The free press was attacked, opposition groups were run over by Nazi paramilitary. The Dachau concentration camp was built in 1933, others followed and we know the history. The regime lied, repeatedly. 

    The Nazis were specialists at propaganda and image with the intent of brainwashing. They didn't need a Fox News they had Joesph Goebbels a government minister of propaganda.

     Most Fox News viewers fail to know its founder was also a propagandist. Roger Ailes was Richard Nixon's television producer and advisor. Later he worked for Ronald Reagan, to help with spin and party line. He advised the Bush campaigns. 

    Most news organizations evolved from a role of public service. Fox News began with a mission to spin, and to tilt right. That is to be a propaganda mill.

    A document found in the Richard Nixon library outlines the first draft of Fox News. Ailes authored "A Plan for Putting the GOP on Television." The idea was to put party doctrine over fair and balanced reporting over what Ailes said was the "bias" of journalism. Years later it was a cruel irony then,  when Ailes launched the conservative to right wing news network using "fair and balanced" as their moniker. I suspect his karma is still in deficit. 

    Ailes and Trump were a match. Ailes like Trump was thrice married and like Trump a sexual predator. In fact allegations of sexual harrassment by 23 women forced his resignation in disgrace. But he created a monster in America, a "news by flavor" outlet that in truth functions as a mouth piece, a propagandist for right wing Republican politics. But no more. Most traditional conservatives and Republicans have left the party to fight back with their own words and pictures. Fox News helped to kill the Republican party, helping turn it into a Trumpist party.

    Trump, an egoist, learned early he could use TV by breaking norms. People who have studied him, see similarities in his speaking manner to another "right wing crack pot."

    Trump often strikes poses similar to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 

    Mussolini was also a narcissist. The pouting face, jutting jaw

   crossed arms and fist making hand gestures are frequent 

     Trump moves. History is always revealing.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Mark Twain

    

    The scene above, of a Nazi rally should be particularly chilling, especially to those who say it can't happen here.

    That image is Madison Square Garden, 1939.

     "Americanism" and America First were catch phrases of a far right wing to conservative sentiment.

    20 Thousand Americans filled the Garden that night to celebrate George Washington's birthday.

    At the next "Stop the Steal" or "Four More Years" rally, as people clearly ignore the facts, certified even by Trump apointees in government, you may feel a quick retraction of time.

    Street violence is a tool. Another attack on our belief in our system.

      History may indeed repeat, if we are ignorant of it. Ignorance is a fuel for populists. Ignorance is rampant in America now.

       Trump's refusal to cooperate with a transition is a belligerent personal act of narcissistic defiance, but it is also dangerous and undermining.

    He has been a divider for four years. He has worked since 2016 to erode the credibility of our electoral process and our American traditions and norms, which have been a standard for the world, a beacon of democracy. 

    It appears he plans to stay vocal. That serves him personally as he can continue to fund raise. It serves him to have a pulpit from which to spew, to prance and dance and bathe in the adoration of the ignorant. But it also divides this nation. It drives hatred into the heart of the body politic. It is a cancer to the sinews and muscle of the Republic that has held, except for the civil war. And there again the eyes of history are on us.

And so are other eyes.

    Generations of our children and grand children deserve better than what they see in us now. A democratic republic is hard work. But for most of two and half centuries we have observed norms, traditions, respected honesty, searched for fact and truth. Donald Trump does none of that and each day  he remains the toxic being he is, he moves us closer to the battle lines, in our own nation, and unless he is checked, perhaps in some war making effort abroad. 

    We've had our fill of mistaken foreign wars. We've survived a a civil war. Donald Trump is a fuse.

    There is no longer any decent explanation for supporting him, as a citizen or as a member of the Senate. He lost, fair and square. His law suites are without a cause. There is another reason he deserves no support, he is evil.

    Authoritarianism is growing. Trumpism is likely to survive, for a while at least. Fighting that is in our interest, but it will be a detailed process and it involves fellow citizens, abused humans. We'll look at that fight in future posts. 

    The past should be remembered, and the future should be honored. 

    Stay safe. Stay well. Be vigilant.

    See you down the trail.

CROSS CURRENTS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

     Sometimes it's all about how you see it.  

about the labels

     A preposterous misunderstanding is roiling through the American body politic, weaponizing words and good intentions. 

     The phrase is political correctness. If you are interested there is a study of the origins and how it has become a cudgel in cultural debate.

      The short course is this; at its origin it was used in the 1940's in debates about "proper" political dogma in communist discussions about Stalin. The point was to divine the "correct" party line. Stalin slaughtered "incorrect" opponents in massive purges. The phrase was a marginal concept known only to those who  studied communism or socialism. 

      Scholars say the phrase gained some usage in the early 1970's when Tony Cade Bambara wrote in The Black Woman:An Anthology "...a man cannot be politically correct and a male chauvinist too..." 

      In the early '70's progressives and feminists began to use the idea of political correctness as a way to avoid offensive speech, phrases and ideas. It was a kind of code to raise sensitivities about things that once had been acceptable but were no longer. It was an age of combating segregation, sexism, and speaking of people as "retarded," "cripples," "spics" "beaners" "Wops" "Jewing down the price" "chicks" and you can supply your own list. Old traditions and ways of speaking, seen in modern light, were as offensive as "colored" drinking fountains, red lining in banking, sexual harassment of women in the work place, sitting in the back of the bus or discrimination of any sort. Offensive and illegal traditions and old ways were considered politically incorrect.

       The phrase went from there to being almost a satire of itself. Sensitive and even insensitive people began to use it as a lighthearted lampoon about all manner of thing. It became a kind of sarcasm and joke, especially among those pushing for change. Still it was not widely used and certainly not part of the daily lexicon. 

       At the same time colleges and universities began to adjust curricula adding courses in feminism and the changing racial, ethnic and cultural diversity. Traditionalists, who did not like the way culture was changing, were unhappy. One of those was Allan Bloom who wrote The Closing of the American Mind in 1987. He railed against liberal philosophy and the changing of American education. In tying together the evolution of education and the change in the face of America he used the phrase political correctness as a pejorative. The phrase began to get more mileage, mostly from conservative or right wing ideologues who were opposed to the changing standards, culture and times.

       In the early 90's the word became weaponized. It became a code word for liberal, or liberal politics, progressives, changes in curriculum, education, or those who pushed against sexism, racism, and discrimination. What had been a word used mostly among academics became a red meat word and a political hammer used by conservatives. It was as if they had a flame thrower to scorch all ideas they opposed. Right wing think tanks dumped a lot of ink and time in using the word as a discrediting tool. Liberal ideas could be destroyed if they were labeled as "political correctness."

       It is only fair to mention there is also a conservative correctness. The most virulent form is book banning, or seeking to censor film, television, video games and other creative enterprise. As a small example, cafeterias in the US House of Representatives changed French Fries and French Toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast when France opposed the US invasion of Iraq. Members of the Freedom Caucus in the House remain some of the most adamant attackers of ideas they oppose by means of condemnation using "politically correct." Trump has taken up the tool twisting it to "fake news" and "enemy of the people."

true words

    By most accepted definitions CONSERVATIVES are those committed to traditional values and ways of doing things and are opposed to change. Conservatives favor free enterprise, private ownership and socially conservative ideas. Conservatives favor as little government as possible, especially at the federal level. Conservatives are somewhat averse to change. They believe government should protect private property. Conservatives believe there are too many regulations and too much government interference in business. They oppose government changing culture.
          
       LIBERALS are open to new ideas, opinions and intellectual liberty. They favor progress and believe in the essential goodness of people. They favor protection of civil liberties and believe government is responsible for correcting social inequities in race, gender and class. Liberals believe government should protect individual liberty. They favor free trade. Liberals believe government regulations should protect individuals from the abuses of industry and corporations. 

       Now, I'm sure almost everyone, regardless of where you align, will find something you think I got wrong. I'm simplifying. And over the years the manifestations of liberal and conservative philosophy and politics have morphed.  

       free speech

       As an absolutist on the first amendment I understand that right wingers can zing liberals and if they choose liberals can zing back. That is part of the rough and tumble of our system. But as a journalist, I'm a stickler for getting it right and using the right words.  

       Even Bill Maher, a liberal snarkster, got it wrong. Like right wing ideologues he points to recent campus disturbances where a speaker has been barred, cancelled or denied a right to speak because, he said, of "liberals" in academia pushing political correctness.  Bull shit, to use a word understood on both sides of the spectrum. 
       Liberals don't deny free speech, fascists do. Anyone who advocates denial of a right to free speech, no matter how offensive or politically weighted, is not a liberal or an intellectual conservative. 

       Someone at a university who may fancy themselves a progressive or a liberal and who would agitate against the appearance of a speaker, film, production or whatever just lost the right to call themselves a liberal. The function of their behavior is fascism or totalitarianism. They would deny an individual civil liberty. They can gripe and protest, but not deny-that disqualifies them.

      A conservative who would seek to deny the right of someone to speak certainly betrays an adherence to traditional values. What can be a more traditional value than the bill of rights? Conservatives can gripe and protest as well, but not deny.
      The bottom line is simple. Those who seek to deny full access to the rights of the first amendment should be called what they are, fascists. Sorry if this pulls the steam out of a favorite conservative charge. Sorry if this unnerves some professor who fancies herself or himself a "progressive" or liberal. It's time for the media to get it right and to be precise. 
       This is the age of information. Accuracy matters. And besides that, there should be nothing considered off limits in the realm of academia or the church. If you can't consider or study something, controversial, challenging to your ideas, or even an evil, in the halls of academy or a place of faith, then what's the point? What's the value? You might as well turn off the lights, go home and devolve into superstitious, uninformed, science rejecting, close minded barbarians burning those books or dissertations in bonfires.

celebrating mother

    Pulling in an evening blanket...of fog.

     This years crop of fava beans. Frequent readers know of our fondness for this labor intensive crop. You can read Romancing the Fava here. With this fullness of growth it is for the first harvest. 

  Green Space Cambria celebrating mother earth in a beautiful green space. 

                         

O really?pt 2

     Bully mouth Bill O'Reilly may show up someplace else, but his banishment from Fox News was good to see. You have to wonder though when Fox News founder Roger Ailes and his superstar are dumped because of sexual harassment, how much can you trust what comes out of that sort of culture, especially on matters of women's rights, health, income equality and even sexual harassment in the work place? Fair and balanced?
      Then consider right wing radio and web screamer Alex Jones who has launched some of the most absurd theories and "facts" who now says it's only performance art. You wonder if those on the right who feed on Fox, O'Reilly, Jones and Limbaugh are feeling less secure in their "rightness" since their pantheon are dirty old men with feet of clay? 
And we include in that audience the predator in chief. Dirty Donny feeds on Fox and was a frequent guest on Alex Jones. That's no fake news. Just a fake president.

       See you down the trail.

POST-TRUTH: NEWS FROM DYSTOPIA

     If there is nothing in this year to cause your brain to explode here's a try: The Oxford Dictionaries has chosen "post-truth" as the word of the year. Post-truth is when objective facts are less influential than emotion or personal belief in a person's choice.

     This coronation in the hall of lexicon happens as western society and the American media in particular suffer through an inquisition of "fake news," its purveyors, sources and impact. Twitter and Facebook lead all social media in being scrutinized.

      Joshua Benton, director of Nieman Journalism Lab wrote after the election; 

        "Facebook has become a sewer of misinformation. Some of it is driven by ideology, but a lot of it is driven purely by the economic incentive structure FaceBook has created: The fake stuff, when it connects with a Facebook user's preconceived notions for sense of identity, spreads like wildfire. (And it's a lot cheaper to make than real news.)"

        Consider for a moment how much time millions of Americans spend on Facebook and other social media. It is where many get their news, only a lot of it is not news. It's fabrication, political spin on steroids and even fantasy. And even when confronted with facts people still continue to believe lies-President Obama was born in Kenya, climate change is not real, there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we never landed on the moon, etc.

       After each election the nation's media does a serious navel gaze. This year they should look into their combined fourth estate soul.

       In our lifetimes the media could be counted on. CBS Anchor Walter Cronkite was known as "America's most trusted man." When there were four major networks, a couple of international wire services and a handful of newspapers with strong Washington and international bureaus in a very competitive arena, getting it and getting it right was the currency that built a readership and viewership. Consumers were the arbiter. 

      As it was intended, the airwaves were public space and to have a right to do business there one needed to pledge to provide hours of informational and public service programming.

      Media deregulation brought a model that favored advertising and making money while shrinking the obligation to provide quality information and news. Then management decided news needed to be a profit center and ratings replaced the mission to inform as the priority and raison d'être. 

     24 hour news channels further "commercialized" news making it more of a "product." Social media with millions of blogs, postings, social chats, pages, and a blizzard of exchange further diffused and fractured the nature of information.  

     I have a petulant disregard for Roger Ailes and his news virus. He is the troll responsible for overtly politicizing news coverage and the father of the bastard "news with a flavor." Some will say Fox News came as an answer to the liberal media. That is malarky and those who believe it give proof to the propagandizing value of spinning news your way. It is a  mind control when beliefs and emotions count more than facts. Ailes first postulated the idea of a political control of network news back when he worked for Richard Nixon.

     In this "Post-truth, post-election" era consider the facts. The losing candidate had 2-4 million more votes. So unless the electoral college makes history, we will have a minority president, who either is a liar on occasion or indeed can own all sides of every issue or simply doesn't know what his position is. Whichever, it is a sure prescription for a lot of "news."

     We should watch for news organization to assert a legitimacy by dealing with truth, facts and being adversarial. That adversarial relationship is historic and has proven to benefit all parties, the White House, the electorate and most importantly the effectiveness of government. As much as ever, the media should play its role as a watchdog.

     Do we think the media is up to it? Good question. I expect little improvement in social media, it will continue to be the lowest common denominator. Another divide in this split nation is the fault line between those who consume diverse information wisely and those who hang around the sewer and/or listen only to that flavor they approve. 

     I saw CNN's Jeff Zucker mealymouth an answer about needing to do a better job. Ya, think so?  They spent much of the summer showing an empty podium with a clock counting down until the candidate who was shouting insults to races, religions and sexes took center stage. 

     It's time for the media to grow up and realize it's not about them and their addiction to hype, it's about reality, history in the making. A place to start is to look at their own archives and history, a kind of "back to the future." Election coverage was once sober, intelligent, issue focused. The last few cycles have been more about the horse race and personality and look at what our choices were.

     Users, even some of you gentle readers, get out of the echo chamber! Watch, listen to, read and consume a wider and even conflicting stream of information. The little visual at the top of the post is simply to suggest that beyond television and radio there are an infinite number of places once can find information. The internet is home to many real news sites, as well as those that are fake or fronts. There are many magazines and journals, research reports from think tanks and universities, and a multitude of newspapers and newsletters and pod casts. If you are paying attention to only one or two sources you are under informed. If you watch only a network that represents your take, you are not informed.

      There is no "post-truth." If it is not true, it is a deception!

   See you down the trail.

THE LIBERATION OF FOX NEWS & TIDE POOLS

washed up

     From Pacific detritus to a world apart, tide pools offer a kaleidoscope. We go there, just ahead.

how will America's conservative voice survive the slime?

      The future of Fox News is the serious speculation in media and financial circles now that its creator and driving force has been dumped for being a sexual miscreant and bully. This is a story larger than the offenses of a dirty old man and sexual extortionist, Roger Ailes.

      Fox News is a huge cash cow, the largest money maker in the 21st Century/Rupert Murdoch empire and a key to it's market value. Fox is also the principle mouth piece for a brand of Republicanism and conservatism. The king of Fox News's culture of sexual harassment is offender number one, creator Ailes and that raises yet another question, the integrity of anything you see on Fox News. More about that quandary in a moment.

not a journalist

      In serious journalistic discussion, Roger Ailes is considered a propagandist, despite being the brains behind the successful Fox News empire. 

      Ailes concocted the notion of a propaganda network when he worked for Richard Nixon. Before Fox News Ailes was a political word smith and hack.

He was a partisan in the employ of Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, plus other candidates. His specialty was spin, selling a candidate and their position. There was nothing fair or balanced about his work ethic. He did not care about facts or truth other than what a campaign or administration wanted the public to know and or think. He was a shill, and if the reports are to be believed he was an abusive sexual predator all the while.

      Ailes was outed by high profile Fox News talent. Since then victims of his harassment from past decades have come forward and the Murdoch family canned him, albeit with a multi million dollar severance. Ailes made them billions, still the younger Murdochs do not like Ailes and so Fox must now manage a future without the dirty old man and coverage tyrant.

fox news is big money

      Fox News with it's conservative to arch conservative personalities and the Ailes spin on news has amassed an audience of devotees. To abandon it's current format risks a huge financial loss. But it has become clear Ailes directed the tone, nature and content of Fox News-both it's personality programs and it's "news coverage." Ailes decided what and who got on the air. He hired the talent and directed coverage.

      Ailes was not a journalist, remember. He was a propagandist but he found an audience of true believers and he made the network a profit center, a huge winner of cash while he advanced political agendas of his own choosing while also harassing, intimidating and extorting women who worked for him.  He set a tone and in the last few days we've learned there were other men who emulated the boss. Conservative America had no idea who was playing them for a chump.

saying no to miles

      My problem with Fox News has always been Ailes. Years ago a well respected political operative and now a former Governor suggested I might reach out to Ailes as he was building Fox News. This public servant knew Ailes because they had worked for the same President. I passed on the option because of my sense of Ailes. He was not out to create a new brand of journalism, he was out to create a clearly tilted perspective on news with the sole purpose to feed a conservative political audience it's own view of things and to make billions of dollars in the process. Some will tell you Ailes created a response to a liberal bias, to balance things. Poppycock! Ailes poisoned the well of journalism by politicizing it in an overt and obvious way. Obvious to those who care about real balance and no slant. But it is the nature of the poisoning. Everything at Fox was according to Ailes. He was a dictator.

      If the New York Times has a liberal bias it is the product of an editorial page and even that is the enterprise of many voices and input. At Fox News it was all Roger Ailes. Hannity and O'Reilly would not exist if they did not tow the Ailes line.

      I don't believe the swill that some spew that CBS, NBC, ABC or even CNN are liberal media. It is just they are not conservative and that alone condemns them to being "liberal." MSNBC is indeed liberal, the antithesis to Fox News, but for the most part the other networks traditionally were simply equal opportunity offenders. A good news organization will tow no line and will in all likelihood irritate left and right, republican and democrat. 

the credibility crisis at fox news

       So here's a hard point. Fox was created by Ailes in his image and to his own designs. He was a manipulator, a political propagandist who dreamed of having a network to sell a party's point of view. That is not fair or balanced and it is not journalism. Any real reporting that was done on Fox was probably done by virtue of enterprise and professionalism of those who worked there. Obviously not everyone drank the Ailes cool-aid. And finally women with courage came forward and exposed the lecherous political hack who posed as a news executive. How can a network that took it's marching orders from a sexual offender who emotionally brutalized employees and who's purpose was to sell a particular political point of view, and who ran the place with an iron hand not be ashamed, embarrassed and exposed for being what it is, a mouthpiece and the tool of a jerk. 

       Bill O'Reilly should put this in the no spin zone. Sean Hannity is a perfect Roger Ailes creation, but O'Reilly is different. I don't think O'Reilly cares much at all about anything that he blathers about.  It's an act. He's a television player and good at it. His real concerns are his ratings and his bank account. He's living a good life with the elite and he played the Ailes game for the big dollars. In that way he is a symbol of Fox News. It is not real, it is spin. But now that Ailes is on the trash heap, Fox has a chance to prove it can be something else, not a Roger Ailes project and not under his menacing regime of an old boy world where white men ruled, where they could sexually intimidate women, where a narrow point of view was spread as truth even if it was not so. So in the months and years ahead it will be interesting to see how Fox News might care more about news than Roger Ailes did.

        Oh, there is a lot of speculation that Ailes might be an advisor to Donald Trump. They are long time friends. How does that sit with you?

a private world

a visit to pacific coast tide pools

    See you down the trail. 

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY OFFENDER

KEEPING THE CUSTOMERS SATISFIED

THAT'S NOT THE WAY TO DO IT

The View from Here

      Hall of Fame and legendary radio news man Fred Heckman was my news director as I was breaking into a major metropolitan news scene.

      "If Democrats and Republicans are both bitching about you, if liberals think you're a conservative and conservatives think you're a liberal then you're doing a good job. We are an equal opportunity offender."

       Long before Fred's advice I'd read the wisdom of the

old "Sage of Baltimore" H.L. Mencken.  The journalist, editor, essayist said the role of a journalist was to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

       Those formed my creedo in all of my years in journalism.

ENTER THE NEW AGE OF "NEWS"

       I took delight in the story that university research finds that Fox News viewers are the least well informed.

        You can link to the story here.

           Delight, I say, because Fox introduced deliberately staking out a political/philosophical position as a foundational rationale to their approach to news coverage.

       Now some will argue "the liberal media bias" already existed and that Fox News was at least honest about where they were coming from.  You might recall however they made their mantra "Fair and Balanced."  In all honesty they were neither, but it was a brilliant positioning and marketing strategy developed by Roger Ailes.  It immediately created the perception the other media was not fair or balanced.  

      Ailes started developing his idea when he was a partisan employee of Richard Nixon, the President with an enemies list, less than a harmonious relationship with the media, trouble with the truth and that little think called Watergate. Yes, that's when Ailes first started babbling about creating a network with a point of view.

      My gripe is not so much with the politics as with the idea 

of creating a "my side vs. your side" approach to news.

Back to the admonition of my old mentor.  Doing it right has everyone angry at you.  Conservatives, Republicans and right wingers probably find little to be upset with about Fox.  But

perhaps now they should be.  By adopting a "perspective" and hewing to a "party line" you destroy your claim to credibility

and damage the overall process.  I'm not ignoring MSNBC.

They have responded by taking a liberal perspective. 

      Maybe in this age of satellite, cable, Internet and broadcast offerings there is room for networks who are lackeys for an ideology or point of view.  Maybe, but they should not call themselves news or journalistic enterprises.

      Bravo to the academics who are willing to test, measure and survey issues like quality of information, knowledge and such.  Of course I can hear a few Fox viewers saying "well what do you expect from liberal academia?"

     Roger Ailes is like putting draino in a wine bottle and calling it a well aged vintage. This report is a bit like a consumer taste test.  Truth is just that.

DAY BOOK

A VISIT TO THE SHORE

How's that for a change of pace?
See you down the trail.