Caitlin Johnstone: Unelected Officials Override The President To Continue Wars (But Only Kooks Believe In The Deep State)

Unelected Officials Override The President To Continue Wars (But Only Kooks Believe In The Deep State)

Outgoing US envoy to Syria James Jeffrey stated in a recent interview with Defense One that US officials have been “playing shell games” about the number of troops in the region to deceive the Trump administration into thinking there has been a military withdrawal. Here are some excerpts:

“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is “a lot more than” the two hundred troops Trump agreed to leave there in 2019.

…

“What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal,” Jeffrey said. “When the situation in northeast Syria had been fairly stable after we defeated ISIS, [Trump] was inclined to pull out. In each case, we then decided to come up with five better arguments for why we needed to stay. And we succeeded both times. That’s the story.”

…

Officially, Trump last year agreed to keep about 200 U.S. troops stationed in northeast Syria to “secure” oil fields held by the United States’ Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS. It is generally accepted that the actual number is now higher than that — anonymous officials put the number at about 900 today — but the precise figure is classified and remains unknown even, it appears, to members of Trump’s administration keen to end the so-called “forever wars.”

Some mass media propagandists find it hilarious that the US war machine used deceit to thwart the president’s attempts to withdraw from its illegal occupation of Syria:

https://twitter.com/LizSly/status/1327137565288378370

This would not be the first time that Jeffrey, a foreign policy insider with the past three presidential administrations, has admitted to deceiving the public about what’s happening in Syria. Earlier this year he admitted at a Hudson Institute video event (these Beltway insiders always get extra honest in the company of fellow think tank denizens) that, contrary to the official public narrative of the US military being in Syria to fight terrorism, it’s actually there to create “a quagmire for the Russians”.

This would also not be the first time we’ve heard reports of the US war machine hiding the facts from the elected commander-in-chief of the most powerful military force ever assembled. Last year The New York Times cited anonymous US officials in a report on cyber intrusion operations against the Russian government that the US military had deliberately kept Trump in the dark about.

“Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place ‘implants’ — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid,” NYT reports. “Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials.”

America's special envoy to Syria publicly admits that the continued illegal US military occupation of parts of the country isn't about fighting ISIS or other terrorists, as Washington claims. Instead the US aims to "make it a quagmire for the Russians."

https://twitter.com/jm_szuba/status/1260256224890826752?s=21 …

Jared Szuba@JM_Szuba

Asked why the American public should tolerate US involvement in Syria, Special Envoy James Jeffrey points out the small US footprint in the fight against ISIS. "This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."

 

Mainstream liberal US discourse has accomplished an amazing feat of Orwellian doublethink with regard to the notion that unelected power structures are running things without the consent of the nation’s official elected government. On the one hand there’s been a nonstop deluge of Daily Beast articles since Trump’s election saying anyone who dares to suggest the existence of a “deep state” in America is a conspiracy kook, but on the other hand there’s also been constant praise for the insider “adults in the room” who ensure from within the administration that Trump doesn’t demolish America’s precious norms while in office.

This cognitive two-step became even more reified after comments from the likes of Iraq war architect Bill Kristol tweeting that he’d “prefer the deep state to the Trump state”, and the famous anonymous New York Times op-ed authored by a “senior official in the Trump administration” (now known to have been former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor) saying administration officials are working together against Trump to “thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations”.

The understanding of a deep state in America has become even more obfuscated by the other side of America’s fake partisan divide, with Trump supporters now using that term to essentially mean “anyone who doesn’t like Donald Trump”. That erroneous understanding has now become so prevalently associated with the term “deep state” that it has lost all use in meaningful discourse and is better off being avoided altogether if you want to point at something real.

In reality the term deep state is meant to refer not to anyone who opposes Trump, nor to a secret cabal of baby-eating Satanists, but simply to the tendency among government agencies and plutocrats to form loose alliances with each other and collaborate toward common agendas. It’s a term used for political analysis to describe large-scale power agendas that are largely playing out right out in the open, hidden in plain sight.

It doesn’t take a ton of investigative reporting and WikiLeaks drops to understand that there’s been a collective of operatives mostly running the Trump administration while the actual elected president yells at the talking heads on Fox News and tweets. It’s also not hard to brush away the insubstantial narrative fluff and see that US policies have remained more or less unbroken regardless of which elected officials have been in office, and it doesn’t take a Nostradamus to predict that that will continue to be the case after Trump is replaced by the next empty husk in the White House.

The US government simply is not what Americans were taught it is in school, and it is not what they tell you it is in the news. It’s a mostly unelected power establishment which operates in the interests of imperialist expansionism and oligarchic control, with the official elected government operating sort of like the unplugged video game controller you hand your kid brother to keep him from whining for a chance to play.

All this fuss over who really won the election is missing the point. People are bickering over which oligarchic puppet should be sworn in on January 20th when all the evidence we’ve been given shows that nobody gets to become president if they inconvenience real power in any way, and if they do inconvenience real power they are simply ignored.

That is the direction we should all be looking. Not at who’s president, but why things stay the same no matter who’s president.

Autistic People Pathologized for Being More Moral

Autistic People Care Too Much, Research Says

https://neuroclastic.com/2020/11/07/autistic-people-care-too-much-research-says/ via @NeuroClastic

President Three-Year-Old Is Out, and President Demented Is In. Hurrah!

Diana Davison: Myths About Human Sexuality and Consent

In this video, Diana Davison discusses the question of what are true rape myths vs. what are rape-culture myths. "Our laws should not demand that human beings conduct themselves in ways not natural to human beings."

https://falseaccusations.ca/myths-about-human-sexuality-and-consent/

Please support the fight against false accusations with a donation to the Lighthouse Project!

Green Party of Philadelphia Statement on the Walter Wallace Shooting

Statement of the Green Party of Philadelphia concerning the police shooting of Walter Wallace, Jr. on October 26, 2020

We the Green Party of Philadelphia wish to express our deepest, warmest condolences to the family and friends of Walter Wallace Jr., another young Black man mercilessly gunned down by officers of the Philadelphia Police Department.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Philadelphia PD’s over reliance on lethal force and we unapologetically support the constitutionally protected right of protesters to rise up against yet another police murder. Despite the fervent efforts of Walter Wallace Jr.’s mother to calm her son, the whole world witnessed how Wallace Jr. was shot and killed in front of his mother, as she begged them not to shoot.

We are saddened to read that the police used such deadly force even though they had been to his home twice earlier that day, as he had a history of mental health challenges, which they should have been aware of. Additionally, we note that people facing a mental health challenge are 16 times more likely to be shot and killed in such a confrontation with police. Indeed, one of the questions among others is why police continue to be sent to contend with mental health situations.

Thus, in light of this history of deadly violence, not only do we demand a quick, yet thorough, and transparent investigation of this tragedy; but we also call yet again, along with so many others, for community control of the police. Community control over the police is a principle of democratic self-determination to end abusive practices. The community should have a direct say about who has the right to detain, arrest and use force. The community should have access to a process to help set policy, budgets, decisive action for misconduct, etc. The primary institution for this community control is an elected Civilian Police Control Board with subpoena power. We are proud to state we are the only party in this election year to call for community control of the police.

We call on communities to organize themselves to identify those mental health professionals who can be called in times of crisis, as opposed to the police. Additionally, we call on city leaders to make more of a priority, the fair and proper funding of resources in various communities, i.e., mental health services; substance abuse treatment programs; affordable housing; job training for living wage, union jobs; affordable, accessible child care; recreation and educational activities for youth, etc. Thisis where taxpayer revenues need to be going, and not for more—and bad—policing.

What happened Monday is just one more tragedy too many.

Sincerely,

The Green Party of Philadelphia

215-843-4256

gpop@gpop.org

Warner Brothers Is Being Fantastically Beastly to Johnny Depp

It's reported today that Warner Brothers has fired Johnny Depp from his role in the Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts. They are doing so because of Amber Heard's claims that he physically abused her during their relationship, in spite of a lack of physical evidence for these claims and despite evidence not only that she has faked evidence of abuse, but also that she was actually the aggressor in their relationship.

I have written WB today to let them know I won't be watching the movie unless they rehire Depp.

https://falseaccusations.ca/heres-the-audio-where-amber-heard-mocks-johnny-depp/

"Law Enforcement Is for the Braveheart, Not the Craven"

This video was shared by Olivia Faison, Green Party candidate for PA auditor general. Her comments follow. I would note that there's no reason to think the cop who shows how to do it right was able to do so because of her sex.

https://www.facebook.com/1682635196/videos/10215209751352091/?t=40

Law Enforcement Is a Job for the Brave, Not the Craven 

There is no doubt that the job of a police officer has potential life-threatening risks and dangers.  Unfortunately, part of their job is knowing that at any time, you could lose your life.  But the last I heard, this was a choice that people made freely, and that is to become LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers)/aka: cops.  No one asked, nor forced them to choose such a dangerous line of work.

Nonetheless, law enforcement is a choice that many courageous individuals happily make in order to serve the general public.  

Lately, police behavior has made it painfully obvious, and visibly clear, that they are afraid of some of the folks whom they are sworn to protect and serve.  In fact, when dealing with a disturbance that leads to the killing or death of black boys and men, these officers are always citing the fear of the threat of losing their own lives.  This seems to be the only reason necessary to justify the killing or murdering of mostly unarmed black men.  Sadly, it appears that they feel safe and secure, only after they have eliminated the source of their fright.

Not so with a female police officer in Arizona.  It’s funny how just about one month ago,  a lone female police officer was able to back away from a deranged man, who was not only brandishing a knife, but was aggressively approaching her with threats, taunts, curses, and screaming for her to shoot him and shouting how he was going to kill her.  Only when he ran towards her, shouting he was going to kill her, and rapidly closing the gap between them, did the female officer fire her gun one time to bring down her aggressor.  The entire incident was captured on video attached.  

One Facebook reader expressed that this guy was …“More disrespectful than Walter Wallace, more vulgar than Walter Wallace, more threatening than Walter Wallace, but this police officer, by herself, keeps her cool, lets off 1 shot and takes him down. Not 14 shots, not 5, but 1. She assessed the situation properly and took proper action. Heck she might have been too patient. Why couldn't the cops who shot Walter Wallace show contrition like this? Was it really necessary to shoot one person that many times? 2 cops, 14 shots, dead and gone vs 1 cop, 1 shot, down but alive. Makes no sense”. 

Supposedly trained in the many socially difficult encounters with the public, highly trained on firearms, martial arts and physical combat skills, the use of deadly force, armed to the teeth, and fortified with support and back-up units, and still, the craven law enforcement officers will panic, and will shoot to kill! Unbelievable!  

Clearly, people who quaver and react so violently in the presence of black skin, should not choose a career that fills them with such obvious fear and terror when they encounter one.  For clearly, the brandishing of a knife does not discombobulate all police officers, especially the lone female police officer in the video. The same cannot be said for the 2, 3, or however many police officers involved in the Philly shooting, or the many other police shootings of Blacks across the country.  It has become patently clear, and far too easy, for many of these men to hide their fears behind their badges, and then to rely on this status as a license to kill, and a power to take a precious life, that they have no right to take.    

Perhaps we should be utilizing many more female police officers with methods like the intrepid and intelligent LEO, who decided in a split second, that even though her own life was being threatened, she did not have the right to just take, and end someone else’s life, simply because she wore the badge that would have allowed her to justify that act.  She did not take the cowboy way out of “shooting first, and asking questions later”, (after someone lay dead).  

Bravo to her!  Police work in the 21st century is clearly a job for the intelligent Braveheart, not for the foolhardy craven! 

Quote of the Day: Wrong Questions

 "Mystery exists in the mind, not in reality....  Unanswerable questions do not mark places where magic enters the universe.  They mark places where your mind runs skew to reality." -- Eliezer Yudkowsky, "Wrong Questions"

This Despicable DA Would Rather Coerce a False Confession Than Admit a Wrongful Conviction

This information was shared by the Innocence Project.

Help free Ron after 30-year wrongful incarceration

https://www.mightycause.com/story/Ronjacobsen

Krystal and Saagar: Maddow, Lincoln Project Caught Being "Useful Idiots" For Iranian Propaganda Scheme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kDF-9UOiw

This reminds me of a rumor I heard once in junior high. I was told that on the last day of school, the scary Lex Street Gang was going to "come around and beat everybody up." I'd like to think I didn't need my high IQ to realize how ridiculous this was. I knew Lex Street wasn't in my neighborhood or anywhere close to it. So why would they single my school out to beat everybody up? For that matter, even if they did, how could they realistically beat up everyone at the school? And if they weren't singling my school out, it was even more ridiculous to think they could beat up everyone at every school in the city with its millions of inhabitants. So I paid no heed to the rumor, which needless to say didn't come true.

The suggestion that a group of modest size like the Proud Boys could realistically threaten every Democratic voter in the country should elicit the same kind of skepticism.

Mark A. Davis, Mental Health Advocate, Dies at 64

I've been participating in the Pink and Blues for the past few years, and will miss him.

https://epgn.com/2020/10/20/mark-a-davis-mental-health-advocate-dies-at-64/

Labor Notes: Unions Are Beginning to Talk About Staving Off a Possible Coup

https://labornotes.org/2020/10/unions-are-beginning-talk-about-staving-possible-coup

In addition to preparing for a possible general strike, let's hope unions are advising members of the advantages of voting in person for staving off even an attempt at a coup, as discussed here among other places: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a34124703/vote-in-person-trump-attacks-vote-by-mail/ If it's already apparent by the end of Election Day who's won, legal interference with the vote will be preempted. And, despite what the Esquire article says, the health risk isn't great for most people, as it's no different from spending a few minutes in a supermarket.

Upcoming Event: Root Roundtable

"Root Roundtable: A Talkback with RQ featured artist Nicole Michaud and an Ask-the-Editor Virtual Social Hour," Thursday, October 22, 2020, 8:00 PM-9:30 PM

I expect this will be just as stimulating as the magazine's content.

https://www.rootquarterly.com/new-events/2020/10/22/rq-update-and-talkback-with-nicole-michaud

Support the Election Fraud Protection Act!

The ends-justify-means attitude is all too common in electoral politics. An example: during the '88 campaign, a coworker told me how he witnessed a man filling out a voter registration form at a table set up by Democrats, in the course of which he mentioned that he thought he would be voting for Bush (that would be G.H.W.). After he'd left, the guy manning the table tore up his application.

Stop Ballot Harvesting Before it Threatens the 2020 Election | Opinion https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/stop-ballot-harvesting-before-it-threatens-the-2020-election-opinion/ar-BB19HXzr

Moralizers as Projectors

It's particularly ironic that these campaigners will describe BDSM as "culty" when it's they who deny submissives' agency and in effect invalidate their experience -- an example of Doctrine Over Person, part of Robert Lifton's eight-point description of ideological totalism. 

https://reprobatepress.com/2019/11/25/exploiting-the-dead/

"Pray for the ERA"

The requisite number of states have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, which would prohibit sex discrimination by government such as batterer intervention programs based on the anti-male "Duluth model." And its advocates have a strong case for finding the supposed 1982 ratification deadline illegal and unenforceable. SCOTUS may take up the question shortly.

"Please note that this is a non-denominational event, all faiths and belief systems are welcome – we use the word “pray” [precari-Latin] as it was originally defined: to ask earnestly; address a solemn request; or to wish or hope strongly for a particular outcome or situation." Of course the time isn't really 5pm PST/8pm EST; it's 5pm PDT/8pm EDT. Daylight Saving Time doesn't end until November 1.

"What if all conspiracy theories were actually true?"

A comics writer's personal journey toward openness to more diverse views inspired him to write what looks like a very interesting fictional approach to conspiracy theories and false memories.

What if all conspiracy theories were actually true? Department of Truth investigates in new Tynion and Simmonds title

https://www.gamesradar.com/what-if-all-conspiracy-theories-were-actually-true-department-of-truth-investigates-in-new-tynion-and-simmonds-title/

Krystal Ball: Can America SURVIVE Election Day?

Krystal Ball: Can America SURVIVE Election Day?

Krystal Ball fears catastrophe, as do many of us. The way to prevent it is not to let either Biden or Trump win the election. And the way to do that is to offer an alternative that appeals equally to those on the left and the right, so it's not seen as a spoiler -- an alternative that actually models collaboration, not polarization across ideological lines. That alternative is the #Unity2020 Presidential Plan to Save the Republic. Eight thousand of us have nominated Tulsi Gabbard and Dan Crenshaw to govern jointly if elected, regardless of who heads the ticket (to be determined later by chance). Now we need to build a groundswell to persuade them to run and persuade one of the third parties to substitute them for its currently nominated ticket. Get the details at www.articlesofunity.org.

PA Greens for Unity!

As it meets this weekend, the Green Party of Pennsylvania faces a momentous choice: how we participate in the upcoming national election so as to maximize our impact for electoral reform and opening political space for alternative voices, at a time when a growing segment of the population, in fact a big majority, feels increasingly alienated by the corporate duopoly and the rapidly intensifying factionalism that it's fostering, a factionalism that may break out into civil war on November 4 if either Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins on November 3.

We like to say that a Green vote is a vote against this duopoly. The problem is that, in the context of first-past-the-post voting and as a party clearly identified with the Left, we are in practice inevitably seen as objectively helping one side of this duopoly, the side that is generally feared most by the very people who are most aligned with our values.

For a few years I've been suggesting, perhaps not as aggressively as I should have, that we should make an end run around this problem by proposing a joint campaign with the Libertarians for a Presidential candidate who'd pledge to stay out of legislative issues and commit to scaling the office back to the purely administrative role the Framers intended for it, such as by ending undeclared wars and dismantling the surveillance state -- positions that appeal equally to the politically disaffected on both the Left and the Right, and which consequently wouldn't "spoil" the vote by helping one corporate party over the other. Now, a strategically similar plan has been issued by someone a bit less diffident than myself (public intellectual Bret Weinstein), and it's attracted thousands of followers: the Unity2020 Presidential Plan to Save the Republic.

The Unity2020 plan (at www.articlesofunity.org): build a popular movement to draft two highly competent, courageous patriots, one from the Left and one from the Right, who would run and pledge to govern jointly if elected regardless of who was President and who was Vice President, which would be decided by chance and reversed come reelection time. By doing so, they would directly model the consensus-seeking process that a healthy democracy requires -- a model desperately needed as an alternative to the mutual dehumanization the duopoly is promoting today at great risk to the national peace.

By Ranked Choice Voting, nearly 8000 Unity2020 supporters, myself included, voted online the other week for US Reps. Tulsi Gabbard and Dan Crenshaw as the pair we want to draft. Some notable characteristics of this pair: each is quite clearly identified with their ideological side of Congress, yet has shown they're able to work collaboratively with those on the other side rather than demonizing them. In fact, Gabbard and Crenshaw are personal friends. They actually embody the open-minded, cooperative practice that must become the norm once again if this country isn't to fall apart or degenerate into some kind of totalitarianism.

Because of the late date at which the Unity2020 plan was conceived in response to this rapidly escalating crisis -- it was publicly announced June 29 -- it was always understood that the ticket couldn't win ballot access on its own line. That's where the Greens come in. The organizers of Unity2020 are proposing that our party, the Libertarians, or both agree to withdraw our current nominees in favor of offering our ballot line to the Unity2020 ticket.

I understand that people will be reluctant to do this after having gone through our own nominating process already. And I personally like Howie Hawkins, particularly since, like me, he's identified as socialist since long before our party did. But we have a bigger responsibility than simply raising an ideological standard that we know will not get us into the White House this time. Our country needs us to think outside of the box and do something different, something that gives us a real shot at ousting the duopoly and getting an administration that would actually push for electoral reform -- as well as, by its very existence, show that alternatives to the status quo are possible.

I also understand that people will object that if our state party does this, we could be disaffiliated by the national party. And my answer to that is that it's a risk worth taking, because our status with the national party is far less important than pointing the way forward to what our party can do to help save and regenerate our democracy. We should be content to let history judge us.

Based on the above considerations, I formally propose that the Green Party of Pennsylvania publicly declare its intention to withdraw the Presidential ticket of Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker when and if the candidates nominated by Unity2020, Tulsi Gabbard and Daniel Crenshaw, state their willingness to run on our ballot line.

The #Unity2020 Ballot Access Plan

Bret Weinstein lays out the ballot access plan for the #Unity2020 Presidential ticket of Tulsi Gabbard and Dan Crenshaw. It's surprisingly similar to something I've been proposing for a few years: that Greens and Libertarians should unite behind a campaign centered on issues that can appeal to anti-establishment people on both the right and the left, such as ending undeclared wars and dismantling the surveillance state -- and, by appealing to people on both sides of the spectrum, get around the "spoiler" problem. Much as I like Howie Hawkins, I hope the Greens will take up Unity2020's proposal. It's our best shot at breaking the corporate duopoly's death grip on our political life.

Unity2020 Ballot Access Plan https://youtu.be/InphL6kz0ZE via @YouTube

Tell Twitter: Stop Stifling Our Voice!

T

witter is acting as cop for the two-party duopoly by censoring @ArticlesofUnity . I'm telling @jack what I think of this and I hope you will too!

Fake News, or Fake Fact-Checking?

At a meeting last Wednesday, a friend shared an image of a newspaper or magazine clipping with a picture of Donald Trump with his mother, and under the picture a caption quoting his mother saying, "Yes, he's an idiot with zero common sense, and no social skills, but he IS my son. I just hope he never gets into politics. He'd be a disaster."

Preparatory to sharing this, I figured people would like to know which publication it's from. So I did a Web search for "Mary Anne Trump" + "idiot." And what I got was a bunch of pages calling it fake news because they say the quote couldn't be found in any media searches.

Curiously, though, they all show a different meme from the one above -- something much more easily photoshopped, and therefore much more easily dismissed as fake. I was going to post that image below but, strangely, every time I try to do so I get an error message saying the file "must be an image or video," the first of which is exactly what it is. But you can see it here: https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2019/12/mary-anne-trump.png

Concerning searches for the quote, my friend remarks, "Well upon further review it is not likely a newspaper clipping. More likely a magazine. If they searched newspapers and didn’t find it they would get a false negative. To date it I would suggest it’s mid-80’s, a long time before real online archives that include both pictures AND captions. It’s not formatted like a pull quote so it probably wasn’t in the story."

If anyone reading this knows where the first image is from, please respond in the comments.

I'm voting now to confront a dual existential crisis. Join me?

This is an unprecedented situation: two exceptionally incompetent capitalist politicians competing to be head of what's increasingly looking like a failed state as a pandemic rages out of control and many think we're on the verge of civil war.


Unlike the previous one, there's no revolutionary class with the consciousness to give it a progressive resolution. The working class still doesn't even have our own party. Yet if socialists just continue operating as usual, following our customary symbolic electoral practices while waiting for that to happen, things could get much worse.


In this context, I'm supporting a different approach -- one that buys time for an ultimate socialist solution by avoiding the more immediate existential threat from a totally dysfunctional political system. I'm supporting Unity2020.


It's not a left campaign. It's more like an anti-corruption, pro-competence campaign. Its merit is that it may not only halt the course toward self-destruction we're currently on -- it may open up new possibilities by breaking the grip of the two capitalist parties and, by doing so, set an example that could finally make a workers' party look like a realistic idea to millions of people.


It avoids the spoiler problem by defining itself in terms of universal values instead of ideological or demographic checklists. So it draws support away from both capitalist parties equally rather than helping one of them over the other. This is already demonstrated by the composition of volunteers, who include as many conservatives as liberals or progressives. That's why I think it has a serious chance, this year. It may be a long shot, but it's more realistic than expecting that Howie Hawkins, or any left candidate, will be taking the Oath of Office next January.


Right now we're in the process of selecting a pair of candidates to draft from a shortlist of six, based on nominations (now closed) by the volunteers ourselves. I hope you'll go to https://articlesofunity.org and take a look at it. If you decide it's an idea that makes sense at this moment, you can become part of the process of selecting the ticket.

#Unity2020: Why I’m Leaving the Parties and Joining the People

Ryan McEnroe, a writer in Boston, gives this account of how he got involved in the Unity2020 Presidential Plan to Save the Republic, which I also support:

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but sometime in the last eight years I began to feel an intense fear whenever politics came up. I learned to studiously say nothing. I knew around certain family members not to mention that I agreed with President Obama on many issues. And if I said anything positive about a Republican, I knew I could be risking friendships or even my job.

As DNC backroom deals paved the way for Biden’s nomination just before Super Tuesday, it became clear that, as in 2016, I would again have to vote for the “lesser evil.” So I decided I’m not voting for President this year. I cannot vote for Trump but I cannot bring myself to vote for Biden. My vote won’t make a difference anyway. The corrupt parties always win. They can have the government, I will focus my efforts elsewhere. I give up.

Then about a month ago, I came across the website www.articlesofunity.org. It intrigued me. The idea is to try to bring the country together by joining one left-leaning and one right-leaning candidate on a ticket. Here’s the plan they came up with:

Nominate a ticket with two candidates that meet the following criteria: they must be courageous, they must be capable, and they must be patriotic. 
A coin flip will determine which candidate runs as President and which candidate runs as Vice President.
They must agree to work as a team, making all decisions together, wherever possible.
After four years, they switch roles, continuing until one has served twice and is ineligible to serve as President.

Just your simple every day plan to overthrow the corrupt two-party system and save the republic. They even have a failsafe to ensure that if it does not look like they can win, they will pull the plug and everyone can return to their corners. I had little confidence it could work, but I thought the website had at least earned my email address. 

Over the last month, I slowly became more involved. It started by listening to podcast episodes and Campfire discussions about Unity2020. Then I joined an online discussion forum consisting of thousands of Unity2020 volunteers. I have met hundreds of Unity2020 supporters in the last few weeks. Incredibly, these patriots come from all over the political spectrum, but we get together on Zoom calls and in chat rooms, put aside our differences, and work on a common goal: ensuring our next President is a patriotic functional adult that is not tainted by corruption. I learned that as of last week more than 30,000 people have provided their email address on www.articlesofunity.org. There are more of us than I thought, and that number is growing rapidly every day.

I’m still skeptical the plan can work. There are a million reasons not to try. I think the parties and the media want me focusing on those reasons. I have heard others describe a sort of “learned helplessness” we all feel, and I believe the media and the parties want us to feel it.

But there are also reasons to give it a try. I will finally be able to vote for a competent candidate that I can trust isn’t controlled by donors or the party. I will be able to hold my head up high when I exercise my sacred civic duty on November 3. Unity2020 has offered me a lifeboat, a way to avoid choosing between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

For the first time in eight years, I have been able to bring up politics with Republican family members, as well as Democratic friends and coworkers, without fear that I will be labeled an extremist or a monster. In fact, many of them have also been intrigued and signed up on www.articlesofunity.org. 

If you’re interested, check us out at www.articlesofunity.org. If you believe the future of the republic is at stake, which I do, let’s try to do better than Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

Human Life Before Profit! No In-Person Schooling!

From the World Socialist Web Site. It should be noted that not only are both ruling-class parties ignoring the science of how many deaths will result from premature reopening of schools and non-essential workplaces, they are also ignoring the growing evidence of major long-term health effects on those who "recover."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/05/pers-a05.html 

Honesty and Courage

“Honesty and courage alone can save our wounded, disunited country now. We need the honesty and courage to speak the truth including painful truths that unsettle not only our foes but also our friends and, most especially, ourselves.” – Robert P. George and @CornelWest @ArticlesOfUnity #Unity2020 www.articlesofunity.org

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ed3LF_jX0AIUrhm.jpg https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/15/opinion/unite-country-we-need-honesty-courage/

Student Faces Possible Suspension, Fine for Background of President Trump

Let's move to reverse the political polarization that leads to demonizing each other as in incidents like this by drafting a unity Presidential ticket so everyone can feel their perspective is being heard.

www.articlesofunity.org

#Unity2020

https://www.thefire.org/student-faces-possible-suspension-fine-for-zoom-background-of-president-trump/ via @TheFIREorg

Unity in Viewpoint Diversity

 

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." -- Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States

"It starts with listening." -- Cassie Jaye, documentary filmmaker https://articlesofunity.org #Unity2020

When Self-Defeating Is a Good Thing

 "His attempt to commit suicide by leaping from the bridge was defeated by the fact that he was an excellent swimmer." -- Steve Silberman, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, chapter 8, p. 32 of 37

Energizing!

This evening I completed the Scriptwriting Summer Intensive course offered by Scribe Video Center. Even though it's become apparent that putting my project in its finished form will take a lot more work that I'd anticipated, I'm feeling intellectually engaged and excited, not intimidated.

This is doubtless thanks to the fact that the instructor was supportive, giving personal attention to each student, and so were my classmates. And she'll be available for further consultations as I continue working on my project.

A Desiderata of Rationality

This essay is chock full of quotables.

https://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues/

Twelve Virtues of Rationality

The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance. If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer. The glory of glorious mystery is to be solved, after which it ceases to be mystery. Be wary of those who speak of being open-minded and modestly confess their ignorance. There is a time to confess your ignorance and a time to relinquish your ignorance.

The second virtue is relinquishment. P. C. Hodgell said: “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm. Evaluate your beliefs first and then arrive at your emotions. Let yourself say: “If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.” Beware lest you become attached to beliefs you may not want.

The third virtue is lightness. Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Beware lest you fight a rearguard retreat against the evidence, grudgingly conceding each foot of ground only when forced, feeling cheated. Surrender to the truth as quickly as you can. Do this the instant you realize what you are resisting; the instant you can see from which quarter the winds of evidence are blowing against you. Be faithless to your cause and betray it to a stronger enemy. If you regard evidence as a constraint and seek to free yourself, you sell yourself into the chains of your whims. For you cannot make a true map of a city by sitting in your bedroom with your eyes shut and drawing lines upon paper according to impulse. You must walk through the city and draw lines on paper that correspond to what you see. If, seeing the city unclearly, you think that you can shift a line just a little to the right, just a little to the left, according to your caprice, this is just the same mistake.

The fourth virtue is evenness. One who wishes to believe says, “Does the evidence permit me to believe?” One who wishes to disbelieve asks, “Does the evidence force me to believe?” Beware lest you place huge burdens of proof only on propositions you dislike, and then defend yourself by saying: “But it is good to be skeptical.” If you attend only to favorable evidence, picking and choosing from your gathered data, then the more data you gather, the less you know. If you are selective about which arguments you inspect for flaws, or how hard you inspect for flaws, then every flaw you learn how to detect makes you that much stupider. If you first write at the bottom of a sheet of paper, “And therefore, the sky is green!”, it does not matter what arguments you write above it afterward; the conclusion is already written, and it is already correct or already wrong. To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization. Intelligence, to be useful, must be used for something other than defeating itself. Listen to hypotheses as they plead their cases before you, but remember that you are not a hypothesis, you are the judge. Therefore do not seek to argue for one side or another, for if you knew your destination, you would already be there.

The fifth virtue is argument. Those who wish to fail must first prevent their friends from helping them. Those who smile wisely and say: “I will not argue” remove themselves from help, and withdraw from the communal effort. In argument strive for exact honesty, for the sake of others and also yourself: The part of yourself that distorts what you say to others also distorts your own thoughts. Do not believe you do others a favor if you accept their arguments; the favor is to you. Do not think that fairness to all sides means balancing yourself evenly between positions; truth is not handed out in equal portions before the start of a debate. You cannot move forward on factual questions by fighting with fists or insults. Seek a test that lets reality judge between you.

The sixth virtue is empiricism. The roots of knowledge are in observation and its fruit is prediction. What tree grows without roots? What tree nourishes us without fruit? If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? One says, “Yes it does, for it makes vibrations in the air.” Another says, “No it does not, for there is no auditory processing in any brain.” Though they argue, one saying “Yes”, and one saying “No”, the two do not anticipate any different experience of the forest. Do not ask which beliefs to profess, but which experiences to anticipate. Always know which difference of experience you argue about. Do not let the argument wander and become about something else, such as someone’s virtue as a rationalist. Jerry Cleaver said: “What does you in is not failure to apply some high-level, intricate, complicated technique. It’s overlooking the basics. Not keeping your eye on the ball.” Do not be blinded by words. When words are subtracted, anticipation remains.

The seventh virtue is simplicity. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Simplicity is virtuous in belief, design, planning, and justification. When you profess a huge belief with many details, each additional detail is another chance for the belief to be wrong. Each specification adds to your burden; if you can lighten your burden you must do so. There is no straw that lacks the power to break your back. Of artifacts it is said: The most reliable gear is the one that is designed out of the machine. Of plans: A tangled web breaks. A chain of a thousand links will arrive at a correct conclusion if every step is correct, but if one step is wrong it may carry you anywhere. In mathematics a mountain of good deeds cannot atone for a single sin. Therefore, be careful on every step.

The eighth virtue is humility. To be humble is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors. To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty. Who are most humble? Those who most skillfully prepare for the deepest and most catastrophic errors in their own beliefs and plans. Because this world contains many whose grasp of rationality is abysmal, beginning students of rationality win arguments and acquire an exaggerated view of their own abilities. But it is useless to be superior: Life is not graded on a curve. The best physicist in ancient Greece could not calculate the path of a falling apple. There is no guarantee that adequacy is possible given your hardest effort; therefore spare no thought for whether others are doing worse. If you compare yourself to others you will not see the biases that all humans share. To be human is to make ten thousand errors. No one in this world achieves perfection.

The ninth virtue is perfectionism. The more errors you correct in yourself, the more you notice. As your mind becomes more silent, you hear more noise. When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek advancement to the next level. If you tolerate the error rather than correcting it, you will not advance to the next level and you will not gain the skill to notice new errors. In every art, if you do not seek perfection you will halt before taking your first steps. If perfection is impossible that is no excuse for not trying. Hold yourself to the highest standard you can imagine, and look for one still higher. Do not be content with the answer that is almost right; seek one that is exactly right.

The tenth virtue is precision. One comes and says: The quantity is between 1 and 100. Another says: the quantity is between 40 and 50. If the quantity is 42 they are both correct, but the second prediction was more useful and exposed itself to a stricter test. What is true of one apple may not be true of another apple; thus more can be said about a single apple than about all the apples in the world. The narrowest statements slice deepest, the cutting edge of the blade. As with the map, so too with the art of mapmaking: The Way is a precise Art. Do not walk to the truth, but dance. On each and every step of that dance your foot comes down in exactly the right spot. Each piece of evidence shifts your beliefs by exactly the right amount, neither more nor less. What is exactly the right amount? To calculate this you must study probability theory. Even if you cannot do the math, knowing that the math exists tells you that the dance step is precise and has no room in it for your whims.

The eleventh virtue is scholarship. Study many sciences and absorb their power as your own. Each field that you consume makes you larger. If you swallow enough sciences the gaps between them will diminish and your knowledge will become a unified whole. If you are gluttonous you will become vaster than mountains. It is especially important to eat math and science which impinges upon rationality: Evolutionary psychology, heuristics and biases, social psychology, probability theory, decision theory. But these cannot be the only fields you study. The Art must have a purpose other than itself, or it collapses into infinite recursion.

Before these eleven virtues is a virtue which is nameless.

Miyamoto Musashi wrote, in The Book of Five Rings:

“The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. More than anything, you must be thinking of carrying your movement through to cutting him.”

Every step of your reasoning must cut through to the correct answer in the same movement. More than anything, you must think of carrying your map through to reflecting the territory.

If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety.

How can you improve your conception of rationality? Not by saying to yourself, “It is my duty to be rational.” By this you only enshrine your mistaken conception. Perhaps your conception of rationality is that it is rational to believe the words of the Great Teacher, and the Great Teacher says, “The sky is green,” and you look up at the sky and see blue. If you think: “It may look like the sky is blue, but rationality is to believe the words of the Great Teacher,” you lose a chance to discover your mistake.

Do not ask whether it is “the Way” to do this or that. Ask whether the sky is blue or green. If you speak overmuch of the Way you will not attain it.

You may try to name the highest principle with names such as “the map that reflects the territory” or “experience of success and failure” or “Bayesian decision theory”. But perhaps you describe incorrectly the nameless virtue. How will you discover your mistake? Not by comparing your description to itself, but by comparing it to that which you did not name.

If for many years you practice the techniques and submit yourself to strict constraints, it may be that you will glimpse the center. Then you will see how all techniques are one technique, and you will move correctly without feeling constrained. Musashi wrote: “When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. All this is the Way of the Void.”

These then are twelve virtues of rationality:

Curiosity, relinquishment, lightness, evenness, argument, empiricism, simplicity, humility, perfectionism, precision, scholarship, and the void.

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This document is ©2006 by Eliezer Yudkowsky and free under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License for copying and distribution, so long as the work is attributed and the text is unaltered.

Inadvertent Truth of the Day

"Personally, I believe that both democrats and republicans are needed to create a compromised democracy." -- Isabella Pacinelli

https://www.yourtango.com/2020335190/red-pilled-meaning

Sometimes a nonstandard usage conveys a truth that wasn't intended.

Petition to Philadelphia City Council: Permanent Housing for Philly's Homeless

                     

http://chng.it/L8Gykz47

Puerile "Satire"

https://trends.gab.com/item/5f10ded3012d34523d5d0acf

The lesson urged on conservatives here applies to progressives too, as I've discussed previously (https://stripey7.blogspot.com/2018/08/getting-real-about-scotus.html): you can't reliably predict how justices will decide cases. And even when you get a "win," it's not a durable win if it's based on a tortured interpretation of the law. Real progress on social issues requires winning in the court of public opinion, as reflected ultimately in legislation; trying to get by on litigation alone evokes reactance on the part of the unconvinced majority, creating a needless obstacle to progress. Indeed, I think this is one of the biggest reasons for the culture wars which have played such a major role in retarding the development of working-class consciousness in the US.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s2jf3RHtTyw

The First Amendment: It's Not Just for Conservatives

Val Wilde has posted an article on the Patheos Friendly Atheist blog titled "Wedding Photographer Sues For 'Artistic Freedom' to Deny Service to Gay Couples." Like many others, her habit of viewing everything through an identitarian lens prevents her grasping the First Amendment issues involved. I try to explain them in my comment, copied below.

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/07/03/wedding-photographer-sues-for-artistic-freedom-to-deny-service-to-gay-couples/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=BRSS&utm_campaign=Nonreligious&utm_content=361

Okay, so imagine I'm a photographer and I advertise that I do photographs of graduation ceremonies, including graduations from recovery programs. Now a young man comes to me and says, "I've almost completed this program my pastor recommended to me. In ten days I'll be graduating reparative therapy, freed from homosexuality through Christ, and I'd like to hire you to photograph the ceremony!"

I would feel absolutely entitled to say, "Sorry, you'll have to find someone else. I believe it's a dangerous delusion to think you can change your sexual orientation, and I'm not going to create art promoting the idea that you can."

Now suppose this man sues me, claiming I've discriminated against him based on his identity as a born-again Christian, since I'm willing to take graduation pictures for other people. I defend myself by saying I'm not discriminating against him, I'm discriminating against an idea I don't believe in. After all, I'm perfectly willing to photograph his graduation from other kinds of programs; and if a relative of his asked to commission me to photograph his "ex-gay" ceremony, I'd still refuse, even if the relative isn't born-again herself. So it's the idea I'm discriminating against, not the person.

In defending myself in this way, I'm asserting my First Amendment right to freedom from compelled speech, just as the photographer in this case is (even if he prefers to use the language of religious liberty).

To see this argument presented with more legal precision, read what the First Amendment Lawyers Association had to say about the Masterpiece Cakeshop case:

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/16-111-tsac-first-amendment-lawyers-association.pdf

My Most Interesting Lies

Someone on Quora asked, "What was your most convincing lie?" Here's the answer I gave (at https://www.quora.com/Whats-your-most-convincing-lie/answer/Eric-Hamell?prompt_topic_bio=1):

Strictly speaking, any lie that is believed is 100% convincing, so all successful lies are equally convincing. So the more interesting question would be, what's the lie I've told that's most impressive for having been believed?

Two stand out. In 2002, I decided to volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, which tries to help Palestinians survive the effects of occupation by providing nonviolent accompaniment as nationals of powerful states. It was suggested that when volunteers arrived in Israel, they should say they're tourists.  But since I'd never been interested in tourism, I doubted I'd be convincing if I said that.

To avoid raising suspicion, I had decided to bring only non-political reading matter on the trip. It so happened two books I'd purchased recently were on the subject of alleged paranormal phenomena, so I chose them to bring along. Prompted by something my landlord said when I told him this, I also made this my cover story: I had come to the country to do paranormal investigations.

I dressed the part by wearing every suitable button in my possession: Mr. Spock, Men in Black II, and The SETI League. While on the shuttle from the plane to Tel Aviv Airport, a young Israeli told me he agreed with my button. I asked which one and he said, "All of them." I smiled.

When I arrived in the building, sure enough I was approached and asked if I could answer a few questions. So I was taken into a room where two airport police asked me about my plans. It seemed like ten minutes but perhaps only felt that way because I was tense. I made sure to put the book I'd just started reading on a filing cabinet near my seat, with the binding facing the two men. I relished the irony of the title in this context: The Trickster and the Paranormal.

I clearly made them comfortable. Toward the end one of them asked if I could bend spoons. We both laughed as I said, "No, I thought that was what your people did!"

The other time was in 2010, when I was invited to attend a Meetup group's book discussion of Ayn Rand's novella _Anthem_. I'd joined this group online when all I knew was that it described itself as a philosophy club. I had subsequently figured out it was actually an arm of an Internet-based anarcho-capitalist cult called Freedomain Radio, whose leader is known for always trying to persuade followers that their families of origin are "toxic" and should be cut off ("de-FOOed").

Years earlier I'd taken an intellectual interest in Rand's ideas and had read some of her works, including _Anthem_. More recently I'd taken an interest in the ideas of Robert Jay Lifton, considered foundational for the cultic studies field, and it occurred to me that the society depicted in the book illustrates several parts of Lifton's eight-point description of ideological totalism. So I re-read it and composed a review of the book in these terms to present at the meeting. I made enough copies for all who'd RSVPed, plus one for myself to refer to during the discussion.

More than the number who'd RSVPed showed up, however. It was a good thing I'd held on to one copy of the review, because I recognized (from her name and picture on the group's Meetup page) one of those who arrived later as the daughter of one of the de-FOOed parents with whom I was acquainted. She was eager to learn "how to tell who's mind-controlled," and I eagerly gave her the review.

I didn't tell any actual lies at this meeting, but many half-truths. For instance, I truthfully related to Emily how I'd been involved in a socialist political cult in my adolescence. I just didn't mention the part about my still being a socialist. As the conversation splintered and drifted away from the book, it became increasingly indistinguishable from others I'd taken part in, like my atheist Meetup group, and my tension lessened as fitting in became less calculated.

Some months later I learned this local branch of the cult had been discontinued by its organizer. I couldn't tell whether my intervention had contributed to this development, but I like to think it may have, by providing the members with some psycho-education in a context where they weren't defensive since it didn't appear to be aimed at their group. On one subsequent occasion Emily very briefly dropped in on a monthly local meeting of the International Cultic Studies Association (where I'd met the de-FOOed parents) with a bunch of her friends to say hello to her mother; there was no indication whether she recognized me sitting at the same table.

Metro's Mystery Mongering

Wednesday's issue of Metro featured an interview with Giorgio Tsoukalos, described as "the leading expert and co-executive producer of the television series 'Ancient Aliens.'" I've written the following letter in response:

"I am dismayed by your uncritical interview with mystery monger Giorgio Tsoukalos in Wednesday's edition. The only reason he sees mysteries is that he doesn't bother to do any actual research, only reading books by other mystery mongers before visiting places.

"Concerning various ancient structures, he says 'many people do not know how they were built,' but as noted in the Wikipedia article on Puma Punku, 'Current understanding of this complex is limited due to its age, the lack of a written record, and the current deteriorated state of the structures due to treasure hunting, looting, stone mining for building stone and railroad ballast, and natural weathering.' In other words, if there's any mystery about these sites, it's the  result of human misdeeds, not alien intervention. And if 'you don't make sense of anything' when you visit them, it's only because, like Tsoukalos, you haven't bothered to learn what the real researchers -- scientists -- have already figured out.

"His lack of intellectual seriousness is revealed when he calls the Big Dipper 'a constellation that can hardly ever be seen.' Excuse me, but I've seen it countless times; it's one of the easiest ones to see. And he claims that various 'mysterious' sites are 'millions of kilometers apart.' A million kilometers is more than twice the distance from the Earth to the Moon, so enough said about that.

"Fundamentally, this kind of credulousness reflects a lack of faith in humanity and a childish wish for someone bigger to do things for us. That's the kind of attitude we have to overcome, if we as a species are to overcome the crises we face today."

The point about how the "ancient astronauts" quasi-religion is at odds with humanism was made to me by my father when, as an adolescent, I enthusiastically told him about what I'd read in Erich von Daniken's _Chariots of the Gods?_. I was initially put off by his reaction but later realized the truth of it.