School for Scamdal category archive
The Crypto Con 0
Paul Krugman asks, “Crypto! What is it good for?”*
Here’s a tiny excerpt from his piece.
Via C&L.
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*With apologies to Edwin Starr.
The Disinformation Superhighway 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Susan A. Nolan and Michael Kimball discuss a recent study that indicates some stuff is best left unsaid. Here’s their statement of the issue; follow the link for the rest (and, yes, I read the whole thing).
One more time, “social” media isn’t.
All the News that Fits, Seussing It Out Dept. 0
David takes a look about the phony Dr. Seuss “cancellation” scamdal and tries to separate the truth from the right-wing gibberish. (Warning: Short ad stars at about the eight-and-a-half minute mark.)
As an aside, Dr. Seuss stories were not a part of my childhood, but they were certainly part of my kids’.
The Scandal Mill 0
Another Republican “investigation” turns up zilch, nada, nothing, but Sam suggests the GOP scandal mill will continue turning out bogus scandals.
The Meme Chance 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Ira Hyman muses on the attractions and dangers of internet memes, particularly those that combine a picture with some text. Among other thoughts, he suggests that they make falsehoods digestible.
Here’s an excerpt:
I’ve read a very nice statement about being stardust that was attributed to Einstein and placed with a picture of the physicist. But Einstein never made the statement. Or consider this Socrates meme. Again, a lovely quote attributed to a famous thinker. And there’s no evidence that Socrates ever said anything like that. These fake quotes attach one idea to a well-known person and give the quote more validity. Nonetheless, these memes remain out there and I’ve seen several similar fake quotes in my social media feed.
I commend the entire piece to your attention.
Unknown Number, Unknown Name 0
At Psychology Today Blogs (you may have guessed by now that I like the site; I’m also a long-time subscriber to Psychology Today, as I found it immensely useful back when I was doing management training and organization development), GLenn Geher muses on the danger of a culture of anonymity, or, as he calls it, “deindividuation,” that is, the separation of an individual from his or her actions and the consequences thereof.
A snippet:
- You are on the phone with someone who refuses to reveal her name to you.
- You are playing a video game with someone virtually and that person’s screen name is HackerJacker2003.
- You get an email from someone and you have no idea who the author is.
- You get a Facebook message from someone whose Facebook name is clearly fake.
- You get a comment on your blog post by Anonymous.
… and so forth. Deindividuated communication is nothing short of rampant in this day and age.
That wouldn’t be so bad if there were no problems with the nature of deindividuated communication. But, as it turns out, there are lots of problems with deindividuated communication (see Zimbardo, 2007). When people’s identities are hidden, they are more likely to engage in anti-social behavior. They are more likely to bully. They are more likely to steal. They are more likely to kill. And so forth.
Indoctrinotion 0
A Philadelphia school teacher calls out a Republican for accusing him on “indoctrinating” his students. A snippet:
And it was all untrue.
Follow the link for the rest of the story.
Tales of the Comeyuppance 0
Shaun Mullen takes a look at what was missing from the report by the Inspector General of the Justice Department regarding James Comey’s “But the emails” moment.
As is usual with Shaun’s reports, it probes deeply into detail and nuance; I’m not going to try to excerpt of summarize it. Just read it.
Little Drips Cause Big Erosions 0
After disparaging the content of the Nunes Nothingburger, Cynthia Dill considers the larger implications of the many memogates. A snippet–follow the link for the rest.
Remember the Comey Memo? And the Rosenstein Memo? And the fussy-named dossier?
All these are compilations and placement of words by wordsmiths of the highest caliber. Thrown into the public discourse and bandied about by pundits as if memos are smoking guns, these documents take on the air of fact or reality. In politics, memos and dossiers are catnip for ravenous media content whores trying to make a living. Memos get quoted and retweeted and “analyzed” to death.
The cumulative effect of all these ginned up scamdals is, I think, far more corrosive than many realize or others are willing to confront. They erode the foundations of the polity and undermine the social contract, all in a short-term quest for power.
Institution Flailure 0
Josh Marshall steps back for a closer look at the Trump wiretapping scamdal. A snippet:
I would say that this ability – both the President’s pathological lying and our institution’s inability to grapple with it – is the big, big story. The particulars of the accusation basically pale in comparison.
The Reality Show Presidency 0
Phillip Lopate argues that the election postmortems are missing the point. It’s not anger that was the primary motivation of Trump voters; it was the desire for entertainment and excitement. They became a willing audience to his reality show. He also makes some interesting points about what makes a phony scamdal a successful political scandal.
Here’s just a tiny little bit of his article.
And there is also the excitement of hating.
My own take is this: In the phrase, “white working class” of which the punditocracy has become so fond, “working class” is not the operative. The operative word is “white.”
Aside:
I have no patience with the nattering about whether more visits to this state or that state, different nuance on platform statements, and the like might have changed the results. This election was not a strategic failure on the part of a candidate or a campaign.
It was a moral failure on the part of the voters and, perhaps especially, of the non-voters.
Stray Thought 0
Remember, the “Hillary Clinton scamdals” are 99% Fox News lies and one per cent nobody’s perfect.
The Comey-Upance 0
Mike Malloy rips James Comey over the Hillary Clinton email scamdal.
Warning: Heated language, NSFW.
Excerpt:
It’s as if Comey implicated Clinton in the Kennedy assassination because Comey heard she may have once been in Dallas.
Do You Want Fries with That Nothingburger? 0
I’ve said before why I think the Hillary Clinton email scamdal is rightwing con job fueled by hatred of all things Clinton mixed with ignorance of how email, computers (those magickal mystickal black boxes), and networks work, stirred with the Fox News Mixmaster, and baked in wingnut fever dreams.
Accordingly, I paid little attention to yesterday’s kerfuffle other than to form two opinions:
- It would eventually become clear that, once more, there was no there there.
- The FBI screwed the pooch.
Eventually seems to have come sooner than I expected.
BadTux, more patient than I, has dug into the details. I commend his analysis to your attention.
