Soft Power missing from the Trump Administration

 "Soft Power" is defined as "the ability to get what your want through attraction rather than coercion and payments.  It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies.  When our policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced." [Soft Power, by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., p. X]

President Trump seems to only understand hard power: the demand for compliance with the threat of economic or military reprisal if compliance is not forthcoming.  But soft power is at least equally as powerful as hard power, without any bad side effects like tariff wars or actual wars.  Soft Power is cheaper, safer, and often more lasting.  We should go back to it.

Are mass protests demanding change losing their punch?

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/20/trump-activists-mass-protest

 

“The march itself is not the end game,” said Tamika Middleton, Managing Director of Women’s March. “The march itself is a tool, is a mechanism to bring more folks into the movement and get more folks engaged.”

 

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I've been both a participant and an organizer of many protests.  A few years ago I started wondering whether the ways we used to look at protesting might just be outdated.  The Internet, for instance, opened up as a new way to reach people about an issue.  I have had several web sites, for instance, freely giving out information and documentation to anyone with a computer.  There is such a divers and prolific amount of information in the world nowadays, it's difficult to concentrate like-minded people into one day's and one place's activity.  

So for now, this is still something I'm pondering.  If not protests, then what?  Youtube videos?  Lots of blogging?  I don't know.

The Billionaires are Taking Over

 https://www.newser.com/story/362490/musk-bezos-zuckerberg-will-sit-together-at-inauguration.html

 

The people in the top three spots on Forbes' billionaire list—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—will have prime seats at President-elect Trump's inauguration next week. NBC News, citing "an official involved with the planning of the event," reports that the three tech billionaires will be sitting together on the platform with other high-profile guests, including Trump's Cabinet nominees. Bezos and Zuckerberg's companies, Amazon and Meta, have each donated $1 million to the inauguration, while Musk spent more than $250 million to help Trump win the election, reports Reuters.  

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Trump, an alleged billionaire himself, has opened the doors for his billionaire friends to take over our government as well as our economy.  All this will do is concentrate even more of our wealth into just a few hands.  I don't think voters thought this through.

US ships its toxic waste to Mexico, doesn't care what happens after that

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/jan/14/monterrey-mexico-steel-us-toxic-waste

 

“We have a toxic cocktail here,” said Soto Jiménez, who sampled soil and dust around the plant after being alerted to the issue by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, an investigative journalism non-profit.

Soto Jiménez has found even more alarming concentrations of pollutants at other homes and in a school surrounding the plant – sometimes hundreds of times higher than US risk thresholds.

The researcher has concluded that the contaminants came from the plant. The general director of the facility, for his part, says it follows “the highest standards” and complies with regulations.

What is the plant processing?

Among other things, vast quantities of America’s hazardous waste.

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It's an easy "fix" to just send your problems to somebody else.  But this is a cynical, temporary solution. Also, product waste should be thought through BEFORE a product is made, not ignored.

 

housing that is suitable and survivable for the local environment

 https://www.unilad.com/news/us-news/la-fires-architect-home-survived-783939-20250111

 

As for how the mansion survived the fire, Steiner told the New York Post how the property's 'ultra-sturdy construction' likely saved it from the fires.

"It’s stucco and stone with a fireproof roof,’’ he said.

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The Book, Ecology of Fear, by Mike Davis, explains why the Los Angeles area is prone to annual fires whipped up by Santa Anna Winds.  It is not a secret.  It is not unusual for the area.  There are ways to build where houses do not go up in flames like match sticks.  None of this is rocket science.

 We need to be building for our local environment.  It is known how to do this.

 

 

 

How to handle Disinformation

 https://civicnebraska.org/20-ways-to-fight-disinformation/

 

1. educate yourself

2. verify

3. cross-check sources

4. think critically

5. check dates

6. champion media literacy

7. report disinformation

8. pause before sharing

9. know who you can trust

10. push back constructively

11. support fact-checking organizations

12.  promote digital literacy

13. check your biases

14. use technology

15. promote transparency

16. be accountable

17. practice what you preach

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From this list, I think #9 is the most important.  The key is knowing how to filter out information sources and find who is reliable, consistent, and has integrity.

This is getting more important as social media struggles with how to handle disinformation.  The struggle seems to be the balance between freedom of speech and the harm that can result from disinformation.  Since we are social animals and the world is not just black and white, it is obvious that discussion, argumentation, and disagreement will happen.  But what tools should be allowed at the table?

Is Tesla Big Brother?

 

Social media feeds us fake people

 https://gizmodo.com/metas-ai-profiles-are-already-polluting-instagram-and-facebook-with-slop-2000545433

 

The AI apocalypse is here and it’s far stupider and more depressing than we were promised. Instead of being hunted down by a gleaming metal skeleton in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, we are surrounded by zombies endlessly repeating our own posts back to us.

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 So we go on social media to interact with people, and they feed us zombies????  This is the future?  You can't even tell which peope are real and which are created to make a buck off our time spent talking to nothing?  I don't like it.