Notes & Transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-fail-to-communicate
(Transcript is below the references.)
References:
The New Republic - Malcolm Ferguson / February 3, 2025 - CFPB Comes to a Halt as Trump Continues War on Federal Government The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has come to a screeching halt under its new acting head, Scott Bessent. The CFPB took initiative against predatory lending and hidden fees under its previous head, Rohit Chopra, and also increased its surveillance of large tech companies like Apple and Google. But with Chopra out and Bessent in, those days are over. “Shutting down CFPB enforcement actions that are on the verge of delivering money into the pockets of working people is at odds with President Trump’s claim that he wants to lower costs for families—which he has done next to nothing on so far,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, who played a key role in creating the CFPB in the aftermath of the Great Recession. https://newrepublic.com/post/191085/cfpb-stops-work-trump-bessent
CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports Final rule will remove billions of dollars of medical bills from credit reports and end coercive debt collection practices that weaponize the credit reporting system JAN 07, 2025 The CFPB expects the rule will lead to the approval of approximately 22,000 additional, affordable mortgages every year and that Americans with medical debt on their credit reports could see their credit scores rise by an average of 20 points. The CFPB’s action follows changes made by the three nationwide credit reporting conglomerates – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – who announced that they would take certain types of medical debt off of credit reports, including collections under $500, after the CFPB raised concerns about medical debt credit reporting in early 2022. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-finalizes-rule-to-remove-medical-bills-from-credit-reports/
CFPB - New tactics from companies trying to charge illegal junk fees By Seth Frotman and Lorelei Salas – DEC 19, 2024 Some junk fees – like surprise overdraft fees – are charged by the company the person agreed to do business with, like a bank that provides checking accounts. The CFPB has also been focused on fees charged by companies that people never chose to interact with in the first place, such as loan servicers or debt collectors. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/new-tactics-from-companies-trying-to-charge-illegal-junk-fees/
Subtext by Garrison Hayes Democrats think they're too smart for rage. If Democrats use the word "existential" one more time, I'm going to lose it Garrison Hayes Feb 09, 2025 But if I have to listen to another Democrat explain Trump’s ongoing demolition of the United States government using distant, over-intellectualized, academic, legal jargon — I might actually lose a piece of my mind. It isn’t that they’re wrong. Donald Trump’s actions present an existential threat to our democratic norms. He continually ignores legal precedent, while consolidating power in the hands of billionaire oligarchs through executive overreach. His executive orders are unconstitutional at best and fascistic at worst. I’m certain that they cannot pass strict scrutiny without a radical reinterpretation of the law — something the ultraconservative supreme court is want to do. They’re totally right—and I am concerned that the American people do not care—precisely because the people who are best positioned to help them understand the stakes, think themselves too smart for rage. https://garrisonhayes.substack.com/p/democrats-think-theyre-too-smart
PDA Sunday Progressive Town Hall Streamed live on Dec 1, 2024 17:42 "and I'm going to keep talking about progress as the word Progressive we are not Lefty crazy people we are people who believe in progress moving forward." https://www.youtube.com/live/GApd32HGthE?si=dVhuHXCwFWujbtcD
ProPublica - Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel by Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski Aug. 10, 2023, 5:45 a.m. EDT This year, ProPublica revealed Texas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow’s generosity toward Thomas, including vacations, private jet flights, gifts, the purchase of his mother’s house in Georgia and tuition payments. In an April statement, the justice defended his relationship with Crow. The Crows “are among our dearest friends,” Thomas said. “As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips.” The New York Times recently surfaced VIP treatment from wealthy businessmen he met through the Horatio Alger Association, an exclusive nonprofit. Among them were David Sokol, a former top executive at Berkshire Hathaway, and H. Wayne Huizenga, a billionaire who turned Blockbuster and Waste Management into national goliaths. (The Times noted Thomas gives access to the Supreme Court building for Horatio Alger events; ProPublica confirmed that the access has cost $1,500 or more in donations per person.) Records and interviews show Thomas had another benefactor, oil baron Paul “Tony” Novelly, whose gifts to the justice have not previously been reported. ProPublica’s totals in this article include trips from Crow. Each of these men — Novelly, Huizenga, Sokol and Crow — appears to have first met Thomas after he ascended to the Supreme Court. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court
The Intercept - After Spying on Standing Rock, TigerSwan Shopped Anti-Protest “Counterinsurgency” to Other Oil Companies. More than 50,000 pages of documents were recently made public after the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline lost a court case to keep them secret. b y Alleen Brown, Naveena Sadasivam, April 13 2023 The released documents provide startling new details about how TigerSwan used social media monitoring, aerial surveillance, radio eavesdropping, undercover personnel, and subscription-based records databases to build watchlists and dossiers on Indigenous activists and environmental organizations. At times, the pipeline security company shared this information with law enforcement officials. In other cases, WhatsApp chats and emails confirm TigerSwan used what it gathered to follow pipeline opponents in their cars and develop propaganda campaigns online. The documents contain records of TigerSwan attempting to help Energy Transfer build a legal case against pipeline opponents, known as water protectors, using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, a law that was passed to prosecute the mob. https://theintercept.com/2023/04/13/standing-rock-tigerswan-protests/
Hasan Debates His Uncle Cenk Uygur! | Hasanabi Reacts Nov 28, 2024 "No you're hyperfocusing and I've had this conversation privately with you many times over. You are hyperfocusing on people that are in your replies on Twitter." https://youtu.be/aoK7WltF38o?si=brKv7JEd1IvrWSFm
The Home Front podcast - Fascism, Modern Masculinity, and TikTok with Jonathan Buchwalter Feb 6, 2025 "For the Putin regime the state controlled media will actively contradict itself in the same broadcast and you will get um for example I was listening to a podcast uh where an expert on Russian propaganda was being interviewed and they described a plane crash where the plane crash was real and the dates and times presented were real but all of the news coverage is speculation about what happened where the facts of the issue beyond the absolute concrete facts like day and time they changed throughout the day where the same broadcasters would run different versions of events such that when you leave the the screen and you go and interact with people in the world you're both only vaguely talking about the same event and this prevents the Russian population from really engaging with reality at all that they don't know anything about what is happening around them because any version of it is not doctored or made glorious or made defamed instead it's just bullshit. Just this constant stream of well that was wrong and now it's this and that was wrong and now it's this you don't know what truth is and in the end state whether it's the American South or not in Germany or modern Russia is a passive population is a group of people who will take what they're given without complaint." https://podcasts.apple.com/lu/podcast/fascism-modern-masculinity-and-tiktok-with/id1765927918?i=1000689661835
This letter to the editor with a threat naming progressives as the enemy of Christians was published in the Scranton Times-Tribune newspaper on January 6th 2024. wat3rm370n.tumblr Dec 15th, 2024 "Those who want to change or contradict the word of God will not prevail, according to church teaching. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former U.S. apostolic nuncio, said, “This affair will reveal who stands with the true Church of Christ and who chooses to stand with his declared enemies. To remain silent… is to make oneself complicit with a subverter.” The declared enemies of Jesus and his faithful are progressives, now including clergy. Jerry Notaro Kelayres." https://wat3rm370n.tumblr.com/post/769977947261124608/this-letter-to-the-editor-with-a-threat-naming
Political church sign in Scranton claims Biden is a Marxist By Chloe Humbert 2020-07-12 Revival Baptist Church sign saying "A vote for Biden is a vote for Marxism" on Main Street in Scranton Pennsylvania USA Photo by Chloe Kaczenski Humbert. https://wat3rm370n.com/biden-marxism/
ACLU History: Rooting Out 'Subversives:' Paranoia and Patriotism in the McCarthy Era Document Date: September 1, 2010 During the anti-Communist witch hunts of the Cold War, the ACLU challenged a wave of assaults on freedom of belief and association perpetrated in the name of national security. Those assaults included President Harry S. Truman's Federal Employee Loyalty Program, enacted in 1947, which required government workers to sign loyalty oaths and submit to background investigations aimed at rooting out 'subversives.' https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-history-rooting-out-subversives-paranoia-and-patriotism-mccarthy-era
Truthdig - Jun 15, 2023 The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares To understand the deepening divide between AI boosters and doomers, it’s necessary to unpack their common origins in a bundle of ideologies known as TESCREAL. This is the dark side of TESCREALism — it’s one reason I’ve argued that this bundle, especially the “galaxy brain” at the top — longtermism — could be profoundly dangerous. If the ends can sometimes justify the means, and if the end is a utopian paradise full of literally astronomical amounts of “value,” then what exactly is off the table for protecting this future? The other dark side of TESCREALism is its accelerationist camp, which wants humanity to rush headlong into creating increasingly powerful technologies with little or no regulation. Doing so is bound to leave a trail of destruction in its wake. What links these two extremes — along with the “moderate” positions in the middle — is a fundamentalist belief that advanced technologies are our ticket to a world in which, as Altman writes in an OpenAI blog post, “humanity flourishes to a degree that is probably impossible for any of us to fully visualize yet.” TESCREALism is the worldview based on this grand vision, which grew from the overlapping movements and ideologies discussed above. It may be somewhat obvious at this point why the TESCREAL ideologies comprise a “bundle.” You can think of them as forming a single entity extended across time, from the late 1980s up to the present, with each new ideology arising from and being shaped by previous ones. Put differently, the emergence of these ideologies looks a lot like suburban sprawl, resulting in a cluster of municipalities without any clear borders between them — a conurbation of movements that share much the same ideological real estate. In many cases, the individuals who influenced the development of one also shaped many others, and the communities that coalesced around each letter in the acronym have always overlapped considerably. Let’s define a “TESCREAList” as anyone who’s linked to more than one of these ideologies. Examples include Bostrom, Yudkowsky, MacAskill, Musk, Altman and Bankman-Fried. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-acronym-behind-our-wildest-ai-dreams-and-nightmares/
Steve Bannon on Elon Musk and the Battle for Trump's Ear - New York Times Podcasts Jan 31, 2025 Ross Douthat sits down with Steve Bannon to discuss the many right-wing factions vying for dominance in the Trump administration. "Now know that all the really let's say hundreds of billions of dollars not tens of billions that we put into the theory the case of blunt force computing power that you know the Green New Deal's forgotten climate change is forgotten you got to you know you got to build uh power generators everywhere you got to give over federal land for data centers everywhere five times the five we got to burn more coal more oil for these data centers because our method of AI we understand that if this is not a psyop which I don't think it totally is we've had our Sputnik moment and guess what the oligarchs that we created who were all Progressive Democrats absolutely fucking face planted now here's the point in techno feudalism you're just a digital serf you value as a human being as someone built in made in the image and likeness of God and endowed with the life Spirit of the Holy Spirit is not they they don't consider that everything's digital to them they are at the end of the day transhumanist. ]And what is transhumanist? transhumanist is somebody says Homo Sapien here and Homo Sapien plus right plus on the other side of what they call the singularity and that's why they're all rushing whether it's artificial intelligence regenerative robotics quantum computing advanced chip design crispr biotech all of it to come to this point of which the oligarchs are going to lead that revolution and why are they going to do it number one when you get to know them and see where they're spending the money it's because they want eternal life you know why because they're complete atheistic 11-year-old boys that are kind of science fiction dungeon and guys and we've turned the nation over to that and yes I'm going to fight it every fuckin' step of the way this is taking us back a millennium to feudalism this is what their business model is based upon that and the progressive left made a deal with these guys they're all lefties Elon got had the first awakening because he could kind of as an engineer you could kind of see the math he fully supported our plan of a base plus election go with the low information voters and the moms for America who had flipped during the pandemic he backed that strategy and the dude wrote a $250 million check over five months unprecedented to back our play he's the first but the rest of them even Andreesen they're all super progressive liberals they're all techno feudalists they don't give a flying fuck about the human being and I don't care if you're Black white uh Hispanic Chinese they don't care and they have to be stopped if we don't stop it and we don't stop it now it's going to destroy not just this country it's going to destroy the world and you seen this artificial intelligence we have no controls over this we've allowed these monopolies to exist and now we know they're getting their ass handed to them I think by the Chinese Communist Party we're in deep shit right now we're in a crisis." https://youtu.be/BrSLe3-OGBU?si=YYVW42oCdPbuzF9C
Tech Billionaires’ Shocking Plot for Rural America More Perfect Union Sep 4, 2024 Tech billionaires are waging a hostile takeover of rural Northern California. They want to build their own private city in Solano County, and they’re crushing farmers with lawsuits to do it. Local activists delayed them last month, but the fight has just begun. https://youtu.be/PHlcAx-I0oY?si=_HNFTHvZpgzixZsQ
Blonde Politics | The Silly Serious – Nov 13, 2024 A look into how the tech leaders may be using the new administration to achieve their own agenda. Looking specifically at Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andressen, Ben Horotwitz, Brian Armstrong, and David Sacks as well as their relationship with figures like JD Vance, Balaji Srinivasan, and Curtis Yarvin. There is a focused discussion on how a shaping of the government might take place based on convergences between the ideas of Yarvin, who influences the tech libertarian right, and Project 2025, who have authored a playbook exclusively for President Trump to help with his transition to power. https://youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no?si=xdpzZAVUSCCzMgOr
STAT - Removal of DEI content from a microbiology group’s website shows reach of Trump executive orders - American Society for Microbiology’s actions anger its member By Usha Lee McFarling Feb. 3, 2025 The professional society for microbiologists began stripping content about Black, female, and LGBTQ+ scientists from its website in the last few days, angering its members and highlighting the reach of President Trump’s directives to federal agencies to halt activities that promote diversity and inclusion. In the place of many web pages that featured the contributions of scientists from underrepresented groups, the 37,000-member American Society for Microbiology has posted a notice saying the content is under review as “we evaluate the new Executive Orders.” https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/03/trump-executive-order-american-society-for-microbiology-removes-dei-content/
The New Republic - Malcolm Ferguson February 7, 2025 Trump’s Anti-Trans Order Finds Its First Target: The NCAA - Trump’s executive order on women’s sports is officially taking effect. The order flips the groundbreaking civil rights law around to discriminate against the fewer than 15 trans athletes who exist among the NCAA’s 530,000 student-athletes. https://newrepublic.com/post/191278/trump-anti-trans-order-ncaa
The Nerd Reich A sudden surge of interest - The Nerd Reich goes national - and international Gil Duran 08 Feb 2025 Though it may not be evident from the outside, I am not a full-time staffer of any journalism outlet. I am a freelance writer, which means I work various other jobs to fund my own research and journalism. This is not a complaint – it is the lot of many a writer throughout history, and I'm proud to be a part of the tradition. It gives me precious freedom. Believe me, I could never have told this story in the pages of a mainstream newspaper. But while it delights me to take on these Tech Goliaths from such a disadvantaged position, it won't be enough. The world needs a well-funded and staffed organization entirely devoted to charting and countering the rise of tech fascism, and that organization needs a full range of communications tools. We need the major news outlets – and the Democratic Party – to start telling people about this stuff. Right now, I don't see that either of those things will happen, even as these men work to destroy our country – and the future of democracy and freedom – in front of our very eyes. https://www.thenerdreich.com/a-sudden-surge-of-interest/?ref=the-nerd-reich-newsletter
NBC News – Trump administration evicts former Coast Guard leader from her house with 3 hours notice Trump fired Linda Fagan, the first female Coast Guard commandant, on his second day in office. A Trump official told her she had three hours to leave her house on Tuesday. Feb. 5, 2025, 6:32 PM EST By Jonathan Allen and Courtney Kube President Donald Trump’s administration evicted former Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan from her home with three hours of notice on Tuesday — not even enough time to gather her personal effects — according to two people familiar with the incident. Fagan, a four-star admiral and the first woman to lead a branch of the military, was removed from her post as the Coast Guard’s top officer on Trump’s second day in office. Officials at the Homeland Security Department — which oversees the Coast Guard — cited border security issues and an “excessive focus” on diversity, equity and inclusion among the reasons for her dismissal. Fagan, who was named commandant in 2022, made a convenient target for a new president who wanted to flex his muscle. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-administration-evicts-former-coast-guard-linda-fagan-3-hours-rcna190820
NPR - Joe Biden says the COVID-19 pandemic is over. This is what the data tells us Updated September 19, 202211:19 PM ET By Ayana Archie We've come a long way since then — on Saturday, there were about 493,000 cases worldwide — but there are still thousands of cases being detected every day, and many estimates could be off, as many cases are going unreported. https://www.npr.org/2022/09/19/1123767437/joe-biden-covid-19-pandemic-over
Government Executive - 'It is fraud, folks. It’s fraud': The latest in a string of Republican accusations against federal teleworkers - Erich Wagner SEPTEMBER 8, 2023 “Where are all of those workers? I know they’re still on the payroll, right? Is COVID over? Are we able to come to work safely? And yet, we still have a huge number of people from this city telecommuting or teleworking, and there’s no reason we should be doing that.” Ernst’s complaints appear to be missing important points of context, however. First, her pressure on the administration to reduce telework comes on the cusp of a major initiative by the Office of Management and Budget and White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients to “aggressively” reduce telework and increase “meaningful in-person work” at federal agencies, particularly at agency headquarters buildings. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/09/ernst-accuses-some-teleworking-feds-fraud/390126/
Rolling Stone - ‘Abhorent’: Disability Advocates Slam CDC Director for Comments on ‘Encouraging’ Covid Deaths By Tim Dickinson January 10, 2022 The CDC director is suffering from an acute case of foot-in-mouth disease The CDC director responded: “The overwhelming number of deaths — over 75 percent — occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with — and, yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron.” Walensky added a plug for getting vaccinated and boosted, before underscoring her earlier comment: “We’re really encouraged by these results.” Americans who live with disabilities were pained by Walensky’s remarks. A TikTok user named Britt, who describes herself as “a disabled & chronically ill disability justice advocate,” used her platform to call out the CDC director: “Sometimes people really just say the quiet part out loud.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cdc-disability-rochelle-walensky-encouraging-death-1282179/
Teen Vogue - COVID Isn’t Going Anywhere. Masking Up Could Save My Life. Disability Visibility is a column on being disabled in a nondisabled world. By Alice Wong January 17, 2024 Many are promoting the idea that COVID is not the mass disabling event that many argue it is, that everyone will be fine because vaccines and antiviral medications exist without acknowledging structural barriers and racial disparities, and that high-risk people are inevitable acceptable losses. In an August interview with the BBC, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "...even though you'll find the vulnerable will fall by the wayside, they'll get infected, they'll get hospitalized, and some will die. It's not going to be this tsunami of cases that we've seen.” Dr. Vinay Prasad wrote the following in his newsletter: “If your child is sick, you should not test them, and you should send them to school if they are mildly ill… Go to work if you feel up for it; stay home if you are too sick to work. Don’t test.” The condescension of people in positions of authority who are telling the public not to worry dismisses the valid fear of high-risk people who struggle to exist in public spaces without being harassed for masking or requesting accommodations because society abandoned us in a push to return to “normal” while leaving many behind. For many, the pandemic is not over. People need to continue to wear masks and get vaccinated if they can, in addition to pushing for better air quality and other mitigation efforts, instead of worshiping the individualistic “you do you” philosophy. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/covid-isnt-going-anywhere-masking-up-could-save-my-life
DEMOCRATS NEED TO WAKE UP!!! | The Kyle Kulinski Show Secular Talk Feb 3, 2025 "let me be clear I am 100% in favor of equality and I'm 100% in favor of diversity but these are the fucking conversations you're having? these are the rules you're discussing at this current moment in time? are you are you out of your mind? are you out of your mind?" https://youtu.be/unKex_WyrTI?si=iL4HvNIRyDJtzXdM
gendersauce Jan 19, 2025 - Just talk like a person. I can no longer be in community with her because she refuses to take accountability for being part of dominator neoliberal capitalist culture and the transactional identity structures inherent to that." WHAT?! https://www.instagram.com/p/DFA5bZ0OSUo/
National Institute Press, 2023 INFORMATION SERIES Issue No. 556 June 12, 2023 Information Operations against the United States: Defensive Actions are Needed John A. Gentry The modern “diversity, equity, and inclusion” agenda, which is indisputably divisive in the United States, appears to serve past Soviet (and now Russian) interests, but is not remotely consistent with past Soviet or current Russian domestic policies. Many Americans appear to have vested, pecuniary interests in catering directly or indirectly to adversary influence operations — consciously or not. These include public relations firms, corporations, politicians, and universities. Public relations or lobbying firms make good livings providing advisory services and influencing American policymakers in Congress and the executive branch of government, and they often prepare messages designed to advance adversary goals using their knowledge of American culture and the ways of Washington to generate entre and credibility. Examples include Ketchum Inc., a Washington-based firm that reportedly has for years provided Russia with a variety of consulting and promotional services.27 Even former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s firm apparently has worked for the Russians.28 Businesses, especially banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, have become de facto influence organs for China, especially, as they appear to tout China and its policies to keep in the good graces of the CCP to maintain lucrative business arrangements in China.29 https://web.archive.org/web/20231215202917/https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/556.pdf
CANADA - Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions - Day 35 - October 16 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Google Translation to English): “Yes. We saw anti-vax messages during the convoy and during the pandemic that were amplified by Russian propaganda, particularly in right-wing media, continued by messages in the same… under the same people who were sharing anti-vax messages. Now, not to say that there weren’t legitimately and authentically anti-vax people in Canada, but it was amplified enormously by Russian propaganda.” (Original French captioning: “Oui. On a vu des messages antivax pendant le convoi et pendant la pandémie qui ont été amplifiés par la propagande russe, particulièrement dans les médias de droite, a continué par des messages dans les mêmes… sous les mêmes gens qui partageaient des messages antivax. Maintenant, pas pour dire qu'il n'y avait pas des gens légitimement et authentiquement antivax au Canada, mais ça a été amplifié énormément par la propagande russe.”) https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/public-hearings/day-35-october-16
The Conversation - Five disinformation tactics Russia is using to try to influence the US election Published: September 6, 2024 Another common tactic for keeping content believable is linking it to the fears and concerns that are already important in any society. For example, Russia did not bring the culture war to the US, but it has skilfully tapped into American society’s anxieties around the topic. Russian media operations have brought these to the fore without engaging with them in any meaningful way. Similarly, when Russian sites masquerade as local sources, they prioritise themes that are familiar to their target audiences. Usually, though, divisive topics are embellished with a patchwork of real and fabricated information. Audiences find it hard to pick them apart, and their starting assumptions mean they often aren’t motivated to try. https://theconversation.com/five-disinformation-tactics-russia-is-using-to-try-to-influence-the-us-election-238379
PBS – HACKING YOUR MIND – Living on Autopilot – Episode 101 – Aired: 09/09/20 It’s especially hard to overcome our autopilot biases because, much of the time, we’re not even aware we’re experiencing them. For instance, here’s an autopilot bias I can almost guarantee you’re not aware of — being biased in favor of one person over many people. One of Kahneman and Tversky’s closest colleagues studies how that bias distorts the decisions we make. https://www.pbs.org/video/living-on-auto-pilot-5p5jct/
Rand Waltzman on Linkedin. “Repeat it often enough and it becomes undeniable - something "everybody” knows.“ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/randwaltzman_disinformation-activity-7250764791495942144-ftcf
Cloak of Ambiguity Language is imprecise • A target audience will tend to make it have simple meaning Even in real time while listening • The target will quickly jump to conclusions about what is actually being said Even though there may be many possible interpretations • Choose words that allow the target to read into your message whatever they want to hear • Leave out any part that would be objectionable to anyone • The target will fill in the gaps with their imagination Imagination can be more persuasive than anything you say • It is advantageous to make statements, assertions and predictions that seem to have one meaning but which are ambiguous enough that, if they prove wrong, can be reinterpreted to have another meaning • This can be encouraged, for example with the use of emphasis to make some words seem to have more significance Later, the emphasis will be forgotten, even if the words are remembered (Image description: A cartoon shows a chicken sitting at table with a dinner plate, utensils in hand, with the caption that says "chicken ready to eat.") credit: RAND WALTZMAN on LinkedIn
Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. doi:10.1086/225469 Imagine, to begin with, a community completely partitioned into cliques, such that each person is tied to every other in his clique and to none outside. Community organization would be severely inhibited. Leafletting, radio announcements,or other methods could insure that everyone was aware of some nascent organization; but studies of diffusion and mass communication have shown that people rarely act on mass-media information unless it is also transmitted through personal ties (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Rogers 1962)
The Cognitive Crucible - #212 Libby Lange on Algorithmic Cognitive Warfare Information Professionals Association Dec 17, 2024 John Bicknell: “so the idea here is o try to get people into smaller cocoons of their own maybe their own information echo chambers or something like that and then as a cocoon it's easier to influence the cocoon of people but at a society level you have all these disparate groups of people that don't necessarily align very well with one another anymore” Libby Lange: “yeah and you know in one of the articles that goes through a cognitive operation kind of stage by stage the goal of moving people into groups is also that people will sort of self-police within the group and sort of self-police behavior thus kind of making each group controllable depending on sort of how you insert content that is targeting that group which is kind of a weird sort of wonky way to think about it but essentially creating these groups that are I guess you could say more manageable almost where if you have a really cohesive society where people are really working together then as sort of an outside adversary that's not a very manageable population right but if you have people split off and you understand kind of the workings of that group or why that group comes together the way it does what their sort of central organizing issue is or their central organizing beliefs then they may be easier to kind of manage John Bicknell: “divide and conquer” Libby Lange: “exactly” https://youtu.be/DYgt0oFuAU4?si=HVLuCimT_qSk9rA7
404 Media - You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism Janus Rose · Feb 5, 2025 at 11:47 AM “The reality is you are oxygenating the things these people are saying even as you purport to debunk them,” Katherine Cross, a sociologist and author of Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix, told 404 Media. “Whether it’s [New York Times columnist] Ross Douthat providing a sane-washing gloss on Trump’s mania or people on social media vehemently disagreeing and dunking on it, they’re legitimizing it as part of the discourse.” Cross’ book contains a meticulous catalog of social media sins which many people who follow and care about current events are probably guilty of—myself very much included. She documents how tech platforms encourage us, through their design affordances, to post and seethe and doomscroll into the void, always reacting and never acting. But perhaps the greatest of these sins is convincing ourselves that posting is a form of political activism, when it is at best a coping mechanism—an individualist solution to problems that can only be solved by collective action. This, says Cross, is the primary way tech platforms atomize and alienate us, creating “a solipsism that says you are the main protagonist in a sea of NPCs.” “Everything on social media is designed to make you think like that,” said Cross. “It’s all about you—your feed, your network, your friends.” In the days since the inauguration, I’ve watched people on Bluesky and Instagram fall into these same old traps. My timeline is full of reactive hot takes and gotchas by people who still seem to think they can quote-dunk their way out of fascism—or who know they can’t, but simply can’t resist taking the bait. The media is more than willing to work up their appetites. Legacy news outlets cynically chase clicks (and ad dollars) by disseminating whatever sensational nonsense those in power are spewing. https://www.404media.co/you-cant-post-your-way-out-of-fascism/
Repeat the truth, don't lead with a lie. The "truth sandwich" means leading with the facts and repeating the correct information. It's probably the only way to debunk lies without helping to promote them. Chloe Humbert Oct 14, 2022 If you lead by repeating a lie you wish to debunk — that’s the first, possibly the only thing that the audience sees or remembers while scrolling through social media. People may never even click to see the second tweet in a tweet thread. They may not even read the second sentence! This is why it’s so important in the current media environment to lead with the takeaway you want delivered, and if you’re honest of course — something truthful. The combined psychological marketing whammy of resilient first impression, the halo effect, mere exposure effect, illusory truth effect, anchoring bias, and reiteration effect, all work together in promoting whatever gets out in front. If that something is a lie, that means promoting the very thing meant to be debunked. In which case it may be better not to post about it at all. Even famous scientists, serious doctors, and experienced educators sometimes fall into bad communication habits on social media. These pitfalls are alarming. And I can’t help but notice the adversaries pushing lies never seem to mess this up. They lead with whatever they want you to believe and put it on repeat. They aren’t promoting their opposition, but they are experts in getting hate followers and rage clicks. https://teamshuman.substack.com/p/repeat-the-truth-dont-lead-with-a
January 19, 2024 - Professor Delivers URGENT WARNING Before Inauguration | The Weekend Show - MeidasTouch Jennifer Mercieca: “Social media platforms are not public spaces they are not used by officials to make decisions about policies that are affecting the public, right there's no way for us to directly communicate to politicians where they are listening to us and we know that they are and to have you know the sort of give and take there's the illusion of that right there's the promise of that we were we were told we were going to get that out of you know the sort of techno optimism of the 90s and the early 2000s but that's not what it it became it became this algorithmically controlled outrage machine” Anthony Davis: “and a business as well I mean it's a profitable business” Jennifer Mercieca: “big business right and so we think we're doing democracy when we go onto these platforms and we express our opinions but it would be much better for us to go out into the street and do that, that would be the kind of protected speech that you know the Constitution First Amendment protects it would be the kind that people pay attention to um and that is meaningful right gathering with others to express ourselves what we do on social media it isn't - it isn't the same thing.” https://www.youtube.com/live/5owaPrAVuJA?si=JuhP0jzBOTC74N4X
Writing Letters to Elected Representatives, a guide Letters to politicians are some of the easiest and most effective actions many neglect. Chloe Humbert Jan 24, 2023 When we write to our representatives, we are not just writing for ourselves. Your representative’s office receives your letter and considers your position and interest in the issue as representative of some number of constituents who feel the same as you do, but did not have the inclination to write at present. They often keep tallies in spreadsheets and track issues. So it’s not just your lonely voice, each person who writes really makes a larger difference than you might expect from one person. https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/writing-letters-to-elected-representatives
Don’t wait for the influencers. Don't Wait For Everybody - Episode 010 Chloe Humbert Sep 21, 2024 The tragedy is that often people hoping to reach other people for real action and advocacy and organizing, are instead drawn into a void of distraction and sabotaged into inaction. Informational learned helplessness is a known quantity, disinformation has been described in Psychology Today as “censorship by noise,” and they say that being overloaded with misinformation mixed in with good information and not being able to easily sort through it “leads people to experience crushing anxiety coupled with a markedly weakened motivation to fact-check anything anymore.” The Bullshit Asymmetry Principle leads to inaction. If it’s too much effort to counter a firehose of lies, or sort through deciding what really matters, people often give up. People also become trapped on the platforms, because that’s what they’re designed to do, keep people on the app. Even well-meaning people can get wrapped up in clout chasing for larger audiences, likes, and dopamine hits, engaging in problematic messaging because that’s how you get attention. And this can be a huge time sink that takes away from more effective activities like writing letters to representatives - instead of just shouting dissatisfaction into a crowd - or a void. https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-wait-for-the-influencers
Transcript:
I'm Chloe Humbert, and I'm recording this on February 7th, 2025. Don't fail to communicate. We have a failure to communicate. People are not even talking about the same thing sometimes, and people.This is not a time to patronize people with euphemisms or flowery language or vaguely pointing to something because people instinctively know that you know if you're not giving details there's something that they don't know but if you don't tell them things then they don't know and people are also in silos so you cannot you cannot assume that if you say something and it's shorthand to you in your particular milieu, you cannot depend on that penetrating, even to people who you think are on the same team with you. And the same. You just can't assume that people understand the meaning of words the same way you do, even if you have a pretty good idea that they're on the same page with you on issues. That's how bad our information landscape has gotten. Things need to be spelled out in plain language. You cannot just. This is not. oh, we have to get away from this old style of. And, you know, the baddies use that shorthand against everybody. They use that. They use terms like DEI and... Of course we know that means civil rights, right? Well, you know, here's the thing. It means different people. It means different things to different people. And that's where the manipulation comes in. So I saw an article about shutting down CFPB. Now, that's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And Elizabeth Warren, the senator... was a big promoter of that. So, of course, you know, when something's happening with that, who does the press go to for quotes? Of course. So she probably had something prepared. Ugh. And this is by no means just a problem with Senator Warren. This is not, I'm not, but it is a very, very good example of the problem that we're dealing with. So the article quoted Elizabeth Warren as saying, quote, "shutting down CFPB enforcement actions that are on the verge of delivering money into the pockets of working people is at odds with President Trump's claim that he wants to lower costs for his families, which he has done next to nothing on so far" unquote. Okay, so let's just President Trump's claim to do whatever. Let's just set aside the disingenuousness or whatever we think of that. Let's just put that aside for now. Okay. I'm acknowledging it. Let's hang a lantern on that. But I'm just, we're just going to put that aside for now because obviously all of the things that he claims, you know, I don't know. Anyway, the problem is, is that Elizabeth Warren should've had a specific action, enforcement action that was on the verge of doing that quote delivering money into the pockets of working people. (Sigh) That does not tell anything. It sounds like you're talking down to people. It sounds like you're saying, ooh, we're delivering money for you and you should be grateful of that. And people are like, what are you talking about? They don't know what the CFPB is doing. They don't know that that news doesn't penetrate to them. The mainstream media doesn't do a lot of reporting on it because they're too busy pushing conservative PR, and corporate nonsense. So somebody like Senator Elizabeth Warren should be out there with rapid-fire talking points on the specific things. Why isn't somebody saying, listen, CFPB enforcement actions are shut down, and that's who's stopping the banks from pummeling you with bullshit junk fees. That should be on the top of the thing. This is the agency that stops financial institutions from robbing you blind. This is the enforcement actions, this is the agency that stops people from selling you deceptive loans and mortgages and is going to rip you off. It's just that simple. There are things that you can point to. And if I can do it, and I'm not, This isn't my forte. I'm not necessarily up on everything that CFPB is doing. So if I can come up with that, like right off the top of my head, why can't Senator Warren or why aren't other people saying that? Like, why isn't that a talking point? Break it down. Say exactly what it's doing. Delivering money into the pockets of working people. That means nothing. It means nothing. That doesn't help. It doesn't help people want to protect this. They're just like, well, Trump's going to deliver money into the pockets of working people. I mean, you might as well just say, well, no, I'm going to do it. No, I'm going to do it. That doesn't make any sense. You have to be specific. So this problem is – I just see this everywhere. Nobody is doing this like where – it's just a pervasive problem. So then there's other times when people are, you know, imprecise. I'm going to call it imprecise in their criticisms or their complaints. And one example was is that, you know, back in November I was – you know, I've been checking out different organizations to see what's up and who's doing what. And I attended a streamed town hall of a progressive organization and - the Progressive Democrats of America. And one of the presenters, like 15 minutes in – first of all, They were talking about how, you know, it should be people or profits, whatever. And then they mentioned, after they mentioned the money in politics being a problem, which I, you know, absolutely is. I remember back when Obama was president, he sent out like some kind of survey where you had to put it was on a website and you had to slide sliders and there was like percentages and it had like a list of policies and you had to slide the slider to say what percentage that issue or policy was important to you. And it had, you know, maybe a dozen or more and you had to pick your percentages. So like maybe there'd be, uh, You know, health care would be, you know, a certain percentage and then, you know, crime would be another one or whatever. Well, I went down the list and one of them was campaign finance. And I remember, this is so vivid to me. This had to be over a decade ago, but I still remember sitting at my computer and staring at that for a moment. And I just slid the slider back on all of them to zero and put campaign finance reform at 100%. And in the spot... Where it said, why did you, you know, do you have any other thoughts or whatever? I put, without campaign finance reform, none of the other issues are going to be addressed in any way because money in politics is just so serious... And it's only gotten more serious in the intervening years. So this is a big, I'll admit, this is obviously a big hobbyhorse of mine. And I think most people I talk to, that is, these tycoons, these billionaires influencing the Supreme Court, influencing politicians, it's a huge problem. So then you go to the Progressive Democrats of America, and someone actually said, they wanted to foster relationships with wealthy supporters. And I'm just like, okay, you know what? Okay. So I've gone off on a tangent here. I apologize, but that's the setup. So I was already teed up to be a little bit tense. So then the presenter at the town hall said, she said, "We want progressive policies. And I'm going to keep using the word progressive because, quote, we are not crazy lefty people." I was just stunned because I'm just like, well, who are the crazy lefty people? Are you going to explain that? No, no. Just left that out there hanging. So the crazy lefty people... If you just say that, then, you know, I don't know who you're talking about. You could be talking about never Trumpers and you could be talking about tankies. I have no way to know. Like, I don't know. I have to assume you might mean me. Now, I consider myself a garden variety progressive, but I have no idea. Maybe she thinks I'm the crazy lefty people and I don't belong there. So needless to say, I've never gone back to that organization. You know, I don't see a point in getting involved in that because I have no idea. But that just demonstrates we don't know what she meant. She didn't spell it out. She didn't say, I'm not saying every... Every organization has to embrace every issue. That's just not necessary. Like, why would you want to accidentally insult someone you don't even want to? Okay, so one of the important things to know is that if you're online, there are some tactics that are used to sabotage people. well, anybody who's going against right wing or corporate interests. And I think a lot of the money comes from tycoons and corporate interests. So that's, that's where it is. And there are people out there trying to amplify more fringy kind of odd things. Not only that, they, they even go further than that. I have seen, and it's a tactic of straw manning. They, they, put up somebody who is obviously fringy, is obviously has more extreme views, and they point to that person as representative of an entire - like as representative democrats, even like just generally, which is, it's ridiculous, but some people fall for this. And I feel like this woman has fallen for this. So because, and I've heard it said that, I think it was that, that Twitch streamer who said this about, you know, people who are judging entire issues based on crazy trolls in their comments. And that's what we're going about here. So there's crazy trolls out there in people's comments saying, you know, deliberately trying to wind people up. And I have found even what I would call like a straw man sock puppet. And it's a fake account that supposedly a leftist uh and then they they might say 10 things that a lot of people would agree with probably 75 percent of americans would agree with some of the stuff they're saying but then they work in some like stuff and then all of a sudden you see that they're they're saying north korea is good or that you know that are totally inconsistent with people who are empathetic and compassionate and stuff. So this is where it happens, is that if you go by the trolls, of course you're going to think that there's all these crazy, lefty people out there. But it's kind of like, here's an example of what I feel like this is about, is there are The right wing will demonize the poor and demonize welfare benefits. So they kind of make it sound like everybody's moochers and takers. Well, I have and this is very, very difficult thing. But you have to realize that a lot of people who get welfare benefits literally do not think they are the moochers and takers. In fact, they demonize other people getting benefits. So when the right wing says moochers and takers and they need to stop their welfare benefits, they have no idea that they mean theirs. They have no idea because they don't think they're the crazy moochers and takers. They don't think that that's them. They think it's those other people. In many cases, I would say that racism plays into this, but not always. But they don't realize that when they say they're going to crack down on welfare moochers and takers, that they're going to get hit with cuts. And in fact, a lot of these people are surprised when there are cuts to things like food stamps or when they can't qualify for Medicaid. That's a reality, is that they don't. They are right there with it. They're conservative. They're, in many cases, a Trumper. And they are right along there saying, moochers and takers, moochers and takers. Meanwhile, they're on six different public benefits. This is just the reality. And I feel like this woman, this progressive... She doesn't get that she's the crazy lefty people. Like she's saying we are not crazy lefty people and wants to differentiate herself from those people. But the right wing says crazy lefty people, they mean progressives. So and to demonstrate that, I mean, they don't just even make - they're saying progressives are the enemy of Christ. And I just got to tell you, like, there was a letter to the editor published in my local newspaper with a threat naming progressives as the enemy of Christ. And it was published in the Times-Tribune newspaper in Scranton, Pennsylvania, January 6th, 2024. It said the headline had called progressive subversives. I mean, that's straight out of McCarthyism. Come on. And there was a church sign here in 2020 in the summer that actually said a vote for Biden is a vote for Marxism. So, yeah. Who's the crazy lefty people, huh? We're not. Who knows what we're talking about? Because the headline said subversives. They called progressive subversives. That's pretty serious. That's straight out of McCarthyism. The letter to the editor ended with the line, quote, "the declared enemies of Jesus and his faithful are progressives, now including clergy", unquote. That's pretty provocative, and I would say it was incitement in a way. And they didn't say crazy lefty people. They didn't say leftists. They didn't even say Democrats. They said progressives. So if you think that calling yourself a progressive is somehow a bulwark against right-wing attacks or whatever... or even liberal, you're dreaming. And this is a failure to communicate, because what are you talking about even? What are you talking about? And recently, even Steve Bannon, he was interviewed by the New York Times' Ross Douthat, and he had said that Silicon Valley tech tycoons, he called them oligarchs, he called them tech feudalists, which - fair, you know, I'm not going to disagree on that. But he had mentioned transhumanism as their, I guess, ideology, which is, yes, the TESCREAL thing, transhumanism, long-termism – it's all eugenics. So he's aware of this, but he says that they are, and wait for it, he called them super liberals. Guess what else he called them? He called them progressives. He said that the Silicon Valley tech tycoons were progressives. It's mind-blowing, right? So nobody should think that this is... No. We don't even have the same meanings anymore for anything. So... Then we get to the DEI, which we know. We know when... Republicans, Trumpers, MAGA, when they say they don't want DEI, we know that what they're saying is they don't want ADA law. They don't want civil rights. We know this because we see when it's in practice, they take down, like there was a microbiologist professional association that - other people said it was obeying in advance. I don't know if they had federal contracts or what, but they weren't just going through their programs to get rid of equity initiatives. They literally just took down off their website, they just simply took down the pictures of Black people. They literally just took down the pictures of anyone non-white. There were profiles of microbiologists who were not white, and they just took down those pages. So we know what this is. The NCAA has banned trans women from playing. So we know what's going on. The article from The New Republic said, the order flips groundbreaking civil rights law. They're overturning civil rights law. ADA, 504, all of that. They want to get rid of it because that is what they mean by DEI. DEI is basically a code word for them to say non-white or basically, anyone who's not a white Christian male, I guess, because it's women to look at the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard commander, she was fired. And they say all kinds of things. But the reality is, is that women, it's been a long time coming in the Coast Guard to have women at the top of command. So we know what they mean. So then when there were people on the left who started saying Democrats need to stop focusing on DEI, obviously, that like upsets a whole bunch of people. And here's the thing. I was outraged. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, so if you're saying Democrats are focusing on DEI, I'm not sure what is even, like what are you even talking about? So right there, there's a failure to communicate. And, you know, I slowed down and I'm like, well, what is going on? What are they talking about here? What? Are they saying that Democrats need to abandon civil rights? Are they saying Democrats need to abandon Americans with Disabilities Act stuff? Are they saying disabled people should be thrown under the bus? I mean, that's easy for a lot of us to believe because many of us have been thrown under the bus by Democrats in the pandemic. You know, the pandemic is over. No more protections for anybody. Return to Office. All of this, you know, stuff has been, was pushed by the Biden administration with Jeff Zients. Obviously, the CDC has, and Dr. Fauci saying fall by the wayside. So it is easy for people, especially disabled people, to think, oh, my goodness, these left people who are saying Democrats need to stop focusing on DEI, what they really mean is just, abandon disabled rights or disability justice or who knows what. We are thinking that they mean disabled people having the right to exist and not be euthanized, maybe given accommodations sometimes. That's what, you know, that's what we know that that's what when MAGA says DEI, they know - we know that that's what they want to get rid of. They want to get rid of Black people not being segregated or denied jobs. We know that that's what MAGA thinks that we know that that's what they want. We know that especially like the white supremacists that are openly, yeah, we know that that's what they mean. Well, but then I just happened to see a YouTuber who's a left pundit play some clips about what they actually mean by Democrats need to stop focusing on DEI. So in these clips, and these were clips that the DNC, the Democrats, published online. And one of the clips was just, it was like a minute of somebody just droning on and on. And this was like last week. This was like days ago. This is not, this is something very recent. And they were just going on and on about leadership, affirmative action quotas. Like they were talking about this at the podium, like holy shit, this is not, like, what are you doing at the podium and putting that out as a soundbite? I'm not saying I'm against having a balanced leadership or, including - that's not the problem. The point was is that they're putting this front and center when there are - Like the minutiae of how the party organizes leadership is, like what are you doing? The average person, that's not the outward messaging that is going to rally people around any issue. That's just... It's just not, it just seems, it just seems wrong. Okay. So then, oh gosh, they also showed a clip of the land acknowledgement and it did seem pretty cringe. It just seemed super corporatized, very performative. I didn't even understand it. Okay. I'm not against land acknowledgements. I like, that's not the problem. The problem isn't that it's a land acknowledgement or that I have, it just, it was the problem is, is that it seemed like it was tokenism or something. It seemed like, oh, and an indigenous person, why is somebody from Navajo Nation doing this? the land acknowledgement? Like, why would an indigenous person need to acknowledge about the…? Like, shouldn't that be done by, you know, the white man? I mean, just saying, like, if you're going to do a land acknowledgement, I'm thinking, like, if you're not Native American, that's when you do the land acknowledgement. Making the person who's indigenous do the land acknowledgement, it just seems, it just seems... Wrong. It just seems wrong somehow. And it and it does. I mean, if this is the kind of DEI that some people are saying the Democrats need to stop focusing on. Yes. Yes. At least do it right. I'm not again. This is it's not about affirmative action in the leadership. I'm not against that, per se. Putting that out there as the front and center issue right now just seems very out of touch with everything. It reminded me of, oh gosh, I was in this chat group some years ago. It had to be at least two or three years ago. There was something in the news. It was something anti-Asian. There was somebody in the group that was Asian. And people, instead of just saying something that was really human and normal, like I was just like, oh gosh, that's horrendous. Sorry, that's just awful. But other people seem to... I felt like it was when I was, you know, when I've gone to family members' Catholic funeral masses, and I, because I'm not, and if you've never been to a Catholic mass, there is a lot of, recitation of I guess prayers, and different statements and the priest will say one thing and then the congregation says something back. And then there's all this people just seem to know. Maybe there's a book that's telling, I don't know. Uh, people just seem to like they're okay. It's you're standing, you're sitting, you're kneeling, you're standing, you're sitting and kneeling. Okay. And then everybody says this and then everybody says this at the same time. And if you're a Catholic, of course, you know, all of this because you're going to church, you know, Well, at least more than once a year for a funeral. Right. So like you're like, I think a lot of Catholics, I think there's a rule that you're supposed to go every week. But so if you're doing this all the time, you know, you know, the drill, you know, when to stand, when to sit. You're not like, you know, so when I've gone to these things, I always feel like I'm behind. Yeah. You know, I'm like, am I supposed to be sitting? Am I supposed to be standing? Right. I'm like, always like I'm like, how did everybody else know when that was going to happen? And everybody else does. And the same thing kind of happened in this chat group, because here I am just saying, hey, that sucks. You know, hey, that stinks. And everybody else started reciting this. I just want to say that it just sounded like a performative trained response that, they seem like Stepford wives. It was like, I stand with you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they all said the same thing, like almost verbatim. And in fact, it may have been verbatim. And it was really, here's the thing is that when, when you do that, it is, it's off putting to outsiders, right? it's off putting to outsiders. Like it seems culty. It seems odd. It makes people feel out of place. You know, I don't feel like, you know, I just like, I don't feel welcome at the Catholic church. You know, I mean, it just seems like I'm, I, you know, it's like it, it, it cements my feeling that I am an outsider. Right. So yeah, yeah. And I just felt it was like very Stepford, Stepford wife. And it's just performative. It just seemed inauthentic. And I don't know what the answer is to that because I'm not saying people shouldn't say they stand with somebody who's being under attack. Obviously that makes sense, but it does exclude people. So it's the exact opposite of diversity, equity, inclusion. Like it's, It's culty. It's culty. So yes, yes, we do need to get rid of that focus of performative, whatever, culty language or what. This shouldn't be that hard. Just speak in plain language. Oh, somebody sent me an Instagram and they had a post that said the left needs to start practicing talking like regular f—g people. And one of the examples of a what was, quote, "I can no longer be in community with her because she refuses to take accountability for being part of the dominator, neoliberal capitalist culture, and the transactional identity structures inherent to that" unquote. What? Yeah. Like, no, it's culty. Do people not realize that? I don't know if people just don't realize that. And it also feeds into the opposition's toxic narratives. So just like when I heard Democrats need to stop focusing on DEI, and I thought, oh my gosh, they're saying Democrats should abandon ADA law. Just like I confused that. You have to realize that a lot of people who are going along with Trumpism and MAGA anti-DEI they're the people who really believe that they were passed over for a job because a non-white person got it. Now, it doesn't matter if they were unqualified or they had something on their resume or in their background check that, you know, held them back, rightly or wrongly, rightly or wrongly. And a lot of, there's a lot of people out there who truly, they look for anything, you know, to explain why, they're not succeeding when really it's just the system sucks. You know, it's not affirmative action. I've seen this in jobs where there was no affirmative action. I've seen that in situations where there was no policy of affirmative action. And, you know, people still would think that. So a lot of the people on the right wing who go along with anti-DEI they don't know that that it might sacrifice their children's IEP at school. They have no idea that it includes white women. They have no idea - jjust like the Moochers and Takers are somebody else. They're somebody else. It's not them. So the DEI, you know, they're shocked to find out that it includes white women getting fired or sidelined or demoted or whatever. So they think it's those other people who are wrongly getting something that they shouldn't or don't deserve or whatever. So they don't know what it means. So the longer that we use shorthand for anything like DEI, the more we push the ideas of people like John Gentry who are pushing the idea that DEI is a foreign ops. There are people, there are literally people who've written articles and had them published in journals that actually say that civil rights is, you know, a communist plot or a Chinese plot or a Russian disinformation scheme or whatever, right. Obviously, we know that, foreign interests will take divisions in, and this happens all over the world. And I'm sure the United States has done it too, is they find a wedge and they push it through. So, yes. Can it be used by foreign interests? Sure. Is the fact that disabled people who use wheelchairs want ramps? Is that a foreign plot? I mean, no, of course not. That's ridiculous. Black people wanting jobs? Like, seriously, you think that, they wouldn't want jobs if, like, there wasn't somebody from a foreign land telling them that. That's silly. That's silly. But it's easy to shorthand it because we all live life on autopilot. For the most part, we're not always critically thinking. We're not thinking things through. And if you repeat something long enough, it becomes something everybody knows. And then... The shorthand becomes shorthand for whatever people want to believe it means. So whatever you take 100 people and you ask them what DEI means, you are not going to get the same answer. You're going to - you might not get 100 answers - you might get only 20 answers, but you're going to get different answers. So holy shit, this is not, this is a failure to communicate. Do not say DEI. We need to stop that. We need to spell it out. What does it mean when somebody is implementing anti-DEI orders? We need to specify. They're trying to get rid of 504 protections in schools. That's what they're trying to do. We need to specify that they're overturning groundbreaking civil rights law. We need to specify that they're overturning civil rights law from decades ago that was settled and they're overturning that. We need to specify when that's happening because otherwise people don't know. They just think that it's, oh, you know, they just think it's going to be something that they don't like. And then, you know, the leopards eating faces thing. We're in real trouble with this. And no, just say things straight out. We need to just say things straight out. We do not need performative.. I'm not saying don't be... guidelines are good. Having something that somebody just repeats for the sake of a formality is not. People know when something's genuine or not. You're better off just not doing it at all if it's just performative. Just be yourself, people, and just communicate directly. Communicate what you mean. Don't say you're delivering money into the pockets of working people. You should say, we're making policies that prevent this horrible thing from happening or make this good thing happen. Spell it out. Break it down. And if we want to communicate to other people, break it down. Don't use tribalistic shorthand. Do not use culty language. Don't use in-group silo thing because you're not going to break out. And I had found a journal article from 1973 and it was called The Strength of Weak Ties in the American Journal of Sociology. And it was from 1973. And if you read it, you could see that the problem that they're describing absolutely has happened online. And this is why there there's a good. And so this is why I love this quote that I pulled out of this article. It says, quote, "Imagine to begin with a community completely partitioned into cliques such that each person is tied to every other in his clique and to none outside. Community organization would be severely inhibited. Leafleting, radio announcements, or other methods could ensure that everyone is aware of some nascent organization, but studies of diffusion and mass communication have shown that people rarely act on mass media information unless it is also transmitted through personal ties." unquote. This is the problem with social media. And there is an op-ed on 404 Media that was published recently about the problems of social media not being activism basically. And I'll quote from that, from, You Can't Post Your Way Out Of Fascism. "The reality is you are oxygenating the things these people are saying, even as you purport to debunk them." unquote. And I've said this exact thing before. I've been saying this for years. And recently there was a... a podcast that had said somebody named Jennifer Mircecia. I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, but she said, quote, "Social media platforms are not public spaces. They are not used by officials to make decisions about policies. And there is no way for us to directly communicate to politicians where they are listening to us." unquote. So that's the real thing. You have to talk to people personally. You have to call your representatives. You need to write to them at least and identify yourself as a constituent. They verify your address. They verify that you're a constituent and then they listen to you. Otherwise, it's just not working. And people need to talk to each other directly. Not just cultivate an audience. It's just not as persuasive. It creates echo chambers and it might feel good within your own in-crowd, but it's not communicating anything to the people outside of that sphere. And perhaps you're only looking for a niche audience that, you could whatever with, but that's not going to facilitate accurate communication to a broader range of people. And I really do think that, you know, we have to think about that as... Do we want allies or don't we? And if we want allies, the simplest way to do that is to break it down and break it down into issues where there are a lot of people who care about some of these issues if they know what they are. But if they don't know what they are, we're cooked. That's it. You're not going to get through because you're using shorthand and it sounds culty and they think you mean something other than you think you mean. And, you know, they hear you say crazy lefty people and they think that you mean them so that they feel alienated and then they run somewhere else. And then you don't have them when you need them. You don't have their support. We're not, quote, delivering money into the pockets of working people. Like, that's not that. No, that we got to get rid of that. No, we have to move past that and get down to the nuts and bolts of things and actually talk about what we're talking about. That's all there is to it.
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