Multiplicities In Paradise

S usceptibility to disinformation is the illiteracy of the internet age. We have a tendency to view conspiracy theories as theories, statements about the world that can be either true or false. Since they are typically false, we treat them as flawed explanations, premised on logical inconsistencies or faulty evidence. The expression “conspiracy theory” was coined by a philosopher of science, Karl Popper, to designate the incapacity to understand social events as the outcome of a many interdependent processes. He saw them instead as the expression of a single and omnipotent will. The “conspiracy theory of society,” Popper wrote , was something akin to “a primitive kind of superstition.” This has remained the prevalent view ever since: in an influential article published ten years ago, two Harvard scholars—Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule— called them “crippled epistemologies.” This is certainly how I've seen them. With increasing occurrences of people whom I would think would know...

 Americans have always been center left, they just no longer believe they are. The cause of this is largely that language has been systemically sabotaged to manipulate and deceive. America has a particular version of liberalism that has always been divergent from the norm. It's always been a term that is a little puzzling. This is true of "conservatism" in America as well frankly.  The words have particular meanings in the US that are dissimilar to the rest of the world's understanding. It seems if you nonchalantly ask folks to describe their political views, many respond with "conservative". What they really mean has more to do with with the broader meaning of the word 'conservative", rather than the meaning of a political conservative which is primarily about strengthening and protecting an existing social hierarchy.    In Europe, the word "Liberal " has traditionally meant a preference for things like limited government, separate privat...

  3 0 years ago Francis Fukuyama penned his famous "The End of History?" thesis. Fukuyama’s assessment of the unravelling of the Cold War and the triumph of Western Liberal Democracy and the free market economic system was all the rage at the time.  It was easy to reduce the failure of the Soviet state-led political and economic model to being inferior to the more robust and free-flowing ideology of individual civil liberties and, of course, a minimalist state that enabled the invisible hand of the market. 1989 represented what Fukuyama described as the “End of History”. T he storming of the United States’ Capitol Hill buildings on 6 January 2021 by pro-Trump supporters could come straight out of a Hollywood-style action movie script. Predictable after four years of a presidency that can only be described as pop culture's ultimate reality TV climaxing in the Seizure of the Legislature. Had this taken place in any other country, the US may have sought to intervene, to up...

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” ― Gautama Buddha T he future is coming. The places and times that we have lived in and loved are ghosts. Our yester-years are buried. You may cherish the memories or you may damn them...  but it's best to leave them where they lie, the fastest way you can. History is best learned from, not repeated. On our journey, there are many forks in the path. While we know not where they may lead with certainly, using a bit of reasoning; we make better choices of navigation. Never turn back and never deceive yourself that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is gone. Passed times seem safe, yet they are vanquished times, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. Yet we can glimpse the forming shapes within this cloud. The coming AI takeover will be further reaching than most people realize. A 2013 study from researchers at Oxford University ...

Dear decent people, First let me explain a few things to you. The Republican Party, whatever it stood for in the past, no longer stands for that. Nor anything else for that matter. We stand only for our own personal accumulation of power and wealth, and that's it. Stop trying to appeal to our ethics. We have none. Stop trying to appeal to our humanity. We have none. The Republican party is also known affectionately as the  God  &  Oil  Party (GOP). It is a division of  Halliburton  and a subsidiary of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Today's GOP is the largest misanthropic organization in the world. We may cite Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt as proof we are not assholes when we want your vote, but remember, Roosevelt left the party and took all the decent people with him. As for Lincoln, he was no states rights champion, and we'd drum him the hell out if he were alive today! (that damned atheist bleeding heart progressive opposed slav...

HISTORIC HISTORY by Dixon Butz, who holds a B.A. (Boneheaded Ape) degree in history from Trump University I t was before the dawn of September 18, 1776. Great Britain and the 13 American colonies were in the thick of the Revolutionary War. The Battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought. The Declaration of Independence had been signed. It’d be another three days before the British Invasion of New York City — which is remembered as The Great Fire of 1776. But this was a day in history unlike any other. When the British Army’s ships docked at what is now known as Jamaica Bay — the lagoon on the southern side of Long Island — the Minutemen were ready and waiting. The militia hid in the long lines at customs and the multitude of Hudson News’ stands, amongst the travelers fumbling to gather their belongings after going through security, as well as the ones asking if this was the terminal with a Nathan's Hot Dog joint. Corners of America the British had never s...

“These classic toy soldiers will teach Americans about their president’s great backyard fighting days in Queens. F earing a lack of participation by military families and patriot groups for his “reality TV” hijacking of the 4th of July parade in Washington, Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to line the route with 30,000 “GI Joe” toy action figures to enhance the crowd size. Trump is forbidding black or brown or yellow GI Joes from appearing in his parade, “because it’s not what my base wants to see.”   T he president has also told his affiliated TV network, FOX News, to shoot the toy soldiers from a low vantage point “so they look really strong, life-sized and intimidating.” T he Fuhrer, er I mean President; has been wanting a yuge military parade to inflate his ego and waste taxpayer dollars, since stealing er, I mean taking the office, but has been thwarted in past efforts to recreate the kind of weapons-heavy displays like “my BFF Vladimir puts on in Moscow.” ...

The problem with our illegitimate president is not that he is imbecilic and inept—it is that he has surrendered total power to the oligarchs. They get what they want. They do what they want. Although the president is a one-man wrecking crew aimed at democracy and institutions, and he has turned the United States into a laughingstock around the globe, our national crisis is embodied not in Trump but the corporate state’s now unfettered pillage. Trump, who has no inclination or ability to govern, has handed the machinery of government over to the bankers, corporate executives, right-wing think tanks, CEOs and generals. They are  eradicating the few regulations  and laws that inhibited a naked kleptocracy. They are dynamiting the institutions,  including the State Department , that served interests other than corporate profit and are stacking the courts with far right-wing, corporate-controlled ideologues. Trump provides the daily entertainment; the elites handle the bu...

How To Survive The Age Of Trumpistan M argret Mead once said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,”  I never imagined she meant alt-right extremists and neo-Nazis. (Nor did she I'd bet). But it worked for them. (It will work for us, again too, as it has in the past at times.) One thing has become apparent. Institutions will not save us. We can only save ourselves, and each other. I t took Putin one year to take over the Russian media. It took only four years to dismantle its electoral system. Russia's judiciary collapsed unnoticed. The capture of institutions in Turkey was carried out even faster, by a man once celebrated as the democratic leader who would lead Turkey into the EU. Poland, in less than a year, has undone a quarter century’s accomplishments in building a constitutional democracy. While the United States has much stronger institutions than Germany ...

First they came for the women And I did not speak out Because I was not a woman. Then they came for the people with disabilities And I did not speak out Because I did not have a disability. Then they came for the African Americans And I did not speak out Because I was not African American. Then they came for the Mexicans And I did not speak out Because I was not Mexican. Then they came for the Muslims And I did not speak out Because I was not Muslim. Then they came for LGBT people And I did not speak out Because I was not an LGBT person Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for the journalists And I did not speak out Because I was not a journalist Then they came for the judges And I did not speak out Because I was not a judge. And now they come for the Constitution of the United States And if I do not speak out, what am I? Donald Trump's head is an ideological vacuum, the more he is ...