Using Violence or the Threat of Violence to Force Political Change

  Oath Keepers in “stack” formation 

Proud Boys

Radicals "driven by a belief in the superiority of the white race continue to pose the primary threat among [domestic violent extremists] of committing lethal violence against civilians, based on their ideology and attack history." 

 October 2022 Report from the FBI

The above title is one viable definition of “terrorism.” But this blog is about domestic terrorism, which we have witnessed escalating over the past few years with angry violence for issues like election fraud/denial, anti-abortion zeal, racial/ethnic/gender/religious hatred, anti-medical personnel treating COVID, anti-vaxxers and anti-government insurrection. Women have been targeted more than men, but the issue is pervasive. While the FBI once focused on foreign-based terrorists, like those who fomented the 9/11/01 attacks, the above report confirms that today, threats from domestic terrorist far exceed threats from foreign agents. Within that substantial cadre of domestic terrorists, groups advocating white supremacy remain our nation’s major threat.

But how did we get here? Here are some pre-2020 election statistics from Politico: “There has been an even larger increase in the share of both Democrats and Republicans who believe there would be either ‘a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ of justification for violence if their party were to lose in November. The share of Republicans seeing substantial justification for violence if their side loses jumped from 15 percent in June to 20 percent in September, while the share of Democrats jumped from 16 percent to 19 percent.” Today, one in five Americans believe that political violence can be justified.

Did this start with Donald Trump’s unbridled personal attacks, which escalated until the lid blew off the Capitol building on January 6, 2021? Or was this just simmering anger that was slowly legitimized by social media and right-wing mainstream media… enhanced by a leader who simply recognized this previously voiceless constituency. Is it true that there really are no more “lone wolves”… that social media has linked distant dissidents into mutually supporting aggregations of discontent?

We’ve always had extremists organizing and training uniformed militias in obscure regions of states like Idaho and eastern Washington; they just did not participate in a major coup to take over our nation’s Capitol and attempt to reverse the outcome of a clearly legitimate presidential election under the guise of non-existent election fraud. Armed and uniformed militia, like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys pictured above, seemingly with the blessing and encouragement of the 45th President of the United States, joined if not fomented that Capitol attack. As the numbers suggest, this growing anger has been outed, legitimized and given seemingly free range to deploy violence against those who disagree with their political focus. Notwithstanding hundreds of criminal convictions for such militant political violence. Add a nation with more guns than people, including well over 20 million military grade assault rifles, and it is not surprising to watch violence escalate.

It's everywhere. Even where guns are not involved, public forums have become impossible to govern as public political stalwarts, often embracing competing conspiracy theories, turn their rage on the elected officials holding mandated public hearings. Karen Brulliard, writing for the January 17th Washington Post, examines this growing trend:

“Across a polarized nation, governing bodies are restricting — and sometimes even halting — public comment to counter what elected officials describe as an unprecedented level of invective, misinformation and disorder from citizens when they step to the microphone. As contentious social issues roil once-sleepy town council and school board gatherings, some officials say allowing people to have their say is poisoning meetings and thwarting the ability to get business done…

“The efforts to moderate public comment — and audience outbursts that can accompany it — are taking place in both red and blue regions as elected officials cope with what the American Association of School Administrators, the School Superintendents Association and the National School Boards Association have referred to as rising threats of violence and aggression at community meetings.

“But some legal experts and lawmakers worry some restrictions are overreactions by thin-skinned officials that skirt unconstitutional limitations on free speech. Even if legal, they argue, reining in comment runs contrary to the American ideal of letting the public express views to representatives chosen and funded by taxpayers — even if those views include threats, bigotry and falsehoods.”

After January 6, 2021, the discontent began to spread into smaller, regional elections. Most recently, convicted felon, Solomon “Peña, a Republican, is accused of conspiring with and paying four men to carry out four shootings at Albuquerque-area homes belonging to two Democratic Bernalillo County commissioners and two state legislators, Albuquerque police said… No one was hurt. A lawyer for Peña could not be reached for comment… Peña lost his bid for a state House seat in November in a landslide to incumbent Democrat Miguel P. Garcia by 74% to 26%.” NBC News, January 17th. Like many election deniers, Peña claims the election was stolen.

Can democracy survive this social sanction permitting acceptance of expressing anger and political passion… without reasonable bounds? Violence is OK. Personal insults are OK. Disrupting governmental hearings and stopping or forcing a reversal of votes are OK. A tiny minority of MAGA right-wing Republicans seems to have hijacked the GOP House majority to impose their will to reverse past legislation by holding our national debt ceiling hostage. “Me” wants to force “mine” on everybody, regardless of the will of most of us or the fundamental rights of many of us.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I hope that rising younger generations reject this egregious expression of anger, a need to impose individual extremes on everyone… or we are over as a viable democratic nation.                          

What College Enrollment Tells Us about Us

 

“It would be great if one could get [racial] diversity without using the tools of affirmative action, but frankly … we’re still in a society where race makes a difference when you’re talking about health care, … when you’re talking about the job market, … when you’re talking about education… And therefore, it makes a difference when you’re thinking about whom to admit to a university.” 

Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber

It’s a big deal. As January 2023 multiyear Brookings Report tells us: “In the U.S., a person who completes a bachelor’s degree will earn about a million dollars more in their lifetime compared to someone with only a high school diploma... College graduates have higher earnings, better health, more stable marriages, and are less likely to be unemployed… The share of young adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher doubled over the last fifty years, from 19 to 40%.1 Despite this progress, bachelor’s degree attainment still varies substantially by gender, race and ethnicity, and family socioeconomic status.”

But creating fair access to higher education, through affirmative action, has challenged courts in differentiating between “reverse discrimination” and compensating for racial imbalance. Racial quotas have been particularly troubling, causing courts to apply a rule of “strict scrutiny” of racially driven admissions practices.

For example, on June 23, 1973, the Supreme Court issued two apparently conflicting rulings on the same day. Writing for a 5-4 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told us that where each admissions decision is based on multiple factors a university could fairly use race as one of them. The case reaffirmed the court’s position that diversity on campus is a compelling state interest. But on that same day, writing for a 6-3 decision in Gratz v. Bollinger, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s opinion supported the Supreme Court’s ruling that according minority applicants with an automatic extra 20 points (where 100 points were required for admission) was inappropriate and did not meet the standards of strict scrutiny established in previous cases. The Grutter and Gratz cases provided a blueprint for how schools could use race as a factor in admissions policies.

In 2016, where a university generally applied a “top 10% admissions policy” but added exceptions to enhance racial diversity, the Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas (Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for a 4-3 decision) ruled that a university should be given reasonable leeway in its review process if it has considered other ways to create diversity. This past October, the Court heard oral arguments challenging affirmative action in two cases, against each of Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill. Based on the questioning and the conservative shift in the composition of the Court, experts are predicting a ruling that could simply, entirely and prospectively ban affirmative action. So, the questions that the Brookings Report addresses – changes in college enrollment – are summarized in Shalene Gupta’s January 24th contribution to FastCompany.com:

• The gender gap has reversed: In 1972, 22% of men between the ages of 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s degree compared to 16% of women in the same age group. In 2022, 35% of men in this age group had a bachelor’s degree compared to 44% of women.

• Racial disparities continue: Asian young adults are more likely to have college degrees (68% today), compared to 45% of white, 28% of Black, and 25% of Hispanic young adults.

• Socioeconomic status is strongly related to college enrollment: 89% of young adults in the highest 20% socioeconomic bracket enrolled in college. They also averaged 3.06 GPA. By comparison, only 51% of young adults in the bottom quintile enrolled in college. Their average GPA was 2.22. Unsurprisingly, socioeconomic status was also correlated with race. Asian students were more likely to be in the top quintile (37%), while Hispanic students were more likely to be in the bottom quintile (38%).

• Academic preparation is the key to college enrollment: While this sounds obvious, when the analysts compared students who were academically prepared (a mixture of test scores, grades, and courses), they found these disparities vanished or abated. Young men and women with the same academic preparation enroll in college at the same rate, and Black, Hispanic, and Asian students enroll in college at a similar rate, about 5 points higher than white students.

When it comes to diversity, whatever admission standards that are currently being applied seem to be creating a better mix and more diversity, although we have a long way to go. If the ultra-conservative Supreme Court completely dispenses with affirmative action, will it still allow racial criteria to be considered at all? And exactly how will the Court influence the success quotient of future students based on the demographic realities of contemporary America?

I’m Peter Dekom, and the elevation of minority groups within the body of educated Americans would seem to be an essential element to political and economic stability for the foreseeable future… just as denying that access could have precisely the opposite effect.

Can Congress Knowingly Default on Appropriations It has Already Approved?

Can Congress Knowingly Default on Appropriations It has Already Approved?

Is a Debt Ceiling Vote Even Necessary or Even Permitted?

“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.” 

The public debt clause of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution

If you or I go shopping, perhaps for some clothes or even a ballistic missile launcher, take our purchases home, use them with joy, but then refuse to pay the credit card statement from the charge card we used to buy those delightful possessions… What happens? If the vendor sues us, they will almost certainly win. Our little battle with a default will usually result in a very bad hit to our credit rating as well.

For the United States, a true default carries with it many very possible and very grave risks, including a lower international credit rating, which in turn will kick up the interest rate on our $30 trillion+ deficit borrowings – producing quite the opposite result that the gaggle of 21 House GOP rightwing “government spending cutters” say they want – may press other nations to find alternatives to having the dollar remain as the primary global world reserve currency, and play directly into the hands of nations like Russia and China who are trying to subvert de facto US control of the global financial systems. The dollar could plunge in value as well. The net impact on most Americans would probably be much higher prices for almost everything, higher taxes, higher interest rates, rising unemployment and a nasty recession beyond the current risks we face.

But since Congress already authorized the spending that is pushing the debt ceiling higher, why is there a separate congressional vote on raising the debt ceiling to accommodate what they have already approved? Makes no sense. Among other powers, Article 1, section 8 enumerates the congressional power to raise taxes, “borrow money on the credit of the United States,” and spend money. Constitutional pundits have asked the question as to whether Congress has violated the Constitution by not raising the debt ceiling when they approve expenditures… or in not immediately raising taxes to pay for their additional approved costs. But isn’t the debt ceiling issue irrelevant once they’ve approved an expenditure that taxes will not cover?

Our only Supreme Court guidance on this issue comes from a 1935 ruling over whether older federal bonds payable in gold could be superseded by a congressional change in repayment terms. In Perry vs United States, Chief Justice Hughes, interpreting the above cited provision of the 14th Amendment, wrote: “We regard [Section 4] as confirmatory of a fundamental principle, which applies as well to the government bonds in question, and to others duly authorized by Congress, as to those issued before the Amendment was adopted. Nor can we perceive any reason for not considering the expression ‘the validity of the public debt’ as embracing whatever concerns the integrity of public obligations.” Hmm? So, that does seem to say to Congress, “you bought, you pay for it!”

And what’s the President to do in all of this? He is not constitutionally authorized to impose taxes, approve budgetary expenditures or borrow money on the credit of the United States. However, under the Constitution, the President must ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ which would mean that the president is obligated to fulfill the terms of the budget passed by Congress, according to some scholars, who claim that the public debt clause at Section 4 of the 14th Amendment also applies, as the Perry opinion above suggests.

Bringing the debt ceiling to a Congressional vote, however, has become a ritual that frequently parades across the headlines as fiscal conservatives seek to undo bills that generated spending on projects that they do not like. A second bite at the apple that has already been partially eaten? While some argue “that the public debt clause applies in any situation when the government threatens to act in a way suggesting that it won’t meet its obligations, [others note that] the meaning of the clause ‘is somewhat unsettled’…

“Writing at the New Republic, labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan argued that the public debt clause confirms the original intent of the founders, who gave Congress the power to tax and borrow to pay debts and provide for the common defense and public welfare. Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 30 that the power to tax and borrow was established only to ensure payment of debt or to prevent a default, according to Geoghegan.

“If Hamilton was right, Geoghegan said, it is wrong to argue that the power to borrow money includes the lesser power of not paying the debt… ‘Nothing could be more unconstitutional under the original 1787 Constitution than for Congress to use its powers to willfully default on the debt,’ Geoghegan wrote. ‘Right now, in the name of original intent, the Biden administration should be in a friendly federal court seeking a declaratory judgment that the Debt Limit Statute cannot limit the obligation of the United States to continue borrowing to prevent a gratuitous default on its debt.’” Debra Cassens Weiss in the Journal of the American Bar Assn, January 25th.

As that rightwing gaggle, having made a backroom deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who needed their votes to win his leadership role, is hell-bent on cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits as well as reversing recently passed provisions of recent Biden-sponsored legislation, the obvious stupidity is not lost upon anyone. This appears to be part of the great unraveling of the MAGA GOP that is increasingly on the wrong side of history. We may be able to shift some money around, postpone a few payments, but by this summer… 

I’m Peter Dekom, and that this gaggle of elected representatives, enabled by the House Speaker, is willing to put the entire US economy at significant risk to impose their minority view on everyone else is about as unpatriotic as one can get.

When Fake News Gets Personal: Job Offer Scams

“I am glad to inform you that due to your level of experience and your working skills, the company has decided to hire you as one of our Data Analyst (REMOTE)… On behalf of our firm, I congratulate you on your achievement.” 

Emailed Response to a LinkedIn Online Job Application… for a Non-Existent Job

Most of us, at least those in mired in the old world of emailing, have received one or more “now hiring” emails, sometimes from a named individual. Some require in-person, on-site services for companies that are actually looking for workers. Others invite applicants to apply for remote services, often an attractive alternative for job seekers with childcare responsibilities or those with limiting medical conditions. The employment solicitations are hardly relegated to emails (or texts); legitimate jobsites are also possible carriers of fake employment offers. Even LinkedIn.

Jaimie Ding, writing for the January 15th Los Angeles Times, tells us: “Some [job] scams were obvious, but others were tougher to spot — including one that involved a web address similar to the real company’s domain name, [one online applicant] said. In that case, she applied through LinkedIn and was asked to download an app called Wire for further communication.

“LinkedIn spokesperson Autumn Cobb said members should report scammers and utilize new features to job-search safely, such as information on when profiles were created and warning labels on ‘potential high-risk content.’… ‘Unfortunately, scammers are becoming more sophisticated,’ Cobb said. ‘We use a combination of human reviews and automated defenses to prevent job scams and we encourage members to watch for signs of potential fraud at every stage in their job search.’… LinkedIn said it proactively removed 87.1 million spam or scam items in the first half of 2022… Indeed said the site encourages users to report suspicious job advertisements or make a report to the police if they feel it necessary…

““Scams have been around for as long as people have, but employment scams have skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic as remote positions become the norm and employers become increasingly dependent on online forms of communication… The number of job and employment agency-related scams reported to the Federal Trade Commission nearly tripled between 2020 and 2021, from 7,324 to 21,848 in the third quarter of each year.

“‘Scammers always follow the headlines and are looking to exploit the things that people need in any given moment,’ said Kati Daffan, assistant director of the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices, which responds to consumer fraud. ‘So we saw a lot of offers — that people could work from home, that people could have flexible jobs, that people could make a lot of money without too much effort.’”

So, what’s in it for the scammer? Aside from purloining lots of personal private information from the applicant, which can be sold to more nefarious malign actors, there are those scammers who have figured out how to get applicants to write checks. Sandi Pounder, who received the above cited email, was one potential victim, who got that job offer within 48 hours of applying, via LinkedIn. She had provided a resume and filled out an extensive questionnaire.

“A subsequent email from HR told her she would receive a long list of equipment at her home in Monta Vista, Colo. — including an Apple iMac Pro, external hard drive, file cabinets, HP LaserJet Printer — that she could purchase using a check that would be mailed to her… The process couldn’t have gone more smoothly — until she opened the official offer letter. It was addressed to ‘Greeshma.’… Pounder quickly discovered she was the target of a job scam, an elaborate ruse to trick desperate job-seekers into handing over their personal information, and in many cases, their money…

Pounder, 52, was reentering the workforce after taking some time off and selling her home in Wyoming. She had several years of experience in IT, mostly business systems and data analyst roles… The company she had applied to work for was a legitimate architecture firm based in New York, and though the pay was lower than she would normally accept, it was a remote role and she was interested in working in architecture. Though she never spoke to anyone during the application process, she figured it was just how things worked in a pandemic-transformed world… ‘That should have been a red flag from the beginning … if I hadn’t been busy with other things,’ Pounder said.

“She also double-checked that the person who initially reached out to set up an interview matched the name of the person on LinkedIn listed as the hiring manager. After receiving the offer letter addressed to the wrong person, however, she decided to call the architecture firm to confirm her position.… They told her their LinkedIn account had been hacked… Others have also reported encountering fake recruiter profiles for legitimate companies on LinkedIn and other job search sites such as Indeed.” LA times.

CareerAddict.com notes a few obvious red flags to watch for: if it’s too good to be true or the job description is vague. The text of the email or text is unprofessional or off base. If the contact information is missing or a requested interview is to take place in a chatroom. There are inconsistencies in Web-based information after a detailed search. If the offer was sent from a personal email. If too much personal information is required or if money transfer is involved. If you have to pay a fee or buy equipment. If the job offer is unsolicited. If the job is to be performed 100% from home. And sooner or later, you need a real person with real questions and real knowledge about the offering company and the specific job in question.

“[Many] have also reported encountering fake recruiter profiles for legitimate companies on LinkedIn and other job search sites such as Indeed… Heather Lagaso, 42, has been on the hunt for a remote job since her role in compliance and records management at the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health division was cut in November 2021… In 2022, she encountered 67 fraudulent job postings, almost all on LinkedIn or Indeed, she said. She’s been keeping track of the listings in a document she shared with The Times… ‘I was honestly looking for anything that offered ... a home schedule or some sort of flexibility with it,’ due to her son’s medical needs, said Lagaso, who lives in Gervais, Ore. She noticed many of the jobs were in customer service, personal assistance or things involving logistics or dispatch… Some scams were obvious, but others were tougher to spot — including one that involved a web address similar to the real company’s domain name, she said.” LA Times. Yup, red alert.

It’s bad enough when our most basic political system is increasingly built upon a quicksand foundation of fake news and conspiracy theories. But when those purveyors of falsity also reach into the personal world of those in need, seeking legitimate opportunities, it hurts even more.

I’m Peter Dekom, and so much of the “information” we receive every day are intentional falsehoods, increasingly targeted at individuals with specific vulnerabilities and biases, that we all need to develop a pattern of healthy skepticism that is not born from conspiracy theories or actors with hidden or obvious manipulative agendas.

Born in the USA, But Fewer

National Center for Health Statistics

It seems that generally, richer countries tend to have the most severe projected contractions of future population growth. As China’s economy has improved, it has joined that statistic. Even with 1.426 billion people in 2022, China is now the second most populous country in the world, behind India. UN demographers predict that the PRC’s population has now peaked, and with a seriously declining birth rate is expected to drop to 800 million by the end of the century. India’s population is projected to continue growing. Growth rates in Europe are also falling, as Japan leads Asia in population decline. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare tells us that that island nation’s population will fall from a present 128 million to 86.74 million by 2060.

Where social safety nets and government retirement benefits are available, the number of active workers needed to support a graying population continues to decrease in those well-heeled countries. For businesses for which profit growth is predicated on population growth, a least a population that is able to sustain purchasing power, none of this is good news. The fastest sustained population growth continues only among the less educated, more impoverished countries. We are already witnessing severe labor shortages in the major developed countries, notwithstanding a rising recessionary trend.

According to Forbes.com (11/11/20), foreign born workers are twice as likely as native born Americans to create new jobs here, both through self-employment and companies that hire workers. This obviously creates a significant cadre of new consumers, taxpayers and very significant contributions to our economy as a whole. Since the “replacement rate” requires somewhere north of 2.1 live births per child-bearing couple, we have to live with the reality of numbers well-below that threshold in Japan, the United States and throughout Europe.

Yet the fiercest barriers to immigration – an obvious and necessary component to economic growth – come from Japan and the United States and slightly less from Europe. During the Trump administration, and carried on during Biden’s tenure, the United States has not just clamped down on asylum seekers but on highly educated/trained potential immigrants (and their families) that our STEM tech world desperately needs.

In short, UD immigration policies shoot us in our national foot in two ways: we forsake the organic population growth that drives our GDP (no longer achievable by our birth rate) and we exclude experts that we truly require in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

How bad is it here? Well, start with the above chart provided in Cara Tabachnick in a January 12th report from CBS News. “American women are having fewer babies, and they're having them later in life, government figures released Tuesday [1/10] show. Data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's statistic arm — showed a sharp decline in fertility rates in recent years, with most women having an average of 1.3 babies and an increasing percentage giving birth at age 35 or older…

“Simply put, most women are just waiting until they feel they are ready. Reasons for the delay are varied, the report found, and include the pursuit of higher education, increased labor force participation, changes in familial values, relationship instability and financial considerations. The research has also shown that women who wait tend to be in a better position economically and in more stable home environments. Almost half the women who gave birth at age 30 or older had a college education.

"The big question we should be asking is, are women that wait going to be able to have the babies they want?" said [Alison Gemmill, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health].” 1.3 babies is way lower than the above replacement rate.

There are many other factors that may account for this trend. Expensive student loans are delaying marriage and young people’s having families. Housing affordability also a factor. The cost of raising a child has never been higher in the United States, even corrected for inflation. But what is particularly troublesome is this populist notion to deprive a nation built on immigrants, one that cannot internally create a sustainable population, into a country dedicated to excluding additional immigrants… people who typically work hard and are grateful for being given the opportunity to live and work here. See also my December 28th A Nation of Immigrants that Hates Them blog.

“But the drops in birth rates have prompted concerns about negative consequences for the tax base and workers in an aging American society… ‘We need to have a long-term stable workforce to sustain our economy,’ said Dr. John Rowe, a professor at Columbia University specializing in aging health policy and management. Policy shifts on immigration and technology and changes in work and retirement requirements to permit individuals to stay productive in the labor force for longer periods could all help mitigate the effect on the economy, Rowe said.” Just a little common sense added to our immigration policy would produce a materially different path. But because of strong resistance from conservative elected representatives, we have not had meaningful immigration reform since the Reagan era.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are hypocrites stewing ourselves in our own scalding anti-immigrant broth.

The Star Chamber

To extreme foodies, the highest restaurant ratings awarded by a tire company are the most coveted marks of culinary excellence. Those prized Michelin three stars, the highest rating of cooking superlatives, are the stuff of movies and have purportedly led to chef suicides when a star is lost. All this from a French company that makes damned good tires? Well, here’s the story per brand site, theStrategyStory.com (3/5/21): “To save an ailing family business, the Michelin brothers, Andre an engineer, and Eduardo Michelin a landscape artist took over the factory that specialized in manufacturing farm equipment, and spotting an opportunity, they quickly diversified into selling vulcanized rubber tires in the late 1800s about the time when the first automobiles were rolling out…

“Bibendum, commonly known as the Michelin man and the mascot of the Michelin brand appears in other uncommon places…You might just bump into him at the entrances of several fancy restaurants!! … The automobile industry was in its nascent stage, and in keeping with their strategy of playing an active part in the cycle, [the brothers] hit upon the idea of a guidebook. Guide books were in vogue then – Remember ‘Google’ came in 100 years later…

“The guide book that they came out for motorists had information that any motorist would need – a compendium of all the mechanics in France, instructions on how to replace a flat tire, the location of fuel stations, and ‘suitable restaurants and hotels’ for travelers to eat and stay while journeying across France along with a detailed road map…

“The Michelin Guide became an instant hit. It became such a rage that the brothers decided to launch a similar guide along the same lines in other European countries as well, and needless to say, it became a runaway success… They had the foresight to juxtapose customer focus and rivet it onto their expansion plans. They decided to appoint full-time ‘food inspectors’ and food critics to review restaurants and rate the cuisine and service, anonymously. The company has retained this philosophy to this date. Only the best restaurants would feature in this guide...

“In 1926, they decided to make it even more exclusive; after all, only the well-heeled could afford to purchase and drive a car, so why not. To make these restaurants more exclusive, they started ranking them and awarding stars. Michelin Stars. They followed this for five years awarding the best restaurants single Michelin star.” The rest, as they say, is history. The guide avoided giving top prizes outside of Europe until the late 20th century. Today, while most of these venues do not have “stars,” the guides cover 16,459 restaurants. The US, particularly New York, now has its share of coveted starts. But all is not well in this tiny aggregation of the best of the best. To some chefs, heavily dependent on “over-staffing” with unpaid interns (where that is legal) or low-paid culinary aspirants, getting and maintaining a three star (or even less) restaurant is “unsustainable.”

Writing for the January 14th Los Angeles Times, author and food critic, Karen Stabiner, digs into the underlying story, one that has changed recently in part as a result of the shutdown that occurred during the pandemic. This Euro-centric guide is facing some genuine challenges: “Getting to the top of the mountain takes a toll. Staying there can mean a world of pain.

“Chef David Kinch closed his lauded Los Gatos, Calif., restaurant, Manresa, on Dec. 31, after 20 years and three Michelin stars. The work, he said, had been ‘backbreaking.’ He’s ready to shift his attention to his bread bakery and two casual places.

“Chef René Redzepi, who runs Copenhagen’s Noma, also a recipient of three Michelin stars and widely regarded as the best restaurant in the world, has announced that he will shut it down at the end of 2024. Serving customers at Noma’s stratospheric level is ‘unsustainable,’ he said, amid criticism of the restaurant’s reliance on low-paid staff and unpaid interns. He’d rather oversee a laboratory kitchen and focus on e-commerce and the occasional pop-up.

“There is talk of the end of an era; the air at the culinary peak is too thin to be healthy. And yet, since the Michelin Guide announced its 2022 Los Angeles winners, restaurateurs further down the list, those who had a star and lost it, continue to wonder where they went wrong and how they can regain their stars in 2023… The emperor may have no clothes, but everyone wants to know who his tailor is.

“Michelin, which has published restaurant ratings for almost a century, has expanded its guides over time to include everything from affordable restaurants to service to notable wine lists, but the stars, for the food itself, are still the big prize. Winners face a deluge of reservations from what one restaurant insider calls ‘star chasers.’ Losers lose face, as well as some of those label-conscious customers...

“All of this puts restaurants that lose a star in an especially tough spot because demotion can make them self-conscious. A little bit of doubt and anxiety might inspire a striving chef or owner to dig in, but too big a case of nerves can sink them. And Michelin keeps the heat on throughout the year by publishing lists of possible contenders for recognition, some of whom will not make the final cut. Losing a star or barely missing a star — not the kind of high-profile attention anyone needs.

“High-end restaurants are difficult to pull off because they’re expensive to operate and dependent on a sometimes fickle sliver of the dining public. The pandemic made things even harder, as customers came to regard meal kits as a night out. If that recalibration turns permanent, if our blow-out celebration meals become less frequent, stars could come to matter even more; nobody wants to make a mistake when they choose a destination for that rare big evening out, and a star feels like insurance.”

In past years, when I traveled to a major city, I relied on these Red Guides for unique dining experiences. I have to admit, they were very convenient. But I have since learned that some of the best restaurants in cities and towns to which I travel frequently… are as good as anything with those top ratings… aren’t even mentioned. Time to do your own culinary homework… and probably save a few bucks.

I’m Peter Dekom, and everything in this world is changing, even the best sources of restaurant ratings.

It Ain’t Just AR-15s

Navy Seals with fully automatic AR-15s

It Ain’t Just AR-15s

A Uniquely American Problem

“The Second Amendment’s becoming a suicide pact.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom after the lunar New Year shooting in Monterey Park, California

2023 started off with a bang, actually, according to witnesses, more of a rapid sequence of bop, bop, bop, bop, bog as bodies crumpled to the ground. 42 shell casings, 11 killed and 9 injured in a Monterey Park (Los Angeles County) dance club that catered mostly to elderly Asians from the community, once regarded as one of the safest neighborhoods in urban America. The shooter, a Asian septuagenarian misfit, Huu Can Tran, ended his own life with a single shot when police cornered his van. He had attempted another mass killing a few miles away, but a brave and astute young receptionist successfully disarmed Tran before he could shoot.

It's not as if this were a unique incident, although the death toll was high; another set of shootings in Half Moon Bay (San Mateo County, CA) from a single shooter took out seven lives within 24 hours. Not to mention the dozen plus mass shooting incidents across the United States in the month of January. And this was not one of those mass shootings using a semiautomatic, military grade assault rifle (like the notorious AR-15). Tran’s weapon of choice was self-customized 9-millimeter MAC-10 (an older, less lethal and inaccurate, semiautomatic pistol) with an oversized magazine and an elongated barrel silencer. A search of Tran’s mobile home in nearby Hemet revealed a sizeable weapons stash with lots of customized guns.

“Thoughts and prayers,” outrage and that ubiquitous blame on mental illness followed with predictable regularity. Candlelight vigils, citizens and politicians demanding gun control were everywhere, in the state with the tightest gun control laws in the nation. But guns, weapons of virtually every description, are available just about everywhere. Even with recently enabled federal background check mandates, some new “red flag” laws (to identify persons who should be accorded the right to buy a gun) were now on the books across the country, so what?

Recently, a six-year-old in Virginia took his parent’s handgun, purportedly “secured” in the home, packed it in his backpack and shot his teacher in her midsection. She survived, but the point is how easy it is for anyone, and I do mean anyone, to procure a gun anywhere in the US. They are stolen, borrowed, 3D printed, openly purchased at gun shows or between private sellers or bought legitimately at one of the almost 53 thousand federally licensed gun dealers in the United States. If your state has tougher restrictions, you can drive to neighboring state where restrictions are much easier. Live in Chicago? Take a short drive to Indiana. Southern California borders Arizona. But normally, there is a purveyor of guns locally to save you that trip.

In 1996, a mass-shooting in Tasmania quickly led Australia – a conservative country where guns are cherished – to vastly tighter gun control laws. After 51 Muslim worshippers were gunned down in Christchurch, New Zealand, fierce new gun controls and gun confiscations were enacted… and enforced.

But an unwarranted set of very recent gun wildly incorrect US Supreme Court rulings – with opinions from Antonin Scalia in Heller vs DC (2008 a 5-4 majority), Samuel Alito in McDonald vs Chicago (2010, 5-4) and Clarence Thomas in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen (2022, 6-3), illogically applying “originalism” (looking to the time when the Second Amendment was passed, the 1789 era of flintlocks and muskets) – have responded to mass shootings here with quite the opposite rulings.

For 219 years, since the passage of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, there had been no high court cases interpreting that amendment as supporting a ubiquitous right for citizens to own guns. That certainly changed, just as the technology of personal weapons accelerated. There are now more guns than people in the US, and well over 20 million military grade semiautomatic assault rifles in private hands. Read the Second Amendment for yourself, noting it was passed 234 years ago, and interpret it with a modicum of common sense. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” That “Militia” was mostly the Revolutionary Army, comprised of volunteers who frequently supplied their own weapons.

I’m tired of the oft-repeated NRA mantra – “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” – when government statistics tell us that only one out of thirty civilian homicides is ever “justifiable.” I find the decades of blaming mental illness for mass shootings, given the virtually unlimited access to guns, when a mentally ill individual with a knife could not remotely inflict death and destruction compared to using a semiautomatic gun, pistol or rifle. That the ease of buying guns in the United States is the principal power behind Latin American drug cartels that have destabilized so many countries south of our border.

James Densley, a criminal justice professor at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota, and Jillian Peterson, a professor at Minnesota’s Hamline University, who started a database of mass shootings, called the Violence Project, noted that “there’s no question that mass shootings have increased recently, with 7 of the 10 deadliest shootings having occurred in the last decade… [T]he increase in such shootings comes as record gun sales during the pandemic have placed more firearms into circulation, some of which are lost, stolen or sold and otherwise end up on the black market.” Los Angeles Times, January 24th.

I am tired of old men in mostly White state legislatures and the new House majority in Congress, imposing the values of rural America (the country was 94% rural in 1789, it’s about 90% urban today) on crowded cities where gun violence has exploded. The rogue Supreme Court’s gun rulings are even inconsistent with the view of the majority of Americans, even gun owners. With COVID under control, foreign tourists generating billions of dollars in revenues to American businesses are increasingly scared to travel here based on our notorious and nonsensical worship of guns, the resulting and well-publicized violence, without any notion of reasonable efforts to make our nation safe. These semiautomatic guns aren’t hunting weapons or basic self-defense; they are offensive weapons designed to kill multiple human beings quickly and efficiently.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I long for a time when school children no longer have to practice

“active shooter” drills… when America begins to care more for its children than guns.

2022 Midterms – The GOP MAGA’d Its Way to a Red Ripple

As MAGA’s creator and GOP’s purported ideological leader, just-released post-midterm voter numbers tell us that Donald Trump’s issue vectors cost the Republican Party the normal off-year victory for the political party not in power. Indeed, the closer candidates cozied up to or were sponsored by Trump himself, on average, the worse they fared. We know that just based on the mid-term results. But a deeper dive into who actually voted explains what happened.

Oddly, the GOP unexpectedly had a better turnout than did the Democrats. Huh? About a third of the states released, by mid-January, their voter demographics. Looking at the raw data in those states, it is obvious that the Dems would not have dulled the expected “red wave” without capturing both a larger share of independent and Republican voters. Huh, again? As part of its Essential Politics section, the January 23rd Los Angeles Times (David Lauter writing) presented some most interesting observations.

On a broad-stroke review, states with controversial issues and candidates produced greater turnouts. Where younger voters did show up in bigger numbers, the results skewed toward the Dems. Where the same old/same old election took place, the turnout was lower. And in some states, the constituency for an entire party just plain did not show up. Florida, with its traditional conservative north and more liberal south, gave extreme right-wing populist candidates such a massive victory that the state turned bright throbbing red.

Governor Ron DeSantis polled almost 20 percentage points higher than Charlie Crist, his Democratic opponent. The Democratic turnout was abysmal: “Among voters younger than 30, the number of Democrats voting there in 2022 was down 38% compared with the 2018 midterm, the state’s voter file shows. Latino turnout in Florida in 2022 roughly equaled the 2018 level, but Republican Latinos’ turnout was up by 18%, while Democratic Latinos’ turnout dropped by 28%, [noted Tom Bonier, the head of TargetSmart, a Democratic vote-targeting firm].” LAT. Fortunately for the Democratic Party, Florida was significantly different from those purported “swing states” that gave the Dems a margin of victory that stopped the “red wave.”

Trump’s personal hold on the GOP was clearly slipping. As noted in the January 22nd Washington Post, even his effort to recruit local state politicians to endorse him and appear at his scheduled January 28th rally in South Carolina was flailing: “[SC stalwarts] find themselves divided between their support for Trump, their desire for a competitive nomination fight in the state and their allegiance to two South Carolina natives, former governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, who have taken steps to challenge Trump for the nomination. Both are said by people close to them to be seriously considering a bid, and Haley is expected to announce in the coming weeks, South Carolina operatives said.”

The midterm turnout was generally the determinative factor, even in blue New York: “New York, where Democrats lost six congressional districts in areas that President Biden had carried in 2020, was another state where the party had a serious turnout problem while Republican turnout rose. In the Long Island district won by the now-notorious fabulist Rep. George Santos, Republican turnout ran 10% ahead of 2018; Democratic turnout was nearly 10% lower….

“[But elsewhere…] In Nevada, voters younger than 30 made up 13% of the electorate, up from a record-setting 11% in 2018 and more than double the 6% in 2014. Because those young voters lean heavily Democratic, they were crucial to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s 1-percentage-point victory over her Republican opponent.

“In Michigan, the same pattern appeared: Young voters broke their 2018 turnout record and voted at nearly twice the level they had in 2014. Those voters helped generate a blue wave in Michigan, where Democrats won full control of the state government for the first time since President Reagan was in the White House… In both of those states, and in other battlegrounds that have released their voter files, Democratic turnout was up overall, Bonier said.

“All of that is consistent with a theory put forward by Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg: that 2022 played out as two very different elections happening at the same time — one in battleground states, where Democrats did very well; the other in the rest of the country.

“And it fits with analysis by another veteran Democrat, Michael Podhorzer, former political director of the AFL-CIO. He argued in a recent newsletter that the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections showed that the country has an ‘anti-MAGA majority,’ but one that relies heavily on people who vote only when they see something major at stake.” LAT. The Trump radicalized Supreme Court appointments, a joy to the evangelical minority that drives the MAGA base, provided some nasty national chickens that came home to roost. “The issue that most consistently activated those voters in 2022 was abortion rights.

“In states like Michigan, where the election featured a stark choice between Republicans campaigning to ban abortion and Democrats vowing to protect abortion rights, first-time and occasional voters turned out in large numbers and favored the Democrats… By contrast, in heavily blue states like New York and California, where there was no credible threat to abortion rights, many voters stayed home. Republicans capitalized on the low Democratic turnout in those states to pick up enough congressional seats to form their House majority… The same was true in Florida, where voters perceived that there wasn’t a competitive contest for governor.

“That pattern has several implications for 2024 and for the political battles between now and then: It highlights the importance of abortion rights as a mobilizing issue for Democrats, and the peril for Republicans if their House majority actively tries to roll back abortion rights nationally. The GOP’s slender House majority could easily be washed away by larger turnout in the presidential election.

“The outcomes also underscore the danger that a Trump candidacy poses to the GOP. Trump on the ballot in 2024 almost surely would once again mobilize the voters Democrats need. If some other candidate gains the Republican nomination, Democrats will tell voters that the new person too poses a threat to their rights. They can’t assume, however, that voters automatically will accept that — they’ll need convincing.” LAT. Would a GOP DeSantis nomination force the same results? But he’s untainted by Trumpian missteps and would face a very elderly Joe Biden who is struggling with his failures in dealing with classified documents. Stay tuned.

I’m Peter Dekom, but seriously tainted candidates vs those with strong regional support will define the 2024 turnout that may well kill the MAGA movement… or give it a second and unexpected chance to redefine American democracy.

Do You Care About Life Expectancy Numbers?

It’s such a generic reference that usually does not tell you much about your personal risks. Usually. This number is a reflection of society as a whole, but the harsh realities tell us that American life expectancy is moving in the wrong direction. We watched a big drop in 2020, an obvious reflection of the pre- and early-vaccination availability during the intensifying COVID pandemic. Drug overdoses were mounting too, as lethal doses of fentanyl showed up with vastly greater frequency on our streets, amplifying the already deadly impact of opioid usage. Gun deaths too became more relevant as military grade assault rifles found their way, legally, into civilian hands. Guns became the number one cause of death among our children.

In December, the Centers for Disease Control issued their numbers for 2021, and life expectancy was literally half more than half a year shorter than what we had assumed was a bottom-disaster from 2020. Wrong. 76.4 years. Melissa Healy, writing for the December 23rd Los Angeles Times, reminds us that we are actually doing less than our peers in the developed world, nations with universal healthcare and strong gun control laws: “Aside from a few bumps along the road, U.S. lifespans have followed an upward course since 1900, when newborn Americans could expect to live 47.3 years. The one major exception: Average life expectancy plummeted in 1917 and 1918, when a world war and a flu pandemic conspired to reduce average life expectancy from 54.5 years in 1915 down to 39.1 years in 1918.

“America’s steady life expectancy gains began to stagnate around 2000, when deaths from drugs, suicides, gun violence and chronic illnesses began a steady upward climb. By 2010, the U.S. had lost its edge over most other affluent countries and American lifespans began falling behind.

“By 2020, the average longevity of newborn Americans was 4.7 years lower than their counterparts in other wealthy places — closer to the averages seen in Peru and Thailand than to those of countries such as France, Israel or South Korea.

“With the world’s third-highest COVID-19 mortality rate, the United States was unlikely to close the gap in 2021. Two years of declining life expectancy may not prove to be the start of a long-term trend. But [Dr. Stephen Woolf, a researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University] said the lingering mental and physical health effects of the pandemic, the continuing scourge of addiction, and the outsize toll of gun violence do not augur well for bringing U.S. life expectancy in line with our peers.

“‘The experience of other countries tells us it wasn’t inevitable that it had to be this way,’ Wollf said. Countries that embraced COVID-19 vaccines and other public health measures, and that administered medical care more equitably, ‘have shown it was possible to have an epidemic and have a different outcome,’ he said…

“The new figures indicate that drug fatalities have risen fivefold over the last two decades, the CDC said… Considering deaths from all causes, the age-adjusted mortality rate for Americans last year was 879.7 deaths per 100,000 people, up 5.3% from 2020.

“For every age group, death rates continued to be highest among Black and Latino men, and among men and women who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native. However, 2021 saw a notable improvement in the health of Black and Latino populations relative to white Americans.

“After researchers accounted for age, they found that white women and men were more likely to die in 2021 than they were in 2020. By contrast, Black and Latino men were less likely to die last year than the year before, and death rates for women in both groups held steady.” We are watching some strange changes in these numbers, including more middle-aged deaths among white Americans than experienced in the past. The deaths from COVID among older citizens seems to have subsided somewhat as well. But compared to countries where we should be doing better, we’re not!

A recent study of blue vs red counties in Florida and Ohio showed significantly more COVID deaths among Republicans than Dems. But a longer-term health review, reported in the July 18th Scientific American and reflected in the above chart, this seems to be a long-term, even pre-pandemic problem: “Republican-leaning ‘red’ states were much more resistant to health measures. The consequences of those differences emerged by the end of 2020, when rates of hospitalization and death from COVID rose in conservative counties and dropped in liberal ones. That divergence continued through 2021, when vaccines became widely available. And although the highly transmissible Omicron variant narrowed the gap in infection rates, hospitalization and death rates, which are dramatically reduced by vaccines, remain higher in Republican-leaning parts of the country.

“But COVID is only the latest chapter in the story of politics and health. ‘COVID has really magnified what had already been brewing in American society, which was that, based on where you lived, your risk of death was much different,’ says Haider J. Warraich, a physician and researcher at the VA Boston Healthcare System and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“In a study published in June in The BMJ, Warraich and his colleagues showed that over the two decades prior to the pandemic, there was a growing gap in mortality rates for residents of Republican and Democratic counties across the U.S. In 2001, the study’s starting point, the risk of death among red and blue counties (as defined by the results of presidential elections) was similar. Overall, the U.S. mortality rate has decreased in the nearly two decades since then (albeit not as much as in most other high-income countries). But the improvement for those living in Republican counties by 2019 was half that of those in Democratic counties—11 percent lower versus 22 percent lower.”

It's no secret that healthcare coverage is generally significantly less in red states, which are usually opposed to any governmental support of general healthcare availability. Anti-vax, anti-masking and anti-lockdown policies have become politicized as MAGA has raised these issues well beyond COVID related infection. The results speak for themselves. In the end, anti-science, anti-medical experts and opposition to universal healthcare have a price. A very steep price. Death.

I’m Peter Dekom, and investigating and desiring to indict Dr. Anthony Fauci is still a priority for MAGA Republicans… and that literally isn’t going to help extend American life expectancy for anyone.

Not Exactly a Dutch Treat

     Drug Seizure in Antwerp, Belgium

For all our “tough on crime” rhetoric, the United States has been the Great Enabler of Latin American drug trafficking cartels. First, it was the lingering capabilities of prohibition – created and then ended by constitutional amendment (1920-1933) – where crime “families” and abundant demand fueled violent access to alcohol. We’ve seen the movies and television series based on this lawless era. But prohibition did create both a template and an actual criminal infrastructure that could and would evolve to become the narcotics superhighway to the largest and growing market of addicts in the world. It was not a huge step from “the Mafia” to armed street gangs as local distributors and mega-armed cartels (many born here, like MS 13, that migrated back to home countries in Latin America) to cultivate, manufacture and then smuggle narcotics into the Great Enabler, filled with yearning addicts, in the north.

The over-prescription of prescription pain killers, replete with expensive marketing campaigns, created a whole new cadre of drug addicts… new well-financed markets for substitute drugs. While there is still minor illicig trafficking in marijuana, despite near-universal legalization across the states, that segment of the market is no longer the main focus of those rather large drug cartels. Harder, more concentrated narcotics, became more efficient for smugglers… as smaller amounts generated greater addictive power. Money was flowing to those cartels, even as turf wars brought some players up and destroyed others.

This is where the Great Enabler shone in its criminal excellence. Because of a rising and highly distorted view of our Second Amendment – Heller vs DC (Supreme Court – 2008) was the first case in our nation’s history to create what has become a ubiquitous and unbridled right to bear arms (even military assault weapons like the AR-15) – the ability to buy and sell guns in the United States exploded. State and federal judges continued to strike down common sense state gun laws; the Supreme Court (in the 2021 case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen), severely limited states in dealing with gun permits) and thus opened the already hemorrhaging gun-flood gates even wider.

As former President Trump attempted to build a border wall to stop northward immigration and drug trafficking, I wondered why Mexico and points south didn’t want a more vigorous barrier to the cartel-enabling gun smuggling from “easy to buy any guns” United States to their ostensibly gun-controlled countries south of the US border. But then, it may just be too late as drug cartels in many Latin American nations have bought and sold senior politicians and even major segments of local and federal police and military to the extent where corruption probably trumps any notion of taking back control of the streets from these mega-powerful cartels.

But at least the United States has been dealing with the massive infrastructure that has enabled Latin American drug traffickers for decades. The advent of fentanyl (a super-powerful opioid vastly more potent than heroin with killing power at tiny doses) created a narcotic that could wreak havoc in small, easy to smuggle quantities. And as much as the United States was “used to” this violent drug trade, had a barely effective police infrastructure do deal with well-armed drug dealers, many other developed countries did not. The new mega-target of cartel billionaires was Europe, where even police did not carry the kinds of guns that cartels routinely deployed, especially the Netherlands (Holland) and Belgium.

“Each tiny plastic package was barely the size of a fingernail and weighed all of 0.2 of a gram. Still, the bags of white powder police seized in a Brussels cellar were yet another indication that a surge in cocaine and crack supply is hitting Europe hard… And with it comes unprecedented drug violence in Belgium and the Netherlands, whose ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam, respectively, have become the main gateways for Latin American cocaine cartels into the continent.

“In Belgium, the justice minister is forced to live in a safehouse, out of reach of drug gangs. In the Netherlands, killings hit ever more prominent people, and there are suspicions that the reason the heir to the Dutch throne had to quit her student life and return home was also linked to threats from drug lords… ‘We almost have to see it as a war,’ said Aukje de Vries, the Dutch state secretary for customs.

“Officials in Antwerp on Tuesday [1/10] announced yet another annual record in cocaine seizures in Belgium last year: 110 tons, up 23% compared with 2021 and more than twice the amount confiscated five years ago… ‘It astounded us,’ said Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem. ‘It also means the drugs that are entering Europe [undetected] through our ports are also rising. And that, of course, has a huge impact,’ he told the Associated Press… Because with cocaine comes not only addiction, decay and death, but also violence and gang warfare… In the last three years, Antwerp has suffered dozens of grenade attacks, fires and bombings often linked to gangs trying to control the thriving cocaine trade…

“In the Netherlands, murder and intimidation have become increasingly common as drug lords go to extreme lengths to protect their cut of the multibillion-dollar market. And 50 tons of cocaine were seized at Rotterdam last year, which, combined with Antwerp, made for another record year.

“Among high-profile murder victims in the Netherlands in recent years were a lawyer representing a witness in a drug gangsters’ trial and crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, who was a confidant to the same witness… Unspecified threats to the heir to the Dutch throne, Princess Amalia, forced her to abandon student life in Amsterdam and return home last year. Security reportedly also has been beefed up around Prime Minister Mark Rutte. In both cases, it’s suspected that drug-related crime organizations are a factor.

“And in places like Brussels, where the violence might be less spectacular, cocaine and crack are starting to have a chilling effect in areas such as the Marolles, a quaint neighborhood that figured in Tintin’s cartoon adventures… The chief police inspector for the neighborhood, Kris Verborgh, said South American cocaine ‘seems to be — or seems to have become — the new normal.’” Associated Press, January 11th. South American cocaine… rising quickly to embrace the easier-to-smuggle manufactured fentanyl… protected by cartels well-armed with US-made guns. The United States plays the ”victim” card with a straight face… but it is our guns, bought with money from our addicts, that funded and armed these cartels, enabling this soaring worldwide scourge of addiction protected by ultra-violence.

I’m Peter Dekom, and our “law and order” crowd seems to have a particularly strong aversion to looking into the mirror of truth.

Whose "Facts"?

It’s hard to envision a democracy where ascertaining truth is increasingly impossible. What becomes the basis of a vote or a candidate’s platform? The promise of web-based social media as the access point to truth and factual information died hard, really hard, as manipulators and off-the-wall crazies found a way to popularize conspiracy theories, find ways for distant, previously unconnected extremist to join forces, to present a roiling body of supportive “evidence” for just about any crackpot notion. From the staging of the moon landing to notions of an entire political party being taken over by deep state perverts “grooming” our children into their web of sexual pleasures… focuses on a Washington D.C. pizza parlor of all places. Are there really any “lone wolves” today?

Remember Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway introducing the concept of “alternative facts” back on January 22, 2017, over the dispute over how many people attended Trump inauguration? That statement drew both derision and a genuine belief that “facts” are simply determined in the eye of the beholder. With the swing of a phrase, the immutable laws of physics seemed to be in peril. Whatever that verbal manipulation may have suggested is today the “virtual reality” (isn’t that an oxymoron?) of political beliefs and the credibility mainstream media vs social media. TruthSocial has a cool name, but “truth” does not seem to be a core value.

Indeed, as we watch Twitter-buyer, Elon Musk, rapidly dispose of employees, particularly those involved in the company’s fact-checking Birdwatch program created a year ago (pre-Musk) to address misinformation on the platform by allowing users to fact-check tweets, it’s easy to understand how dis- and misinformation are so easily disseminated. Meta/Facebook’s lip service to fact-checking belies its fierce reliance on creating Web traffic (valued by advertisers) through controversy that requires the inherent conflict of “alternative facts” bombarding each other. Under the false banner of “First Amendment Rights,” Americans have little or no legal protection from out-and-out lying over social media. While members of Congress want more accountability for social media, Republicans want little or no factual control over postings, while Dems want recourse against inaccuracies.

Not that Americans actually believe in their elected representatives anyway. According to the January 10th The Hill, “Members of Congress are perceived to have among the lowest ethical standards of any occupation, according to a new Gallup poll… The survey found 62 percent of respondents said members of Congress have ‘very low’ or ‘low’ ethical standards, while only 9 percent said they had ‘very high’ or ‘high’ standards. Only telemarketers received a worse rating.”

But where can most of turn for accuracy? Unfortunately, for Americans, there isn’t much they trust. For some in other countries, like Finland, they may have found a path to create healthy skepticism among the very young, and nurture that doubt as their education progresses. Here in the United States, “polls show that misinformation and disinformation have become more prevalent since 2016 and that Americans’ trust in the news media is near a record low. A survey by Gallup, published in October, found that just 34 percent of Americans trusted the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, slightly higher than the lowest number that the organization recorded, in 2016. In Finland, 76 percent of Finns consider print and digital newspapers to be reliable, according to an August survey commissioned by a trade group representing Finnish newspapers that was conducted by IRO Research, a market research company.

“Finland has advantages in countering misinformation. Its public school system is among the best in the world. College is free. There is high trust in the government, and Finland was one of the European countries least affected by the pandemic. Teachers are highly respected.” New York Times, January 10th. What’s the difference? Finland’s extremists unable to hide under a malignant use of a “First Amendment” equivalent… or something else? So, Finish teachers are trained to make their students aware that what they read or view just might not be the truth.

“A typical lesson that Saara Martikka, a teacher in Hameenlinna, Finland, gives her students goes like this: She presents her eighth graders with news articles. Together, they discuss: What’s the purpose of the article? How and when was it written? What are the author’s central claims?

“‘Just because it’s a good thing or it’s a nice thing doesn’t mean it’s true or it’s valid,’ she said. In a class last month, she showed students three TikTok videos, and they discussed the creators’ motivations and the effect that the videos had on them… Her goal, like that of teachers around Finland, is to help students learn to identify false information.

“Finland ranked No. 1 of 41 European countries on resilience against misinformation for the fifth time in a row in a survey published in October by the Open Society Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria. Officials say Finland’s success is not just the result of its strong education system, which is one of the best in the world, but also because of a concerted effort to teach students about fake news. Media literacy is part of the national core curriculum starting in preschool.” NY Times

Hard to imagine teaching bona fide media literacy where American elected officials depend on misinformation and conspiracy theories as means to get elected. The Field Marshall of our culture wars, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, seems to picture riding the destruction of “woke” culture, liberal thought, tolerance, truth and diversity as his ticket to the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. He could not mount that effort if his constituency were fully “media literate,” skeptical of wild political pronouncements that would easily topple if accuracy were an applicable metric. But it isn’t, and until our courts and Congress can grapple with the basic need to nurture democracy with truth, I suspect our world of competing mythologies just might destroy our country.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the ability override facts and spread actionable falsehoods leads to more January 6, 2021 attempts to repeal democracy, which just might succeed… the kind of political erosion that climate change is wreaking on our actual coastline.