The Funding Fight to Save Our Democracy

by Brian T. Lynch 

Total Money Raised So Far in the 2020 Presidential Race

WOW! Here is a pie chart showing how much Donald Trump (big blue slice) and all the Democratic Presidential Candidates raised so far this year. It is clear who the majority of corporate owners and billionaires are backing for President. They are backing the guy who is crazy enough to grant their every government policy wish.  CORRECTION: The billionaires and wealthy corporations are nearly divided between the two political parties. The right-leaning industrial billionaires still back the Republicans while the left-leaning tech billionaires are backing the Democrats. The result is a two-party system in which both parties are under the influence of a tiny fraction of the electorate.  Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his backers are mastering the art of collecting small donations from their base. To date, 61% of Trump's campaign contributions are from individuals giving $200 or less. The NY Times has an article worth reading regarding this shift in funding.

The extent to which corporations control state and federal governments is on the ballot this year, as it has been for 40 years. The difference this year is that there is so much more at stake. Will we finally step up to address climate change in the remaining years over which we can still have a window to effect a positive outcome? Will America continue to be a democratic republic or will we become a fascist-style authoritarian, single-party state? Will we restore our place as a global leader and shining example in the world, or will we become a bully and a pariah among nations? The answers very much depend on the degree to which our next President is not politically compromised or beholding to the ultra-wealthy minority. Our best hope for a bright future requires that citizens collectively out spend billionaires and make politicians financially dependent on us once again. 

On the Democratic side of this candidate funding war, Elizabeth Warren has brought in a whopping $17 million from small donors, 48% of her campaign funds. But Sanders is in a different league altogether among Democrats, collecting 60% — $28 million — from small donors. With his many Mainstreet donations, Sanders is the leading fundraiser among the Democratic field. [All pie chart and Democratic small-donor data are from a table and article in Opensecrets.org.]

Bernie Sanders proved we don't need big donors in 2016 and he is proving it again for 2020. We have been duped by the Democratic Party into believing we can't win elections without big donor money and corporate funding. In reality, this is the easy, lazy way to raise cash and the Democratic Party has been losing more elections than they have been winning ever since the Party fell under the influence of big money. And now Trump Republicans are taking a lesson from the 2016 Sanders campaign and going after small-donor contributions from their radical base.

The upcoming challenge after Democrats pick their candidate, as I see it, is whether he or she will be able to run a successful small-donor campaign. Or will the next candidate, and the Party, slink back into the arms of left-leaning corporate donors.  Will Democrats remain under the influence of the big corporation and continue to neglect the issues and need of the vast majority of its base? The latter course is the formula-for-failure that has mostly dogged the Democratic Party for several decades resulting in devastating losses in Congress and in governors races and statehouses across the country.

What this pie chart suggests is that regardless of who wins the nomination, if Democrats want to win the Presidency and an agenda that benefits the majority of citizens, they need to reject big donor money and aggressively engage voters in a grass-roots giving campaign. Democrats and left-leaning independents have to do their part to save our democracy by opening their wallets much wider than they have up to now. 

Jeffrey Epstein – Murder or Suicide? His Prison Psychiatrist May Hold the Key

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW 

Jeffrey Epstein was holding the bag for some of the most powerful billionaires and politicians in the world. He provided such men with underage girls upon which they could act on their pedophic sexual fantasies. For decades he got away with it, protected as he was by these rich and powerful men.

But his luck ran out when the voices of victimized women finally pricked the conscience of the nation and the world. Epstein was arrested and soon placed in the secure federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York to await trial. Would he name names and expose his clients? Would he take the fall and spend the rest of his life in prison for his despicable crimes? Or would he die and take his secrets to the grave?

Then on July 23, 2019, Epstein was found unconscious in his cell. Prison officials didn’t report it to the public until July 25th when they sent out an email. This is from the New York Times:

     “A week after being denied bail, Jeffrey E. Epstein was found unconscious in his cell on Tuesday at a federal jail in Manhattan with marks on his neck, and prison officials were investigating the incident as a possible suicide attempt, a law enforcement official who had been briefed on the matter said.”
     “Prison officials had not ruled out the possibility, however, that Mr. Epstein had been assaulted by another inmate or had staged the incident, a person with knowledge of the investigation said… Mr. Epstein’s injuries were not serious, the law enforcement official said… The Bureau of Prisons, in an email on Thursday morning, gave no details about the incident, citing “privacy and security reasons.”

Afterwards, Epstein was placed on suicide watch. By protocol, there was supposed to be another inmate in his cell, but he was alone. If he realized he was at risk, or was planning his suicide and wanted to make a jailhouse confession, he was denied that chance.

A subsequent mental health evaluation was conducted that determined Epstein was not a suicide risk. He was taken off of suicide watch, which means he was to be checked by guards every 30 minutes instead of every 10 minutes.

Then just 18 days after the first time he was found unconscious in his cell, Epstein was again found unconscious in his cell, but this time he was dead. It looked like he hanged himself.

Because Epstein was the most high-profile inmate in the United States, and because the Metropolitian Correction Center is directly under the control of the US Justice Department, the FBI were called in to investigate. It violates a prisoner’s privacy rights to have cameras in their cell, but there were two cameras outside of Epstein’s cell. They didn’t work and the guards who were supposed to check on Epstein both fell asleep. This is from Reuters:

“Two cameras that malfunctioned outside the jail cell where financier Jeffrey Epstein died as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges have been sent to an FBI crime lab for examination… The two cameras were within view of the Manhattan jail cell where he was found dead on Aug. 10. A source earlier told Reuters two jail guards failed to follow a procedure overnight to make separate checks on all prisoners every 30 minutes.”

While the FBI is focused on the camera, I’m focused on the psychiatrist whose evaluation said Epstein wasn’t a suicide risk. The shrink either:

1) got it right,
2) blew it big time, or
3) was complicit in some way.

If #1 above is true, Epstein’s first incident couldn’t have been a suicide attempt, but an assault and possibly a failed murder attempt. With all factors at play, the high-stakes involved and the fact that research shows a high rate of suicide for men facing such charges, erring on the side of caution to extend the suicide watch should have been an easy call. A competent psychiatrist determining that he wasn’t suicidal would be a courageous and confident finding that should have sent a message that the prisoner was possibly under external threats.

Which is why #2 is a big deal. If Epstein really did just try to kill himself just 18 days earlier, given all the other factors in this case, extending the suicide watch should have been a no-brained. You would have to be grossly incompetent to have determined he was no longer a suicide risk after such a short period of time since his last attempt, especially since he received no treatment.

That leaves #3, that the psychiatrist was in some way a part of an assassination conspiracy. Calling off the suicide watch protocol would be a necessary step if you were planning a homicide.

Only gross incompetence by the psychiatrist supports the whole suicide theory. It should be easy enough to look at the doctor’s assessment skills, history and conduct in this case. And if it turns out Jeffery Epstein really wasn’t suicidal, then murder is the only motive left to consider.

REMINDER: Political Parties Are Private Clubs, Not Democratic Institutions

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

A reminder that both political parties in the US are nothing more than networks of private clubs. Don't expect them to be keepers of the flam of democracy. They are NOT democratic institutions. They need not be responsible to live up to their own rules or charters. They are under no obligation to be fair or impartial.

Each state political party is an independent sister club, also private and under no legal obligation to the DNC, the DCCC, the RNC, etc. Unless you actually join the leadership in one of these state or national organizations, you are not technically members. You pay no dues. You don't have a vote on their internal affairs. You and I merely associate ourselves with them so that we can vote in their taxpayer-funded primary elections. Political parties see themselves as being in no way responsible to the voters or the courts.

In a transcript of a 2017 court filing in which Sanders supporters sued the DNC for violating the section of its charter that requires DNC-run elections to be “impartial” and “evenhanded,” DNC lawyers argue that the DNC has a right to pick candidates in back rooms. The attorneys claim the words ‘impartial’ and ‘evenhanded’—as used in the DNC Charter—can’t be interpreted by a court of law.

Keep this in mind as we continue to move forward in the current campaign season. If the DNC or RNC does anything that bothers you, consider sending campaign contributions directly to candidates that you feel you can support, even if they are in other states or districts. There is no democracy in America if voters have no say in the selection of candidates. There is no democracy when political parties control the outcomes of our primaries.

Political parties can only be held in check by the collective voices of the people. We must all be activists to assure that our will be done within political parties and within the halls of government. Democracy only works when we become physically involved with our voices, our pens, our presence, and our checkbooks.

_______________________
Further reading:

http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf

https://observer.com/2017/05/dnc-lawsuit-presidential-primaries-bernie-sanders-supporters/

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/08/reminder-dnc-lawyers-to-court-we-do-not-owe-voters-an-impartial-or-evenhanded-primary-election.html

Warren vs. Sanders is at the Core of Who Democrats Are

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

In an excellent article written by Benjamin Studebaker, he clarifies the significant distinctions between Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders. To do this, he also traces the ways that the Democratic Party has evolved over the past several decades. His description of that evolution is perfectly aligned with the recent findings of Thomas Picketty’s scientific study of voting data over the last fifty years. In essence, both Studebaker and Picketty find that the Democratic Party increasingly ignores the poor and working-class in service to the growing influence of the wealthy elite, who left-leaning on social issues but pro-corporate and conservative on fiscal issues.









                 Above: Graphic depictions from Studebaker's article. A similar graph shows Biden supporting both the professional class and the 1%. 

I will not attempt to summarize the Studebaker or Picketty articles further here. Instead, I have provided links to them below and encourage you to read them. I only offer here a few personal reaction from what they have to say.

For me, Studebaker’s article raised profound personal questions I hadn’t thought about, beginning with the question, whose interests do I want the Democratic Party to address? How inclusive am I really when it comes to getting the attention I want? When times are good, and I am comfortable with my prospects, it is easy to promote the welfare of those less fortunate. But when even those with considerably more resources than me are feeling squeezed by the economy, egalitarian notions start to fade.

All this raises the idea that if we don’t limit the attention directed at the poor and working-class, will we get less attention then we deserve? But then, isn’t this the very question that the wealthiest 1% of voters are asking? Is the self-interests of middle-class voters just as toxic to the poor and less fortunate?

These are questions everyone should be asking themselves. We should be searching our soul and asking who should the Democratic Party stand for if not for everyone? Listen carefully to what the Democratic Presidential candidates propose and who they are proposing it for. Are they speaking for everyone, or only for those in the professional class who are feeling the pinch?

For me, the answer always come back to my belief that we are all deserving. The Democratic Party, indeed the whole of all governments, should fairly represent everyone’s needs. No one should be excluded or ignored.

The Main Difference Between Warren and Sanders

by Benjamin Studebaker

https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2019/08/07/the-main-difference-between-warren-and-sanders/?fbclid=IwAR1wXTx3m7RXworl6dg7wjjSBu-g77ARFKwq5ElXTm3R5oh2pQhEGkVHc-Y

Data Analysis Shows a Dem Centrist Candidate Loses

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/06/americans-new-political-landscape-as.html

And this can be contrasted with an article posted here in February of 2016 about Bernie vs. Hillary in which the battle to define the heart of the Democratic Party was getting underway.

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2016/02/bernie-vs-hillary-clearest-distinction.html 

Image credit: https://dnyuz.com/2019/07/30/bernie-sanders-and-elizabeth-warren-take-on-all-comers/

Hidden Forces Behind Fascist Movements Here and Abroad

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Sweeden's war on global fascism is our war too. Some of you might dismiss me as a conspiracy nut when I write that Russians and our own right-wing media are attacking us every day. The article linked to here from the NY Times is illuminating on this subject and supports my observations. And yes... Russia really IS waging a vigorous global war on all Western nations. Donald Trump really IS enabling foreign attacks on U.S. citizens to further his own white nationalist goals.

The Russian goal is to destabilize Western democracies and turn them into fascist-crony capitalist states where super-billionaires like Putin, the richest man who ever lived, can make more money, control more people and destroy more lives for his personal pleasure. This isn't too far from President Trump's own desires.  It is perhaps why he holds Vladimir Putin in such high regard.

Destroying pluralism, establishing global white supremacy, and making the world safe for crony capitalism is also Steve Bannon's vision. He readily admits in his interviews that he wants to break us down so he can remake the world according to his liking. His ideas are aligned with the visions of many on the far right, including rogue billionaires such as Robert Mercer and the Kock brothers. And their visions are aligned with many of Senate and Congressional Republicans who want to control our country.

And so it is that the interests of the political far-right, Vladimir Putin's Russia, rogue international billionaires, and now wealthy totalitarian states like Saudi Arabia, have all converged. The separate interest groups may not be directly coordinating with each other, but they are aligned and working in tandem. The forces arrayed against us are both domestic and foreign, both civilian and military. The methods of attack are the used of wealth and power to take economic controls over national economies and public media domination to conduct military-grade psychological warfare augmented by high-tech, mind-altering media propaganda techniques. We are clearly under attack yet most of us refuse to admit it.

For many who have fallen victim to these attacks, to admit you have been attacked is to admit you have been gullible, vulnerable, and manipulated. It means admitting your ideas might not be entirely your own, that others may have been controlling how you feel about think. Who has the courage to admit to all that?

There are things we can do to take back and hold onto our heritage, our narrative, and our democracy, but first, we have to open our eyes to the global assault we are under. We have to look past partisan politics which is tossed like sand in our eyes so we don't see the big picture. We have to see ultra-partisan citizens as damaged victims in this global war and find ways to reach them. We have to unify and rally ourselves. We have to reject leaders who think we are still operating on the old political paradigms. But it must start by recognizing that we are at war. 

________________________

Picture Credit: NY Times:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/world/europe/sweden-immigration-nationalism.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Micro-targeting: How Personal Data Stolen From Facebook Helped Elect Donald Trump

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

In the spirit of "past as prologue", I offer this brief review of how the newest high-tech cyberwarfare techniques were successfully used by the Trump campaign in 2016 to win the electoral contest despite nearly three million fewer popular votes.

Imagine a world in which corporations, political organizations, billionaires, and hostile governments had the computing power, data storage capacity, personal information about you (think Facebook), and sophisticated computer algorithms to accurately predict your behavior. What if they could predict the behavior of every adult in the United States? Then imagine they could find you on social media by filtering the entire US adult population according to the specific personality characteristics they compiled on everyone. And after identifying you by your personality, imagine that they could flood your personal media accounts with specific messages and images designed to trigger your emotions, alter your opinions, or fundamentally change your social outlook without you catching on that this is happening to you.

This science-fiction horror scenario, reminiscent of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie years ago, isn’t science fiction. It is the real world in which we live today.

What the above scenario describes is “micro-targeting.” It is just one of the latest high-tech propaganda weapons manipulating our personal information against us. It was first unleashed in this country by Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 Presidential election campaign, but it was previously used by them in Great Britain during the Brexit campaign. It has also been used in numerous other foreign countries during their elections. It is a certainty that micro-targeting will play a much bigger role in the 2020 election cycle.

Cambridge Analytica was a British political consulting firm that combined data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication during the electoral processes here and abroad. Public scrutiny that followed them after their schemes were later uncovered force the company out of business, but their successful application of micro-targeting and other sophisticated propaganda tools triggered an arms race among big businesses and powerful interest groups to master these new technologies and apply them for both competitive advantages and political control.

There is a 2019 documentary currently available on Netflix that chronicles the story of Cambridge Analytica and how our personal data is being stolen from us and used against us. It’s called “The Great Hack,” and everyone should see it after reading this. There are also many other articles now about micro-targeting and other propaganda technologies being adopted by corporations and political consulting companies. My limited purpose here is to give a concrete example of how micro-targeting was used in the 2016 Presidential campaign.

In 2016 Cambridge Analytica stole the personal data of 50 million US Facebook users to create their giant database. They fed this data into very sophisticated AI-enhanced algorithms (mathematical computer programs) to create very accurate “biopsychosocial” personality profiles on every person from whom personal data was stolen. From these profiles, they were able to accurately identify adults in the United States who either didn’t have strong political opinions or were otherwise susceptible to having their minds changed. They called these people the “persuadables,” and there were many of them all across the country. In fact, there were too many to directly target each of them, but this isn’t necessary. We don’t elect presidents by the popular vote, but by electoral votes from individual states.

To understand how micro-targeting works, it is helpful to review how state election systems works. Every state divides its electorate into scores of smaller voting precincts or polling districts, each with a long public record of how precincts voted in the past. Presidential campaigns conduct extensive polling in every state district where their candidate has a historical possibility of winning. After analyzing the polling data in conjunction with historical voting trends, they are able to identify the voting precincts that they need to win in order to win the state’s electoral votes. Campaigns use this information to determine where to campaign, where to spend money on ads and where to build strong get-out-the-vote efforts.

Cambridge Analytica went further. They identified and targeted all the persuadables in every swing precinct in four swing states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Then they used social media networks and their knowledge of the personality profiles of each targeted person to bombard them with images and content designed specifically to get them to either vote for Donald Trump (and other Republican candidates down-ballot) or to feel so dispirited that they didn’t vote at all.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume there was a total of 24 swing precincts targeted in these four swing states. The number was probably more. Each precinct contained around 20,000 persuadable voters, according to the documentary report. That means at least 480,000 individuals were targeted by a personal media blitz to either vote for Donald Trump or be dissuaded from voting for Hillary Clinton. That’s just 480,000 voters out of 130 million.

An analysis of the 2016 election found that the results came down to the winners of the six swing states. Hillary Clinton won two of those states. Donald Trump won four of them, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, the same states targeted by Cambridge Analytica.

According to an analysis by the Washington Post:

 “Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania account for 46 electoral votes. If Clinton had won these states, she could have sealed the presidency with 274 total electoral votes… This election was effectively decided by 107,000 people in these three states. Trump won the popular vote there by that combined amount. That amounts to 0.09 percent of all votes cast in this election.”

Donald Trump unexpectedly won Michigan by a narrow margin of 0.23%. This stands as the narrowest margin of victory in Michigan's presidential election history. He unexpectedly won Wisconsin by a narrow margin of just 0.77 percent, becoming the first Republican candidate to win in Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes out of more than six million votes cast, a difference of 0.72 percent and the narrowest margin in a presidential election for that state in 176 years. Trump did better in Florida where he won a plurality with 1.2 percent of the vote.

So, did Cambridge Analytica play a key role in Donald Trump’s electoral victory? It seems conceivable, but they weren’t alone. Russian cyberattacks on our election also played a significant role in helping to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Did the Robert Mueller investigation cover micro-targeting of voters during the 2016 campaign? No. This election activity was not directly linked to Russian interference and so it was outside the scope of his investigation, although there is some evidence of a nexus between Russia and Cambridge Analytica involving the Brexit campaign. Also, Robert Mueller was not charged with investigating the actual impact of Russian interference in our election results. No one is investigating that issue. It is possible that the stealing of personal Facebook data was referred out elsewhere for criminal investigation, but we don’t know.

What we do know is that the American public is compromised by the massive collection and misuse of our personal data. We are vulnerable to psychosocial based manipulations that alter our behavior without our being aware that it is happening to us. We know that micro-targeting is now a major tool in corporate marketing, which may explain why the personal data collection and analysis industry has surpassed the oil industry as the most profitable business sector on earth. And we know that little is being done to protect our privacy rights, or our elections from weaponized propaganda, or to educate the public about the threats to which we are exposed every day. And we can all be very sure micro-targeting will be a prominent factor in the next election and every future election to come.



---------------------------------

Image credit: https://thehumornation.com/know-facebook-addiction/

Who Are We, America? And Who Will We Become After Trump?

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

For more than a generation the narratives, myths, legends and stories (culture) that bound us together as a nation were overpowered by media noise and corporate branding campaigns. Our culture became threadbare as many insurgent subgroups chipped away at our national mythology by inserting competing amendments and alterations to America's story in an effort to make us a more inclusive nation.

Millions of Americans became disoriented, disaffected and felt marginalized amid the morass of competing narratives, the vanishing clarity of who they are, and the unfulfilled promises of both political parties and corporate entities that are competing for power over our lives with increasingly loud and belligerent messaging.

Then along came Donald Trump with an entirely new American mythology, a new story about who we are. This has been a clarifying storyline that captures the imagination of those who no longer respond to America's traditional fictions. Donald Trump has created a new nation in the minds of millions who needed something and someone to believe in again. It is a story that defines America as an exceptional nation of exceptional people under siege by immigrants, racial groups, ethnic group, the gay community, and non-Christian religions.

Now we are at a crossroad in history. We can't go back to what wasn't working and can't abide by what Trump has created. We need a better, brighter, more radically different national narrative about who we are as a nation. We need a broadly shared vision of who we are that can make and keep better promises for us all.

A Practical Temporary Solution to Child Detention Camps

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Children are children no matter where they live. They are humanities precious future, and every country is ultimately obligated to secure the safety and welfare of every child under its jurisdiction regardless of citizenship status or how that child got there.

The Trump administration's unconstitutional policy of arresting and incarcerating asylum seekers coming into the United States from South and Central America has created a humanitarian crisis. This crisis is especially traumatic for children who become separated from their families because of their parents' criminal incarceration. Thousands of separated children are languishing in over-crowed holding areas under inhumane conditions. They are not receiving age-appropriate care or supervision while their incarcerated parents are being held in prison-like settings for months without judicial reviews of their asylum claims. These children need immediate relief, which the federal government is incapable of providing.

The obvious over-all solution is to follow the law and keep the families of asylum seekers intact at all times. We must stop arresting these parents for requesting asylum, which is an internationally protected human right. Until that happens, what can we do to end the immediate crisis for tender aged children whose parents are incarcerated, or in some cases already deported without their child? These children need immediate, but temporary home-based care. They need temporary caregivers who can hold them, comfort them and meet all their physical and emotional needs. They need frequent and ample visitation with their parents to maintain healthy emotional bonding. And they need to be permanently reunited with their parents as quickly as possible, even if their parents have already been deported without them. 

Just because an immigrant parent has been deported doesn't mean an unaccompanied child left here can't be returned to them or to another responsible relative in their country of origin.

I use to have to make these sorts of international arrangements in my career in a state child welfare agency. When a foreign-born child came into state custody, for whatever reasons, we would seek out parents or relatives here or in their home country. If the best or only option was a relative in a foreign country, we would work with the social service authorities in that country to arrange a safe return home.

These foreign countries in all had social service agencies who would work with us and conduct a home study of the parents or interested relatives, when located, to make sure we weren't returning the child to a dangerous situation, such as a child prostitute ring or whatever. Then we would arrange for the child to go back to live with the responsible relatives. Each case was reviewed by a judge before the child was returned to make sure we were doing our job.

If there were no safe or viable alternatives in here or in the country of origin, the child would remain here to be raised by foster parents, and hopefully, be adopted. All 50 states have similar policies, procedures and resources in place for this humane handling of unaccompanied minors, but the current federal authorities aren't utilizing (or supplementing) these well-established state resources to assist with the crisis at the border.

For just a fraction of the money, the federal government is currently spending to warehouse these children in horrendous conditions, the administration could distribute these children equitably across all 50 state child welfare agencies and provide sufficient funding per child to compensate the states for the additional staff and resources the states would need to build capacity to do the job they already do now so successfully.

Data Analysis Shows a Dem Centrist Candidate Loses

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Here’s a quick summary of how U.S. politics has evolved over the last 50 years, according to a massive analysis of exit polling data conducted by economist, Thomas Picketty.

The ultra-wealthy elites were always conservatives on the political right in the 20th Century. They were traditionally represented by the Republican Party. The lower economic classes were always progressives on the political left represented by the Democrats.

Massive income growth by the wealthiest citizens and changing patterns of wealth accumulation at the top of the scale created a new, high education/high wealth class of elites on the political left. Their power and special interests realigned the priorities of the Democratic Party and shifted focus away from those on the lower end of the economic scale. For over 20 years Democratic candidates for election barely ever mentioned America’s poor. This is especially true for America’s rural poor. With neither party representing the interests of the working class or the poor, these citizens became disaffected and radicalized against elites in both parties, and also against the federal government in general. This gave rise to the Tea Party movement. A vast swath of the Democratic base switched allegiance and became the radical Republican base we have today.

To attract and hold on to these radicalized low wealth/low education voters the industrialist elites have funded and vastly expanded the alt-right media machines to appeal to their radical base. They also pushed radical policies to appease and manipulate their new base. The Republican party today would not have enough members to be a national party if this shift had not taken place.

So, this is how United States politics stands nearly 20 years into the 21st Century. On the Right, we have a radicalized Republican Party comprised of the same ultra-wealthy industrialists at its core. But today they have created this subversive coalition of traditional conservatives and a pantheon of disaffected, low education/low wealth former Democrats. These voters at the lower half of the economic scale include a disparate collection of alt-media radicalized single-issue voters, fringe groups, hate groups, and the disaffected rural poor. All of these groups have otherwise unpopular goals, which the traditional party elites exploit by pushing a radical Republican agenda that is harmful to a majority of Americans, but not to their own bottom line.

On the left, we have a modulated Democratic Party unwilling to challenge the influence and power of the ultra-wealthy, left-leaning elites whose economic interests are best served by maintaining the status quo. The Party is no longer the champion of the poor and marginalized citizens that it once was. The party fauns over the “middle-class” (the upper 40% on the economic scale) in order to hang on to them while strategically ignoring the poor and working-class that once formed its base. Instead, it panders to its former base voters without actually pushing an agenda that would improve their lives.

It is for these reasons that Picketty draws the conclusion that a centrist Democratic candidate for President may be a losing strategy. A centrist who tries to thread the needle between ultra-wealthy elites on the left, and the poor and working classes at the base, will neither energize progressives at the bottom of the income scale nor win over the disaffected voters who have turned to the Republican Party to make themselves heard. It is against these new political realities that Democratic progressives must come to terms before it is too late.

Coup d'état – The Revolution Has Been Televised for Years

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

[AUTHORS NOTE: Since I first published this article in May of 2019, we had a Presidential election in which the losing President has yet to concede and a violent attempt to disrupt the election process to overthrow our democratic rule and reinstall Donald Trump into power. The long-planned coup is now in high gear and moving quickly, out in the open, to complete the violent coup attempt of January 6, 2020. Our republic is facing its greatest crisis since the Civil War. Now, this piece serves as a prologue to however this turns out. 11/23/2021]

The Party of Lincoln is gone. Forever gone. All that remains of it are a nostalgic band of loyal followers around the country who don’t accept its passing and don't see clearly what has taken its place.

Systematically, over time, and with stealth, the Republican Party officeholders have been replaced by a subversive cohort of politicians hostile to a pluralistic, democratic Republic in which they must share power with others who don’t look, think, or worship like them. Demographic changes over the years have expanded majority opinions to include more ethnic and racial minorities while shrinking the proportion of Eurocentric white voters. Additionally, income inequality has massively increased the power and influence of a tiny number of ultra-wealthy citizens who want a greater say in government. Consider that the top 0.1% own as much wealth as the bottom 90% of Americans yet represents just 238,000 voters compared to 214 million people of voting age in the bottom 90% group. These uber-wealthy citizens occupy a world of business in which they get one vote for each share of ownership, a style of corporate governance that they would happily apply to national governance. (see World Democracy and the Invisible Hand Opposing It)

Under these conditions, the industrialist elites have created a Republican Party that is a tightly wrapped coalition of wealthy special interest groups and a disparate collection of disaffected social interest groups with otherwise unpopular goals. Collectively, they are working towards a more autocratic system of government wherein their unpopular ideas can be imposed on the rest of us. (see The Rise of a Disloyal Opposition)

The bedrock of any democracy is the consent of minority interests to accept majority rule in exchange for personal liberty and protection under the law. It is this consent, to abide by the will of the people, that is breaking down in America.

The goal of these democracy thieves is to take down our Republic and replace it with what could be called a Neo-Republican authoritarian state, or permanent neo-republican control over the government. We have already seen how this works in several Republican-controlled states. An authoritarian, single-party federal government is the only way this coalition of the wealthy elite coupled up with disaffected white nationalists, Christian right fundamentalists, homophobes, and others can impose their will on Americans. Their long-range plans for this takeover have been fomenting for years in places such as the Federalist Society and other ultra-conservative think tanks. The broad outlines of their schemes can be seen in their recent attacks on popular democratic ideas.

When these Neo-Republicans recently controlled Congress and the Democrats controlled the Executive Branch, they grossly abused their Congressional oversite authority to disrupt the regular order of government. They blocked or attempted to block all legislative initiatives, even ones they had proposed themselves. They blocked all judicial nominations, especially, and most dramatically, to the Supreme Court. They filibustered every Democratic initiative so that we no longer had majority rule in Congress. When their own will was challenged by filibusters after they regained the majority in the Senate, they ended the filibuster for judicial nominations so they could have their way in making key appointments. They shut down the federal government on several occasions mostly to alienate the affections of the people towards this republic. They loudly pointed to this as proof our system of democratic government wasn't working.  They harassed the popularly elected President, Barak Obama, with endless investigations and obstreperous oversite, which they ruthlessly oppose when oversight is appropriately directed at the most lawless Chief Executive in modern times. 

State governments controlled by the Neo-Republicans have found ways to suppress the vote and game the election systems to keep themselves in power. They have drawn up unconstitutional Congressional districts that create safely Republican Congressional Districts for years to come. They passed unconstitutional anti-abortion laws and odorous social conservative legislation to prove their intentions to serve the wishes of the evangelical right and nationalist fringe groups whom they court and pander to for support. In some states, they have subverted democratic rule altogether and appointed emergency managers to take control of distressed cities and towns, usurping duly elected local governments. And in every GOP-controlled state, they have given tax dollars and tax breaks to every corporate interest.

After the Executive Branch came under the control of the Republican Party, with an assist from Russia, the Neo-Republicans ended all Congressional over-site while President Donald Trump has been taking a wrecking ball to our Republic and democratic institutions we so admired. He began installing himself as the first Supreme Executive while breaking every norm of the high office he holds.

Now with Democrats in control of the House of Representatives [May 2019], regular oversite is being restored. But Donald Trump, backed up by Congressional Neo-Republicans, is resisting any oversite activity whatsoever. He is challenging the House’s authority to hold him accountable in any way. He has refused to allow any of his Senior Executive Staff to respond to requests or Congressional subpoenas in his impeachment inquiry. He has refused to turn over any documents or cooperate in any way with Congressional oversight. Then on September 19th, in a federal court filing, Donald Trump, in effect, declared that he is above the law and untouchable by anyone.  When you step back to look at the big picture it becomes clear that we are experiencing a slow-motion coup d'état.

This takeover of our democratic government has been going on for some time. Consider how the Republicans have been blocking all Democratic Party candidates for federal judgeships while packing the Judiciary with their ideological judges when Republicans are in control. Consider how brazenly Mitch McConnell stonewalled President Obama’s pick to replace Justice Scalia for over a year in order to fill the vacancy with a Republican ideologue. He brags about how many young, highly partisan federal judges he has installed in the federal courts.

We have three separate co-equal branches of government. To take control you must control all three branches. At this moment in history, only the House of Representatives is beyond their control.

But there is also the question of the fourth estate, the news media. You can’t get away with taking over control of a government without also taking control of the messaging and public perceptions. Here is where the Republican coup actually got started, after Nixon's impeachment. For a whole generation now, the Neo-Republicans have been building a massive network of alt-right media with a high online presence and lots of toxic, anti-government content.

This alt-right network, the Republican "echo chamber" as Hillary Clinton first perceived it, is now working in parallel with Russian cyber-disinformation activities to continually misinform and arouse the alt-right political base that Neo-Republicans have been carefully cultivating over the years.

So, put it all together and what immerges is a new Republican Party grasping to control all of the levers of power in order to have their way. This new governing party doesn't want majority rule when that includes the votes and opinion of people they don't like; People who don't share their distorted Christian values. Our most trusted democratic institutions, such as the FBI, NSA, and the Justice Department, are under siege. They are beginning to crack. The status of the Judicial branch, and especially the Supreme Court to save our democracy is about to be severely tested, and the prospects of salvation from the Court seem murky at best.

Here is how the revolution stands. We have embattled civil servants trying courageously and disparately to hold on to our great democratic institutions and the rule of law. We have one-half of the legislative branch clinging on to our democracy. They are just beginning to understand the fight they are in. They are trying to right the ship of state without the support they were expecting from the Neo-Republicans in Congress. We have the fourth estate locked in a massive counter-informational battle with alt-right media and foreign powers. 

Faced with multiple Constitutional challenges we pin our hopes on a deeply divided judicial system and Supreme Court, hoping that just one conservative Justice will rise above politics to save our Republic. But more importantly, we must rely on ourselves to see more clearly the threats we are under and rise up in mass to preserve majority rule. We must identify and defeat the enemies of democracy, both foreign and domestic.  As Benjamin Franklin once warned us, we have a republic, "... if we can keep it."


Further reading: Rise of a Disloyal Opposition.
https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-rise-of-disloyal-opposition_29.html?m=1

------------------------------------------------
POSTSCRIPT: The slow-motion coup d'état described above turned quick and hot on January 6, 2021, when Donald Trump sent both his well-organized hate-group supporters and disorganized rally supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol building to disrupt the certification of the votes that elected Joseph Biden President. Democracy is held by a thread but the war has shifted from an outright insurrection to a covert insurgency being fought under the radar at the local district level. B.T.L. 3/7/21

Bold Democratic Leadership to Face the Perfect Storm

By Brian T. Lynch, MSW

The 2020 election cycle is unlike any other election cycle. The stakes are sky high. The outcome is critical to our survival as a country and as a species. Here are six points to help sort out the special challenges we face.

1. Reelecting Donald Trump is not an option. He must go. The sooner the better. He is not acting in the best interests of The United States. He isn’t protecting America from hostile foreign attacks against our democracy or our elections. He is directly dismantling our democratic institutions, destroying our alliances with friendly nations, and using his office for personal financial gain. He is fomenting hatred and divisiveness amongst us. He is not upholding the constitution or respecting the rule of law. He has assumed dictatorial powers and is encouraging lawlessness among civil servants to further his grip on power. He has led the Republican Party into dangerous territory in supporting him or remaining silent when they should be speaking out. We are all rightfully scared by the prospect of his winning reelection. Donald Trump MUST GO.

2. Electing any one of the twenty Democratic Presidential Candidates will be excellent for the country and for almost all of the usual issues about which we care, from health care, civil rights, gender equality, LGBT rights, women’s reproductive freedom, immigration reform, education, jobs, minimum wage increases and the economy in general. And any one of the Democratic candidates will also begin to undo the damage caused by our current President. Choosing a candidate based on the most frequently discussed issues (examples above) boils down to how each of us personally prioritizes those topics. Every one of these issues will likely show marked improvement under any of one of the Democratic nominees. So, choosing a candidate based solely on the current menu of issues under discussion, in my mind, creates a distinction without a difference within the larger scheme of what this country is facing.

3. The three biggest, most consequential issues not foremost on the political candidates’ menus, the most critical issues on which we must take urgent drastic action, are:

a.  CLIMATE CHANGE, 

b. EXCESSIVE CORPORATE BUSINESS INFLUENCE OVER CIVIL GOVERNMENTS  

c. DISINFORMATION WARFARE BY FOREIGN POWERS AND WEALTHY OLIGARCHS. 

These three issues are so big that they are difficult to see in their outline. They are also complex. They can’t be reduced to a bumper sticker. Worse still, they are interconnected; Enmeshed in such a way that we can’t resolve one without working on all three at the same time.

4. CLIMATE CHANGE right now is an immediate threat to our survival as a species on Earth. If you don’t feel that way, you are in the American majority. There are reasons why you are skeptical, yet the best science in the world is telling us that climate change is a direct, immediate threat to all life as we know it. The time to freak out about it is now, today. We have known what to do to avoid a climate crisis for the past 30 years, but we didn’t act. We have just 12 years left to take the radical steps that are now required in order to avoid the worst possible consequences. Had we acted 30 years ago our option would have been less radical and politically easier to achieve. In political terms, we have three Presidential elections cycles left to elect the aggressive leadership it will take to assure our grandchildren aren’t living on a hostile planet.

5. EXCESSIVE CORPORATE BUSINESS INFLUENCE OVER CIVIL GOVERNMENTS is the primary reason most Americans are climate change skeptics. Exxon/Mobil, for example, has known this day was coming for the past 30 years. Their own scientists told them how fossil fuels were disrupting global climate. They began designing their oil rigs to withstand higher seas and much stronger storms way back then. But they, along with other petrol-chemical companies, engaged in massive public disinformation campaigns to spread lies about the science of global warming. They have convinced millions of us that global warming is a hoax. They have acted in bad faith for decades, just as the tobacco industry did before them. They have used their excessive influence over the federal government, and our state governments, to prevent the enactment of reasonable laws and policies to alter our trajectory over the years. Yet this is just one very serious example of government corruption resulting from excessive corporate influence. The problem is much deeper and systemic. We citizens no longer have any significant influence over the enactment of any laws or regulations beneficial to us if it conflicts with corporate power. Further, our mainstream media itself is embedded in the corporate power structure to the effect that the information we consume, and the formation of opinions, are highly influenced by those who control corporate power. Top leadership in both political parties are compromised by the excessive influence of wealthy owners who exercise their control through corporate power.

6. DISINFORMATION WARFARE BY FOREIGN POWERS AND WEALTHY OLIGARCHS are the headlines we don't see, even at the release of the Mueller Report. We are under attack on many fronts in this information warfare against The United States. This war was openly declared by Russia and Vladimir Putin years ago, but we still aren’t paying attention. Most of us don’t understand this new type of warfare. We can’t recognize the many ways that we are under attack and don’t feel like victims when we buy into fake news content or engage with foreign military warriors on social media. The idea that we are being attacked every day by hostile foreign forces seems so bazaar to many of us that we buried the lead in the Mueller Report. RUSSIA influenced our election results and their “active measures” against us only increased after the election. Their goal is to divide us against ourselves in every way possible; To make us ungovernable and dysfunctional. They didn’t take Donald Trump’s side in the election because they liked him, but because he was the most disruptive, divisive, incompetent and offensive candidate in the race. They know how to groom and maintain his base supporters, and are doing so now, every day. They learned a great deal in the 2016 election about our electoral system on a very granular level. They hacked into the companies that write the software for our electronic voting machines. They have been given detailed GOP internal polling information. They know better than you or I which precincts are vulnerable to voter manipulation and voter suppression. And they know how to turn every difference of opinion within our public discourse into a raging, irreconcilable screaming match. They are actively radicalizing us all, on every side of every issue, and doing it with stealth and methods that make it hard for us to recognize we are being manipulated. Whether it’s Democrats discussing what to do next about the Mueller report or Methodists trying to find common ground on issues like gay marriage to hold the Church together, there are forces at work to divide us on every issue.

IN SUMMARY, this is what our country is facing. We need a candidate who is not only right on the many domestic issues frequently discussed in the media, but also a person who can lead Americans to take bold action on climate change, curb the excessive influence of big corporations on our governments and block the foreign disinformation attacks that are radicalizing our citizens. Under these extreme conditions, the candidates we perceive as the safest choice may not be the best choice. Tepid actions and half-measures won't do. Effective options to combat climate change at this late stage will directly threaten corporate power structures and the political divisions that every policy fight creates (on any issue) will be greatly amplified by a Russian cyber army that wants America to fail. The times call for bold leadership. It isn't clear to me, as of yet, that any of the Democratic candidates so far fully grasp this perfect storm that's coming.

You, Me and This Space Between Us

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

This is a story about why it is getting so hard to talk with each other. It’s an incomplete story of our media broadcast systems and why nearly everything seems contentious. It is a difficult topic for me to write about and may not be an easy topic to grasp. Nevertheless, we have to start somewhere because we need to understand this vast media ecosystem out here in cyber-space. Our preservation as a society depends on it. Keep in mind this is a basic account from a social worker perspective. It doesn’t include the multiple ways bad actors are manipulating our media systems for their own ends, or many other aspects.

Social media platforms, such as those at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, use sophisticated computer algorithms (complex mathematical formulas) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help manage and curate our internet experiences. Every time we engage with a social media platform we are silently consigned to marketing segments based on patterns created by our past internet activities. Every login, every search, every keystroke we make on the internet is personal data that is collected, stored and used to strengthen our emotional connections to their platform. This information gets stored in massive databases and is then analyzed using AI, a robotic intelligence, to identify how our user profiles differ from or are similar to, other people’s profiles.

On this basis we are placed in electronic silos and targeted by computer algorithms to receive the media content, messaging and advertising most likely to interest us and keep us engaged with these corporate media platforms. It is, after all, our presence and engagement on these platforms that is the product which media companies are selling to make a profit. We are their product.

This is a very profitable business model and it is in use across all media platforms, but the evidence is abundantly accumulating that this business model has unintended consequences for society. By design, these platforms increase our daily exposure to like-minded beliefs, a narrower band of information sources, and mono-cultural opinions. It surrounds us in a self-referential media cloud that discretely alters our perceptions and narrows are worldviews.

At the same time, it isolates us from a medial range of social beliefs, fact patterns and consensus opinions as a whole. We lose the comparative perspective of our place in society at large. We start to either over or underestimate our sense of being in the norm. And when we do engage with others of differing views, their perspectives seem alien and out of touch.

This increasingly common phenomenon is evidence of the social silos we occupy in a cyber world. It amounts to electronically generated barriers, no less potent in their impact than was geography, topography, and distance in the past. Those barriers, only recently breached, ultimately resulted in different races, languages, and cultures. Our electronic silos are capable of similar cultural evolution. Our common cultural underpinnings are already beginning to diverge. The perceptual difference being generated by our media universe are amplifying old social differences that previously existed with far less contrast. These growing differences are increasing the feelings of alienation and suspicion between different social groups. Moreover, the emotional triggering techniques that are used to increase our level of engagement with social media content have the effect of heightening our fears and suspicions towards others who appear to have polar opposite views. It is obvious that we are reaching the point where we can't rationally talk to each other.

The overall impact of our new media environment is that it is beginning to dissolve our underlying social cohesion. Our worldview is narrowing. Our patience with each other, our civility, and rationality in public discourse are declining. Our preferences and prejudices are being reinforced, fortified by this highly curated media content robotically presented to us based upon our ever-refined personal profiles.

How long before we don't recognize our national culture anymore? How long before we become democratically ungovernable? We have to open our eyes to the unintended consequences of this new and global media universe. We need to have this conversation.

___________________________________

Here is a link to a prior article on how Netflix is influencing culture: http://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-creepy-netflix-discovery-highlights.html

A Creepy Netflix Discovery Highlights What’s Wrong With Social Media Today

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

A young mixed-race couple from New Jersey has had a Netflix account for some years. When they sign-on to their account they see scores of movies and TV shows from which to choose, selections recommended to them based on their past viewing habits. The movie ratings on Netflix are either in the form of a five-star graphic or a percentage of a match to their viewing profile.

This pre-selected movie process, as is true for other social media platforms, is based on computer algorithms with some artificial intelligence (AI) enhancements to help the couple find movies similar to those they have enjoyed before. This AI self-learning routine continuously refines the algorithms to improve the match based on their viewing patterns. Exactly how the process works is a trade secret at Netflix, as it is with Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The effect, however, is an ever more carefully curated selection of movies sure to be to their liking.

When this couple took a short trip to Pennsylvania, they stayed at a hotel where the guy who had the room before them hadn’t signed-out of his Netflix account. The Netflix movie choices that came up on the screen were from his account and were not the same offerings. In fact, the couple was shocked to discover they didn’t recognize any of the movie titles at all. For one thing, nearly every movie had an entirely African-American cast. Most of these titles were rated four or five stars. While the couple sometimes watched movies with an African-American cast at home, they couldn’t understand why they had never seen any of these titles before?

Out of curiosity, they started searching this man’s account for the movies they normally see on their account. They did find them but discovered that the same highly rated movies they were watching at home had a low viewer rating on this strangers account.

Think about the implications here. Hollywood movies have an enormous impact on our culture. This couple believed that all the movies they were watching, with all the themes and storylines they contain, was the norm for Netflix views around the country. At the same time, the person who hadn’t logged out of his account probably believes the movies he is watching are what everyone else is watching as well.

Given how influential movies are in altering human culture, we have an example here of two families whose concept of America’s cultural norms are actually diverging over time. We can see that even the ratings assigned to movies on Netflix are not based on overall Netflix views, but rather on ratings within some AI computer-defined viewer segments.

This artificial segmentation of the population is happening everywhere, especially across social media platforms that have enormous cultural influence. Into how many different AI generated segments are we being corralled? To what extent is robotic intelligence enhanced algorithms selecting what we see, and thus altering our worldview. How is society being changed by self-learning machines designed to maximize profits without regard for our shared humanity?  How long before we don’t recognize a unifying American culture anymore?

It is the intent of those who design social media algorithms to continually increase the amount of time and attention we spend engaged within their media platforms. After all we, the participants, are the product they sell to the advertisers and businesses. Giving us even more of what we want or expect boosts our engagement time which improves their profits. But the AI computer-generated segmentation of society and the constantly narrowing framework of choices we are given are constructing electronic barriers between human communities just as effectively as geography, topography, and distances once separated societies in the past.

Those physical barriers in the past resulted in different races, languages, cultures, and ethnicities, but also generated all the suspicion, distrust, fear, and covetousness that plunges us into wars. In the modern era, we started breaking down not just the physical barriers, but we have been slowly transcending our differences as well. We have started to recognize our shared humanity, making us more tolerant of human differences, more understanding, and more pluralistic than ever before.

If this acceptance of our shared humanity is a good thing, if it is the direction towards which we all should aspire, then the profit imperative underlying social media algorithms is a direct threat to achieving that better world.

This year marks the 80th year since that last outbreak of global war. Terrorism, mass shootings, a rise in global nationalism and increased divisiveness within and among nations is an ominous sign that a shift has taken place. The role that social media is playing in this growing disunity is difficult to perceive, but it is nevertheless the means by which this shift is happening. We can no longer play a passive role in the design of social media platforms. We must take charge and redesign our social media ecosystems in order to preserve our shared humanity and break down the electronic barriers that are currently driving us apart.

_______________________________________________

For more on this topic see a prior post, Has Being Human Become a Problem? : http://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/02/has-being-human-become-problem.html

Has Being Human Become a Problem?

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

The lengthy subtitle of Douglas Rushkoff book, Team Human, says a lot about the corporate culture of our economy. It reads:

"Our Technologies, Markets, And Cultural Institutions - Once Forces For Human Connection And Expression - Now Isolate And Repress Us. It's Time To Remake Society Together, Not As Individual Players But As The Team We Actually Are."

The exponential growth of our capitalist driven economy and technologies cannot continue accelerating forever. We cannot grow our way out of the negative consequences that ever more rapidly expanding markets and technologies is creating in the first place. The arguments corporate and technology advocates for pushing forward on our current trajectory:

“...never acknowledge the outsourced slavery, toxic dumping, or Geo-political strife on which this same model depends. So, while we can pluck a reassuring statistic to support the notion that the world has grown less violent - such as decreasing probability of an American soldier dying on the battlefield - we also live with continual military conflict, terrorism, cyber-attacks, covert war, drone strikes, state-sanctioned rapes, and millions of refugees. Isn’t starving a people and destroying their topsoil, or imprisoning a nations young black men, a form of violence?” - Douglas Rushkoff, p115, 2019.

The blessings of our growth-obsessed capitalism are not equally shared at any scale of observation. And there is good cause to fear that the “… the blind pursuit of continued economic growth and technological progress [is not] consonant with the increase of human welfare.”

Yet, “…corporations press on, accelerating civilization under the false premise that because things are looking better for the wealthiest beneficiaries, they must be better for everyone. Progress is good, they say… The models would all work if only there weren’t people in the way.”

It has now come to pass that the true believers in capitalism in its current form, and its biggest beneficiaries, are seeking ways to circumvent the obstacles, barriers, and expenses that other humans represent. They seek,”… something [better] to do their bidding with greater intelligence and less empathy than humans.” They are turning to artificial intelligence to solve the human question. They are counting on robotic intelligent design to serve as an evolutionary force that allows machines to eventually replace the work that people do and continue to grow the economy and their profits.

The profit growth imperative is built into all the engines driving our commerce and the economy. In nature, the unchecked growth or expansion of anything leads to its demise. Even the entire universe winks out when its matter becomes is too distant to interact anymore. The inevitable transition to a sustainable economy, sustainable markets, and a sustainable world will not be easy. 

________________

For further context, see my next article on this subject: https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-creepy-netflix-discovery-highlights.html

A Call to Arms in Our Fight for Survival

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Polar ice caps are melting at a faster rate than predicted and massive ice shelves appear ready to collapse. Insects throughout the globe, so critical to the food web and plant pollination, are declining at a rate of 2.5% per year. Insect populations are on the verge of collapse, heralding Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring. The planet is being denuded of forests at a rate of 650,000 square miles per year. Nearly 20% of the oceans coral reefs have died. Coral reefs support 25% of all marine life on Earth and 90% of these important spawning grounds will be gone in 30 years. The number of ocean fish, marine birds and sea mammals shrunk by half between 1970 and 2012. Dozens of species of plants and animals are going extinct every single day, a rate of extinction that is thousands of time greater than normal.

The Earth as we know it is very ill. Many life-sustaining systems are starting to shut down, and the unsustainable rate of human consumption is the proximal cause.

This is the greatest challenge America faces in the 2020 election season. It is a global challenge, a national challenge, and ultimately a local and personal challenge as well. No one is untouched by it. No one is immune. If we don’t act boldly, and in concert with our neighbors, to curb our consumption and exploitation of natural resources, nature will act to radically reduce and possibly eliminate our species. The planet will go on and rebuild a new ecosystem, but the universe will have lost perhaps the only creatures capable of admiring creation.

It’s that time again to talk about electoral politics. Politicians in both parties are already positioning themselves to run President and a host of other elected positions. Leaders in both political party leaders and corporate media networks are creating the frameworks and parameters within which our choices must lie. Only candidates who can largely maintain the status quo will well-funded by the wealthy elite. Only the candidates who appear acceptable, electable, pragmatic, down-to-earth will win our support. Little will be said of our existential crisis because consumption equals profit.

Saving the planet will require massive upheavals for the worlds exploitive, extractive economies. I’m afraid that the actions required can only be disruptive to be effective. The steps we need to take will surely result in upending and redistributing global wealth and yet what choice do we really have? The time for tinkering around the margins is long past. Even the time for organized civil, peaceful actions is drawing to a close. We may not have many election cycles left to install all the bold, insightful leaders this world needed to avert disaster.

So who is radical enough to lead us? Who really recognizes what is at stake? Who is honest enough to admit that they are powerless to bring about the changes we need through their own skills and their electoral mandate alone? Who is best qualified to organize the millions and millions of civilian activists it will take to out-match the powerful entrenched interests that profit from business as usual.

There are so many things we must confront and change on a scale that ranges from global actions to personal choices, yet at every point we are blocked by self-serving special interests. This has to change. We have become the army of change in this fight for our survival.

Trump's Lies and Media Fact-checks Strengthen His Base

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

I have new insights (BELOW) into the world of Trump supporters after reading "Nothing on This Page is Real" in The Week magazine. For the last two years, a liberal blogger in Maine has been making up as many as a dozen absolutely fake news stories on his satirical website. The idea was to tease Trump supporter about their gullibleness in consuming fake news. For example, he made up that Michelle Obama and Chelsey Clinton were invited to a ceremony at the White House during which they flipped President Trump the bird behind his back during the National Anthem.

After the published fake account generates a torrent of outrage from right-wing media consumers, he updates the feed to inform his readers that his news story was a total fabrication, yet his conservative readers (up to six million per month) don't believe his confession. They continue in their outrage and continue to Trash Michelle and Chelsey for dishonoring the President.

[I am thinking that this may be partly because his stories get picked up by a virtual echo-chamber of other right-wing websites that republish the story uncritically.]

MY INSIGHT: So my insight is this. President Trump knows that all of his lies will be as gospel truth to his followers and all attempts by the mainstream media to fact-check him will only reinforce his lies. WOW!

Here is an audio-version of the article:

https://www.audible.in/pd/Nothing-on-This-Page-Is-Real-How-Lies-Become-Truth-in-Online-America-Audiobook/B07GNV131Q's :

Funding Records of Top Democratic Presidential Hopefulls

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

If we are going to make wise decisions about who will lead the country after this Donald Trump disaster we need to do more than judge candidates based on their public brand, gender, race or perceived personalities.

HERE is a starting place. Follow the money! This is a VoteSmart.org compilation of who has funded these candidates recently. This is their "dance card."

In no particular order, and without commentary, here are the current Democratic Presidential hopefuls and their funding sources.   Stop back again as new names surface as I will add them here.