Intersectionality seems to be concerned mostly with the additive effects of multiple sources of discrimination upon an individual. A basic example would be a woman suffering the effects of gender discrimination in the workplace, and then the fact that she is African-American then layering on additional challenges of racial bias.
There is an interesting case in intersectionality that I don't think gets any real analysis. If intersectionality is such a straightforward additive effect, what explains the plight of the African American male? By statistics, an African American male is more likely to be jailed, murdered, or multiple other statistical tragedies befall them than an African American female.
To explain this I believe requires accepting some aspects of the Theory of the Disposable Male. This creates an amusing political crossbreed, since Intersectionality can be ch.aracterized as an academic underpinning of far-left "woke culture", while Disposable Males is much more accepted by far-right circles such as incels.
But it is my belief that to understand the effects of racism on African American males, especially young ones, it is important to understand how intersectionality layers the core racial bias of America with a critical gender bias that comes from the Disposable Male theory: the lack of value of young males, and the fact that black young males are FURTHER devalued by society.
The Disposable Male theory basically states that because males in nature (across species) can procreate with multiple females while females cannot procreate as widely because they almost always must carry offspring to term. Economy, biology, physics, and game theory then leads to a situation where men fight for "breeding supremacy" by various means to procreate with females, and this leads to a feedback loop in terms of natural selection and species courtship.
Very roughly, what is observed is that 70% of females will procreate, but 30% of males do not. The theory is interesting because it seemingly helps explain dominance hierarchies, competition for resource domination by men, violence, territorialism, risk taking, and many other aspects of stereotypically male behaviors observed in nature..... and possibly in humans.
While social statistics do not show the same ratios of success in procreation, research has hinted that in our formative evolutionary period such ratios were present, and therefore instinctual psychology will reflect it even if monogamy and other cultural mores have tempered the expression of the ratio. Certainly behaviors for resource domination, hierarchy formation, status achievement, and mate selection on the basis of those by females is observed in America.
The interesting aspects of intersectionality and the disposable male come in to possibly explain the black male's plight. Theoretically with "one less bias source" of being only black, they should be generally succeeeding in the open marketplace better than African American females. However the opposite seems true based on extreme incarceration and murder risk.
If one views the results of the "ordering" of males by status and viability per the ratios of the disposable male, where being black is a near-instant demotion from possibly being in the top 30% of males to a far higher likelihood of being psychologically profiled into the "bottom 70%", then all of an additional intersectional class of bias emerges for black males:
1) they are black
2) they are inherently disposable because they are black
While that may seem tautological, what the disposable male theory says with sufficient racial bias is that being male switches from what is perceived to be as a benefit in overall society, IS ACTUALLY A DETRIMENT. Black males are marked by society BY DEFAULT as among the disposable class.
There is a third aspect to how Disposable Male theory produces yet another intersectional impact to black men: young black males.
It is important to understand that the Disposable Male theory also dictates a unique gender bias of the black man. In humans, the Disposable Male theory generally applies to status and resource dominance. These dominances aren't done via physical bullying or fights... they are accumulated through economic success. Males accumulate wealth over time, so it explains how older males gain "attractiveness" over time. That is directly explained by the Disposable Male theory.
But that implies that young males start out "down the ladder" of ranking, and remember that in Disposable Male psychology, ONLY 30% or less of males "succeed". So any detriment to initial ranking is palpable and almost frightening.
So a young black male will suffer three intersectional biases: Being black, being disposable BECAUSE you are black, and being disposable BECAUSE you are young.
This means that behaviors that are associate with males who sense that they are in the "disposable range" psychologically become even further motivated, since especially the traditional routes to status, the wealth-based ones, are not available.
The basic strategy of a male that senses biologically that they are of insufficient status is to make risky choices to attain status, resources, or influence. So a black male then will tend to side with risky life strategies, since they are denied by society more reliably / safer routes.
Youth is where support of family, valuing education and academics, and providing direction are critical to avoiding paths in life that lead to bad outcomes. Because while the Disposable Male psychology is strong, the fact of modern life is that if a male gets a decent education and works hard, even in our noxious class structure of America, a livable life can be achieved and "success" in the sense of procreation and raising kids, is very achievable. With the right community and family values.
So the third intersectional bias of Disposable Males, bias against the young, comes at the precise moment (high schooling) that leads to ultra-risky behaviors and "dreams", instinctively drawing them from more prosaic paths and lacking structure to counteract these strong instinctual influences:
- financial and local hierarchy status: drug gang membership and activity
- pro sports and physical fitness (an EXTREMELY selective and hard path to success)
- arts, performance, and other entertainment careers (likely as difficult or worse than pro sports)
I do not want to say that ALL black males are doomed to such failure, or wallow too much in stereotypes of young males. However the numerous cultural examples and higher status granted "heros" in these categories in black subcultures compared to others does seem quite apparent, and I do not think it is solely because of limited mainstream economic opportunity by black males.
Young black females generally do not have this third intersectional bias: at the maximum heights of their biological fertility and appeal to men, they actually have an advantage in terms of social value.
Economic access and educational opportunity and other difficult, politically chaotic, generationally spanning investments that afford black males avenues to status and "success" remains what is necessary to help alleviate the plight of minorities in general and black males in particular, but I believe the theory of Disposable Males is critical to understanding the influences and motivations of Black Men and the intersectional biases that emerge to compound their situations the most.
I apologize if anything I wrote implies that these are biological inevitabilites, or any sort of inherent racial inferiority. Instead I am trying to argue that a possible biological universality biological compounded with our current cultural structure explains a great deal of both actual difficulties, and perceptions of possibilities, that African American Males, and young ones at that, face in America.
Friday, April 1, 2022
Intersectionality and the Disposable Male
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Statehood for PR and DC: Civil Rights of Our Time
It's time for Puerto Rico and DC to become states, or at least fully represented in Congress as such: two senators each + proportional representation in the House of Representatives.
This isn't just saavy political strategy by the Democrats. This is the Civil Rights issue of our time, a moral imperative that will give African Americans and Hispanics a real dose of political power they've been denied for centuries. DC is 60% African American. PR is 98.7% Hispanic. Full representation in Congress will almost certainly send two African American senators and two Hispanic senators to the Senate, and similarly for their proportional representation in the House. While Voting Rights Acts and similar actions can help enable turnout in
future elections, gerrymandering and state control of elections will
continue to suppress minority vote.
Current population distribution allow the Senate to vastly disproportionately represent whites, this is not in doubt. DC, while only about 700,000 people, is still larger than Vermont and Wyoming, and likely will grow past Alaska, the Dakotas, and maybe Delaware by 2030. Puerto Rico would be the 31st most populous state. Four minority senators will help offset the 12 senators from those small states (all white), and in a fractious near 50-50 split, will allow African American and Hispanic viewpoints to be strongly considered while gathering critical mass for legislative votes.
Hurricane Maria in particular highlights how Puerto Rico should be desperately seeking representation. The ill regard shown by Trump and the US Government would not have occurred if military appropriation and other bills depended on Puerto Rican House and Senate votes. Indeed the humanitarian disaster enacted by the Trump Administration in that time of need demands Puerto Rican admission into the Senate.
As for African Americans, they saved the heart and soul of United States of America in the 2020 election. There is no other way to say it. Nearly 90% of them voted for Biden, in addition to 60-70% of Hispanic voters, and helped keep our country from sliding into a racist and fascist near-totalitarian government.
But most importantly, it will also serve as a stinging rebuke to Trumpism and White Nationalism. The Republican party will be forced to confront a reality where Senate and House control is impossible if they follow the overt white nationalism of Trumpism, or even the more covert precursors embodied by the Southern Strategy. The Republican party will need to face the hatred at the heart of its party, and either adapt or die. They will have to face down their media networks of lies and hatred that they use to corral their rabid but dying base.
Arguably, DC and PR statehood will save America.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Great Failures of the Obama Administration
As all things politic, there is never a perfect presidency. But Obama was the the first politician I gave money to (on the night of Sarah Palin's hockey mom speech at the convention)... and I gave the max, so my investment in his administration was higher than anyone else. I had hopes for more, but muted expectations, as I am a cynic.
Obama's Justice Department failed to pursue cases of white collar fraud against the perpetrators of the greatest banking scandal in history, a financial scandal so severe that a proper accounting of it's downstream effects would most certainly find thousands of deaths.
And yet not a single C-level executive, Vice President, Director, or any other title of substance went to jail, despite laughably obvious fraud across dozens of banks, regulatory bodies, lenders, and bond ratings agencies.
Obama's pretensions of idealism was betrayed at the start by this dearth of prosecutorial attention. Obama is a lawyer by trade and training, so he knows exactly what he was doing. This was a bought and paid for bribe by Wall Street to fund his presidency. Unlike what led up to the scandal and the recession, this was 100% attributable to the preference of Obama, and it will result in more fraud and abuse by this sociopathic element of our economy.
Obama ran on a platform of openness and transparency in government, a promised reversal of federal government's obsession with secrecy that expanded greatly under the Bush administration and the corruption that underlay the Iraq War.
Alas the opposite was true. It took Edward Snowden to reveal the full extent of the secrecy, spying, and modern totalitarian infrastructure that the US Government provided. FOIA, already a joke, became even more so. Principled leaks of unnecessarily classified information were aggressively prosecuted (and with all things like this, always remember what was NOT aggressively prosecuted).
As the information age progresses and governments have more tools to both hide their data and spy on the populace, it is important to establish boundaries of freedom to restrict the encroachment of the federal government, lest a less principled individual take the reins. Ruefully, that has come to fruition far too quickly.
For climate change, Obama was fine window dressing, but largely was a big pot of inaction, in the time we will very likely state was the breaking point of unavoidable changes. 400 ppm passed under his watch. The likelihood of any progress from an American president was very unlikely, given the nature of the venal and anti-intellectual American voting public and their love of SUVs.
However, under his watch solar and electric cars flourished, even under the collapse of oil prices, which paradoxically may be bad for the petroleum industry long-term, since it robs them of profitability and prevents funding of more complex petroleum extraction such as Alberta tar sands.
Finally, neoliberal economic management under Obama has been a failure. Wealth distribution continued turning us into a gilded nation, real costs rose for healthcare, housing, and education, real wages remained flat, real unemployment is high, trade deficits are high...
Keynesian deficit spending did well to get us out of a full blown depression, but the real recession lingers today 8 years later with a paper recovery. It may be that this was the best that could be done from a country hollowed out of manufacturing jobs by trade deals and a lack of investment in high tech automated manufacturing.
Obama's greatest failure was defining a progressive vision and defending it properly. A gifted orator, he disappeared and did not adopt a modern, constant, everpresent media campaign and network of thinkers to move progressive causes forward and expand them into general awareness, and challenge the lies of the right.
The Trump election has shown the mortal danger of the modern echo chamber, and Obama's failure to use his leadership to undermine this echo chamber has given us a neo-totalitarian.
Finally, some words for the "fake failures":
ISIS is a joke. It is a regional conflict that Obama has wisely avoided, although I would have backed the Kurds more staunchly as a regional ally in a region with no good choices. The right's paranoia of ISIS belies their lack of objectivity, racism, stupidity, and worldliness.
The ACA is not a failure, but it was also not a success, as it was politically poisoned by the Republicans and Joe Lieberman (may he burn in hell), but it was a necessary piece of legislation towards an eventual solution. It's basic ideas (exchanges) were created to appease Republicans, who only then turned on their own (and Mitt Romney's!) ideas.
The Iran deal is just diplomacy, and any right wing saber rattling and bemoaning of it was only due to the poisonous influence of petrodollars not wanting Iranian oil to flood onto a weak market.
Immigration was something that would always require bipartisan solutions, and really is a Republican problem, since that party is the one that talks out of both sides of it's mouth. Republican business owners love that immigration depresses wages and increases labor supply, but the "base" voters hate it for that reason. And remember, economic competition + racial divide = racism.
Obama's Justice Department failed to pursue cases of white collar fraud against the perpetrators of the greatest banking scandal in history, a financial scandal so severe that a proper accounting of it's downstream effects would most certainly find thousands of deaths.
And yet not a single C-level executive, Vice President, Director, or any other title of substance went to jail, despite laughably obvious fraud across dozens of banks, regulatory bodies, lenders, and bond ratings agencies.
Obama's pretensions of idealism was betrayed at the start by this dearth of prosecutorial attention. Obama is a lawyer by trade and training, so he knows exactly what he was doing. This was a bought and paid for bribe by Wall Street to fund his presidency. Unlike what led up to the scandal and the recession, this was 100% attributable to the preference of Obama, and it will result in more fraud and abuse by this sociopathic element of our economy.
Obama ran on a platform of openness and transparency in government, a promised reversal of federal government's obsession with secrecy that expanded greatly under the Bush administration and the corruption that underlay the Iraq War.
Alas the opposite was true. It took Edward Snowden to reveal the full extent of the secrecy, spying, and modern totalitarian infrastructure that the US Government provided. FOIA, already a joke, became even more so. Principled leaks of unnecessarily classified information were aggressively prosecuted (and with all things like this, always remember what was NOT aggressively prosecuted).
As the information age progresses and governments have more tools to both hide their data and spy on the populace, it is important to establish boundaries of freedom to restrict the encroachment of the federal government, lest a less principled individual take the reins. Ruefully, that has come to fruition far too quickly.
For climate change, Obama was fine window dressing, but largely was a big pot of inaction, in the time we will very likely state was the breaking point of unavoidable changes. 400 ppm passed under his watch. The likelihood of any progress from an American president was very unlikely, given the nature of the venal and anti-intellectual American voting public and their love of SUVs.
However, under his watch solar and electric cars flourished, even under the collapse of oil prices, which paradoxically may be bad for the petroleum industry long-term, since it robs them of profitability and prevents funding of more complex petroleum extraction such as Alberta tar sands.
Finally, neoliberal economic management under Obama has been a failure. Wealth distribution continued turning us into a gilded nation, real costs rose for healthcare, housing, and education, real wages remained flat, real unemployment is high, trade deficits are high...
Keynesian deficit spending did well to get us out of a full blown depression, but the real recession lingers today 8 years later with a paper recovery. It may be that this was the best that could be done from a country hollowed out of manufacturing jobs by trade deals and a lack of investment in high tech automated manufacturing.
Obama's greatest failure was defining a progressive vision and defending it properly. A gifted orator, he disappeared and did not adopt a modern, constant, everpresent media campaign and network of thinkers to move progressive causes forward and expand them into general awareness, and challenge the lies of the right.
The Trump election has shown the mortal danger of the modern echo chamber, and Obama's failure to use his leadership to undermine this echo chamber has given us a neo-totalitarian.
Finally, some words for the "fake failures":
ISIS is a joke. It is a regional conflict that Obama has wisely avoided, although I would have backed the Kurds more staunchly as a regional ally in a region with no good choices. The right's paranoia of ISIS belies their lack of objectivity, racism, stupidity, and worldliness.
The ACA is not a failure, but it was also not a success, as it was politically poisoned by the Republicans and Joe Lieberman (may he burn in hell), but it was a necessary piece of legislation towards an eventual solution. It's basic ideas (exchanges) were created to appease Republicans, who only then turned on their own (and Mitt Romney's!) ideas.
The Iran deal is just diplomacy, and any right wing saber rattling and bemoaning of it was only due to the poisonous influence of petrodollars not wanting Iranian oil to flood onto a weak market.
Immigration was something that would always require bipartisan solutions, and really is a Republican problem, since that party is the one that talks out of both sides of it's mouth. Republican business owners love that immigration depresses wages and increases labor supply, but the "base" voters hate it for that reason. And remember, economic competition + racial divide = racism.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
End State of Democracy and the End State of Free Markets
If you've read any economics in the last several decades, the holy grail and god of the economist, both liberal and conservative is the "free market". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market)
Free markets are where multiple actors compete among one another, using skill, ability, art, practice, technology, luck, and desire to produce competitive advantage.
The net effect of a free market, in theory is to produce products and services at the cheapest price to satisfy demand. And anyone who know how our system works can't deny the power of approximations of free markets in this regard.
The old saw I have seen many a time is:
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice....
And this is very true of free markets in the real world. I could pedant at length over this.
But free markets are dynamic systems, that evolve over time. A market at one point in time with many different companies competing to produce goods cheaply and effectively is but one equilibrium. But if one of those companies could form a strategy to ruthlessly destroy their competitors...
And that is the monopoly, in its most regressive form, or the cartel in a lesser form. And this is natural. If one is strong, then the strong survive per the survival of the fittest (it was always ironic to me that Republicans held free markets in such holy regard when evolutionary competition was inherent to their design), and it will stamp out or absorb all others.
And with sufficient size and strength, can then either absorb or destroy any smaller new entries to maintain its hegemony. Or it results in two or three players of sufficient size to fend off any attack from others, while also destroying or absorbing new players (the cartel).
Really, I would argue that any well functioning free market will destabilize into a cartel or monopoly state. It's merely a matter or iterations (in chaos/dynamic systems speak) or time (in the real world).
We can see this in another arena of dynamism and competition: politics.
Democracies are free markets where votes are allocated to ideas. Eventually those ideas align together in groups. Thus political parties emerge.
In America, we have the Democrat / Republican cartel. Two entities controlling 90%+ of the market, battling over a couple percentage points of dominance every few years. You can see the same dynamic at work in health insurance, car manufacturing, mobile telecommunications, etc etc etc.
Cartels are "markedly" (small pun) better than monopolies however. Cartels still possess a base motivation of competition out of defense, because the cartel players still need to stay healthy enough so that they do not become weak enough to be absorbed.
Monopolies are much worse. They can descend into corruption, but since they are the sole provider of a service, will be paid. And certainly can squash any challengers at will, by destruction or buyout.
And the same is what we have today. Democrats and Republicans in a cartel, but were we to fall into a monopoly... an authoritarian, things would be much much much worse...
Free markets descending into cartels is noisome in most matters. Mattel vs Matchbox for toy cars? Tolerable. Verizon vs T-Mobile for cellular service? A fair bit more annoying, but tolerable.
But government rule? Hitler? Mussolini? Stalin? Very dangerous.
In markets, society recognized the problem in the robber baron / gilded age era... Antitrust laws, regulation, (supported by Republican Teddy Roosevelt!), etc.
I believe the same solution should be applied to democracy. It already functions as a cornerstone of the POTUS / Presidency: term limits.
I propose that the senate and house must have four parties at all times represented, and that no party can have more than 40% of any body. This would enforce coalitions, cooperation, and diversity of political power.
Of course I'm in favor of term limits for senators and congressmen as well.
Free markets are where multiple actors compete among one another, using skill, ability, art, practice, technology, luck, and desire to produce competitive advantage.
The net effect of a free market, in theory is to produce products and services at the cheapest price to satisfy demand. And anyone who know how our system works can't deny the power of approximations of free markets in this regard.
The old saw I have seen many a time is:
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice....
And this is very true of free markets in the real world. I could pedant at length over this.
But free markets are dynamic systems, that evolve over time. A market at one point in time with many different companies competing to produce goods cheaply and effectively is but one equilibrium. But if one of those companies could form a strategy to ruthlessly destroy their competitors...
And that is the monopoly, in its most regressive form, or the cartel in a lesser form. And this is natural. If one is strong, then the strong survive per the survival of the fittest (it was always ironic to me that Republicans held free markets in such holy regard when evolutionary competition was inherent to their design), and it will stamp out or absorb all others.
And with sufficient size and strength, can then either absorb or destroy any smaller new entries to maintain its hegemony. Or it results in two or three players of sufficient size to fend off any attack from others, while also destroying or absorbing new players (the cartel).
Really, I would argue that any well functioning free market will destabilize into a cartel or monopoly state. It's merely a matter or iterations (in chaos/dynamic systems speak) or time (in the real world).
We can see this in another arena of dynamism and competition: politics.
Democracies are free markets where votes are allocated to ideas. Eventually those ideas align together in groups. Thus political parties emerge.
In America, we have the Democrat / Republican cartel. Two entities controlling 90%+ of the market, battling over a couple percentage points of dominance every few years. You can see the same dynamic at work in health insurance, car manufacturing, mobile telecommunications, etc etc etc.
Cartels are "markedly" (small pun) better than monopolies however. Cartels still possess a base motivation of competition out of defense, because the cartel players still need to stay healthy enough so that they do not become weak enough to be absorbed.
Monopolies are much worse. They can descend into corruption, but since they are the sole provider of a service, will be paid. And certainly can squash any challengers at will, by destruction or buyout.
And the same is what we have today. Democrats and Republicans in a cartel, but were we to fall into a monopoly... an authoritarian, things would be much much much worse...
Free markets descending into cartels is noisome in most matters. Mattel vs Matchbox for toy cars? Tolerable. Verizon vs T-Mobile for cellular service? A fair bit more annoying, but tolerable.
But government rule? Hitler? Mussolini? Stalin? Very dangerous.
In markets, society recognized the problem in the robber baron / gilded age era... Antitrust laws, regulation, (supported by Republican Teddy Roosevelt!), etc.
I believe the same solution should be applied to democracy. It already functions as a cornerstone of the POTUS / Presidency: term limits.
I propose that the senate and house must have four parties at all times represented, and that no party can have more than 40% of any body. This would enforce coalitions, cooperation, and diversity of political power.
Of course I'm in favor of term limits for senators and congressmen as well.
ONE NEAT TRICK used by Trump
There is one SECRET TRICK that Trump used to get elected. You'll NEVER GUESS what it was.
Sorry, I'll break out of clickbait hypnosis. But there is one massive advantage that Trump had over Clinton:
He was profitable to big media.
Do you remember the ad buys for the first Republican debate? It was like the Super Bowl. Unprecedented as far as I'm aware.
Did you know the NFL ratings dropped almost 20% during the election? (http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2016/11/28/youth-football-participation-trends-signal-whether-nfls-ratings-slip-will-be-long-term/#2f9fb01d3b45) The NFL is more recession proof than cigarettes and tobacco. Know where what they were doing? Watching CNN and FoxNews.
Think about that, Trump had people watching news channels rather than the national gladiator bloodlust sport of America, football.
We sit here now bemoaning the role of the bankrupt fourth estate in the election of the orangutan totalitarian. It is undeniable that corruption, malaise, and incompetence has overtaken whatever valuable public service the institution of a free press used to provide to the great land.
But remember, we have seen now two decades of anticompetitive cartel consolidation of mass media:
Disney, AOL, Time Warner
Six companies own 90% of media (http://www.morriscreative.com/6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america/),
Donald Trump was making these companies billions of dollars in eyeballs. Across all properties, from news to websites to radio to television. Cheap, easy programming. At all levels, producers could play Trump, get ratings, go home early. It was that easy.
These media conglomerates run on profits, BIIIIIG profits. If there is a big profit out there, it would take a massive hammer to get a 90 billion dollar company to say no. It's why no real news in general makes it to the screen or front page: it doesn't sell. There is no profit-second, truth-first major media outlet anymore. They all are corrupted by being consolidated into large companies, and your little corner of that company only continues to exist if it shows revenue.
I have to emphasize the profits here. ESPN, perhaps Disney's #1 property, has been subjected to reams of cuts and salary squeezes and layoffs to keep the overall company (and their executive goldmine options) profits up. Profits are everything, and not easy to reliably get. When a bonanza like Trump comes along, truth will take a backseat to profits, just like it does with oil and global warming.
Hillary did not bring a profit. Q-ratings were low. Didn't say anything interesting. Bad screen presence. Negative baggage. No soundbites. Avoided and distrusted media.
Well, there was one way to make a profit off of Hillary: bash her, ride existing resentment and propaganda from the Clinton years. Or republish whatever Trump said about her that brought in ratings.
Not good.
Fake news definitely played a role in this election, but it's role is minor compared to the essential role mainstream media had in getting Trump elected. Fake news is the current fall guy, who big media will point to if the specter of regulation or *gasp* return to principles is demanded.
Above all, in four years Trump will need to be faced with someone who can win this game. It might take a George Clooney or other famous name to play the role of a politician. Who has media relationships, experience with publicity, and can go toe-to-toe in social media. We may truly be in a post-substance figurehead election process first hinted at when John F Kennedy beat Nixon who looked like a weasel on TV. It's the logical end state.
Typical news coverage of a famous person or story follows the fast rise and great fall arc. I was waiting for the "great fall", where the media builds someone up, only to tear them down, to happen to Trump. The "great fall" occurs when building you up doesn't make the media a profit anymore, so tearing you down is what they do to squeeze the last dollars.
Trump never stopped making money.
Sorry, I'll break out of clickbait hypnosis. But there is one massive advantage that Trump had over Clinton:
He was profitable to big media.
Do you remember the ad buys for the first Republican debate? It was like the Super Bowl. Unprecedented as far as I'm aware.
Did you know the NFL ratings dropped almost 20% during the election? (http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2016/11/28/youth-football-participation-trends-signal-whether-nfls-ratings-slip-will-be-long-term/#2f9fb01d3b45) The NFL is more recession proof than cigarettes and tobacco. Know where what they were doing? Watching CNN and FoxNews.
Think about that, Trump had people watching news channels rather than the national gladiator bloodlust sport of America, football.
We sit here now bemoaning the role of the bankrupt fourth estate in the election of the orangutan totalitarian. It is undeniable that corruption, malaise, and incompetence has overtaken whatever valuable public service the institution of a free press used to provide to the great land.
But remember, we have seen now two decades of anticompetitive cartel consolidation of mass media:
Disney, AOL, Time Warner
Six companies own 90% of media (http://www.morriscreative.com/6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america/),
Donald Trump was making these companies billions of dollars in eyeballs. Across all properties, from news to websites to radio to television. Cheap, easy programming. At all levels, producers could play Trump, get ratings, go home early. It was that easy.
These media conglomerates run on profits, BIIIIIG profits. If there is a big profit out there, it would take a massive hammer to get a 90 billion dollar company to say no. It's why no real news in general makes it to the screen or front page: it doesn't sell. There is no profit-second, truth-first major media outlet anymore. They all are corrupted by being consolidated into large companies, and your little corner of that company only continues to exist if it shows revenue.
I have to emphasize the profits here. ESPN, perhaps Disney's #1 property, has been subjected to reams of cuts and salary squeezes and layoffs to keep the overall company (and their executive goldmine options) profits up. Profits are everything, and not easy to reliably get. When a bonanza like Trump comes along, truth will take a backseat to profits, just like it does with oil and global warming.
Hillary did not bring a profit. Q-ratings were low. Didn't say anything interesting. Bad screen presence. Negative baggage. No soundbites. Avoided and distrusted media.
Well, there was one way to make a profit off of Hillary: bash her, ride existing resentment and propaganda from the Clinton years. Or republish whatever Trump said about her that brought in ratings.
Not good.
Fake news definitely played a role in this election, but it's role is minor compared to the essential role mainstream media had in getting Trump elected. Fake news is the current fall guy, who big media will point to if the specter of regulation or *gasp* return to principles is demanded.
Above all, in four years Trump will need to be faced with someone who can win this game. It might take a George Clooney or other famous name to play the role of a politician. Who has media relationships, experience with publicity, and can go toe-to-toe in social media. We may truly be in a post-substance figurehead election process first hinted at when John F Kennedy beat Nixon who looked like a weasel on TV. It's the logical end state.
Typical news coverage of a famous person or story follows the fast rise and great fall arc. I was waiting for the "great fall", where the media builds someone up, only to tear them down, to happen to Trump. The "great fall" occurs when building you up doesn't make the media a profit anymore, so tearing you down is what they do to squeeze the last dollars.
Trump never stopped making money.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Wartime Rationing
Anyone who knows me knows I'm not much for consumerism. But the all-encompassing market blitz finds something you like. Consumers have to eat, be sheltered, get transportation.
But since the election, things have been sucked out. Sports are virtually meaningless to me. If not a guilty pleasure, at least a guilty distraction, their vacuous jingoistic patriotic displays once per quarter tolerated as a cost of admission. Now they are darkly ominous, even moreso that when in the depths of the Iraq War and it's mendacious justifications. Sports have always been propaganda, but they were just crude propaganda for a more or less functioning democracy.
Sports are no longer that. They are fascist propaganda, as long as the troll is in office. The national anthem is now an anthem of hate. The flag is a symbol of hate. Professional sports are gladitorial distractions from the construction of a fascist regime. The dumb day-to-day soap opera drama of sports isn't just totally overshadowed by the exigent threat, it is a part of the ignorance machine that feeds the disease. I don't know how I could be on a sports team now and not kneel at the anthem. Trump is a permanent stain on our escutcheon.
Facebook implores me with distractions: clickbait, which sometimes would find something, somehow to get me to look at in boredom, now is just a glaring example of the totality of the downfall of the fourth estate. Marketing campaigns for fall fashion or cars... just empty consumerism that will feed the fascist system. I'd rather it starved.
Maybe this is what wartime rationing is. I know I have to prepare for bad times. Luxuries are weakness and a distraction. All those paranoid white separatists holing up in their farms with guns and survival gear because Federal Obama was going to Communist their Rectums With Obamacare... well now it's real. Should I get the biggest assault rifle that I can fit through the gun show loopholes? Reverse engineer a homemade TOW missile? Figure out some way to counter modern air power with pocket lasers or drones? Learn how to be a sniper?
I think mostly I want to make the NFL feel the pain. It already has suffered a massive drop in ratings. It will probably go back up with the election being over, but it would be amazing if people felt the same emptiness I do about such trivial blather now. The NFL is the true religion of white conservative america. It's even the classic boondoggle: governments are forced to shell out money to these people's religion rather than clothe or educate the poor. And it's usually urban, local money that gets used, so the rurals and suburbanites can drive it, drink and piss and scream, and then leave. It's the lifeblood of modern television for the stupids. It moralizes might versus right, not giving a shit about other people except your own, win at any cost so you can high five your bros, social darwinism, etc.
But since the election, things have been sucked out. Sports are virtually meaningless to me. If not a guilty pleasure, at least a guilty distraction, their vacuous jingoistic patriotic displays once per quarter tolerated as a cost of admission. Now they are darkly ominous, even moreso that when in the depths of the Iraq War and it's mendacious justifications. Sports have always been propaganda, but they were just crude propaganda for a more or less functioning democracy.
Sports are no longer that. They are fascist propaganda, as long as the troll is in office. The national anthem is now an anthem of hate. The flag is a symbol of hate. Professional sports are gladitorial distractions from the construction of a fascist regime. The dumb day-to-day soap opera drama of sports isn't just totally overshadowed by the exigent threat, it is a part of the ignorance machine that feeds the disease. I don't know how I could be on a sports team now and not kneel at the anthem. Trump is a permanent stain on our escutcheon.
Facebook implores me with distractions: clickbait, which sometimes would find something, somehow to get me to look at in boredom, now is just a glaring example of the totality of the downfall of the fourth estate. Marketing campaigns for fall fashion or cars... just empty consumerism that will feed the fascist system. I'd rather it starved.
Maybe this is what wartime rationing is. I know I have to prepare for bad times. Luxuries are weakness and a distraction. All those paranoid white separatists holing up in their farms with guns and survival gear because Federal Obama was going to Communist their Rectums With Obamacare... well now it's real. Should I get the biggest assault rifle that I can fit through the gun show loopholes? Reverse engineer a homemade TOW missile? Figure out some way to counter modern air power with pocket lasers or drones? Learn how to be a sniper?
I think mostly I want to make the NFL feel the pain. It already has suffered a massive drop in ratings. It will probably go back up with the election being over, but it would be amazing if people felt the same emptiness I do about such trivial blather now. The NFL is the true religion of white conservative america. It's even the classic boondoggle: governments are forced to shell out money to these people's religion rather than clothe or educate the poor. And it's usually urban, local money that gets used, so the rurals and suburbanites can drive it, drink and piss and scream, and then leave. It's the lifeblood of modern television for the stupids. It moralizes might versus right, not giving a shit about other people except your own, win at any cost so you can high five your bros, social darwinism, etc.
Hack the Electoral College - Cities become States
The Electoral College, a slave-owning ugly compromise from the ugly history of the North/South divide, has now denied the will of the people twice. And now on the precipice of confirming the election of the most noxious candidate in our history, it's only supposed purpose: preventing a madman from attaining the office of the President of the Unites States, it is clear the Electoral College will not do that.
There are multiple suggestions, such as Maryland's which will award its electors to the winner of the popular vote, should enough other states also adopt this.
But that still leaves the geographic bias of the electoral college. But that isn't based on territory, it's just on if you're a state.
So... let's add more (urban) states. Almost every red state city knows how this works. The city is vibrant economically, progressive, diverse, energetic, cultural, fun, and the rural politics drag it down. Embarrass it nationally. Steal its population.
Well, let's just create new states for the cities. Talk to people in Austin and Houston Texas about what it's like being in Texas. Miami is drowning by climate change and it's state legislature outlawed the concept, think they don't want to be their own state? Detroit, Michigan... Northern Indiana... Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus in Ohio? New Orleans, Louisiana? The Research Triangle in NC?
The city limits can declare themselves a state, and then surrounding counties can vote to be members of them or not.
And each new "city-state" gets its own 2 bonus electoral votes. And two senators. And the proper congressmen.
It doesn't even have to happen in a massive change. We just need one city to establish the precedent, and then it can happen organically.
Alternatively, electoral college voters can be apportioned by counties, as already is in Maine, and, I believe, Nebraska. But this system doesn't give the cities their senators and bonus electoral votes.
One intarwebber wrote:
The Constitution doesn't forbid making a state out of already existing territory, it's just more difficult. The constitution simply says that you need the consent of both Congress and the State Legislature of the state involved. States can't be combined or split "without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress" is how the constitution puts it.
So it will require Congressional control. Which won't happen for a while, but it could be the greatest redistricting play ever.
There are multiple suggestions, such as Maryland's which will award its electors to the winner of the popular vote, should enough other states also adopt this.
But that still leaves the geographic bias of the electoral college. But that isn't based on territory, it's just on if you're a state.
So... let's add more (urban) states. Almost every red state city knows how this works. The city is vibrant economically, progressive, diverse, energetic, cultural, fun, and the rural politics drag it down. Embarrass it nationally. Steal its population.
Well, let's just create new states for the cities. Talk to people in Austin and Houston Texas about what it's like being in Texas. Miami is drowning by climate change and it's state legislature outlawed the concept, think they don't want to be their own state? Detroit, Michigan... Northern Indiana... Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus in Ohio? New Orleans, Louisiana? The Research Triangle in NC?
The city limits can declare themselves a state, and then surrounding counties can vote to be members of them or not.
And each new "city-state" gets its own 2 bonus electoral votes. And two senators. And the proper congressmen.
It doesn't even have to happen in a massive change. We just need one city to establish the precedent, and then it can happen organically.
Alternatively, electoral college voters can be apportioned by counties, as already is in Maine, and, I believe, Nebraska. But this system doesn't give the cities their senators and bonus electoral votes.
One intarwebber wrote:
The Constitution doesn't forbid making a state out of already existing territory, it's just more difficult. The constitution simply says that you need the consent of both Congress and the State Legislature of the state involved. States can't be combined or split "without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress" is how the constitution puts it.
So it will require Congressional control. Which won't happen for a while, but it could be the greatest redistricting play ever.
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