Month: October 2023

What I find most paradoxical is that zealous right wing pundits and politicians decry “deep state this” and “fake news that” while simultaneously engaging in gaslighting and disseminating conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Remember elementary school? Taunts? Badgering? Bullying? Were they true? No. But they made you defensive and that made you look weak. What happened to them when you stopped responding to them? They went away. Their power over you was diffused and dissipated. Poof. Don’t give into bullying.

Also, join with others, other parents and groups, to make sure that there is a zero tolerance policy for bullying in your schools and other local institutions.

I think Facebook sees the bankruptcy of BedBathandBeyond as a big opportunity to make a killing on selling a gazillion fraudulent ads for close out sales that are all frauds.

Facebook is still publishing fake ads linked to fraudulent websites claiming to be close out sales ads for Bed Bath and Beyond which went bankrupt months ago. Why is Facebook still promoting this fraud by continuing to publish these ads?

Censorship, and the algorithms that do it, are alive and well at Facebook. And the special features of Facebook, especially the bots and trolls they let prey on us, of course have absolute freedom to function. And don’t forget all of the ads, for guns, holsters, high capacity magazines, survivalist fatigue fashions, jingo tee shirt, etc. that grace its threads and bombard us all with unwanted advertising.

Facebook invited me and a small group of people to participate in a survey. The first question asked me to quantify how valuable I find the content on Facebook. As with so many surveys, the possible answers were too limited and fixed that of all the possible answers in their multiple choice list of answers for the first question there was not one answer that got anywhere near to what I would have answered. So, I didn’t try to do the survey.

The other day I hid an ad on Facebook from Purina because I believe Purina cat food caused my two cats to die from kidney failure when the corporation was using product manufactured in China that contained ethylene glycol. For that reason I will never buy another Purina product again. Today Facebook sent me another ad from Purina. How’s that for stopping ads after reporting it and removing all ads from this advertiser?

When I report an ad on Facebook and I click on “why am I seeing this ad” and there is another link that says “how can I change my ad preference”, that’s where Facebook tells me that nothing I do will change the ads that it puts on my feed.

When I hide an ad on Facebook and I get a message that says “We won’t show you this ad again” it is has often not been true as ads from this company have reappeared later. It’s sometimes not true but it is not good enough. If I report and ad I don’t want to see ANY MORE ADS FROM THAT COMPANY, not just that particular ad. Because, otherwise, what’s the point of “reporting ads”?

The other day I was having a back and forth discussion with another Facebook user. It was an amicable exchange. I presented my views to try to correct what I thought was the misunderstanding and skewed perception of the other user. We enjoyed a few volleys back and forth but then, apparently, Facebook cut me off because, I assume, Facebook didn’t like what I was saying. I got an “error, something went wrong” message and the conversation was abruptly ended by Facebook. This has happened to me several times over the last few years. When Zuckerberg talks about preserving the right of free speech, he doesn’t bother to mention how he prevents it.

There are more than two things bug me about Facebook but these are the two that are on my mind currently:

Facebook, at times, seems to censor content that it does not want to be published. Facebook allows all kinds of hateful, anarchistic, inflammatory, divisive, and propagandistic content on its platform. But it cannot seem to tolerate certain discussions between individuals having a civil argument. I find that very strange indeed.

The other thing, which is unrelated, about Facebook that really bugs me is that it shoves all of these tons of advertisements down our throats but give us NO WAY to opt out of this barrage of this very often offensive advertising. In reporting ads, Facebook claims that we can change our settings. But it does not simply offer a way to opt out of advertisements.

In the last half hour I have hidden and reported about a dozen ads on Facebook for sniper rifles and a plethora of accessories for them and other sorts of various survival gear sets and gun paraphernalia.

Evolution is a long and slow process. Nobody knows where it will take human beings in the future. Some traits and behaviors are genetic. Others are learned and or nurtured. The limbic system in the human brain takes part in human behavior and is responsible for a lot of perception and behavior.

Despite all of these factors, do human beings have any control over how they interact with the world?

For the last century humanity has faced multiple tests:

political turmoil associated with fascism versus the development of a more open, global and cooperative diplomacy;

the growth of industry and the “free market” that has become global versus a more rural, agriculturally-based system that existed along with a simpler marketplace;

the industrialization of the modern life and the dependence on fossil fuels consumption and over extraction of resources mainly by western nations versus good stewardship and protection of the environment;

the ancient habits of corruption by power and military force versus the construction and maintenance of cultures and a society that are just, egalitarian, self-nurturing and sustaining where the resolution of problems is accomplished through mutual work and cooperation;

the acceptance and recognition that all life has value versus the promulgation and encouragement of hatred, divisions, bigotry, scapegoating, discrimination, destruction and death, usually for political reasons;

the purposeful suppression and control of women, minorities, the poor and uneducated, the careful placement of restrictions and controls on the lives of the bulk of the population by the powerful to maintain political control of the masses versus problem solving and inclusion of all people in the processes of participating and being represented in the well being of all people and the planet as a whole.

These are some of the biggest issues facing the evolution of humanity.

Will human beings find a way to create a better world? Or will all of the old familiar problems end up meaning the demise of humanity?

As humans, we can either continue to allow our motivations to steer us toward chaos and destruction. Or we can develop our motivations to create a better world.

It’s a choice.

I just read an article in the Sunday NYT opinion section by Jed Handelsman Shugerman, (henceforth JHS) entitled “A Historic Prosecution Is Also A Legal Embarrassment”.

The author, A law professor at Fordham and Boston University, has objections about this case that focus on procedural steps, matters of jurisdictions, and how the prosecution is being conducted by Manhattan. JHS argues that his concern is law and order. He claims that “The Trump case damages the rule of law and sets a troubling precedent.”

The article is about legal rules, minutiae and procedure. It is not about law and order. JHS completely leaves out the hush money crime or discuss or argue the legality or illegality of Trump’s involvement in it. So where, really, is the discussion about law and order?

The article posits that the technical aspects of litigation are what make law and order. When you ask most regular people what law and order means to them, I think you get an answer that generally states that law and order are about protection and safety and the fair and impartial delivery of justice, and is not about the fine detailed arguments about how court cases and legal proceedings are conducted.

If he is truly concerned about public legitimacy, maybe JHS should consider what most people actually believe law in order is and ask himself:

Is law and order the procedural details and minutiae that form the parameters in which the legal profession works?

Or, is law and order, in the broad public mind set, more about serving justice and not how it’s done?

JHS argues that the 34 charges of the NY indictment are “half charges.” Even after reading his explanation of that term, I still don’t know what he means or what he is intent on doing using it. But I am assuming that the Grand Jury and/or prosecutorial team that determined and wrote the 34 charges against Trump in this case were instructed on how to properly construct and write their charges to fit within legal parameters. I doubt that the Grand Jury and/or prosecutorial team was instructed to write anything that was “half” anything but real charges, no matter how they are presented in a press conference.

The author, it seems to me, has condemned the Grand Jury with his opinion that it did not do its job and that somehow its product just doesn’t meet legal standards. He argues that the indictment by NY follow the precedent of Robert Mueller and that the state and city of NY do as Mr. Mueller did and follow his example. Is there a rule or a standard that dictates that one jurisdiction has to or should follow the exact same procedural and steps that other jurisdictions have followed in order for them to be valid? I didn’t think so.

JHS also argues that because of the delay of six years in proceeding with this case that it is now somehow of less interest and that the need for this trial and allowing for the justice system to follow its course is dimiinished? What he did not mention in mentioning delay is that within that timeline of six years, Trump was involved in two political campaigns and was president for 4 of those six years during which time, legal actions were either frozen or proscribed because of immunity. But the desire to seek justice never abated during that time.

I would like Mr. JHS to consider if what he thinks of as law and order is really just the infrastructure of the legal system itself (he didn’t even mention the other half of order of law and order, the enforcement of law by law enforcement agencies, so he really was only addressing half of what we normally think of as law and order) or the actual administration of justice and law aside from bickering over differences of procedure and minutiae in the law.

If you want to know about public legitimacy of justice, ask the public if what it is concerned about is the fair and impartial delivery of justice, or about how lawyers and the legal profession do what they do and the rules and standards that they follow as a profession.

Even before the Supreme Court grossly reinterpreted the second amendment and expanded it to the engorged, bloated carte blanche, free-for-all for the gun industry NRA monster it quickly became, and set the table for Congress to dine at the gun rights lobbyist buffet, Americans had the right to have one or two guns for protection.

I have never objected to anyone having a gun for self protection in his or her home. I don’t believe that anyone, however, should have combat weapons for anything. Even home protection. Why? Because they are combat weapons and were not created for general use other than combat. No. Your home is not a combat zone. At least not a sanctioned one.

The two branches of our government most responsible for gun violence, deaths and mass shootings are the Supreme Court because of the decisions it has made and Congress because it has not made laws that keep us safe and protect us. We have a president who would sign such legislation into law if Congress presented such bills. But we’ve been waiting for that to happen for a long time and gun violence and deaths have only increased while we’ve been waiting.

The Supreme Court defends the constitutionality of gun rights. But it doesn’t defend the constitutionality of Americans being protected from guns. Why?

The most remarkable thing about billionaires and centimillionaires is that they usually only use their money to make more money. They don’t participate in humanity. They don’t give back.

The most hopeful thing in this country of more than 330 million people is that most of the people are good people. They don’t hate. They are not paranoid and insecure. They are not bullies. They do not discriminate or hate for no reason or because of fear or because of ignorance. They don’t cheat to try to win and get their way in politics by being the biggest loudmouths and bullies or by dividing and conquering the fractured and polarized political space using racial, xenophobic nationalistic, and extreme and radical politics as a means of taking power.

Most Americans are not lap dog servants of the ultra rich. They are not violent and do not use violence as a way to achieve their agendas. Most of the more than 330 million Americans are peaceful, civil, empathetic, and civil people. They are good people. And the great thing is that they are now participating more in their government, the government that is supposed to represent them, work for them, and protect them, much more proactively than they had been for a very long time. And, I believe, there is less apathy for politics than there had been for a very long time.

That is what makes me feel hopeful about America: that the vast majority of Americans will eventually find a way to serve their own best interests by standing up for what is good and right and no longer continue to allow bullies or self-serving opportunists to take advantage of them and retain control and power over their lives. Eventually, Americans will actually govern themselves and work to create the government of, for, and by the people that the founders had in mind when they wrote the constitution.