Welcome to BOOK READERS HEAVEN! Books, Reviews, Short Stories, Authors, Publicity, a little poetry, music to complement...and other stuff including politics, about life... "Books, Cats: Life is Sweet..."
Showing posts with label complementary videos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label complementary videos. Show all posts
My thanks and special welcome to those living in Singapore!
I'm thrilled to have you as one of the ongoing visiting countries to Book Readers Heaven...
It's wonderful to know that book reading is important across the world!
I hope you enjoy my latest 3-page post talking about God our Father, creator of all people... from around the world!
So happy to get to know a little bit about your wonderful country!
So, I've tasted, here in America, Chinese, Indian and other Asian foods, so I was wondring, is there a "taste" difference of your food versus what I've tasted, recognizing that our food might be quite different than that in the country? Although I've tasted Chinese in china town in Canada and in South America and it was fairly close to what I was used to...
Oh well, since I'll never discover Singapore myself, I hope you'll know that this area was always one that I'd like to have visited... Would love to hear from some of you! I have yard furniture from oriental countries that I've enjoyed since I moved here in my log cabin with 13 acres... and have built little rooms to display.
God Bless,
Gabby
I love to try new foods! Especially with oriental spices...
“Mark my words, God is already sweeping the east with terrible plagues, and we’ll be next. How much more famine can we take? We’ll be reduced to eating one another!”
I've been reading some wonderful books recently, but I lucked out by finding a new series by Jeanne Roland which I can already say will be my top personal favorites for 2025! The books are historical, which is not my normal place to find such gems... but these books fit everything that I care about... Books wonderfully written, perfectly prepared and presented with artwork throughout which is outstanding! And Glorious Covers! Features a female main character...in a most spectacular situation(s) and who left me sobbing at the end of the first book...
And best of all! The author uses an arrow to separate scenes! You would not believe how the separation of scenes has been ignored by independent writers... That's when I miss, most, a book created by a publisher. Thing is, it's not a hard task, does not require additional work! Just need to know the basic editorial skills for writing a book!
I cannot remember any books that have brought forth such a steady stream of pure emotion from this reader! Watch for upcoming reviews for all!
By the way, my background did not include becoming involved with Saint Sebastian... Maybe this is true for some of you as well... So, I, of course, wanted to know more about how this man became a Saint...
Still, I can’t stop myself from taking a quick glance into the cavernous depths of the great hall, which the thin panes of colored glass placed high along on its walls do little to light even on the brightest day. Now with only the early morning gloom pressing in, it’s as black as pitch in there and a good ten degrees colder even than it was back in our dormitory. The wan streaks of blue and greenish light reaching in through the windows only add to the unpleasant atmosphere, mingling with the darkness like swirls of murky water. Above, the high ceiling of blackened wood greedily swallows what little light struggles upward, trapping it within the maze of its intricately carved coffers. The odor of musty wood and candle wax gives the air a thick quality that’s slightly nauseating, as though something palpable is forming within the shadows. It would only be a matter of seconds to cross the hall, and from where I’m standing I can clearly make out the outline of the door to the portico on its opposite side, but still I hesitate. I’m not afraid of the dark, and I know there’s nothing really waiting there for me. Nothing alive, anyway. It’s not the darkness that stops me, it’s the painting. The massive canvas hangs at the far end of the room, covering the wall virtually from floor to rafters. Even in the full light of day, it’s a commanding presence. Now in the stark emptiness of the hall it seems to have grown to fill the space completely. Its rich background hues of sumptuous blue-blacks and deep reds bleed into the surrounding darkness, so that the huge, lone human figure bristling with arrows at its center seems suspended in agony in the middle of the room, its vast expanse of naked, rent flesh as pale and as luminous as a moon in a midnight sky. For a moment I’m as mesmerized by that tortured figure again as I was the first time I saw it, not so many weeks ago. I remember every detail of that day, but my first sight of the painting stands out most vividly. Its image has become jumbled in my mind with other images, ones I don’t allow myself to see even in my mind’s eye, and confused with memories of the terrible events that were quickly to follow. So much has changed since then that I can’t trust the accuracy of my memories anymore, but I remember my reaction to the painting very clearly. I couldn’t forget it if I tried, because I thought it was the most exquisitely beautiful thing I had ever seen. Now I can’t bear to look at it. The morbid painted figure staring past me, eyes glazed with pain, is more than a gruesome reminder. It’s an accusation, a riddle I can’t solve. I fight down a wave of revulsion and give myself a mental shake. I have to be sharp today; this is no time to get caught up in memories or lost in grim fancies, and Tristan’s strange mood these past few days already has me on edge. Besides, perhaps it isn’t the painting, after all, that keeps me now from crossing the room. Perhaps it’s the plaque next to the arched doorway, which reads: Great Hall, Archers’ Guild of St. Sebastian. Members only beyond this point. No women allowed. I hesitate for a moment longer, then turn and proceed down the passageway along the Journeymen’s quarters, as I always do. Today isn’t going to be the day I try the shortcut after all. I’m lucky, though, and I make it out through the stables without meeting a single soul, except for a few stable boys still huddled asleep in one of the empty stalls. It’s probably not really luck at this hour, but I feel as though I’ve run a gauntlet unscathed anyway. I cross out onto the corner of the field where barrels filled with water for washing are lined up under the stable’s overhanging eaves. Although it’s still early, I content myself with splashing some water on my face and washing my hands thoroughly. Today is the first day of the trials, and I’m understandably nervous. If everything goes as expected, we should breeze through these preliminaries, but I can’t take any chances. I haven’t come this far to fail now. I run my wet hands through my hair and give my distorted reflection a quick check in the rippled glass of the empty archive window. Staring back at me is a young boy of indeterminate age. He could be anywhere from ten to thirteen, depending on what criteria you use to judge him: a little taller than you’d expect for a ten-year-old, but with a face and limbs that are still childishly soft and rounded. The facial features are small and delicate, except for the nose. That’s been spectacularly broken, leaving it crooked and misshapen. Short, lank hair frames the face, either hanging down in hanks of irregular length or sticking straight up at awkward angles, as though it’s been hacked off by a drunken pair of dueling barbers. It’s a singularly wretched cut, but it lends an air of vulnerability at odds with the brutality of scars, old and new, that snake across the nose to adorn the left brow. In all, I see just a rather average, ugly twelve-year-old boy, nothing extraordinary. No, nothing extraordinary — except for the fact that up until ten weeks ago, I was a fifteen-year-old girl.
~~~
This book is divided into III Parts
Various portraits from the medieval period presented
This lovely picture is used for this book
upcoming books provide multiple fantastic illustrations!
She was there when they came; loud voices caused her to hide. They never knew she was there while they put 1-2-3 arrows into her father's body. He had known she was watching but she knew not to be seen. She heard multiple voices... She would forever remember the voice of the man who had killed her father! Now she wanted to find that man... She wanted to know why her father had been murdered... What could she do?
Marieke was just 15, but she had been daily working with her father to produce the arrows that were needed, both by the local archers as well as Saint Sebastian Archer's Guild where boys were trained in service to their country... She had learned much about archery and how to create the arrows, the various kinds of bows... But, now she was alone. She could not hope to continue the shop on her own... Where could she go? The Archer's Guild came to mind. Her father had just taken her with him to deliver the latest order for arrows... But, her father had once been a student there, so he was welcomed by his friends and went in to talk to them...
Marieke was a very intelligent girl, curious and interested in learning. So while her father left her alone--women were forbidden no further than the entranceway--she, nevertheless, wondered what was behind the door where he had gone... Yes, her curiosity won and she slowly opened the door and she saw the painting...of Saint Sebastian... She could not constrain herself and walked in to go closer and closer to the beautiful painting of the boy, Sebastian... And while there, she had heard men arguing... About what? She was not close enough... But she hurriedly left... Still confused as she was when her brother and housekeeper had shared with her about her father at the Guild... Both of them were now gone... She was to be totally alone soon...
...“No — that’s just it. It’s the one position in this country that money and birth alone can’t buy, and that’s the glamour of it,” he replied warmly. Jules always loved the Guards. “You have to get in on sheer skill, and the perks are enormous: fame, glory, and popularity with the ladies,” he nodded toward the crowd still pressing after de Gilford, “not to mention the lands and titles granted to some of the prince’s favorites. That means real power. De Gilford’s not the only senior Guardsman who has used his position on the inner circle to bend the prince’s ear. But you have to be the very best. And you have to prove it, through competition. That’s why de Gilford is here. All the trials are held here in Louvain, since ‘Guardsman’ is technically the highest rank in the order of St. Sebastian.” I nodded, though I’m not sure I understood what Jules meant, then. I was still trying to figure out why anyone would want to bend someone else’s ear. “It’s not just a trade guild, like the others,” Jules continued. “Sure, it has a business side to it, but full membership is only for the most elite archers, and it’s competitive. Every two years, only twelve of the best young archers are chosen for temporary service as Journeymen at St. Sebastian’s. Even that initial contest is a huge event, since it’s an open trial for boys from all across Ardennes. But there’s a catch: you have to be sponsored by a full guild member. Needless to say, since most of the members are aristocrats, most of the boys they sponsor are, too.” After a short pause, he added softly, “although there have been some notable exceptions.” Of course, now I know he was thinking about our father. “The lucky winners live at the guild, training intensively and facing elimination in more public trials, each in a different style of archery. You’ve heard of the Journeymen at least, haven’t you? You must have seen them around town.” I nodded again, and this time, I was sincere. Even at nine, I knew something about the Journeyman archers of St. Sebastian’s, or the Journeys, as they’re called around here. Since then, I’ve made it my business to know all about them. Young, handsome, skilled — they’re our local celebrities, and for the two years they’re here, they rule the town. To us in Louvain, they are the guild. “That’s why everybody’s here, Marieke. The final Journeyman competition of the year is happening this afternoon, and nobody wants to miss it. Only the six best will pass, to win veteran status. That means permanent guild membership and a cut in the guild profits, so it’s a big deal. And it’s only the beginning. The victors advance to a second year of trials, for a shot at the ultimate victory.” “A place on Guards,” I said, finally beginning to understand. “That’s right, and only one can win. It’s two years of constant training and public humiliation. I can’t imagine going through it, but spectators can’t get enough of it, and the prize is enormous.” Jules’s voice was starting to sound quite bitter, and I noticed he was looking down, drawing in the dust with the end of a stick. “Jules,” I asked quietly, “why doesn’t Papa want to see the trials? What did Berthal mean? For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he sighed and looked up at me. “You know the medal that Papa always wears around his neck, don’t you?” he asked. “It’s a religious medal. St. Sebastian. Lots of people in town wear them.” “Yes, but Papa’s isn’t like all the others. It isn’t just any medal. You can’t buy it in a shop. It’s an official medal from the guild, a member’s medal.” “I know,” I said. “It’s his proof of certification, as a fletcher.” “No, Marieke. Papa was never certified by the guild. You can’t get a medal like that by paying a fee or undergoing certification. You can only get a medal like that by winning it. Papa earned that medal, when he was a journeyman archer at the guild.” At the time, I was stunned. The Journeys! I couldn’t imagine why Jules was sounding so glum about something so thrilling. Our father, a celebrity! Why hadn’t anyone told me before? But it didn’t make any sense. “But — Papa, he doesn’t even shoot,” I said. “He’s got a bad shoulder.” “He does now. You don’t think he was born that way, do you? Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to him?” The thing was, I hadn’t ever thought about it. I suppose I’d known in some vague way that he must have had an accident in the past, but it was just so much a part of him that I’d never questioned it. “It happened right here, in Louvain, during the trials at the end of his first year, just like the ones taking place now. He fell from his horse during a mounted exercise. Right in the middle of the competition.” Unfortunately, it was just at this moment that Berthal returned, carrying the cakes. “Accident!” she snorted, lowering herself down beside me with some difficulty. “Not just any accident. Trampled by his own horse, of all things! Lucky he wasn’t killed. Here, Marieke — take your cake, before the honey runs all over my hand.” I took the cake dumbly, picturing the awful scene she was describing. “Of all the stupid, arrogant stunts,” she continued, licking her fingers clean, “and when he was ahead! Last competition before veterans’, too. He could have made it! All he had to do was stay on his horse. Aren’t you going to eat that?” I took a bite, just to get Berthal to continue. “Everyone thought so. Why, we all thought he had a shot at making Guards! We’d have been set then, I can tell you. And he just threw it away! Cocky, that’s what he was. There’s no other word for it. Why …” At this, Jules stood up abruptly and cast such an angry look at Berthal that she stopped in mid-sentence, her mouth still open. “Whatever happened, he’s paid the price,” he cut in icily. “He was eliminated, Marieke,” he said more gently, looking down at me. “Just before winning veteran status. His shoulder on his drawing arm was virtually destroyed. You know how it is. He never bent another bow.” Jules stalked off, leaving Berthal and me nothing to do but scramble to get up and follow him. It was clear that he was done talking...
~~~
Now she remembered visiting the nearby Abbey where Father Abelard had earlier offered to help, perhaps to get her some menial work nearby. In fact, during her visit with him he had been painting a picture of a beautiful woman, but during their conversation, the painting had been destroyed by an ink spill... Thankfully she was given that ruined picture where the woman's face was still visible... It was later to be the first clue in her investigation of her father's death!
And Marieke made the difficult choice. She would use her brother's clothes, in which she had often borrowed to work in their shop, and she would become a boy and enter St. Sebastian's Guild. She had no ability to hide her ugliness--she had been kicked in the face by a donkey and had lived with the result for years. Chopping off her hair, only one more thing needed to be addressed... She tightly bound her breasts and would use her scars on her face, to claim that she never took off her clothes due to what actually did not appear on her body...
There was only one way to get into the Guild... She had the skills, even to the point of being able to create her own arrows... There really was no question, she soon was taken in as a squire. And, before long, she had met Tristan who had accepted her as his "little brother" who would be the personal support to this Journey... It was to be a match made in heaven, surely, since Tristan had already gone through two other squires who he had dismissed...
The daily activities were soon moving normally. Marieke who had quickly decided her name--when she had not thought to do in her early transition of sex--to Marek... Journeys daily worked to improve their use of bows. Marek and other squires were responsible for pulling out all needed equipment. Setting it up at specific distances. And then, to save arrows, running to the targets, removing the arrows and running back for the Journey to proceed to shoot... Yes, Marek was required to get in shape far earlier than she had realized. Slowly her strength would improve, but it really was never enough as time would reveal...
The operation of the Guild was to train, but also to host competition events which were open to the public, and which worked to help cover the costs of this training. Readers will be privy to all that happens including the inner view of Marek as she watches, learns, and becomes acclimated to actually being a different person--a boy!
The book is long, the detail is sufficient for readers to be learning more about archery than maybe you might ever wanted to know, like me... But, the first person presentation of a girl-boy's observations is so intriguing that I just couldn't stop... Until I found myself sobbing as the book closes...Tristan found Marek shot--dead...
“All warfare is based on deception.” —sun tzu, The Art of War
“The information war is about territory—just not the geographic kind. In a warm information war, the human mind is the territory.” —renée diresta, “The Digital Maginot Line”
On January 5, 2021, Rosanne Boyland left her home in Kennesaw, Georgia, for the ten-hour drive to Washington, DC. Boyland had fallen under the spell of the election-denier movement, bound by a belief that the incumbent president, Donald J. Trump, had won the presidential election but had been robbed of his victory through fraud.1 In fact, sixty-one courts and Trump’s own Justice Department had already rejected every claim of fraud, and federal cybersecurity and election officials had declared the 2020 election “the most secure in US history.”2
The next day, Boyland joined a mob egged on by Trump and stormed the US Capitol to “Stop the Steal,” as the movement slogan went. Of course, as we all know by now, the crowd breached police lines, smashed windows, and broke into the building where Congress was meeting to certify the count of electoral votes from each state, the final procedure that would seal the presidential victory for Joe Biden. Boyland found herself on the west side of the Capitol, in a tunnel near a door guarded by police. As described by the New York Times, the crowd “massed together in a dangerous crush” and used “the weight of their combined bodies to push the officers back, trapping many people in the process.”3 At some point, Boyland fell to the ground, but the crowd did not relent.4 In all of the chaos, no medical professional could render timely aid and, within a few hours, Boyland would be pronounced dead.5 Witnesses say Boyland was trampled to death. Her official cause of death was an amphetamine overdose,6 but a medical examiner said a contributing factor to her death was the “raucous scene.”7 Her sister later said Boyland would not have been at the Capitol at all that day “if it weren’t for all the misinformation.”8 Like the rest of America, Boyland had been bombarded with false claims that Biden had used fraud to steal the election—a fabrication that would become known as “the Big Lie.”9 Eight others would also lose their lives as a result of the Capitol attack that was sparked by the deluge of disinformation.10 Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter and US Air Force veteran, was shot to death by Capitol Police when she tried to climb through a broken window and breach the Speaker’s Lobby.11 US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died after being attacked by rioters with chemical spray.12
In addition to the physical injuries suffered by 150 police officers, they and many others also suffered trauma that left unseen emotional scars; four officers committed suicide following the attack.13 And yet, more than a year later, 68 percent of Republicans were still deceived by lies that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.14 Was this abhorrent attack on the temple of our democracy the final act that would break the fever that had gripped the country during the Trump administration?
Or was it instead the beginning of the end of American democracy? Even after Trump was indicted by a special counsel in 2023 for his efforts to steal the election, the threat persists, because, as journalist Barton Gellman wrote in The Atlantic, “Trump and his party have convinced a dauntingly large number of Americans that the essential workings of democracy are corrupt, that made-up claims of fraud are true, that only cheating can thwart their victory at the polls, that tyranny has usurped their government, and that violence is a legitimate response.”15
In 2022, former federal judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative, warned that 2020 was merely a dry run to steal future elections.16 He called Trump and his allies a “clear and present danger” to US democracy.17 Indeed, after Trump was charged with crimes for his efforts to upend the 2020 election, he began telling a second Big Lie—that the indictments were themselves election interference, filed solely to prevent his election to the presidency in 2024.18
Is our democracy ultimately destined for the same fate as Boyland, Babbitt, and Sicknick—death by disinformation? Will America become a country where losing candidates refuse to concede elections, using lies to spark vigilante violence and impose their will? What if, as Gellman suggests, “January 6 was practice,” and Republicans are “much better positioned to subvert the next election”?19 What if Gellman is right, and their next effort succeeds? Or is American democracy undergoing a slower erosion, invisible in real time but as devastating as a metastasizing cancer? Even if our form of government is not destroyed altogether, it risks becoming unrecognizable, controlled not by the people at large but by a small faction of the far right, willing to say or do anything to seize power. And while the current purveyors of disinformation do not represent every member of the GOP, the party’s silence is a form of complicity. When Republican leaders like former congresswoman Liz Cheney denounce their party’s disinformation, they are ignored or purged.20
Now that the potency of disinformation has been revealed, this weapon can be used by any demagogue or self-interested opportunist, regardless of political affiliation.
The Power of Disinformation
Disinformation is the deliberate use of lies to manipulate people, whether to extract profit or to advance a political agenda. Its unwitting accomplice, misinformation, is spread by unknowing dupes who repeat lies they believe to be true. In America today, both forms of falsehood are distorting our perception of reality. In a democracy, the people need a shared set of facts as a basis to debate and make decisions that advance and secure their collective interests.
Differences of opinion, and even propaganda, have always existed in the United States, but now, enemies of democracy are using disinformation to attack our sovereign right to truthful information, intellectual integrity, and the exercise of the will of the people. Online disinformation is particularly insidious because of its immediacy, its capacity to deceive, and its ability to reach its target.
In February 2022, the US Department of Homeland Security issued a threat bulletin warning of “an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.”21 The bulletin stated that these threat actors “seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.”22 As technology continues to advance, the threat of disinformation looms even larger.
Disinformers deliberately inflame our passions and demonize their political opponents to artificially limit options to only two perspectives on an issue. (Debaters refer to this tactic as the “either-or fallacy.”) And when one side is portrayed as good and the other as evil, the choice is easy. You must be for either the Trump-supporting right or the rivals they frame as the “radical left.” There will always be those who get taken by the P. T. Barnums and Bernie Madoffs among us. But now, there is something more at work than simply gullible people falling for lies.
A significant number of Americans don’t seem to care anymore whether a statement is true. What seems to matter instead is whether any given message is consistent with their worldview. If a lie supports their position, some people seem willing to go along with the con and pretend it’s true. When Donald
Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of illegally retaining classified national defense documents, for example, his defenders parroted Trump’s claims that he was being attacked for political reasons. On the day of Trump’s arraignment, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said, “God bless America, President Trump, and all those targeted by Biden’s regime as we continue our efforts to end this corrupt political weaponization and stop the deep state.”23
We are not just living in a post-truth world: we are living in a post-shame world. Trump and his supporters consistently turn the tables on his accusers, not to convince people that he is innocent but to suggest that everyone is corrupt.
Integrity is for phonies and suckers, their thinking seems to go. And if everyone is corrupt, then you might as well choose the leader who shares your vision for America. Even those who don’t fall for this logic are harmed by it. The risk to the rest of us is that we become cynical about politics. It’s easy to grow weary of relentless arguments and aggression and choose to simply tune out. But when we disengage from public discourse, we surrender a piece of our power to the disinformers. The ultimate result, over time, is a weakened democracy, diminished national security, and a threat to the rule of law.
America is under attack at this very moment, but not from any external enemy. The attack is from within. How has American democracy come to this? And why now? Part of the equation is recent technological advances. Before the information age, geographic regions in the vast territory of the United States set their own community standards. Immigration patterns and local history shaped the culture of various regions, each of which had its own set of widely shared values. In his eye-opening book American Nations, journalist and historian Colin Woodard describes the cultural history of the United States. According to Woodard, “There isn’t and never has been one America, but rather several Americas.”24 American identity in the Deep South is different from American identity in New York or on the West Coast. Some regions are more segregated than others, resulting in fewer interactions among people of different races, ethnicities, and religious faiths. It is easier to fear someone you have never met. And even within regions, people living in rural areas have different experiences and viewpoints than do those living in urban communities. In parts of the American West, for example, children grow up from an early age learning to use guns for hunting, competing in marksmanship, and protecting livestock from predators. Children who grow up in urban areas, on the other hand, may perceive guns as deadly weapons used to intimidate and kill people. Our varying experiences and cultural norms shape our individual vision of America. Today, the internet shoves all the versions of America in our faces. Our digital connections bring constant visibility to events occurring in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. The community standards of one region of the United States can seem outrageous in another. As former president Barack Obama said in a 2022 speech on technology at Stanford University, “Forty years ago, if you were a conservative in rural Texas, you weren’t necessarily offended by what was going on in San Francisco’s Castro District, because you didn’t know what was going on.”25 This new access to information can be jarring, even frightening, to some people—amounting to what Obama called “a direct affront to their traditions, their belief systems, their place in society.”26
And so, when someone in one region sees someone from a different region saying America is a “Christian country” or promoting drag queen story hour, they may perceive a threat to their way of life. The other part of the equation is manipulation. Some politicians prey on these fears, using disinformation to advance their personal and party ambitions. They know that when information conflicts with one’s viewpoint, some people will accept distortions of fact rather than change their minds.
The Black man who was elected president cannot be a legitimate leader, they argue, so he must have been born outside the United States, disqualifying him from office. A lingering pandemic would weaken the economy and make reelection of the incumbent less likely, and so he says it will go away by Easter. No one voted for Biden because he is a socialist, some claim, and so the election must have been rigged. It can be easier to accept lies than to confront truths that make us uncomfortable. This book documents the ways that political opportunists and profiteers use disinformation as a weapon.27
The far right is not alone in spreading disinformation, and this tool can be used by any political party or faction. During the 2022 election, for example, a photo of Mehmet Oz, the television host who became the GOP candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, was the subject of a fake internet meme showing him on his hands and knees kissing a certain star on the Hollywood walk of fame.28 In fact, the photo was taken of him kissing his own star on the day it was added to the walk, but the meme had been altered to make it appear that he was instead kissing the star of Donald Trump.29
But at this moment, the most egregious purveyors of disinformation in US politics are far-right members of the Republican Party.30 Currently, rather than call out lies, a large number of Republicans amplify them, or they silently indulge disinformation to advance their own careers and policy goals. Some conservative news media outlets promote falsehoods for ratings and profit, further exacerbating the threat. In 2023, a lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems exposed the duplicity of executives and hosts at Fox News, the cable network that pushed election conspiracy theories on air, even as insiders at the network privately acknowledged the falsity of claims that voting machines had flipped votes from Trump to Biden.31
As is now well known, the false claim of mass fraud was not a good-faith challenge to a contested election; it was the most brazen disinformation campaign in American history. Fox paid a $787.5 million settlement for defaming Dominion because its coverage of the purported fraud was all a lie.32 If Fox learned any lesson from the lawsuit, it was short-lived. Two months later, when Trump was charged in the classified-documents case, Fox showed Biden above a graphic that read, “wannabe dictator speaks at the white house after having his political rival arrested.”33 According to the first two findings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol: Beginning election night and continuing through January 6th and thereafter, Donald Trump purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud related to the 2020 Presidential election in order to aid his effort to overturn the election and for purposes of soliciting contributions. These false claims provoked his supporters to violence on January 6th. Knowing that he and his supporters had lost dozens of election lawsuits, and despite his own senior advisors refuting his election fraud claims and urging him to concede his election loss, Donald Trump refused to accept the lawful result of the 2020 election. Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome.34 The coup attempt was a breathtaking effort to subvert US democracy and the will of the American people.
Even though Trump left office in 2021, his movement to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) lives on. For some, America was great when white men were in charge and everyone else knew their place. Leaders of the MAGA movement continue to focus on cultural divides to distract middle- and lower-income voters from economic policies that enrich the wealthy. Since the end of World War II, Americans have been less likely to earn more money than their parents.35 Since the Reagan administration, wealth disparities have grown dramatically, income-tax rates for top earners have fallen, and overseas manufacturing and automation have reduced the availability of blue-collar jobs.36 If people of color, immigrants, “woke” leftists, and a “deep state” of elite bureaucrats can be blamed for their problems, then some voters will tolerate or even embrace policies that go against their own financial interests. Disinformation researchers at the University of Texas have found that, since 2010, many online influence campaigns have used communities of color as pawns, as both subjects and targets of disinformation.37 As Boston Globe columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr wrote following the release of the January 6 Committee’s report, a driving force behind the attack was race.38 “[L]ike many things involving the history, laws, and founding principles of our nation,” she wrote, the attack had “everything to do with race.”39 It was no coincidence that Confederate flags, insignias of white supremacist groups, and a lynching noose were on display during the attack.40 One rioter wore a sweatshirt that said “Camp Auschwitz,” a horrifying antisemitic reference to Nazi death camps.41 In many ways, the attack was as much an expression of white nationalist identity as it was an attempt to seize power.
Some Republican voters likely did not care whether the election was stolen; instead, what seems to have mattered more to them was installing the administration whose narratives best reinforced their own hopes, fears, and privileges. Long after Trump’s claims of a stolen election have been debunked, the assault on truth continues. Under the pretext of rampant voter fraud, states have passed laws making it more difficult to vote. GOP candidate Kari Lake refused to concede defeat in the 2022 election for governor of Arizona, baselessly claiming that her race was one of the “most dishonest elections in the history of Arizona,” a position she had previewed even before the election.42 Her legal challenges to the election failed.43 While election deniers were largely defeated in the 2022 elections, two—one in Wyoming and one in Indiana—were elected secretary of state, a position in which they would oversee their state’s elections. Election deniers have become GOP party chairs in three states.44 Congressman George Santos (R-NY) was elected to Congress after fabricating his education and employment history, ethnicity, volunteer work, and even a claim that his mother had died in the September 11 attacks.45 Then House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) supported the embattled congressman even after a head-spinning amount of disinformation had been exposed, normalizing Santos’s lies by noting that “a lot of people” in Congress fabricate their résumés.46 Santos was later indicted for fraud and false statements.47 Florida governor Ron DeSantis continues to stoke the culture wars, leading a ban in schools on books and discussions about race, gender, and sexuality, calling his state “where woke goes to die.”48 After the January 6 Committee concluded its probe into the attack in December 2022, the new Republican majority that took control of the House in January 2023 created a subcommittee to study the “weaponization” of government investigations, based on a claim that conservatives had been unfairly targeted.49 The subcommittee promised to give life to the lie that government investigations into Trump’s corruption had been witch hunts and hoaxes all along. Chaired by Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), the subcommittee also investigated the criminal charges filed against Trump by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg in 2023 over fraudulent business documents50 and the RICO election-interference case against Trump and eighteen co-defendants filed by Fulton County district attorney Fani T. Willis in Georgia.51 The subcommittee even investigated academic researchers who study disinformation.52
By fall of 2023, it appeared that their efforts were having a chilling effect on disinformation research. The National Institutes of Health paused its $150 million program devoted to improving the communication of accurate medical information, including vaccines, based on threats of legal actions.53 After Stanford University’s Election Integrity Partnership was accused of working with the government to censor online speech, and right-wing advocate Jack Posobiec threatened to leave it “penniless and powerless,” the founder of the university’s Internet Observatory program said it would have to reconsider its involvement in the project.54 The assault on truth is far from over...
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When did you learn how to lie? For some it may have been when you were very young and got scolded over and over and over for being bad, as described by a parent or other influential person, such as a pastor or teacher... For me, it was in my first job as a secretary, when my boss or another professional person in my office told me to tell somebody who was on the phone to tell that person that he/she was unavailable... I didn't like it, but I did it...until it got to be ridiculous. I was in the Office of Personnel and one person in particular never wanted to accept calls... I started refusing to take a message, telling that person that she had called six times so far and I was not going to tell her another lie!
Truth always mattered to me. There were many things such as the one example that made me appreciate the value of Truth. That's not saying that I have no lied myself--I don't think anybody can try to say that... But, what has happened in America is an entirely different level of that white lie that some of us have told... They've even identified that, now, there must be three different words to define exactly what kind of lie has been told! Seriously! Or maybe it became a major concern in my life when the Evangelical Christians supported the 2016 election of the republican candidate issuing theories that were well beyond the political realm into religion and what it supposedly meant in America. As that happened, more and more books came out pointing out that God is a God of Love; that God is a God of Truth! And Christians all over America began to point out that this line of political rhetoric was not only disinformation but extremely dangerous!
Barbara McQuade says upfront that she wrote the book to hopefully stimulate a national conversation about the ramifications of disinformation. In no real way has that actually occurred since the book was just published. However, it seems to me that, contrary to what the republican party has tried to do, an awareness, an acknowledgment, and, through response to their own actions, people all over have actually started dialogues about topical issues, especially race and women's health. There are groups all over America that have banded together based upon actions by the far right, including the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe vs.Wade.
Barbara McQuade, known to the many individuals who watch news on MSNBC, is an ongoing legal commentator there based upon her extensive legal expertise and experience... who has taken the tiger by the tail when she chose to spotlight just how many have taken the lack of Truth to a level so horrific that we may never come back from the precipice that has dragged on for so long that the lack of truth has already led to...death of millions! Probably Billions!
I oppose War. But I support defending and fighting for freedom. It was quite clear to me that, during the past president's time in office, he worked to gain and foster those authoritarian countries that had chosen to remain other than a democracy purely for the riches and power of those leading the country. Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Israel's PM... And, you might recall, that it was Trump that pulled out of an agreement with Iran and never did anything to pull that country back into negotiation to ensure the country did not go back to production of nuclear weapons! Thus freeing that country to begin to fund various groups, such as Hamas, to move into new territories with authoritarian intent...
I hope I am not the only one that noticed that it was at the end of Trump's presidency when authoritarian countries began wars--in Ukraine, in Israel (the response by Israel in cost of life has been significant, more than likely based upon the Prime Minister already having been under investigation when Hamas striked, and was postponed because of that and continued much longer than anybody wants, except for Netanyahu excessive and inhumane acts against civilians... It is quite clear and Trump has even said that his intent would become a dictator just like every other country that uses power at the top while the country's people starve and are kept under control... And America as a democracy would no longer exist!
We can’t begin to develop a coherent strategy to meet new challenges if we continue to allow disinformers to dominate national discourse. Certainly, there will always be room for debate about policy choices and political candidates, but we can’t solve any problems if well-funded hucksters lead us, like lemmings, off a cliff.
And the voices of all of us will be silenced...
Things are changing, sometimes slowly, sometimes not at all, such as when a Trump-appointed Judge chooses to support him rather than the truth in the Classified Documents case, which is now being appealed...again... And the Insurrection Case was stalled by the Supreme Court who then tried to say and did that Trump was to be immune... but has started moving again after years of delay tactics instigated by the former president...
But more people are seeing the reality of Trumpism. A power-hungry administrator made the mistake of talking about Project 2025 on national television and now the entire country knows exactly what the far right republican party wants to do! Take us back to a time before those who have fought for their freedom, for their rights, and a time when white men controlled all power, claiming it was God's plan for America and had been corrupted...
But have you heard about many who are speaking out against Disinformation by MAGA? And have you felt the new hope, the new joy that is sweeping across America...
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6,040,000[d] (113th)
$952.6 billion[6] (34th)
43.3[7]
