Confirmation Bias Still Alive & Well

I had a few words with my oldest daughter this morning about confirmation bias. She is almost 17 and in just over a year she will be eligible to vote. She should start making efforts to understand the world around her so she can make informed decisions and forge a realistic worldview. I don't know how much she understood what I was talking about, but it never hurts to plant the seeds that may be watered by someone else (friend, teacher, significant other, etc) in the future. 

I've sort of been shocked by what has been happening in the media and with people's reaction to it since the election. I guess old habits are hard to break. The same people that didn't have a clue that Hillary Clinton was not a shoe in for president are now telling everyone that Roe v Wade is done, gays and lesbians have to go back in the closet, and anyone with skin that isn't white are going to be booted out of the country. Nonsense. At no point will I say that people shouldn't be concerned about what a Trump presidency may bring, but in my opinion, not a whole lot more than they should have been worried about Obama or Bush before him. We have a system in place and we don't elect kings.

Remember those guys, Bush and Obama? You know, Bush was going to over turn Roe v Wade too, along with calling for martial law so he could remain president past his eight years. Remember when Obama was going to take all of the guns away and call for martial law so he could remain president past his eight years? I 'member.

This post isn't about Trump or the presidential race though, it's about searching for information and news. With "team politics" so prevalent in our culture, we have created a sense that it's a reality TV show or a ball game. That the winners and losers being heralded or vilified means more than the actual results. It's entertainment and when people look at news as entertainment (and entertainment as news) that opens the door for profiteers and for information manipulation. We saw it all through the presidential campaigns with Bernie v Hillary and then Trump v Hillary. It was almost as if (or they actually are) each website or news organization was a propaganda site for one candidate or another. 

I used to be a FOX News guy. Why? Because they talked about what I wanted to hear in the way I wanted it talked about. I eventually popped that bubble, but most people don't and never will. Most people are going to seek out news and information that fits in with their worldview. Honesty and truth become secondary to their bias. They stay safe from critical analysis in the bubble. That leads people into a fog in which they are walking through life with a false sense of reality and if they are only surrounded by folks that are doing the same thing, there is no possibility of a different point of view sneaking in to challenge them. If we only talk to conservatives, only watch conservative news or visit conservative websites, how can you possibly get a sense of what is happening on the liberal side or in the real world that occupies the middle? Works vice versa too. Just as an example to think about....do you think people in North Korea or Iran know who we are as a people? Do you think they have an honest grasp on what our nation is about and more importantly, what the people of this nation are about? You know they don't. Why? Because they are spoon fed one version of information and events and that's going to shape their worldview. The world they are shown isn't presented in a way that allows them to make a fair determination on how they should feel or think.

I kind of figured that people would be a little  more willing to "let the cake bake" after the election results, but no, we have rioting, anger, and a proliferation of misinformation flying around. How can this happen so fast? Wikileaks showed the folly of the Democrats nomination process and exposed the media's complicity in defeating Bernie Sanders. Bernie was saying the same thing Trump was about Clinton but the reporting and following up on that was nearly non-existent. The media fixated on Trump's personality and not nearly enough on the substance (or lack thereof) of his rhetoric. They dropped the ball on investigating both of these candidates enough at the policy level and focused on the entertainment value instead. Was it any wonder that all the polls from establishment media showed Hillary waltzing to victory and the few that tried to maintain balance in their sampling were proven to be more accurate? Remember the Duke lacrosse team rape case and how the media convicted those young men in the court of public opinion on a rape that didn't happen?  If you want something to be true, you will find a way to make it so. Social media is ripe with disinformation and outright lies and again, if you want something to be true, you will only be confirming your bias by not getting an opposing view. I do confirmation bias with a couple of things.....musicians I enjoy and sports teams I love. In real life, I'm not about to let the left or right wings get their hooks in me ever again. I cull information from a lot of sources. On TV, I look to CNN and FOX and then go to YouTube to hear what Reason TV and Al Jazeera are reporting on. I use the internet extensively. I'm as apt to check out Breitbart as much as I am Daily Kos and I frequent CNN and FOX on the net as well. Real Clear Politics offers a lot of editorial information from a host of news services and I also rely on the Wall St Journal and the New York Times. There are other great places to grab information with sites like IFL Science and Investors Business Daily. 

Then, there is gut check time and that can be difficult. I have to try to sort through the information and make sense of it, all while trying to check my bias on a topic. It'd be easy to just click FOX or CNN and allow my mind to be made up in easy and short fashion, but that's not who I want to be. I want more raw info and less manipulated info. I'm finding the truth in evaluation is difficult so all I can do is weight the information I receive against the past, about what I already know, and with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. If I had been a bit more skeptical of the propaganda we were being fed post 9/11/2001, perhaps I wouldn't have been so gung ho about supporting an invasion of Iraq that was built on media manipulation and outright fallacy. I still lament not seeing through that.

I would love to be more optimistic and trusting, but I have to have good reason to be. As a born pessimist it's hard for me to be optimistic in general, but I really am trying and part of that trying is the want to see results before I condemn or celebrate. I did that with the new Star Wars and Planet of the Apes, so surely I can be patient enough to see what the new government will bring. I also want to be able to trust the news, but we are not living in that reality.  

In the end, I suppose my point is that we just don't seem to be learning fast enough. It does seem that more people than ever are waking up to how the news media must be seen with a skeptical eye, but it's not happening fast enough for me as I see friends, co-workers, etc sliding right back to buying every media narrative floated since the election. According to Gallup an all-time low number of people trust mainstream news to portray information accurately. That number is 32%. Unreal, yet we still see people who say they are skeptical going "all in" with every headline. Another important part of all this is that as of 2012, six corporations own 90% of the media. In 1983, it was 50 companies. An incredible centralizing of information distribution. That's quite a bit of power in the hands of the few and it's ripe for manipulation and exploitation.  

I'd ask anyone interested in trying to strip away their confirmation to do it a little at a time. When I stopped believing in organized religion, I took the advice of Julia Sweeney and just took off my "god glasses" for a little while every day. I tried to see the world through a prism that didn't include a personal god that cared about the things that religion says that god cares about. For every couple of Breitbart articles or Mother Jones articles you read, why not visit the other site and read on the same topic? Why not go to CNN and FOX and listen to their take and then find a commentary on You Tube to get a differing opinion. Do so without your ideological glasses on. Be intellectually honest with yourself and try to determine where the facts are and what that means to you and your worldview. You may come right back to the same conclusions you already hold, but at the least, you will have challenged yourself to be open to different ideas, and maybe more importantly, to understand the view point of others. Understanding each other as people and not as opponents is a big deal for me and the more people that can be brought out of their confirmation bias, the better in my opinion. 

Until next time.....

Hillary or The Donald: Getting Just What We Deserve

Have we ever had two worse candidates for the presidency running at the same time? Sometimes, I feel like this is some sort of nightmare or a cosmic joke and I'm going to wake up from it and see two half-way normal people running (ie, Jim Webb, Elizabeth Warren, Rand Paul, John Kasich, or hell....even Jeb Bush). The votes are almost in and for better and probably worse Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are going to be fighting it out for the title of "most powerful person on the planet". Yeah, exactly....let that shit sink in for a few minutes. 

The political climate is such that it has given rise to a quasi-fascist like Trump. I understand the allure and I outlined it in my last entry, entitled "The Trump Thing". We gave rise to this man. It's largely our fault. We have given over the reigns of our republic to the political and financial elite and they have shaped a country where the difference between the have and have nots is increasing by the year. The power has been taken from the people and given to the corporation, which our bought and sold Supreme Court backed up with their decision that says corporations are people and can make huge political donations to PAC's, basically buying power within our government. That power is used to  help elect politicians that will create favorable legislation to the wealthiest among us. Hillary is a glowing example of this sort of Main Street vs Wall Street disconnect rank and file voters display. We have allowed our country to be taken from us because we have been duped into becoming a narcissistic and distracted population. Social media, wedge issues, reality TV, opinion programming disguised as hard news, and the death of investigative journalism have crippled the average American and in concert, the United States as we formerly knew it. We fight for or over the wrong shit and we fight with each other as though we are enemies. We are manufactured enemies, but again, we did this. We kept voting for these two parties and fought tooth and nail to defend them against our own best interests and against the best interest of a nation we all say we love. We let it happen. We watched it happen with glee and pride! All of this distraction has finally led us to two candidates that should have most of us horrified, if not very concerned.

Donald Trump is a billionaire. He is also a political fraud and chameleon. He's already backing down from some of the blustering promises he has been making over the past year. He has suddenly "evolved" on issues like immigration just in the past few weeks. He has had many success' in business and he has had some failures. Anyone that puts themselves on the line in the business world is bound to slip now and again. Part of his rallying cry is how the mainstream, establishment politicians have sold out the American worker and you know, that's true. What he doesn't seem as anxious to scream from the roof tops is that he has taken advantage of the sell out. He has donated large sums of money to both parties over the years (including to the Clintons) because it was to his advantage. That's the way our system works. If you want something done, you go buy it. Our vote only allows us to choose which party or person we want to benefit the most from the purchasing power. Trump should be a lot of things that rank and file Republicans hate. They hated Bill Clinton for a myriad of reasons, including his womanizing. Remember, he cheated on his wife and therefore his character couldn't be trusted. Trump has done the same thing. Remember, Bill Clinton was involved in shady insider business deals that had huge financial windfalls for him personally and politically. Trump has taken advantage of his fathers fortune and political connections to get deals worked with huge tax breaks that not just anyone would be privy to. Remember when Donald Trump was a "left wing plant" that was running so the presidency would be given to Hillary? What happened to that bit of paranoid thinking? The same people that hated what Clinton was about are now willing to let those things go or even worse, make excuses for them in regards to Trump. They are slaves to the party. It's their identity. It's their team. Country be damned.....you gotta win, right? Throw personal integrity and character out the door. Just win baby. 

Trump exhibits fascist tendencies and at best he can be considered a quasi-fascist. He is now capitalizing politically on what he has been capitalizing on financially. Demonizing trade deals and companies that have shifted jobs out of country, even though, again, after taking advantage of them himself. He is openly isolationist and nationalistic which taps into the distrust/dislike of foreigners that so many on the right grumble about, but have now been given the green light to scream about out in the open. He doesn't do anything to temper the anger, resentment and hatred that is being poured out. American policy means more than human rights to Trump and his supporters. He has gone so far as to say he would order the military to break the law by using torture to procure information and to kill the families of known terrorists. Both are illegal, but he said the military will do it because he will order it. All you have to do is use Google and you can find much more on the views he holds that are consistent with authoritarianism and/or fascism. He has also been inconsistent on abortion, on conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as on other issues. He demonizes his perceived rivals and fellow Americans, based on appearance or stereotypes. This isn't an honorable man in any sense of the word. I get it, we all want a strong leader and we know we have problems with jobs, illegal immigration, terrorism, etc....but do we really want to overreact and go to the far right to fix those things? It's a road to less personal liberty, not more. It certainly isn't a road to greatness. I don't compare Trump to Hitler as a person or leader, but the nationalism and authoritarianism in a comparison of their rhetoric can't be ignored. "Make America Great Again" may be a slogan, but perhaps we can settle for "Make America Admirable Again"? 

That moves me on to Hillary Clinton. I believe this woman to be a fraud and a charlatan of the highest order that is basically using entitlement to bully her way to the nomination. She is purely a political animal and can probably be trusted less than Donald Trump when her words are taken into consideration. Trump doesn't hide what he is, Hillary has, does, and will. She wants the presidency and will say and do anything to get it. Her career is built off of her husbands rise to power in both Arkansas and in Washington DC. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with that, but looking the other way in the face of humiliation, excuse making, and outright deception when it comes to some of the more unseemly pieces of her husbands political and personal life makes her out to be merely and opportunist and an enabler. She likely didn't stick with Bill because of any obligation to the sanctity of marriage or for Chelsea, but to keep her own political career intact.

Hillary is weak on her position that she knows how to get Americans back to work. She supported NAFTA, which her husband signed into law (and was supported by people like Rush Limbaugh for crying out loud, so as you can see, the elites knew the advantage of this "deal"),  and she has rattled off rhetoric about putting people out of work who are employed by the fossil fuel industry and then took it back a week later when confronted by a voter. She obviously doesn't even understand the people that she believes to be her constituency. She and her husband have been huge proponents of Wall Street. She is status quo on banking and in fact her husband pushed the banking industry to be more resourceful in giving horrible loans to people so they could buy houses, which eventually caused the great mortgage collapse and sent our economy into a depression/recession that we will NEVER recover from. She benefits from current campaign finance laws more than any other candidate and may well receive more money from PAC's than any candidate ever. How can she protect us from the predators on Wall Street if she is taking money from them? They are not giving her money to reverse the current trends. She has stated that she has voted for "barriers" to keep illegals out, but now is using Trump's rhetoric on the subject against him. She has been against same sex marriage and now she's for it. She is as much of a neocon as Bill Kristol and Dick Cheney when it comes to our use of the military. The Huffington Post (a noted liberal website) has called her "the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous though, is that she is the candidate of the military industrial complex" and went on to say that her foreign policy experience basically stems from supporting every war demanded by the CIA and military. 

I am obviously of the opinion that neither of these people are fit to be president. We are supposed to be a beacon of light to the rest of the world. We are becoming a laughing stock. This democratic republic was designed to be a great experiment and we, the people, should maintain control over its affairs and leadership. We have ceded that control to the political and financial elite. We have no one to blame but ourselves. During the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968, the crowds were chanting "the whole world is watching" when the police and national guard were brutally dispersing protesters, basically interrupting the people's right to assemble and use free speech. My fear is that in August of 2016, the chants will be "the whole world is laughing". This is far from a laughing matter, but we have finally gotten what we deserve. Our leadership is finally reflecting who we are as a people and a culture. The will of the people is speaking and of course I accept it. Just don't expect me to get along and go along like a trained monkey. I will vote FOR a candidate that doesn't have a record of lying. That doesn't have a record of manipulating the system for personal gain. I will vote for a person of some character and integrity or I will not vote at all. If there is nothing else I have as an American, I have my vote. I won't bend over and give it up like a whore on spring break nickel night in Tijuana. 

Doug Stanhope, Alex Jones & The Austin Incident

Doug Stanhope

Last week while doing a search for some comedy on You Tube, I stumbled across a video from a show that Doug Stanhope performed in Austin, Texas in 2004. Anyone who has paid attention to my blog over the past year or so knows that I really dig the type of stand up that Stanhope, Joe Rogan, Bill Burr, and Louis C.K. perform. They seem to be the offspring of the brilliant, but now deceased Bill Hicks, who was every bit as much a social commentator as he was a comic. I love to watch a good hour of stand up, but what made this one appealing, just from the title alone, was the word "incident" and the name "Alex Jones". At that point, I'm all in. Keep in mind that this show was performed just after we had invaded Iraq and there was quite a bit of uncertainty, fear, and tension about the war.

Alex Jones

I assume from the video that Stanhope was just going to give his performance. Nothing that merited any special attention, just doing what he does best....making people think and laugh. Alex Jones is asked to introduce Stanhope on to the stage and does so, after about 8 or 9 minutes of New World Order ranting. Jones, for those who are not familiar with him, is a conspiracy theory guy. He is involved in making some really good documentary films (The Obama Deception) and  hosts a radio show. He's out there, and tends to go way over the top, but he does provoke thought and discussion. On this night, I'm not sure if it was booze or what, but he just took over the stage. He went on a long rant about how the government sets up dictators so we can have enemies to fight and how asleep the American public is about it. Honestly, there isn't much of a way for me to describe it that is going to be as interesting as seeing it. So, I'll post his opening rant, without the entire show behind it. Here is the first ten minutes, eight of which is Alex Jones going absolutely ape shit. By the end of this, he's arguing with the crowd, and when Stanhope finally takes over, he has to deal with some hostility and high emotions from the audience for the rest of the show.  

Stanhope never really gets back on track as far as his act goes, but he starts interacting with the audience, which leads to truly organic and great moments. Yes, this act goes totally off the rails, but there are some great laughs. I'm not sure how many comics would want to push through a show like this, but it's really great to see something so real. 99.9% of the time, any show you pay to watch, is so pre-arranged and set up that you don't get an ounce of spontaneity from the performer. Watching Jones and then seeing Stanhope's face a couple of times when he comes on stage, it's hard not to get the feeling that he was enjoying the chaos that Jones was creating between himself and the audience. If you love stand up that makes you think about our culture, this one is for you. Interesting, annoying and entertaining all at the same time. I tip my cap to Doug Stanhope. He keeps it real!  

If you are interested in seeing the show in its entirety, here you go!