The Conversation -- September 8, 2024
Grifter-in-Chief. Josh Dawsey & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "No presidential candidate has ever so closely linked his election with personal for-profit enterprises, selling a staggering array of merchandise that includes signed Bibles where he receives a royalty for hawking them, pricey sneakers, gold necklaces, cryptocurrency cards, pens, books, licensing fees on overseas properties and more. His company's website also sells a variety of political merchandise at higher prices than his campaign charges for the same items.:
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Presidential Race
Marie: Thanks to NiskyGuy, I ordered a sign like this. I will plant it on the right-of-way next to the federal/state road that runs through my town. ~~~
Tim Balk of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign released a TV advertisement on Saturday reminding voters that ... Donald J. Trump has taken credit for helping overturn Roe v. Wade, and targeting the growing share of voters who say that abortion is their top issue. The new 30-second ad will appear on broadcast and cable networks in seven swing states -- Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin -- and in Nebraska's competitive Second Congressional District, the campaign said." ~~~
How Racist Is Trump? Oh, Way Racist. ~~~
~~~ Donald JimCrow Trump. Alex Woodward of the Independent (Sept. 3): "During a campaign stop at the Livingston County Sheriff's Office in Howell, Michigan, Donald Trump suggested that deputies there should be deployed to the majority-Black city of Detroit. 'I'd love to have them working there during the election,' he told the group on August 20, standing in front of law enforcement officials and squad cars. A week later, Trump held a 'town hall' in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The next day, he rallied in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He will speak in the town of Mosinee, Wisconsin, on September 7. These relatively small cities -- spread across midwestern swing states and far from dense metropolitan areas -- all have one thing in common: They are former 'sundown' towns, where threats of Jim Crow-era violence enforced racial segregation.... Viral criticism across social media has argued that Trump's latest campaign stretch [is] ... a 'dogwhistle' to racist supporters. Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign accused the former president of deliberately campaigning in the former 'KKK capital of Michigan' [Howell]."
Voter Suppression on Steroids. Jillian Frankel of NBC News: "... Donald Trump ... warned Saturday that he would attempt to imprison anyone who engages in 'unscrupulous behavior' during the 2024 race results. The threat was issued in a post on Truth Social ... and repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, accusing Democrats of 'rampant Cheating and Skullduggery.' 'The 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,' he wrote.... 'Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.'" MB: This is a bald-faced attempt to discourage anyone from voting for or advocating for Kamala Harris or other Democrats.
Abbie Cheeseman & Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: "A day after spending much of a 49-minute news conference revisiting -- and denying -- sexual misconduct allegations leveled against him, Donald Trump used part of a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Saturday to discuss another subject that has bedeviled his campaigns for president: Russian interference in U.S. elections.... But Trump, who has repeatedly described the probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election as a 'hoax,' is dismissing [Russia's 'more sophisticated covert efforts'] this time around, too. 'The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again,' Trump told the crowd at his rally. 'And, you know, the whole world laughed at them this time.'... Trump's rally, at the airport in Mosinee, Wis..., featured a stump speech that meandered from familiar attack lines about inflation and jobs to falsehoods about sex-change operations for minors, conspiracy theories about government employment statistics and dismissals of Russian interference in American elections.... 'I knew Putin, I knew him well,' Trump said at the rally Saturday. 'The other day he endorsed Kamala. He endorsed Kamala. I was very, offended by that ... I think it was done maybe with a smile.'" More on Russia's support for Trump linked below. ~~~
~~~ Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump vowed to vastly reshape the federal bureaucracy on Saturday in a wide-ranging, often unfocused speech at a rally in Wisconsin. He pledged to ultimately eliminate the Department of Education, redirect the efforts of the Justice Department and fire civil servants charged with carrying out Biden administration policies that he disagreed with. And he told his supporters that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading vaccine skeptic who recently endorsed him, would be 'very much involved' in a panel on 'chronic health problems and childhood diseases.'... Many of the proposals in Mr. Trump's speech align with [his] plans reported by The New York Times to conduct a broad expansion of presidential power over government, and to effectively concentrate more authority within the White House, if he wins in November. And many of his pledges dovetailed with the stated goals and proposals of Project 2025, an effort by a group of conservative organizations to develop policies for the next Republican president." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I too am developing a list of personnel for Trump's 2nd administration, based on some statements he has made. So far I've got Bobby Junior for HHS Secretary, Elon for Commerce Secretary & TuKKKer for press secretary. ~~~
~~~ Lisa Kashinsky of Politico: "Donald Trump on Saturday floated changing the 25th Amendment to allow Congress to impeach a vice president for covering up a president's incapacity.... 'I will support modifying the 25th Amendment to make clear that if a vice president lies or engages in a conspiracy to cover up the incapacity of the president of the United States..., it's grounds for impeachment immediately and removal from office, because that's what they did,' the former president said during a rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin.... [Trump] has repeatedly, and without evidence, accused Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats more broadly of covering up the state of [President] Biden's health -- particularly his mental fitness -- after the president's disastrous June debate performance that ultimately led to his exit from the race.... Trump's remarks on Saturday are also the latest sign of his continued struggle to adjust to running against a new opponent. Trump has repeatedly lamented the change at the top of the Democratic ticket, and has at times even appeared to confuse who he is competing against."
Yes, the Rich Are Different from You and Me. Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "The decision [by Judge Juan Merchan to delay Donald Trump's sentencing] ... is a surprising validation of the former president's legal strategy to use his wealth and political status -- and an assist from the Supreme Court -- to drag out the case and diminish its impact on his campaign. The delay all but guarantees that, on Election Day, Mr. Trump will remain a felon, but also a free man.... Mr. Trump's critics perceive a justice system that treats normal defendants one way, and the singular Mr. Trump another." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Judge Merchan delayed Trump's sentencing until November 26, after the election, of course, and two days before Thanksgiving. As Jimmy Kimmel said the other night, "This will be the first time in history that the turkey had to pardon the president*."
Ken Bensinger & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: The Heritage Foundation has pumped several videos into social media this election season that falsely claim noncitizens are voting in droves. In one video, Heritage featured seven Georgia men saying in Spanish that they were not U.S. citizens but had registered to vote. The video concluded falsely that 14 percent of noncitizens in Georgia were registered voters. But "State investigators found no evidence that any of the seven people on the tape had ever registered to vote. A spokesman for Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, called the video 'a stunt.'... While the once-staid think tank has received attention recently for Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a future Trump administration that the group funded, it has also made its mark with an aggressive effort to shape public opinion, seeding falsehoods about the integrity of the 2024 election across social media and conservative news outlets.... Borrowing from covert tactics used by the group Project Veritas, [Heritage's] Oversight Project has published videos about the supposed threat of migrant voting in shelters on the Texas border, in New York City and in North Carolina."
Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "The Russian government's covert efforts to sway the 2024 presidential election are more advanced than in recent years, and the most active foreign threat this political season, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday. Russia's activities 'are more sophisticated than in prior election cycles,' said a senior official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in a briefing with reporters, noting the use of 'authentic U.S. voices' to 'launder' Russian government propaganda and spread socially divisive narratives through major social media, as well as on sham websites that pose as legitimate American media organizations. Moscow is targeting U.S. swing states in particular, the official said, and using artificial intelligence to more quickly and convincingly create fake content to shape the outcome in favor of ... Donald Trump."
⭐ Paul Mozur, et al., of the New York Times: "Telegram has become a global sewer of criminal activity, disinformation, child sexual abuse material, terrorism and racist incitement, according to a four-month investigation by The New York Times that analyzed more than 3.2 million Telegram messages from over 16,000 channels. The company, which offers features that enable criminals, terrorists and grifters to organize at scale and to sidestep scrutiny from the authorities, has looked the other way as illegal and extremist activities have flourished openly on the app.... The Times investigation found 1,500 channels operated by white supremacists who coordinate activities among almost one million people around the world. At least two dozen channels sold weapons. In at least 22 channels with more than 70,000 followers, MDMA, cocaine, heroin and other drugs were advertised for delivery to more than 20 countries.Hamas, ISIS and other terror groups have thrived on Telegram, often amassing large audiences across dozens of channels."
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Georgia. Sarah Blaskey & Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "The mother of the suspected Apalachee High School gunman told family members that she called the school on the morning of the shooting and warned a counselor about an 'extreme emergency' involving her 14-year-old son, according to text messages obtained by The Washington Post and an interview with a family member. That account is supported by a call log from the family's shared phone plan, which shows a 10-minute call from the mother's phone to the school starting at 9:50 a.m. -- about a half-hour before witnesses have said the gunman opened fire....
"A counselor told [Marcee] Gray during the call that her son had been talking about a school shooting that morning, according to Gray's sister, Annie Brown, who described family discussions of the events to The Post. Around the same time, a school administrator went to the son's math classroom, according to Lyela Sayarath, a student in the class. Sayarath said there seemed to be confusion involving another student in the class with a name similar to that of Gray's son. Neither student was in the room, and the official left with a backpack belonging to the similarly named student, she said. The shooting began minutes later.... The texts also show that the school and family were in contact about his mental health a week before the shooting, and that Brown told a relative the teen was at the time having 'homicidal and suicidal thoughts.'"
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Israel/Palestine, et al.
Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "President Joe Biden's months-long push for a cease-fire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas has been upended again in recent days, putting the deal on life support as U.S. officials say they are reassessing next steps.... The latest obstacle -- the abrupt introduction by Hamas of a new demand surrounding which prisoners Israel would release -- underscores the frustrating, often excruciating process that has preoccupied top U.S. officials, and Biden himself, for nine months. At several recent points the United States, along with Qatar and Egypt, believed a deal was within reach, only for Israel or Hamas to derail the talks with new demands that set negotiators back weeks or months. Overall, Biden's chances of ending the war in Gaza and bringing home the remaining hostages before he leaves office appear ever more remote...."
Erika Solomon & Rawan Ahmad of the New York Times: "The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had struck two school compounds in northern Gaza that Hamas was using as a military base, while the family of a young Turkish American woman released an angry statement blaming Israel for her killing in a West Bank protest on Friday. According to Gazan rescue services, an overnight Israeli strike on the Halimah al-Saadiyah school in the town of Jabaliya killed four people who had been sheltering in tents that displaced Palestinians have set up around the facility. A second strike on Saturday hit the Amr Ibn al-As school in Gaza City, which medics said had killed three people and wounded 20 more.... Schools closed down in Gaza after Israel's invasion, but many have been turned into makeshift shelters that now house tens of thousands trying to flee Israeli bombardment.... Gazans continue to crowd into the buildings, which provide toilets and running water that are in short supply elsewhere in the enclave." ~~~
~~~ Marie: You know what Palestinians in Gaza can't get? Soap. In fact, a lack of soap is responsible for some of the disease that is spreading in Gaza. Many "are starving, no one can wash. No one is safe."
Venezuela. Genevieve Glatsky & Orlando Mayorquín of the New York Times: "The opposition candidate in Venezuela's disputed July presidential election left the country on Saturday, the authorities said, as a standoff deepened at the Argentine diplomatic residence in Caracas where six Venezuelan opposition leaders have been sheltering since March. President Nicolás Maduro has faced widespread domestic and international condemnation for proclaiming that he won that election, as well as for a violent crackdown on demonstrators protesting that declaration. The United States has said that the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, won. On Saturday, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said on social media that Mr. González had left for Spain after voluntarily seeking refuge at the Spanish embassy in Caracas. Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said that Mr. González was traveling on a Spanish Air Force plane at his own request."
News Ledes
Washington Post: "A quick-moving blaze in Southern California exploded in size this weekend, consuming more than 17,000 acres as of early Sunday and forcing evacuations amid a searing heat wave in the region. The Line Fire in San Bernardino County, which ignited late last week, quadrupled in size as the weekend began, scorching thousands of acres on Saturday alone. The flames raced up steep terrain, chewing through thick vegetation as they approached Running Springs, a mountain community of about 5,000 people that lies between the populated resort areas of Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake. The community has been ordered to evacuate, while Lake Arrowhead and areas to its west are under an evacuation warning."
Washington Post: "Kentucky authorities intensified the search for a man accused of opening fire on Interstate 75, naming him as an official suspect Sunday in a shooting that injured five people from gunshots, three from car crashes and shut down a major highway the day before. The search for Joseph Couch, 32, has continued for 24 hours in southeastern Kentucky after authorities came upon a chaotic scene Saturday, where they found cars riddled with bullet holes and sheriff's deputies taking some injured to the hospital. The Laurel County Sheriff's Office warned Sunday that Couch is considered 'armed and dangerous,' as they continued a difficult backwoods search with the help of federal agencies."
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Reader Comments (16)
Worse than Both Sides
We’re really getting into it now.
Corporate mainstream media has been both sidesing it for ages now and it appears they’re fed up with Harris still gaining on their true choice, a criminal traitor and dictator wannabe.
In the wake of an announcement by Liz and Dick Cheney that they’ll be voting for Kamala Harris, the Washington Post prints a piece that gives intellectual dishonesty a good name.
The Post has been publishing screeds by Ramesh Ponnuru for some time now. This is a slick PoT hack who wrote a book about Democrats called “Party of Death”. Of course, no respectable publisher would touch this bullshit so he got it printed by the house organ for treason and fascism in America, Regnery, home to cranks, crooks, and cretins.
In this latest tirade, he sez Liz Cheney claims to be voting against the great and powerful Trump but gives no reason to vote for Harris.
For a supposedly smart guy, this is elementarily stupid. His contention is that saying that voters who don’t like Trump should vote for Harris denies those voters of their god given right to vote for Mickey Mouse, or write in the name of some favorite superhero or drunk uncle who rails against broads running for President.
First, saying one should vote for Harris instead of a criminal liar in no way denies voters the ability to be morons. This is another stoopid wingnut straw man argument.
He then goes on to rip Harris for supporting the idea of term limits for Supreme Court justices, using as the basis for this argument his contention that by doing so, Harris is denying poor Clarence Thomas and Little Johnny Roberts the ability to screw over even more Americans. He says this as if legislation creating term limits has already passed (it never will), so this is yet another misleading and willfully stoopid argument.
So he’s saying that not voting for Trump in no way implies a nod to Harris. In fact, the Cheneys are making a point of saying they’re voting for Harris. And even if they were saying “Don’t vote for Trump”, it’s idiotic to then suggest that voting for Harris is clearly not a good idea. Voting for Mickey Mouse IS a vote for Trump. Every vote wasted on stupid choices ends up benefitting the Orange Monster. Saying “Don’t drink contaminated water” actually does imply that drinking clean water is a much better idea. Ponnoru is saying “Oh no, that’s not what it means, it means you should be able to drink antifreeze instead.”
Ya know, if the Post and the Times want to publish right-wing opinions, great, fine. Just find reasonable, thoughtful writers, not hyper wedgie-bottomed, clown shoe hose bags like this fucking guy. This crap is worse than Both Sides.
A frickin' 4. Not a big deal to have a reviled former Vice President endorsed the presidential candidate from the opposite party that he detests.
@Akhilleus: Here's the correct link for Ponnuru's ever-so-worthy screed.
Since I don't pay any attention to him, I never realized what a dimwit Ponnuru was. His argument is nonsensical. He says flat-out that a single vote doesn't matter: "Even in swing states, though, one person’s vote is unlikely to determine the election. If that person objects to both major candidates, why not use legal means to express that view?"
What? What? Isn't voting a "legal means" to express a political view? Isn't announcing one's choice in a public venue that will likely receive national attention a "legal means" to express your view?
According to Ponnuru, a protest vote is meaningless because one vote (or in this case, two: Liz's & Dick's) won't change the election results. How stupid is that? Every single election cycle, candidates lose because enough voters protest their candidacies, either by not voting for anyone or by voting for their "natural" candidates' opponents. Ponnuru definitely doesn't believe "every vote counts!"
There's a difference between not voting for Trump, as many Republicans (like mike pence, I think) have decided to do and voting for his opponent. In fact, it's a double difference, and Ponnuru admits Cheney laid that out when she said "that she doesn’t 'believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states.'” That is, if a Republican writes in Mickey Mouse for president, Trump loses one vote; if a Republican holds her nose & votes for Harris, Trump loses two votes. Cheney is doubling the effectiveness Ponnuru claims she doesn't have.
Ludicrously, Ponnuru calls it a "tragedy" that Cheney didn't "make a strong case for Harris." There's nothing tragic about it. If, for instance, Ron DeSantis had won the nomination, Cheney would have voted for him, not Harris, because DeSantis (okay, despite having no principles) likely would more closely act in ways that comported with Cheney's ideological beliefs. Cheney doesn't agree with Harris on most policy issues. It can't have been easy to choose to vote for her. Cheney shouldn't have to pretend she's all for expanding the child tax credit and the voting rights act or whatever.
Liz Cheney made a logical, cold-blooded choice to do what she could to get rid of Trump. It's not the first time she's made that choice. She's made it again and again since January 2021. Good for her.
A puddle isn’t as shallow.
Marie is coming up with a list of possible cabinet members for a Fatty II debacle, the Musk Ox and Bear Hunter Bobby are good guesses. The first took one of the most thriving businesses in the 21st century and turned it into a sick joke, losing money faster that a DJT stock. The second is a worm eaten crackpot. But they both have something the Orange Monster values more than anything else: they’re famous. For Trump, fame, recognition, even infamy, are all highly prized qualities, more than morality, competence, or intelligence (none of which describes him).
So I’m gonna add a few names to the list. Fatty has a kind of fetish for the character he calls the “the late great Hannibal Lecter”, as if he were a real person. No matter, he’s famous. Make him Surgeon General. Trump often compares himself to the “great Al Capone”. Chief of Staff. I’m guessing he’d love to have Ted Kaczynski. He’s famous too. National Security Advisor. Charles Manson? He’d find a spot for him too.
The worst thing in Trump’s mind, besides being poor and black, is being unknown. This is why he constantly “belittles” (in his mind) Kamala Harris by claiming no one knows who she is. “No one has ever heard of her!” is his idea of the kiss of death.
Whereas EVERYONE knows Donald. A convicted felon, rapist, and traitor. But like those other guys, a weirdo, a crackpot, a serial killer, an infamous organized crime boss, a letter bomber, and a psychotic cult leader, he’s a “legend”.
All that matters.
Marie,
Re: the Ponnotu piece.
Nonsensical.
Exactly. Which comes back to my point about how awful corporate media is. Doesn’t someone have to read this crap before an outfit like the Washington Post publishes it? Does an editor read this thing and say, it’s a complete load of crap and makes no sense, but we’ll print it anyway so’s the Traitors won’t attack us for being dirty liberals?
Yeah. They won’t make that mistake. Better to be known as a moron than a liberal.
Good job, Post!
Mr Robinson
"North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson says he wants abortion to be illegal at ‘zero’ weeks, in new audio released by Democrats
Robinson, who is running for governor as a Republican, has publicly backed the current ban in the state, which restricts abortion after 12 weeks. "
Tim Miller explains to Piers Morgan why Donald and Kamala haven't met.
Endorsements
"The Complete List Of Past GOP Presidential Ticket Members Who Say They're Voting For Trump
1. Sarah Palin.
That’s it. That’s the whole list."
Prompted by RC to glance at Ponnoru, my eyes skipped over the inanity he offered and went immediately to the thousands of comments, all of which I read took him to task.
Sure are a lot of RC readers out there. Thousands.
The HuffPo's list of former members of Democratic tickets who have endorsed Harris is incomplete. Bendery writes, "Barack Obama. Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). President Joe Biden, who even dropped his reelection bid to unify not just Democrats, but Americans." She doesn't mention Jimmy Carter, Al Gore or John Kerry, all of whom have endorsed Harris.
But at least Bendery did get that full list of GOP presidential & veep nominees who endorsed Trump.
Genuine Human Interaction
Sarah Palin’s endorsement of the fat felon makes perfect sense. They both represent the Family Values wing of the Party of Traitors, both divorced with dysfunctional, greedy families. In addition, they both sport the most whiny, ear pummeling voices, bath spout no end of baseless lies, both are failures, losers, and grievance spouting narcissists.
Also, both are big readers.
Perfect.
It’s just sad to see someone whose sell-by date expired over ten years ago trying to remain relevant. Like a 70 year old with a face lift, wig, and miniskirt trying to twerk. Go shoot some grizzlies.
RAS-- Thanks for posting the video of Kamala being so sweet and welcoming and warm at the Pgh Penzy's-- It was a great choice to go there, as Penzy's has been publicly anti-DumpsterFire, and she was willing to hug everyone, and everyone wanted to hug her. I saw that on Saturday just as I was going to a shop, and I did not hear the audio of that, so-- great! Such a contrast to the great and terrible Dump that it is breathtaking...
I don't know how we can counteract the incredible bilge issuing from so many big-name people and organizations. I don't know how the lies, which morphed from supposed lies in 2015 to huge, tainted fantasies that out-Swift Boat Swift Boat, can't be spoken against adequately. The fact that they are not contradicted in real time and in reportage from the Major Food Group Newspapers is a super problem. And the fact that the garbage trailing from the late GQP is never-ending and has been issuing forth since before the Fat Felon decided he was annointed really scares me to death. How can one candidate refute it all, even with a crackerjack staff and campaign structure?? I am hanging out my flag of NOPE that I had in 2020. It's against the almighty HOA but I don't care.
Thanks to all of you and especially Marie, who keep us from losing our minds entirely.
Here's a comment Bill Robinson made this morning. The comment got stuck in last week's commentary, but it's well-worth reading, so I brought it forward:
By Bill Robinson:
"Everywhere you look, signs are mounting of a tinderbox election that will test the outer bounds — and breaking points — of American democracy, honesty and civility.
........A perfect storm has been brewing for years now — fueled by extreme polarization, election denial, political violence, historic prosecutions and rampant disinformation. Mayhem is bound to rain down in November." Axios.com September 8, 2024
Reading the above observation and similar ones from respected commentators upon current events gives me the Willies. Being well into my eighties and an unreconstructed, unapologetic mid-Twentieth Century man, I have, to put it mildly, seen and done a lot. Looking back from my own approaching horizon and confronting the disquieting prospect of the Great American Public about to make yet another quadrennial national political presidential choice, two questions occur to me:
"What the hell is going on?
"Why is this happening"
The answer to the first one is obvious to anyone who happens to be alive and sentient.
The answer to the second one involves the effects of rapid technological advances, especially since the year 2000, that have broadened and deepened human capabilities faster than people can individually and collectively assimilate them, evaluate their true utility and learn how to control the negative and harmful effects that accompany them.
Consequently, these advances have precipitated profound and often disturbing social and cultural changes. It's not news that a large fraction of the American public have lost interest in the value of civil discourse, have become blissfully unaware of the difference between reality and fiction, and have largely abandoned the practice of analytical thinking, a necessary element of sound personal decision making. These useful sensibilities have been unavoidably altered by simple human evolution, but hey have also been diluted, or washed away entirely by the ever accelerating fifty year tsunami of universal social training through the emulation of inane and violent television programs and video games, learning to avoid thinking by over-indulgence in distractive and addictive "smart" phones and now being enticed, and captured by the commercially generated demand for a false intellectual panacea misleadingly referred to as "Artificial Intelligence (AI)".
Oddly, with all of the capability to be electronically "in touch" with other people, information and ideas, we have lost touch with ourselves in favor of synthetic life experiences.
Of course, a real form of "AI" exists in contemporary life. The multiple generations of recent decades have become chock full of a vast accumulation of actual artificial intelligence commonly known as "popular culture". One might collectively refer to this bunch as "Generation M," The Meretricious Generation.
Contemplating Generation M about to vote, a third question comes to mind:
"What could possibly go wrong?"
The answer is:
"Everything."
One might have to squint to see the politics in this sermon that appeared yesterday in the local paper, but it's there.
The annual Conway School parade just passed my front door. Another school year has begun, reminding me of how long it’s been since I plied the teacher trade.
As they parade down Main Street, the children still toss candy from the fire engines and farm wagons to the enthusiastic parents and families lining the street, a seeming sign that little has changed over the years. But from talk with my school-age grandchildren, who range in age from eight to eighteen, and from what I read, I’m sure that in schools, too, time has worked its transformations.
Some of the differences between my past and my grandchildren’s present are obvious. Today, much classroom work is done on computers, not on paper. Screens, not notebooks, predominate, and in some classes, video instead of print appears to have become the go-to information source. From my reading, I know that even before the Covid’s year of remote learning, the grade inflation worm had already eaten deeply into the educational apple. By 2022 nearly ninety percent of high school students received A’s or B’s in their core subjects. (collegematchpoint.com). In these ways, at least, schooling is a new world.
I’m uncertain of all the ways these and other changes have affected student learning. No doubt the Covid year hurt student achievement (nationsreportcard.gov). But as schools claw themselves out of the academic hole Covid created, I hope they will continue to provide my grandchildren and their classmates the essentials of a good education.
Those essentials would include my hope that all students will know more at the end of each school day than they did at its beginning. That they learn to read well enough to understand what they’ve read and even enjoy the play of words on page or screen. That they learn to manipulate numbers so easily and well that big numbers don’t frighten them away. That they learn to question what they read and hear. That they learn enough science, history, and geography to understand their community and society, and become aware of how the past has shaped their present.
I hope they learn enough respect for facts to realize that if something is not in their head, they don’t really know it. I hope they learn that fact differs from opinion, and how opinion is often contorted by belief.
Most of all, I hope they don’t fall prey to the common tendency to resent anyone who tells us what to do. It would be pleasant if youth could see life’s pitfalls unfolding before them, but because they can’t, we teach them how to behave and what to learn long before many see any reason for much of it. To children, the “why” is frequently a mystery, and the “because I told you to” coercion often leaves a bad taste.
So does all the judgement students must endure. Because there are many more ways to be wrong than right, when students’ work is assessed, they are frequently not thrilled by the result. That few of us welcome criticism or correction might explain why seventy-five percent of high school students recently surveyed reported negative feelings about school (new.yale.edu).
Those overwhelmed by negativity and resentment miss out. Disengaged, some retreat into the social distraction their smartphones provide and think little about what they feel, experience, or read means. They learn less, not more, and because their world narrows to themselves and their feelings, they may miss life’s jokes.
I once heard that learning to see the humor in things is education’s primary value. I’m tempted to agree. Grasping the humor in things depends on a kind of double vision, the ability to see things from two points of view at once. Puns rely on the double meanings of words. Irony and its ruder cousin, sarcasm, assume an audience able to understand that the intended meaning is the opposite of what the words seem to say.
“Getting” a joke relies on the same learned skepticism that places the reader or listener inside and outside a subject at the same time. That ability to view everything from a firm knowledge base and a questioning perspective is the essence of learning to think.
In fact, the habit of applying that same double vision to our daily lives may be education’s most vital lesson. Each of us is, after all, only one of billions on a small planet orbiting a small sun, itself only one of 200 billion trillion in an unimaginably vast universe (littlepassports.com). When we think of ourselves that way, we don’t run the risk of taking ourselves too seriously.
When we come to see ourselves from that humbling perspective, we will be truly educated.
Bill Robinson quoted above (not Bojangles, but a different BR) cleanly lays fault for our current discontents at the foot of the past 50 years of technology. Video games, violent movies, yadda yadda.
Nutso political behavior is not unique to our day. History is rife with it. We think today's political discord to be an aberration, in part because almost all of us grew up in times when we thought we had learned better. Our greatgrandparents ended slavery and established working democracy throughout the US (as far as we knew growing up); our grandpapas fought the war to end all wars, then our dads stamped out fascism and kept N. Korea at bay; we got past Cuba missiles, Viet Nam, and the Cold War. Freedom Summer led to the VRA and Civil Rights to end Jim Crow. So we thought, OK, we've turned the corner (Fukuyama did anyway), and now, now, the world is finally smart enough to not screw itself up for no reason.
We forgot. Screwing up things is what we (humans) do. So we need to keep on creating institutions that are designed to ameliorate that fact. We can't rest on our laurels. When we assume we have turned the corner on stupid, that's a sign that we are wrong. I'm not a pessimist or a control freak, but I know that humans as political animals will always be in conflict. So we need to be able to recognize and deal with the causes of that.
It's complicated.
In 1572, the events around St. Bartholomew's Day in France continue to provide an example of how fast we can become inhuman to one another, and feel good about our capacity for inhumanity. In the US, we don't think of it. But in Europe, anyone in charge remembers and fears the example. 1572 was yesterday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_massacre