We are not in this together

I didn’t post over the previous two days because my computer did not have internet access. The reason is also a customer service rant. If you have no interest in my travails, jump to the next section of this post. My friend and debate partner describe sessions like this as “customer disservice.” When I bought this new computer I also bought a new modem and router, so I didn’t have to keep making rental payments on the one from Comcast/Xfinity. I think I calculated the replacements will hit break even in less than a year. Two days ago I decided was a good day to actually install the new hardware. Yeah, it’s been about seven weeks, but switching to and learning the new music program was a higher priority. The first problem was that the modem and router had transformers in their power plugs. They had to go at the ends of the surge protector. The house is sixty years old, of course there aren’t enough electrical outlets. Also, the cases around the transformers are bulky enough they don’t allow enough room for the neighboring plug. I found an extender and a narrow plug and managed. I connected all the wires and turned them all on. The modem booted. The lights on the router came on. But the computer said I had no internet. I called the modem company. The answer bot said I needed to call the internet provider to have the modem “provisioned.” So I called Comcast. The answer bot gave me a half minute message saying Comcast needed my updated contact info. They occasionally ask that when I’m on their website and they want an email address not through them (which I don’t have) and they already had my phone number. The answer bot required I specify the problem. My answer prompted the bot assume their modem was the problem and demanded I do a modem test. They could send a link to my phone or I could do it online. For an internet company Comcast seems pretty ignorant of how the internet works. I can’t do it online because the modem doesn’t work. The bot had hung up. I called again, waiting through the half-minute message again. The same scenario played out. I thought of calling the nearby Xfinity store. But I didn’t have a number and no internet to look it up. I called a third time. This time I accepted the text message on my phone. The bot hung up. I tapped the link. My phone said “No internet.” I called a fourth time. Yeah, that half-minute message a fourth time. This time I tried saying I wanted to change my internet service rather than saying I had an internet problem. A few questions later I was connected to a real person. I told him what I wanted to do. He asked for the MAC number of the modem. Then he complained the number didn’t match the Xfinity modem I had. Well, of course not! He finally understood what I wanted and he entered the new number. He said that since returning the modem meant a change in my billing I had to confirm it. He sent me another text with another link. Still no internet on the phone. He switched to verbal confirmation with the voice coming from the computer and reply to go to it, not him. The computer said if I agreed I was to enter “1” – but it didn’t recognize it. We went round on this several times and it did not recognize the “1” from my phone keypad. I asked him to enter the 1 for me – he had heard I confirmed. He wasn’t allowed to do that. I asked for a supervisor. The agent said a supervisor had no more capability than he had. Besides, a supervisor would not be available for two hours. In the meantime he could schedule an appointment with a technician. I had him confirm whether a tech guy would charge because it wasn’t their modem. He scheduled it just in case. I asked if the Xfinity store could resolve this problem. I had to return their modem anyway. He said they could. So I went to the store. I think the person waiting on me was transgender or nonbinary, though it would have been rude to ask. I’ll use nonbinary pronouns. They received my modem, used its ID to pull up my account, and gave me a receipt for the return. Then they said they could do no more because having a technician appointment locked the store people out of the system. After I expressed my astonishment they said they could delete the appointment. I quickly agreed. Soon they said all was in order, the new modem registered and ready, though one more confirmation step needed to be done and they at the store could not do it. I could reschedule a technician or call the 800 number again. I said a bit about how bad online service was and they agreed – as company agents they have to go through the same nonsense every time. This sounds like really bad use of agent time (as it is bad use of customer time). They said there is a way around it. They gave me a phrase to text to a different number and a tech person would call me. That different number turned out to be the number that was used to text me before. Alas, by the time I was able to use it the time was after 5:00. I thought perhaps their staff didn’t work or didn’t respond to these texts in the evening. During the evening I texted Niece, who is much better with phones than I am, about why my phone didn’t have internet service. She had me try various things and finally gave up. A bit later I thought to reboot my phone. That worked. I had internet again. I knew it was separate from the modem that wasn’t working Yeah, my phone can go wonky at the worst times. The next morning I called Comcast and their answer bot didn’t answer. I tried several times. I spent a lovely afternoon with Niece. She and I enjoyed the Detroit Institute of Arts. Back at it during the evening. Called Comcast. Other than repeating the half-minute message again it was rather quick to connect me to a human. He said he could see the modem. He had no idea what second thing the store person said was necessary. Shortly after that we were disconnected. So another call and another chance to ignore the message. This human had me unplug and replug the modem so that it would reboot. From his end things looked “100%” but I still didn’t have internet access. I should call the modem company. I did. This guy had me reset the modem. Then he had me connect the computer straight to the modem without the router. After another reboot a tab opened on my browser saying “Welcome to Xfinity! Download the Xfinity app on your mobile phone to activate your internet in minutes.” Nope, not letting them on my phone. This customer agent actually gave me decent service. He confirmed the router is only necessary when I need WiFi and most of the time I don’t. So I’ll leave it out for now. Called Xfinity again (and listened to the message again) and was connected to a human promptly. Yes, there was indeed one more step Xfinity needed to do. They needed to send a provisioning file to the modem. The modem answer bot was right. The store person was right and the two earlier people this evening were not. Sending the file rebooted the modem. When it was done I had internet! Web pages loaded. Two dozen emails downloaded! Things are better. Before this call ended the agent said she could tell when I started talking I was extremely frustrated. She was accurate. She was glad things were all straightened out and I felt better. One might think after so much hassle (and this not the first time) I would drop Comcast for another company. There are two reasons why I haven’t yet. First, my email address is through Comcast. With standard practice being to make one’s email addy one’s account identifier I would have go to a great many websites to change it. Second, various comparisons of the companies in my area rate them all equally bad at customer service. One wonders why they are all so bad. If you skipped the rant please resume reading here. How does one tell the difference between a prophet and someone just making stuff up? I’ve heard the distinction is that some of the prophet’s predictions have come true, so there is a decent chance the rest of them will too. Keep that thought in mind. Of course, some people say foretelling the future is not possible, so there is no such thing as a prophet. Reinvented Daddy of the Daily Kos community discussed what he thought was the reason why the MAGA people, meaning also the Republican Party and conservative evangelicals, are so cruel. He believes the answer, and I think he’s on to something, is the central position of the Bible’s book of Revelations in their beliefs.

Jesus of revelations is a horribly mean and spiteful creature requiring constant praise and supplication. Most of what is understood of Revelations is misinformed myth since few, even among the religiously educated, can understand it’s ridiculously bad writing. It was penned 60 years after the death of Jesus purely from the imagination of a hermit who lived in a cave on a desert island off Turkey. He despised the churches of St Paul. A raving lunatic, he wrote like one but the book survived because people liked apocalypse porn as much in the first century as they do in the 21st century.

For those who don’t know (which includes most Christians) Revelations is about the End Times, in which Jesus comes back to earth, heads an army that defeats all the forces of evil (interpreted to be all those who don’t believe in Jesus), and brings about a new heaven and new earth where there is no longer a reason for crying. The last couple of chapters portray a world that sounds lovely. The readers at the time, under the domination of Rome, would have appreciated this vision. But one must go through some twenty chapters of mayhem to get there. Then again, causing mayhem against Rome sounded pretty good too. After the Roman era Revelations was mostly ignored until after the American Civil War when the South, stinging from defeat, decided it spoke to them. Yeah, a just defeated society that considers itself highly Christian, is going to latch on to a story that says Jesus will come back and defeat their enemy. Richard Nixon, in his Southern Strategy, understood that Democrat presidents Kennedy and Johnson were seen as betrayers for their racial and economic reforms of the Civil Rights Act. Since then (according to Reinvented Daddy) Republicans have been making promises to the evangelicals they had no intention of keeping. And now we have a majority on the Supreme Court that believes the righteous ass-kicking portrayed in Revelations supersedes the Constitution. They are now keeping those promises. So is that hermit who wrote those words nearly two thousand years ago a prophet or did he make stuff up? In those two thousand years none of it has come to pass. You decide. John Stoehr, through his Editorial Board, wrote about a related ideology. During a national emergency, such as two destructive hurricanes just a couple weeks apart, many people reach out to those in distress, saying we’re all in this together. Yet, the words of politicians on the far right imply no, we’re not in this together. We see that as a betrayal of core beliefs and call them hypocrites. That’s easier that believing their core beliefs are vastly different from our own.

Rightwingers are not hypocrites, though. They believe American society is divided into ingroups and outgroups. The former is good, right and deserving. The latter is bad, wrong and undeserving. When there’s a national emergency, the federal government should help the ingroup, because it’s the only group that constitutes a “real nation.” Meanwhile, the outgroup can take care of itself. Or die trying. Not only do they believe American society is divided into ingroups and outgroups, they believe it ought to be. The orders of power should be vertical and hierarchical. That is the ideal, because that is “natural.” For this reason, liberal efforts to flatten the orders of power, so that the outgroup has as many rights and privileges as the ingroup, are seen by rightwingers as a perversion of the natural order of things. To them, we are not all in this together, because we can’t be. If we were, that would be in defiance of God. And that’s why they lie.

That is why they say America needs to become great again. That is why they claim Biden and Harris are destroying America. We ask them to put nation above politics. In their eyes they already are. We don’t recognize their definition of nation is different. They believe when the federal government hands out money after a disaster it should go to the ingroup and not to the outgroup. So vetoing FEMA funding (because much of its money goes to the outgroup), then demanding FEMA funding (for the ingroup) is not a contradiction in their thinking. They spread so many lies about the nature of these hurricanes because they oppose the idea of all people being in it together and want to discredit it. They support Russia because they see the same top-down society they want for themselves. With that understanding Speaker Johnson’s refusal to reconvene the House to pass more FEMA funding makes sense. I have long recognized correspondingly there are two definitions of freedom. Some want freedom from oppression. The others want freedom to oppress. They want that freedom so that they can maintain the social hierarchy with themselves on top. And the social hierarchy is maintained through oppression. An aspect of that national view is on display in this article by Morgan Stephens of Kos that begins:

So it’s come to this. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden was forced to address the bonkers right-wing conspiracy that the government is controlling the weather, steering catastrophic hurricanes into conservative communities in an effort to influence the 2024 election. "Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene … is now saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather,” he said during a briefing on the federal response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton. “We're controlling the weather? It's beyond ridiculous. It’s got to stop.”