Russian Trolling

This post reminds me of this joke.

Curious about what's going on in Russia these days, though I don't have any good sources for reliable news. Just seems they've been underreporting their covid cases, and they didn't have as many people in the first place. (Plus, iirc Russia also has an aging problem. As well as a huge problem with alcoholism, mostly the men I think.)

Also have heard China's had some flooding or a dam breaking or something. Maybe.

Again, accurate reports are hard to find. 

Worth a Read

An interesting look at some systemic issues behind our problems in Afghanistan. 

The Software Industry Gets Away With A Lot

Could you imagine if car manufacturers treated they're new product lines the way tech companies do?

'Oh, your new Ford Pinto caught on fire? Too bad, so sad... You accepted this really long and arcane set of terms and conditions stating that you won't hold us liable. Good luck with your next car!'

(for today's motivation for this post, read this thread, actually... It started here.) 

Mad

I saw a post on Facebook, and initially passed it by the way I usually do when it's a bunch of people I don't agree with, but don't really know and don't see any good coming from trying to educate.

But it really bothered me, especially the more I think about it, so I'll vent here a bit.

The post was about Afghanistan, and given today's attack and the loss of life anger is reasonable. So no, I don't want to try and argue that everything is fine. It's not.

But some of the commenters were also talking positively about Trump, and here's the thing - 

Even aside from all the glowing promises he failed to deliver on (infrastructure, and Republicans had control of the Senate and House his first two years. The wall, where he stole money from the pentagon, the wall that's already falling down, and the wall that honestly was a lousy idea for reasons I posted about before - put up sensors and have a quick reaction force, and other such things, The fucking pandemic. Which even if you've fallen for the propaganda hard, you ought to remember he claimed would just 'disappear'. Oh, and the Kurds he abandoned.)...

Even if you ignore all of that, he fucking lied about the election. For MONTHS. And he's still lying!

He lied, and held a rally pretending that the vice president could change the results, on a day that should have been ceremonial, and the events on the 6th of Jan happened.

That right there should make anybody who actually cares about this country furious. It really boggles my mind that so many people want to just shrug and move on.

That undermined our entire system, and I'm sick and tired of people still acting like that PoS is worth supporting. Or even listening to.

Hate on Biden all you want. He's got a tough job to do and seems to be doing it as best he can, so I'm not really going to complain.

But you would have to find someone a helluva lot worse before I'd even consider Trump.

He should fade into obscurity and never be heard from again. 

Shareholders and Economics

I thought this was an interesting read, though I can't really judge the accuracy of their argument. 

A Media Post

 After writing about the media response to the current situation in Afghanistan, I felt I should go into a bit more detail.

It's just that I'm not sure where to start.

I feel like anything I write would mostly be based off my rules of thumb, guesses, assumptions, and observations... and rather short on fact.

Plus, well... I don't watch cable news. Ever. I haven't done so in years, maybe even a decade or more. It started because I hated being at the mercy of whatever story they wanted to tell (I did not need 24 hr coverage of Anna Nicole Smith, thank you very much), plus the way that they would fill up air time with pretty much nothing. 

With online articles I could read whatever caught my interest, and follow up with new information when a new article came out. 

As for online news... I do favor what I consider credible sources, but even there you still have to use your head to sort through the opinion, framing, and spin. And, well... the paywalls mean that I limit myself on some of the bigger names. (NYTimes, for example. There's only a limited number of free articles so I really have to be interested in the story to click. I suppose I could get a subscription, but I'd probably need multiple subscriptions - Washington Post, The Economist, etc - and that adds up. If we weren't dealing with the squeezing of the middle class and we all had a bit more spending money I suspect they'd see more subscriptions from people like me. That, btw, is also a classic example of why failing to pay workers in accordance with inflation means there's less people willing to spend money on things. In a consumer society you'd think they'd realize their hurting themselves, but alas the potential future economic growth isn't enough to make businesses pay their people more. We saw that with Henry Ford already.)

The other odd thing about the media is that we all have this idea of what it should be. i.e. fact-based reporting on important issues, willing to do in-depth investigations that speak truth to power and bring problems to light, etc. etc.

Except I know a little bit about history, and I'm aware that that's there's a lot of history where that didn't happen. 

I suppose there's always been an element of information warfare there, and given the current mess with bots and trolls and people deliberately trying to manipulate the news it might be worth trying to read about more historical examples. If I can find a good book recommendation. (No promises on when I'd get to it though. I truly do have an ever expanding list of books that I want to read.)

So take this for what it's worth from someone who doesn't watch any sort of cable news, and only occasionally reads the news articles from major publications. (Which does beg the question of where and how, exactly, I learn anything. I'm not sure how to explain that though... I like using a news aggregator to get a sense of the big issues news junkies are talking about. Mostly the headlines. And if I'm interested in a topic I'll try to dig up multiple sources. Maybe read two or three articles or blog posts about it, see what people are saying on Facebook and Twitter, check out a fact-checking site... it just depends on the issue and sources available. I consider certain sources unreliable enough that I don't bother with them, though. I try to have a diverse feed, but tbh the conservative side has gotten so bad that it's hard to find counterbalancing opinions worth reading.)

So anyways. Media is biased. I don't think that's really debatable right now. The issue is 'how'?

Conservatives claim there's a liberal bias, liberals claim there's a conservative bias (see 'Hillary's e-mails'), and tbh I don't think it's quite so clearly one or the other.

It's more like... most mainstream media represents 'the establishment', however you want to define that. And some of the reporters do seem to have a liberal bias, but a lot of their editors and whatever-the-position-is-called within the organization seem to have a conservative one. Let's also not forget that Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. I do not know how much influence he exerts over that, and whether that means the Washington Post won't ever write anything critical of Amazon (though it seems rather likely.)

'The Establishment' is a handy term that isn't very well defined, kind of like the powers-that-be, but it doesn't necessarily mean there's some group of people chilling in a cigar smoke-filled room plotting how to divide potential opposition and support the status quo. 

It's more like - the people who get into these positions tend to socialize with each other and gain a common understanding of the world around them. That shared view has biases and inaccuracies that they really don't question (like this idea that poor people are lazy and you need to keep them hungry in order to get them to work for you. Practically a recipe for terrible leadership, but good luck convincing the people who believe it to question it.)

So there does seem to be an element of groupthink, and I normally do follow the 'never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence' rule of thumb... but that isn't quite enough to explain things.

After all, there's documented evidence of business owners using agencies like the Pinkertons to break up strikes. Just like there's documented evidence of the feds trying to disrupt the Civil Rights Movement.

Thus there really are people with money and power who use the tools at their disposal to tackle anything they consider a threat. (The long term negative consequences of that are not so clear to them, or they wouldn't keep doing it.)

It's hard to say for sure what all is going on today - information truly is a prized commodity, it seems. But I have heard of people hiring agencies to, as one example, push internet links they don't like to the bottom of search engine results. 

And, ofc, there's all those nasty bots and trolls trying to manipulate public discourse.

There do seem to be some people who are capable of influencing the media (i.e. Hillary's team seemed to consistently have some sort of fluff piece saying good things about her immediately after any sort of negative reporting. Ofc, given that she lost in 2016 that doesn't necessarily mean such efforts can force the results they want. Any more than a bot army, or whatever we want to call that since I think some of those actually have real people paid to spread lies. It's important to address sources of misinformation, but we shouldn't give them more weight than they really have. Example - most of the posters that I suspect are paid to argueTrump took covid seriously are rather laughable. It's such a ridiculous rewriting of the last year and a half.)

So anyways. The thing about Afghanistan, and Biden,  is there was an article I can't seem to find now, that basically said anybody who disagreed with the line they were pushing wasn't asked to give their opinions on the news. In other words, they weren't even trying to get 'both sides', or cover it in depth. They seemed to want to run with 'Biden has hopelessly screwed up in Afghanistan'.

Which, well... first of all foreign policy has almost never registered with the average American. I mean, I care... but I'm kind of weird like that. The perpetually online news junkies I tend to see on twitter care... veterans care...

But most Americans barely even remembered we had a presence there. Sure, it looks bad now and Biden's ratings took a hit, but I seriously doubt it's going to matter once the news cycle moves on. 

I'm not sure how much of that illustrates the difference between the news junkies and 'establishment' types vs the average American. (What was that quote about Biden's speech? 95% of the establishment will hate it, 95% of Americans will appreciate it? Says something about the discrepancy.)

I am not sure why the mainstream media would be so determined to push that story line, though. It doesn't seem like the thing the 'liberal media' would do. (I did see someone speculate that they were thrilled to be able to criticize Biden for something, to try and show they weren't biased and were holding him accountable or something. Idk, it's the kind of thing where I can see some patterns but don't really know the underlying causes.)

There do seem to be some darker, more malicious forces at play... the consistent efforts to undermine trust in the vaccine, and covid prevention protocols, demonstrate that. I'm just not too sure who's behind it, and why. I can speculate about it plenty, but without facts it gets a little too close to conspiracy theory for comfort. 

The thing is, I know and have seen the disinformation army at work. It exists. And that makes it easy to make assumptions about who is behind the coordinated effort we're seeing. That they are essentially getting people killed proves it's malicious. That some of their same arguments come out of the mouths of conservative politicians implies some coordination (one day I saw multiple accounts suddenly making the claim that covid was rising in Florida because Biden was secretly sending illegal immigrants there, and it was only a day or two later that DeSantis rather publicly made a milder version.)  

So. Malicious disinformation, probably but not necessarily in coordination with conservative 'leaders' like DeSantis.

Seriously, we're under attack. It's just not a kinetic strike. (I can say that as a blogger with no consequence, but I would hope our national security team is thinking long and hard on how to address it. Hopefully without escalating it into a more physical confrontation.)

The attack on Biden's Afghanistan efforts seems... somewhat connected, but I'm not entirely sure. Especially since it's hard to believe the more credible news agencies would be on board with that.

It could just be something about the way their businesses make money. (I understand they want the stories people will click on, but I'm generally not the target audience for that. Otherwise we wouldn't consistently have wall-to-wall coverage on topics I couldn't care less about.)

I'm not really sure what I'm getting at with all this. There's far too much I don't know, and too much of the current milieu is hidden. 

That's a large part of why I wish I could see the history books that will be written after a lot of whatever is going on has been declassified and open to historians.

 

Also

Frustrated that law enforcement doesn't take white supremacy seriously, or see the massive threat they pose to America.

Afghanistan

For the most part, I haven't wanted to write anything further on Afghanistan. Like I said in my earlier post, it's been well over a decade since I was there.

However, there are things about the news coverage that bother me.

First, I know a little about what's required for that operation. I helped my division deploy to Iraq back in 2004, and there was a lot of work involved in coordinating that movement. Granted, Afghanistan is landlocked so there's no sea port or ships to coordinate, but flights are also quite complex, and this was when we had months to prepare, a decent time range to move everyone over, and SAMS graduates helping.

I'm sure the agreements we have with allies for refueling and layovers don't necessarily apply to refugee flights without coordination, either.

I can not even imagine what it'd be like to coordinate all that (plus what to do with them once they're out, and the food and housing and processing they'll need) in a frenzied rush, for civilians with no real chain of command to work with.

That's a large part of why I refrain from judging. Sure, it looks bad right now... And I hope everyone gets taken care of with a minimum of pain and suffering. But this is a major logistical operation, and I don't know enough to point fingers.

Which is part of why I find our news coverage so disturbing.

Sure, logistics is boring... And the media wants to make money, so ofc they like drama.

But the ferocity with which they launched a 'Biden screwed everything up' seems a bit sus.

I'll probably post something later, trying to puzzle out what's bothering me... For now I have work to do. 

The Right Connections

I saw this tweet today mentioning the importance of having the 'right' connections, background, degrees, and it reminded me of something I don't think I got around to posting.

In Princess Weiyoung, the main character is impersonating the daughter of the Prime Minister, and ends up in a rather long and drawn out power struggle with the Prime Minister's first wife and children.

The way the mother and her daughter are portrayed is particularly interesting, to me at least. Because while they definitely show some psychopathic tendencies (like starting a fire to target Weiyoung, not caring who else might suffer in the process) you also kind of get their motivations, and almost have to admire them. At times. Even though they are quite clearly villains in the show.

Anyways, I think a bit about how the people around them enable their behavior. The Prime Minister, for example. The loyal servants, who are aware and support their mistresses.

And the Crown Princess, who only seems to see the facade - the connections, 'right' background, etc - and doesn't truly investigate when the daughter lies to her face. (This also reminds me of an article that said Bernie Madoff got away with his shenanigans because he seemed to have the right background. People with money trusted that, and thus trusted him when they shouldn't have). 

Its basically classism. This idea that coming from the right family, or right school, or whatever somehow makes someone a better choice.

And it's also BS, the kind that lets abusers and liars get away with their behavior. 

Fictional Theologies

 The Curse of Chalion has become one of my comfort reads. I don't really want to go into the why's and wherefore's, but I came across a passage I wanted to share here. So I suppose I have to give at least a little background.

Fantasy novels often worldbuild, and how they handle religion is a huge component for it. For the most part I don't really care about that... they're stories, and if sometimes a world has gods and goddesses that seem mostly to be just superpowered humans, well. That's what a lot of Greek and Roman mythology was. (and, in fact, quite a few stories use those gods and goddesses in particular. Like Percy Jackson.)

Others will have pseudo-Christianity, though some is more blatant than others. (You have to read the Silmarillion to discover Tolkien had a rather elaborate Genesis story, and that the names the elves mention are more like archangels and that Gandalf, in fact, is an angel himself.) 

Some have actual Christianity, to various degrees. (Someone said the Harry Dresden books actually portray Christian theology rather well.)

I think portraying deities is one of the harder parts of writing a story. Have them interact too directly and you risk having too many 'Deus ex Machina' plot devices. It can be nice to have more direct contact then we see in real life, but you don't want to overdo it. The opposite extreme is also... well, it won't necessarily ruin the story. You can have them be distant and inaccessible and just come up with some of the philosophical and socio-cultural elements that may influence your world. But that's not really portraying a deity so much as worldbuilding.

So anyways, the Curse of Chalion is a fantasy world with five gods and goddesses, and does one of the better jobs of portraying them.

Actually, what I like is that the characters have these encounters... and they are generally left confused and uncertain, and yet somehow (as it's storytelling with a happy ending) figure it out. 

Anyways, I think I want to share the passage (or maybe break it up and mix up the order and share two) and discuss it a bit before going further. 

Umegat inverted his clay cup upon the cloth. "Men's will is free. The gods may not invade it, any more than I may pour wine into this cup through its bottom."

"No, don't waste the wine!" Cazaril protested, as Umegat reached for the jug. "I've seen it demonstrated before."

Umegat grinned, and desisted. "But have you really understood how powerless the gods are, when the lowest slave may exclude them from his heart? And if from his heart, then from the world as well, for the gods may not reach in except through living souls. If the gods could seize passage from anyone they wished, then men would be mere puppets. Only if they borrow or are given will from a willing creature, do they have a little channel through which to act. They can seep in through the minds of animals, sometimes, with effort. Plants... require much foresight. Or" --Umegat turned his cup upright again, and lifted the jug--  sometimes, a man may open himself to them, and let them pour through him into the world." He filled his cup. "A saint is not a virtuous soul, but an empty one. He - or she - freely gives the gift of their will to their god."

 Obviously this is fictional theology, and shouldn't necessary have anything to do with the real world... but I really like the point it makes about free will. About how we can open a channel and allow God to work through us. 

And I like that the people are are doing this are not somehow having God whisper in their ear, removing all uncertainty and doubt. It's more like upheaval and change, upsetting all their plots and plans. (There was some thing going around on twitter the other day about the Wiccan community trying to hex the Taliban, and really I think  the bit in the Bible from Matthew 5:44 is more appropriate. "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" not so much because you're so benevolent and saintly, but because if God comes and disrupts their life it's a blessing that acts a bit like a curse anyway. And ultimately for the better. Like yes... I shall pray for the people  I sometimes call assholes here, and fools. Because if God reaches through to them they'll probably start hearing that blasted inner voice that starts making them question what the hell they're doing and why they're doing it. And if they listen and hear it they'll probably wind up having to leave their asshole ways behind. And really, that's far more disruptive... and ultimately better for everyone... than any hex.)

And yes, I know that's all sorts of mixed messages. "Let me curse them with my blessings" 

That's sort of the dynamic captured by this book, and the other books and novellas in this particular setting.

 

Various Ramblings

Someone commented on one of my facebook posts, and I realized yet again what a terrible medium most social media is for sharing ideas. 

I mean, I still do. Sometimes. But if the fox and the hedgehog analogy is true, I am most definitely a fox. And it's hard to go into the nuances, details, and all the grey areas in a forum where people want a quick little meme and articles or videos that take 5 minutes or less.

I've come up with my own rules of thumb for what I post, and they're far too complicated to explain in detail. (Plus I used 'rules of thumb' because I'm making them up as I go along, and can't guarantee every post follows them.)

It has been hard, lately. I've been following covid the way I have for the last year... and it's getting ugly. But the vast majority of the public doesn't want to hear it.

Which I get. It's been over a year now and we're all tired of it. I am very glad that I visited my family shortly after getting vaccinated, and did a whole bunch of other things... because now it's time to tighten back up again. My county positivity rate, as just one example, hit 12% the other day. I don't think it rose above 8% the entire year prior, though don't quote me. And this is in a college town in Illinois, where many people actually have been masking and taking precautions. 

I've seen some of the reports from hospitals in Florida. Texas. Alabama. And the pediatric wards. But opinions have grown entrenched, and the ones who most need to hear it... won't. (At least some of them are family.)

But I don't want to trod that well worn path right now. 

What does bother me are the larger systemic forces. Some of whom I've referred to as 'bad faith actors'. I haven't formally been researching this sort of thing, so you'd have to refer to the various articles out there - they do exist - to get the facts and figures. But I have noticed things.

For example, I've been running a twitter search on Florida covid for almost a year now, and it's rather noticeable when one day multiple accounts will start pushing the exact. same. line.

To me, that tends to indicate some level of coordination. A determined push. And yes, many of them are common names with a string of random numbers (often a sign of a bot or troll account.)

I saw that happen right before DeSantis made his speech alleging that Florida's horrendous growth in covid cases was because of illegal immigrants.(I've also seen a number of such accounts trying to reframe the entire past year and a half, and make it sound like Trump was the one who took covid seriously.)

It would be laughable, if the anti-vax and anti-mask movement didn't offer concrete proof of how harmful it can be.

Which brings us back to one of the more common questions of the day. "What do we do when around a third of the population falls for deliberate misinformation campaigns?"

I am not looking forward to the next couple of months. Oh, perhaps we'll see a precipitous decline (like South Dakota in November). I've been trying to keep an eye out for that... Missouri has shown a little bit of a decline, but I would like to see it continue over the next week or two before I'll consider it a real trend. And vaccination rates are going up, which is promising. 

But despite what's going on in the hospitals, people are reluctant to take precautions... and schools are just starting. (Some have been open a week or two already, and had to go remote almost as soon as they started. But here school started just Friday. At least, the high school my Little attends.)

There's a part of me that is deeply angry about all this. About the unnecessary losses. About the people who deliberately encouraged others not to get vaccinated, not to mask up, not to take precautions. 

And more, that the system continues to overlook and ignore it. That there's a coordinated effort to convince people not to take the vaccine (and to take a stupid de-worming pill instead!) and it's getting people killed... and hardly anything is being done.

The forces behind this have proven to be nefarious. They're pretty much everything I've said indicates they shouldn't even come close to holding power, because they're willing to encourage mass death and suffering in order to get whatever the hell it is they're trying to do. "The ends justifies the means" is the way villains think, and that's pretty much the logic here.

I think part of what's so maddening is that it feels like they're getting away with it. Or worse, might actually succeed. I don't know exactly what I would do if that seemed likely, but I can assure you that it wouldn't be nothing. 

I dislike black and white thinking on principle, and have to hold myself back from using the same sort of language these people are using... but they need to be defeated. Soundly. Thoroughly. 

They're a threat to everything we hold dear. (Which is also why it's so maddening that so many people don't seem to see it.)

Perhaps I need to do a better job of communicating just how and why that is? I mean, it seems so blatantly obvious that it's hard to find the words. I'm more stunned others don't see it, tbh.

Then again, the same holds true for the shrinking of the middle class, climate change, and other things. Boggles my mind that 'Very Serious People' who are supposed to be able to see the big picture don't see the problem. Or have too many incentives for preserving the status quo.

Mood

 

It fits so well, and I really appreciate that the last verse ends with the sense that this feeling is just... not permanent.

But I know that I'm open
And I know that I'm free
And I'll always let hope in
Wherever I'll be
And if I go blind I'll still find my way
I guess I just felt like
Giving up today

Sometimes it be that way. 

And that's fine, but we'll still find our way.

Fascinating Study On How New Ideas Spread

Ever since reading The Tipping Point I've loosely paid attention to how ideas are actually spread,so naturally I found this article interesting.

Sharing A Tweet

I wanted to share this tweet whole:

"I'm a believer in the long arc, too, with the caveat that the arc didn't bend itself. My hope comes from the work. The opposite of hope is cynicism, hopelessness, which paralyzes us. As Rebecca Solnit wrote, hope is the commitment to the future that makes our present in habitable. "

Things seem so terrible right now that it's hard to believe anything we do can make a difference. But that's another one of the lessons about social dilemmas

That is, when you think nothing can be done (like in the tragedy of the commons, if you're certain everyone else is sneaking in an extra grazing animal or two, and that the commons will be overgrazed and you're doomed) it's easy to decide it doesn't matter. And that you should get what you can while you can.

In other words, you become part of the problem.

There are so many things I'm mad about, and I'm not really sure what I can do to make a difference. But giving up and deciding its hopeless doesn't actually help.

Change doesn't happen by magic, and we all have to do our part. (I just have to keep an eye out for what my part may be.) 

Afghanistan

There's a lot of discussion about Afghanistan today, for obvious reasons, but I hadn't really felt like posting about it. Partly because my thoughts are (as always) complicated.

Also because if there's one thing Iraq taught me it was how difficult it was to understand the situation when you're not there. And how fast the situation can change.

It's been about a decade since I was in Afghanistan. Helmand Province, to be more specific. So while I'm confident I know more than the average American, I would not claim to be an expert.

I've seen a variety of takes, from 'we were never going to succeed' (and what was the definition of success, anyway?) to a rather well written rebuttal (except what was our strategic interest there, too? Was it just to prevent another 9/11? Was it a modern version of the Great Game?) to all sorts of things.

I do mostly relate to the sense of sadness and feelings of worry. For the people left behind, and a country that has already been through too much.

But a decade ago I felt like we didn't really have the political will to do what we needed to, and half-assing something like that gives you the worst combination of possibilities. (it's also strange that so many news articles are acting like withdrawing was a terrible idea, but few of them were willing to actually risk anything to make a better option).

If you really want open-ended investment (and I understand why setting dates is also bad, since then the Taliban just knows how long they need to wait you out) please at least show you were willing to risk your life by deploying there.

But that's all... Broad overviews. It doesn't really get at the heart of the problem.

Which, I think, is that we have a pretty poor understanding of how to 'nation build', and so our efforts were often at cross purposes.

Oh, I've seen some people pointing fingers at the Afghan people. At the local forces we trained and the local government, who were supposed to step up so we could step back.

But I've said before that people are people. There's definitely unique cultural differences, but I don't think you can say any large swathe of humanity is more incompetent or cowardly or corrupt or whatever excuse you're making than any other.

It's a bit like how wealthy people blame poor people for their poverty and claim they're just 'lazy', instead of looking at themselves and the rather crappy leadership they display. (motivating people us part of leadership, and laziness and malingering is often a reaction to poor leadership. Maybe not your leadership, people are complicated and come with a variety of personal histories. But if you assume the worst of people you probably aren't doing anything to gain their trust and find a way to motivate them.)

There's rather a lot packed up in those claims, but I think I'd digress too much trying to dig into it right now. Let's just say that a local force that gives up and stands down as soon as we're not there to back them probably doesn't have any real reason to risk their lives. 

Afghanistan... 

Our involvement there brought up some of our own cognitive dissonance. Because on the one hand we're a large and powerful nation and we seem to think we can do things like nation building, and on the other hand we are very reluctant to be colonizers and imperialists enforcing our way of doing things. 

Hmmm, that's again overly simplistic. We're perfectly willing to enforce a system of voting, democracy if you will. But democracy is supposed to mean a system that reflects the will of the people, and if the will of a people (with no particular experience with that type of governance) is to do things we don't really like, we can't interfere without making a mockery of the system we're trying to put in place. Except even if we're trying to do that (and our current troubles make me question how much we really even understand democracy. Since far too many people don't seem willing to resolve our differences with elections, and seem bound and determined to throw that out if they would lose... Not seeming to realize that the alternative would be far uglier and likely to hurt a lot of people, themselves included) we still run into the problem of cultural differences. 

I think, sometimes, of how the British discouraged Indian widows from throwing themselves on their husband's funeral pyre. That was a commonly accepted cultural thing. Interfering is imperialistic and disrespectful of their culture, right? But... Women were dying. In our culture it's just wrong. 

Part of the reason Afghans didn't seem all that interested in dying for their government, at least in my admittedly inexpert opinion, was that said government seemed overly corrupt and wasn't really serving them. 

But corruption is part of how they do business (and I'm not sure how much I want to pass judgment on that, given the level of corruption we've recently demonstrated. The powers-that-be have benefited from the wiser decisions of their predecessors, and too many seem to have forgotten or lost all knowledge of the why's and wherefores of those decisions.) 

Anyways, a decade ago we didn't seem to really have the commitment to make the sorts of changes we'd have to in order to truly build a nation, but also didn't seem willing to give up and go home, so we just kind of kept doing what we were doing and hoping that if we gave the Afghan government enough time they could sort themselves out. 

It didn't seem to be happening, but I've admittedly lost touch with the situation over there. 

Obligations

I thought this post about Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar fit in rather well with my previous post.

Of particular note was the reminder here:

"Hagar. Hager, the stranger, as in

“The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love them as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:34)

and

“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress them, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:20) 

All those verses later on in Torah about our obligation to care for the non-citizen speak of hager, the stranger. Because we too were gerim—strangers—in Egypt. 

Again, it’s not subtle.  

It’s as though the Torah is telling us:

"Sarah didn’t learn from her own experiences of exploitation—on the contrary, she then harmed another woman in almost the exact same way when she gained some power.

The mere fact of experiencing oppression is sometimes insufficient for providing the necessary empathy for others. 

So, then, after the entire Israelite people endure profound oppression, we will have to spell out very clearly that harming others is unacceptable.

Just in case suffering does not open you to empathy, to understanding of your obligation to care for vulnerable people, to the importance of wielding power responsibly, it will be made very, very explicit.” 

As a result, the Torah commands us at least thirty-six times—thirty-six! More than any commandment in the Torah--to love, care for, celebrate with, and treat-as-equals hager, the stranger/non-citizen who resides among us.

That's our job. To care for the vulnerable who came to us because home wasn't viable anymore."

On Billionaires and Butterflies, II

The whole caterpillar pillar/butterfly dynamic is also part of why I say that christian conservatives are on the wrong track.

When you think getting to the top (of the caterpillar pillar in the story) is the goal, you generally justify doing exactly what everyone else is.

You step on others, push and refuse to be pushed back, and so on and so forth.

By the time you reach the top, if you do get to the top, you are pretty much just like everyone else.

Sure, it might be nice for you. Lots of perks and privileges.

But you haven't made any systemic change, and while you are there (and when someone else inevitably topples you) you aren't really changing anything.

Its just that you're the one at the top.

Now, the path to becoming a butterfly is harder to explain, and I suspect everyone has their own path. But I do think that a lot about the Bible (aside from commandments to love one another, take care of the needy, etc) is about becoming butterflies.

It is a call to listen to that quiet inner voice, to open your hearts, to care for the strangers among us, pray for those who hurt you, and more.

The ones who think fighting to get to the top, to force us all to do 'what God wants' kind of seem to be going backwards.

If you look at where we're at after the last four or five years, people seem angrier, smaller, meaner, and pettier.

I think that's about as scathing an indictment of christian conservatives as you can get. 

I'm So Sick of These Fools

It's disgusting how much damage they're doing.