Revolting – Right in the Solar Plexus

Transitions can be very rough. People are displaced. Traditional jobs die. Expectations can be shattered and replaced. Money, wealth, employment and even migration patterns can be redefined beyond imagination. Ray Kurzweil, a proponent of Singularity Theory, told us that the greatest shift in the 20th century (on steroids, I might add in the 21st) was the acceleration of change itself. He postulated that in the modern era, taking the year 2000 as a single change unit, by the end of the 21st century, mankind will have experienced 20,000 year-units of change.

As early automobiles began trundling down our mostly dirt streets and roads in the early 20th century, towns passed ordinances banning these vehicles because engine noise and backfires scared horses. In 1903, the Wright brothers mounted the first controlled flight of a winged aircraft. All 12 seconds worth. Looking at life today, I think the world screams “accelerated change” loudly.

But factors completely unknown in those early days have mounted parallel environmental and sociological change on an equally grand level. Over-population, over-industrialization, over-limited resource extraction and wanton release of effluents, greenhouse gas emissions have spiked massive migration patterns and added horrific climatic disasters that are literally reshaping the earth. Disinformation has risen to assuage change skeptics: From cracking radios to an explosive deluge of media, yellow journalism morphed into conspiracy theory driven personalized social media.

All of these changes have fomented massive political reactions, pushed world powers to regime-ending world wars spurring a mounting effort to calm accelerated change waters in an escalating battle between cruel but efficient autocracy and gentler but messy democracy. When the future seems destabilizing and unfathomable, threatening life choices in uncompromising erosion of life patterns that had existed for decades, if not centuries, politicians who glorify the past (carefully eliminating mention of the profound negatives of earlier eras) offer gullible, change-terrified people the impossible promise of a return to yesteryear. Since technology is unstoppable (though it can be delayed… much like those towns banning cars noted above), people tend to fall back on religion and false prophets to replace those accelerants of change to explain “reality.”

And sometimes, even those inevitable steps into modernity, pushed by even the most powerful agents of necessary change, are too much, too soon to be absorbed into a true “new normal.” Those who lead these changes, particularly shifts in displacing technology, are often stymied by a new generation of backsliding luddites combined with an over-estimation of what change agents perceive as “obvious.” For example, the literal slam of brakes on the manufacture EV and driverless vehicles, even as artificial intelligence is beginning to dominate our world, stems from an over-estimation of the extent building of the required charging stations, throwing a monkey wrench into the “best laid plans of mice and men.” Nothing speaks louder to this conundrum than “red state despised” California’s plunge into explosive development of alternative energy. Like solar power.

Writing for the November 24th Los Angeles Times, Melody Petersen explores the harsh reality of California’s overly explosive solar power capacity rollout: “California is making so much solar energy that large commercial operators are increasingly forced to stop production, raising questions about the state’s costly plan to shift entirely to carbon-free sources of electricity… In the last 12 months, California’s solar farms have curtailed production of more than 3 million megawatt hours of solar energy, either on the orders of the state’s grid operator or because prices had plummeted because of the glut, according to an analysis of data by The Times… That’s enough to power 518,000 California homes for a year, based on average electricity usage.

“To avoid overloading the power grid, California sometimes must stop producing solar and wind power. So far in 2024, the state has curtailed generation by 3.2 million megawatt hours — enough to power more than half a million homes for a year… The amount of curtailed solar power has more than doubled from 1.5 million megawatt hours in 2021, state records show, and is up eight times from levels in 2017.

“The waste would have been even larger if California had not paid utilities in other states to take the excess solar energy, documents from the state’s grid operator show. That means green energy paid for by California electricity customers is sent away, lowering bills for residents of other states… Arizona’s largest public utility reaped $69 million in savings last year by buying from the market California created to get rid of its excess solar power. The utility returned that money to its customers as a credit on their bills… Also reaping profits are electricity traders, including banks and hedge funds…

“The solar glut also means higher electricity bills for Californians, since they are effectively paying to generate the power but not using it… California’s electric rates are roughly twice the nation’s average, with only Hawaii having higher rates. Rates at Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric increased by 51% over the last three years… The increasing oversupply of solar power has created a situation where energy traders can buy the excess at prices so low they become negative, said energy consultant Gary Ackerman, the former executive director of the Western Power Trading Forum. That means the solar plant is paying the traders to take it.” Wowsers!

The rising Trump administration seems hellbent on ending those energy-directed infrastructure efforts from the Biden administration and returning those “drill baby, drill” vectors to restore traditional fossil fuel burning energy resources. But the United States, fracking away, just may already be producing as much oil as it can. When you remember that the price of oil is not materially impacted by the oil output of a single nation – it is globally-priced commodity – this political vector is more about lip-flapping to placate the gullible neo-luddites and a clear pandering to the oil and gas Trump donors who expect a payback. PS: US oil drillers do not offer discounts to their American consumers.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as I have said many times, Mother Nature (and her quiver of the laws of physics) does not care what we like, what we want or how our politicians decide; if you like the wildfires, floods, coastal erosion, massive storms and intolerable summer heat – not to the mention the result of climate driven migration – you ain’t seen nuffin’ yet!

Retarded Retardant & Sickening Spatulas

 

Retarded Retardant & Sickening Spatulas

Where There’s Smoke or Plastics, There’re Toxins

We know that eating, drinking water, breathing and bathing can be dangerous to your health. Huh? So, we should stop doing those nasties? Even the stuff that helps us just may contain toxins that can impair our health or even kill us… usually very slowly. With the very impact of climate change on all of us, there are so many realities that surround us that we cannot stop. Excessive heat is taking its toll on those without air conditioning. Rampant pollution after a hurricane, tsunami or even just heavy rainfall that leads to flooding. The exceptionally toxic particulate emissions from massive wildfires and, believe it or not, are countered by even more toxic retardant that is used to fight those fires. And then there are those toxic reservoirs of “garden variety/old world” air, water and ground pollution. From microplastics invading our bodies to effluents from old mines and oil fields to those emission that are legally tolerated (like fracking chemicals), and companies that still dump or emit toxics when they can.

While this is a topic for another day or dealt with in past blogs, there is also the science-skeptic trend infused in MAGA orthodoxy, confirmed and vetted with conspiracy theories, and becoming official policy under the rising Trump administration. From the safety of fluoridated tap water to the vaccines that have protected us and our children for decades, all seeming to be targeted on the hit list of Trump’s appointees, again using conspiracy theories to justify the attack. Mother nature does not care if we wish to destroy our planet, taking humanity with it. She started with nothing… and so what?

Denial and a refusal to deal with reality, the willingness to legislate and create policies that defy the laws of physics seem to be Trump priorities, along with trimming healthcare programs for those on the lower reaches of our economic ladder. All in order to pour more wealth into the coffers of the richest in the land, through reduced taxes and eliminating financial and environmental/health-directed regulations aimed at protecting all of us.

So today, let’s look at a little thing that you might not have noticed: Generally, “black plastic kitchenware can release flame retardants and other toxic chemicals when exposed to heat. Many items are made from recycled electronic waste… Flame retardants are getting into our most commonly used items because these black-colored products are being made from recycled electronic waste, such as discarded television sets and computers, that frequently contain the additives.

“As with any other plastic cooking utensil, when you use a black plastic spatula while flipping your pancakes, the heat can encourage any flame retardant present to leach out of the flipper and into your flapjacks… ‘That’s because flame retardants aren’t actually bound to the plastic polymers that they’re added to, it’s an additive. And heat can ease migration of chemicals out of products,’ said Megan Liu, co-author of [a] study and science and policy manager for Toxic-Free Future… Liu said it’s also unclear how many types of flame retardants are in these black plastic products… Some of the products that researchers tested in this recent study ‘had up to nine different harmful chemicals and harmful flame retardants in them,’ she said.

“Experts advise consumers not to purchase any black plastic cookware or other products if possible. If you have some products in your kitchen or home, they advise you to throw them away… There are many restaurants that place their to-go orders in black plastic containers. If you receive food in one of them, do not use it to reheat the food or your leftovers — transfer the food to glass or ceramic containers.

“‘Sushi trays had one of the highest levels of [a] flame retardant called deca-BDE [Decabromodiphenyl ether], which is really concerning because it has actually been phased out of the U.S. and banned’ for several years, Liu said… The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of deca-BDE in 2021 after the chemical was linked to cancer, endocrine and thyroid issues as well as a host of other ailments.” Karen Garcia for the November 19th Los Angeles Times. But we need flame retardants, particularly to combat those nasty and massive wildfires. That smoke can kill us.

A November 19th report from the Yale School of Engineering took an in depth look at the realities of drifting smoke emanating from wildfires: “One of the insights they were able to glean with this technology was just how much the smoke, which contained particulate matter, transformed chemically after traveling hundreds to thousands of miles over several days… In the case of several smoke episodes during this time, the researchers saw that the chemical makeup had been oxidized so much over the period that it no longer resembled typical wildfire smoke or any kind of biomass burning. Because of this transformation, previous studies have misidentified low-level wildfire smoke as other forms of air pollution and underestimated the role of wildfire smoke in contributing to the amount of particulate matter in the air.

“[One] analysis specifically looked at asthma-related emergency department visits, which showed a significant increase associated with the sum of wildfire-related particulate matter during the study period… In the case of several smoke episodes during this time, the researchers saw that the chemical makeup had been oxidized so much over the period that it no longer resembled typical wildfire smoke or any kind of biomass burning. Because of this transformation, previous studies have misidentified low-level wildfire smoke as other forms of air pollution, and underestimated the role of wildfire smoke in contributing to the amount of particulate matter in the air. One of the instruments they used at the Queens site can measure trace elements in the smoke, including potassium, which is abundant in biomass burning emissions and is not changed by photochemical oxidation. That proved particularly helpful in identifying the chemical makeup as wildfire smoke.”

So, we need more fire retardant to limit and contain wildfires, right? Well, it seems that pink stuff flying out of firefighting aircraft is really the most effective retardant available. And as these fires explode across our country, we are going to use increasing amounts of this retardant. Writing for the November 17th Los Angeles Times, Alex Wigglesworth explains that retardant may be effective… but it rather toxic, often spread by adjacent waterways: “The U.S. Forest Service and other agencies each year drop tens of millions of gallons of fire retardant, mostly an ammonium phosphate-based slurry called Phos-Chek, around wildfires to coat vegetation and slow the spread of flames.

“But a new study by researchers at USC has found that a popular variety is laden with toxic metals, and estimates retardant use has released 850,000 pounds of these chemicals into the environment since 2009. The results suggest the ecological consequences of retardant use merit further study, and that finding a cleaner product is probably worthwhile, said Daniel McCurry, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at USC and one of the study’s authors… In the USC study, published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, McCurry and his fellow researchers tested 14 fire suppressants. All were purchased on the open market because manufacturers declined to provide samples, he said.

“Each contained at least eight heavy metals. One in particular — Phos-Chek LC-95W — had ‘potentially alarming’ concentrations of several metals, including chromium, cadmium and vanadium, he said, adding that the substance could be classified as hazardous waste under federal and California regulations… Chronic exposure to these metals has been linked to cancer, kidney and liver diseases in humans, but the potential ill effects on the environment are likely of more concern, particularly when retardant enters waterways, he said… McCurry described the retardant his team tested as the colorless version of the bright-pink Phos-Chek that’s dumped from aircraft. The pink stuff, LC-95A, is not available for consumers to purchase.” Why do we have such fires? Oh, that “hoax,” climate change, that just keeps giving and giving?

I’m Peter Dekom, and while many expect technology to combat climate change and the disasters it causes, sometimes that technology can truly harm us… and even kill.

Is Reshoring Real, Is Globalization Dead?

The theme of bringing back working-class, blue-collar manufacturing jobs to the United States is an apparent goal of both of our major parties. But is that real? We know we cannot export most of our infrastructure and real estate driven construction jobs, and that is a sweet spot that does not impose economic distortions to the system. To the extent that we are attempting to use fiscal and monetary policies to incentivize (force?) private employers to recapture overseas operations and bring them back to the US, that imperfect world just may have more negative consequences than true job creation. Both political parties want to incentivize “reshoring,” an attempt to reverse a long period of globalization that accelerated during the Clinton administration and continued through both Democratic and Republican administrations thereafter.

Harsh reality - if the blue-collar work is labor intensive, and where the tasks are not intensely skilled, we have followed two paths: pursuing cheap labor overseas or, where the jobs cannot be easily exported (e.g., US-based agricultural, construction, unpleasant/high risk manufacturing, and hospitality), rely on unskilled immigrants (legal or undocumented). Where the work is highly skilled, we have relied either on robotics/automation or top-of-the line craftspeople. So many high-tech products either have major foreign-made components (for example, US-made cars, on average, contain about 25% overseas-manufactured components) or are primarily made in other countries. German and Japanese care makers now have major factories here. Traditional job loss because of changing demands – like coal-fired plants being replaced by clean energy alternatives – or technology enhancements, now hyper-accelerating because of artificial intelligence, is real.

Of course, we want good jobs here in the United States. Of course, we want well-paid workers. Not only do such factors generate economic prosperity that serves as a large part of our tax base, but they generate a sense of stability for the nation. That we exist in a globally competitive marketplace is relevant, but technology has leveled the playing field a great deal. Still the vestigial damage globalization has generated, in job loss alone, is particularly exemplified in our heartland “rust belt” – decimating cities like Detroit, Michigan, Gary, Indiana and Canton, Ohio – which has likewise given rise to blue-collar-driven populism and instability. The October 23rd New York Times presents this example, which is multiplied across the old line, US manufacturing centers:

“Canton, Ohio, once called itself the City of Diversified Industries. That name, locals acknowledge, does not exactly roll off the tongue. But it reflected an important part of the town’s identity as a manufacturing hub, with businesses like the appliance company Hoover based there… Today, Canton is not doing as well. The number of manufacturing jobs has fallen 45 percent since the late 1990s, as factories have shuttered or moved to Mexico, China and elsewhere. People have joined the exodus; the city’s population is now 71,000, down from 110,000 in 1970. The poverty rate — 25 percent — is nearly double the state average.”

The Democratic approach, which does embrace some tariffs, is predicted on government projects (like the Biden administration infrastructure/energy bill and silicon microchip investment), strengthening unions, making other new investments and incentivized tax credits for the private sector to bring back some jobs. Big incumbent companies, with trillions of dollars in legacy plants, facilities and business plans, argue that regulation will kill both profits and jobs. No one screams louder than BIG OIL, even as alternative energy is beginning to generate vastly more job growth than any project of job loss. Fighting progress has never worked; at best, it is delaying process making dealing with “change reality” the next CEO’s problem. I wonder where all those cans kicked down so many roads wind up?

Republicans favor large tariffs (effectively a national sales tax), pushing undocumented workers out of the country (losing low-cost labor, often for jobs Americans will not take), keeping wages and benefits from rising too fast, containing unions while cutting taxes for the rich. They are very happy touting reducing taxes for the “job creators,” which sounds so good but has never resulted in job creation… instead, such policies simply accelerate the growing federal deficit. Government programs are on the chopping block even when some of these policies represent the true path to economic salvation: like education and training. Unfortunately, the GOP vectors would, according to a major of economists who have evaluated these policies, tank the US economy big time.

“Given that outcome, the tariffs might simply raise prices — as foreign companies pass the cost of higher taxes down to consumers — without leading to more American manufacturing jobs. That would be especially difficult for a place like Canton, where people are relatively poorer and higher prices eat up a greater portion of lower incomes.

“[Yet the Democratic] proposal of new investments and tax credits might have more success bringing back some jobs. Federal handouts have kick-started renewable energy projects nationwide. And President Biden’s subsidies have led to a boom in new factory construction, including a large microchip plant in Phoenix… But subsidies are usually upfront and temporary, limiting their effect. Companies build new factories expecting to keep them open for years. They can’t do that if they know a crucial source of funding will eventually expire. That helps explain why, despite Mr. Biden’s subsidies, the number of manufacturing jobs nationwide remains 34 percent lower than it was in the late 1970s.” NYT

But even in my industry – film, television and digital content production and distribution – cultural creation (even bastions of “as American as apple pie” fare) – is beginning new era of globalized alternatives. The world is battling to bring production to shores everywhere, from the UK to Saudi Arabia, with lucrative subsidies and massive investments in technology. As Ryan Faughnder, writing for the November 4th Los Angeles Times, notes the post-pandemic production exodus, and the big questions raised over state production incentives: “The U.S., and California in particular, has taken a disproportionate share of the pain. Global production activity dropped 17% in the third quarter compared with the same period in the pre-strikes year of 2022, according to tracking firm ProdPro. However, the U.S. suffered a much steeper decline, with volume plummeting 35%. In contrast, Canada saw a 1% increase during that period.

“Projects that couldn’t secure California’s tax credits moved elsewhere, with ‘an estimated 71% of rejected projects subsequently filming out-of-state,’ [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom’s office said [as he proposed a massive increase in subsidies]…. There’s been ample debate about the usefulness and effectiveness of state film and tax incentives. Industry-funded studies and reports from organizations such as the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. have touted tax credit programs for creating jobs and boosting economic activity in their respective states. Production supports jobs directly and indirectly — by keeping prop houses, caterers and other businesses busy.

“However, others question the ultimate return from such programs, saying that their benefits are exaggerated and that they amount to a race to the bottom between the states. A report commissioned by New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance said that the state’s film production credit program ‘does not provide a positive return to the state’ in terms of taxes, generating 15 cents in direct tax revenue for every $1 invested. The same report argued that some of the productions that received tax benefits probably would have filmed in New York anyway… Similarly, a Georgia State University study estimated a fiscal return of less than 20 cents on the dollar for Georgia’s program.” Without subsidies, however, US film and TV production is dead.

I am reminded of the early 20th century when towns banned cars from passing through. Scared the horses, it seems. There aren’t a whole lot of horses and buggies around these days. Add artificial intelligence to the mix, factor in the silent firing of big companies making work so painful, workers quit… to make room for AI-empowered replacements. There are better answers, but those do engender a long-term consistency and commitment, which “instant solutions” are an anathema to impatient Americans.

I’m Peter Dekom, and instead of fighting polarizing educational culture wars, the whole country needs to triple down on the only viable long-term solution to general economic prosperity: REAL EDUCATION.

Gun Haters are Becoming Gun Owners

Legitimately armed protestors at the Michigan State Capitol, April 15, 2020

Gun Haters are Becoming Gun Owners

“It’s no long the economy, stupid!” It’s America’s post-industrial culture war!

A recent NY Times polls tells us that American democracy is under severe threat… but approximately half the nation also believes that our democracy no longer works as a viable political system. Further, Republicans own more than double the number of firearms owned by Democrats. Guns are the number one killer of American children and teens, but the American guns-are-more-important-than-our-kids culture of violence, supported by a litany of distorted Supreme Court, suggests that guns (including assault weapons) are locked into permanence in our society. Token gun control legislation rarely slides by Supreme Court rejection standards. So, knowing that the “opposition” is well armed, many of that cohort are prepared to use their weapons in support of white Christian nationalism, guess who’s buying guns?! Liberals too?

That culture war thang is the driving force. The great divide? Non-college educated males in search of a new definition of masculinity, Christianity, geography and gender vs Breadwinning/ politically strong women, a knowledge-based economy and our educated minority. The are more women in college and many professional fields than men! Physical strength as a job metric is a vestige of an earlier era; even wars are fought with machines as easily run by women as by men. Notice that race was not the main factor! Young male suicides are up with the notion of “worthlessness” at the core. We know that guns are a male thang… not a priority among women or the educated. See a pattern yet? Bottom line, knowing that we cherish guns more than ever, America is arming itself on steroids.

Part of this fractionalization comes from the normalization of hate-speech and carrying guns in spaces unheard of just a few years ago, unpermitted concealed carry, stand your ground laws proliferating… or as Jennifer Carlson, founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns in Society at Arizona State University and a 2022 MacArthur fellow, puts in the October 27th Los Angeles Times: “There’s a new reason your neighbors bought a weapon — gun culture 3.0… Americans on the left and the right are starting to arm themselves against perceived threats of political violence…

“The rumors and conspiracy theories in Hurricane Helene’s wake came armed and dangerous: Government relief was a green light for property confiscation; funds had immediately run dry; the storm itself had been engineered by the government for the benefit of Kamala Harris’ campaign. Meterologists suffered death threats. In North Carolina, FEMA workers stopped knocking on doors out of fear that militia members were after them. In Tennessee, a church-group volunteer stood between federal helpers and angry open-carry gun-toting locals. And at least one arrest, of a man armed with a rifle and a handgun, took place in North Carolina.

“The paranoia in hurricane country, with its undercurrent of violence, is just the latest sign of a new wrinkle in American gun ownership, something scholars have started describing as gun culture 3.0. The 1.0 version is firearm ownership based on hunting, often animated by a mythologized Western frontier. Gun culture 2.0 is self-defense-oriented, motivated by overwhelming concerns about violent crime that emerged in the 1960s. For years, gun-owning Americans have told pollsters that the No. 1 reason they own guns is to protect themselves in dangerous situations.

“But that broad motivation conceals a shift in what many — though not all — gun owners feel they now need protection against. Borrowing from the militia movement, which identifies government tyranny as a key reason for firearms ownership, Gun culture 3.0 is all about perceived political threats unleashed by those no longer invested in normal guardrails — whether rogue government agents or rogue private individuals…

“[A] study published this summer in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that new gun owners are much more likely to be motivated by political concerns with regard to protective force than other issues: They want protection during rallies and demonstrations, and they are especially worried about violence from people who don’t share their political beliefs. Black gun owners — long-standing or new — in particular worried about police violence… These data points suggest that Americans across the spectrum are turning to firearms as a tool of last resort to regain — as ‘bad feminist’ and new gun owner Roxane Gay recently put it — ‘ways to not feel out of control.’ And our divisive and distrustful politics are driving them there.

“Some think political violence resolves itself, that it is its ‘own worst enemy,’ because the backlash it causes renews people’s commitment to civility, and a fundamental, despite-our-differences unity. But waiting for political violence to shock Americans back from the brink can’t be the only way to stem the division and fear behind gun culture 3.0.

“In Tennessee when armed antagonists approached aid workers in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the woman who stepped between them listened. ‘People just need to be heard,’ she told a reporter, ‘I said, ‘I hear you.’ ’ But she also pointed out what they could see for themselves: storm victims being helped, not exploited… We can depolarize everyday life, calling out divisive behavior and labeling disinformation for what it is, even among our political allies, and working — no matter how hard it might be — to approach those on the ‘other side’ with curiosity. Maybe even compassion… Neither gun ownership nor gun limits will address the underlying fear and polarization that feeds gun culture 3.0. We have to address our withered capacity to live with one another.” We live in a country where so many can picture shooting someone with opposing views without a twitch of guilt… by dehumanizing them first. For further background see my October 6th The Legitimized MAGA Politics of Violence blog.

I’m Peter Dekom, and that hating people for their beliefs, justifying killing or silencing them, has become a new normal should trouble us all.

How Protecting Profits for the Richest Pharmas and Healthcare Institutions is Sinking US Healthcare

How Protecting Profits for the Richest Pharmas and Healthcare Institutions is Sinking US Healthcare

From Medicare to Medi-Icouldcareless

A bad as my October 3rd We Have the Best Healthcare in the World, if You are Rich blog may have depicted the sad performance of the American healthcare system may have been, the numbers emphasize how much of an under-performer it is, and how much worse it is trending. Yet, medical care issues drifted into the back pages of campaign rhetoric, even with the threat of disruption to our failing healthcare system approaching catastrophic proportions. But there is no question that our current healthcare system makes little sense, especially when compared to that of any other developed country. Writing for the October 20th Yahoo!Finance, Adriana Belmonte provides the supporting numbers:

“The overall cost of healthcare remains a major problem. Healthcare expenditures grew 4.1% in 2022, reaching $4.5 trillion and accounting for 17.3% of US GDP…. The ballooning costs highlight the crux of the US healthcare conundrum: The US spends more on healthcare than any other developed country in the world — an estimated $13,493 per person. Yet it falls behind in overall healthcare performance, access and affordability, administrative efficiency, equity, and health outcomes, according to the Commonwealth Fund… ‘The cost of healthcare is always a pocketbook concern for Americans,” Paul Shafer, assistant professor at Boston University's Department of Health Law, Policy, and Management…

“An estimated 20 million Americans collectively owe $220 billion in medical debt, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker… In June, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it would erase medical debt from credit reports using funding from the American Rescue Plan… KFF found that among insured adults with medical debt, 35% indicated they did not fill a prescription for medicine due to cost within the last 12 months (compared to 7% of insured adults without medical debt), while 41% didn’t go to a doctor or clinic for a medical problem due to cost (compared with 9% without medical debt)… Medicare accounts for 10% of the federal budget, a share projected to grow to 18% by 2032, according to KFF. Medicare Advantage, the privatized option under Medicare, makes up 22% of the total spending and has become a lightning rod for criticism from medical providers who say insurers running these plans too often delay and deny care while getting paid too much by the federal government.” And yet, medical bankruptcies are so “American,” even for those with health insurance.

No other country on Earth has per capita or GDP expenditures and percentages anywhere near those in the United States. We could do so much better, but for the most part, progress has been slow: three steps forward, a GOP pushback of one or two steps back. Smug healthcare giants, if they cannot stop this movement totally, have the lobbying/ campaign contribution machine to drag fairness out of play and slorp at their profit margins. But fixing an inane system is critical. And no, this is no more “creeping socialism” than public schools.

Margot Sanger-Katz, writing for the October 28th The Morning newsfeed from the NY Times notes that even without additional legislation, and control of our Congress is beyond determinative, our President will “influence how many people have health insurance, how much many pay for it, the prices of prescription drugs and more through regulatory power alone… [But Congress could well be the decider] During the pandemic, Democrats raised the subsidies that help 20 million Americans buy their own insurance. Poor Americans can get covered without paying a cent, and even people making north of $100,000 got help with premiums. But if Congress does nothing, the new subsidies will expire at the end of next year. That would likely leave more than three million uninsured — and would make nearly everyone insured through Obamacare pay more.”

With the least effective healthcare system in the developed world, and beyond doubt the most expensive, access to all those wonderous American medical inventions and treatments is clearly based on maintaining profits to the biggest players in the American healthcare network… a priority that overrides healthcare itself. Some glaring disparities – like the fact that even with recent efforts by the Biden administration to bring down the cost of prescription drugs; for the most part, Americans pay more than two to three+ times more for the same medications than any developed nation – have made reducing those costs, opening the door to more leverage in healthcare systems when negotiating with pharmas, an issue with supporters from both sides of the aisle. But there is staunch MAGA cadre in Congress that sill prioritize profits over healthcare.

It is equally clear the MAGA is also more focused on the budget deficit and continuing their press for massive additional tax cuts for the rich, continuing and enhancing their 2017 corporate tax reduction legislation, by contracting Medicaid and Medicare (as well as Social Security), and leaving much of those healthcare policies to already cash-strapped states instead. Efforts to repeal or further severely contract the very popular Affordable Care Act, with or without a replacement, just will not die. The rising national slam to reproductive healthcare has created the highest maternal and infant mortality rate in recent memory. The rich get the best, the rest, not so much.

I’m Peter Dekom, we are a nation that has made no meaningful effort to stem gun fatalities (the greatest killer of our children and teens), to care for women in desperate need of what was once normal reproductive medical care and one where healthcare remains deeply subordinate to industry profits.

Cache Kash for Cash

Cache Kash for Cash

Is the GOP Congress Bloc a Legislative Body or a Trump Hand Puppet, Parrots or People?

“Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency.”

Former Trump Attorney General, Willam Barr in his memoir.

“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections… We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.” 

FBI Director Nominee, Kash Patel

I was watching Face the Nation on December 1st. Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz was on, and as he described “the corruption” that defined today’s FBI, he was simply mouthing the exact words repeatedly uttered by Donald Trump on point. I opened my eyes and saw it was Ted. I remembered his post on Twitter on April 22, 2016. “Donald Trump can’t be trusted with common sense. Why would we trust him in the White House.” Called him “Lyin’ Ted.” And yet, Cruz’ words were parrot-like imitations of Trump. Carl Hulse, writing for the New York Times on December 1st, asked burning question, the answer suggesting whether the Republican Senate would join the US Supreme Court in its presidential immunity ruling and enable the ascension of a true autocrat to rule the United States:

“President-elect Donald J. Trump’s determination to crash over traditional governmental guardrails will present a fundamental test of whether the Republican-controlled Senate can maintain its constitutional role as an independent institution and a check on presidential power… With Mr. Trump putting forward a raft of contentious prospective nominees and threatening to challenge congressional authority in other ways, Republicans who will hold the majority come January could find themselves in the precarious position of having to choose between standing up for their institution or bowing to a president dismissive of government norms.” Trump even promised engaging a special commission to establish that the 2020 was “stolen.”

If you had the slightest hope that Trump’s term would not be driven by retribution and revenge, destruction of a federal government that, while flawed and in need of some prudent culling and restructure, fulfilled our policy needs, and that he would not really pursue anything to make Trump’s designated rich even richer, let me disabuse you of that misguided belief. I’ve blogged about several of his nominees, wildly unqualified, even dangerous, yet while Trump theoretically claims to be the “law and order President,” his greatest foes are mostly Republican federal law enforcement officers with tons of experience and seniority, none hated more than the prestigious Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assuming he can in fact remove the existing head, FBI director Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed during his first term in 2017 for a theoretical 10-year term, Trump has nominated ultra-loyal, 2020 election denying, extreme MAGA conspiracy theory mongering and FBI hating, Kash Patel, former chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, to replace Wray. Patel as FBI director is akin to placing a wolf to guard the henhouse. His antipathy to the most prestigious federal law enforcement agency, his bias very likely to unravel the FBI (provoking the desired mass resignations) indeed seems as another loyalty test for the MAGA majority Senate… perhaps even an unsubtle slap in the face to Congress. Can they really approve a man they know is Trump’s instrument of destruction for the FBI?

“In his final months in [his first term in] office, Trump unsuccessfully pushed the idea of installing Patel as the deputy director at either the FBI or CIA in an effort to strengthen the president’s control of the intelligence community. William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, wrote in his memoir that he told then-chief of staff Mark Meadows that an appointment to Patel as deputy FBI director would happen ‘over my dead body.’…

“The selection is in keeping with Trump's view that the government's law enforcement and intelligence agencies require a radical transformation and his stated desire for retribution against supposed adversaries. It shows how Trump, still fuming over years of federal investigations that shadowed his first administration and later led to his indictment, is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he believes will protect rather than scrutinize him… Patel ‘played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,’ Trump wrote Saturday night [11/29] in a social media post.” Eric Tucker and Alan Suderman, writing for the November 30th, Associated Press.

If we’re looking for signs of likely future Trump administration corruption, combine Trump’s power to exempt certain economic sectors from immigration sweeps or tariffs for their imports with the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling for “official acts,” and you can see precisely how loyalists can be rewarded and neutral or critical cadres punished. Add the extra-legislative DOGE (Musk and Ramaswamy) as they “recommend” budget cuts, particularly to healthcare and Social Security supported by Trump, and see how well those parrots are trained.

As we can plainly see, Trump is baiting the Republican members of the Senate to prove their loyalty to him by confirming the worst, least competent, angry, conspiracy driven major federal nominees in recent memory. Internationally, leaders of even friendly nations are beginning to circle the wagons against Trump’s threats and bully tactics… his global opponents are wondering how to marginalize the power of the United States given this global revulsion to Trump’s tactics. And given the pattern of American leadership inconsistency, you have to wonder how many nations will ever trust the United States to honor its treaty commitments and mutual defense obligations… ever again.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I think the world would really like to know whether the GOP members of Congress were elected to represent the people who vote for them… or Donald Trump.

 

 

Tooth and Consequences

Tooth and Consequences

Robert Kennedy, Jr’s medical track record – he has no medical credentials – should give us all pause. He is Donald Trump’s pick to head a huge federal agency, one that touches every aspect of our healthcare: the Department Health and Human Services (HHS). If confirmed RFK, Jr., would run most of the federal sub-cabinet agencies that vet food and drug safety, covers many federal social programs, and the operation of all federal health programs outside of the military. He would be one of the most powerful people in government. HHS is one of the largest federal cabinet-level agencies with well over 80 thousand federal employees. A failed presidential candidate, disavowed by the entire Kennedy family (yes, that Kennedy family), RFK, Jr has become America’s conspiracy adopter in chief, bringing quacks and antivaxxers adoringly to his door. Unfortunately, his family name gave him credibility where it clearly was not merited. Like in this reality in Samoa in2019.

“In 2013, 90% of babies in Samoa received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination at one year of age… The 2019 Samoa measles outbreak began in September 2019. As of 6 January 2020, there were over 5,700 cases of measles and 83 deaths, out of a Samoan population of 200,874. Over three per cent of the population were infected. The cause of the outbreak was attributed to decreased vaccination rates among newly born babies, from 74% in 2017 to 31–34% in 2018, even though nearby islands had rates near 99%...

“In June 2019, American anti-vaccination activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [had] visited Samoa to meet with local anti-vaccination activists including Taylor Winterstein and Edwin Tamanese, whom he called a ‘medical freedom hero. Kennedy also discussed vaccines with then-Prime Minister Tuilaʻepa Saʻilele Malielegaoi, and campaigned against the vaccine on social media.

“After the measles outbreak started, anti-vaxxers (including Kennedy) credited the dozens of measles deaths to poverty and malnutrition or even to the vaccine itself, but there was no evidence for these claims, and clinicians reported that Vitamin A deficiency or immunodeficiency did not appear to be a substantial contributing factor to the outbreak…

“In 2019 there [had been arising number of outbreaks] throughout the Pacific region, including in Tonga, Fiji, the Philippines and New Zealand, but only Samoa suffered casualties, due to its low vaccination rate… UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimate that the measles vaccination rate among newly born babies in Samoa fell from 74% in 2017 to 34% in 2018, similar to some of the poorest countries in Africa. Ideally, countries should have immunization levels above 90%. Vaccination rates dropped to 31% in Samoa, compared to 99% in nearby Nauru, Niue, Cook Islands, and American Samoa.” Wikipedia. Samoan babies died in unprecedented numbers as many families had eschewed vaccinating their babies and relied on RFK Jr’s holistic advice and belief that herd immunity would solve the issue.

After Joe Biden distributed the COVID vaccines in the US (notably developed during the Trump administration, but with no distribution plan… leaving that to the states), RFK, Jr lauded Trump’s later COVID approach, in which the ex-President suggested that social distancing and closing businesses, mandating vaccines and masking in many sectors, were unnecessary and deleterious to the American economy. RFK, Jr continued to insist, dramatically and incorrectly as the numbers clearly proved, that the vaccine caused more harm than good. He was cheered by antivaxxer conspiracy theorists, whose efforts have pulled mandatory school vaccinations (required for over half a century) into a “voluntary only” process in lots of American public schools. A new MAGA campaign platform was born. Anti-science skeptics were beginning to triumph is the worst possible way,

RFK, Jr’s next crusade, in his challenge to “make American healthy again,” particularly if he is confirmed as HHS Secretary, is to eliminate the use of fluorides from tap water across the land. Fluoridation has long been viewed as toxic by a small cadre of American conspiracy theorists. As noted by Saima Iqbal in the November 27th Scientific American, RFK, Jr “fueled a fluoride furor on social media when he called the mineral ‘industrial waste’. Kennedy… inaccurately claimed fluoride exposure could lead to arthritis, bone cancer, thyroid disease, IQ loss and neurodevelopmental conditions. He has said he would advise against adding it to tap water—a practice that currently reaches more than 209 million Americans.

“It remains unclear whether the incoming Trump administration could effectively ban water fluoridation: current laws let state and local governments make the decision. But at the federal level, fluoridation opponents could deploy the Safe Drinking Water Act, which regulates water contaminants nationally. They could also take advantage of a recent federal court decision: In September a California district court judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to set stricter regulations on tap water fluoride levels, arguing that the HHS’s national concentration recommendations might lower children’s IQ scores. But the judge leaned heavily on a recent controversial scientific report that had been rejected twice in peer review for a lack of rigor.

“‘His conclusion was misguided—and an overreach,’ says Charlotte W. Lewis, a pediatrician and dental care researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She notes that widely accepted research shows water fluoridation to be an effective disease-prevention measure, especially for people in communities with less access to dental care.” But medical professionals have noted that those who get unfluoridated tap water, particularly in poorer areas where routine dental care is not accessed, are particularly vulnerable and that “a widespread crackdown on this naturally occurring mineral could be a disaster. To see how, we turn to the sobering case of Juneau, a city in Alaska that voted to stop fluoridating its water in 2007, citing many of the same fears that RFK touts today.

“In a 2018 study published in the journal BMC Oral Health, researchers examined the dental records of adolescents in the Alaska community who sought Medicaid dental care in the years surrounding either side of the ban… They divided them into two treatment groups: a 2003 group, when public drinking water had optimal levels of fluoride, and a 2012 group, well after the fluoride ban… The results were damning. On average, the 2012 group had a significantly higher number of cavity-related procedures for adolescents than the 2003 group. Similarly, the odds of someone 18 years-old or younger undergoing the same type of procedure was 25 percent higher in 2012.

“Children born after the fluoride ban were the hardest hit age group, receiving not only the most tooth decay treatments, but also having the most expensive treatments on average… Additionally on the economic side of things, the researchers found that dental care costs for adolescents soared by 73 percent as a result of the fluoride policy, even after adjusting for inflation. In sum, it seems clear cut that removing fluoride caused tooth rot to surge — and with it, medical costs.” Frank Landymore in the November 29th Neoscopeon on Futurism.com.

Trump must be aware of these medical realities, so why would he even pick RFK, Jr for this cabinet post? Given that so many of the government social programs are in HHS… programs MAGA adherent and tax-cut yearning billionaires mislabel as “entitlements”… could it be that Trump knows that HHS would unravel under RFK, Jr, giving Trump and his DOGE budget-cutters an open road to slash and burn HHS into oblivion?

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump’s apparent dramatically inappropriate cabinet nominees appear to be part of his intentional kakistocracy (government by the worst), a hidden effort to tear the federal bureaucracy apart in order to funnel the savings into deregulation and tax cuts that benefit him and his mega-rich cronies.

Kicking the Can Down the Road, Cutting Taxes for the Rich, Borrowing Along the Way

Kicking the Can Down the Road, Cutting Taxes for the Rich, Borrowing Along the Way

Using Educational Quality as a Metric: We Have Totally Unraveled What Used to Be the Best

The future for growth and success in America did not used to be determined by your status at birth. While Europe was filled with hereditary titles of nobility, truly “old money,” military and educational institutions of higher learning populated by the scions from the highest reaches of society, the United States didn’t start out that way. The Continent was rife with barriers, religious discrimination, clearly defined class structures where opportunity was often limited by your generic pedigree. The “New World,” populated by indigenous peoples unable to resist Western diseases and military supremacy, offered what to Western migrants appeared to be a blank slate, filled with natural resources and that currently evaporating intangible: hope. Upward mobility if you worked hard enough.

Maybe the political pundits missed it of late, but hope was in short supply, upward mobility had been relegated to the history books and the schism between the monied classes and everyone else had become a canyon wider than the Grand Canyon itself. Knowing that blame fomented class warfare and populist revolutions, those with unlimited finances using the uncapping of using vast wealth to spread a tsunami of publicly spewed propaganda (via the infamous 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United vs FEC), recreating the perception of America. Although they were the obvious culprits in tilting the playing field severely in their favor, those with money were quick to redirect the blame towards religious, racial ethnic and academic constituencies. Not themselves.

Eschewing traditional but inconvenient economic principles, those at the top of the success ladder rejected the notion that a nation at war must make sacrifices (“guns or butter”). The military industrial complex (Eisenhower had warned us of this greedy powerhouse) touted the possibility of “guns and butter” to support the Vietnam War and the later wars we mounted in Central Asia and the Middle East. Government could cut their taxes while accelerating the necessary military expenditures. The mythology of supply side economics (also “trickle down” theory) told us that the rich were the “job creators” who would “float all boats.” It was never true, but instead of austerity which needed to be imposed most on the richest in the land, tax cuts passed… and those jobs never arrived.

Federal deficits soared, state coffers were sucked dry, and the necessary belt-tightening was relegated to the vast bulk of the nation… sparing those at the top with special tax benefits and rules, statutes that made playing in the world of mergers and acquisitions the greatest redistributor of wealth in US history. At a state level, that belt-tightening led to cutbacks in support for medical health and, most of all, public education. Averages for public primary and secondary educational performance began to plunge in this country when compared to other developed nations. States couldn’t handle deficits – they did not control money supply; the feds did – and simply cut school funding and, for higher education, shifted the cost burden for tuition from the state and the individual educational institutions and to students and their families. Over the last 50 years, tuition has risen at triple the inflation rate… and student loans now exceed our entire credit card debt.

But metrics can also be somewhat misleading, as Taija PerryCook, writing for the November 16th Snopes tells us: “For example, U.S. News ranked the U.S. as first in its widely-cited 2024 Best Countries report, which reportedly surveyed the views of ‘close to 17,000 global citizens.’… On the other hand, a report by WorldTop20 — a project associated with New Jersey Minority Educational Development, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group cited by the World Population Review (visible upon clicking the U.S. on the world map at this link ) — found that, in 2024, the U.S. ranked 31st worldwide in education.

“Other studies offer a more-detailed assessment broken down by subject and parameter and compared to other countries of similar wealth, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries. For example, according to the average scores of 15-year-olds from 37 member countries in 2022, the U.S. ranked above average in science and below average in mathematics.”

But the OECD used standardized testing to generate more reliable numbers: The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international assessment that measures 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy, that was initiated in 2000 to measure comparative educational performance across many comparable (and mostly developed) nations. “In the 2024 OECD findings , the U.S. ranked 20th out of 41 countries in education overall. In 2015, results from the Programme for International Student Assessment — which tests 15-year-olds across dozens of countries every three years — placed the U.S. 38th out of 71 countries in mathematics and 24th in science.” Snopes.

You can look at those numbers, tracking “averages” to measure our relative educational performance, but when you are supposed to be on the cutting edge of scientific and engineering invention and entrepreneurial success, adhering slightly above or below “average” doesn’t cut it. So instead of rekindling upward mobility and making American great again, current political vectors embrace a conservative push to eliminate the US Department of Education and press for a new austerity to justify another round of tax cuts for the rich. In my mind’s eye, our educational standards for the most accessible level of education continue to fall. But did we really start out as first about 50 years ago?

“There was also no indication that the U.S. ranked first globally in education in 1979, which could be in part because international ranking was rudimentary at the time. However, one 1992 report published by The National Center for Education Statistics ( part of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences) found that, after administering science and math tests to 10-, 13- and 14-year-olds from the 1960s through 1988 across six to 18 countries (depending on the subject and grade level), the evidence suggested, in general, that: Students from the United States have fared quite poorly on these assessments, with [their] scores lagging behind those of students from other developed countries. This finding is based largely on analyses of mean achievement scores and related rankings of countries participating in each survey.” Funny how those years were also filled with efforts to fund wars while cutting taxes.

The politics of blame, kicking the can down the road while letting essential governmental obligations to infrastructure, healthcare and education deteriorate with outdated necessities and lower per student expenditures (corrected for inflation) … but we choose to cut taxes for the rich… where the only results are a dilution in the quality of life, higher deficits and barriers to upward mobility reinforced with bias and blame.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you really want to make America great again, stopping cutting taxes for the rich, and invest in infrastructure, healthcare and that once expected path to upward mobility, EDUCATION.

Immigration – Now What

  

Immigration – Now What

Trump’s Migration Headache with Help from Stephen Miller and “Apartheid-Experienced” Elon Musk…

The panic in regions of the United States with high Latino populations is palpable. Even those who are citizens, by birth or marriage, or are skilled workers with green cards, are hearing the vituperatives and plans from top Trump advisors like Stephen Miller, who wants purify the blood of America by removing such individuals… revoking anything that legitimizes their presence. He wants to ship off anyone even with legally acceptable temporary status. Farmers are panicking that they will not be able to harvest their crops. Builders are quivering in fear that their construction projects will stall and even fail. Restaurants and hotels are wondering where they will find replacements at comparable pay when their tried-and-true Latino staff are rounded up for deportation. American-born Latino children are worried that their parents will be deported, leaving them helpless and alone. For even those businesses able to find citizen replacements, the resulting cost increases will body slam the economy and send costs soaring.

Trump wants to detain and deport a body of undocumented aliens that is four times the population of Chicago. He wants to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 – which provides a statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a law which limits the use of military personnel under federal command for law enforcement purposes within the United States – to use our military domestically to take measures necessary to protect national security from external threats (undocumented immigrants) which are not subject to the same limitations. This vague national security exception is generally viewed as an imminent and immediate threat to American security.

Read normally, we’re not really facing that kind of emergency; border crossings have plunged of late. But with a MAGA-supporting Supreme Court, I suspect these legal interpretations will go the way of Roe v Wade. Even as most of undocumented aliens have lived here for many years. Simply put, while there will be an ocean of litigation with lots of conflicting judicial decisions, Trump seems to own and control the conservative majority of that Court. Trump also wants to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to eliminate any due process requirements based on asylum claims.

Watching “Border Tsar” nominee, Tom Homan (pictured above), expound on his goals, he almost seems to be salivating. Criminals will go first, but then, a massive detain and deport effort is expected to add $88 billion a year to the federal budget. Think how much housing could be built for that number. Those top military officers who don’t believe that they should be using our armed forces as untrained border agents are labeled woke, facing discharge under the new administration. Assuming we can build the detention centers, round “them up,” arresting any “sanctuary city majors and governors who resist,” this effort will take years, and estimates are that the US could lose 400,000 or more citizen jobs in the process.

Trump has threats for governments that will not accept plane or shiploads of people being force- returned to their countries of origin. “Some countries, such as Venezuela, don’t take deportation flights from the United States. Others might resist taking in a sudden surge of migrants, especially those with criminal records. The administration could persuade nations to cooperate with a mix of favors and threats — trade deals and tariffs — but that would require careful diplomacy.” German Lopez in the NY Times newsfeed, The Morning (November 27th).

Recently elected Mexican President, Claudia Sheinbaum, is trying hard not to antagonize Trump, but she made it clear that if those tariffs hit her country, she would be forced to retaliate. She even hinted that she might be forced to consider deporting the roughly one million US citizens living in Mexico. Canada is restrained but angry as well. Hard to see how these tariffs can be charged in violation of the three-way trade agreement Trump accepted in his first administration.

Trump has always been hostile to foreign workers, even highly educated and skilled, even where there aren’t sufficient US citizens to do the relevant work. “Donald Trump’s bids for the presidency have long been defined by incendiary anti-immigration rhetoric. On the campaign trail over the last year, the president-elect doubled down on his positions, declaring that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ and repeatedly touting his plan to oust millions of undocumented immigrants, in what he has described as the ‘largest domestic deportation operation in American history.’… Trump has also said he would end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S., and reinstate the worksite raids that were conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during his first term to detain workers…

“Just months into his [first term] presidency, he introduced an executive order that increased scrutiny of H-1B applications with the intent of limiting them to only the most skilled or highest paid of workers. According to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy, a pro-immigration think tank, Trump rolled out 52 policies to limit access to visas and green cards for highly skilled workers during his time in office.” Pavithra Mohan, for the November 7th FastCompany.com. Other nations were happy to take these experts.

It will indeed be interesting if Trump is able to mount anything near the level deportations he has targeted. While may seem like he has a compelling case for moving undocumented residents, I wonder how Americans will react when it happens. Are we really that callous and cruel?

I’m Peter Dekom, and those Irish immigrants fleeing the 1845 potato famine have produced generation after generation of extraordinary Americans… following a pattern that seems very much the case with our current spate of immigrants who are ready to work hard for the right to be here… and are not really taking any jobs away from our citizens.

Blogging and Major Surgery

 

Blogging and Major Surgery

So, I picked this post-Thanksgiving time to deal with a personal but major spinal issue that has been plaguing me for a while. As this blog is being posted by my trusty blog master, Amanda Casarella, I should be in post-op after what I hope is a single successful lower spine reconstruction (so much for spineless lawyers!), but it may have been broken into two operations.

After a significant hospital stay (I will write even more knowledgably about American healthcare!) and some serious time in a rehab facility, I hope to be semi-human enough to resume writing by January. In the meantime, and every few days, Amanda will post from a backlog of blogs I wrote in anticipation of my absence. If some of the posts seem a little dated, forgive me, but I hope the thrust of those blogs are still relevant.

Happy holidays to you all!

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless there is BIG PROBLEM, “I shall return” (plagiarized line)!

Unprepared: Children and Teens and Conspiracy Theories

“If you take your phone and then go to TikTok, you will see a lot of activities, dancing, you know, happy things… But in the background, I personally was moderating, in the hundreds, horrific and traumatizing videos… I took it upon myself. Let my mental health take the punch so that general users can continue going about their activities on the platform.” 

 Mojez, a former Nairobi-based moderator who worked on TikTok content

“News literacy is fundamental to preparing students to become active, critically thinking members of our civic life—which should be one of the primary goals of a public education… If we don’t teach young people the skills they need to evaluate information, they will be left at a civic and personal disadvantage their entire lives. News literacy instruction is as important as core subjects like reading and math.” 

Kim Bowman, News Literacy Project senior research manager.

Remember when the internet was going to be the great information equalizer? I know I couldn’t begin to write this blog without the research access afforded online, but I approach that world with growing skepticism. The information resources I trust usually have substantial credibility, vetted over years. But when you realize that today’s youth are slammed with a need to fit in with their peers combined with media patterns that rely heavily on sites and texts that are superspreaders of misinformation, you might wonder what happened... and what can be done about it.

In a world where “influencers” are the new peer leaders, often equally unprepared to deal with the very subject matter they tout, and professional ISP “monitors” are charged with ferreting truth from falsehoods, often for filtered and biased sites, parents are at the mercy of outside sources they do not control… or worse… conspiracy driven sites that they themselves believe. Anonymity and indirect communications add severe harshness to so many messages.

There is also the extreme and ultra-dark content – images of beheadings, mass killings, child abuse, hate speech, and propaganda intended to recruit new adherents – that seep through the cracks, a tsunami of bleak horror that even the most diligent professional monitors cannot stop. We’ve faced the addictive nature of online content, the drive to aggregate more eyeballs to expand ad revenues at almost any cost, the profound negativity to self-image of evolving teens, the absence of revulsion (literally “legitimization”) at some of the most anti-social statements and behavior. Those professional monitors are themselves frequently traumatized by what they are forced to filter. AI has not solved the problem, and there is a severe shortage of such professional monitors.

That’s the darkest online content, but what is more pervasive are mind-shifting conspiracy theories in a world where the President-elect is the king of “alternative facts” and dehumanizing content. As illustrated by Nadia Tamez-Robledo, published in the November 10th FastCompany.com, American children and teens with smartphones are exposed to conspiracy theories with increasing frequency. They are largely untrained in their ability to spot false posts and how to process those misstatements. Separating fact from fiction takes real effort, particularly when their peer group embraces the false information: “If you’re a teen, you could be exposed to conspiracy theories and a host of other pieces of misinformation as frequently as every day while scrolling through your social media feeds.

“That’s according to a new study by the News Literacy Project, which also found that teens struggle with identifying false information online. This comes at a time when media literacy education isn’t available to most students, the report finds, and their ability to distinguish between objective- and biased-information sources is weak. The findings are based on responses from more than 1,000 teens, ages 13 to 18.

“About 80% of teens who use social media say they see content about conspiracy theories in their online feeds, with 20% seeing conspiracy content every day… While teens don’t believe every conspiracy theory they see, 81% who see such content online said they believe one or more... Bowman noted, ‘As dangerous or harmful as they can be, these narratives are designed to be engaging and satisfy deep psychological needs, such as the need for community and understanding. Being a conspiracy theorist or believing in a conspiracy theory can become a part of someone’s identity. It’s not necessarily a label an individual is going to shy away from sharing with others.’

“At the same time, the report found that the bar for offering media literacy is low. Just six states have guidelines for how to teach media literacy, and only three make it a requirement in public schools… While conspiracy theories surface commonly for teens, they’re not necessarily arming themselves with information to stave them off... Teens are split on whether they trust the news. Just over half of teens said that journalists do more to protect society than to harm it. Nearly 70% said news organizations are biased, and 80% believe news organizations are either more biased or about the same as other online content creators… A minority of teens—just 15%—actively seek out news to stay informed...Local TV news was the most trusted news medium, followed by TikTok…

“Teens agree on at least one thing: A whopping 94% said schools should be required to offer some degree of media literacy… ‘Young people know better than anyone how much they are expected to learn before graduation so, for so many teens to say they would welcome yet another requirement to their already overfull plate, is a huge deal and a big endorsement for the importance of a media literacy education,’ Bowman said…

“Throughout the study, students who had any amount of media literacy education did better on the study’s test questions than their peers. They were more likely to be active news seekers, trust news outlets, and feel more confident in their ability to fact-check what they see online… And, in a strange twist, students who get media literacy in school report seeing more conspiracy theories on social media—perhaps precisely because they have sharper media literacy skills… ‘Teens with at least some media literacy instruction, who keep up with news, and who have high trust in news media are all more likely to report seeing conspiracy theory posts on social media at least once a week,’ according to the report. ‘These differences could indicate that teens in these subgroups are more adept at spotting these kinds of posts or that their social media algorithms are more likely to serve them these kinds of posts, or both.’”

It’s not surprising that the online sites that benefit the most from ad-friendly traffic based on conspiracy theories, or are in fact supercharged biased platforms, are the ones testifying before legislative bodies to stave off increased regulation, often supported by elected officials desiring to spread their own conspiracy theories. But there are real life consequences to those who believe such theories… plus the unraveling fibers that hold our democracy together.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the fragility of life, the bastions of society and the mental health of our citizens are and will continue to be defined in substantial part by how we learn to deal with conspiracy theories.