Goodbye to Dignity in the White House

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President Obama & the First Lady at the 2016 CBC Foundation Awards Dinner

President Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama at CBC Foundation Awards Dinner

It's a daunting prospect, four long years without an American president and first lady who have been a joy in every way and a constant reminder of the true nature of integrity, dignity, compassion, understanding, courage, sanity, coherence, brilliance of mind.

First Lady Michelle Obama spoke to OprahWinfrey in June this year about the next generation of women. When Oprah asked what single piece of advice she could give to young women, Michelle Obama's response, and she included young men, was that "We can never be complacent... The work always continues…We have seen in recent times how quickly things get taken away from us if we aren't vigilant."

Indeed. And that was in June. From then on the nightmare has just gotten darker and darker, as every decent human value has been assaulted by Trump and his cohorts.

Do we even know how to be vigilant enough anymore? Did we ever? Conservatives are very good at vigilance because they're often driven by anger and fear, which are the most powerful motivators to action. Liberals aren't so good at the kind of vigilance that's necessary to stop sociopaths from getting into power. Too often they try to see the best in everybody, which is good as an overarching philosophy, but not if it blinds you to the reality of what people's anger and fear will drive them to. And it's not much of a motivator. Let's all try to get along. If somebody is abusing your child, do you try to get along with them?

Don't sweat the small stuff. People say it a lot, but the small stuff is the early warning signal, it's the hairline crack. Small cracks never go away, they always widen, and if you catch them early, not much damage is done. The more you ignore them, the less sensitive you become to them until you only wake up when your house has collapsed.

Throughout the lead-up to the election, every intelligent person and journalist with a conscience and the capacity to separate media-driven hysteria and fake news from reality was shouting warnings about Trump. But it was too little too late.

Where has everybody been during Obama's terms, where the GOP has done everything it could to obstruct him and not do its job? Where was the liberal media outrage at Obama's unpopularity when he was doing a sterling job despite the obstructions? Where was our outrage at the vicious racism that was directed at him and the First Lady and at the up-swelling of racism and white fear of losing status quo that led to a burgeoning of white supremacist groups?

That's not where it all started, but it's where it could have been stopped. The GOP got away with not doing its job. It got away with the gerrymandering, with targeting minority voters, making it harder for them to vote. Those were some pretty sizable cracks.

It was small step from there to a candidate who would campaign on enabling hatred and assault on human decency in every aspect and encourage Russian interference in a presidential election and was too stupid to understand how that would imperil American democracy. A small step to millions believing fake news and to the main social media platform through which it was disseminated not identifying it until it was too late. The mainstream media didn't identify it either. From there it was easy for an FBI director to 'innocently' release a statement that would sway the election and hand it to a sociopath.  

Yesterday, apropos apparently of Putin's speech to his military leadership that Russia needed to upgrade its nuclear capacity allegedly so that it could penetrate sophisticated defense systems, Trump tweeted that the US needs to increase its nuclear capacity until people come to their senses about nukes. When I saw the news last night my blood ran cold. So best buddies Putin and Trump are in stand-off already.

Two out-of-control narcissists, hungry for control and desperate for affirmation, and both with the power to set off another world war. The alarming thing is that Putin is a terrible man but he's intelligent. The same can't be said of Trump, who is frighteningly gullible and manipulable. 

This is what happens when an over-enabled cheat, obsessive liar, a racist, a sexist and a bigot with an over-sized ego is elected with the help of a partisan FBI director and Russian intervention.

From the Obama Administration to this. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Vigilance; we need to upgrade our idea of what it entails. I've seen a huge outpouring of frustration on Twitter and Facebook from people who were vigilant, and who did speak their mind, over and over. Who turned out for the vote. But it was too little too late. Even as a non US citizen, I could have done more. A whole lot more.

Because this isn't just America's problem. It affects all of us. The racist bigot who is about to take over the White House has enabled white supremacy in the US, which has a ripple effect around the world. He will happily screw up international trade agreements and relationships and create massive uncertainty in the global economy. It would thrill him to increase nuclear capacity and give the order to bomb the shit out of a country at three in the morning because somebody in that country told the truth about him, or because he read something on a fake news site, or because he realized that the hair he has left is thin and straggly.

Before the election, I went to a lecture given in Cape Town by a visiting US professor, a passionate Democrat, unequivocally damning of the GOP and Trump. He said that up until recently his only involvement in politics has been to vote, but it's not enough anymore. It's not enough for any of us.

How did America go from the best to the worst? While we were sleeping. We thought we were awake but we were dreaming. Now we've woken up to a nightmare. What's left to do?

#goodtrouble

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) November 11, 2016

Dark Days As US Democracy Sinks Into The Swamp

Photo and Art by Jennifer Stewart

It’s nearly a month since the world feel apart for me and millions like me in a presidential election of allegedly the greatest democracy on earth.

Where the odds stacked against Hillary Clinton went from massive double standards, Russian interference and Julian Assange  gimmicks— is there any difference? — to an FBI director, to fake news, to a populace that sucks up any misinformation so long as it creates a justification for their bigotry, sexism, racism, you name it, to GOP policies skewed towards disenfranchising minorities.

In hindsight, it seems clear that Clinton never stood a chance of winning playing by the rules. Although those recounts are happening...

Every day I read of new travesties, and watch how the liberal media also sinks deeper and deeper into the swamp, either selectively reporting or flat out misconstruing what’s been said by the president-elect and his crew. Normalizing him and them in ways that make a mockery of the word liberal.

Every day I scour that media, desperately searching for the clarion call, for the voice of pure outrage. I seldom find it.

I think we’ve been here before. How long did it take the liberal media to get off the fence and take a stand to unequivocally endorse Hillary Clinton? I and I presume all NYT subscribers received an email asking what we wanted to read. My response was that I wanted to see unequivocal condemnation of Trump and for the NYT to be the leader in it. I presume I was one of many, because the NYT gave us what we wanted. Too late to be the leader of the liberal media, though. And it was too little too late to save the election.

Then as soon as the election results were called, Hillary Clinton disappeared off everybody’s radar and every single damn headline was about the president-elect. But was it, is it, real investigative reporting? Not all of it, no. Some of it was bland comment often, or writing about him as if he was a normal human being, or taking what he or one of his right wing minions said out of context.

It’s all very civilized. The excuse I hear everywhere is that the liberal media is facing extinction and can’t afford real investigative journalism.

I don’t buy it. Real investigation into what was wrong with this election, passionate reporting and continued unequivocal condemnation of Trump would draw readers, including Trump supporters.

Because it’s dramatic and that’s what people lust for. Charles M. Blow, NYT columnist, dashed off a piece in response to Trump’s meeting with the NYT, entitled “No Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along”. It’s outright condemnatory of Trump and received 2310 comments, which collectively got about 80,000 likes.

Every waking moment I have to fight against a wave of helplessness and hopelessness that washes over me as the US moves inexorably towards a government characterized by the worst in humanity, led back to pre Civil Rights Movement days by a con-man who has the animal instincts of a serial predator but no real intelligence, no intellectual capacity.

A fool utterly devoid of ethic. So pathetically needy that anybody can suck up to him and he’ll give them a position of power.

These are dark days.

Hillary Clinton Campaign Stays Steady In The Comey-Induced Firestorm

When I saw the news about Comey's letter the other night and the glee with which anchors descended on it like starving vultures, I switched off the TV and turned to Twitter where I found expression of outrage that Comey would say so much and yet so little so soon before a presidential election in a climate where millions have been whipped up into a frenzy of paranoia by innuendo and misinformation.

It's where I learned from the New Yorker that Comey was advised doing anything that could influence the election.

'Traditionally, the Justice Department has advised prosecutors and law enforcement to avoid any appearance of meddling in the outcome of elections, even if it means holding off on pressing cases. One former senior official recalled that Janet Reno, the Attorney General under Bill Clinton, “completely shut down” the prosecution of a politically sensitive criminal target prior to an election. “She was adamant—anything that could influence the election had to go dark,” the former official said. 

Four years ago, then Attorney General Eric Holder formalized this practice in a memo to all Justice Department employees. The memo warned that, when handling political cases, officials “must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality, and nonpartisanship.” To guard against unfair conduct, Holder wrote, employees facing questions about “the timing of charges or overt investigative steps near the time of a primary or general election” should consult with the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division.'

A tweet from Paul Krugman (always an excellent source of sanity) said it all:

The Washington Post printed "Justice officials warned FBI that Comey’s decision to update Congress was not consistent withdepartment policy":

'Justice officials reminded the FBI of the department’s position “that we don’t comment on an ongoing investigation. And we don’t take steps that will be viewed as influencing an election,” said one Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the high-level conversations. “Director Comey understood our position. He heard it from Justice leadership,” the official said. “It was conveyed to the FBI, and Comey made an independent decision to alert the Hill. He is operating independently of the Justice Department. And he knows it.”' 

A lot has been said about Comey trying to get ahead of a potential disaster. None of it amounts to a hill of beans. Whatever his motives were, he's not a stupid man and he knew what impact his actions would have. If, by some miracle, he'd somehow been oblivious, he was warned and advised not to act. He should be formally charged with interfering with a presidential election. And he should resign.

The hosts and anchors will hold onto this for as long as they can, twisting it all into another giant condemnation of Hillary Clinton, under the guise of "informing". Influencing the weak-minded, pandering to their lust for drama, assaulting the strong-minded.

But as she always has, Hillary Clinton will remain an example to us all; steady and strong, undeterred, a brilliant role model—as Barack and Michelle Obama have been for the past eight years—for anybody who struggles under the weight of persecution and the kind of double standards she's dealt with. The more this kind of hysteria happens the more I admire her, what she stands for, the way she's conducted this campaign, the people of towering integrity she's drawn towards her from all walks of life.

She brings people together, she stands up to bullies, she has never become bitter. She can still light up a room with her smile and her campaign is still about love.

It's been getting clearer and clearer since Barack Obama was elected, that there is a monumental fight in America between the sane and the sociopathic, between intelligence and tabloid mentality, between wisdom and recklessness, between everything that's decent, good, inclusive and generous and everything that's mean-spirited and bigoted. That fight has come to a head.

The noise made by the tabloid-mentality press and anchors' and hosts' frenzied attempts to whip up hysteria, and create dark drama and catastrophe where there is none is alarming. It's an assault on the senses and on the mind and spirit. But the challenge is to remember that although it casts a dark shadow over reality, it doesn't change it and the reality is that Hillary Clinton is a tremendous woman, she isn't and has never been a criminal or anything closely resembling one, she's never been reckless in public office, millions and millions like, love and admire her.

She's winning, because of who she is and what she represents, not because she's bent people's minds into paranoia. And the more she's needlessly and senselessly targeted, the more impassioned, committed and determined Democrats become. 

Google's New Search Tools Invade Your Privacy Even More

Once again Google has been working hard to do us all a favor – this time to save us the time and energy of thinking for ourselves. They’ve introduced new search tools, which, when you ask a question, predict what your next question will be and give you the answer to that too. They already do it, but they've refined it now. None of this of course allows for any original thinking and is predicated on the assumption that we’re all the same.

So Jack, who lives in LA, has a wife and two children, is an upper middle income architect who owns his own home, may ask Google how to bake a chocolate cake. I might ask the same question. I’m not an architect, I don’t live in LA and I don’t have two children or a wife. Will Google know the difference between us? If we’ve both got gmail accounts it might, because its algorithms mine the information in everybody’s gmail correspondence, and blogger blogs. From which a profile is created that’s updated every second you’re blogging or corresponding with somebody via gmail. Probably via other email hosts as well. It’s common knowledge that Google will commit dirty deeds if it can get away with it.

I Googled the question ‘how do I bake chocolate cake’ just to see the results. Can’t do any comparing here since I don’t know a Jack from LA. Google’s search results on the first page are all about, yes, baking a chocolate cake. Down at the bottom of the page, I see ‘how to bake a chocolate cornflake cake’ ‘no bake chocolate cake’. Clearly Google thinks I love cornflakes and don’t really like baking.

For now it’s just guesswork, but when that tool kicks in… And people are worried about big government big brother tactics? Big government has nothing on Google. Unless of course – OMG – Google is big government. Which isn't as absurd as you'd hope it would be given how much influence corporate interest has on state policies the world over.

Google’s PR drive with their new tools is that they’re helping people to become smarter. By spoonfeeding them information they haven’t directly asked for. What an absurd rationale. Ironically, big brother tactics by governments actually promote entitlement empowerment, because people have to think for themselves to find ways to elude being spied on. And they do. And they protest, and communicate with each other, and use their brains in all sorts of creative ways. But Google’s so-called ‘empowerment tool’ is a way of deadening people’s capacity for creative thinking altogether. 

But then that’s marketing for you. Extraordinary understanding of psychology they have - to be able to create an image of themselves as being heavily invested in individuality and creativity. Mind you, maybe they don't have such a great understanding after all. There’s one enormous aspect of being human that they've overlooked. Or just don't know anything about because - well, because they're all clones. It's that some people can actually think for themselves. For myself I’m happy to say, what Google never gets is that I don’t give a damn darling about affiliate marketers’ versions of how to bake a chocolate cake, or their cheap diversionary attempts to draw me to another site trying to sell me something that has nothing to do with chocolate cake. 

Nor does Google take into account that when I want to know something I know how to ask the specific question, and I don’t like somebody trying to predict what I want or what I need. In fact, I'm likely to discount any of those results out of pure annoyance.

And all the work they put into creating a profile they can market to is a waste of time, since I ignore all advertising. If I want to buy something I look for it. They're welcome to try and use that info against me, but it will never work. Furthermore, if what Google gives me doesn't meet my need I'll get frustrated with Googledom and try another route altogether. I guess they could start putting anarchistic sites in front of me. Which could lead to being targetting by gun dealers and right wing organizations. Then the FBI and the CIA could get wind of me and arrest me and… 

I wonder if there’s an architect named Jack living in LA, with two kids and a wife who’s thinking along the same lines as I am? Catch us if you can, Google. And here's a recipe that will never bake: Google + respect for the right to privacy.

FBI Push to Tap Internet Communications Triggers Big Brother Paranoia

The Washington Post and the New York Times have both reported that the Obama administration is considering a bill that will enable the FBI to tap internet users in much the same way as it has permission to wiretap. The matter has been debated for years, as far back as 2010, when the FBI asked Congress to pass a bill that would force internet companies to update their technical capacity to comply with a court order to intercept and unscramble internet communication in specific cases. 

This would include social networking sites and encrypted email transmitters. All companies would be required to put adequate technology in place so they could comply if asked, or face a $25,000 a day fine.

 FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III

The FBI didn’t succeed then and they’re pushing again for the same law to be put in place. Their rationale then and now is that methods of communication have evolved but their ability to pursue criminals hasn’t kept pace. Everybody knows about wiretapping and how to avoid it now so the FBI has lost its edge.

This is not Hollywood; the FBI will still need a court order just as they do for wiretapping, but it’s creating a firestorm of protest among IT companies and internet users. Both are bringing in the big paranoia guns, arguing that this is a big brother move which will make privacy even more of a joke and facilitate hackers. They’re also warning it will impact negatively on Silicon Valley and the US IT industry as a whole; that established IT companies and startups will gravitate to other countries without any controls. Which argument isn’t much different from the 1% protesting that if they have to pay taxes they’ll leave and the economy will collapse without them.

It's difficult to distinguish the difference between the real work that the FBI does in protecting society and the Hollywood version of a corrupt, inept, megalomaniac organization. It's also hard to know where sanity kicks in, in the war on terror, given that nobody really knows what happened on 9/11 and that the Iraq war was initiated on fabricated ‘evidence’. And that conservatives with an agenda and their media have played a huge role in cultivating paranoia.

It’s also impossible to know whether the FBI will abuse this capability or whether it will really help them pursue criminals. Probably both will happen. The firestorm is understandable but it isn’t logical. Everybody lived with wiretapping and if this bill passes everybody will get used to it too. In any case it’s ludicrous that companies like Google and Facebook would protest about people’s right to privacy. Personally I’d rather be guarded by the FBI than intruded upon by either of those two thugs. 

And right now the internet is the wild west; there aren’t any controls at all, so maybe it would be good to introduce some. What can anybody do if you’re the victim of internet crime? Absolutely nothing. So maybe this will actually facilitate not just catching terrorists but hackers, pedophiles and internet bank robbers.