[Xmca-l] Re: fact and fake

Tue Feb 21 11:24:56 PST 2017

PS, Mike, you'll be glad to hear that the DC Public library has 74 holds currently pending for the 9 copies they have of "It can't happen here!"  Woo Hoo!

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 12:43 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: fact and fake

One thing on my list of actions is to remind people of the mid-1930's in the world, and in the US in particular.

In reminding myself of that time I have found it interesting to take up Sinclair Lewis's 1935 book, *It can't happen here.*

Perhaps not the best of Lewis's writing, but he was in a hurry. The message seemed urgent. I find it interesting bed time reading.

You can get the idea from the wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can't_Happen_Here

And cheap copies abound.

Mike -

PS - Off later to an event where a congressman is going to be too busy to be at his own town meeting. Working on a sign. "No representation without taxation."

On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 8:26 AM, Peg Griffin <Peg.Griffin@att.net> wrote:

> Just on record, David, a rejection of your parenthetical: "(People who 
> actually live here should correct me if I am wrong.)"
> You are wrong but correcting you is far down on the list of "should"
> actions, so far down that simply saying it is sufficient.
> Peg
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ 
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 9:31 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: fact and fake
>
> Andy and Alfredo:
>
> I'm in the USA right now, my first visit in three years. I don't want 
> to understate the depth of the ideological changes: there has clearly 
> been a remarkable coarsening and vulgarization of the national 
> discussion, and there is undoubtedly a normalization of racism well 
> underway. But when we speak of the new regime as a significant source 
> of material, real suffering for working people, I can't think of any 
> assault on the livelihood of workers that wasn't first pioneered by 
> the "pragmatic progressives" of the previous administration. In other 
> words, at least so far, the changes seem more at the level of faith, 
> and the facts point to continuity. (People who actually live here 
> should correct me if I am wrong.)
>
> Take for example the two issues Andy raises. First of all, "Last Night 
> in Sweden" appears to simply be another instance of the president's 
> watching late night television and confusing a report on crime in 
> Sweden with an actual terror attack occurring in real time. When you 
> look at the transcript of what he says, it is quite possible that the 
> confusion is not in his mind but only in his language: he actually 
> MEANT to say "if you look at the what WAS happening in the report I 
> watched last night in Sweden" and the syntax was too much for him. 
> This is the kind of poor language that happens all the time in 
> everyday discourse, including that of the head of state; it's just 
> that thanks to a combination of poor impulse control and new 
> technology, we now get all this confused and confusing language in an 
> unedited form. This is a semiotic change indeed, but it's not a 
> material one in the sense that nobody has yet died over it, either in Sweden or in the USA.
>
> Secondly, Obamacare seem to be as far as ever from being repealed; 
> there is a basic contradiction between the ideological commitment of 
> the government to ensuring the speedy death of those who cannot afford 
> treatment and stability in the insurance markets. The latter is still 
> very much predominant, just as it predominated over the (weak) 
> ideological commitment of the previous regime to expanding health care 
> to include everyone. What the current head of state actually SAYS 
> about health care has, at times, gone well beyond that weak 
> commitment: "GREAT healthcare for EVERYBODY".
> For a while, Republicans in the Senate were trying to interpret that 
> statement as "potential access" to everybody who can pay for it, but 
> this was dropped when the insurance markets responded negatively.
>
> I think that this basic factual continuity combined with constant 
> breaches of faith is the source of the tension and excitement that Alfredo mentions.
> The previous regime liked to speak of being workmanlike and practical, 
> with an emphasis on getting things done, and if anything the regime 
> was actually rather proud of its inability to communicate the wonky 
> facts of their supposed accomplishments to working people. The 
> argument was that good policy would eventually make for good politics, 
> and if it didn't, then it was better to have the former than the 
> latter. But the argument for human equality is an argument of good 
> faith, except in the trivial sense that we all have more or less the 
> same physiological hardware: the argument for human equality must now 
> be made on emotional grounds and not in the language of "facts".
>
> Precisely because the Obama regime was, at bottom, so right wing, 
> opposition to Obama was increasingly focused on the "fact" of his race 
> alone. And precisely because the current regime is so outspokenly 
> white and at the same time so amateurish, incompetent and utterly 
> incoherent, it is able to convey the bankruptcy of white supremacy to 
> white people in direct, emotionally accessible ways that were 
> impossible for Obama. This is not progress towards a de facto 
> equality, but it seems to me to be the harbinger of a giant leap of faith.
>
> No matter lies, and all lies matter.
>
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
>
>
>
>
>
> rea
>
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 12:16 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil 
> <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
> > Totally relevant, Andy. As you say, it's so interesting to follow 
> > how issues of faith and truth will be unfolding and changing in all 
> > sectors of society. This has been going on for quite long time, I 
> > think, not only about Trump but more generally with regard to 
> > socioscientific issues such as climate change. But, perhaps 
> > fortunately, it seems this is turning into crisis (and hence 
> > change), with those same features becoming more exacerbated. It's 
> > scary and
> exciting at the same time.
> >
> > I've been (as many of you) following the multiple testimonies and 
> > analyses that are emerging in the media, intended and unintended, 
> > lots of working-over in the form of analysis. It's amazing how much 
> > material for analysis and how many actual analyses are being produced.
> > Is as if as history was shaking, so too was consciousness shaking, 
> > producing more and more.
> >
> > Alfredo
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> > <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden 
> > <ablunden@mira.net>
> > Sent: 21 February 2017 02:43
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l]  fact and fake
> >
> > The Washington Post has a series of interviews with people attending 
> > Trump's rally where they were the first to learn of the Swedish 
> > terrorist attack in Trump's imagination, planted there by FOX News.
> > The faith of these Trump loyalists seems unshakeable, though the 
> > resignation of Flynn was causing a little difficulty, but I wouldn't 
> > put it more strongly. It was still the fault of the "mainstream 
> > media".
> >
> > Is there no point beyond which Trump can step where fact and fake 
> > can be distinguished from trust and favour? In the discussion we had 
> > around his Inauguration Day speech I suggested it would be people 
> > getting ill and discovering that they had lost the coverage they had 
> > under ObamaCare.
> >
> > I would be interested in hearing early anecdotes of people who are 
> > Trumpistas up till now but who change their mind and what it is 
> > which does the trick. It seems almost like we have to discover a 
> > hole in political space-time to escape this black hole!
> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
> > --
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > Andy Blunden
> > http://home.mira.net/~andy
> > http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-makin
> > g
> >
>
>
>