Remain honest with yourself

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. A good chunk of last week was taken up by organizing and going on a two-day trip. The purpose was to take my parents’ ashes to the ancestral farm.

On to stuff that’s been sitting in browser tabs for a while.

Sarah Kendzior, who studies autocracies, quoted journalist Tikhon Dzyadko of RTVi in her Gaslit Nation podcast:

Under an autocracy, there is one rule of survival: remain honest. Autocracy is not frightening in that it prohibits and intimidates; autocracy is frightening in that it uncovers in man the darkest, the most cynical and low. Autocracy teaches man to lie even to himself. And so, in order not to accept autocracy and play by its rules, you need to be yourself and remain honest – primarily with yourself. And continue to do your job, as long as it is possible. In other words, do what you must, come what may.

BFSkinner, part of the Daily Kos community posted about a recent NBC News survey.

According to the most recent survey, 68 percent are either enthusiastic (14 percent) or comfortable (54 percent) with a candidate who is gay or lesbian,

The most surprising finding to me was an examination of the senior population….

And, while seniors are more likely to voice reservations about gay candidates, a majority (56 percent) now say they have no objections. That’s up from just 31 percent in 2006.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal spoke to the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing for the Equality Act to ban discrimination of LGBT people. Part of what she said:

My beautiful, now 22-year-old child told me last year that they were gender non-conforming. And over the last year I have come to understand from a deeply personal mother's perspective. I've always been a civil rights activist, I've always fought for my constituents in my communities to have equal rights, but from a mother's perspective I came to understand what their newfound freedom—it is the only way I can describe what has happened to my beautiful child—what their newfound freedom, to wear a dress, to rid themselves of some conformist stereotype of who they are. To be able to express who they are at their real core.

And since this deeply impactful moment last year, my child who has always done well in school but has carried what a mother can only describe as a heavy burden of conflict in their own being that I could not fully identify or help to express. Since this deeply impactful moment last year, my child's embracing of their non-conforming gender identity and all that it has allowed, all that it allows in terms of their creativity, their brilliance, their self-expression … the only thought I wake up with every day is my child is free. My child is free to be who they are and in that freedom comes a responsibility for us as legislators to protect that freedom, to be who they are.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos took a look at the nasty guy’s decision to roll back vehicle efficiency standards. When this was first talked about in the administration Scott Pruitt, head of the EPA at the time, selected an adviser to write a report showing the rollback is a wonderful idea.

Didn’t turn out that way. The report says the rollback would cause the industry would lose 236,000 jobs over the next 15 years. Reasons:

* The rest of the world insists on cars that are more efficient and less polluting, so American companies would have a harder time selling outside America. American companies have already abandoned much of the small to midsize market.

* Auto companies would drastically reduce research and development spending. That means a loss of engineering jobs. Profits will go to investors, not to innovative suppliers. The overall economy loses.



David Neiwert of Daily Kos looks at Big Tech and their struggle with the far-right extremism that has filled their platforms. The big reason why it is a struggle is that…

their revenue streams are built around attracting such content.
…
The formula for success that emerged over time at YouTube is simple: “Outrage equals attention.” Brittan Heller, a fellow at Harvard University’s Carr Center, observed that it’s also ripe for exploitation by political extremists and hucksters. “They don’t know how the algorithm works,” she said. “But they do know that the more outrageous the content is, the more views.”

And the more views, the more money these platforms will roll in. Hate and division become the fuels for profit in this system. It’s a recipe for cultural disaster.

The Department of Homeland Security has disbanded an intelligence and Analysis unit that focused on domestic terrorism and white supremacist violence. Melissa McEwan of Shakesville explains what it means:

So now we're just flying blind(er) on rightwing extremist violence, including and especially anti-choice and white supremacist terrorism.

That, of course, is not an accident. That is a design. Because malice is the agenda.

One assumes Donald Trump and his deplorable henchmen won't be mad if their decision to allow domestic terrorism to flourish in the darkness of inattention also results in dramatic acts of public violence that justify the expansion of authoritarian policy, under the auspices of security and "protecting" us.

If they were actually interested in protecting us, they wouldn't have disbanded a unit charged with doing precisely that.

McEwan points us to report by Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress about a death penalty decision from the Supremes. Millhiser calls it “the most bloodthirsty and cruel” opinion of the modern era. That’s because of the majority opinion written by Neil Gorsuch. He tossed out the basic understanding of “cruel and unusual” punishment. The state of Missouri may effectively torture a man to death as long as it doesn’t inflict pain for the sheer purpose of inflicting pain.

Yes, malice is the agenda.