Thursday, February 18, 2016

The internet is bad for you, Mulder

The X-Files official website, December 1996, https://web.archive.org/web/19961228184501/http://www.thex-files.com/index.htm
Before the age of Facebook and Twitter, before there were blogs, before we had truly entered the age of the internet, there was the one television show I followed religiously, that I never missed. Even when I spent my junior year in college in Europe, I had my mother tape every episode of the X-Files (tape is what we called recording back then, millennials, because it literally was recorded on a physical tape.)

I had the good or misfortune of growing up in the nineties. By growing up I mean high school and college, and by good or misfortune I mean it was a good time in history but it may have made me naive about global conflict - optimistic, even, if those things are different. The Berlin Wall had just come down, the Soviet Empire had crumbled, and the illusion of peace and prosperity abounded. It really seemed like humanity had learned to live with itself. The internet was a thing but most people still didn't have it in their homes. I bet that's tough for millennials too imagine. It is for me, too, and I lived it.

Of course, peace was a mirage. Bombs went off in the World Trade Center, USS Cole, and the US embassy in Kenya, among others. I remember walking around Paris after all the garbage bins had been removed from the city streets because terrorist assholes were putting explosive devices in them. While Francis Fukuyama was declaring the End of History, Islamic terrorism was getting stronger, better funded, more educated, and greater support. We were entering a new chapter of history, but America was too arrogant to see it.

The prosperity was a mirage, too. While it seemed as if free market economics had triumphed in the world and that everyone in the West was comfortable and that everyone in developing countries was going to be soon, the reality was that the prosperity masked the time bomb that would take down the global economy in the next decade. Only the rich were really prospering, and they'd make it through any economic crisis. They always do. Multinational corporations were consolidating, getting more powerful, writing legislation and bribing politicians (oh, excuse me, "campaign donations"), and publishing more propaganda than ever. It wasn't a free market anymore, it was corporatism.

Meanwhile, average Americans were about to lose their jobs and their homes, but we were too mired in what the definition of "is" is, and the right's lust for power focused their energy on taking down a popular president by all means necessary at the expense of governing. To be or not to be - the infinitive form of "is" - was the question, and they chose not to be so they could win the next election. (Or "win.") While they were trying to figure out what "is" is, they ignored everything else, including the rising influence of jihadism, and we know what happened when they finally got their POTUS.

It's strange to look back on the nineties and think about how everyone was so optimistic now that global jihad has obliterated any hope of peace in our time. We may never recover from the damage from the Bush/Cheney foreign policy and the farce of the Clinton impeachment that diverted attention from things that mattered. We are more divided than any time since the civil war, and that division is making people insane, I think. I mean, now nutjobs are saying Scalia was murdered. That is fueled by the internet.

The X-Files has never been about aliens, not really, at least not the outerspace kind. We are the aliens. That's the whole metaphor of the mythology, the whole reason Chris Carter created the series, or at least kept it going. We are alienated from ourselves, from each other. That's why they're talking about Scully and others having alien DNA. We. Are. The. Aliens. The experiences of others are alien to us; other people might as well come from outerspace.

The internet has exacerbated that alienation. Now we can isolate ourselves from ALL differing worldviews than ours. All we have to do is hit the unfollow button if someone says something with which we disagree. It also is a forum to spout off any ridiculous thing that comes into our heads, making conspiracy theories become mainstream. That is a dangerous thing. It can give rise to demagogues like Trump.


Yesterday, the Jeb Bush Twitter account posted a picture of Jeb's handgun with the caption, "America." That was it. The internet, in one of its bright moments, had a field day with it. But the fact remains that someone thought it was ok for a United States presidential candidate to alienate a significant portion of this country because "America" is only for one type of person. The white conservative lives in his white conservative bubble and thinks that is the only right way to live, that everyone else is wrong. The arrogance of this shows that a simple tweet is not simple at all. That one picture with the "America" caption completely captured the essence of the conservative mindset in 2016 America. The pen and its modern Twitter equivalent is indeed mightier than the sword.

Why did the person behind the Bush Twitter account (and therefore Bush himself) choose divisiveness? Why is Trump running on a campaign of divisiveness? Why is a whole political party running on a platform of divisiveness, focusing on us versus them, with them almost always being someone of different color or faith or economic status?

Right now, we face the greatest existential threat to global safety since Nazism. We won't win by being divided. That's what they want.

The truth is out there, away from the politics of divisiveness, away from internet forums and ideological websites, away from religious dogma and campaign rhetoric, away from the bigotry, the blame, the bombs, the things that strip us of our humanity. The truth is not accessible through individualism and alienation, but through our commonality, community, and the communion of souls.

I sure am enjoy these new X-Files. If only I could also enjoy the Hope that I had in the nineties, too.


Monday, February 15, 2016

Pro-anything-but-life (On Scalia, propaganda, hypocrisy, and the anonymosity of the Internet Age) or Life is Like a Box of Cigars

Ben Franklin's famous rebellion propaganda
The anti-abortion movement started at the same time as so many other movements began in America - that tumultuous period known as The Sixties. It wasn't about "saving babies." It was a propaganda tactic used by the religious right to gain voters, like so many of the other wedge issues used to divide-and-conquer our society. The Sixties saw more social progress than perhaps any other time in American history. That frightened people who didn't have the mental makeup to accept change.

This country was partly founded by religious nutjobs who used to burn people at the stake or drown them because they thought they were witches. The "Pilgrims" had religious views that were so crazy they felt the need to flee the most religiously tolerant country in the world - Holland - because people there didn't like that they were trying to shove their religious nonsense down their throats. And why were they living in Holland though they were English? Because the English didn't want their insanity there, either.

They don't teach us that in American schools. They glorify the "Pilgrims" and put on Thanksgiving plays about them. They should be putting on The Crucible instead. The "Pilgrims" are just another piece of patriotic propaganda that we are fed from childhood, like Christopher Columbus discovering America or Benjamin Franklin discovering electricity. Put another way, these stories are simply advertising for a product, that product being America(TM).

Propaganda. That was the name of U2's fanclub in the nineties. It was intentionally ironic, chosen to mock rock music as a product and the marketing of music. Advertising in the nineties seems like nothing compared to now. Today we are drowning in propaganda, or marketing, as it is called. A whole generation has been brainwashed from birth into thinking excessive advertising is normal, that two year long presidential campaigns are acceptable, that brand loyalty somehow makes you cool. Everything is reduced to a slogan, and nothing has any meaning. So-called musicians aren't artists. They're just products to sell.

Propaganda goes back to the dawn of human history. The ancient Greeks - the first democrats - used propaganda in organized games, theater, religious festivals, courts of law, and other aspects of social life to present their viewpoints and try to persuade others to agree with them. The Romans were masters of propaganda. All those statues of emperors you see in museums? They weren't made with anything else in mind. Rome's enemies were caricatured as barbarians with no respect for law or morality. (Sound familiar?) However, propaganda was an honorable concept to them and others in ancient times. Its use as a dishonest and subversive means of persuasion is more modern.

Not ironically, the use of the word "propaganda" came into common use by way of Christianity. In 1622 Pope Gregory XV created the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, a commission of cardinals tasked with spreading Christianity and regulating Church affairs in non-Christian lands. Later, the College of Propaganda was established by Pope Urban VIII to train priests for missionary work. These things happened after the Protestant schism, of course, after the glory days of the Church's power, when the church had to convince people to convert through ideas rather than force.

With technological progress came wider access to the tools of propaganda. The printing press allowed not only for books to be printed but also pamphlets. As printing became cheaper, so too, did the ease of disseminating propaganda. The internet is the printing press on steroids. What it has done is akin to Pontius Pilate's actions against Christ: it has killed Truth. Persuaded by the propaganda of the Pharisees, who are comparable to a modern religious-oriented political party, Pilate famously said "What is Truth?" with all the contempt of one who can't be bothered with difficult decisions or thought.

What is Truth?

It's a question that has dominated human thought since we started writing things down, and probably before that, too. The ancient Greeks wrote extensively about it, especially Plato, who wrote about how his country was crumbling before his eyes, how endless wars, excessive individualism, contempt for intellectualism, and the devolution of religion as a community into "personal relationships" with the gods were killing his country. And, as we know, he was right. Athens fell, and Greece has mostly been ruled by other empires since (one could argue the EU is now controlling it.)

What Truth isn't is propaganda.

I don't like anything about Scalia's views, and think he will go down in history as one of the most damaging figures to the security and welfare of the United States, perhaps contributing significantly to its eventual downfall. Citizens United has taken control of the country out of the hands of the people (even putting some of it in the control of foreign governments - especially the Chinese - by way of American subsidiaries of foreign companies.) But at least he had an intellectual reasoning for his way of judicial decision-making. He was influenced by his Christian ideology, no doubt, but ideology did not make his decisions for him - his interpretation of the law did. He was well-respected even by his opponents on the court; he was clearly loved by family and friends.

Seconds after his death was announced (and we knew it was big news because the networks interrupted their programming to break it, like they used to when news was news rather than entertainment), assholes on the left were saying "good riddance," and those on the right were immediately worried that they will have trouble continuing to force their ideology on the rest of us without Scalia on the bench. There will be no nationwide mourning - most Americans don't give a shit. Indeed, most Americans don't even know who Justice Scalia is. (Or ANY Supreme Court justice. But they can name all the Kardashians!)

It is absolutely disgusting that this man from New Jersey, born to Italian immigrants (L'orrore! The horror!), married to Maureen for 56 years, father of nine children, including a son who became a priest, was never seen as human being by these people. 

That is our country now, a country that has no respect for human life, where if you call yourself "pro-life," you're also usually pro-war, pro-gun, pro-death penalty, pro-prisons, and anti-spending on programs that would make people's lives better, all things opposite pro-life. This is a country that doesn't care that 30,000 Americans die of gunshot wounds each year, or that we spend half a trillion dollars on military weapons, which is fifty percent of our national budget, but throws a fit about one percent of our budget going towards food and medicines for poor countries. I just don't get it. Does high fructose corn syrup destroy the chemicals in our brains that cause empathy?

I really don't know how we got here, but I think it has to do with marketing, how advertisers fell in love with Freud's nephew Edward Bernays and his application of psychoanalytical Freudian principles to propaganda (did you know the reason we eat bacon and eggs for breakfast was a result of Bernays' work with the bacon industry?), how they began to manipulate group mentality and micro-target to appeal to our individual interests, which has succeeded in dividing us more than ever. Take music, for example. Most people don't listen to country AND hip hop. They listen to country OR hip hop. Before Soundscan ruined music, Ray Charles made a country album, Aretha Franklin sang Eleanor Rigby and Bridge Over Trouble Water, the Rolling Stones played R&B, and CCR sang I Heard It Through the Grapevine and Proud Mary. Now, for the most part, if you're black you play black music and if you're white you play white music and you get your token crossovers like Darius Rucker or Maclemore and that's that. (I don't even care if I misspelled Maclemore. Crap is crap, whether it is spelled crap or crappe.)

This divide-and-conquer marketing mentality has put us in bubbles, where we socialize with like-minded people and never come into contact with those of differing viewpoints, which gives rise to stereotypes, such as "liberals" are dirty hippies, unwashed and uneducated. (Despite decades of studies that show the higher your education level, the more liberal you are.) Those who differ from us are no longer human. Politicians got wind of the divide-and-conquer methods years ago. I worked at one of the leading political polling firms in the world. The micro-targeting methods are fascinating but frightening.

Meanwhile, young people who weren't born during the prosperity and peace of the Clinton years, who've grown up in the Advertising Age, where now is now and there isn't anything else, have flocked to the propaganda of Bernie Sanders, who not only would be an ineffective president, as he is not respected in the world or at home, but were he to win, he would ensure an even stronger Republican majority in Congress. And with Scalia having passed, we would have no Supreme Court for the duration of his term, as Republican contempt for democracy would deny any appointment by the Jewish Socialist(TM), just as they will do for the next year with any Obama appointment.

This is absolutely disgusting, and it reeks of fascism. The lack of compromise is a result of years of propaganda, where voters just vote but after that don't matter. Today's Republicans especially view the people as incapable of governing themselves, that they need to be guided from above by [mostly men] much smarter than they are. That was Bernays. "Enlightened despotism," his daughter called it.

The ideologues have so succeeded in convincing their followers of the evilness of Barack Hussein Obama that these people cannot see how wrong it is to halt the democratic process because they don't like the (black) president. They cannot comprehend it. They cannot even THINK about it, as their brains no longer have the capacity for thought after years of brainwashing. That's what propaganda does.

We've reduced our opponents to barbarians without morals, just as the Romans did 2000 years ago. The difference is our barbarians are our neighbors.

This isn't about Democrats and Republicans, people. This is about the health of our nation. We are very sick, as the disease of ideology has ripped our insides apart. The problem with our country is not Barack Obama or Donald Trump or any one particular person despite what you have been told. It is with ideology, the blind belief in one way is the only way. And it's the only way because of our bubbles. We never leave them, so we think the way we live is the only way. It's all we know. You grow up white, live in your sterilized suburb, have enough food to eat, get a job in a cubicle, drive your SUV everywhere, and work 40 hours+ a week because everyone around you does. You think that is hard work because everyone around you says it is and if a person is poor they are lazy and don't work hard enough. You grow up black, live in a black neighborhood, think you are underrepresented in society because everyone in your world is black, have this conception that equality is fifty-fifty (even if you are only 12% of the country), think the world is out to get you because the people around you say it is. You grow up farmer, think "cityfolk" look down on you, make fun of their $4 coffee drinks, think country life is superior because that's all you know. You grow up in the city, think that country people are hicks, think they live in Flyover Country, think they cling to religion and guns because they aren't smart enough to know better. You grow up Christian, hate other religions, hate atheists, think they are clueless because only you are right, because that's what you were told as a kid and that's what you know. You grow up Muslim, think that is the truth, but you're only Muslim because your parents are, because you or your ancestors are from the Middle East, because somewhere down the line your ancestors converted to Islam, many by force of armies.

What is Truth? All of it is truth. And none of it. All of us make up humanity, not one group or the other, and certainly not one individual or the other. When we lose our sense of community and commonality, society falls apart. That's when civilizations crumble.

While we need many medicines to cure the ills of our country, the best medicine is compromise. But that medicine doesn't seem to be available. So we will continue our way to dusty death, another empire fallen, because the people are too lazy to care, to unwilling to try, to scared to move, and too brainwashed by propaganda.

So what's your choice? Are you going to fall victim to propaganda? Do you buy things because you've seen ads for them? Do you vote for a particular candidate because you've watched political speeches? Are you smart enough to discern the difference between propaganda and real ideas?

Most likely not. Of course, you won't know that YOU are the problem. It's always someone else who's stupid, not you, right? That's why propaganda exists - because it's easy to dupe people into following a trend. It's why Apple products are popular, why women started smoking, why Americans discarded public transportation for cars, why Nazism and Communism rose to power, and why we eat bacon and eggs for breakfast.


By the way, the Republican god Ronald Reagan appointed three justices (and moved Rehnquist to Chief Justice) - Scalia, O'Connor, and Kennedy. While Scalia was definitively conservative, the other two were moderates who didn't succumb to ideology over jurisprudence. Now, Republicans only accept ideologue candidates, because it's about power and institutionalizing their ideology. It's total contempt for our democracy, and subversively fascist. Disgusting.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Juice recipes and the American recipe for disaster

Chris's brother-in-law (and sister) gave me a Nutri Ninja for Christmas. I have used it every day since. I had been wanting a juicer/food processor for awhile, and this model is both. For his family Christmases, I like to ask for something that will benefit us both; last year was a crockpot (which is awesome. I'm cooking tonight's dinner right now!)

Chris has some health issues, so I wanted something that could help in that regard. I have been making him two juices a day, sometimes three, as well as using the Ninja to make sauces or to chop up veggies for meals. (I say juice - you might say smoothie.) For the first couple of days, I was guided by the recipe book that came with the device; now I'm pretty much on my own, though every now and then I like to get ideas online. Juice Recipes.com is a great resource, especially the section for health conditions where you can find recipes to match whatever ailment you may have.

We live a block away from a Harris Teeter, which we usually visit every day in winter so we have fresh food. (I go to Eastern Market farmers market in the warm months.)  I've never been one for processed foods, as all the evidence points to this as the culprit for the myriad of health epidemics this country faces, including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Obesity is a national health crisis, not something to be glorified or excused. Fat pride is among the most ridiculous of movements this country has ever experienced. We might as well celebrate cancer.

That being said, the health crisis in this country did not start off as the fault of the people. That blame lies with the food industry that started pouring artificially made chemicals into food to preserve it so people wouldn't have to go to the grocery every day.  (This is an inconvenience because Americans isolated themselves into suburbs, where no markets are allowed except in stripmalls.) Perhaps their original intention was good, but as we learned more about what these chemicals were doing to our bodies, they turned a blind eye as the profits rolled in.  Now we're letting corporations like Monsanto engineer deadly chemicals into the seeds that grow our food, and it's killing off the pollinators, not to mention what it must be doing to our DNA. But if you say something, you're labeled a "liberal" by those who are profiting and by the sheep that have been suckered by them. Health is not a "liberal" or "conservative" issue. (Although I'm starting to think that only one of those groups is human, and it's not the latter.)

Thankfully, Americans are starting to wake up. Farmers markets have sprung up across the country, even in places where the corn industry rules (the industry that stands to lose the most if Americans start eating fresh foods again.) Juicers are all the rage, and we're eating weird things like quinoa and kale, foods no American had heard of twenty years ago.

I try to make one antioxidant loaded juice and one vitamin C loaded juice a day. I put one cup of kale, a teaspoon of chia seeds, a teaspoon of beet powder, and a teaspoon of turmeric into each one. Why?

Kale has every vitamin imaginable, including Vitamin K, folic acid (B9), fiber, magnesium, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C. It lowers cholesterol, is high in antioxidants, helps with blood clotting, and may help fight cancer. It's gross raw (anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying to be trendy or has no tastebuds), but you can't taste it when it's mixed into juices. Personally, I prefer spinach, which is higher in some nutrients than kale but lower in others, but kale is cheaper and we eat spinach during meals.

Chia seeds are a good source of omega-3, fiber, antioxidants, and magnesium and a teaspoon has 3g of protein. We're getting the same amount of protein as a serving of nuts in each of these juices, partly due to the chia seeds. I have no idea the relationship between these seeds and the chia pets.

Beets strengthen liver function, improve cognition, boost the immune system, and lower blood pressure. One teaspoon of beet powder equals one beet. Research into beets as a treatment for Alzheimer's is promising.

Turmeric has anti-inflammatory, antioxidants, and anticancer potential, especially liver cancer. The curative powers of a chemical in turmeric called curcumin are promising.

Much of the research on these foods is inconclusive, but studies have shown potential, and since none of these influences the taste of the juice, I always include these four ingredients.

As for the others, this is what I try to keep on hand and how much I use (each juice requires a liquid):

Solids:

bananas - I almost always use a half per juice
apples - when used, a fourth of a cup
pears - a fourth of a cup (use instead of apple)
mangos - a fourth of a cup
avocado - usually use the whole thing. (Is the fruit named after lawyers or are lawyers named after the fruit? Ha. Here's the actual story of the name.)
Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries - one fourth to one half a cup, depending on what else is in there, fresh or frozen
peaches - a half a cup, fresh or frozen (When you use peaches, the flavor is dominant.)
grapes - a fourth of a cup (excellent source of liquid, too.)
cherries - I've only used frozen, and they are awesome. A half a cup. Goes well with pomegranate juice
carrot - half, doesn't add to flavor, full of vitamin A
butternut squash - half a cup
yogurt - plain or vanilla, usually Greek, four ounces (under solid because still requires a liquid, otherwise, too thick)
ginger - tablespoon-sized slice, don't even need to peel it, flavor dominates
seedless orange- use one whole one
pineapple, fresh or frozen - fourth of a cup
nuts - almonds, pistachios, walnuts - an eighth of a cup

Liquids:

pomegranate juice - usually four ounces, sometimes eight
coconut water - eight ounces. I use this the most. Loaded with potassium.
coconut milk - eight ounces. Excellent source of vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, folate (B9)
almond milk - four to eight ounces
kefir (yogurt drink, better for juices than yogurt) - four to eight ounces
green tea - freshly brewed. Another "superfood" loaded with antioxidants
apple sauce - four ounces, sometimes requires additional liquid
juice from a lemon

Spices:

nutmeg - goes well with almond milk
cardamom powder - goes well with almond milk, butternut squash, apple, apple sauce
cinnamon - goes well with apple, apple sauce, or butternut squash
agave nectar - instead of sugar, used to sweeten if necessary
honey - instead of sugar, used to sweeten if necessary
unsweetened cocoa powder - goes well with almond milk, vanilla yogurt, needs agave nectar to sweeten

I also like to use the frozen fruit to make the juice cold. A couple of pieces will do.

Fortunately, I'm in a position to be able to afford these foods. They are mostly expensive if you're on a limited budget, and that's ridiculous. I look at the price tags and see "WIC approved" on selected produce (but not all, which is also ridiculous) and wonder if low income folks have to choose a couple of fruits a week when I buy them all. And then there's the veggies, the broccoli and asparagus and spinach and kale and cauliflower and zucchini and carrots and beans...If this country didn't grow so much damn corn, instead growing foods we can eat (most corn goes into the production of livestock feed, biofuels, or high fructose corn syrup, the drug of the nation), the price of produce would go down. We are a very cornfused nation.

Food - just another of the many lessons I learned from traveling.