Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners


Quotes of the Day:

"The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done." 
- Arnold Palmer

 "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. ... Don't stop to marvel." 
- Albert Einstein from Life May 2, 1955, p.64.

 "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." 
- Helen Keller


1.  U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan face daunting, dangerous mission with little military backup
2. How a former Afghan interpreter became a US Army officer
3. ‘Everyone is dying’: Myanmar on the brink of decimation
4. According to a senior British military official, the United Kingdom will launch covert missions of its special forces against Russia and China
5. Japan’s Olympic security balancing act leaves few satisfied
6. [OPINION] Fighting the virus of lies
7. Facebook Tells Biden: ‘Facebook Is Not the Reason’ Vaccination Goal Was Missed
8. COVID-19 still killing Americans faster than guns, cars and flu combined
9. Two men charged over plot to blow up Sacramento Democratic headquarters
10. Disinformation experts doubt authenticity of leaked documents describing a Russian plot to help Trump in 2016
11. As Taliban surge, al-Qaeda poised for swift return
12. America’s Collapsing Meritocracy Is a Recipe for Revolt
13. Reporters Reveal 'Ugly Truth' Of How Facebook Enables Hate Groups And Disinformation
14. The Black Rifle Coffee NYT Interview Is A Courageous Journey Up The Arch Of The Moral Universe
15. Ten Conservative Principles



1.  U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan face daunting, dangerous mission with little military backup
Diplomats always have been and will continue to be in harm's way. But this is a different situation. We know the threat and our vulnerabilities. We had better ensure we provide excellent security for our diplomats.



U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan face daunting, dangerous mission with little military backup
The Washington Post · July 17, 2021
The conclusion of the Pentagon’s two-decade effort in Afghanistan lays bare the challenges facing U.S. diplomats and aid workers who remain behind, as a modest civilian force attempts to propel warring Afghans toward peace and protect advances for women without the support and reach provided by the military mission.
Current and former officials described an array of obstacles that a shrinking cadre of civilians in the bunkered U.S. Embassy in Kabul must navigate, with the coronavirus pandemic and the specter of a possible diplomatic evacuation compounding the significant difficulties inherent to working in Afghanistan.
“In the absence of a military complement in Kabul, the task of the U.S. Embassy is made infinitely more complex, dangerous and difficult,” said Hugo Llorens, who served as the top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan under presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
The diplomatic challenges have come into focus after President Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces by the end of August, a move that has emboldened the Taliban, which has intensified its campaign to retake lost ground, and deepened fears that the Kabul government could collapse.
Already a growing list of countries, including France and China, have evacuated their citizens from Afghanistan. Peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government show few signs of progress.
Biden this month defended his decision, saying Afghans must now defend their nation. He also vowed that the United States would not abandon Afghanistan, making the diplomatic and aid mission — in particular, U.S. support for local security forces and the plight of women and girls — a central test of the president’s strategy.
“The complexity of the operations in Afghanistan are orders of magnitude greater than virtually anywhere else,” said a former senior official with knowledge of the mission in Afghanistan, where insecurity, the country’s landlocked position in central Asia, its geography, intense poverty, and tribal and ethnic division all contribute to the cost and difficulty of the newly solitary civilian mission. Like others interviewed for this report, this person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing policymaking.
In the 20 years since the United States launched its first airstrikes in Afghanistan, the work of the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other civilian agencies has been largely overshadowed by the military mission, massively larger in scale, manpower and funding.
At the height of the “civilian surge” that accompanied Obama’s troop increase in 2010, aid workers and diplomats were arrayed at consulates and outposts across the country in an effort to lay the conditions for lasting security gains.
Even after that high-water mark, diplomats in Kabul benefited from the network of military bases and the presence of military aircraft, both enabling more frequent visits to far-flung outposts to review conditions on the ground and providing an additional channel of information from troops in the field.
The U.S. nation-building effort, which once included ambitious plans to modernize infrastructure and transform the country’s economy, is littered with examples of failure. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, an independent oversight entity established by Congress, at least $19 billion of the $134 billion American taxpayers spent on security, development and humanitarian aid since 2002 was lost due to waste, fraud and abuse — and potentially much more.
The assistance also contributed to major improvements for Afghans, including substantial reductions in infant and child mortality, and an increase in female life expectancy from 47 to over 60 years.
Today, diplomats and aid workers operate out of the hulking embassy complex in Kabul, located at the edge of a fortified diplomatic and government zone. The embassy is a city unto itself, with offices, apartments, dining and workout facilities where some 1,400 Americans, part of a total workforce of 4,000, are confined for months a time.
The military departure means reduced mobility for officials overseeing an assistance portfolio that made Afghanistan the largest recipient of U.S. aid in 2019, according to Concern Worldwide, increasing the difficulty of ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent as intended. USAID expects to spend up to $500 million on Afghanistan assistance in 2021.
Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said Afghan women are in danger of losing the advances in freedom and education they have achieved since 2001. “If things return to an all-out civil war among militias and Taliban forces, we fear a repetition of the atrocities of the early ’90s,” she said.
USAID has said it is planning for a range of scenarios, from a deterioration of security to a possible peace agreement. Although USAID and the groups it partners with frequently work under difficult conditions, the agency acknowledged in a statement that its operations “may become constrained depending on levels of violence and how the peace process unfolds.”
Officials say they have learned to rely on local aid groups or the local staff of international groups to operate in the most dangerous areas and have already developed means — sometimes using satellites ­— to monitor programs from afar.
“It’s not an on-off switch. It’s a rheostat,” the former senior official said. “Just because you can’t do as much as you’d like to do doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.”
The State Department has built up greater expertise in operating in dangerous environments over the past 20 years, despite deadly examples of when conditions have been more perilous than believed, as occurred when four Americans were killed in a 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Another major challenge will be overseeing the more than $3 billion the United States is expected to provide annually to fund Afghanistan’s security forces — a sum amounting to three-quarters of the country’s security budget and whose success will be central to the government’s ability to survive.
U.S. watchdogs have repeatedly warned that widespread corruption — from ghost soldiers to drug trafficking to the diversion of tires and bullets — has posed a major obstacle to making local army and police effective. Now, with the dismantling of a NATO-led military command that monitored U.S. and NATO security aid, an embassy security office must track the massive aid portfolio.
Perhaps the biggest question hanging over the diplomatic mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, with its unsettled history and uncertain future, is how long it can last.
In 1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs was abducted and fatally shot under mysterious circumstances. A decade later, Washington closed the embassy amid the Soviet withdrawal. It did not officially reopen until 2002. Over time, insecurity has made life more restrictive for diplomats. In 2011, Taliban-linked militants launched a major assault on the embassy from a nearby building.
Despite Biden’s promise to execute a full military withdrawal, about 650 U.S. troops will remain, split between the embassy compound and Kabul’s international airport, which now represents a potential lifeline for foreigners who may need to evacuate in a hurry. Some troops will operate counter-rocket systems known as C-RAMs, which each have Gatling guns that shoot 4,500 rounds per minute.
Overseeing the embassy security mission is Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, a two-star Navy SEAL officer who was slated to oversee Special Operations in Afghanistan before Biden called for a withdrawal.
“He was available. He had the experience,” Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said during a recent visit to Afghanistan. “I know and trust him.”
Vasely’s team will operate partly out of the old NATO military headquarters, which will belong to the embassy. Security at the compound is now provided by the State Department, McKenzie said.
While Biden’s plan envisions U.S. air power being used in the post-withdrawal period only to target groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, McKenzie said any threats against the embassy or the Kabul airport could be an exception.
If security deteriorates rapidly, the U.S. military trains specialized forces for missions like temporarily seizing an airfield to enable evacuation flights. Or, in drastic circumstances, it could launch a noncombatant evacuation operation as was done in Saigon in 1975 and Mogadishu in 1991.
European partners in the NATO mission, nearly all of which have now withdrawn their military forces, have expressed concern about whether they can maintain their diplomatic operations. Many have already downsized their presence, closing consulates outside of Kabul and reducing embassy staff.
“We can see the Taliban are stronger and stronger, and it’s not a very bright picture. We feel short of options,” one senior European official said.
“All embassies will reduce or fully withdraw,” the official said. While those that remain will retain security provided by contractors, they face the same problem, the official said: “What to do if there is an emergency?”
Europeans and other coalition partners depend on the United States to provide logistical support and a last line of defense. But Biden administration officials have made clear the mission of the remaining military contingent is to secure the U.S. Embassy, not those of other nations.
Germany, which completed its troop withdrawal June 29, has not yet downsized its embassy. But, according to a senior German official, “whatever happens to the airport in Kabul will be hugely important to every embassy remaining.”
Many allies are growing nervous about Washington’s failure to finalize an agreement with Turkey to provide forces to protect the airport. U.S. and Turkish officials say they are close to a deal, pending agreement on the participation of additional nations and other issues, a senior defense official said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he wants Hungary and Poland to contribute troops. U.S. officials have said Turkey also has held talks with Albania and Pakistan.
While the Taliban has not made a public comment on U.S. plans to retain 650 troops, nearly a quarter of the total Washington said it would withdraw, the group has warned that any foreign troops remaining will be fair game. That includes forces at the airport, it said in a recent statement.
“If Turkish officials fail to reconsider their decision,” the militants said, “the responsibility for all consequences shall fall on the shoulders of those who interfere in the affairs of others.”



Lamothe reported from Kabul. Julie Tate contributed to this report.
The Washington Post · July 17, 2021



2. How a former Afghan interpreter became a US Army officer
Another great American story and how an Afghan became another great American serving his country.

How a former Afghan interpreter became a US Army officer
armytimes.com · by Adam Morey · July 17, 2021
After being born in 1988 amid the Soviet–Afghan War and having to move at the age of 11 to avoid the suffering that follows the Taliban, Fahim Masoud graduated high school in Herat, Afghanistan.
Then he had a decision to make — one that would ultimately lead him to commissioning in the Illinois Army National Guard.
Masoud’s story stands out at a time when the U.S. military is finalizing a withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the fate of many interpreters remains undecided, or at the very least, in a precarious position.
Standing at the crossroads of life at the age of 17, Masoud could’ve chosen to go to school in India, or he could’ve decided to pick up a rifle and join the Afghan Army.
“Then the opportunity came up for me to work as an interpreter for the U.S. Army,” Masoud said in a phone interview with Army Times.
After Masoud had been working with the Americans for about a year, he met an Iowa National Guardsman who was interested in getting him to the United States for college.
“I served as a maintenance advisor and was needing an interpreter. I met Fahim and there was an instant connection,” said now-retired Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Ditter in an Army press release. “My family was very supportive of the sponsorship. We got him enrolled, and accepted, in community college and things rolled from there.”
One of the biggest challenges Masoud faced was getting a visa to come study. He had to travel to Pakistan to obtain that, as the embassy in Afghanistan wouldn’t issue them.

Fahim Masoud and CWO 3 James Ditter hand out candy to children in Qalaenaw, Badghis Province, Afghanistan in August 2007. (Courtesy of Fahim Masoud)
Once he got to the United States, he was able to start his studies, first at a community college, then at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. While he was there, he took the ASVAB in the hopes of joining the Marine Corps.
“I wanted to join the Marines, I wanted to go into active duty,” Masoud said.
However, he met his now wife in 2014, and she wasn’t too keen on the idea. So, he put the plan on hold, earning his undergraduate degree in history, then a political science masters from the University of Illinois.

“A few years later, in 2015, that ambition, that dream of being part of the military hadn’t faded away,” Masoud said.
After a few more years of trying, in 2017, he was able to get his wife’s approval to join the Illinois National Guard.
Newly commissioned officers often don’t start out with the full respect of the people they command. Young lieutenants are not usually battle-tested, and the lack of experience can be an issue, Masoud noted.
“When I came in, and was commissioned in January 2019, immediately people could tell I was different,” Masoud said. “That I was seasoned, that I had a lot of experience being in the field.”
Beyond the hard skills learned in combat, Masoud also learned soft skills about communication during his time as an interpreter.
These skills, although not used to make decisions at the time, are helpful now that he does. His ability to build relationships helps him command his troops, and his ability to deal with the public is invaluable with vaccine administration sites.
While working one such site in Cook County, Illinois, Masoud even met Sen. Tammy Duckworth, herself a retired Army National Guard officer.
Masoud said that his time in the Guard has been a wonderful experience, with new ones on the horizon.
Every day brings a challenge, but nothing is a match for someone who has gone from an interpreter in Afghanistan to graduate studies in the United States and commissioning, he said.
But stories like those of Masoud are often the exception, rather than the rule.
Amid increasing public pressure, U.S. officials say they will start evacuating Afghan allies by the end of this month to a safe third-country while their visa applications are being processed.
Still, more than 18,000 Afghan nationals have applied through the State Department’s Special Immigrant Visa program to become U.S. residents — a process that advocates say takes years to complete.
And many applicants remain concerned that they won’t be alive in a few months if they remain in Afghanistan.

armytimes.com · by Adam Morey · July 17, 2021



3. ‘Everyone is dying’: Myanmar on the brink of decimation
The situation in Burma is tragic on many levels. What will China, ASEAN, and the international community do?

‘Everyone is dying’: Myanmar on the brink of decimation
Myanmar desperately needs an international health intervention but its military regime seems content to let the people die
asiatimes.com · by Mary P Callahan · July 17, 2021
Two days ago, I spent six hours on encrypted apps with contacts inside the country trying to locate one – just one – oxygen concentrator for the mother of my friend, whom I will call “Ma Moon.”
Her mother’s oxygen saturation rate had dropped precipitously in one day from 95 to 70.
I do not know this for sure – in these circumstances, we know we cannot ask this question – but I think the family is being treated on a daily basis by doctors who have “gone underground” in a civil disobedience campaign.
Medical professionals are among the most respected individuals in the country, and so their decision to oppose the February 1 military coup d’etat that took down the elected civilian government carried immense weight among the population.
One estimate provided by public health experts in Myanmar predicts that 50% of Myanmar’s 55 million people will be infected within three weeks by either the Alpha or Delta variant of Covid-19.
One very reputable public health specialist expects that the population will be decimated by at least 10-15 million by the time Covid is done with Myanmar.
In the meantime, Ma Moon, who suffers from a serious co-morbidity condition herself, and her family are all Covid positive and symptomatic.
Nonetheless, Ma Moon’s family dared to break the military’s curfew two nights ago to drive all over Yangon chasing down Facebook leads on possible oxygen concentrators for sale.
In the end, they found one, but in such a heartbreaking way. It came at 2 am, when all parties involved could have been arrested for breaking curfew. The many phone calls we all had made led to one response from a bereft family, whose patriarch had just died.
The oxygen compressor was given to Ma Moon’s family, with only a demand that it be passed on for free to the next victim, when no longer needed.
People waiting to fill up empty oxygen canisters outside a factory in Yangon amid a surge in the number of Covid-19 coronavirus cases, July 14, 2021. Photo: AFP / Ye Aung Thu
Other friends, utterly desperate, have worked out agreements to “share” oxygen concentrators – putting their sickest family members on compressed oxygen for a few hours, then returning the device to another very sick patient for his or her few hours to hope for survival.
And all pray for the remote possibility they will be able to refill the oxygen tanks the next day.
In April, I left Myanmar after attending the funerals of four young men killed in my ward. Already, gunshots fired during cruel nighttime army raids on civilian apartment buildings had started hitting my condo building.
Now in Thailand, I get over 200 encrypted texts per day from friends there. Until last week, most were promoting armed and political resistance to the coup. “Responsibility to Protect” and “No Fly Zone” came up over and over.
Now, 100% of the texts are desperate pleas for health assistance and an international humanitarian intervention. “We need help,” read so many social media posts and flash protestor signs these days.
They do not need help in the future. They needed it yesterday.
I have worked in and on Myanmar for more than 30 years. Everyone I know there is either infected or caring for an infected person. No hospitals accept patients anymore, not even the priciest private ones.
Some of the Covid-infected die on the steps in front of hospitals that reject them. They undoubtedly go untested, with death certificates likely reading “pneumonia” as cause of death.
Health care workers, who began civil disobedience against the coup on February 2, are doing what they can from “underground.”
Relatives of a person who died due to Covid-19 carry the coffin before the burial service at a Muslim cemetery in Yangon, Myanmar, July 16, 2021. Photo: AFP via NurPhoto / Myat Thu Kyaw
But still, C95 and N95 masks and PPE are impossible to come by, despite containers full of them sitting in the Yangon port where the Customs Department will not release them.
Most horrifically, there is no oxygen left in the country, or rather, there is oxygen, but only the military gets it.
One does not need to be an epidemiologist, statistician or econometrician to see where this is going. The public health system, to the degree it still exists, will utterly collapse, at this rate of infection, probably within two weeks.
How will that look different from now? Probably dead bodies. Everywhere.
Like all famines in history, and like the huge death toll from Covid in the United States, Myanmar’s misery is almost entirely a political problem.
An elite struggle between the leaders of the army and the legitimately elected civilian government led to the February 1 coup.
The eruption of civil disobedience and armed resistance appears to have been unanticipated by coup leader, military commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
Ominously, since May, there has been a burgeoning of counter-resistance militias carrying out assassinations of pro-democracy adherents, left and right.
And then the Delta variant of Covid-19 arrived. And two days ago when we struggled to help her mother, Ma Moon very softly said over an encrypted app, “Everyone is dying.”
What would it take to save the ten million Myanmar lives likely to be claimed by Covid?
As the acclaimed local news outlet, Myanmar Now, argues, “an unprecedented humanitarian intervention” in arguably the most politically, geopolitically, socially and economically fraught country in Asia.
Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar’s armed forces and head of Myanmar’s coup regime Senior General Min Aung Hlaing attends the 9th Moscow Conference on International Security in Moscow, Russia on June 23, 2021. Photo: AFP via Anadolu Agency / Sefa Karacan
In the last few days of state media reporting on the junta chief’s speeches, he clearly has no intention of asking anyone, other than his good friend, the Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, for help.
Even Russia can only proffer a trickle of WHO-unapproved Sputnik vaccines, probably in many batches of 10,000, arriving over not months but years, and probably at great cost.
China is busy shoring up and extending an electrified border fence that only Donald Trump would drool over; it already stretches 500 kilometers east and west of the biggest trading post on the China-Myanmar border.
China has closed all border crossings, but it also deployed Covid testing and treatment teams in some remote ethnic armed group-controlled areas to vaccinate all. In these areas, new arrivals are tested, quarantined and then vaccinated.
How about the United Nations? No one wants to say this, but the UN country team of 20+ agencies is utterly overmatched for what it faces. And to the degree those agencies are committed to saving Myanmar lives, they are hamstrung by international legal norms around sovereignty.
With Russia and China on the UN Security Council, the necessary international humanitarian law mandate of a resolution to undertake a military intervention against a junta-in-denial will not happen.
The Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has shown itself thus far gridlocked on Myanmar, having agreed with Min Aung Hlaing to a five-principle response to the multiple crises in the country on April 24, which has been utterly ignored by the junta in Naypyitaw.
And the rest of the world? As one protester’s sign read last week, “If not now, when? If not you, who?”
Women carry burning torches as they march during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on July 14, 2021. Photo: AFP / Stringer
There appears to be no urgency around the massive devastation being wrought by the military coup, the economic crisis and the logarithmic spread of Covid amongst a population that has never had proper healthcare.
Ma Moon’s mother died in her arms this morning. Now her mother’s body joins the long queue of coffins at the crematorium. Not having a government laboratory’s confirmation of Covid-19, she will not count in the daily statistics of positive cases or deaths from Covid.
But to Ma Moon and to me, she counted.
Mary P Callahan is associate professor in the Henry M Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. Among her publications over 30 years of working on Myanmar include Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma (2003). Since 2013, Callahan has been based in Yangon, Myanmar, where she has consulted on issues related to governance, the 2015 and 2020 general elections, political economy, the peace process and ongoing conflicts.
asiatimes.com · by Mary P Callahan · July 17, 2021



4. According to a senior British military official, the United Kingdom will launch covert missions of its special forces against Russia and China

The author has a strange bio. This article seems like it might be a google translation from the Spanish language.

This reminds me of the late Secretary Rumsfeld's"directive" to make Special Forces more CIA-like, the Marines more SOF-like, and the Army more expeditionary-like or something along those lines if I remember correctly. Rumsfeld Aims To Elevate Role Of Special Forces https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114020280689677176Rumsfeld's Vindication Promises A Change in Tactics, Deployment https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB104992676085864500What Rumsfeld Got Right https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/what-rumsfeld-got-right/306870/

Excerpts:
Britain’s special forces will focus on a new covert mission against China and Russia as part of their shift to counter “big state adversaries”. he pointed This Saturday in the newspaper The Times to the Brigadier General of the Royal Marines, Mark Totten.
The British Royal Marines would assume the roles traditionally reserved for the country’s special forces. Special Air Service (SAS) And this Special Boat Service (SBS)– so that these units have more time and assets to complete “high risk” actions against other states, according to Totten.
“What can we do? [las Fuerzas Especiales] focus on [las tareas] more difficult, more complicated, against Russia and against ChinaThe senior officer announced.
“It takes real specialized expertise, so we’ll give them more time and more staff to deal with [esas tareas], and we may carry out certain tasks, such as maritime counter-terrorism, for example, or joint operations, which are difficult, involving greater risk,” explained Totten, who is the “future command” of 4,000 Royal Marine soldiers. Force “. which will “share the burden” with the SAS and SBS.
Totten’s comments mark the first official recognition that London plans to deploy its special forces on covert missions specifically targeting Russia and China.



According to a senior British military official, the United Kingdom will launch covert missions of its special forces against Russia and China
thedailyguardian.net · July 18, 2021
Published:
17 July 2021 23:38 GMT
The change in focus of British Special Forces could mean that the corps trains the navies of countries near the South China Sea or establishes surveillance against military and intelligence units from Russia and China.
Britain’s special forces will focus on a new covert mission against China and Russia as part of their shift to counter “big state adversaries”. he pointed This Saturday in the newspaper The Times to the Brigadier General of the Royal Marines, Mark Totten.
The British Royal Marines would assume the roles traditionally reserved for the country’s special forces. Special Air Service (SAS) And this Special Boat Service (SBS)– so that these units have more time and assets to complete “high risk” actions against other states, according to Totten.
“What can we do? [las Fuerzas Especiales] focus on [las tareas] more difficult, more complicated, against Russia and against ChinaThe senior officer announced.
“It takes real specialized expertise, so we’ll give them more time and more staff to deal with [esas tareas], and we may carry out certain tasks, such as maritime counter-terrorism, for example, or joint operations, which are difficult, involving greater risk,” explained Totten, who is the “future command” of 4,000 Royal Marine soldiers. Force “. which will “share the burden” with the SAS and SBS.

Totten’s comments mark the first official recognition that London plans to deploy its special forces on covert missions specifically targeting Russia and China.
For their part, sources in the British Army told The Times that, within the framework of the change in approach, special forces could be assigned “politically treacherous” act, such as training the navies of countries near the South China Sea to better defend against Beijing’s perceived “hostility”.
The nature of a possible UK Special Forces operation against Russia is unclear. However, according to the newspaper, it is believed that there may have been highly covert operations. MI6. engage soldiers working with To increase surveillance against Russian and Chinese military and intelligence units.
In early June, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that, although Moscow does not hide the power of its armed forces or its influence in the world, Russia is not interested in imposing its way of life on other countries and will end it. wants to do confrontation with the West.
“[Rusia] no superpower ambition No matter how much one tries to convince himself and others otherwise, ” insisted Lavrov.” Nor do we have the messianic fervor with which our Western comrades seek to expand their entire planet. democratic values agenda. It has been clear to us for a long time that imposing a certain development model from the outside does not lead to anything good and examples of this are the Middle East, North Africa, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan,” he said.
Tony Joseph
“Wannabe troublemaker. Pop culture fanatic. Zombie nerd. Lifelong bacon advocate. Alcohol enthusiast. Tv junkie.”

thedailyguardian.net · July 18, 2021



5. Japan’s Olympic security balancing act leaves few satisfied

Japan cannot win in this situation.

Excerpts:
While the security restrictions in Japan will be a hassle for visitors, they could also hit locals hard.
Hiroshi Kato, a fencing instructor, said he worries that he’ll lose even more business than he did during the pandemic because he’s been ordered to move from the building where he works across from the main Olympics stadium from July 1 to Sep. 19, for unspecified security reasons.
“I feel helpless,” he said in an interview. “To safely hold the Games, some restrictions are understandable … but (the organizers) knew this for a long time and perhaps could have provided some assistance for us.”


Japan’s Olympic security balancing act leaves few satisfied
FOSTER KLUG AND MARI YAMAGUCHI
TOKYO
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Globe and Mail · by Foster Klug · July 17, 2021

A rowing coach for the Netherlands rides his bike along the course past the empty seats during a training session at the Sea Forest Waterway ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics, Sunday, July 18, 2021, in Tokyo.
Jae C. Hong/The Associated Press
Struggling businesses forced to temporarily shut down around Olympics venues. Olympic visitors ordered to install invasive apps and allow GPS tracking. Minders staking out hotels to keep participants from coming into contact with ordinary Japanese or visiting restaurants to sample the sushi.
Japan’s massive security apparatus has raised complaints that the nation, during the weeks of the Games, will look more like authoritarian North Korea or China than one of the world’s most powerful, vibrant democracies.
The worry for many here, however, isn’t too much Big Brother. It’s that all the increased precautions won’t be nearly enough to stop the estimated 85,000 athletes, officials, journalists and other workers coming into Japan from introducing fast-spreading coronavirus variants to a largely unvaccinated population already struggling with mounting cases.

“It’s all based on the honour system, and it’s causing concern that media people and other participants may go out of their hotels to eat in Ginza,” Takeshi Saiki, an opposition lawmaker, said of what he called Japan’s lax border controls. So far, the majority of Olympic athletes and other participants have been exempted from typical quarantine requirements.
There have been regular breakdowns in security as the sheer enormity of trying to police so many visitors becomes clearer — and the opening ceremony looms. The Japanese press is filled with reports of Olympic-related people testing positive for the coronavirus. Photos and social media posts show foreigners linked to the Games breaking mask rules and drinking in public, smoking in airports — even, if the bios are accurate, posting on dating apps.
“There are big holes in the bubbles,” said Ayaka Shiomura, another opposition lawmaker, speaking of the so-called “bubbles” that are supposed to separate the Olympics’ participants from the rest of the country.
The pandemic has tested democracies around the world as they try to strike a balance between the need to protect basic rights and the national imperative to control a disease that thrives when people gather in large numbers.
Few places, however, have faced higher stakes than Tokyo will during July and August — or closer global scrutiny. The government, well aware of repeated domestic surveys that show strong opposition to the Games, argues that its security and monitoring measures are crucial as it tries to pull off an Olympics during a once-in-a-century pandemic.
But as the restrictions are tested by increasing numbers of visitors, officials have been blamed for doing too much, and too little.
The government and the Games’ organizers “are treating visitors as if they are potential criminals,” Chizuko Ueno, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Tokyo, said on YouTube.

There’s also lingering resentment over a widespread sentiment that Japan is facing this balancing act because the International Olympic Committee needs to have the Games happen, regardless of the state of the virus, to get the billions of dollars in media revenue critical to its survival.
“The Olympics are held as an IOC business. Not only the Japanese people, but others around the world, were turned off by the Olympics after all of us saw the true nature of the Olympics and the IOC through the pandemic,” mountaineer Ken Noguchi told the online edition of the Nikkan Gendai newspaper.
Senior sports editors at major international media companies, meanwhile, have asked organizers to “reconsider some measures that go beyond what is necessary to keep participants and residents safe,” saying they “show a disregard for the personal privacy and technological security of our colleagues.”
Japan has fared better during the pandemic than many nations, but the Olympians will be arriving only a few months after a coronavirus spike had some Japanese hospitals nearing collapse as ICUs filled with the sick. While the surge has tempered, cases are rising enough for the declaration of yet another state of emergency in Tokyo.
One of the highest-profile security problems came last month when a Ugandan team member arriving in Japan tested positive for what turned out to be the more contagious delta variant. He was quarantined at the airport, but the rest of the nine-person team was allowed to travel more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) on a chartered bus to their pre-Olympics camp, where a second Ugandan tested positive, forcing the team and seven city officials and drivers who had close contact with them to self-isolate.
On Friday, a Uganda team member went missing, raising more questions about the oversight of Olympic participants. On Saturday, organizers said the first resident of the Olympic Village had tested positive for COVID-19. Officials said it was not an athlete, but was a non-resident of Japan.

So what are the restrictions that Olympic-linked visitors face?
For the first 14 days in Japan, Olympic visitors outside the athletes’ village are banned from using public transportation and from going to bars, tourist spots and most restaurants. They cannot even take a walk, or visit anywhere, in fact, that’s not specifically mentioned in activity plans submitted in advance. There are some exceptions authorized by organizers: specifically designated convenience stores, takeaway places and, in rare cases, some restaurants that have private rooms.
Athletes, tested daily for the coronavirus, will be isolated in the athletes’ village and are expected to stay there, or in similarly locked-down bubbles at venues or training sites. Those who break the rules could be sent home or receive fines and lose the right to participate in the Games.
Everyone associated with the Olympics will be asked to install two apps when entering Japan. One is an immigration and health reporting app, and the other is a contact tracing app that uses Bluetooth. They will also have to consent to allowing organizers to use GPS to monitor their movements and contacts through their smartphones if there’s an infection or violation of rules.
“We are not going to monitor the behaviour at all times,” Organizing Committee CEO Toshiro Muto said. “The thing is, though, if there should be issues pertaining to their activity then, since the GPS function will be on, we’ll be able to verify their activities.”
Japan also plans to station human monitors at venues and hotels, though it’s not yet clear how many.

“We will control every entry and exit. We will have a system that will not allow anyone to go outside freely,” Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa said.
Other nations, both democratic and autocratic, have also tried to control and monitor behaviour and businesses during the pandemic.
In the United States, for instance, NFL teams tracked their athletes in the team facilities. South Korean health authorities have aggressively used smartphone GPS data, credit-card transaction records and surveillance videos to find and isolate potential virus carriers. Tracking apps are used to monitor thousands of individuals quarantined at home.
In China, mask mandates, lockdowns confining millions to their homes and case tracing on a nationwide scale have faced little or no opposition. North Korea has shut its borders even tighter, skipped the Olympics and cancelled or seriously curtailed access for foreign diplomats, aid workers and outside journalists.
While the security restrictions in Japan will be a hassle for visitors, they could also hit locals hard.
Hiroshi Kato, a fencing instructor, said he worries that he’ll lose even more business than he did during the pandemic because he’s been ordered to move from the building where he works across from the main Olympics stadium from July 1 to Sep. 19, for unspecified security reasons.

“I feel helpless,” he said in an interview. “To safely hold the Games, some restrictions are understandable … but (the organizers) knew this for a long time and perhaps could have provided some assistance for us.”
The Globe and Mail · by Foster Klug · July 17, 2021



6.  [OPINION] Fighting the virus of lies

Given the discussion of social media and virus misinformation this speech from Maria Ressa is very much worth re-reading.

As an aside Maria published this book, From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism in 2013.

Summary:
The two most wanted terrorists in Southeast Asia -- a Malaysian and a Singaporean -- are on the run in the Philippines, but they manage to keep their friends and family updated on Facebook. Filipinos connect with al-Qaeda-linked groups in Somalia and Yemen. The black flag -- embedded in al-Qaeda lore -- pops up on websites and Facebook pages from around the world, including the Philippines, Indonesia, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Australia, and North Africa. The black flag is believed to herald an apocalypse that brings Islam's triumph. These are a few of the signs that define terrorism's new battleground: the Internet and social media.In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, Maria Ressa traces the spread of terrorism from the training camps of Afghanistan to Southeast Asia and the Philippines. Through research done at the International Center for Political Violence & Terrorism Research in Singapore and sociograms created by the CORE Lab at the Naval Postgraduate School, the book examines the social networks which spread the virulent ideology that powered terrorist attacks in the past 10 years.Many of the stories here have never been told before, including details about the 10 days during which Ressa led the crisis team in the Ces Drilon kidnapping case by the Abu Sayyaf in 2008. The book forms the powerful narrative that glues together the social networks -- both physical and virtual -- which spread the jihadi virus from bin Laden to Facebook.

Now there are "virulent ideologies" attacking the health of people through Facebook.
[OPINION] Fighting the virus of lies
The following speech was delivered by Rappler CEO Maria Ressa on Sunday, May 2, after receiving the 2021 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.
Thank you so much to UNESCO, the independent jury, the more than 80 press freedom and news organizations who have helped us hold the line. This is for Rappler and all Filipino journalists who – despite the increased risks just to be able to do our jobs – continue to hold power to account. It's also a reflection of how the world looks at the Duterte administration today and the death by a thousand cuts of our democracy happening in front of our eyes.
I wish I were with you today in Namibia, but I’m in Manila, prevented from traveling by court order – which I continue to fight as State-led legal attacks are waged against me on multiple fronts. I also can’t travel because my nation is suffering the consequences of putting retired military generals in charge of a public health crisis – when political patronage and loyalty, not competence, is the metric of power.
This is a time when lies and incompetence kill.
In less than two years, the Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me.
In 2017, government propagandists tried to trend the hashtag #ArrestMariaRessa. They failed, but they kept at it, and two years later, I was arrested – twice – in a little more than a month. They violated my rights when they prevented me from posting bail and detained me overnight. I suppose they wanted me to shake and feel their power.
To the budding dictators of this world, if you have to abuse your power to make you feel powerful, you’re not powerful – just abusive and small.
What I and other truth-tellers in the Philippines have lived through has given us firsthand experience of how the law and law enforcement have been turned against our people. Now more than ever, power and money rule.
In 2016, 4 months after Duterte became president, Rappler and I wrote investigative pieces showing you how the first casualty in our nation’s battle for truth is the number of people killed in our brutal drug war. That violence was facilitated and fueled by American social media companies. Based on big data analysis, we reported the networks that were manipulating us online, targeting and attacking truth-tellers, pounding to silence anyone challenging power, which created an extensive social media propaganda machine.
Five years ago, we demanded an end to impunity on two fronts: Duterte’s drug war and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. Today, it has only gotten worse – and Silicon Valley’s sins came home to roost on January 6 with mob violence on Capitol Hill.
What happens on social media doesn’t stay on social media.
Online violence leads to real world violence.
Since 2016, I have felt like Sisyphus and Cassandra combined, repeatedly warning that our dystopian present is your future. American biologist EO Wilson said it best: we’re facing paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.
Social media, with its highly profitable micro targeting, has become a behavior modification system, and we are Pavlov’s dogs experimented on in real time – with disastrous consequences. Facebook is the world’s largest distributor of news, and yet studies have shown that lies laced with anger and hate spread faster and further than really boring facts.
The social media platforms that deliver the facts to you are biased against facts, biased against journalists, biased against meaningful conversations. They are – by design – dividing us and radicalizing us. This is not a free speech issue. It’s not the fault of its users. These platforms are not merely mirroring humanity. They are making all of us our worst selves, creating emergent behavior that feeds on violence, fear, uncertainty, and enabling the rise of fascism.
Think of it like this.
Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: the coronavirus, climate, the atom bomb that exploded in our information ecosystem when journalists lost gatekeeping powers to technology companies. Tech abdicated responsibility for the public sphere and couldn’t seem to fathom that information is a public good.
Women, people of color, the LGBTQ, those already marginalized become even more vulnerable as you’ll see in the UNESCO report “The Chilling” whose lead author, ICFJ’s Julie Posetti, convinced me to speak up when my attacks began many years ago.
Of course, there’s a cost to speaking truth to power.
On Christmas Eve two years ago, Amal Clooney sent me an email. Until then, no one had really had the time to go through the many ludicrous charges I’m facing and their penalties. Turns out I could go to jail for the rest of my life. By her last count – on paper – it was more than a hundred years in prison. So I dealt with the sinking feeling in my stomach – this is my lawyer telling me that, right? I took away a lesson: don’t open an email from Amal on Christmas Eve! Sometimes you just have to laugh.
Believe it or not, I’m lucky. When you’re the target of attacks you’re the only one who sees it all, but you can also see exactly how the tactics change. Knowledge is power. And because I spent two decades of my career outside the Philippines, the international community knows me, the quality of my work, my values, my work ethic.
So many others aren’t so lucky.
Like 35-year-old Ritchie Nepomuceno, who accused the police of extortion, torture, and rape. She was one of at least 3 Filipino women who filed charges against 11 policemen who they said held them inside a secret room at a police station. Less than two weeks ago on April 19, Ritchie was walking down the street when she was shot and killed.
Human rights activist Zara Alvarez and another colleague were set to testify against the government and the military. She went as far as asking for court protection, which was at first denied, and is still on appeal. Last August, she was walking home with her dinner – she had just bought it – when she was shot and killed. So was her colleague. No one is left to testify. I could go on.
Now let’s go to the journalists.
Frenchie Mae Cumpio, still in jail, celebrated her 22nd birthday in prison. Arrested and jailed more than a year ago, it is a familiar tactic: get an arrest warrant; do a raid; then charge with possession of illegal firearms and explosives, a non-bailable offense.
That’s also what happened to Lady Ann Salem, another young journalist. Arrested last December, Salem said the police planted evidence in her apartment, but another judge voided her arrest warrant. It still took time before she was released, forcing her to spend 3 months in prison during a pandemic.
Because she’s a journalist.
It’s not a coincidence that these victims are women. This February, Senator Leila de Lima, whom Amnesty International calls a prisoner of conscience, began her 5th year in prison. She calls it lawfare – when law is used as a weapon to silence anyone questioning power.
The cuts to democracy are bleeding. They’re overwhelming and can’t be ignored.
Last year, two days, just two days after World Press Freedom Day, Filipino lawmakers, nudged by President Duterte, shut down ABS-CBN, once our largest broadcasting network, our largest news group, also headed by a female journalist. Thousands lost their jobs.
Around the same time that Hong Kong passed its draconian security law, the Philippines passed an anti-terror law that sparked 37 petitions at the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. Under that law, anyone some Cabinet secretaries call a terrorist could be arrested without a warrant and jailed for up to 24 days. Here’s one last fact: more lawyers have died under the Duterte administration than in the 44 years before he took office.
So here’s the thing: our problems can’t be solved from the Philippines alone. Again, something I’ve said repeatedly: what’s local is global; and what’s global is local.
As we face the coronavirus, there’s an equally dangerous and insidious virus of lies unleashed in our information ecosystem. It’s seeded by power wanting to stay in power, spread by algorithms motivated, created for profit, a business model Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism. The reward is your attention, and all this is linked to geopolitical power play. Last week, the EU slammed Russia and China for their intensified vaccine disinformation campaigns. Last September, Facebook took down information operations from China that were campaigning for the daughter of Duterte for president – next year, our presidential elections – that network was creating fake accounts for US elections, and it was attacking me.
The virus of lies is highly contagious. They infect real people, who become impervious to facts. It changes the way they look at the world. They become angrier, more isolated. They distrust everything.
In this environment, the dictator wins, crumbling our democracies from within.
I became a journalist 35 years ago when people power in the Philippines helped spark democracy movements around the world. I had the great privilege of reporting on much of Southeast Asia’s transition from one-man authoritarian rule to democracy.
Inevitably, there is this one moment when power and money chooses – status quo or change: in the Philippines in 1986, it was an elite family’s banner at a protest rally that helped open the floodgates that ousted a dictator. In Indonesia in 1998, months of student protests led nowhere until the business community and the military stepped in, ending nearly 32 years of Suharto.
Those with power and money must choose.
Ask yourselves these questions: Who are you? What do you stand for? What kind of world do you want in the next decade?
The more you have, the more you must risk.
Because silence is complicity.
Whether you’re at the UN or heading a nation or a corporation, or you’re a politician, human rights worker, a journalist, or a citizen, fight – and win – your individual battle for integrity.
At stake is our collective global future.
Please act now.
Courage ON.
Thank you. – Rappler.com



7. Facebook Tells Biden: ‘Facebook Is Not the Reason’ Vaccination Goal Was Missed
This is going to be a chance to test all of us on our 1st Amendment beliefs. Will we be consistent on Freedom of Speech? Do you advocate shutting down vaccine lies on social media or do you support the right of all people to express their beliefs and ideas even if they are conspiracy theories? On the other hand do you believe that flag burning or kneeling for the national anthem should be banned? Ask yourself if you have a consistent position on the 1st Amendment?

Facebook Tells Biden: ‘Facebook Is Not the Reason’ Vaccination Goal Was Missed
The New York Times · by Cecilia Kang · July 17, 2021
The social network hit back at the president’s criticism of social media for spreading vaccine misinformation.

Credit...Thibault Camus/Associated Press

By
July 17, 2021, 10:23 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Facebook pushed back on Saturday against the Biden administration’s denouncing of the social media giant for spreading misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccines, escalating tensions between the Silicon Valley company and the White House.
In a blog post, Facebook called for the administration to stop “finger-pointing” and laid out what it had done to encourage users to get vaccinated. The social network also detailed how it had clamped down on lies about the vaccines, which officials have said led people to refuse to be vaccinated.
“The Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies,” Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity, said in the post. “The fact is that vaccine acceptance among Facebook users in the U.S. has increased.”
Mr. Rosen added that the company’s data showed that 85 percent of its users in the United States had been or wanted to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. While President Biden had set a goal of getting 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by July 4, which the White House fell short of, “Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed,” Mr. Rosen said.
Facebook’s response follows a forceful condemnation of the company by Mr. Biden. When asked on Friday about the role of social media in influencing vaccinations, Mr. Biden declared in unusually strong language that the platforms were “killing people.”

“Look,” he added, “the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that — and they’re killing people.”
Other White House officials have also become increasingly vocal about how social media has amplified vaccine lies.
On Thursday, Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, accused social media companies of not having done enough to stop the spread of dangerous health misinformation, calling it a national health crisis that had fostered vaccination hesitancy among Americans. On Friday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, also called out misinformation “that is leading to people not taking the vaccine, and people are dying as a result.” She said the White House had a responsibility to raise the issue.
The White House declined to comment on Facebook’s blog post on Saturday.
Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites have long struggled with their role as platforms for speech while protecting their users from disinformation campaigns, like Russian efforts to influence presidential elections or false statements about the pandemic.
In recent months, Facebook has taken steps against anti-vaccination ads and misstatements about the vaccines. In October, it said it would no longer allow anti-vaccination ads on its platform. In February, the company went further and said it would remove posts with erroneous claims about vaccines, including assertions that vaccines cause autism or that it is safer for people to contract the coronavirus than to receive the vaccinations.
But online misinformation about the vaccines has not been eradicated. Lies have spread that vaccines can alter DNA or that the vaccines don’t work.
On Saturday, Mr. Rosen said in the blog post that among Facebook’s American users, vaccine hesitancy had declined by 50 percent since April and vaccine acceptance had increased by 10 to 15 percentage points, or to over 80 percent from 70 percent.
“While social media plays an important role in society, it is clear that we need a whole of society approach to end this pandemic,” Mr. Rosen said. “And facts — not allegations — should help inform that effort.”
The White House’s frustration with Facebook has mounted over several months, people with knowledge of the matter have said. While the Biden administration asked Facebook to share information about the spread of misinformation on the social network, the company refused to cooperate, the people have said.
On Friday, Robert Flaherty, the White House digital director, said in a tweet, “I guess I’m left with a simple question: How many people have seen Covid vaccine misinformation on Facebook?”
The New York Times · by Cecilia Kang · July 17, 2021



8. COVID-19 still killing Americans faster than guns, cars and flu combined

I have not seen this data presented (or verified )anywhere else but it seems to be based on solid sources. Obviously if accurate this is significant. And the sad story is we now have effective means to counter COVID with greater efficacy than we do reducing car crashes or gun violence.

COVID-19 still killing Americans faster than guns, cars and flu combined
mercurynews.com · by Tom Randall · July 17, 2021
Even with half the U.S. vaccinated, COVID-19 continues to kill people faster than guns, car crashes and influenza combined, according to a review of mortality data.
The situation has improved dramatically since January, when COVID-19 deaths outpaced heart disease and cancer as the country’s top killer, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Still, for the month of June, coronavirus was responsible for 337 deaths a day. For comparison, the historic average deaths from gunshots, car crashes and complications from the flu add up to 306 a day.
“The sad reality is that despite our progress, we’re still losing people to this virus,” Jeff Zients, the White House pandemic response coordinator, said at a press briefing last week. “Which is especially tragic given that, at this point, it is unnecessary and preventable. Virtually all COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in the United States are now occurring among unvaccinated individuals.”
Data for the analysis were gathered from Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
After 10 weeks of global declines in COVID-19 deaths, the highly transmissible delta variant is driving a new uptick. In the U.S., health officials have warned that a similar reversal may be underway: Daily cases have doubled from a low point last month, and hospitalizations are rising again.
Vaccines by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. prevent as many as 96% of hospitalizations and deaths from the delta variant, according to recent data from the U.S., U.K. and Israel. The protections are even greater when taking into account the effects of reduced transmission in well-vaccinated communities, as data scientist Cathy O’Neil explained in a Bloomberg Opinion column.
“Preliminary data from several states over the last few months suggest that 99.5% of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States were in unvaccinated people,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky reported on Thursday. “Those deaths were preventable by a simple, safe shot.”
The U.S. vaccination campaign, however, has stalled. Once the envy of the world for its swift rollout, the U.S. has since been overtaken by more than 20 countries that now have better vaccine coverage, according to Bloomberg’s COVID-19 vaccine tracker. The EU and China, which are currently administering shots at daily rates of about 4 million and 10 million doses respectively, are poised to blow past the U.S. in the next two weeks.
Not only have U.S. vaccinations slowed to a trickle — just 530,000 a day, on average — but the gap between the most and least vaccinated counties in the U.S. continues to widen. That’s left some some communities especially vulnerable to delta. For unvaccinated people living in low-vaccination communities, the threat posed by Covid-19 is about as bad as it has ever been.
Vaccinations in the U.S. have already prevented roughly 279,000 deaths and 1.25 million hospitalizations, according to an analysis published last week by researchers at Yale University and the Commonwealth Fund. The report suggests that without vaccines, Covid would still be topping cancer and heart disease as the leading cause of death in the U.S. — even into the summer, when respiratory viruses typically fade into the background.
The sudden dominance of the delta variant has surprised health officials around the world. In the Netherlands, cases jumped by more than 500% in just the last week. The U.K. and Russia are reporting the highest transmission rates since January. Israel reinstated its mask mandate. Sydney and Melbourne are in lockdown again.
“The delta variant is ripping around the world at a scorching pace, driving a spike in cases and deaths,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing Monday. “The pandemic is not over — anywhere.”
___
©2021 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
mercurynews.com · by Tom Randall · July 17, 2021


9. Two men charged over plot to blow up Sacramento Democratic headquarters

Someone will want to ban these books:

Other items authorities say were found during a search of Rogers’s property included two copies of a U.S. Army Special Forces Guide to Unconventional Warfare and a U.S. Army Guerrilla Warfare Handbook as well as a “white privilege card.”

Two men charged over plot to blow up Sacramento Democratic headquarters
The Hill · by Rebecca Beitsch · July 16, 2021
Federal prosecutors have charged two men for conspiring to attack the Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento, Calif., with authorities saying the men also tried to coordinate with an extremist militia group.
Ian Benjamin Rogers, 45, and Jarrod Copeland, 37, “began planning to attack targets they associated with Democrats after the 2020 presidential election and sought support from an anti-government militia group,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a release Friday.
The two allegedly planned to blow up the John L. Burton Democratic Headquarters. Prosecutors say Rogers was arrested with possession of five pipe bombs, 49 firearms, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
According to the DOJ, Rogers told Copeland in January, “I want to blow up a democrat building bad,” adding later “after the 20th we go to war,” in reference to President Biden’s inauguration.
Other items authorities say were found during a search of Rogers’s property included two copies of a U.S. Army Special Forces Guide to Unconventional Warfare and a U.S. Army Guerrilla Warfare Handbook as well as a “white privilege card.”
Text messages on Rogers’s phone indicate he believed that former President Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Copeland is a former member of the military who was discharged in lieu of court martial. He then joined the “Three Percenters,” an anti-government extremist group named due to a belief by its members that just 3 percent of colonists fought against the British government.
Rogers has been in custody since January while Copeland was arrested Wednesday.
Both men are charged with conspiracy to destroy by fire or explosive a building used or in affecting interstate commerce. Rogers is charged with additional weapons violations. They each face a 20-year prison sentence.
Other local political offices have faced threats before, including earlier this year when authorities arrested a Pennsylvania man who shot at a local Democratic Party's headquarters.
The Hill · by Rebecca Beitsch · July 16, 2021


10. Disinformation experts doubt authenticity of leaked documents describing a Russian plot to help Trump in 2016

Reporting on this is all over the map.
Disinformation experts doubt authenticity of leaked documents describing a Russian plot to help Trump in 2016
Business Insider · by Tom Porter

Former cybersecurity chief Christopher testifies before Congress in December of 2020.Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo-Pool/Getty Images
  • Some experts doubt the truth of papers obtained by the Guardian purporting to come from the Kremlin.
  • According to form US cyber chief Chris Krebs, they may be part of a disinformation campaign.
  • The papers purport to confirm a secret Russian plot to help Donald Trump win power in 2016.
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Former US cyber security chief Chris Krebs and other disinformation experts voiced skepticism of the authenticity of documents apparently revealing a secret Kremlin plot to help Donald Trump win power.
The Guardian published a report based on the documents on Thursday. It says they describe Russian President Vladimir Putin approving a plan to covertly help Trump win the US presidential election at a security council meeting in January 2016.
Russian security experts told the newspaper that details in the documents and other information indicated they were likely authentic, but the publication did not reveal how it obtained them or publish its evidence.
Krebs was appointed to lead the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity division by Trump in 2017, and was fired by the president after pushing back against the president's claim that last year's presidential election was tainted by mass fraud.
He was was not convinced of the authenticity of the documents.
"This is far too convenient & reeks of #disinfo operation. It could all be individually or collectively true and at the same time planted & fake," he tweeted.
—Chris Krebs (@C_C_Krebs) July 15, 2021
Krebs was writing in response to a tweet by Thomas Rid, an expert in Russian disinformation and a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, who noted lack of clarity regarding the source of the documents.
"This Guardian story is likely to make big waves. I would remain somewhat cautious for now, however. For a "leak" of this magnitude, we need at least some details on the chain of custody. Also note the Guardian's own hedging ("papers appear to show")," he tweeted.

President Donald Trump (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive to waiting media during a joint press conference after their summit on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland.Chris McGrath/Getty Images
The documents provoked a furious response from Trump on Thursday, who in a statement described them as "disgusting" and "fake news." A Kremlin spokesman described the account as "pulp fiction."
The Guardian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The documents purport to confirm longstanding claims that Russia launched a wide-ranging operation to back Trump's candidacy in 2016, and to reveal its motives for doing so.
According to the papers, the Kremlin believed that Trump was "mentally unstable" and that his presidency would divide and weaken the US.
It also contains apparent confirmation that the Kremlin possessed compromising personal information about Trump, a claim that has been the subject of lurid rumor since the publication of a notorious dossier by former UK spy Christopher Steele in 2016.
The dossier contained unverified claims that Trump had been recorded cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room, and alleged that the material could be used by Russia to gain leverage over him.
But according to declassified footnotes from a Justice Department inspector general report on the dossier, that claim may itself have been fed to Steele as part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Fiona Hill, who advised the Trump administration on Russia policy, said in congressional testimony in 2019 that the Kremlin's goal was to undermine whoever entered the White House in 2016.
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Business Insider · by Tom Porter


11. As Taliban surge, al-Qaeda poised for swift return

This will be the test. If AQ does have a resurgence and conducts major terrorist attacks how will we judge this. Can (or anyone, NATO?,China? Russia) prevent AQ from returning to Afghanistan and using it as a safe haven again (from which to plan and launch attacks?)

As Taliban surge, al-Qaeda poised for swift return
Afghanistan is set to become a safe haven for terrorist networks once more
asiatimes.com · by More by Greg Barton · July 17, 2021
The imminent fall of Afghanistan is more than a national disaster. It is not just that the gains made in the past two decades, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, look certain to be reversed as the Taliban advances.
The Taliban’s victory is also al-Qaeda’s victory, and it has global implications.
Even before the US military completes the final steps of its troop withdrawal, the Taliban are surging. They are now reported to control 212 districts – more than half of Afghanistan’s 407 districts. This is triple the territory it controlled on May 1. The Taliban have seized 51 districts since the start of July alone.
The Taliban are currently contesting a further 119 districts, leaving the government with control over just 76, or little more than 20%.
And the government-held territory is surrounded. Almost the entire circular national highway is in the hands of the Taliban, meaning the cities under government control can only safely be reached by air.
Afghanistan has fallen
US President Joe Biden and political leaders in Kabul talk optimistically of a fightback to reverse the surge. But Afghan morale has collapsed along with the fabric of national security.
When the US military quietly sneaked out of Bagram Airbase in the early hours of July 2, it did not just turn off the lights, it extinguished what hope remained.
The Afghan military is stuck in a Catch-22 situation. Without air support, it cannot maintain logistic supply lines and medical-evacuation support for its troops across Afghanistan’s mountainous expanses.
American soldiers on the tarmac of the Bargam airbase. All US and NATO troops have left the facility, signaling the complete withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan by September 11 this year. Photo: AFP / Jimin Lai
The Afghan Air Force has just 136 airplanes and helicopters ready for combat missions, down from a fleet of 167, a drop of 24 aircraft in the previous quarter. It relies on international contractors to keep its aircraft flying. And almost all of the 18,000 US-funded contractors left with the last of the troop flights out of Bagram, leaving most of the Afghan helicopters and C-130 transports soon to be grounded.
At the same time, Afghanistan’s scarce reserves of US-trained pilots are at risk of assassination from Taliban death squads, with at least seven gunned down while off base in recent months.
Whether the Taliban swiftly move to take Kabul now, or remain content with encircling the capital and other cities, it is clear: Afghanistan has fallen.
‘War against US will be continuing on all fronts’
Biden was dealt a very weak hand by his predecessor Donald Trump. The “peace agreement” between the Taliban and the Trump administration (but not the government of Afghanistan) committed the US to draw down all remaining 13,000 troops by May 2021, along with NATO troops.
It also involved a prisoner swap, with more than 5,000 captured Taliban fighters guaranteed release.
In return, the Taliban “pledged” to prevent its longtime ally, al-Qaeda, from operating out of Afghanistan, and to refrain from attacking international forces before their withdrawal.
The Taliban did refrain from targeting foreign troops, but at the same time stepped up their attacks on Afghan forces and leading civil-society figures, with a particular focus on assassinating women and girls, and members of the largely Shiite Hazara community.
Critics of the “peace process” with the Taliban, including former US generals and security officials, have argued that, with no real checks and balances on the Taliban breaking off their lifelong relationship with al-Qaeda, the deal represented mere window dressing to dignify a US exit.
On February 21, 2020, The New York Times published an eloquent opinion piece attributed to Sirajuddin Haqqani as the “deputy leader of the Taliban.” What the Times did not disclose is that he is the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the infamous al-Qaeda-allied Haqqani Network. And that the US has designated Sirajuddin a terrorist and offered $10 million for information on his whereabouts.
Taliban fighters have taken large swathes of Afghanistan in the past two weeks. Photo: AFP / Aref Karimi
In the piece, Sirajuddin opined: “I am confident that, liberated from foreign domination and interference, we together will find a way to build an Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights, where the rights of women that are granted by Islam – from the right to education to the right to work – are protected, and where merit is the basis for equal opportunity.
“We are also aware of concerns about the potential of Afghanistan being used by disruptive groups to threaten regional and world security. But these concerns are inflated.…”
But as attacks have continued unabated in Afghanistan, few believe the sincerity of Sirajuddin’s words. In fact, the piece was harshly criticized by numerous US officials, one of whom called it “blatant propaganda.”
Then in April of this year, Saleem Mehsud, a CNN reporter in Pakistan, conducted an interview through intermediaries with two al-Qaeda figures. It underscores the close relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taliban – both the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban (TTP):
“The Americans are now defeated.… Now the organization of Pakistani Taliban and their leadership not only moving forward in the light of sharia but also making better decisions based on past experiences and recent successes have been made possible by the same unity and adherence to sharia and wisdom.…
“Thanks to Afghans for the protection of comrades-in-arms, many such jihadi fronts have been successfully operating in different parts of the Islamic world for a long time.…”
Ominously, the al-Qaeda spokesmen warned that “war against the US will be continuing on all other fronts unless they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world.”
A safe haven for terrorists again
Biden has justified withdrawing from Afghanistan by asserting the US military had accomplished its goal of ousting al-Qaeda from its safe haven in Afghanistan.
But Robert Gates, who served as secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011, confessed in a recent New York Times op-ed:
“There is little doubt the United States made strategic mistakes in Afghanistan. We vastly underestimated the challenge of changing an ancient culture and of nation building in a historically highly decentralized country. We never figured out what to do about the Taliban safe haven in Pakistan.
“Despite ongoing negotiations, I do not believe the Taliban will settle for a partial victory or for participation in a coalition government. They want total control, and they still maintain ties to al Qaeda.…”
Gates’ comments echo a UN monitoring team report released in June that claimed al-Qaeda is already present across Afghanistan, especially along the border with Pakistan, and is led by Osama Mahmood under al-Qaeda’s Jabhat-al-Nasr wing:
“Nineteen members of the group have been relocated to more remote areas by the Taliban to avoid potential exposure and targeting…. Al-Qaeda maintains contact with the Taliban but has minimized overt communications with Taliban leadership in an effort to ‘lie low’ and not jeopardize the Taliban’s diplomatic position vis-à-vis the Doha agreement” with the US.
Both al-Qaeda, which is estimated to have 400 to 600 fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Taliban are playing the long game. Their patience will have tragic implications for the Afghan people. But that is just the beginning of the problem.
An Indonesian man wears a jacket depicting an image of deceased al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Photo: Stock / Getty
Afghanistan was the birthplace of al-Qaeda in 1988. The group gave rise to terrorist networks around the world, including Southeast Asia’s Jemaah Islamiyah, formed in Afghanistan in 1993, and Al Qaeda in Iraq, which morphed into the Islamic State in Iraq in 2006.
A Taliban-controlled Afghanistan – a return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – will be much larger and prove much more durable than the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq could ever have been. This will be a powerful inspiration for jihadi terrorists everywhere.
And there will be little to prevent it becoming a safe haven for training and equipping terrorists from around the world.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
asiatimes.com · by More by Greg Barton · July 17, 2021

12.  America’s Collapsing Meritocracy Is a Recipe for Revolt


America’s Collapsing Meritocracy Is a Recipe for Revolt
Chinese history shows what happens when an old system loses its force.

Foreign Policy · by Paul Musgrave · July 16, 2021
TikTok star Addison Rae caused a sensation on social media last week for something other than her dance moves. Rae posted a tweet that included a picture of her holding an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) microphone before a match between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier. Her caption read: “I studied broadcast journalism in college for 3 whole months to prepare for this moment.”
The seemingly innocuous tweet received thousands of angry responses, many from students or recent journalism school graduates expressing dismay that Rae had apparently taken one of the scarce jobs in their field. As one Twitter user wrote, “i got a 33 on my ACT and was a national merit semifinalist, spent thousands of dollars and hours of hard work to receive a bachelor’s degree from the best journalism school in the country, was commencement speaker, and applied to 75+ jobs to be unemployed.” The tweet received over 100,000 likes and thousands of retweets.
The internet produces no shortage of cheap drama, but outrage on this scale suggests something deeper. Understanding why Rae’s joke inspired so much outrage depends on appreciating the tensions between those who achieve fame and fortune in the marketplace and those who seek the climb the career ladder in a declining empire with narrowing paths to success.
To really grasp why everyone was mad at Addison Rae, in other words, you have to know the story of the late Qing dynasty’s civil service examination system.
Successive dynasties ruling what would become modern China found it difficult to recruit and monitor honest, or at least effective, officials. Relying on provincial networks risked splitting the empire; relying on centralized personnel risked alienating powerful regional interests. The solution, or at least part of it, was competitive examinations.
For a thousand years, rulers used examinations to choose the governing class—although the extent and nature of the undertaking shifted significantly over time. By the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and its successor, the Qing (1644-1911), the process had somewhat stabilized—into a difficult and lengthy one. At the first stage, millions of literate men took the local entrance examination at one of 1,300 counties. If they succeeded, they could take successively more challenging examinations to attain distinction, with the top examination symbolically given by the emperor himself.
The tests were mentally and physically arduous. To achieve the provincial degree, the second-highest rank, required those who had already passed the lower examination to visit the provincial capital and sit for three examinations over the course of a week, in a process held only once every three years. Exam-takers were sequestered in a cell in a vast compound during the examinations. Only about 5 percent—1,500 students—would pass and proceed to the next stage. Benjamin Elman, a leading scholar of the imperial examination system, estimates that only 1 in 6,000 test-takers would succeed at every level of the process.
The examination system attracted ambitious men of all ages by the millions. Some few received official posts for themselves and elite status for their families. Many more simply failed. Even those who succeeded did so only after spending decades of their lives preparing for the examinations. Frustration with preparing for and failing the civil service examination became a recurring theme in literature and popular culture. Even the winners—the rare few who seized the top ranks in the imperial examinations—were scarred.
For the empire, of course, the tests offered immense benefits. Educational systems everywhere are systems of social control, and a testing apparatus on an imperial scale was a core method of molding society as well as the government to fit the needs of the imperial court. The standardized test created standard elite language, culture, and, crucially, expectations.
The examination system developed an idea of merit that could be graded, ranked, and selected to ensure the highest-quality servants for the government. The basis for this ranking was, in some ways, arbitrary: the mastery of a classical literary and philosophical tradition, especially canonical Confucian texts. By the late Qing, reformers scorned this obsession, and some later English-language critics have done so as well. But there’s nothing any more arbitrary in basing the selection of officials on their ability to interpret texts concerned with law, governance, and moral uprightness than in the traditional British equivalent (studying classics at the University of Oxford or Cambridge) or the contemporary American version (a law degree from Yale University).
To be sure, reliance on the system meant that, by the late Qing period, Chinese officials were confronted with problems hardly conceived of in Confucian classics—but on the other hand, vanishingly few U.S. policymakers have degrees in science or foreign languages, and yet they nevertheless make decisions regarding nuclear weapons, biotechnology, and international trade.
Success in the examination path and career success were, at least in theory, linked. This idea of merit as the basis for bureaucratic career advancement proved to be enduringly conservative. The examination system simultaneously created an elite and linked the basis for advancement to success according to the examinations administered by earlier successes. Even those who gained wealth through commerce—an officially disdained activity but one impossible to ignore—sought to turn lucre into prestige by purchasing the best preparation for the examinations for their sons. For the empire, again, this was a success. As Elman observes, “reproduction of well-trained and loyal Confucian officials remained the prime concern.”
The details of exam administration showed that control trumped merit at key points. Applicants from the wealthier southern provinces proved to be enduringly more successful in the examinations, portending the ultimate domination of the civil service by one region. Officials set quotas ensuring that southern candidates could never take more than a set percentage of the highest degrees.
Yet official solicitousness extended only so far. Preparing for the examinations required decades and mastery of what, for many test-takers, was essentially a foreign language—the Mandarin vernacular. Few poor students could afford the study necessary to do well in even the lowest-level examinations. And yet there was no sustained or extensive movement to make preparation for the exams easier or more accessible to lower social classes. In theory open to all, the competitive testing regime systematically favored the wealthy and the connected—who thus had more reason to continue to support it.
It was always possible to circumvent the system somewhat, by means of money and connections, and it eventually broke down altogether. Decreasing standards at the lower levels of the examinations led to credential inflation, meaning that even high-level degree recipients could not find jobs keeping with the status they supposedly deserved. A need for government revenue led to the development of the “irregular” route for advancement, in which offices and degrees could be purchased rather than earned. Between 1830 and 1912, only 32 percent of Qing officials had actually passed the examinations—though many of them were bannermen, the Manchu elite who had their own routes to power. The humiliations of the Qing before Western powers fed criticism of the regime. But the aspiring elite remained deeply invested in the system. The economists Ying Bai and Ruixue Jia found that its formal abolition in 1905 dashed would-be elites’ hopes of joining official ranks and pushed them toward discontent and, in 1911, revolutionary activity.
One major blow had come from inside. Frustrated exam-takers could turn on the system that had rejected them, fomenting local dissent or worse. The most notable example was Hong Xiuquan, an exam-taker from a village in Guangdong, who passed the local examinations easily but failed the prefectural examinations in Guangzhou. There, he encountered foreign ideas, including Christianity. After two additional failures, Hong became ill and fell into a dayslong delirium. After a fourth failure, an enraged Hong interpreted his dreams as visions prophesying his own empire, led by himself, the younger brother of Jesus. His theology, anti-Qing sentiments, and a deep pool of the socially discontented would lead to the Taiping Rebellion, a devastating blow to Qing power and the deadliest war of the 19th century.
The parallels between how the examination system related to Chinese society and the American system of credentialing through its education system take a moment to appreciate. The American system is not quite as centralized or transparently ranked; a bachelor’s degree from an Ivy League school opens more doors than a master’s degree from a regional public university, for instance. Befitting a plural society, top-ranked American students also pursue more varied goals than service in the imperial court, although a disproportionate share end up working in finance.
Nevertheless, both systems are rooted in their own meritocratic myths, and American elites—and aspirational elites—are no less invested in those myths than Chinese exam-takers were in their system. Aspirational elites in the U.S. system similarly face a gap between how the system is supposed to work—through transparent merit—and the difficulty of translating their credentials to a career.
In the late Qing period, discontented literati without jobs expressed their bitterness at a system that failed them through pamphlets, essays, and posters. The discontented, underemployed American literati now do so on Twitter. And so the controversy surrounding Addison Rae dramatizes the political tensions caused by incompatibility between what a system promises those who play by its rules and what it actually rewards.
The idea that a commoner who hadn’t gone through that official hazing route would achieve a distinguished place would be outrageous to milling crowds of disaffected Chinese exam-takers. We can even imagine one of them sitting to write, “I earned my juren degree, was a finalist for a jinshi degree, spent thousands of taels and decades of hard work, and am nevertheless unemployed.”
Rae, in other words, is blameless (at least in this regard). Rather than spending her career trying for conventional measures of success—a college degree, perhaps a master’s in journalism from Columbia University or a doctoral degree in political science—she instead sniffed out a route to success better suited to her day. That mixture of aspiration, cleverness, and hard work commands an audience of 80 million followers on TikTok.
In doing so, Rae made herself the target for the frustrations of those who thought they were succeeding in the American version of the examination system. For an aspiring journalist, probably thousands of dollars in debt, the future seems bleak. Federal statistics show that the number of jobs in that field is projected to plummet by 11 percent over the next several years, and those who do find work will find it hard to pay back student loans. Similar bitterness plagues academic Twitter, where the overproduction of doctoral degrees has left a highly educated class with ample spare time and cultural capital to express their grievances. The frustrated take to social media to denounce someone who demonstrates that their entire theory of success is wrong.
Such outrage amounts to little as long as it targets individuals. Only outrage mobilized and joined to political action can pose a challenge to the system. Yet occasionally movements can seize on the frustrations of the wannabe bourgeois. Political leaders interested in shoring up the foundations of American rule could learn from the Chinese Empire about the risks of keeping too many aspiring professionals frustrated. In the long run, buying off some literati can be a lot cheaper than quelling their rebellions.
Foreign Policy · by Paul Musgrave · July 16, 2021

13. Reporters Reveal 'Ugly Truth' Of How Facebook Enables Hate Groups And Disinformation
A lomng. read. Can we be consistent in our support for the 1st Amendment?

Reporters Reveal 'Ugly Truth' Of How Facebook Enables Hate Groups And Disinformation
publicradiotulsa.org · by Terry Gross
In a new book, two New York Times journalists report that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg often doesn't see the downside of the social media platform he created. In their new book, An Ugly Truth, Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang write that Zuckerberg tends to believe that free speech will drown out bad speech.
"[Zuckerberg's] view was that even if there were lies [on Facebook] — lies from a politician such as Donald Trump — that the public would respond with their own fact checks of the president and that the fact checks would rise to the top," Frenkel says.
Frenkel, who is based on San Francisco, covers cybersecurity for The Times; Kang is based in Washington, D.C., and covers technology and regulatory policy. Their book focuses on the period between the 2016 presidential campaign and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — a time in which Trump became one of Facebook's most profitable users.
"Trump had over 30 million followers," Frenkel tells Fresh Air. "He not only managed to bring audience and relevancy to Facebook, he created this constant sort of churning stream of information that people couldn't help take their eyes off of."
Following the 2020 presidential election, the Facebook platform became key in the "Stop the Steal" effort to challenge the election results, with users posting photos of assault rifles and openly discussing how they were going to bring guns to Washington on Jan. 6.
"I had never seen a Facebook group grow so quickly, adding thousands of users within hours to this group in which they were sharing all sorts of falsified videos and documents about election fraud," Kang says. "It's very clear from our reporting that Facebook knew the potential for explosive violence was very real [on Jan 6]."
It's very clear from our reporting that Facebook knew the potential for explosive violence was very real [on Jan 6]. - Cecilia Kang
Kang and Frenkel say that the company debated having Zuckerberg call Trump to try to defuse the Jan. 6 rally ahead of time, but it ultimately decided not to do so. After the insurrection, Facebook suspended Trump's account for two years, saying it will reinstate him only if "the risk to public safety has receded."
Kang notes that the fact that Trump is no longer in office has helped Facebook avoid an extensive discussion of the ban. But political disinformation remains a problem for the social media platform, which has nearly 3 billion global users.
"There are elections coming up in a number of countries where the current head of state is very active on Facebook and uses Facebook much in the way that was modeled by Donald Trump," Kang says. "Millions of people all over the world are being affected in democracies that are being threatened by populist leaders using Facebook."
Facebook responded to the assertions in An Ugly Truth with the following statement:
"Every day, we make difficult decisions on where to draw the line between free expression and harmful speech, on privacy, security, and other issues, and we have expert leaders who engage outside stakeholders as we craft our policies. But we should not be making these decisions on our own and have for years advocated for updated regulations where democratic governments set industry standards to which we can all adhere."
Interview Highlights
An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang
HarperCollins
On Facebook's decision to ban Trump from its platform following the Jan. 6 insurrection
Cecilia Kang: There was immediate sort of understanding that this was a watershed moment and that they were going to have to have the discussion they dreaded having for a very long time, which is do they remove Donald Trump? And we see them debate that. We see them go back and forth. And really, it's not until Twitter takes action to ban Trump that Facebook sort of makes its announcement — at first that it's a temporary suspension. It's very unclear and muddled. Their messaging is that we're removing him for now, but we're going to reevaluate. And ultimately, it's finally announced that they're going to suspend the account, but they're going to refer it to the Facebook Oversight Board. They're essentially really, again, kicking the can to someone else and saying, "We've created this outside body. I'm going to allow them to rule on whether or not we should have removed Donald Trump."
They have said that for at least two years, Trump will be banned and that two years expires, essentially ahead of his ability to campaign again for the 2024 campaigns. - Sheera Frenkel
Sheera Frenkel: The ban was for a couple of weeks. The language was quite interesting. It was indefinite and temporary is the way they described it. They referred it to this body that they describe as a Supreme Court, [a] third-party body that makes decisions on content. Interestingly, months later, the body, the Facebook Oversight Board, kicked it back, that decision on Trump to Facebook and they said, "Facebook, you don't have policies that are clear enough on this kind of political speech and taking down an account like Trump, you have to write those policies." It was actually a pretty smart move by the Facebook Oversight Board. So currently the final decision on Trump is in the hands of Facebook. They have said that for at least two years, Trump will be banned and that two years expires, essentially ahead of his ability to campaign again for the 2024 campaigns.
On how social media companies are often creating policies about misinformation on the fly
New York Times journalists Cecilia Kang (left) and Sheera Frenkel are co-authors of An Ugly Truth.
Beowulf Sheehan / HarperCollins
Frenkel: The social media companies are all struggling, and they're creating policies as we go. I will say that Twitter, though it's much smaller ... compared to Facebook, especially when you put Facebook together with its other apps, WhatsApp and Instagram, Twitter is willing to be more experimental. It's quite public in its approach and writing of its policies. I'm not saying that they've got it completely right. YouTube is still very far behind. These social media companies are all struggling with how to handle misinformation and disinformation, and along the lines of misinformation, it is a very current and present danger in that just recently, the chief of staff of the White House, Ron Klain, was saying that when the White House reaches out to Americans and asks why aren't they getting vaccinated, they hear misinformation about dangers with the vaccine. And he said that the No. 1 place where they find that misinformation is on Facebook.
On Facebook's updated political ad policy
Kang: Facebook still allowed politicians to post ads without being fact-checked. And, in fact, politicians could say things in advertisements that the average Facebook user could not. They did change other things in the platform. For instance, they created an ad library where you could search for ads and see what politicians were posting. And that was a level of transparency they hadn't previously had. However, they did double down, and they did maintain firm in their belief that politicians could say things in ads without the benefit of a fact check.
On Zuckerberg and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg's belief that people would discern lies from truth
Kang: Up until the end of Trump's presidency, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were still defending the idea that Trump — and really political leaders all over the world — could and should say things on the platform as they wished, and people could and should respond as they wished. They failed to see what their own employees were telling us. ... One of the most fascinating things was talking to employees within Facebook who are raising the alarm again and again and again and saying, "This is a problem. We are spreading misinformation. We are letting the president spread misinformation and it's being amplified by our own algorithms. Our systems aren't working the way we predicted and we should do something." And yet, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg stay the course.
On the difficulty of moderating hate speech
Frenkel: We have to remember that the scale of Facebook is nearly 3 billion users around the world. The amount of content that courses through the platform every day is just so enormous. Facebook has put in AI, artificial intelligence, as well as hired thousands of content moderators to try to detect this. But they're really far behind, and they've only really started taking this seriously since public scrutiny has shed a spotlight on the company and there is demand for change within the company. So our reporting shows, and [we're hearing] from the people inside, that they really do feel like they are racing to catch up.
Kang: And I would just add that a lot of this hate speech is happening in private groups. This is something Facebook launched just a few years ago, this push towards privacy, this push towards private groups. The idea being is that people wanted to be in small, intimate groups with like-minded people. But what happens when those small, intimate groups are QAnon or when they're malicious? Everyone is like-minded, and so no one is reporting the content. In some cases, it's not a matter of Facebook's algorithms not finding things. It's a matter of Facebook creating these kind of secluded, private, walled gardens where this kind of talk can happen, where hate speech can happen and it's not being found.
Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz and Molly Seavy-Nesper adapted it for the web.
Editor's note: Facebook is among NPR's financial supporters.
Copyright 2021 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. A new book investigates Facebook's failure to protect against spreading hate speech, disinformation, conspiracy theories and calls to violence. The book also shows how Facebook became an advertising company, monetizing its users and their data. The book is called "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." My guests are the authors, Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, who are reporters for The New York Times. Frenkel covers cybersecurity and is based in San Francisco and covers technology and regulatory policy and is based in Washington, D.C.
The book focuses on the period between the 2016 presidential campaign and the January 6 insurrection, a period in which Trump became one of Facebook's most profitable users and his campaign became one of the platforms most profitable advertisers. The authors say it was also the period in which it became clear Facebook was unprepared to deal with a political leader like Trump, who used the platform to spread misleading and false information. We recorded our interview yesterday morning. Sheera Frenkel, Cecilia Kang, welcome to FRESH AIR. And congratulations on the book.
CECILIA KANG: Thank you.
SHEERA FRENKEL: Thank you, Terry.
GROSS: So Trump and his followers created many headaches and nightmares for Facebook, which Facebook was unprepared for an American president spreading these falsehoods. But Trump was also a gold mine. So how did Facebook profit from Trump's falsehoods spread on Facebook?
FRENKEL: Well, Trump had over 30 million followers by the time he was kicked off Facebook. He was a major draw for people all over the world to come to Facebook and hear what he had to say about the day's news. He not only managed to bring audience and relevancy to Facebook, he created this constant sort of churning stream of information that people couldn't help take their eyes off of. And ultimately, that's what Facebook needs to stay relevant.
GROSS: Even if you repost one of Trump's messages and add a critical comment, you're still amplifying his post.
KANG: Absolutely. What you're doing is doing what Facebook wants, which is you're engaging with his content and you're engaging with the website. And that's really the core of the business there is to get people's attention and to engage and to be active.
GROSS: So Facebook profited enormously from Trump's campaign spending. How did the campaign use Facebook tools to maximize its reach?
FRENKEL: This is Sheera. The Trump campaign really used Facebook in unusual and unprecedented ways for a political campaign. They did something that had previously not been done by politicians in using Facebook's incredibly targeted advertisement, both to reach people and to sort of do an AB testing of what messages worked best. So, for instance, they would send out two, three, four versions of the same message and then whichever one they saw in real time reaching people and being amplified by people, that's the one they would double down on and put more money into. Once Trump did this, I would note that politicians all over the world followed suit. And they discovered that Facebook was an incredible way in telling people exactly what they wanted to hear.
GROSS: Now, you write that Facebook employees were embedded in Trump's New York City campaign headquarters to help riff on Hillary's daily speeches and target negative ads to specific audiences. Facebook employees were embedded in the Trump campaign?
FRENKEL: So interestingly, this is something Facebook actually offered both campaigns. The Hillary Clinton campaign just turned them down and said that they didn't want that kind of assistance. And so, yes, the Trump campaign ended up with Facebook employees in their offices advising them on how to best use Facebook tools, much like you would a major advertiser like Pepsi-Cola. They, in real time, could tell them this tool is working for you, this one is not - this messaging is working for you and this one is not.
And because Facebook's algorithms are so sensitive and because Facebook's tools are so precise, they could even tell them things like, well, we think that this is playing well in this demographic or in that part of the country. And that trove of data was so important to the Trump campaign in understanding who their voters were.
GROSS: So do you think Facebook employees helped the Trump campaign amplify misleading or outright false information in Trump campaign ads?
FRENKEL: You know, Facebook is always really careful in saying that they're a neutral platform, as are their own employees. And so whatever the content was that Trump was amplifying, whether it was misinformation, conspiracies, just, you know, outright false, you know, false information, Facebook employees helped it regardless of what the content was. And often they don't even look at the content themselves. They just give them the data. This messaging is working and that messaging is not.
GROSS: Tell us more about the rationale behind that policy of not fact-checking political ads when you know that some of that information is outright false. And what was the debate within Facebook about fact-checking political ads?
KANG: I think you have to actually go back to the creation of Facebook to understand their policies on speech and the belief that the CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg had from the founding of the company that more expression, that freedom of expression was going to be the bedrock policy for the company. And he also understood that engagement was really important. And from the earliest days, when he was at Harvard, he would - he told people he really wants to create a site where people just sort of mindlessly scroll, and they're online, constantly posting and reading each other's posts. He understood the power of attention and engagement.
And Mark Zuckerberg also - he does truly believe in the idea of freedom of expression. And what we've seen and what we reveal in this book is that that policy and his philosophy towards speech has really evolved and that Donald Trump really tested him. And he was, in many ways - Donald Trump - the person that surfaced all of the things that were embedded and core to the platform and the business that were problematic.
FRENKEL: I just wanted to add one thing, which is that if anyone listening remembers MTV and how popular that was in the 1990s, that's what Zuckerberg was really basing this idea on. The same way that you would sit and for hours with your friends watch MTV, he wanted people on Facebook. Only here, Facebook was collecting data about them in real time. And as they mindlessly scrolled, Facebook was amassing more and more information about them.
GROSS: So has the policy about political advertising changed? Is there any fact-checking on Facebook now?
FRENKEL: Facebook still allowed politicians to post ads without being fact-checked. And in fact, politicians could say things in advertisements that the average Facebook user could not. They did change other things in the platform. For instance, they created an ad library where you could search for ads and see what politicians were posting. And that was a level of transparency they hadn't previously had. However, they did double down, and they did maintain firm in their belief that politicians could say things in ads without the benefit of a fact-check.
GROSS: Sheryl Sandberg was first brought on to help grow and monetize Facebook. What had she done when she was at Google to maximize advertising growth there?
KANG: Sheryl Sandberg was an incredible success at Google. She created what was really one of the earliest big behavioral advertising business models that became known as AdWord (ph) and AdSense at Google. She created a multibillion-dollar business for Google. So she was well-known by the time Mark Zuckerberg was looking for a partner to really build the business and expand it and to refine it.
So when he met - when Mark Zuckerberg met Sheryl Sandberg in December 2007, there was a real meeting of minds. They both had looked at each other with a lot of interest because they knew that they could offer the other one something different, which was Mark Zuckerberg was a technology visionary, and Sheryl Sandberg was absolutely the business erudite and visionary for the company.
Sheryl Sandberg came in, and within her first weeks, she had called a couple meetings with some of the biggest executives at Facebook at the time. And they refined the business. And they realized from that moment forward that they would pursue a behavioral advertising business.
GROSS: let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guests are Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, authors of the new book "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." They're both reporters for The New York Times. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAKE MASON TRIO'S "THE STRANGER IN THE MIRROR")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with the authors of the new book "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel are reporters for The New York Times. Kang covers technology and regulatory policy. Frenkel covers tech and cybersecurity.
So Donald Trump, as both candidate and president, challenged Facebook's standards of speech because there were so many mistruths and out and out falsehoods or lies that Trump posted. So what were the standards before Trump for taking down a post?
FRENKEL: Before Trump, Facebook tried to implement fairly universal standards about what it would take down. It created rules in its content moderation policy that applied to everyone evenly, or so it declared. And we saw Trump really at the beginning of his candidacy when he was first running for president, run up against those rules and post something on Facebook, a ban, he said, that would make sure that all Muslims did not enter the United States that within Facebook was seen as possible hate speech. Facebook's own employees went to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg and said, you know, we think this violates our policies. Shouldn't we be taking this down? And at that moment, when Facebook decided to leave up his post and start to carve out a new policy for Trump, they were essentially creating a separate class of user on Facebook. Now, it would take years for them to come around and kind of declare this officially and to formalize it. But that first step showed that Facebook was really carving out something for important people, for VIPs on the platform that the average user didn't get.
GROSS: Once that policy was formalized, what was it, and what was the justification they offered for it?
KANG: So they called it the newsworthy exemption. The way that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg described it is that political figures deserved this special class of, really, an exemption from the other hate speech and other speech policies they had because political speech was of public interest and importance for the world to know. So - and Mark Zuckerberg said in a speech at Georgetown in 2019 that he believed that political speech was the most scrutinized speech. Mark Zuckerberg, in his view of expression and free expression, has a belief that more speech will actually drown out bad speech. So his view was that even if there were lies, lies from a politician such as Donald Trump, that the public would respond with their own fact checks of the president and that the fact checks would rise to the top. And that would, in a sense, neutralize any of the problems with political figures.
GROSS: But I'm sure the people at Facebook saw it wasn't working out that way. So how did they respond to the fact that lies were often winning out?
FRENKEL: That was so difficult for Facebook and specifically Mark Zuckerberg to contend with. And that's something that for us was really interesting in writing this book and showing repeatedly over and over again, despite their ideas really being disproven. You know, this idea that people would reject falsehoods. They would reject misinformation. They would reject conspiracies, despite Facebook's own algorithms showing that that wasn't happening - they continued to persist in this idea. And really, up until the end of Trump's presidency, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were still defending the idea that Trump and, really, political leaders all over the world could and should say things on the platform as they wished. And people could and should respond as they wished. They failed to see what their own employees were telling us. And that - for us In, the book, one of the most fascinating thing was talking to employees within Facebook who were raising the alarm again and again and again and saying, this is a problem. You know, we are spreading misinformation. We are letting the president spread misinformation. And it's being amplified by our own algorithms. Our systems aren't working the way we predicted, and we should do something. And yet, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg stay the course.
GROSS: Well, you have a lot of insights into this, but I'm not sure you can actually answer it. But I'll ask, what - do you think that Sandberg and Zuckerberg were defending their ideal of what free speech should mean on Facebook? Or do you think they were trying to protect Facebook's profits?
FRENKEL: You know, our sources admit it's a little bit of both. I think publicly Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg really hold tight to this idea of defending basic, you know, free expression, freedom of speech. That's a really strong public position for them to take, especially here in the United States, where that's core to our identity as Americans. But when you talk to people within the company that are part of that business arm and part of that policy arm, they say there was also a political calculus and, really, a monetary calculus of this just being good business for them.
GROSS: What was the Facebook policy about hate speech, and how was that tested during the Trump years?
FRENKEL: You know, what's interesting is that Trump brought home the problems of hate speech that Facebook had been facing all over the world. Here in America, we might forget, but in India, in Myanmar, in the Philippines, in Sri Lanka, people have been dying because of hate speech on Facebook for years. It has led to real-life consequences and real deaths. Here in the United States, we only began to see how that hate speech could lead to a growth in extremist movements and fringe groups with the Trump presidency because the president himself was amplifying hate speech. He was pointing to militia movements. He was pointing to theories by QAnon, the conspiracy group. And it was being amplified on Facebook. And within Facebook's own security team, the experts who study extremism were saying over and over again, we are seeing extraordinary growth of these movements. We are ourselves frightened by the way the far right has grown on Facebook during these years.
GROSS: Were the algorithms failing to detect hate speech? Was that the problem?
KANG: The algorithms are catching up. We have to remember that the scale of Facebook is 3 - nearly 3 billion users around the world. The amount of content that courses through the platform every day is just so enormous. Facebook has put in AI, artificial intelligence, as well as hired thousands of content moderators to try to detect this. But they're really far behind, and they've only really started taking this seriously since public scrutiny has shed a light, a spotlight on the company. And there is demand for change within the company. So our reporting shows and from the people inside that they really do feel like they are racing to catch up.
FRENKEL: And I would just add that a lot of this hate speech is happening in private groups. This is something Facebook launched just a few years ago, this push towards privacy, this push towards private groups. The idea being is that people wanted to be in small, intimate groups with like-minded people. But what happens when those small, intimate groups are QAnon or when they're militias? Everyone is like-minded, and so no one is reporting the content. In some cases, it's not a matter of Facebook's algorithms not finding things. It's a matter of Facebook creating these kind of secluded, private walled gardens where this kind of talk can happen, where hate speech can happen and it's not being found.
GROSS: But were the tech people aware of what was happening with hate speech?
FRENKEL: They were. I mean, Facebook has a really fantastic security team. These are experts. They hire from the NSA. They hire from the FBI. They hire people who are really at the forefront of their fields. And in reporting the book, so many of the people I spoke to said, you know, in government intelligence, we only wish we had the kind of insight that Facebook has. We collect more intelligence and more data at Facebook than any government official could possibly hope for. So it wasn't that Facebook's engineers, their security team didn't see the growth of these movements. It's just that, really, Facebook's own policies kind of tied their hands behind their backs in terms of what they could do.
GROSS: What were the policies that tied the hands?
FRENKEL: So when it comes to hate speech, there's not a firm line in the sand of what hate speech is. It's a very nebulous and ever-changing thing. One person might say something and it might be seen as a joke, and another person might say it and it's hate speech. It's meant to inspire hatred. It's something that really needs to be looked at by human beings to understand. And Facebook overwhelmingly relies on algorithms and AI to find things. And when you're training your systems on AI, you're building an inherent sort of flaw in that AI is just not going to find everything. And Facebook itself acknowledges that, that its AI isn't effective with hate speech.
KANG: The other thing I would add, Terry, is that these policies are being created oftentimes on the fly. Facebook has not looked around the corner at things such as doctored videos, deepfakes. They are creating policies in real time. And one example that we really spool out in the book is when Speaker House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke at a conference and somebody posted a doctored video of her where she appeared intoxicated. And within Facebook - we take people inside the room when there is much debate within the policy team, the executive ranks, with engineers as well over, what should the policy be for a doctored video which is obviously false, but according to the broad umbrella definition of free expression that the company abides by, could be permitted?
I mean, there were discussions about whether this looks like an "SNL" parody, whether this is actually going to lead to disinformation related to politics in the election. And ultimately, which I think is a really important pattern that we discovered and we have in our book, is that often Mark Zuckerberg is the one who makes the final call on these important policy decisions.
GROSS: So the decision that was made by Zuckerberg, you say, is to leave up doctored videos. Is that still the policy?
KANG: That's a great question, because it's unclear. They make these very ad hoc decisions. And in the case of Pelosi, Mark Zuckerberg did decide to leave up that doctored video, but he made this kind of strange distinction between deepfakes and doctored videos, which his own team is still struggling to answer. Where is the line between something that has been altered enough that it is not reality versus something that has just been doctored? They've essentially set the stage for them to have to make these one-off decisions over and over and over again.
GROSS: So after Pelosi and her team asked Facebook to take down this doctored video and Facebook declined to do that, that's when Pelosi stopped talking to Sheryl Sandberg.
KANG: Yes, the - from what I understand, there is a moratorium on talking to Facebook at all within the speaker's office. There is a lot of deep resentment about these policies that don't have a clear throughline. They don't have consistency from the point of view of many political leaders.
GROSS: So what was Facebook's final resolution about how to deal with the Pelosi doctored video?
KANG: After 48 hours, Facebook decided to slow the spread of the video. That was their resolution, their remedy. They decided that to essentially suppress the rankings of the video so that it wouldn't spread too quickly across the internet.
GROSS: Let me reintroduce you both. If you're just joining us, my guests are Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, authors of the new book "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." They're both reporters for The New York Times. We'll be back after we take a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with New York Times reporters Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel, authors of the new book "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." It investigates Facebook's failure to protect against becoming a platform spreading hate speech, disinformation, conspiracy theories and calls to violence. The book also shows how Facebook became an advertising company, monetizing its users and their data.
Less than three months before the election, one of Facebook's cybersecurity experts, Ned Moran, discovered the DCLeaks page created by Russians - a page on Facebook created by Russians. Describe the page and Moran's reaction when he found it.
KANG: Ned Moran was someone who came from government intelligence, and he was someone who was trained to look for specifically Russian operations. And yet, when he found the DCLeaks page, he was surprised. He had thought that Russia might be interested in trying to do something during the 2016 presidential elections, but he was surprised it was so blatant. And in the weeks that followed, he watched in real time as Russian agents tried to feed emails from the Clinton campaign to American reporters and took even a step further to try to influence their coverage. He, in this book, described as watching as what he knew to be a Russian agent tried to shape that coverage and say, well, you know, Clinton's going to give a rally on this day. If you drop the story right before she goes onstage, it might affect her. It might affect her polling numbers. Reporters might have to ask her about it. So you really saw an incredibly strategic and aggressive campaign by the Russians on Facebook using Facebook.
GROSS: And he also found that Fancy Bear hackers from Russia had stolen 2,500 documents by hacking into the Soros Foundation, and he was trying to get journalists to publish those. And then in the summer of 2017, the cybersecurity team at Facebook discovered that the Russian Internet Research Agency - and it had, like, thousands of bots - right? - and fake pages.
KANG: Yes. I mean, I think people forget that there are really two separate things that happened during those elections. One was the Russian hackers who were working for the government and who were stealing those Clinton emails and getting American journalists to write about them. Separately, the IRA, the Internet Research Agency, was running a number of bots and buying advertisements on Facebook's own platform to create really divisive emotional content meant to divide Americans. Facebook had been hearing for nearly a year at that point that Russia was buying ads, but they had not been able to find them. And it took until that summer, the summer of 2017, that Facebook was able to finally find those ads. I think in one of the more memorable scenes in our book, we have a Facebook PR person telling journalists that there were no Russian ads bought on the platform during the elections at the same time that just down the hallway, the security team was starting to find those ads.
GROSS: So what was Facebook's reaction? What was the executive leadership at Facebook's reaction when the cybersecurity team reported what they were finding about Russian hacks and Russian bots and Russian disinformation campaigns?
KANG: At this point, you know, I think people know that Facebook took a long time to inform the U.S. public about what they knew. They took almost a year to tell the American public what they knew about Russian election interference. We were shocked, to be honest, when we were reporting at how often they delayed going public and how often they went back to their security team and said, well, let's dig around more. Let's find more. Let's wait a little bit longer. They did not reveal the extent of what Russia had done until September 2017, even when six, seven months earlier, their own security team was urging them to go public and tell people what had happened.
GROSS: Well, you report that Facebook removed the Russian section from a security report. What did they remove, and why?
KANG: This was personally an interesting reporting point for me because I had written about the white paper that Facebook published in the winter of 2017 for The New York Times. At that point, I had heard from sources within Facebook that there had once been an entire section of that report which touched on Russia and which revealed that Russia had, in fact, interfered in the elections. And I went to Facebook. I asked for comment. And I said, you know, I'm hearing these things; did you take out a Russia section? And I was emphatically told that that was not the case, that there was never anything about Russia in the white paper. And it was only in reporting this book that we discovered there were multiple drafts of the paper that had very long sections on Russia. And in fact, there was a great amount of debate within the company about whether or not to include it.
GROSS: So what was taken out, and what was the rationale for it?
KANG: They took out the paragraphs that dealt with Russia. They took out the implications that Russia had been involved in election interference. And the rationale was, well, we don't know enough yet, and this isn't the right form in which we should go out with what we do know, and we should brief members of Congress first, we should perhaps brief intelligence officials first. And so it was, again, a case of Facebook really kicking the can down the road and telling its security team, why don't you go back and find more first?
FRENKEL: I would just add that Facebook today also emphatically says that they did include Russia because they note there is a footnote in the white paper where they link to a DNI report which has a reference to Russian interference. But nowhere in the white paper is the word Russia mentioned.
GROSS: At some point, Zuckerberg said he'd work with Congress in its investigation into Russia and turn over Russian ads that were on Facebook and that he didn't want to use Facebook tools to undermine democracy. That's not what Facebook stands for. What did he actually hand over? And was that everything?
KANG: So Facebook does eventually hand over more than 3,000 ads that were purchased by IRA-connected entities on Facebook. And they are all meant to sort of cause chaos and discord around the election. And they find - they give these ads and these images to a committee that's investigating election interference. The - what's really notable in the book is that the lobbyists who hand over this information, they initially really try to show political neutrality among the ads. They're trying to actually curate the ads and give the impression that the Russians who did buy these ads were not really particularly favoring one candidate over another, but that they were neutral in this, which the people in the committee, the committee investigators, found ludicrous. It was that kind of controlling of the message that I think has really quite angered members of Congress.
GROSS: At some point, Twitter started fact-checking Trump tweets and putting warning labels on false messages or, you know, totally misleading messages. And this was around the time of the election. How did that affect Facebook 'cause, you know, Twitter is a competitor of Facebook?
FRENKEL: Twitter doing that somewhat forced Facebook's hand to become more aggressive in their labeling. For a little while, Facebook had been experimenting with these labels that often directed people to an information center where they were trying to provide more accurate information about the elections or about COVID. But the labels themselves were often confusing. People didn't know what to make of a label that said, for more information about the election, please visit our - you know, and then a link. It didn't say something was false. It didn't really clearly state that something was misleading the way that Twitter's labels did. And so after Twitter really became more aggressive in labeling the Trump posts, we saw Facebook start to change their labels as well. And the language of those labels started to really shift to say this is actually misleading content. There's information provided here that isn't accurate.
GROSS: Let's take another break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guests are Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, authors of the new book "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." They're both reporters for The New York Times. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with the authors of the new book "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel are reporters for The New York Times. Kang covers technology and regulatory policy. Frenkel covers technology and cybersecurity.
January 6 was a very violent day in the Capitol. And so many people could see what was leading up to that, and they could see it on Facebook and on other social media. How was Facebook used by the people who planned January 6 and by those who joined in or led the riot and broke into the Capitol building?
FRENKEL: The seeds for what happened on January 6 were sown very early on - really, I would say, the day after the elections. There were people forming Facebook groups called Stop the Steal. We, as reporters, were watching those groups, and we were astounded. I had never seen a Facebook group grow so quickly, adding thousands of users within hours to this group in which they were sharing all sorts of falsified videos and documents about election fraud and really, really churning up anger around this idea that the election had been somehow stolen from Donald Trump.
While Facebook took action on some of those groups, some of the stop-the-steal groups, they allowed others to persist. And, of course, Donald Trump was still on the platform using that moniker, saying stop the steal and claiming the election had been stolen from him. And so within Facebook, they were seeing that they were really not that effective in stopping that idea from spreading and that in the lead-up to January 6, people were getting more and more and more angry. And they were organizing themselves to come to Washington and to march.
Facebook security officials the day before were warned by reporters that there were Facebook groups in which people were posting photos of assault rifles and openly discussing how they were going to bring guns to Washington for this march. And they knew the potential for violence was very, very real, which is why, on that day, Facebook officials gathered to watch what was happening in Washington and to monitor those very groups. They even discussed at one point whether Zuckerberg should call Trump ahead of time. Ultimately, they decided not to because they were worried that it was going to leak to the press that they might do so. But it's very clear from our reporting that Facebook knew the potential for explosive violence was very real that day.
GROSS: Was there a debate within Facebook about whether to do anything to stop this kind of potentially violent organizing on Facebook?
FRENKEL: There was. The security team was constantly debating with other parts of the company about what should be done. And I would note that with their QAnon policy, for instance - I think that's a very interesting one to look at, QAnon obviously being a conspiracy group here in the United States, which has really taken off during the Trump presidency, has millions of people who believe in this idea of a vast sort of ring of cabal of global elites that are really controlling the world. And while they started to make moves towards banning them - they took down some of the groups; they took down some of the accounts - it took several months of seeing that the group was still spreading before Facebook actually took action to ban the group entirely.
And even then, things slipped through. And Facebook's security team was telling its own officials, well, we're not being effective. We're letting them continue to spread and recruit new members. And in these months that are going by, they're organizing on other platforms. They're telling their own Facebook groups, hey, if we get taken down here, come follow us over here on YouTube, or come follow us over here on a messaging app like Telegram. And so they were organizing ahead of time for the planned removal.
GROSS: After January 6, when executives at Facebook saw what happened at the Capitol and saw that Capitol Police were killed by the mob and that the mob breached the Capitol, that they were saying, hang Mike Pence, that they were going after Nancy Pelosi and others - what was the conversation like inside Facebook, and what action did Facebook take?
FRENKEL: There was immediate sort of understanding that this was a watershed moment and that they were going to have to have the discussion they've dreaded having for a very long time, which is, do they remove Donald Trump? And we see them debate that. We see them go back and forth. And really, it's not until Twitter takes action to ban Trump that Facebook sort of makes its announcement, at first that it's a temporary suspension. It's very unclear and muddled. Their messaging is, well, we're removing him for now, but we're going to reevaluate. And ultimately, it's finally announced that they're going to suspend the account, but they're going to refer it to the Facebook oversight board. They were essentially really, again, kicking the can to someone else and saying, we've created this outside body. I'm going to allow them to rule on whether or not we should have removed Donald Trump.
GROSS: And at first, the ban was, like, for a couple of weeks. Right? And then that was extended.
KANG: That's right. The ban was was for a couple weeks. The language was quite interesting. It was indefinite and temporary is the way they described it. They referred it to this body that they describe as a Supreme Court, third-party body that makes decisions on content. Interestingly, months later, the body, the Facebook oversight board, kicked it back, that decision on Trump, to Facebook. And they said, Facebook, you don't have policies that are clear enough on this kind of political speech and taking down an account like Trump, you have to write those policies. It was actually a pretty smart move by the Facebook oversight board. So currently, the final decision on Trump is in the hands of Facebook. They have said that for at least two years, Trump will be banned, and that two years expires, essentially, ahead of his ability to campaign again for the 2024 campaigns.
GROSS: Has Facebook clarified its policy on political speech that is not true, that is inflammatory, that is hate speech, and also its policy on people who amplify that and who threaten to show up with guns and, you know, breach the Capitol building? I mean, Trump might have, you know, started the fire, but people were stoking it.
FRENKEL: They have not clarified that policy. And really, Trump stepping down from office has helped them avoid discussing it. The daily questions that they used to get from reporters are no longer being received by Facebook executives, but that's really just here in the United States. We have to remember that in countries all over the world, this is still a huge problem. There are elections coming up in India. There are elections coming up in a number of countries where the current head of state is very active on Facebook and uses Facebook much in the way that was modeled by Donald Trump. And so by avoiding answering this, by avoiding coming up with a cohesive policy, they've - you know, they've extended the problem. And millions of people all over the world are being affected in democracies that are being threatened by populist leaders using Facebook.
GROSS: What are the changes to Facebook policy that have happened since the Trump administration?
KANG: Facebook now is coordinating much more with governments and with intelligence officials within governments. Every month, they report about disinformation and what they found, and they report to the public. They're trying to be more public, and they're trying to also coordinate with other technology companies to see - for what they're seeing and coordinate on what those other companies are seeing as well on the internet.
FRENKEL: While Facebook has made huge strides in how it reports publicly and transparently about disinformation and has hired, as they say, more than 30,000 people to work in their security apparatus, they still struggle with misinformation, which - the difference there is really interesting, right? One is spread intentionally by a government or by another body to try and influence people. Misinformation is really just bad information shared among people, Americans telling other Americans that the vote has been stolen. And on that, they still don't know what to do, and that's really what's becoming prevalent not just here in the United States but in countries all over the world.
GROSS: Is there a precedent from another social media company about how to deal with that?
KANG: The social media companies are all struggling, and they're creating policies as we go. I will say that Twitter, though it's much smaller, we do have to remember, compared to Facebook, especially when you put Facebook together with its other apps - WhatsApp and Instagram - Twitter's willing to be more experimental. It's quite public in its approach and writing of its policies. I'm not saying that they've got it completely right. YouTube is still very far behind. These social media companies are all struggling with how to handle misinformation and disinformation. And along the lines of misinformation, it is a very current and present danger in that just recently, the chief of staff of the White House, Ron Klain, was saying that when he talks to - when the White House reaches out to Americans and asks why aren't they getting vaccinated, they hear misinformation about dangers with the vaccine. And they - and he said that the No. 1 place where they find that misinformation is on Facebook.
GROSS: Is Facebook trying to do anything about that?
FRENKEL: Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg himself have said that they will not tolerate misinformation about COVID. However, I will note that just today I was curious, and I went to Facebook, and I checked a couple of different groups which I am a part of and which I track for misinformation, and I saw quite a few conspiracies shared about vaccines causing all sorts of problems, whether fertility or otherwise. I will note that scientists say that none of those problems are being documented. And they were sharing videos which had obviously been doctored. They were sharing very experimental information about what could cure COVID. And so just today I saw that the very type of misinformation that Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg said they wouldn't tolerate about COVID is still online and very active on Facebook.
GROSS: Let me reintroduce you both. If you're just joining us, my guests are Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, authors of the new book, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." They're both reporters for The New York Times. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with the authors of the new book, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel are reporters for The New York Times. Kang covers technology and regulatory policy; Frenkel covers technology and cybersecurity.
So as you were wrapping up your investigation for this book, there were several suits filed against Facebook, one from the Federal Trade Commission. There was a group of over 40 state attorneys general which filed suit against Facebook. What were these suits about?
KANG: Just recently, a federal court threw out the lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission in more than 40 states and jurisdictions, and those lawsuits were seeking to break up Facebook. There were competition lawsuits. The feeling - I mean, there is, Terry, very few things right now in Washington that unite Democrats and Republicans than the idea that Facebook is too big and too powerful.
So these lawsuits were attempting to address the size and the dominance of Facebook. The Federal Trade Commission does have the ability. The judge in this case said come back to us and do a better job essentially of writing your lawsuit. But it was a big step back for any sort of regulatory pressure on the company. The company's stock soared after the announcement. It now - right after the announcement, the stock soared so much that the company was valued at over $1 trillion.
GROSS: You've been reporting on Facebook for years, so this book is kind of like the culmination of your Facebook reporting. Facebook was not always happy with your reports. What did you hear from Facebook when you reported something that made the leadership unhappy and that they wanted to criticize?
FRENKEL: Facebook is very controlling of their message, and they're always concerned about what journalists uncover that is not sanctioned by the company. And, of course, as journalists, that's what we're most interested in. We're most interested in hearing the unfiltered ideas and the raw discussions, what's happening behind the scenes that isn't the polished sort of formal thought that they present to the public but that where they got there. And that's what we want to do with this book is show people how Facebook got here. How did we arrive at our present moment? We went through a very thorough fact-checking process with Facebook for this book. It took several months. We went through every scene. We went through really every detail and gave them a chance to respond and correct anything that they might find inaccurate, because we want this to be a very thorough understanding of the company and the decisions made by its top leadership.
GROSS: What difficulty did you have getting people in Facebook to talk with you? What were they risking? Had they signed nondisclosure agreements about what happens inside Facebook?
KANG: Of the more than 400 people we interviewed for this book, many currently still are at Facebook. Many are former employees, and many did sign NDAs. So they spoke to us at risk. We are grateful that they spoke to us. I think that that speaks to the fact that they wanted their story to be told as they understood it from inside. It was not easy. This is a project that took over two years as a book, and our reporting has extended even further than that. But we just dug and dug and dug because we knew that there was more than just the sort of curated and scripted talking points that the company espouses. We wanted to take people behind the scenes. And the people who did speak to us spoke to us, and they put their trust in us. And we are so grateful.
FRENKEL: I would add that there's sometimes a notion that the people we spoke to were somehow disillusioned, disenfranchised or were coming to us as reporters because they were mad at Facebook. And that's not what we found. We found the vast majority of people still work there. And they actually love the company. And they care about the company, and they want it to do better. Their motivation for speaking to us was often wanting things to come to light publicly so that the company could change.
GROSS: Two people from Facebook who did not give you interviews were Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.
FRENKEL: Yes. At the start of this book, we asked Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to sit with us - an interview, and they declined. We repeated our request multiple times, and they continued to decline.
GROSS: Well, I thank you so much for your reporting and for joining us today. Sheera Frenkel, Cecilia Kang, thank you.
KANG: Thank you, Terry.
FRENKEL: Thank you so much for having us.
GROSS: Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang are reporters for The New York Times. Their new book is called "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination." Facebook contacted us with this statement in response to the book. Quote, "every day we make difficult decisions on where to draw the line between free expression and harmful speech on privacy, security and other issues. And we have expert leaders who engage outside stakeholders as we craft our policies. But we should not be making these decisions on our own and have for years advocated for updated regulations where democratic governments set industry standards to which we can all adhere," unquote.
Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, how long can an athlete perform at a high level while being an active alcoholic? Our guest will be big-league pitcher CC Sabathia. They'll talk about drinking heavily through 15 seasons, including his most dominating years on the mound, and about getting sober. He's written a new memoir called "Till The End." I hope you'll join us.
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GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Kayla Lattimore. Our associate producer of digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. I'm Terry Gross. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
publicradiotulsa.org · by Terry Gross


14.  The Black Rifle Coffee NYT Interview Is A Courageous Journey Up The Arch Of The Moral Universe

An interesting follow-up to the NYT article I sent out previously.

Excerpts:

Most of you likely didn’t read the article, but for those who did, what did they say that was so controversial? I read the article twice and to be honest, most of the article was a pseudo roast of them for leaning into conservative culture wars to begin with. It’s likely why liberals are using the same article to accost BRC. Sadly, conservatives are using the same article to roast them. Why? Because they told the racist not to wear their stuff while they do racist stuff? I’m confident that many read the headline to the article hoping it would affirm their worldview are are specifically just angry that it ended with Hafer’s calls to expunge them.
...
The reaction greatly affirms my opinion that our enemy is not either side of the political spectrum, but human nature itself. You see, the same liberals protesting in the streets of Portland lack the intellectual honesty to see that both a nation, man, or company can self correct. To have offended once is to have offended for all time according to them and that’s why the Democratic party is bleeding moderates. Meanwhile, the far alt-right is guided by the dogma that if you are not fully with me in my Boogaloo wet dream, then you are a libtard tree hugger. and my enemy. Meaning, if you are not with me I’ll zip tie you in the halls of Congress. How dare BRC want to distance themselves from that.
...
America is at a crossroads in our history and either we are going to fight the moral arch of the universe that bends towards justice or we are going ride that bad boy to a more free and just society for all. In that same interview, Hafer said of the racists that “I would gladly chop all of those people out of my {expletive} customer database and pay them to get the {expletive} out.” Well, by virtue of all those saying they are leaving because he wanted the racist out, I think he did that. I think it will cost the BRC money and I think as a company, they recognized where it had gone too far and made a stand. They self corrected, not because they did something wrong, but they realized others were pushing them on a trajectory that their character was unwilling to let them go. Profits be damned.
The Black Rifle Coffee NYT Interview Is A Courageous Journey Up The Arch Of The Moral Universe - Unprecedented Mediocrity
unprecedentedmediocrity.com · by Jeff Edwards · July 17, 2021
On July 4th, I made the following post: “Without exception, reservation, or qualification, I will always be proud of the United States of America. That’s not to say that we do not have some great moral evils in our past. How this great nation could simultaneously enshrine the notion that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator certain inalienable rights while simultaneously making other men property of those men is beyond me.
Yes, the ramifications of that injustice persist today as you cannot have two families walk down those very opposite paths and wind up at the same destination. With each generation, we are getting closer to merging those two timelines. I don’t know if it will happen in my lifetime, but I can either commit myself to pulling them closer together or pushing them further apart. As for me and my household, I will commit my days to pulling them together.
Manifest destiny led to some pretty terrible atrocities against the native people and friends, we’ve had airplanes longer than women have had the right to vote in this country. Despite acts of inexplicable gallantry, men of color could not command white men in what we call the greatest generation. My mom went to segregated schools in the south and as such, it was not that far back in history, one generation, where black and white kids couldn’t go to the same schools. American has gotten much wrong, but that is only because our nation is infested with humans and we are fallible fallen creatures. Which brings me to my point.
I will always be proud of America because we have always shown that we are willing to self correct. Let’s face it, just 60 to 75 years ago, humans conquered other humans and did terrible things to one another on an unprecedented scale. That’s humanity’s story, not the singular story of the United States. I’ve travelled the world in both war and peace and I’m here to tell you, the rest of those people outside our borders are not exactly acing the humanity test either.
Friends, the world is not getting it right and neither are we. However, we are always self correcting. Slowly and painfully, we are riding that long arch of the moral universe that bends towards justice. We fight and argue with each other and that’s largely because we liked each other more before we knew that our countrymen thought about every single topic on the internet. January 6th was a travesty, but I’m here to tell you that if it were any other country, if our democratic institutions were just a bit weaker, our elected government would have fallen. We still have a lot of self correcting to do and I’m not foolish enough to think that I’ll see perfect in my lifetime. However, sooner or later, we self correct and for that I will always be proud of the United States of America.
I want to make it clear that you can be both patriotic and critical of this country. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that any citizen not looking to pass off a better country to his kids is nowhere close to patriotic. Any man who is not committed to the process of self correction doesn’t fit my definition of manliness and any company that is unwilling to alter their trajectory is not a healthy one. Either we ride the arch of the moral universe or we get steamrolled over by it to the detriment of our children.
Black Rifle Company’s NYT Interview Was Capitalistic Courage
To be clear, I don’t know the BRC crew and though I’ve “internet” met a couple of them over the years via this blog, I don’t know anything more about them than you can glean from the public forum. However, what we can all glean is that they are astute business men who have been riding the entrepreneurial journey and learning along the way. That’s why when they conducted the interview with the NYT times where BRC CEO Hafer said, “I hate racist, Proud-Boyish people. Like, I’ll pay them to leave my customer base,” I can’t help but think they counted the cost of the interview and made that decision intentionally. Which is courageous because no one is confused about what happens when you do in the public forum these days.
The Bible says that no King goes to war without counting the cost and if he can win. If he can’t, he goes and tries to make peace and terms. The BRC leadership team, which has branded themselves throughout conservative culture, wasn’t confused as to what the “internet” reaction was going to be. Keep in mind, we watched nearly the entire conservative veteran universe turn on General Mattis as a result of Trump’s scorn. Nearly ever veteran had a St. Mattis poster on their ceiling and loved the man until Trump didn’t. Say what you want about General Mattis, but don’t accuse him of lacking courage for making a stand. Say what you want about BRC, but don’t accuse them for lacking courage for making a stand.
What Did BRC Say That Was So Controversial?
Most of you likely didn’t read the article, but for those who did, what did they say that was so controversial? I read the article twice and to be honest, most of the article was a pseudo roast of them for leaning into conservative culture wars to begin with. It’s likely why liberals are using the same article to accost BRC. Sadly, conservatives are using the same article to roast them. Why? Because they told the racist not to wear their stuff while they do racist stuff? I’m confident that many read the headline to the article hoping it would affirm their worldview are are specifically just angry that it ended with Hafer’s calls to expunge them.
The reaction greatly affirms my opinion that our enemy is not either side of the political spectrum, but human nature itself. You see, the same liberals protesting in the streets of Portland lack the intellectual honesty to see that both a nation, man, or company can self correct. To have offended once is to have offended for all time according to them and that’s why the Democratic party is bleeding moderates. Meanwhile, the far alt-right is guided by the dogma that if you are not fully with me in my Boogaloo wet dream, then you are a libtard tree hugger. and my enemy. Meaning, if you are not with me I’ll zip tie you in the halls of Congress. How dare BRC want to distance themselves from that.
I find it all levels of humorous that conservatives railing about “cancel culture” are taking to Twitter to highlight to the world that they just cancelled their BRC subscription. Those type of conservatives are the political equivalent to the male porn star who does gay porn, but claims he’s not gay though and he just does it because the money is good. Meanwhile, when you sign up for cancelling a company because they told the racists to go away, that’s like the not gay porn star signing up to be an intern and volunteering for some fluffing tutoring on the weekends. I think you cancel because you like it and the rage only drives you closer to who you know deep down inside you have really been all along.
The Moral Arch Of The Universe Demands Self Correction
Remarkably, the BRC has not done anything that requires apology in my opinion. They are still 2A freedom loving people, but the universe brought us all to point where we must self correct. That is every single one of us. I’m talking to the liberal who thinks a tweet from high school is enough to cancel a 30-year-olds career and the conservative who thinks a Democratic Republic is no longer preferable if his party doesn’t win. I’ve said it many times on this blog, but I’m convinced that people are not so opposed to tyranny, just so long as it is a tyranny to their own liking. This is true whether that is tyranny of the mob or tyranny of a tyrant. We all need a little self correction and adjustment in America right now as I’m quite certain none of us are doing this human thing 100% right.
America is at a crossroads in our history and either we are going to fight the moral arch of the universe that bends towards justice or we are going ride that bad boy to a more free and just society for all. In that same interview, Hafer said of the racists that “I would gladly chop all of those people out of my {expletive} customer database and pay them to get the {expletive} out.” Well, by virtue of all those saying they are leaving because he wanted the racist out, I think he did that. I think it will cost the BRC money and I think as a company, they recognized where it had gone too far and made a stand. They self corrected, not because they did something wrong, but they realized others were pushing them on a trajectory that their character was unwilling to let them go. Profits be damned.
That’s the good stuff America and that’s the type of self-correcting that always makes me proud of this country. Somewhere in America, I hope there are a group of progressive liberals who read this article and see the act of self-correction as a start to a healthy conversation rather than MAGA-karma. Equally, I hope there are right leaning conservatives who see this line in the sand and evaluate their own trajectory. If it is indeed true that the moral arch of the universe bends towards justice and we are indeed at a crossroads, then we are all going to be faced with similar decisions in our daily walks of life, business, and families. As for me and my household, we are not going to fuel the cultural divide.
I don’t know, something tells me that a company that would forgo profit to expunge racists by name knows a little something about the direction that moral arch of the universe is taking them. It doesn’t matter whether it is a new or late revelation, because it is here and that’s good enough for me. Hats off the BRC crew and to all those, both left and right, with the intellectual honesty to recognize this for what it is. To all the conservatives who are going to comment about cancelling BRC in the comments, I hear “Keyboard Warrior Studs With Fat Bellies and Little #$@” is doing a casting call at your local Starbucks. You should go audition, you know, cause I hear the money is really good.
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unprecedentedmediocrity.com · by Jeff Edwards · July 17, 2021


15.  Ten Conservative Principles

One of the best short treatises on conservatism I have read in a long time These are the conservative principles I remember reading about long ago. I have always considered myself a "Lockian Liberal" and "Burkian conservative" and this article confirms it for me. I wish the Republican party could be conservative.

Ten Conservative Principles ~ The Imaginative Conservative
theimaginativeconservative.org · by Russell Kirk · July 15, 2021

Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles.
Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.
The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.
In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy “change is the means of our preservation.”) A people’s historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers. But of course there is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.
It is not possible to draw up a neat catalogue of conservatives’ convictions; nevertheless, I offer you, summarily, ten general principles; it seems safe to say that most conservatives would subscribe to most of these maxims. In various editions of my book The Conservative Mind I have listed certain canons of conservative thought—the list differing somewhat from edition to edition; in my anthology The Portable Conservative Reader I offer variations upon this theme. Now I present to you a summary of conservative assumptions differing somewhat from my canons in those two books of mine. In fine, the diversity of ways in which conservative views may find expression is itself proof that conservatism is no fixed ideology. What particular principles conservatives emphasize during any given time will vary with the circumstances and necessities of that era. The following ten articles of belief reflect the emphases of conservatives in America nowadays.
First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.
This word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul, and the outer order of the commonwealth. Twenty-five centuries ago, Plato taught this doctrine, but even the educated nowadays find it difficult to understand. The problem of order has been a principal concern of conservatives ever since conservative became a term of politics.
Our twentieth-century world has experienced the hideous consequences of the collapse of belief in a moral order. Like the atrocities and disasters of Greece in the fifth century before Christ, the ruin of great nations in our century shows us the pit into which fall societies that mistake clever self-interest, or ingenious social controls, for pleasing alternatives to an oldfangled moral order.
It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.
Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions. Continuity is the means of linking generation to generation; it matters as much for society as it does for the individual; without it, life is meaningless. When successful revolutionaries have effaced old customs, derided old conventions, and broken the continuity of social institutions—why, presently they discover the necessity of establishing fresh customs, conventions, and continuity; but that process is painful and slow; and the new social order that eventually emerges may be much inferior to the old order that radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.
Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. Order and justice and freedom, they believe, are the artificial products of a long social experience, the result of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice. Thus the body social is a kind of spiritual corporation, comparable to the church; it may even be called a community of souls. Human society is no machine, to be treated mechanically. The continuity, the life-blood, of a society must not be interrupted. Burke’s reminder of the necessity for prudent change is in the mind of the conservative. But necessary change, conservatives argue, ought to be gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once.
Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. Similarly, our morals are prescriptive in great part. Conservatives argue that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. It is perilous to weigh every passing issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality. The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man’s petty private rationality.
Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.
Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation. Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell.
Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.
Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property: “Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act. To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.
Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger. Whatever is beneficent and prudent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction—why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity.
For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed. A central administration, or a corps of select managers and civil servants, however well intentioned and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and tranquility upon a mass of men and women deprived of their old responsibilities. That experiment has been made before; and it has been disastrous. It is the performance of our duties in community that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity.
Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic. When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy. Anarchy never lasts long, being intolerable for everyone, and contrary to the ineluctable fact that some persons are more strong and more clever than their neighbors. To anarchy there succeeds tyranny or oligarchy, in which power is monopolized by a very few.
The conservative endeavors to so limit and balance political power that anarchy or tyranny may not arise. In every age, nevertheless, men and women are tempted to overthrow the limitations upon power, for the sake of some fancied temporary advantage. It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of power as a force for good—so long as the power falls into his hands. In the name of liberty, the French and Russian revolutionaries abolished the old restraints upon power; but power cannot be abolished; it always finds its way into someone’s hands. That power which the revolutionaries had thought oppressive in the hands of the old regime became many times as tyrannical in the hands of the radical new masters of the state.
Knowing human nature for a mixture of good and evil, the conservative does not put his trust in mere benevolence. Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite—these the conservative approves as instruments of freedom and order. A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.
Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.
Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.
Such, then, are ten principles that have loomed large during the two centuries of modern conservative thought. Other principles of equal importance might have been discussed here: the conservative understanding of justice, for one, or the conservative view of education. But such subjects, time running on, I must leave to your private investigation.
The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.
Find more essays by and about Dr. Kirk here. Republished with the gracious permission of The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.
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theimaginativeconservative.org · by Russell Kirk · July 15, 2021


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If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

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