Truth and The Right

Lying is not a new phenomenon in public discourse (read, "politics"), any more than it is new to our human species. In fact, one of my professors told our class, by way of discussing the origins of human language, that one theory is that language was invented to allow lying.

And I have sometimes imagined, as a "thought experiment" (a term used by physicists), that perhaps, if mankind were to make contact with another intelligent species, that species might turn out to have no concept of lying and to be in fact incapable of it. Or, imagine what our world would be like if there were no lying. We are lied to not only by politicians and the like but, sadly, by our preachers and teachers (let's hope that they are not knowingly lying to us but that they believe what they are saying).

And the problem is not simply that mankind is capable of lying, but that those on the audience end believe what that hear and read. A good education--evidently a rare thing--teaches people to be critical. It's a lesson that badly needs to be learned but is seldom or not easily learned. I used to berate my (college) students for being uncritical. I would say, "I could stand up here and say 'Black is white' and it would just go mechanically into your ears, down your arms, through your pens and onto your paper."

I have blogged before about the fact that the Right disseminates a lot of misinformation (or, as I guess the new word is, dysinformation). Just as a couple examples, in a recent PBS (public television) program on John McCain (a very prominent US politician, long-serving US Senator from Arizona and opponent to Barack Obama in our presidential elections), there were scenes where a McCain supporter held a sign about his willingness to personally and physically protect his grandparents. What was that about? I believe it referred to the idea--eventually proved false--that so-called Obamacare (more formally called the Affordable Care Act) was going to promote the euthanasia of sick old people. Another lie in the same TV program was when McCain was speaking one-on-one with a woman who said, of Obama, "He's a--a--Arab," meaning, I'll assume, a Muslim. This was another lie spread by the Right (and McCain, being truly a very decent and principled man, told the woman that that was false).

Who spreads these lies? I think a main channel is conservative radio and TV commentators, but nowadays dysinformation is being spread on the Internet, on web sites, and--as we have recently learned, in a bit of a scandal--via social media such as Facebook.

There is also email. A high school classmate of mine, at one point, was forwarding to me Right-wing propaganda.  I call it propaganda because it was false and I could pretty easily learn that it was false--yet these emails had been forwarded many, many times before reaching me. And how many times were they received and read and believed?

And in the 2016 presidential election, as we know, there was wrong information being spread via Facebook, so-called "alt-right" media, and by candidates.

I am thinking mainly of Donald Trump here.  The New York Times reported that, in the course of calendar year 2017 (and thus not even during the presidential campaign), they caught Trump lying 1300 times. That's about four lies per day, right?

Is Trump an evil man who is coldly and calculatingly trying to deceive his audience (which, these days, must be taken to be the whole world)? That's not clear. Sometimes he may be voicing what is simply an incorrect statistic or other incorrect information (how that might happen might itself be a question to think about).

I'm someone who pretty generally tries to give the Devil his due. So I'm willing to say this: It may very well be that Trump genuinely believes he's doing what is best for the country. However--and there has to be a very big "however"--we must think about what Trump sees as "the country." I have to think that, in Trump's eyes, "the country" is pretty much equivalent to what we've come to call "the one percent"--that is, Trump's rich friends, those who own and control business (and politics) in the United States.

Thus, Trump talks about "getting the EPA off our backs." By this he means relieving or alleviating the "burden" of regulation on businesses under, for example, The Clean Water Act, which Trump has nullified. This means businesses can operate with less care (and cost) due to regulations on, for example, their pouring pollutants into our rivers and streams. Yes, better for Business--but not better for America's children who might be made ill, stunted, deformed by drinking water contaminated with harmful chemicals.

Copyright © 2018 by Richard Stein

Beware TV Ads

Watch much TV? Do you view those irritating ads for products you order by phone, or by going to a web site? Here are some marketing practices that you should be aware of.

It's become common for these ads to offer you (for example), a second what-ever-it-is for free; "just pay separate fee."

First, I don't know how much that "separate fee" is likely to amount to, but you should consider that, with this fee, it's not actually free.

Second, consider this: Say the item costs $19.99 and the second one is "free." I think you should understand the offer this way: The item really costs $10 each but you are being forced to buy two of them.

And then, have you noticed that all prices are "just such-and-such an amount" or "only. . ."? This is a bit of psychology practiced upon you by the merchandiser, trying to make you think (usually unconsciously) that the offering price is low, cheap, a bargain. Maybe a little less subtle is when they say "For the amazing low price of . . . ." Or they imply that the price is lower than formerly. Probably you can't verify that, and I suspect it's most likely not true.

Another trick to make you think the price is a good one is when the screen shows a price with a big red "X" through it and then a lower price, meaning (again) that the price has been reduced. Again, be suspicious of this.

Sometimes, if the price is for some cosmetic is, say, $39.95, maybe you are getting two or three items and the ad will say, "A $170 value." There is no way you can verify that and you should consider it totally phony and made-up.

For more expensive items, it might be something like, "For just five easy payments of $29.99 each." (Note the inevitable "just.") First, I suspect they don't expect you to multiply the amount of the payment by the number of payments to determine the total cost you'll be paying. Face it, you're lazy, and maybe also not good at mental math. And, sometimes the screen will show (for example) five payments, which (again) is crossed out by a big red "X", and then it's four payments--again to make you think you're getting a price reduction and a bargain.

Are these TV offers ever a good deal, or at least reasonable? In one case I compared the TV price with the price for the same item on Amazon. The same.

Sometimes the items advertised on TV--even if the ad says "Not sold in stores"--are in fact available in stores. For example, Bed, Bath & Beyond carries many "As Seen on TV" items--and if you buy the item from BB&B, you won't pay the shipping charge, though you may have to add sales tax to the price.

I frankly don't know whether, buying from TV vendors, you get an okay product, or reasonably fast shipping (the ads often say "Allow 4 —6 weeks for delivery"), or whether you get ripped off on the shipping charges. That's because I've never ordered from a TV ad; I'm too cautious. Though I have occasionally bought "as seen on TV" products, and I would not generalize to say that they are no good.

A final word: A lot of what I say here may be pretty obvious to the more shrewd among us, but, judging from how frequently I hear on the news of scams and so on that people fall for, I do have to believe that, if not actually stupid, my fellow man sometimes is naive, incautious, or just not critical.

Update, May 16, 2018:  Another device may be subtle (well, maybe they're all subtle). "You may qualify" for a hearing aid or for their life insurance. Qualify? To be sold something? You bet you qualify, as long as your money is good. They want to make you think you're lucky that they're willing to let you buy their product; but who really is the lucky party when you shell out your money, you or they?
Added, July 17, 2019: Yes, that is the tactic of a vendor of hearing aids. They make you think you are lucky if you are "accepted" into their 30-day trial period to "evaluate" their revolutionary new hearing aid. But if you are smart you will recognize it's simply "we sell, you buy."
Also, you can dial the number shown on your TV screen to learn about extra benefits that maybe not all Medicare beneficiaries (What, not me? Horrors!) may be receiving. It really is just about an insurance agent on the other end of the phone line who wants to sell you their particular health insurance scheme.

© 2018 by Richard Stein

Jews in Spain, 1492

It's unusual for Mourning Dove Hill to give you a little history lesson, but here it is, without further apology:

The year 1492 was a momentous year, and not only because, as we are all taught in school, "Columbus discovered America" in that year (actually, in his first voyage, in that year, Columbus made land on an island in the Caribbean, and not on the mainland of North America).

Also in that year, Queen Isabella of Castile married King Ferdinand of Aragon, thus uniting the two largest Christian kingdoms of Spain.¹ That permitted the new, larger and stronger, Spanish kingdom to complete the so-called Reconquista, or reconquest of Spain by Christian kingdoms from the Muslim Moors, who had been controlling an ever-shrinking domain in Spain for centuries.

Again in that year, and not coincidentally, an edict was issued by Ferdinand and Isabella concerning the Jews who, under the Moorish rulers, had lived in peace and, in fact, more than mere toleration (in most kingdoms and at most times). The Jews were given an ultimatum: convert or get out. (Actually and practically speaking, there was a third choice: do neither and be tortured to death--possibly burned at the stake--by the Inquisition. Some Jews submitted to a conversion that was not completely sincere and thus became so-called crypto-Jews or, as the Christian Spaniards called them, "Marranos," which translates as 'pigs'. The term was also used of Muslim converts to Christianity.)

(The Muslims were also promised toleration but, some 30 years later, under King Charles II, they were similarly forced to convert or get out.)

The Jews of Spain, known as Sephardim, spread to many countries including North Africa, Turkey, and throughout the Middle East--all the lands that were then the Ottoman Empire. They brought with them a language of their own, derived from Spanish and known as Ladino or Judeo-Spanish. Ladino traditionally was written with the Hebrew alphabet, and it might be said that Ladino is to Spanish as Yiddish is to German.

_________________________

¹ As I originally wrote this, it may not be accurate. I now believe Ferdinand and Isabella were married in 1469 and united their kingdoms in 1492. The Jews were ordered to leave or convert three months later.

²One exception is that there was a massacre of Jews in 1391. 

I apologize for not being confidently in command of my facts here. I invite any reader to research these historical facts and offer a correction to anything I wrote which is not accurate.

© 2018 by Richard Stein