Tom’s Tidbits
Reality matters most in this time of universal deceit
When I’m writing these monthly editorials I try to bring something useful to the table by avoiding shallow partisanship and addressing the deeper meanings behind the headlines, the bigger principles at play in or behind the politics. I’m not always successful but sometimes I am, and again, I do always try. I continue to believe that while many ideas are debatable, many are provably right or wrong. There is a such thing as Reality. It
amazes me that saying something this basic could bring anything useful to the table at all, but it might be the single biggest assumption being questioned in today’s political theater… some things are provably wrong in Reality, and that matters. We might argue which things are provably right, but pursuing a world based on the provably wrong is insane and self-destructive.
Today’s Republicans have built the idea of a Radical Left (defined, always loosely, as anyone with views other than Republican party dogma) intentionally supporting a blood-libel ring of pedophilic child traffickers and organ harvesters. The proof is always coming, but an organized conspiracy reaches from the highest levels of every government to the lowest tiers of Antifa in the streets, changing the results of the 2020 election and overthrowing
the United States in a coup. Major corporations exist to pervert your children through cartoon characters. Your teachers, despite all evidence, are part of a massive, coordinated plot to androgenize and furry-ize your children. The neighbors you’ve known for years are kiddy-diddling slavers. Your LGBTQ family and friends, though they’ve pretended otherwise, are grooming your kids. These may (or may not) be the Republicans’ most delusional accusations but each is sadly and unsurprisingly taken from Reality.
For all their faults in Reality the Democrats have no equivalent sin, making an attempt at non-partisanship difficult. We can’t, in Reality, just cynically mourn the fact that ‘everyone does it’. These proven delusions form the fundamental basis of a large chunk of
the Republican party and the rest of the Party is going along with it. The Democrats may be incompetent but they aren’t provably, systematically, and strategically lying, at least not like the Republicans. Everyone isn’t the same.
Republicans have dropped even the pretense of Reality, openly embracing the classic ‘alternative facts’ and deriding the ‘reality-based community’ as idiots. But Reality doesn’t matter if they can find enough dupes. In the name of election security, a doubt Republicans seeded, nurtured, and harvested based on a lie, they can disenfranchise millions of voters and ensure one-party rule. In the name of avoiding indoctrination, they can force students to toe the party line by learning a provably wrong and dangerously distorted worldview. In the name of smaller government, they can use the power of government to whip businesses into line. In the name of justice and
principle, they can cripple legitimate, reality-based investigations and advocate using the justice system as a bludgeon without barely a pretense of legitimacy. I could, all too easily, go on.
While we deal with this intentional Unreality, Reality itself marches on and governments, worldwide, are crippled in acting on any of the problems Reality is spitting at us. The world is already dealing with the devastating consequences of climate change with more to come. Nuclear war in Europe, despite the propaganda, is a legitimate fear. Every country from repressive thugocracies to putative democracies is dealing with income inequality funneling political power to the hands of a very few, perhaps irretrievably. Again I could go on, but you get the idea… all these are problems that, in Reality, aren’t being addressed.
Orwell warned about a Party forcing us to reject the evidence before us but he didn’t say why. It’s because every lie is an admission that you wouldn’t support the liar if you knew the truth. Today’s rhetorical war isn’t a legitimate difference of opinion, it’s a conscious strategy of lies and distortion that have been proven wrong. In Reality. Repeatedly. But the liars know you’d never support their agenda otherwise.
Orwell had another quote, “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”. Reality exists. Be a revolutionary.
Make a great day,
Digging Deeper…
Let’s Talk About Furries, SaferSchools UK, Sep 2021
The claim: A Wisconsin school district has a ‘furry protocol’, Kate Petersen, USA Today, Apr 2022
Michelle Goldberg: Why are seemingly functional adults falling for the ‘Furries’ myth?, Michelle Goldberg, NYTimes, Apr 2022
QAnon, Blood Libel, and the Satanic Panic, Talia Lavin in The New Republic, Sep 2020
How QAnon Became Obsessed With ‘Adrenochrome,’ an Imaginary Drug Hollywood Is ‘Harvesting’ from Kids, Tarpley Hitt on Daily Beast, Aug 2020
6 conspiracy theories about the 2020 election – debunked, Li Cohen on CBS News, Jan 2021
Newsmax CEO Defends Giving Voice To Election Conspiracy Theories, The Mehdi Hasan Show, Nov 2020
Newsmax Host Greg Kelly: I ‘Personally Feel’ Biden Is Not President-Elect, Matt Wilstein on Daily Beast, Dec 2020
Michael Flynn’s coup comments show how QAnon is evolving in the Biden era, Rebecca Heilweil in Vox, Jun 2021
One-party rule is now the credo of Trump and his followers, Lloyd Green in the Guardian, Jan 2022
Wisconsin’s 1-party rule is what the GOP wants everywhere, Ryan Cooper in The Week, Jan 2022
Fact check: No evidence to support QAnon claims of mass arrests, military takeover, illegitimacy of Biden’s presidency or Trump’s return to power, Reuters Staff, Jan 2021
Why do conspiracy theories about pedophilia hold such sway with some conservatives? Melissa Healy in LA Times, Oct 2020
The Great (Fake) Child-Sex-Trafficking Epidemic, Kaitlyn Tiffany in The Atlantic, Dec 2021
A look at the Americans who believe there is some truth to the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was planned, Katherine Schaeffer at Pew Research Center
The casualties of this year’s viral conspiracy theories, Marianna Spring on BBC News, Dec 2020
‘Groomer,’ ‘pro-pedophile’: Old tropes find new life in anti-LGBTQ movement, Matt Lavietes on NBC News, Apr 2022
GOP turns to false insinuations of LGBTQ grooming against Democrats, Colby Itkowitz in Washington Post, Apr 2022
Republicans do not have a right to remain silent, Glenn Altschuler in The Hill, Feb 2022
LGBTQ people face ‘groomer’ accusations and trolling as culture war rages on, Kat Tenbarge on NBC News, Apr 2022
‘Grooming’: The Ubiquitous Term in the LGBTQ School Debate, Associated Press, Mar 2022
Speaking of Psychology: Why people believe in conspiracy theories, with Karen Douglas, PhD, American Psychological Association, Jan 2021
Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students, Florida Dept of Education, Apr 2022
Florida rejects 54 math books, claiming critical race theory appeared in some, Ayana Archie on NPR, Apr 2022
Newt Gingrich says January 6 investigators ‘face real risk of jail’ if GOP wins Congress, Rick Rouan in USA Today, Jan 2022
Hunter Biden is a prime target of investigation if Republicans win Congress, PBS News Hour, Apr 2022
Republicans vow to end “indoctrination,” Critical Race Theory in NC schools, Greg Childress in NC Policy Watch, Jul 2021
Republicans have given no fewer than 10 different reasons for opposing bipartisan Jan 6 investigations, JM Rieger in Washington Post, Aug 2021
Governments face losing the battle against climate change, Ruth Townend in Chatham House, Feb 2022
Market Failure, Government Failure And Externalities Inclimate Change Mitigation: The Case For A Carbon Tax, Brian Andrew, Charles Darwin University, Australia, 2008
The most disturbing fact about the GOP’s burgeoning fake electors scandal, Lindsay Beyerstein in Raw Story, Jan 2022
Jan. 6 panel ramps up investigation into Trump’s state-level pressure, Nicholas Wu in Politico, Jan 2022
“Plot to Overturn the Election”: Frontline/ProPublica Report Shows How Trump’s Lies Became GOP Dogma, Democracy NOW, Mar 2022
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, IPCC 6th Assessment Report
Reality-Denial Among America’s Democratic Party Faithful, Eric Zuesse in Counter Currents, Aug 2019
Democrats and Republicans are not equivalents, Dan Riley in the Daily Collegian, Nov 2018
The False Equivalence Between the Democratic Left and the Republican Right Is Absurd, Jeffrey Isaac on Common Dreams, Feb 2021
Democrats dither as their problems swell- The president and his party need to wake up and acknowledge reality before the midterm elections. Scot Lehigh on Boston Globe, Apr 2022
With Russia invading Ukraine, what’s the threat of nuclear war right now? Sarah Kuta on Colorado Boulder Today, Mar 2022
Federal Government Is Failing on Climate Readiness, Watchdog Says, Thomas Frank on Scientific American, Nov 2019
Thomas Piketty and Global Inequality in The Atlantic, May 2014
Is Wealth Inequality Corroding American Democracy? Katherine Getchell at University of California Guardian, Apr 2021
Diagnosing the Republican Brain- Conservatives deny science and facts. But there’s a reality check that liberals need too., Chris Mooney in Mother Jones, Mar 2012
