Let me catch my breath, calm myself, wipe my face. The cutting edge is raw. A hundred deaths, a thousand deaths, quickly turn into “collateral damage.” But the killing of two desperate men, clinging to the wreckage of their boat in the Caribbean – their boat that has just been bombed – rips open the abstraction of military public relations. They’re just ordinary human beings – like you, like me, like our parents and our children – rather than . . . uh, narco-terrorists. And suddenly this new war the Trump administration has launched is more than just a videogame. Hey, Pete, this is not keeping us safe!
Browsing: Opinions
In the film, a statement by Hermann Goering, one of the most powerful leaders of Germany’s Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945, particularly struck me. He told the American psychologist whose job was to get to know him and keep him alive for the trial: “I am a prisoner because you won and we lost, not because you’re morally superior.” Goering suggested that if the Germans won the war, the Americans could have been brought to trial for dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan in August 1945.
Specifically, I was explaining amygdala hijacks – that emotion-filled moment in a cross-divide conversation when we lose our ability to think rationally. We start shouting in fury, go silent in disbelief, or do something else, shall we say, unhelpful.
Since Friday multiple people sent me this story, National parks cut free entry for MLK Day, add Trump’s birthday. I shared it on social media with a post explaining that I am not at all disturbed by this development and see that it could mark a turning point.
Authentic ignorance” is not mere lack of knowledge — it is the arrogant refusal to learn, combined with the reckless confidence to lead a nation while knowing nothing of consequence. When this condition infects an ordinary mind, it produces confusion. When it infects a President, it produces catastrophe. And yet, a chilling parallel emerges: Artificial Intelligence, if not regulated, will become even more dangerous than authentic ignorance — because it can replicate misinformation on a scale, without conscience, limits, or accountability.
That was the opening image delivered by the Pentagon in early September: a tightly edited video of a U.S. military aircraft obliterating an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean. It was released with cinematic timing, framed as a bold success in the Trump administration’s newly intensified campaign against “narco-terrorists.” But the more Americans have learned about what followed, the killing of two dazed, shipwrecked survivors in a second strike, the more the narrative has begun to disintegrate.
The Right Fight
– The headlines this month about White men, college admissions, and the fallout from ending affirmative action startled a lot of people. Stories of declining enrollment and shrinking opportunity for young White men were treated as if they had materialized out of nowhere.
Football season is winding down and in the coming weeks bowl games and college football playoffs will begin. In some respects, football is a year-round sport. The playing stops but the recruiting of prospective college student-athletes never does.
For those of us who have not forgotten the regime changes, interventions, and “limited engagements” that never stay limited, it is obvious that the United States is drifting toward a dangerous precipice in Venezuela. The November 24th decision to designate Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization is not a routine sanctions update. It is a major escalation.