Peace of Mind

https://newslit.org/

Before you go on, an article in the May 8 & May 22 issue of Science News ran with a cover "Awash in Deception:  How science can help us avoid being duped by misinformation."  In the lead article titled: "The Battle Against Fake News," Alexandra Witze presents five suggestions on how to debunk bad information.  They come from the News Literacy Project (see the above link).

How to Debunk:

1.  Arm yourself with media literacy skills, at sites such as the News Literacy Project (newslit.org), to better understand how to spot hoax videos and stories.

2.  Don't stigmatize people for holding inaccurate beliefs.  Show empathy and respect, or you're more likely to alienate your audience than successfully share accurate information.

3.  Translate complicated but true ideas into simple messages that are easy to grasp.  Videos, graphics and other visual aids can help.

4.  When possible, once you provide a factual alternative to the misinformation, explain the underlying fallacies (such as cherry- picking information, a common tactic of climate change deniers.

5.  Mobilize when you see misinformation being shared on social media as soon as possible. If you see something, say something.

"Misinformation is any information that is incorrect, whether due to error or fake news.  

"Disinformation is deliberately intended to deceive."

"Propaganda is disinformation with a political agenda."

Sander van der Linden
Social Psychologist
University of Cambridge

Source:  Science News/May 8, 2021 & May 22, 2021

These times are hell on the mental health of social activists. There are lots of us out here including many of you. COVID by itself would offer sufficient challenges to the level of engagement needed to bring about the necessary societal changes in the United States of America, my home country.

But thanks to the propagandists on the right spewing out disinformation on COVID, Climate Change, Inflation, and just about anything that could remotely be considered as fodder for fueling the divisions in the country on a daily basis, anxiety levels have been magnified to unnecessarily high levels.

That’s not to mention the treatment of the law at the highest levels of the judicial system. Why is law breaking all of a sudden the law of the land? The Supreme Court is apparently now in the business of making up the law that it using as legal precedence. Just today they ruled that OSHA does not have the legal authority to mandate vaccinations in the workplaces of large employers.

The agenda of this handpicked right-wing court is to weaken and ultimately kill the United States government through a concerted case-by-case destruction of any precedent that allows government to serve it’s citizens. The Right calls this the “Nanny State.” B.F.S. This is yet another in the continuing saga of someone, somewhere not wanting the United States to exist anymore. They have their media in place, they have their figure head in place, they have the top judicial institution in the United States in their hip pockets in order to attain their means.

Wow, I didn’t start this out to be a rant, but it is starting to read like one. I guess that I can justify it by saying that it my a pressure release valve, part of my mental health maintenance plan. It’s time for a song. This one is from the Unitarian Universalist Hymnal and is one that I will be performing (virtually) in a quartet a week from Sunday. This recording is of the UU Choir of Baltimore, Md.

Oh no! I’m starting to sound like Mark Thiessen or Victor Davis Hanson! Those of you reading this that are Republican, I think it is high time that you hold your leaders accountable for their conscious or unconscious complicity in this most obvious American Coup de’etat. I don’t know what to do besides write, offer financial support to organizations trying to strengthen democratic institutions or commiserate with people that believe as I do. You need to take action.

Republicans need to change. It’s not Democrats that are going to change them. It’s that simple. Democrats can and will listen to you (at least this one will), but y’all need to come back to Earth One and speak rationally and factually with us. I’m not hearing or seeing any of that now.

I suppose that is what the forces residing in the depths of that life force sucking black hole on the political Right don’t want you to do. Just go along. Don’t question, just trust those feeding you the Constitution-less, Republican, Anti-Patriotic pap (C.R.A.P.). They want you to march along in lockstep in a state of fear, ignorance and reverse truth.

Break free. I don’t know what you need to do. I think that you are capable of figuring it out.

You have your models. The Lincoln Project, Congresswoman Elizabeth Cheney. I’ll bet as sure as Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, that there are others. Find those others, emulate them, influence them, follow them.

The answer is that simple.

I thank my wonderful wife for sharing the wider world of news with me because without her bringing to my attention to stories that are literally right under my nose in our local hold-it-in-your-hand newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, and the news from the New York Times digital edition, I would become just another partisan political hack like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck and anyone that has been sucked into the anti-American personality cult that is the Republican Party. I wish that Mrs. Carlson, Mrs. Hannity, Mr. Ingraham, Mrs. Beck and Mrs. America would speak reason into their ears as Mrs. Halen has into mine.

I also confess that as much as I respect the journalists at MSNBC and the regular dose of Earth 1 that I absolutely must hear, I find myself needing to back off of Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Donnell just a little bit. Maybe if I were better at filtering the reality of real life, I could continue to take it in. But the normal news, the normal everyday news that they accurately report with a liberal bent that I acknowledge, accept and enjoy, has me on a daily roller coaster ride that simply more than my socially conscious mind can handle right now. I need to back off of TV news for awhile.

In no way am I backing off of my activism and social commentary. I am going to continue ignoring right wing, shock-jock, anti- journalism entertainment sources. I will continue to listen to my wife as she filters the news for me. I will watch MSNBC, but just less of it. I will investigate the rational right-leaning commentators that you suggest.

I’m going to do more yoga, keep up with my 100 mile a week goal on my bicycle and get out with my wife for hikes in the marvelous state and county parks that surround us. And play a little more golf with my friends. I need some peace of mind.

I love being a social activist. I also love being alive. I love life. Will you stick with me? Oh, and I do have a movie recommendation. It’s called “Don’t Look Up.”

I love you.