People voting against their own interest . . .

People voting against their own best interest . . .

This is a legitimate concern and something that everyone should be talking about and trying to figure out. It doesn't seem sane. I would even argue that it is not sane, unless it's in the rare case where voting against my own best interest is, in fact, in the interest of the greater good - e.g. I haven't driven in some neighborhoods in years but I realize that many (maybe most) people do drive in those neighborhoods daily, so I will give up ordering a pizza once a week and contribute the pizza money to higher taxes to keep the roads in those neighborhoods in good repair. 

But it doesn't make sense for women to vote for politicians who want to pay them less than males doing the same job and who want to control their reproductive choices and who protect pussy grabbers and attempted rapists, or for minorities to vote for racists, or for people who say they love the United States of America to vote for fascists who want to destroy the government, or for people who are hungry and cold and sick to vote for Republicans who want to deprive them of livable wages, food, heat, and healthcare. None of that makes sense. None of that seems sane. 

Even more baffling than people who vote for Republicans who will do everything possible to make life miserable for as many people as they can, though, are the people who bitch about them and do the exact same thing when they support media, groups, and businesses that funnel money to those Republicans who will do everything possible to make life miserable for as many people as they can. They use their time/money to vote against their own best interest, too. And they look like hypocrites (because they are) when they criticize the other side for things that they also do.

Let's all vote - in elections and in every day life with our time and money and words - to protect our best interests. 

Study in Trolls

David Corn posted a link to Tonya Riley's article in Mother Jones

How Bots Are Hijacking the Political Conversation Just Before the Election

40 percent of “MAGA” tweets came from automated accounts.

I had recently experienced something that stuck with me enough that I had a screenshot and outline waiting in case I got around to writing about it. I just finished it up because I wanted it to be my response to his tweet. Here it is - how we can all do something about the problem that Tonya Riley addresses in her article:



An interesting thing happened on Twitter. The sad news is that it's a pattern I identified about fourteen years ago and can see from a mile away now.  Yet, no matter how many times I point it out, most people don't seem to notice or believe it matters enough to watch for and report it.

Hillary tweeted, someone responded, and I replied to him. Here it is:

I checked in after my tweet had received about 90 likes, about 30 of them from people who didn't notice that I was mocking 3YearLetterman and *liked* my comment because they thought it was directed at Hillary. Most of those 30 had fewer than 100 (some fewer than 10) followers and most of them hadn't tweeted or liked a tweet in at least six months. Some had no visible Twitter activity in years.

My guess is that most of the 30 are connected - either the same person with multiple accounts or a trolling group.

I watched one woman on a site that no long exists for a couple of years. She would post a lie, or an insult, and immediately have a flock of *likes* on that lie or insult, from people that never did anything other than *like* her lies and insults and tell her how right and wonderful she was. I baited her at times, just to watch because it was obvious and hilarious, and I could imagine her signing in and out of her multiple accounts to like herself. But, when Barack Obama was running for President the first time, and she suddenly had young, black friends who spoke in what was obviously this old white woman trying to sound young and black, it angered me. Her young, black friends started out being pro Obama and collected some Obama supporters as followers. And then suddenly they all discovered horrible things about him that nobody but them knew. And all of her other imaginary friends liked their lies about Barack Obama and added a few of their own.

When a bunch of people have a bunch of trolls, and follow each other around they can make it look like people who spread lies (Trump, Sanders, etc) have a lot of followers who believe those lies. It spreads exponentially, like a wildfire. I see it on Twitter a lot, and sometimes on the accounts of Facebook friends who post public. They disrupt every chance they get, take conversations off topic, and create misconceptions.

Hope everyone will watch for them, call them out, and block them.

Forget the Silver Lining

This feels weird since I published the book Rena's Silver Lining, a novel that focused on finding silver linings. 

BUT, although I'm relieved that all was not lost in the 2018 midterm elections, I'm not going to silently watch people sugarcoat the fact that this country is still--and will be for a long time--in the hands of fascists, or that we are living with people who vote for fascists, traitors, liars, and cheats who incite violence and foster inequality. 

I won't be comfortable with people talking today, when we still haven't counted all of the votes that were cast for yesterday's election, about the next election. And when we know that many people stood in lines for hours, and some people had to leave after standing in line because they didn't get to vote and either couldn't stand any longer or had to leave to get to work, or to pick up a child from school, or because they needed to use the bathroom or take medication . . . And we know many were turned away because they had been removed from registration or their names didn't match or they had moved. We know people were gerrymandered out of their votes, there were districts with electronic voting machines and no electricity, humidity mysteriously caused ballots in some districts to not feed through the machines . . .  We KNOW we did not have a fair election and haven't had for decades. 

Don't even talk about the next election until we have done something to secure our elections. I believe that means we must do away with electronics. Everyone should vote on paper ballots that will be hand-counted by humans who are moderated, with no election results released or discussed by media until after every vote has been counted and the results validated by moderators. (Moderators who are not Russians.)

These things are NOT OKAY, and can't be hidden behind silver linings. They must be kept out in the open, addressed, and fought with the same rabid focus people had on the blue wave. 

Elections aren't a game that ends on Election Night.

And if people are seriously interested in speaking the language that Republicans hear, we need to not spend a cent on anything that isn't a bare necessity. $$ is their language.  2016 should have been the real war on Christmas, when we shut everything down until that election was thoroughly investigated. Since it didn't happen then, 2018 would be a good time to start. NO SPENDING until we have answers and our government is cleared of politicians who are under investigation.