They like the lie better

My church held its All Saints observance today. It is a time to remember those in the congregation and family of members since the last observance. This year it meant those who had died during the last two years. I was surprised there were only 18 names. I think because of the church being closed so long in 2020 a lot of people have stopped coming. I and a couple fellow ringers tolled a bell after each name. Those we remembered included my sister Laney, her wife Anners, and my step-grandmother. Seeing their faces on the screen and a candle being lit for them was a confirmation that they’re gone now. Aysha Qamar of Daily Kos reported on the Nobel ceremony in which investigative journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov jointly received the prize for Peace. They were given the prize for safeguarding freedom of expression and telling the truth. Both gave a speech. Qamar wrote:

Ressa and Muratov also noted the sacrifices journalists have made, especially those who work in authoritarian states. Both journalists are known for their extensive work in the field and have angered their respected countries, facing threats as a result. Multiple colleagues of Muratov have been murdered or persecuted due to their work. “I want journalists to die old,” Muratov said. “There are so many more journalists persecuted in the shadows with neither exposure nor support, and governments are doubling down with impunity,” Ressa said. ... “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth,” Ressa said. ... Muratov also had something to say regarding social media. “Manipulation leads to war,” he said. “We are in the middle of a post-truth period. Now, everyone is concerned about their own ideas and not the facts. “Social scientists have shown that, when even knowing what is the truth and what is a lie, 75 percent of people will consider the lie as truth as they like the lie better. This is happening already. We are at the very bottom of the manipulation of the human mind.”

David Folkenflik, NPR media correspondent, tweeted a video from Patriot Takes of a session at Turning Points USA. Folkenflik described it:

Group that claims to be outraged about cancel culture literally offers training to college students on how to egg on (edge on?) profs to get them to say things to surreptitiously record to get them fired

Jennifer Cohn, election security advocate, added:

Yes, this is what the GOP does, & it’s not just TPUSA.

Cohn then described something similar, what Mike Caputo, protege of Roger Stone, did to Laura Krolcyzk Michael Harriot wrote an article for The Guardian about those who participated in the Capitol attack don’t understand that nationalism is not the same as patriotism. Louis Bridgeman tweeted a summary quote of the article:

They have pledged their allegiance to the flag, but not the republic for which it stands. Patriotism as performance is their only protection because a country that provides liberty and justice for all is too unbearable a thought. They’d rather kill it first.

My summary: These “patriots” don’t want liberty and justice for some people. These “patriots” want to maintain their permission to oppress some people. Therefore they don’t want democracy. Leah McElrath complains about Biden because she wants him and his administration to do better, not to undermine his legitimacy. Her current area of complaint is the pandemic. She tweeted:

The reason we submit to any state authority is so we don’t have to worry about every threat to our survival. Any major domestic security lapse—such as the ongoing negligence of federal pandemic response—is a state failure. If any state continues to fail, it loses legitimacy. ... Nonetheless, the reality is the state is still failing in its response. Every tool is not being used. Every resource is not being allocated. These are state failures. In perpetuating these failures, the Biden administration is delegitimizing itself. It’s deeply troubling. Simply put: It is storming outside. There is no future rainy day. This is it. And yet, all that could be done is not being done, either to minimize the cost in lives or to the economy. It’s endangering us all and endangering the future of the federal government as a whole

In a second thread McElrath responded to some pushback. People say “What more EXACTLY do you expect him to do?” Her answer: More. But Biden hasn’t fulfilled his campaign promises to respond to the pandemic. As for exact expectations, she’s been tweeting suggestions of her own and others for months. James Bandler wrote an article for ProPublica about how three families in the early 1900s avoided taxes so their wealth would last through the generations. He tweeted a link to the article with this quote from it:

“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” FDR wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

Lauren Floyd of Kos started an article with:

Police brutality doesn’t just happen. Despite popular Republican rhetoric, the spotlight cases of such brutality aren’t just exceptions to a rule of otherwise fair and humane policing—they are examples of a system that has long spun out of control, a system enabled by experts called to defend excessive force and the companies that profit from it.

The New York Times found 100 examples in a 15 year period where particular experts wrote opinions to defend police. These expert opinions would say such things as: A taser can’t cause adverse effect. A particular neck hold can’t cause brain injury. A face down restraint position can’t cause asphyxiation. And in the George Floyd case the knee to the neck couldn’t be a use of force because Floyd wasn’t in pain. A big problem is this testimony means many cases of brutality don’t go to trial. Floyd concluded:

So in short, experts defend police. Police pay companies for training and equipment. Companies pay to promote expert research, and experts defend police, and on and on. It doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the claim that police work mostly to protect and serve.

Bésame of the Kos community ponders whether we face a robotpocalypse. Robots can do so much now, from cooking fries to act with first responders. Are robots a threat? “Can we really trust robots and the industries that make use of them?” That last phrase is of interest. An example is Spot, a robot that looks vaguely like a dog that has appeared to dance in various videos. I’ve mentioned Spot before as a way of getting us used to something that might later be weaponized. On the other hand, robots are taking jobs that are dangerous or impossible for humans. Perhaps they might even take the job of stunt doubles in movies. They can help ease the current labor shortage. Robots do have a benefit. Back to the drawbacks. Some of those robots we let into our homes are listening, with the possible expense of our privacy. And many of the algorithms that make robots and computers useful carry the biases, the systemic racism and sexism, of their creators. These algorithms can deny loans and not be held accountable. Bésame included a video of those biases in action. A white hand placed under an electric soap dispenser gets a squirt of soap. A black hand under that same dispenser gets nothing. As we invite more robots into our spaces are we willing to put up with that? Floyd also remembered architect Paul Revere Williams. He isn’t well known because he was black. He designed churches, buildings, and homes in the Los Angeles area, including the “flying saucer” at LAX. Many of those homes were for those that became rich in the movie business, such as Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra. Because Williams was black he wasn’t allowed to sit next to a client, he had to sit opposite them. So he learned to draw upside down. He designed homes for neighborhoods where he wasn’t allowed to live, hotels – such as the Beverly Hills Hotel – where he was not allowed to stay. Now there is a great deal of attention when a Williams designed home is up for sale. Floyd’s post includes an eight minute video about Williams. It shows several of the buildings he designed.