Lessons From the Media Coverage of Ebola

The fact that the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia is fading is the best news I've heard so far today. With fewer people suffering and dying, I'd suggest that this might be a good time for some reflection. This situation provides us with a pretty clear-eyed take on how our media fails so often precisely because a disease outbreak doesn't come with a ready-made villain.

Our reflection could start by noticing the different level of coverage about the problem being solved than there was while it was escalating. Even the article I linked to above says very little about what worked and is more focused on how the US-built treatment centers were too little too late.

But even worse than that, we all remember how in the month of October last year the media talked about almost nothing but the Ebola outbreak and ISIS. And that coverage only added fuel to the fire.

A new poll last week revealed disturbing trends about the increasingly dire media coverage of the Ebola story in the United States. Measuring the rising anxiety among news consumers, a Rutgers-Eagleton poll of New Jersey residents found that 69 percent are at least somewhat concerned about the deadly disease spreading in the U.S.

The truly strange finding was that people who said they were following the story most closely were the ones with the most inaccurate information about Ebola. The more information they consumed about the dangerous disease, the less they knew about it. How is that even possible?

Poll director David Redlawsk cast an eye of blame on the news media. "The tone of the coverage seems to be increasing fear while not improving understanding," Redlawsk told a reporter. "You just have to turn on the TV to see the hysteria of the "talking heads" media. It's really wall to wall. The crawls at the bottom of the screen are really about fear. And in all the fear and all the talking, there's not a lot of information."

All that fear immediately subsided the moment the media quit reporting on the story. And there has been almost no coverage of how our public health system worked to stop the spread of Ebola in this country.

In the end, what we got was about a month and a half of panic-enducing hysteria and then nothing. Please let me know if you've seen anyone in the media apologize for that miserable failure.

But it's not just Ebola. Micah Zenko suggest that this is how the media covers all foreign affairs.

Although a dwindling number of Americans truly care about what happens elsewhere in the world, those who still do might believe, as former government officials have described it, that "the world is aflame," "there are fires burning everywhere," "many places around the world that we have interests … are perilous," "the trend towards a more chaotic world is not going to change anytime soon," or "to put it mildly, the world is a mess."...

The extent to which these terrifying and uncontested characterizations reflect "fact" is increasingly irrelevant. Once it emerges as conventional wisdom among government officials and foreign-policy commentators, given the political utility in using such language, such dire warnings become accepted as "truth." The relatively sudden development of this normative hyperbolism should be concerning for anyone still interested in U.S. foreign policy and world affairs, more generally.

In discussing how good news is never reported, Zenko said this - which really nailed what we so often see happening in media stories.

Rare positive foreign-policy news stories are usually centered upon relatable experiences of one individual trying to do good amid the surrounding mayhem. These are human interest stories, such as the Christian woman and Muslim woman who come together for religious services under the same roof in Iraq in the midst of ISIS atrocities. Or the professor at an Israeli fashion university who carries on with a scheduled runway show because she feels that the students’ work deserves to be seen despite the ongoing conflict. This reinforces an unspoken narrative that the world is a fiery, chaotic mess and that only a few saintly individuals are capable of good — but never governments, organizations, or popular movements.

All of what Zenko said could be applied to domestic media coverage as well - including the bit about those human interest stories.

The result - of course - is cynicism... a persistent belief that the world is in chaos and the United States is on the wrong track.

But rather than get cynical about the cynicism, we can do as Al Giordano suggested (feel free to substitute "poutrage" with poutrage/panic):

I do believe fervently in constructing a counter-culture of noncooperation with the daily poutrage cycle, and so whatever the next big outrage that comes to surprise us today or tomorrow brings, the first task is to step back, examine what is driving this particular poutrage convention, and not say anything unless and until one has something real to add to it. That's how all truly meaningful change ever began: a few people stepping back from what everybody else was saying and thinking while they were driven by the dominant media of their eras, refusing to get swept up in it because there was something more worthwhile, outside of those limitations prescribed from above, yet to do...

The Tangle and the Weave

As 2014 draws to a close, a lot of pundits are taking time for reflection on the last 12 months. I am particularly impressed with what Paul Krugman and Michael Grunwald have written along those lines. If you haven't already read what they have to say, I strongly suggest that you do so.

For an alternative view, take a look at what Daniel Drezner wrote in his 2014 recap.  He basically embraces an assumption that 2014 was awful...but it could have been a lot worse.

‘There have been worse years in recent history,” New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote, “but 2014 definitely stands out for the sheer variety of awfulness.” That sentiment captures the popular perception of a year that can’t seem to end soon enough...

But what if 2014 turned out better than expected? Thinking about what actually happened this past year may not be the best way to judge it. After all, an awful lot of smart people predicted a lot of even-more-terrible things that never came to pass.

In recapping all of the "awful" about 2014, Drezner includes the following:

1. Increased racial polarization
2. Russia invading Ukraine
3. Emergence of ISIS
4. Stagnated euro-zone economies
5. Ebola
6. Pakistani Taliban massacre of school children
7. North Korean threat to "The Interview"

I have to question whether that list adds up to anything more awful than any other year. The truth is that bad things happen pretty regularly in the world. If that were our measurement, couldn't we round up enough bad news to proclaim every year awful?

It's interesting to note that Drezner's point about how things could have been worse is all based on the fact that we have dealt pretty effectively with the challenges that 2014 brought us. He ends with quoting President Obama at his year-end news conference.

And, you know, part of what I hope, as we reflect on the new year — this should generate . . . some confidence. America knows how to solve problems.

That pretty well summarizes the difference that President Obama has been talking about for months now between cynicism and hope.


To assume that we should measure our lives based on whether or not bad things happen in the world is to believe in a level of control that is illusory. The struggle will not end. Unless/until we grasp that, we are destined for cynicism.

I am reminded of a quote from the book The Healing by Jonathan Odell. Polly Shine is teaching her apprentice Granada the art of healing. She tells her that her mother's people in Africa were the finest weavers in the world.

"She told me the secret...what made them so fine, mother after daughter after grandaughter, all the way down the line."

"What was it Polly?"

"She say, the difference in weavers is, some see the tangle and others see the weave. The ones that can't take their eyes off the tangle, they never rise above it."

It is paying attention to the weave that gives us confidence...and hope.

Why Now?

On Wednesday, after the announcement that NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo would not be indicted for killing Eric Garner, the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund Twitter posted a series of tweets naming 76 men and women who were killed in police custody since the 1999 death of Amadou Diallo in New York.

This is the point many activists are trying to make. It is NOT just the deaths of Michael Brown, or Eric Garner, or Tamir Rice that have fueled the reaction we're seeing. It is a very long history of this kind of abuse that has led to this moment.

So the question that spurs for me is "Why now?" As a white woman, I'm not the one to answer that. But I will share a couple of my observations.

First of all, I think back to something I wrote last spring: Who are the optimists these days? Here's a quote about that from Ellis Cose:

African-Americans, long accustomed to frustration in their pursuit of opportunity and respect, are amazingly upbeat, consistently astounding pollsters with their hopefulness.

And here's a quote I posted recently from the book The Healing by Jonathan Odell:

'Mark my words," I said, 'when a man's not afraid, then he's hoping. And that's when all hell breaks loose.'"

Offered for your consideration. What say you?

President Obama's theory of change

Did anyone else notice that over the last 3 days President Obama has done interviews with Jeff Johnson at BET, Stephen Colbert and Fusion's Jorge Ramos? Perhaps that should tell us something about how he sees the relevance of the Obama coalition - just as pundits from across the political spectrum are writing it off.

Via these three interviews, we've seen several sides of the President. With Colbert he was funny. With Ramos he was feisty. But it was with Johnson that he was most profound.


At about 14:35 in the interview, President Obama lays out his vision of how change happens.

This isn't going to be solved overnight. This is something that is deeply rooted in our society. Its deeply rooted in our history. But the two things that are going to allow us to solve it: number one is the understanding that we have made progress, and so its important to recognize that as painful as these incidents are, we can't equate what's happening now to what was happening fifty years ago. If you talk to your parents, grandparents, uncles, they'll tell you that things are better...not good in some cases...but better. The reason its important for us to understand progress has been made is, that then gives us hope that we can make more progress.

The second thing...is that we have to be persistent. Typically progress is in steps - its in increments. When you're dealing with something as deeply rooted as racism or bias in any society, you have to have vigilance. But you have to recognize that its going to take some time and you just have to be steady. You don't give up when we don't get all the way there...We're not going to make it perfect, but we can make it better. And better is good.

That statement summarizes pretty well where Barack Obama is at odds with a lot of activists (and also where he is at odds with what Naomi Klein called "disaster capitalism").  I am reminded of something Dr. Keith Humphreys wrote about the reaction he got from reform activists when he highlighted the good news about a decline in prison admission rates.

But a small group of people are upset that I have engaged in what might be called “airing clean laundry”. Their argument is that by letting the public know that incarceration rates are going down, I am effectively declaring that mass incarceration is over (even though I have repeatedly said just the opposite) and implicitly encouraging everyone to move on to some other social problem.

The consequentialist argument against sharing good news regarding a longstanding social problem is that it invariably undermines further reform by reducing the public’s sense of urgency. I am not convinced that this hypothesis is correct.

What a lot of this comes down to is a question about whether hope or anger are better motivators for change. But of course, that frames the whole thing as an either/or. Marshall Ganz, the country's foremost expert on community organizing, explains the both/and of how the two work together.

The initial challenge for an organizer—or anybody who’s going to provide leadership for change—is to figure out how to break through the inertia of habit to get people to pay attention. Often that breakthrough happens by urgency of need. Sometimes it happens because of anger—and by anger I don’t mean rage, I mean outrage. It’s the contradiction between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. Our experience of that tension can break through the inertia and apathy of things as they always are.

How do organizers master urgency to break through inertia? The difference in how individuals respond to urgency or anxiety (detected by the brain’s surveillance system) depends on the brain’s dispositional system, the second system in the brain, which runs from enthusiasm to depression, from hope to despair. When anxiety hits and you’re down in despair, then fear hits. You withdraw or strike out, neither of which helps to deal with the problem. But if you’re up in hope or enthusiasm, you’re more likely to ask questions and learn what you need to learn to deal with the unexpected.

Hope is not only audacious, it is substantial. Hope is what allows us to deal with problems creatively. In order to deal with fear, we have to mobilize hope. Hope is one of the most precious gifts we can give each other and the people we work with to make change.

In other words, hope is the ingredient that turns our anger away from fear and towards the possibility of change. That's exactly why Bryan Stevenson said that hope is the antidote to "a political vision that is fueled by fear and sustained by anger."

Two Conflicting Views of Hope

Two authors I admire a lot have written very conflicting articles about hope. Here's Derrick Jensen:

Frankly, I don’t have much hope. But I think that’s a good thing. Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth...

Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane. I say this not only because of the lovely Buddhist saying “Hope and fear chase each other’s tails,” not only because hope leads us away from the present, away from who and where we are right now and toward some imaginary future state. I say this because of what hope is...

I’m not, for example, going to say I hope I eat something tomorrow. I just will. I don’t hope I take another breath right now, nor that I finish writing this sentence. I just do them. On the other hand, I do hope that the next time I get on a plane, it doesn’t crash. To hope for some result means you have given up any agency concerning it. Many people say they hope the dominant culture stops destroying the world. By saying that, they’ve assumed that the destruction will continue, at least in the short term, and they’ve stepped away from their own ability to participate in stopping it.

And here's Clay Claiborne:

For someone sitting on the very edge of survival, hope is extremely important. Often it is only hope, sometimes even false hope, that allows him to make it to the next day. That is one of the reasons that religion has always found such a resonance among the lower classes, especially in times of great hardship or struggle. Cynicism is deadly for someone on the edge of survival. Even in the darkest night, he cannot afford to be cynical. That cynicism just might push him over the edge.

I've personally done a lot of thinking about what these two authors are saying. I would encourage you to do the same. That's because I believe that unless our thinking is challenged...its not really thinking at all.

Today's dose of hope

You just need to watch this.

I couldn't be more proud of these young people - and our President who is reaching out to them.

Post by MTV.

Going Forward: Division or Hope?

Leonard Pitts pretty much nails his post-mortem about the 2014 elections in a column titled: Cynicism won midterm elections.

The Democrats had nothing to say and said it ineptly, running from the achievements of recent years — the Affordable Care Act, falling unemployment rates, a soaring stock market — and the president who presided over them like Usain Bolt from a house fire...

The Republicans also had nothing to say, but they said it loudly and with great certitude: “Obama caused Ebola! Obama caused ISIS! Obama is going to give your job to an illegal! GOP: 2014!”...

Cowardice squared off against cynicism Tuesday, and cynicism won. But there is something wrong when those are the only options on the ballot.

Now that its clear that cowardice lost (DUH!), lots of Democratic strategists are thinking that perhaps its time to fuel division as the answer: blacks vs whites, Main St. vs Wall St., men vs women, etc.

I'd like to remind everyone about the single most important reason that Barack Obama is our president today.


Its become "conventional wisdom" that Obama got elected because he opposed the war in Iraq. To that I'd say...no one would have ever heard about that position if it weren't for this speech. It roused a divided nation to a higher ideal...and gave us hope in a better future. 
Here's Pitts again:

People for whom everything is about politics tend to forget that most of us do not see the world that way. Red or blue, left or right, most Americans simply want a government that works, that gets things done, and a nation that stands for something, that means something in the world beyond just a parcel of land where a bunch of people live.

This is why Obama’s words electrified 10 years ago; they seemed to connect people to ideals larger than their own lives.

If you think that a few years in Washington D.C. made President Obama less "naive" about all this, listen to what he said at the end of his 2012 victory speech.


At about 20:25:

I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting...

I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.

More than anything else, President Obama's message has always been that - no matter what divides us (race, gender, class, ideology, religion etc) - there is something deeper that unites us. When we tap into that, we can find the courage and hope to actually listen to each other and address our differences.

As Pitts points out in his column, all that seems "flatter than a left-out cola" right now. But its exactly what Rev. Joseph Lowery called "good crazy."


So as we begin to think about how to go forward in this country once President Obama's second term is over, I'll be looking for a little "good crazy." In other words, people who understand - as Rubem Alves once said - that "the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual." Now that I've had the experience of being led by someone like that, I'm not interested in going back to cynicism, cowardice and division.

How our media fuels cynicism

The morning after the election I was talking to my neighbor who is a retired truck driver. He told me that he didn't bother to vote anymore because none of "them" ever did what they promised to do when campaigning. Sure...he's a sample of one. But I think he's pretty representative of the 2/3 of voters who didn't show up Tuesday. In other words, McConnell's strategy of sowing cynicism is a pretty smart move for Republicans (and a disaster for democracy).

I expect those who believe that politics is all just a power game (i.e., McConnell) to play the best hand they've got. Someone as smart as he is knows that the public at large doesn't buy their solutions (see: the success of minimum wage referendum). So he's got to come up with a way to win elections in spite of that.

The folks I DO hold accountable for the spread of this kind of cynicism are those in the media. The reason my neighbor doesn't think that elected officials ever follow through is because they are fed massive doses of hysteria every day with almost zero coverage of results.

This phenomenon was actually heightened in the lead-up to the midterm elections where the American public was fed a steady stream of fear-mongering about one "crisis" after another. But how much are they hearing about how President Obama's responses are working? Nada...zilch...zero.

For example, you have to dig deep to learn that the Russian economy is tanking, partly as a result of the President's work to partner with European countries on sanctions following their incursion into Ukraine. Or how about the fact that the ISIS Wave of Might is Turning into a Ripple? Who noticed that - as of yesterday - Dallas is Ebola free? I personally found it fascinating that, after being consumed with the topic of Ebola for the entire month of October, not one member of the White House Press Corp asked a question about it during President Obama's press conference the day after the election.

To put this in perspective, its interesting to imagine how our current media might have handled the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. I'm sure they'd first of all write countless articles about how President Kennedy was to blame because of his "weakness" as a foreign policy leader. Then they would play up all the possible horror stories on what a nuclear-armed Cuba would do. Some of that surely happened back then. But the difference would be that once everyone was in a frenzy, they'd stop talking about it and move on to some other crisis...ignoring how it was resolved.

I'm not one that buys conspiracy theories about why the media does this. I think its fairly obvious that they exist in a bubble of groupthink that prizes cynicism above all else and are dependent on hysteria to provide eyeballs and link bait for their financial survival.

But this is a deeply disturbing trend that requires our attention. I don't hold out much hope that we can rely on the media to fix this. Its going to eventually be up to us to demand something better.

I WILL NOT let McConnell win this one!!!

From E.J. Dionne:

In “The Cynic,” a new biography of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, New Republic writer Alec MacGillis cites former GOP senator Bob Bennett recalling McConnell’s comments to his party colleagues at a winter retreat in 2009, at the dawn of Obama’s presidency:

“Mitch said, ‘We have a new president with an approval rating in the 70 percent area. We do not take him on frontally. We find issues where we can win, and we begin to take him down, one issue at a time. We create an inventory of losses, so it’s Obama lost on this, Obama lost on that. And we wait for the time when the image has been damaged to the point where we can take him on.’ ”

MacGillis aptly summarized the approach: “In other words, wait out Americans’ hopefulness in a dire moment for the country until it curdles to disillusionment.” This is the central cause of the dysfunction that leaves voters so disheartened. It should be rebuked rather than vindicated at the polls.

Republicans keep trying to deny that this has been their strategy from the beginning. But there you have it...a Republican Senator who was on the scene when McConnell spelled it all out.

Contrary to what any ideologue from the right or the left has to say, the fact that McConnell's strategy has been fairly effective in inducing cynicism over hope is NOT a failing that we can pin on President Obama. The American people have no one else to blame for that...its on us.

All along, President Obama's message has been the same:

The folks on the other side, they’re counting on you being cynical. They’re figuring you won’t think you can make a difference.” The alternative? “Don’t be cynical. Be hopeful. . . . Cynicism is a choice. And hope is a better choice.

There are a lot of issues on which I disagree with Senator McConnell. But none more than this one: He is NOT going to get me to chose cynicism!!!!!

Storytelling

For those of you familiar with the New Testament, have you ever wondered why Jesus almost always responded to difficult questions by telling a story (parable)?

The answer is that there is power in storytelling. Lately I've been noticing how many of the people I admire are talking about this. For today, I simply want to chronicle what they're saying.

First of all, take a moment to listen to Lynne Twist - author of The Soul of Money and founder of Pachamama Alliance - talk about the power of story.

The story we tell ourselves or the conversation we're living in is actually where we live...and we have absolute omnipotence over that. We may not have power over the circumstance we have, but we have absolute power over the story we tell about the circumstances or the conversation we have about our lives...That's not only where you and I can change the game, but can change our lives and the world we perceive we're living in. Its not pollyanna. Its not positive thinking. Its actually the access to power so that we can behave and act in a way that we stay competent, effective, powerful and know who we are.

A few months ago I shared this video of Jon Favreau - a very wise young man - who talked about the most important thing he learned from working with President Obama.

But I think the most important lesson that I learned from President Obama was about the power of storytelling to instill a sense of hope - and why that's so important right now.

And here is Marshall Ganz, senior lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School and designer of Camp Obama, talking about Why Stories Matter.

The way we talk about this is not just to go up to someone and say, “Be hopeful.” We don’t just talk about hope and other values in abstractions. We talk about them in the language of stories because stories are what enable us to communicate these values to one another.

If you prefer a video of the same content from Ganz, here it is.


Just yesterday, Al Giordano posted this on Facebook:

If you're frustrated with how the world is, forget about the world. Tell your story. Tell it boldly. And ignore whatever crisis the media is telling you to worry about. Your story, my story, is what rules the world. Not their version of it...

Finally, here is Christina Baldwin, author of Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives Through the Power and Practice of Story, talking about the role story plays in our lives following the death of her son.

In my book, Storycatcher, I say, “Words are how we think, story is how we link.” Life story is developed by attaching a new experience to an old one, like putting two children in line together and saying, “Hold hands. Don’t let go. Help each other cross the street.” A previous experience, which we have already transformed through the narrative function of the mind into meaning, serves as a tutor to help us absorb a new experience and begin to integrate it.

But when the new experience is extreme in some way—we can’t link it. This is called shock. The world right now is full of shocks. And what observers call “news”...is individual, familial, and community survivors experiencing breakdowns in their capacity to integrate what just happened into what has happened before: shock on a massive scale.

Narrative is our life-line. The psyche goes into free-fall when our attachment to meaning is broken.

I am still in the process of absorbing what all this means - for me personally as well as a way of understanding what is going on in the world. So I'm not going to comment on it right now. Just know that this is what I am busy exploring and what you'll likely see reflected in my writing going forward.

Gonna let my little light shine!

Human beings are by nature social animals. Because of that, much of our view of the world is influenced by the people with whom we come in contact. When our views are out of sync with the general zeitgeist, its time to assess whether that is because we have superior vision or we're interpreting events to fit a pre-determined outlook.

I have been undergoing just such an assessment of my own views lately as I feel completely out of sync with the general perception that the country is going to hell in a hand basket. While the media and Republicans continue their total freak-out about Ebola and ISIS and many Democrats feel the need to distance themselves from President Obama's "toxic" record, here's what I'm noticing:

• The unemployment rate has finally dipped below 6% and is within .04% of 5.5% - the rate which many economists consider full employment,
• We are in the midst of the longest period of private sector job growth in this country's history,
• The number of people who are uninsured is dropping - while the rise of health care costs has slowed,
• The federal deficit is less than half of what it was in 2009,
• Crime is down at the same time that the number of people in prison is decreasing,
• Over half of the U.S. population now lives in a state with marriage equality,
• Due to effective worldwide sanctions, Iran is still at the negotiating table on their development of nuclear weapons and Putin has quieted Russia's incursions into Ukraine, and
• Afghanistan has just completed its first transfer of power via elections in the country's history.

Then today I read this on a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

More U.S. high school students are staying in school, according to newly released data from the Census Bureau, as the national dropout rate reached a record low last year. Just 7% of the nation’s 18-to-24 year olds had dropped out of high school, continuing a steady decline in the nation’s dropout rate since 2000, when 12% of youth were dropouts.

The decline in the national dropout rate has been driven, in part, by substantially fewer Hispanic and black youth dropping out of school (the non-Hispanic white dropout rate has not fallen as sharply). Although Hispanics still have the highest dropout rate among all major racial and ethnic groups, it reached a record-low of 14% in 2013, compared with 32% of Hispanic 18- to 24-year-olds who were dropouts in 2000...

The dropout rate for black youth also was at a record low in 2013 (8%) and has fallen by nearly half since 2000 (15%).

As I continue to absorb this kind of news I find myself shaking my head and wondering WTF is wrong with us that we're not noticing these positive developments. I get that there's still a lot of work to do, but on almost every data point, we're making significant progress.

It seems clear to me that this country is engaging in one pretty massive freak-out. I'll let you pick your target about who/what is to blame for that. But some dank cave of the American id has certainly been tapped in to lately. All I know is that I'll just keep letting my little light shine.

The choice: fear or hope?

Imagine with me for a moment that the United States elects a new president seven years after 9/11 while we are engaged in 2 wars in the Middle East that the voters want to end. All this is happening while the mastermind of the worst terror attack on our country continues to plot against us.

Now, imagine that president ending those wars and approving a high-risk plan to take out the mastermind - and its successful.

Further, imagine that this president assembles a coalition of 40 countries to go after a new threat that arises from Middle Eastern terrorists.

And yet, 55% of the country disapproves of his handling of foreign policy while some actually buy into the idea that he's is a secret Muslim sympathizer (warning: wingnut link).

OK, so you don't have to imagine it at all. That's the true story of President Barack Obama.

What blows my mind is how - in an age when data and information are universally available in a way we've never known before - so many people buy into mythologies and propaganda that have zero grounding in facts. Why are they so quick to believe the lies and distortions?

This all goes WAY beyond a basic disagreement about policies. If that were all this was about we might be able to discuss how Presidents Bush and Obama agreed about how to end the Iraq War and that is one of the primary reasons Obama kept Gates on as his Secretary of Defense. But that kind of rational analysis is not possible in this environment, is it?

We see the same dynamic on the economy. Despite the fact that even Forbes Magazine says that Barack Obama is the best economic president of the modern era, 55% disapprove of his handling of the economy while some Republicans continue to insist he's a socialist out to destroy our country.

There are probably complex reasons for this dissonance. But I'd suggest that its mostly based on fear...fear of a changing world and a changing country that is currently being run by a black man (i.e., he's not really one of us).

And so, President Obama was right the other day when he said that we're at a crossroads between fear and hope. The challenges that face the globe will continue and the changing demographics of America will not be altered. Those are simply the facts we have to deal with. It is on each of us to decide whether we respond out of fear or join the President in saying...

For America, the choice is clear. We choose hope over fear. We see the future not as something out of our control, but as something we can shape for the better through concerted and collective effort. We reject fatalism or cynicism when it comes to human affairs; we choose to work for the world as it should be, as our children deserve it to be.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Two recent headlines about the exact same information are a perfect illustration of why President Obama keeps reminding us that cynicism is a choice.

U.S imprisonment rate has fallen for the fifth straight year. Here's why.

United States has the largest prison population in the world - and its growing

Both stories (the first at WaPo's Wonkblog and the second at Think Progress) are about this recently released report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. But they can't both be accurate, can they? 

Here's what you need to know:

1. The information in the BJS report includes data on both state and federal prisons. 
2. The second article focuses on the raw number of inmates - which has gone up slightly for states and down for the federal system. 
3. As the population of the U.S. grows, a better gauge over time is the rate of inmates per U.S. resident. That number has fallen - as reported in the first article.

If we look at the rate of inmates/100,000 residents, here is what has happened over the last five years.

2008 - 506

2009 - 504

2010 - 500

2011 - 492

2012 - 480

2013 - 478

Those numbers might not look dramatic. But they represent a huge change in the trajectory we've seen over the last 40 years.

As Keith Humphreys (who wrote the first article) says:

The U.S. established mass incarceration over decades, and it will not be unmade overnight. Moving in the right direction for five straight years is splendid, but I believe we could pick up the pace while still protecting the public. My hope is that the many sentencing reforms passed in states in the past couple years have not yet had time to make as much impact as they will in the future; President Obama and AG Holder’s recent efforts at the federal level could well be in the same boat. Like the Dalai Lama, I choose to be optimistic because I cannot think of a better alternative.

So its interesting to wonder why Think Progress - normally an excellent source of news - would chose to ignore the positive trends.  Humphreys, who has been writing about them, recently answered that question. Apparently he got some push-back from prison reform activists for reporting that the glass might actually be half full.

But a small group of people are upset that I have engaged in what might be called “airing clean laundry”. Their argument is that by letting the public know that incarceration rates are going down, I am effectively declaring that mass incarceration is over (even though I have repeatedly said just the opposite) and implicitly encouraging everyone to move on to some other social problem.

The consequentialist argument against sharing good news regarding a longstanding social problem is that it invariably undermines further reform by reducing the public’s sense of urgency. I am not convinced that this hypothesis is correct. Ignoring evidence of positive change can increase despair and thereby reduce the willingness of advocates to keep trying. In contrast, showing evidence of success builds hope and confidence. Further, highlighting the achievements of reformers brings them attention and respect, which can help sustain them in their difficult work.

This is EXACTLY the issue President Obama is addressing when he says that cynicism is a choice - and that hope is a better choice.

President Obama plants the seeds of hope

Here is one of my favorite quotes of all time from Rubem Alves.

What is hope? It is the presentiment that imagination is more real and reality less real than it looks. It is the suspicion that the overwhelming brutality of fact that oppresses us and represses us is not the last word. It is the hunch that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe, that the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual, and that, in a miraculous and unexpected way, life is preparing the creative events which will open the way to freedom and to resurrection.

But, hope must live with suffering. Suffering, without hope, produces resentment and despair. And hope, without suffering, creates illusions, naiveté, and drunkenness. So, let us plant dates, even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see.

I am reminded of that quote when I realize that wherever President Obama goes around the globe, he always makes sure to address young people. It is clear that in them, he sees the seeds of hope that will outlast his time on the international stage. Here are just a few examples of what he's had to say.

Cairo, Egypt 2009

The issues that I have described will not be easy to address. But we have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world that we seek -- a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected. Those are mutual interests. That is the world we seek. But we can only achieve it together.

I know there are many -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort -- that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There's so much fear, so much mistrust that has built up over the years. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country -- you, more than anyone, have the ability to reimagine the world, to remake this world.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 2011

But for our two nations, for the United States and Brazil, two nations who have struggled over many generations to perfect our own democracies, the United States and Brazil know that the future of the Arab World will be determined by its people.

No one can say for certain how this change will end, but I do know that change is not something that we should fear. When young people insist that the currents of history are on the move, the burdens of the past can be washed away. When men and women peacefully claim their human rights, our own common humanity is enhanced. Wherever the light of freedom is lit, the world becomes a brighter place.

That is the example of Brazil.

University of Cape Town, South Africa 2013

Madiba’s words give us a compass in a sea of change, firm ground amidst swirling currents. We always have the opportunity to choose our better history. We can always understand that most important decision -- the decision we make when we find our common humanity in one another. That’s always available to us, that choice.

And I've seen that spirit in the welcoming smiles of children on Gorée Island, and the children of Mombasa on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast. That spirit exists in the mother in the Sahel who wants a life of dignity for her daughters; and in the South African student who braves danger and distance just to get to school. It can be heard in the songs that rise from villages and city streets, and it can be heard in the confident voices of young people like you.

It is that spirit, that innate longing for justice and equality, for freedom and solidarity -- that’s the spirit that can light the way forward.

Jerusalem 2013

We bear all that history on our shoulders. We carry all that history in our hearts. Today, as we face the twilight of Israel’s founding generation, you -- the young people of Israel - must now claim its future. It falls to you to write the next chapter in the great story of this great nation.

And as the President of a country that you can count on as your greatest friend - I am confident that you can help us find the promise in the days that lie ahead. And as a man who’s been inspired in my own life by that timeless calling within the Jewish experience -- tikkun loam - I am hopeful that we can draw upon what’s best in ourselves to meet the challenges that will come; to win the battles for peace in the wake of so much war; and to do the work of repairing this world.

Brussels, Belgium 2014

And it is you, the young people of Europe, young people like Laura, who will help decide which way the currents of our history will flow. Do not think for a moment that your own freedom, your own prosperity, that your own moral imagination is bound by the limits of your community, your ethnicity, or even your country. You’re bigger than that. You can help us to choose a better history. That’s what Europe tells us. That’s what the American experience is all about.

President Obama has given that same message numerous times to young people during commencement addresses here in the United States. But he has never articulated it more powerfully than he did at his campaign headquarters the day after his re-election in 2012.

Over the last four years when people ask me "how do you put up with this or that - with the frustrations of Washington" - I just think about you. I think about what you guys are gonna do. And that's the source of my hope. That's the source of my strength and my inspiration.

People who seek positions of leadership simply to fill their own ego needs can only see the results in the "now" of their accomplishments and failures. Real leaders know that it also includes planting the seeds of hope...for the future.

The yearnings that burn in every human heart: dignity, justice and democracy

Today in Estonia, I believe President Obama was speaking to all of us.

In the face of violence that seems intractable and suffering that is so senseless, it is easy to grow cynical and I think tempting to give in to the notion that peace and security may be beyond our grasp. But I say to all of you here today, especially the young people, do not give in to that cynicism. Do not lose the idealism and optimism that is the root of all great change. Don’t ever lose the faith that says if we want it, if we are willing to work for it, if we stand together, the future can be different. Tomorrow can be better...

Yes, there will be setbacks and there will be frustrations and there will be moments of doubt and moments of despair. The currents of history ebb and flow. But over time, they flow toward freedom – more people in every corner of the earth standing up and reaching to claim those rights that are universal, and that’s why, in the end, our ideals are stronger, and that’s why, in the end, our ideals will win. 

Dignity will win, because every human being is born equal, with free will and inalienable rights, and any regime or system of government that tries to deny these rights will ultimately fail and countries that uphold them will only grow stronger.

Justice will win, because might does not make right. And the only path to lasting peace is when people know that their dignity will be respected and that their rights will be upheld. And citizens, like nations, will never settle for a world where the big are allowed to bully the small. Sooner or later, they fight back.

Democracy will win, because a government’s legitimacy can only come from citizens. Because in this age of information and empowerment, people want more control over their lives, not less. And because more than any other form of government ever devised, only democracy, rooted in the sanctity of the individual, can deliver real progress.

And freedom will win – not because it’s inevitable, not because it is ordained, but because these basic human yearnings for dignity and justice and democracy do not go away. They can be suppressed, at times they can be silenced, but they burn in every human heart, in a place where no regime can ever reach, a light that no army can ever extinguish. And so long as free peoples summon the confidence and the courage and the will to defend the values that we cherish, then freedom will always be stronger and our ideas will always prevail, no matter what.

Astute observers might recall that this comes from the guy who's ground game during his presidential campaign was based on the motto: Respect, Empower, Include. He really believes that igniting those ideals in people is a winning formula. Or, as Ta-Nehisi Coates suggested, he regularly displays a "shocking, almost certifiable faith in humanity."

Beyond Ferguson: Understanding the big picture

I just want to say that Carol Anderson nailed it in her column titled: Ferguson isn't about black rage against cops. It's white rage against progress.

When we look back on what happened in Ferguson, Mo., during the summer of 2014, it will be easy to think of it as yet one more episode of black rage ignited by yet another police killing of an unarmed African American male. But that has it precisely backward. What we’ve actually seen is the latest outbreak of white rage. Sure, it is cloaked in the niceties of law and order, but it is rage nonetheless.

Protests and looting naturally capture attention. But the real rage smolders in meetings where officials redraw precincts to dilute African American voting strength or seek to slash the government payrolls that have long served as sources of black employment. It goes virtually unnoticed, however, because white rage doesn’t have to take to the streets and face rubber bullets to be heard. Instead, white rage carries an aura of respectability and has access to the courts, police, legislatures and governors, who cast its efforts as noble, though they are actually driven by the most ignoble motivations.

White rage recurs in American history. It exploded after the Civil War, erupted again to undermine the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision and took on its latest incarnation with Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House. For every action of African American advancement, there’s a reaction, a backlash.

That is essentially the same message we hear from Rev. William Barber when he talks about the fact that we are in the midst of a third reconstruction.


The reason its important to remember this is that it keeps the focus where it should be...on racism. But it also allows us to acknowledge the strength of our cause. Change is happening and the backlash is very real. But as I've said so many times, the dying beast is lashing out in its death throes. That's why I loved how Rev. Al Sharpton ended his remarks at Michael Brown's memorial service.

I don’t know how long the investigation will be. I don’t know how long the journey’s going ot be. But I know how this story gonna end. The first will be last. The last will be first. The lion and lamb gonna lay down together. And God will! God will! God will make a way for his children! I been to the end of the Book. Justice is gonna come!

The backlash we're experiencing now was triggered by just that kind of hope.

We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change...

For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.

It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.

P.S. Perhaps that's why I can never watch this video without shedding a few tears. And perhaps its also why Rev. Joseph Lowery chose to include these words in his prayer at the inauguration of Barack Obama as this country's 44th president:

God of our weary years
God of our silent tears
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way
Thou who has by thy might
Led us into the light
Keep us forever in the path we pray

Are Americans in a permanent funk?

That's from Gallup on August 15, 2014. They note the following:

The last time a majority of Americans were satisfied with the direction of the country was more than a decade ago, a 55% reading in January 2004. Further, satisfaction has not topped 40% since July 2005, amid a struggling economy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and declining confidence in government.

I'll just add a caveat that I've written about before: it is people of color who are the optimists among us these days.  Even so, we might ask ourselves what has put so many of us in such a funk. I'm going to take a stab at outlining three things that are contributing to it.

Changing technology

Robert Fisk has written an interesting article about how ISIS is exploiting social media. Its just another example of how technology has made our world smaller. We now see and hear about events both around the world and here at home with an immediacy that is unprecedented. I've often thought that when it feels like the world is going to hell these days, the truth is that its always been that way...we just didn't know it. We face the choice of either ignoring what's going on or developing a serious case of compassion fatigue.

Changing world 

While its true that the world has always had a certain amount of chaos, most Americans who are alive today have had simple frames of good/evil with which to understand those events. During World War II the enemy was fascism and during the Cold War it was communism. In search of a way to frame what is going on now, some conservatives have tried to rally us around a new ideological frame of reference by seeing the enemy as Islam or terrorism. But much of that breaks down when we can't locate who the "good guys" are in tensions between Assad's Syria and ISIS - as just one example.

But the world is changing at home too. We just elected our first African American President...twice. And in about 20 years, white people will no longer be a majority in the country. In states like California and Texas - that has already happened. Folks can see the change coming. And the dying beast is lashing out - even as it knows its days are numbered.

Changing media

In the past, most Americans got their news from the same sources. We knew what was going on in the world because Walter Cronkite told us.

Now people get their news from whatever source tends to reinforce their world view. People have been pointing this out for a while now. But I think its important to add that partisan reporting is based on an assumption that the "other side" is out to destroy the country. This happens on both the left and the right.

While you might think that one side of that equation is correct, its important to notice the corrosive effect this has on all of us. We are constantly being told that this is the fight of a lifetime and if our side doesn't win, it is the end of America as we know it. To make that point, we are barraged with news about all the horrible things the other side is doing/saying. As much as I love Media Matters, I have to take them in small doses or I get in a pretty ugly funk myself.

Some people are even suggesting that President Obama might be in a bit of a funk lately. That's amusing because before he went on vacation a couple of weeks ago, the news was all about how "the bear is loose." But if he does ever get discouraged (which I'm sure happens), I suspect that ISIS and Ferguson are not what lingers. It probably has more to do with our ongoing struggle to accomplish this:

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will.

Continuing to work at that requires optimism (i.e., hope) that says its possible to achieve. That kind of optimism becomes contagious when we look at what we've accomplished so far - against some pretty big odds. When the bear gets loose again, I'm sure he'll go right back to where he was before he (sorta) went on vacation.

I do not believe in a cynical America; I believe in an optimistic America that is making progress. And I believe despite unyielding opposition, there are workers right now who have jobs who didn’t have them before because of what we've done; and folks who got health care who didn’t have it because of the work that we've done; and students who are going to college who couldn’t afford it before; and troops who’ve come home after tour after tour of duty because of what we've done.

You don't have time to be cynical. Hope is a better choice.

Why you should listen to President Obama: Its good for your health

As President Obama traveled around the country lately, he's been saying things like this:

You can't afford to be cynical. Cynicism is fashionable sometimes. You see it all over our culture, all over TV; everybody likes just putting stuff down and being cynical and being negative, and that shows somehow that you're sophisticated and you're cool. You know what -- cynicism didn’t put a man on the moon. Cynicism didn’t win women the right to vote. Cynicism did not get a Civil Rights Act signed. Cynicism has never won a war. Cynicism has never cured a disease. Cynicism has never started a business. Cynicism has never fed a young mind.

I do not believe in a cynical America; I believe in an optimistic America that is making progress. And I believe despite unyielding opposition, there are workers right now who have jobs who didn’t have them before because of what we've done; and folks who got health care who didn’t have it because of the work that we've done; and students who are going to college who couldn’t afford it before; and troops who’ve come home after tour after tour of duty because of what we've done.

You don't have time to be cynical. Hope is a better choice.

Well...it turns out that cynicism is not just bad for the body politic. Its also just plain bad for your body.

Cynical distrust is characterized by the belief that others are motivated by selfish interests. Though it may appear to be merely a "glass is half empty" point of view, researchers say having this viewpoint increases chances of developing dementia...

They say that cynicism has been previously linked with other health problems, including heart disease, but this study is the first to examine the link between cynicism and dementia.

You should listen to the President when he says that hope is a better choice.

Here's to your health!

(Hat tip to @MagicalEarth for the link)

"One pragmatic imperfect victory at a time"

Nothing I have read recently has touched my heart as profoundly as this article by Rebecca Solnit titled: A letter to my dismal allies on the US left. It was written just prior to the 2012 election but could just as easily apply to the 2014 midterms. As a matter of fact, the message is timeless.

I'm going to provide a couple of quotes and hope you'll go read the whole thing. There is absolutely nothing I can add that would come close to being as beautifully expressed as what she wrote.

Under the heading "Leftwing Voter Suppression," she starts with this:

One manifestation of this indiscriminate biliousness is the statement that gets aired every four years: that in presidential elections we are asked to choose the lesser of two evils. Now, this is not an analysis or an insight; it is a cliche, and a very tired one, and it often comes in the same package as the insistence that there is no difference between the candidates. You can reframe it, however, by saying: we get a choice, and not choosing at all can be tantamount in its consequences to choosing the greater of two evils.

But having marriage rights or discrimination protection or access to healthcare is not the lesser of two evils. If I vote for a Democrat, I do so in the hopes that fewer people will suffer, not in the belief that that option will eliminate suffering or bring us to anywhere near my goals or represent my values perfectly. Yet people are willing to use this "evils" slogan to wrap up all the infinite complexity of the fate of the Earth and everything living on it and throw it away.

The bold is my emphasis. It was at that point that the tears of having my heart exposed began. And then the floodgates opened with this:

The great human rights activist Harvey Milk was hopeful, even though when he was assassinated gays and lesbians had almost no rights (but had just won two major victories in which he played a role). He famously said, "You have to give people hope."

In terms of the rights since won by gays and lesbians, where we are now would undoubtedly amaze Milk, and we got there step by step, one pragmatic and imperfect victory at a time – with so many more yet to be won. To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.

From the bottom of my heart...thank you Rebecca!

The Great American Freak-Out

Ever since the BP gulf oil spill we've needed a name for how we tend to respond to immediate crises in this country. I'll nominate "The Great American Freak-Out" for the honor. But if you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it.

The general pattern goes something like this:

1. The media airwaves are saturated with stories about the crisis.
2. Conservatives scramble to find a way to cast it all as Obama's fault.
3. Liberals wring their hands over the President's lack of decisive action.
4. Pundits pontificate about whether or not this is "Obama's Katrina" and are convinced that this will be the one thing that dooms Obama/Democrats in the next election.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration keeps plugging away at analyzing the problem and working on ways to resolve it. But in the end no one notices what they've actually done because by then everyone's bored with it all and has moved on to the next Great American Freak-Out.

The Republicans have exploited this tendency in the media ever since the 2010 summer of "death panels" by creating hostage-taking and government shut-down crises. But when the media doesn't have a real crisis, they can do one of two things:

1. Create their own - "the government is listening every phone call you make and reading every email you send," or
2. Rely on those that the right wing conspiracists are always generating - Benghazi!, IRS, VA.

The impression this leaves low information voters is that the President has failed to address the crisis because they never hear the end of the story. This isn't just the media's fault. They feed the cycle, but we participate by chasing after every hysteria and getting bored with the nitty gritty of actual solutions. For example, congratulations to you if you are up to date on what is being done to resolve the backlog at the VA. I'm pretty sure they're not talking about that any more on CNN's Crossfire.

Years ago then-Senator Barack Obama acknowledged this problem. He didn't have a simple solution though.

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.

In other words, he suggested that we NOT join the freak-out. This is one of those places where he displays an almost unfathomable faith and trust in the American people. Because he thinks we are capable of this:

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will.

That's the kind of thing that makes partisans "suck their teeth" (as Ta-Nehisi Coates put it) and the Very Serious People call the President "naive." My response to all of them would be to ask "What's the alternative?" A cynical selfish electorate addicted to freak-outs?

Even after all these years of being obstructed and maligned, President Obama still believes we're better than that. Here's what he said in Austin, TX a couple of weeks ago.

There are plenty of people who count on you getting cynical and count on you not getting involved so that you don’t vote, so you give up. And you can’t give into that. America is making progress, despite what the cynics say...

Cynicism is popular these days. It’s what passes off as wisdom. But cynics didn’t put a man on the moon. Cynics never won a war. Cynics didn’t cure a disease, or start a business, or feed a young mind. Cynicism didn’t bring about the right for women to vote, or the right for African Americans to be full citizens. Cynicism is a choice.

Hope is a better choice.

So I'll keep plugging away here in my little corner of the internet in the hope that people will forgo the freak-out and be interested in a conversation that "can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will."