DOGE?

Before you go on, an article in the May 8 & May 22, 2021 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

Update: September 22, 2023: This is more important now than ever. Be vigilant and speak in your own way. Love Wins.

Update:  McQuade, Barbara, "Attack From Within," 2024.  New York Times best seller.

Yes, it’s called DOGE, but they have the acronym wrong. Instead of standing for The Department of Government Efficiency, which it clearly is not, I have a more accurate acronym:: The Department of Greedy Elon. That would seem to be a more accurate title for what the Tesla Twit is up to in his current gig.

It also seems to an overall description of what our current “leadership” views it’s mission for the next three years and 10 months, not that I’m counting.

We can be thankful to Vladimir Putin, the Heritage Foundation, Big Oil and the Tech Bros for calling Democracy to our attention here in the U.S. of A. We as a nation tend to take things for granted, have a short attention span and live in blissful ignorance of what is happening to others. Others being other Americans and others being those living anywhere else in the world.

I sometimes wish this “blissful ignorance” for myself. But, I’m quick to return to my calling. When someone is a victim of injustice , I am a victim of injustice. I cannot sit back and accept the injustice. I simply cannot. it’s in my epigenetics. I’m stuck with it and I’m glad I am.

My parents exposed me to a Christian religious education at a young age and those early teachings have pretty much doomed me to a life of compassion and service to others. Don’t get me wrong, I have no regrets the life that I have been called to live. I live it joyfully and enthusiastically.

But, it does challenge me greatly in the area of separating the action from the actor. In these made for tv divisive times, we are pumped with information, misinformation and purposeful disinformation by forces that benefit from the cycle of demonization. He, she, they are there and we are here. They are wrong and we are right.

Of course this is all bullshit. It works for the force that largely stays behind it’s own cloak of invisibility and allows their dirty work to be done by political figures, religious organizations and politicized news outlets.

But, let me get back to the thesis for today’s opinions.

Elon Musk and his smoke and mirrors operations at D.O.G.E. His special interest in his position at D.O.G.E. (what exactly is his position?) appears to be at least two-fold. One fold is to protect his own business interests from government intervention and the second fold is to extend the already ridiculous level of tax breaks received by his Billionaire class by simply eliminating the services that those taxes pay for. If you can’t do it legally through legislative processes, then go to the next best approach. Take a butcher’s meat hacker and start hacking.

Musk’s money and influence are doing great, but not irreparable harm to the U.S.A. Anything they are doing can be undone. While we common folks down here write our blogs, boycott, hold our picket signs, write our letters, make or text calls to our elected officials and attend town halls and other meetings, our judicial system is bearing the brunt of the heavy lifting in the resistance struggle against the budding Whie Nationalist Oligarchy.

It does my heart good and bolsters my spirit to see the little things that we are all doing to resist those that have wealth and power and wish to expand it.

When anyone is suffering anywhere, I am suffering. But it is good suffering. As the late civil rights leader John Lewis said, “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

There’s lots of good trouble yet to get into. Let’s get into it.

The Billionaire tax whackers portray government as one big monolithic bureaucratic mess. This simply is not true. Michael Lewis tells the other side of the story in his new book “Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Servants.”