Category: Politics

One of the saddest things about the crumbling of our larger journalistic institutions is that, when they fall, the majority of the American public will no longer be exposed to the basic set of facts on which conservative or liberal opinions should be based.

Indeed, it seems that there’s been an attack on the concept that there exists a common set of facts on which we can all agree.

Sorry for the short post. I could write much more on this whole topic but wanted to note this one meme that’s popping out at me, as I read about the New York Times’ hiding it’s opinion columnists behind a wall of money, or Daniel Okrent’s smokescreen on why he did his job as omsbudman for the NYT so poorly, or, of course, of course, the stupid acceptance of responsibility of Newsweek for violence that preceded their publishing of two-year-old information — while the White House calls for their heads.

I know. I usually post this stuff over at the political blog but this was less an analysis of the news, than a simple sinking feeling about the loss of a democratic republic over 200 years young.

Say an author in our great country, the US of A, writes a book about the “fact” that the color “green” doesn’t exist. Not only doesn’t it exist as a color in the spectrum of visible light, he insists, all the things that we assume are green, like grass, or frogs, simply don’t exist at all. The book is a complete denial of everything and anything “green”. The author presents a lot of data from selected sources, wraps it all in tons of anecdotes, writes in a breezy, chatty manner. It’s an entertaining read and some folk reading it take it as humor. But there are some readers who take it seriously.

Sales of the book start taking off, it starts appearing on best-seller lists, which the serious “non-greenians” point to as further validating their viewpoint. “See,” they say, “there’s been a supression of this knowledge for years. People are hungry for the truth about this so-called ‘color’, ‘green’.”

Because the non-greenians are becoming more popular, the media, always alert for entertaining controversies, takes notice. Several of the cable news channels book the author on their shows. Because this this ostensibly a science-related issue, they don’t book the author on the fluff talk shows, and they don’t simply interview him. No, see, there’s a dispute here over the existence of the color green; so they need to be balanced. They need to give the pro-green folks equal time. After all, the journalists don’t want to appear to be biased, and they don’t want to risk the ire of the “non-greenians”. Or, rather, they want to fan the ire of the non-greenians just enough to get them to watch. After that, they don’t care.

And, in fact, during his appearances, the author of the book points out that “non-greenian” is a derrogatory term. The people prefer to call themselves “truthians”, and what they practice is “truthful physics”. They don’t deny that others may claim there is this thing they call “green” but it simply isn’t so. The evidence is against them. The folks that are disputing his truthful physics haven’t even read his book! And, besides, all he’s after is a honest debate on the merits of his research. What could be more scientific than that? His critics attack him and ignore all the research he’s put into his study.

And so his critics are forced into defending themselves as being “open-minded” and of following proper scientific method, and generally presenting their “evidence” of something that, up until this author trotted out his “facts”, everyone simply assumed. Nobody questioned the existence of the color green, and if someone had raised that thought in a friendly discussion, most would have laughed and not given it any further thought. But because someone has written a book, and others have seen fit to publish the book, and the idea that others have purchased the book, and even others behind the scenes at major national news organizations have seen fit to not only give the author a public forum for his views but to have others on to “debate” him… Well, it seems impossible that all this would have happened if there wasn’t at least some merit to his idea, right?

It doesn’t matter who you put up against the “truth physicist” — an artist, a physicist, a cognitive psychologist, Hell, a child or an average Joe off the street. No one is able to argue against someone who calmly, reasonably, backed by public opinion and the power of authority granted by having passed through the various media filters in the publishing and television industries.

And if anyone dares to suggest that the idea is simply outrageous, that there’s no merit to the idea, that it doesn’t even bear repeating, well, that person can easily be accused of being closed-minded, that everyone is entitled to an opinion. The critic can easily be tarred with the ad hominem brush and dismissed.

It seems that there is no frame, no argument, that can counter an outrageous idea that’s presented with all the trappings of reasonable discussion. And the problem is that it is so very easy to give any idea those trappings. Our national media has become quite comfortable with the idea of false balance; get one person for, one person against, and let them have at each other. May the best idea win. Takes all the heat off the “journalists” — after all, they’re just giving people what they want. Let the people decide. It’s a compelling idea; consider it reality by consensus, arrived at via a process of elevation of selected concepts above the background noise.

Never mind that not all ideas are equal. Never mind that you can’t “balance” a truth with a lie. Never mind that the ones who complain the loudest about not getting a fair hearing are the ones who most abuse the system.

Something’s terribly wrong and not only will most people not acknowledge it, but, admit it:

at some point in reading this post you actually considered, even if for a moment, even if fleetingly, even if as a fancy, the idea that green doesn’t exist.

Didn’t you? Maybe not all of you but I’ll bet there were more than a few.

Not all ideas have merit. You can’t balance a true statement with a lie. Rational thinking is hard but it’s very much worth it.

Standing in line at the corporate coffee shop, waiting my turn, the barista was working ahead and asked me what I was going to order. I told him (soy chai latte, mmmmmm) which he proceeded to make for me. I still had to pay, though, and sipped it while the person ahead of me paid for their order. While I stood there, though, the barista, a tall shaved-head, goatee-sporting guy, spotted the blue wrist band I was wearing.

“Hey, that’s cool,” he said, “I had one of those, and I tried to wear it to work. But my boss said,” and here he adopted a mocking-authority voice, “‘that’s a political statement and we can’t have you wear that here, you might offend some people,’ blah, blah, blah.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve run into that before.” I was thinking of the time Caleb and I were handing out flyers for our political site and ran into this particular policy in corporate-owned stores. The funniest times were when the employee, obviously sympathetic to our cause, would tell us to set them out while they looked the other way, circumventing the policy.

“Yeah,” he mused, then suddenly came to a decision. “In fact, get out of here!” He waved his grease pencil at me.

“What?” I was confused. He seemed in cahoots with me one minute, then he was tossing me out?

“Yeah, I’m buying your drink. You’re one of the good guys!” he said, beaming. “Get out of here!”

Cool. Thanks, Mr. Barista! Your bosses get to hold back some of your pay and I get to enjoy a delicious soy chai. I’m pretty sure I came out ahead but don’t think I don’t appreciate it.

Thought about posting this on the political blog but decided it was just a bit too theoretical so I’ll post it here. Just some thoughts on the media and how that is different than journalism. A small point. This idea was cut from my not-yet-posted review of “All The President’s Men” because it’s already running pretty long.

It concerns how standards have slipped in what, exactly, constitutes a denial.

It’s something that struck me as I was reading Woodward and Bernstein’s account of how they went about investigating. They would talk to some sources, put together a story based on those sources, many of whom, because of the seriousness of what they were talking about, wanted to be anonymous. And rightfully so; the sources knew the stakes in the game they were playing, and a lot of them knew that they were accusing the most powerful men in the country, and possibly the world, of very damaging things.

And, in the course of reporting these things, the reporters would contact the accused person and ask for a statement, which they would include in the story. And, time and time again, after hearing the vague “statements” that the accused would offer, Woodward or Bernstein would conclude, “That’s not a denial” and then write into the story something like: “When asked for a statement, Mr. Accused did not deny the allegations”.

And it piqued my interest. Certainly what the text said sounded like a denial to me. So I had to figure out what was missing.

And what was missing from the non-denial denials was… facts. Something that could be checked out. Something, anything, that would directly counter the statements made.

Let me give you an example. Say there’s a reporter doing a story on me, and she’s dug up some source somewhere that claims that, during Labor Day weekend last year, I was in New Orleans with some redhead who was married to someone else. And the reporter, before printing this allegation, called me up to ask for a statement. After due consideration, I provide the following statement:

I did not travel to New Orleans, or anywhere, with a married woman.

Sounds like a denial, right? But what if I did spend Labor Day weekend with a woman? But we took separate planes? And it wasn’t in New Orleans? And she wasn’t really married, just dating someone, but it was kept secret from her boyfriend? My statement is true, as far as it goes, and it certainly sounds like a denial, I mean, it’s emphatic enough, but, see, it’s not, really.

In order to counter the allegations I need to provide some backup, not a qualified statement. I would want to provide some documentation, like a plane ticket to Las Vegas, perhaps. Maybe some witnesses, or a picture of me riding the roller-coaster at New York, New York, things like that. Of course, if those pictures or witnesses showed me with the woman in question, then I’m sunk. But that’s part of the problem; denials of the facts almost always have flaws. They don’t hold up.

Nowadays, however, the media simply accepts and prints the denials they receive from targets of their investigations without digging into the facts of the matter. They rarely follow up the request for a statement with more investigation. They just print the “he said/she said” and call it fair and balanced. Somewhere along the line, they’ve lost their courage to dig deeper.

And that’s part of the difference between journalism, and the media. Journalists dig; the media simply records and reports.

The loss is gianormous.

Had three appointments today with various professionals. One adversarial, two helpful.

The adversarial one was related to the trial back in November where I was called as a witness. You may recall that I thought I might have been harassed by the county lawyers. Today I was finally able (along with another coworker) to present my claim to them and see how they react. They, um, didn’t like it much. In fact they used the Nuremberg defense: “We were only doing our job.” I know, I know, it’s probably an unfair comparison, but I still believe that they put their desires to defend themselves and their schemes above their responsibility to their fellow employees and the rights of said employees (like, for example, me).

Basically: I didn’t want to talk to the lawyers for the defense, and they intimidated me into it relentlessly and by getting more managers involved.

Which leads to the scene in the meeting today where the head lawyer pages through a copy of my email exchange with her lieutenant and dismisses it as, “Frankly, I thought that you were a little less than clear in your communication.”

I’m pretty sure my eyes bugged out. “I was,” I said, enunciating each word separately, “less than clear?”

She may have snorted derisively. She did glance at me as if she thought my question was so far off the topic, it didn’t even merit a response.

I said, “I used the phrase ‘I decline to meet with you.’ How unclear can that be?”

She pretended I was speaking Japanese or something and continued not responding.

Incredulously, I continued. “I used that phrase five times!”

At which point she changed the subject.

When it became clear that we were not going to agree, the HR fluffer in attendance asked me what I had hoped to achieve.

I replied, “I wanted to challenge management on this issue and bring it to their attention.”

He smirked, and understated, “Well, I think you did that.”

We’ll see what happens. Probably nothing; county management seems constitutionally incapable of self-reflection and self-correction. They’re, y’know, always right and everything they do is on the side of the angels.

More local political news — my employer, Multnomah County, is still having problems. Intimidating managers seem to be the norm. Dr. Peter Davidson, the county’s highest-paid employee ($157,000 annually) was trying to keep his racial slurs out of the press. Unsucessfully. The Oregonian first reported last Thursday that an unnamed county employee was reporting that Dr. Davidson had been pressuring her to keep quiet.

The employee used the “I” word — intimdation.

She was named in a survey that the county performed earlier this year, where she claimed that Dr. Davidson referred to African-Americas as “mud people.” The report linked above showed that the good doctor was put on administrative leave when the employee made the complaint about intimidation, which seems like a good move — put him on leave, then launch an investigation.

But… why wasn’t that done back in 2002, when the first reports of his racial slurs were made? Instead, Chair Linn merely shuffled the org chart, and kept Davidson on as an employee of the county. A tactic, I can report as a county employee, that was also used regularly when complaints surfaced about other managers.

Which is apparently what they’re going to do about Jann Brown. Even though, technically speaking, Jann Brown doesn’t have any staff under her… she sent out a meeting request for a “staff meeting”. She’s even bringing in breakfast! Joy. Rather than substantially address the hostile environment that Ms. Brown created, county management is going to pretend nothing happened. They’ll spend taxpayer money to send these awful managers to “sensitivity training”, but meanwhile the staff that has to work with her sees that favoritism and intimidation and suppression of complaints results in promotions and continued employment. Which further sends the message to other managers that, hey, these kinds of poor management are A-OK, too, perpetuating the culture of fear at the county.

The six-figure award that a jury gave to Lea Lakeside-Scott in an amazingly-fast decision (the jury in that case deliberated for only 2 1/2 hours, which normally signals that the defense has won the case but should be seen by county management as a strong rebuke, above and beyond the punitive damages) is only seen by the higher-ups as the cost of doing business. They want to push to reduce the award, then pay Ms. Lakeside-Scott off and make it go away.

I don’t think this issue is going away, however.

As Mary Botkin, a representative for AFSCME (the union that many state and county employees belong to) said in another local case of racial discrimination (this one at the Oregon Department of Agriculture), “We wouldn’t tolerate this at Nike. Why do we tolerate it in state government?”

Update 26 January 2022: I can not find any current links to replace the ones originally in this post, sorry. Linkrot is real, y’all. – Brian M.

Work, America. Keep working. Your president and his staff of rich old white men require your hard work, your sweat, and the blood of your sons and daughters, in order for them to have more money and inflate their flaccid tiny pricks for another fucking. “Freedom” is on the march, they’re stealing your “democracy” and shipping it overseas, but you, the one with hopes and dreams, you just keep your head down, be fearful of the dark-skinned men in beards and the men who want to marry each other. Shuffle along, willingly put your head in the noose and just never ever ask any fucking questions. They know what they’re doing. And you don’t. You don’t know what they’re doing, because you love Jesus and you love America, you know, you read about this back in your state-run school, back when you did read, before all the flashy pictures of wife-swapping and explosions on the teevee distracted you, before they taught you to hate the smart people, you wouldn’t want to be a smart person, would you? Smart people don’t drink beer and have sex, no, their locked in their mom’s basement eating bag after bag of cheese-flavored crunchy snacks. Just keep fearing when they tell you to fear, just keep listening while they’ve switched your participation and citizenship with a glitzy blue-but-mostly-red map and talking heads telling you what to feel (not telling you what to think, no, ’cause thinking’s bad and, hell, even the president don’t think, does he? He just roots out terror and flips the bird at anyone who disagrees with him and marches his toy soldiers off to die for “liberty”.

Work, and sleep, and drink your hard-earned domestic beer and listen when your pastor lies to you about what Jesus says and fear, fear, fear what they want you to fear. And when the world attacks you because you’re an American, and your leaders call them “terrorists”, make sure and completely misunderstand both why they’re attacking and what America really has become.

Plato wrote about his utopian society and called it “Plato’s Republic”.

On a road trip years ago, my friend Caleb attempted to describe his dream society and we called it “Caleb’s Republic”.

With all the political activity lately, tensions heating up, I’ve turned some thought to my dream society and will be working on describing “Brian’s Republic”.

Just some quick notes, to bookmark the idea for myself later. These are woefully incomplete and probably naive, but, hey, ya gotta dream, right?

• Based in Libertarian principles of a government that restricts the absolute minimum of individual rights.
• Government is only necessary for defense of the nation, maintaining common infrastructure (transportation and communications), and adjudicating matters of law.
• Taxes are only paid by corporations and businesses — individual income is not taxed at all
• Corporations are not accorded equal rights with individuals! They are granted a charter by the government for a limited time and for a specific purpose and their charter expires and must be reviewed and renewed periodically.
• Citizenship is only granted upon reaching the age of majority and completing a term of civic service — military, administrative, or some other government function. Non-citizens have similar rights, but have no say in how the nation is governed.

There’s more I want to write about… but another time. One problem I’m having is trying to find a line between protection of common resources and preventing government from restricting the rights of property owners.