Hate

 Lack of Love is Indifference

"paradise is a world where everything / is sanctuary & nothing is a gun."

- Danez Smith, "summer, somewhere"

I looked at postings from the supporters of Donald Trump, and I understand they will never find sanctuary as long as they hold onto hate. Is it hyperbole, sometimes.

At other times, the hate and rage easily lapses into violence.

At a Trump rally in 2022, a Trump supporter explained that in the coming civil war he would murder his Sister, a Democrat, without hesitation. In 2020 there was the incident when a Trump caravan intentionally harassed a Biden/Harris campaign bus. Tailgating with the intent to harass is a crime. Ramming is overt, and involves reckless endangerment.  The January 6th attack on the Capitol demonstrates how easily hate can result in violence. Trump called them patriots.

Going Deeper

Strong emotions can make it impossible to think, reason and make decisions. And the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. Hate is not about indifference. Hate is intense and unremitting and can easily motivate violence. Hate usually stems from fear, insecurity, or mistrust. (MedicineNet)

Hate has a very strong pull. Psychology today provided insight. Aristotle says, “hate rises without previous offense, is remorseless for the person experiencing it, incurable by time, and strives for the annihilation of its target.”

Darwin, in 1872, described hate as a feeling that lacks a distinct facial expression and manifests itself as rage.

Typically, hate is viewed as an extreme form of dislike, an amplified version of anger, disgust, or contempt and a readiness to do harm.

Psychologists believe that hate is most likely to emerge in the presence of moral violations particularly when the targets of hatred are perceived as bad, immoral, and dangerous. It is not surprising, therefore, that politicians frequently vilify their opponents using negative terms.

If you are consumed with hate it will make you crazy and old before your time. (cs&n)

According to the Psych Matters website, It’s important to note that all these reactions affect only the hater, and not the hated, breaking down your nervous – immune – and endocrine system, and your mental well-being.

Manipulated by an algorithm

Letting go of hate takes a realization that you are consumed by hate and a willingness to change. The fires that feed hate and rage on social media are unremitting. Stepping back, taking a breath is hard when all you see and hear reinforces the hatred. It is evil and it could consume all of us.

"Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil." "But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." "Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly." (Psalm 37)

Fake Fact Checks

 

Creating a world where facts and truth are always questioned.

The idea to keep us in a state of confusion about power and politics. That way, powerful forces control the messages and their outcome. ProPublica reports that Russia is using fake factchecks to misinform the Russian population. what the Russian controlled media is doing is creating false narratives and then disproving those false stories with fake fact checks. According to the article, here's how it work:

"On March 3, Daniil Bezsonov, an official with the pro-Russian separatist region of Ukraine that styles itself as the Donetsk People’s Republic, tweeted a video that he said revealed “How Ukrainian fakes are made.”

"The clip showed two juxtaposed videos of a huge explosion in an urban area. Russian-language captions claimed that one video had been circulated by Ukrainian propagandists who said it showed a Russian missile strike in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city."

"But, as captions in the second video explained, the footage actually showed a deadly arms depot explosion in the same area back in 2017. The message was clear: Don’t trust footage of supposed Russian missile strikes. Ukrainians are spreading lies about what’s really going on, and pro-Russian groups are debunking them. (Bezsonov did not respond to questions from ProPublica.)"

"The goal of the videos is to inject a sense of doubt among Russian-language audiences as they encounter real images of wrecked Russian military vehicles and the destruction caused by missile and artillery strikes in Ukraine, according to Patrick Warren, an associate professor at Clemson who co-leads the Media Forensics Hub."

“The reason that it’s so effective is because you don’t actually have to convince someone that it’s true. It’s sufficient to make people uncertain as to what they should trust,” said Warren, who has conducted extensive research into Russian internet trolling and disinformation campaigns. “In a sense they are convincing the viewer that it would be possible for a Ukrainian propaganda bureau to do this sort of thing.”

The use of social media makes this so much easier that 25 years ago. The firehose stream of information has limited filters. The attacks on the media by Trump and his administration were a deliberate attempt to confuse the issues. There is no shared truth, only opinions vetted by those who would shape the narrative. Trump influenced conservatives are attacking science, intellectuals, journalism, an independent judiciary, and democracy...even organized, mainline, religions. Why? Divided, we are more vulnerable.

Pew published a series of reports to gain insights about the potential future effects of people’s use of technology on democracy. "The digital disruption of democracy has been a leading concern over the past four years – a time of the Brexit decision in the United Kingdom, the American presidential election and a variety of other elections. Pew shared a series of quoted from people who are studying these issues in a hunt for remedies." The report came out in 2020. Their worst fears are being realized in Trump's "Big Lie" and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The river of falsehoods and lies has become a torrent. 

Some of those quotes from the Pew article are below.

Is This The End? 

Many Tech Experts Say Digital Disruption Will Hurt Democracy 

About half predict that humans’ use of technology will weaken democracy between now and 2030 due to the speed and scope of reality distortion, the decline of journalism and the impact of surveillance capitalism. A third expect technology to strengthen democracy as reformers find ways to fight back against info-warriors and chaos.  (Pew Research Feb 2020)

Why People Lie

And Why We Believe Them

Everybody does it. When we were little we lied to our parents, hoping we wouldn't get into trouble. We exaggerated our accomplishments to our friends. We've omitted things to influence the outcome. We've fibbed to keep from hurting people. Most of this stuff is harmless, until it isn't. When is that? When it hurts people, betrays a trust, deliberately misleads, it's used to keep others in their place. You could probably come up with more reasons, but big lies today are clearly unethical and lead to violent behavior. And in some cases, that's the goal. Many times when we lie, we're simply in denial about our own behavior, and we might not care who we hurt.  

According to Psychology Today, there are six reasons why people lie.  

 -David J. Ley PhD

1. The lie matters to the liar.  The number one reason people lie when it just doesn’t matter is because they actually think it matters. 

2. Telling the truth feels like giving up control. Often, people tell lies because they are trying to control a situation and exert influence toward getting the decisions or reactions they want. The truth can be “inconvenient. ” 

3. They don’t want to disappoint you. People who tell lie after lie are often worried about losing the respect of those around them.

4. Lies snowball. They get out of control. Eventually,  we’re arguing about the color of the sky, because to admit anything creates the potential of the entire house of cards tumbling. 

5. It’s not a lie to them. Multiple studies demonstrate that our memories are influenced by many things, that they change over time, and that they are essentially reconstructed each time we think about them. 

6. They want it to be true. Sometimes, liars hope that they can make something come true by saying it over and over, and by believing it as hard as they can. In today’s environment of “alternative facts,” it’s hard not to see this as somewhat justified.

So many people deny the facts laid out before them. Why?

I went to Vital Briefings website to find out more.

a) We want to,

b) it fits our view,

c) we're accustomed to believing the source.

But facts matter

 David Schrieberg points out that facts matter. Anybody who is the business of reporting information needs to support a higher ethical standard than the run of mill meme on social media. But putting the facts out there may not be enough anymore.

“Think about what is now required for a Republican politician to be considered a party member in good standing. He or she must pledge allegiance to policy doctrines that are demonstrably false; he or she must, in effect, reject the very idea of paying attention to evidence.” PAUL KRUGMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES

According to Schrieberg recent research on this subject focus on three explanations, which can be linked, as to why people are willing to ignore facts in their process of making judgements.

#1: Motivated Reasoning - Selectively choosing evidence.

#2: Confirmation Bias - It feels good to ‘stick’ to our guns’ even if we are wrong,” JACK AND SARA GORMAN

#3: Illusory Truth Effect - The more times you read, hear or watch a story, the more you believe it’s true. 

So, what can we do? 

Schrieberg suggests:

• Consume less.
• Be very selective in the news you consume.
• Check out the sources you choose. Do they adhere to genuine journalistic practices? If they have biases, are they clearly stated and presented? Do they present multiple sides to the story, but not necessarily giving them all equal weight? Are their conclusions based on responsible reporting?
• Be wary of sites that don’t clearly present the sources of their revenue.
• Avoid sources displayed in your social media feeds that you can’t verify and/or lack legitimate expertise in the subject matter.
• Don’t rely solely on breaking news. Seek out more in-depth stories and analyses to inform your opinions and decisions.

Local Journalism's Fade or Resurgence

Prologue

 I thought it rather serendipitous that I have the chance to reflect on the need for more local news coverage on the 50th anniversary of NPR. You might be thinking, "what is he talking about? NPR is national, not local." Let me just say that everything that comes out of your radio speakers is local. Any public radio station that can bring the issues reported on by NPR and put them in local perspective is accomplishing at least a part of their mission. As it was 50 years ago, it is now. Your support is needed more than ever.

Statement of Need

The Importance of local journalism

A little over a year ago, the second largest school district in Delaware found itself in trouble. It was staring down a deficit of $10 million. The specter of teacher layoffs, the end of athletics and extracurriculars, and the end of a promising magnet school program seemed imminent. The district, already staggering from issues that other urban districts are facing, the exodus of well-off families to private and charter schools — whose 14,000 students are roughly 75% nonwhite, 40% low-income, and more than 20% with special needs — it felt like the type of blow that could echo for generations.

According to Will Oremus, the lead writer, One Zero, at Medium, Leaders and parent advocates in the district, the Christina School District in Newark, Del., had been banking on the referendum to pass. They used a strategy that had always worked in the past. Believing they had a built compelling case; they had no reason to believe the referendum would not pass. What they had not counted on, was the role Social Media had taken on.[1]

No Local Journalism Has Consequences

Leaders in Newark, Delaware did not understand the effect misinformation on the Social Media sight Nextdoor was having on the debate for convincing residents to raise their own property taxes, often on behalf of kids other than their own. “Nextdoor posts claimed that the district was squandering money, that its administrators were corrupt, and that it already spent more money per student than certain other districts with higher test scores. The last of those was true — but left out the context that Christina hosts both the state’s school for the deaf and its largest autism program. Nextdoor evolved from a listserv where you could find a good plumber to a political platform where misinformation could easily be shared. well-documented issues with racial profiling, stereotyping of the homeless, and political ranting of various stripes, including QAnon.[2]

The referendum failed. Nobody was there to check the veracity of the statements made on social media, or to amplify the points based on facts and need by the school district. The district faced draconian cuts, endangering the future of their children and the community.

Social Media Doesn’t Fill the Void

Pew Research reports about half of U.S. adults (53%) say they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes,” and this use is spread out across a number of different sites, according to a survey conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 2020. [3]

Social Media is stepping in to fill the void left by the disappearance of journalism, especially local newspapers. Since 2004, about 1,800 newspapers have closed in the United States, Penny Abernathy reported in her research on news deserts. 1,700 are weeklies. The pace of closures, up till now, has been about 100 a year. Since the start of the Pandemic, 70 more local newspapers have closed their doors. Abernathy, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media points out when you lose a small daily or a weekly, you lose the journalist who was going show up at your school board meeting, your planning board meeting, your county commissioner meeting,” she said. Communities lose transparency and accountability. Then, she said, research shows that taxes go up and voter participation goes down.[4]

Making Informed Decisions

The right to know is baked into the Constitution. Our democracy is dependent on a well-informed democracy. National news outlets continue to survive, but advertising funding for local print journalism has dried up, closing newsrooms. The collapse of local journalism has created a crisis for democracy. Residents no longer get the information they need to understand the critical issues facing their community, to make good decisions for their family, and hold elected officials accountable.[5]

That Won’t Happen Here

It already has. Regional newspapers are seeing a decline in reporting. The Hartford Courant has gone from a staff of 450 in 2000 to 50 reporters in 2021. Hartford City Council urges an end to job cuts.[6] Without resources, the declines will continue. Reporting on urban and rural issues are critical to Connecticut. Education levels and income levels show a huge disparity between the suburbs and the rest of the state. According to Census Data, per capita median household income in Hartford was around $34,000 in 2019. It was just over $104,000 in the next town over, West Hartford. The disparity in education level is just as eye opening. In Hartford, the percentage of people with a college education was 17% and 65% in West Hartford.[7]

Uphill Battle

Local Journalism gives voice to the unheard. It also informs decisions based on facts, and it increases awareness among the influencers and decision makers in our communities. Part of the solution lies in training new reporters. Funding new reporters goes beyond creating a new app or collecting pennies from the paywall. Newsrooms will need to pivot to philanthropy. Foundations and other organizations are already onboard. Journalism philanthropy has quadrupled in the last eight years.[8] The Knight Foundation, PBS News, The Poynter Institute, The Nieman Lab, Newsrooms Across America, and The American Journalism Project are just a few examples. We must ask. We can no longer wait for it to come to us.

 

---

[1] Will Oremus, Nextdoor is Quietly Replacing the Small Town Paper, Jan 27, 2021

[2] Will Oremus, Nextdoor is Quietly Replacing the Small Town Paper, Jan 27, 2021

[3] Pew Research, News Use Across Social Media Platforms in 2020, Jan 12, 2021

[4] Poynter Institute, The Corona Virus Has Closed More Than 70 Newsrooms Across America, Apr 26, 2021

[5] Report for America Website

[6] Hartford Courant, City Council Urges an End to Job Cuts, Sep 14, 2020

[7] US Census Quickfacts 2015 - 2019

[8] Giving Compass

Radio still connects content with audiences

 Reach Out and Engage

Even in the early days, radio was an extension of what I liked to do best, share what I've found, and then listen to the response. As an announcer, I went at it as somebody who was making discoveries, a curator in the hope of finding a common bond. At first I did that with music. Later I was sharing stories.

Radio does this very well, especially public radio. I craved the feedback, Content that resonated well with the audience became the benchmark. In the beginning it was the phone calls. Later it became actual research. Unfortunately, phone response represented the caller and nobody else. 

It worked. It worked really well. 

Radio is a personal medium. It's been said that everything that comes out of your radio speakers is local, because the listener is able to interact. Listeners would talk in terms of the the stations they listened to as their stations. 

Radio is a personal medium and, unlike other media, it can accompany you throughout the day. This fact makes radio the ultimate local community and loyal friend. Radio is highly personalized because it requires the listener to fill in the blanks … and they are entirely in charge of what they “see”. The Media Online

Radio has changed. Instead of lamenting being displaced by Social Media, look at it as a way of making your discoveries available on multiple platforms.

Check out Zane Derbyshire's article at The Media Online. Derbyshire is currently the head of all things content at East Coast Radio. In it he says, "Technology will take radio forward and allow for even more meaningful ways to connect the audience to the presenter.  Radio needs to make it easy for listeners to interact, be it through calls, WhatsApps, video sharing, or text messages. Sharing of great content also needs to become easier. If that happens, your audience will become the promoters of your content.

• Be proactive
• Reach out
• Use research
• Listen and engage

Please understand you're going to need to bring people in your own house on-board. I've had to persuade people who think only in terms of my show, my story, my music. That won't work for radio. Loyalty for the listener is primarily to the radio station. That has not changed. Don't believe me? Run a crossover analysis of Morning Edition to the rest of your broadcast day. You are likely to find 80% of your audience filters through morning drive.

Think of it this way, you're starting to understand the power of the shared experience. I share stuff on Social Media all the time, but now I'm appealing to a core audience that never exceeds 50 people. In my radio days it was about 100,000 core listeners. Pretty heady stuff. If you can bring that audience to your content, then you've succeeded.

The Value of Shared Experience

 

                      Damir Spanic

A Shared Culture

After the events at the Capitol, the three paragraphs below gave me hope. The hope is in the shared cultural experience.

It can be argued that the riot in Washington is a shared experience, but not the kind that builds community, or builds bridges between people. The attempt there was fueled by recklessness, lies and an attempt to overturn a free and fair election.

The shared experience of The National Pastime was free of fiery rhetoric. It was more about a common bond, much like Rock n Roll was to the Boomers and the acts of generosity during the Great Depression. The simpler act described below is hope in the face of increasing isolation brought on by Social Media, partisan politics, and made worse by the pandemic.

The comfort of rituals.

Frank Miller, a retired civil engineer, needed to play catch. A former baseball player in high school and college, he wandered his house in Dallas practicing the grips for a slider, curve and cutter after reading a book about pitching. So his wife, Alice, put out a call on social media: Does anybody want to play catch with my 74-year-old husband?

The response showed them they’d tapped into something bigger than baseball. Players and strangers of all ages and talents turned out at a neighborhood park, ready to let the turbulence of recent weeks fade into the background and toss the ball around.

“Isn’t baseball beautiful?” Mr. Miller said at the end of the session. “It’s a piece of art, really.”

By Remy Tumin and Jeremiah M. Bogert, Jr. NY Times The Morning Anybody want to play catch? I know where my glove is.

Voter Suppression

Voter Suppression and Republicans

It's Racists

Voter suppression is no longer billy clubs and hoses and dogs. It's administrative rules. It's bureaucratic barriers.It's precincts that seem to close the dead of night. -Stacey Abrams


According to a report last year from Reuters, 1200 precincts in the south closed. "The report comes as Republican-led states impose a range of other restrictions, from shorter voting hours to photo-ID requirements. As turnout has surged in recent elections, voters in cities like Phoenix, Arizona and Atlanta, Georgia, have endured hours-long waits to cast their ballots." Seven counties in Georgia now have only one precinct.


The Guardian reported that places where black and Latino population is growing by the largest numbers in Texas experienced the majority of closures and could benefit Republicans.


Now Republicans are after voting by mail claiming rampant fraud. Trump admitted the real reason. In April, president Trump admitted why he and many Republicans oppose the expansion of voting by mail. In an article by Adam Russell Taylor for Sojourners, he quoted Trump, "Republicans should fit very hard when it comes to state-wide mail-in voting. For whatever reason, doesn't work out well for Republicans." Taylor pointed out Trump does not want to make it easier for people to vote, even amid a pandemic, because it disadvantages Republicans.

It Gets Worse

Propublica reports the falsehoods run rampant on Social Media.
“Outright Lies”: Voting Misinformation Flourishes on Facebook

While the social media giant says it opposes voter suppression, the data shows a stark picture: Nearly half of all top-performing posts that mentioned voting by mail were false or misleading.

Trump’s false attacks on voting by mail had a total of 3.8 million interactions on Facebook. Among them, a Trump post that falsely claimed Nevada had illegally sent out ballots had the most interactions of any post that has mentioned vote by mail in the last 12 months in the U.S. Trump’s false claim that California is sending ballots to “anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there” drew the third most interactions of any post that mentioned voting over the same period, ranking behind a post from Obama and a pro-Trump meme.

In recent months, Trump has also claimed on Facebook that “mail-in ballots will lead to a “RIGGED ELECTION!” and falsely said they are “substantially fraudulent”; he made false statements about the legality of actions taken by election officials in Michigan and Nevada; and he misrepresented his own power to deny funding to states that expand vote by mail. Trump continued those false claims last week, arguing a debunked distinction between mail-in voting and absentee voting.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla says. “What is frustrating is that Trump can post or tweet whatever he wants without the proper checks and balances.” “What keeps me up at night is that he’s clearly setting the stage to question election results that he might not like in November.”

According to Propublica, for now, misinformation may be difficult to stop before it goes viral. On July 13, conservatives on Facebook pounced on a video in which an unidentified Trump supporter said she was denied the right to vote, apparently in Louisiana. Many of these pages framed it as evidence of voter fraud and a Democratic plot to steal the election. By the time the post was deemed false by PolitiFact, a Facebook fact-checking partner, it had received more than 3.7 million views and been shared more than 170,000 times.

Memes and the rage machine

COVID-19 Memes

There's a Meme circulating that blames the media for over-hyping the coronavirus. It goes something like this, "170,00 people have recovered from COVID-19. Why don't we ever hear about that?" 

The media does talk about the recovery rate. The problem might be the way we use social media. Whatever we click on creates a profile of what may interest us, and the algorithms keep sending us more of the same.

The actual number of recoveries may be much higher than quoted in the meme you shared. The number of cases may also be higher. This is because there are not enough test kits, or cases that go unreported. Tracking of cases after diagnosis is erratic too.

Many will be infected. Most will recover. The projected death toll is staggering.

One thing I do know, memes are used to feed the rage machine. I've shared them too. Maybe we all need to do a little more homework. It took me a quick search to find some numbers and an explanation from a real news source.

Blame Social Media. It is a weakness in our system. We can work around that weakness.

Feed Your Mind/Expand Your Understanding

Echo Chambers

Do you think in the age of social media it is easier to be loose with the truth?

Has Social Media limited our ability to think for ourselves?

Politics and Rage

Theoretically, liars should easily be exposed by a well informed community of social media users. But that doesn't seem to be happening in many cases. There are leaders who continually feed the rage machine and their loyal followers continue to lap it up. They continue to reinforce their views with half-baked theories and and base their opinions on flawed premises. Yes, everybody is entitled to their opinion, but when their opinion does not match the facts... what then? Double down? Dig in?

A Better Way

I grew up in an atmosphere of free and open debate. We focused on policies instead of personal attacks. I was encouraged to investigate, to listen, to learn. Is this happening anymore? 

Enlightenment comes when our minds are open.

Are You Sharing Too Much On Social Media?

When does it get to be too much?

Is there a limit? Is there a point when posting becomes an obsession? Is it all about the likes? Then, how come you're not getting as many as before?

The answer may be editorial choice.

Here are some signs you may be posting too much in a posting from 2017 by Jane Danes.

1. You're posting four or more times a day.
2. Updates for the sake of updates.
3. Sharing luxury items. Never mind that you're inviting thievery, it's way too much information.
4. Hourly updates of your vacation.
5. Only posting about yourself. Social media is supposed to be about connecting...listening. Reconnect with your friends by reacting to their posts.
6. Sharing too many posts of your children. Be selective. 
7. People are disappearing from your feed. Maybe they got bored and just moved on.
8. Sharing intimate details. Somethings are just not right for social media.

Are You Sharing Too Much On Social Media? Here Are Some Signs That You Are


Because everything we post is being mined for information, some caution is required. Instead of quantity...look for quality. 

Fake News Travels Fast

It Really Works

Fake News (false news) moves faster and deeper than the real stuff. The reason is economic. According to a study done last spring, social media rewards views. More eyeballs see the false stuff. The motivation is profit. The effect can be devastating.

Marketplace reporter Molly Wood interviews Sinan Aral of the Harvard Business Review. 

Sinan Aral: There's a story from Barack Obama's presidency where a false tweet that indicated that he was injured in an explosion wiped out a $130 billion of equity value in a single day. These types of stories can have consequential impacts on our democracy, on businesses, on our national security. And so it's a problem we really need to concentrate on.

According to the study that came out of MIT, Twitter leads among all platforms for spreading false news. Is it a coincidence that the president prefers that platform above all others?

Even more disturbing, "A false story is much more likely to go viral than a real story, the authors find, "A false story reaches 1,500 people six times quicker, on average, than a true story does. And while false stories outperform the truth on every subject—including business, terrorism and war, science and technology, and entertainment—fake news about politics regularly does best."

Journalists, people who check sources, must be free to counter the tsunami of misinformation posing as news in our news feeds. They cannot face it alone. We need to be more informed as consumers about false narratives. Those narratives need to called out.  Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google will need to do more to stem the tide of misinformation. If they are unwilling to do that, consumers can boycott and regulators must regulate.