The Last assault-Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, Cambria
nature as metaphor
We are at war with ourselves. Words are weapons, understanding is the target. It is a wasting disease. The very republic is at risk.
There is much that most Americans do not know. Information-disinformation and intelligence follows below.
nature as tonic
Uplift first; a quick walk through spring on the Pacific bluffs of the Fiscalini Ranch.
Life blooms again.
Live and let live is in practice here. We could use a big dose of that.
I listened to three women who have been paid to know more than most people. They worry about our future. Dr Stacey Dixon is the principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Teresa Smetzer was the CIA's Director of Digital Futures in the Directorate of Digital Innovation. She was a career CIA analyst. Ellen McCarthy was Assistant Secretary of State, bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Social media is a perfect medium for disinformation.
-20 thousand web sites are published as disinformation agents. Think it's obvious what those sites are? Well, advertising companies spend $235 million, on those sites annually.
-Pew Research reports 65% of adults get their news on social media.
- False tweets are 70% more likely to be retweeted Science magazine reports.
The wise women know these stats. They sight evidence of this information warfare in the degradation of US public policy and debate. And in trust.
A lack of public trust, a lack of information that is agreed upon is dangerous and can bring down government because it erodes the public's belief and trust. Governments exist only on public trust, or they are dictatorships and autocracies where trust does not matter.
Social media is bad enough for adults, who are expected to have some degree of critical thinking. It is poison, manipulative and even more dangerous for children.
Jonathan Haidt, professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business studies psychology of morality and emotions. Haidt writes we live in a polarized, factionalized and angry America that is like the "new Babel."
In The Atlantic he writes "Social scientists have identified at least three major forces that collectively bind successful democracies; social capital (social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions and shared stories. Social media has weakened all three."
The late media analyst Eric Boehlert wrote "Why is the press rooting against Biden? He noted the "glaring disconnect between reality and how the press depicts White House accomplishments. The "press is determined to keep Biden pinned down."
By objective standards Biden's administration has been successful, but by the tone of reporting, the way questions are asked, and the incessant use of questionable opinion polls, America is being fed worst than "spin," rather it is outright manipulation.
Partisans will tell you this is an affect of the Republican parties' culture war campaign.
Intelligence and security experts say it is more evidence of information warfare between democracy and authoritarianism, that is extraordinarily well funded and strategic.
The media tone is also the blame of the gotcha game of snark and click bait that social media has forced on a once sober and more careful news media. Young reporters and producers who grew up with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and very little history are forcing a more vacuous and controversy driven style of reporting. It is divisive, inept and dangerous. It is also mindless.
You may remember when "Fake News" became the mantra of a candidate and President we warned it was a tool of authoritarians. So, now we have millions of Americans who live in a fantasy world thinking their candidate had his re-election stolen from him. The alternate reality exists even when credible reality republicans and 63 court decisions including by many reality republican judges proves otherwise. This is a serious chasm in the foundation of our Republic.
Social media and right wing networks are in an unholy league with well financed anti democracy forces including American financial interests, uberwealthy individuals, Russian oligarchs, the Putin government and other US enemies. It has become so dangerous that people like Tucker Carlson spew anti democracy and anti American poison in public and the propagandized, poorly educated, grievance loaded follow him in a brain dead trance.
Briefly on partisan politics, Democrats should remember most Americans "vote their pocketbook or wallet," as we used to say.
Bread and butter issues, kitchen table budget matters are always the most important to voters.
The Democrats are weak in effective "messaging," which is more hurtful as they play uphill as the disinformation game is loaded against them.
The US has a fifth column at work. The Republican party is only the visible face. The compromise of public debate by bogus issues and contrived culture war fanaticism is a product of a deliberate right wing strategy that is very adept at using the low information of US citizens, their lack of education and their unending devotion to social media, celebrity and their fear.
The wise women of intelligence say individual citizens need to work to combat the disinformation war. -They urge we all challenge our emotions and our own implicit bias as we consume information.
-Check sources-look for previous articles and check the credential of the writer or broadcaster.
-Read alternative views. Get out of your own opinion silo and read what others think or say.
-Think for yourself.
-They note that a virtue of the US is we get to choose what to believe. That throws responsibility to us.
The women conclude by saying it would be good to teach the "analytic trade craft" of the intelligence community to citizens. Critical analysis should be taught to children beginning in kindergarten.
I suggest journalism clean up its own house. Pay more attention to how the spin masters are working. Overcome the penchant for "false equivalence" and provide training to new producers, writers and reporters, including history. Quit being used. Think more.
As a nation we need to understand the seriousness of the battle between democracy and authoritarianism.
Social media needs to be reformed and regulated. They are manipulators of behavior, attitude and belief. Social media can be destructive, even deadly, especially among youth.
Haidt suggests "the biggest single change that would reduce toxicity of existing platforms would be user verification as a precondition for gaining the algorithmic amplification that social media offers."
Democrats being democrats are still bruising each other while their minority faction of progressives get far more media attention than the majority of the party.
The first amendment is an American strength, but we must find a way to minimize the damage being done and being conveyed by social media platforms that after all are data collecting and selling businesses. They are commercial schemes that benefit from controversy, but too they are tools, unwitting or otherwise, of those who wish to do America harm.
They are part of a new addiction, they undermine truth, and they are, at the least, as much about disinformation as anything else.
As we move forward to prosecute levels of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russians, as we strive to restore civility to our own shores, as we wrestle with race, equity, and as we try to reconnect to truth and reality, we must control the primary medium of lies, distortion, and disinformation. US problems can be solved only in an arena of honesty and mutual respect.
Anti American fifth column Republicans can still blather their fear mongering disinformation, but we need not, nor shouldn't expose ourselves to thousands of channels of lies that brainwash and seek to bring down democracy.
Question, challenge, think, analyze.
See you down the trail.
