Author: Denele Campbell

Denele Campbell had her eye on writing from childhood. While pursuing her undergraduate degree in English, she filled her electives with poetry and fiction writing classes. Life then did what it does to everyone, tumbling through love, marriage and children, household and career, pets and pursuits, leaving Campbell to fit in bits and pieces of authorship. Newspaper columns, articles on local history, biographical profiles and small evocative essays kept her writing passion on a low simmer until retirement. Now devoting her full-time energy to writing, Campbell is plowing through thick files of ideas and half-finished manuscripts to produce fiction and non-fiction works.

Trump’s Drug War

The absurdity is overwhelming. Here we are as Americans, all party to the White House’s illegal murder of over eighty (so far) men in boats on the premise they are bringing drugs to the United States. As well remarked elsewhere, there is no evidence these boats are carrying drugs and no credibility in the idea these small vessels with a fuel range of 100-200 miles are embarking on a thousand mile journey to the U.S.

But even more insane is the idea that a nation under any government can stamp out drug use/abuse by ‘interdicting’ drugs enroute to this country. We can’t even stamp out drugs manufactured in within the borders of this country. Anyone who believes such nonsense needs to have these words tattooed onto their forehead: Supply-Demand. If people want a product, no matter how potentially dangerous, there will ALWAYS be a supplier. Basic economic fact. Reducing supply only results in higher prices for said product, i.e. better profits, more incentive to supply.

So let’s get real about illegal drugs. First, “drug users” include people who depend on caffeine in their morning coffee, iced tea at lunch or other caffeinated beverages, persons who ‘must have’ their cigarettes or other tobacco products, and persons prescribed any of a multitude of pharmaceuticals which address any of a multitude of human conditions from depression to headache to cancer. Secondly, there is an enormous difference between the use of and the abuse of any drug. Prohibitionists prefer to consider all illegal drug use as ‘abuse’ in order to justify draconian laws punishing users. We must keep in mind the blurred line dividing legal and illegal drugs is primarily based on their regulatory status and whether their production, sale, and use are permitted by law. Theoretically, this status is determined by government authorities based on factors like medical utility, potential for abuse, and perceived harm to the individual and society. In other words, there is no truly ‘illegal’ drug.

This theory supporting the prohibition of certain drugs has been shown to be a fabrication serving other less savory objectives. The drug war is a tool used by government to carry out activities which are illegal. For example, one might wonder about the president’s single-minded assault on alleged drug smugglers from Venezuela when coca leaf is grown in three other Latin American countries: Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. Surely the fact that Venezuela possesses the world’s largest oil reserves has nothing to do with it. Surely.

Never mind the fact that cocaine is hardly relevant in drug abuse circles since fentanyl hit the streets. In 2023, there were approximately 72,776 overdose deaths involving fentanyl (synthetic opioids other than methadone) compared to about 29,449 deaths involving cocaine.

Postcard showing an underground opium den in San Francisco, pre-1906 earthquake. By 1896, there were around 300 opium dens in San Francisco, mostly in Chinatown. In the 19th century and the early 20th century, opium smoking was common worldwide, especially in Asia, which was one of the sources of the opium poppy.

In order to better understand this absurdity, let’s go back more than a century to the country’s first ‘drug war’. The San Francisco Opium Den Ordinance of 1875 made it a misdemeanor to maintain or visit places where people smoked opium. These places were mainly in Chinese immigrant neighborhoods. Similar racially inflammatory state laws emerged. Soon after came the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred Chinese laborers from entering the U.S., a ban expanded to all Chinese people in 1902 and not fully repealed until 1943. The first federal drug law, the 1909 Smoking Opium Exclusion Act, prohibited importing and using opium. It wasn’t that the government suddenly became concerned about opium use. In a nutshell, it was that the railroads powering the economic growth of that period were now built, and thousands of Chinese who had been welcomed to this country to do the backbreaking work of carving tunnels out of rock and laying steel track were no longer of use. Even worse, these immigrants, the primary users of opium, were inviting relatives to immigrate and their jobs were seen as threats to white workers.[1]

Then there was alcohol. After nearly a century of growing religious fervor stemming from massive evangelical movements, especially the “Second Great Awakening,” characterized by fiery camp meetings, frontier revivalism, and emotionally charged preaching, a rising cry against alcohol resulted in ‘prohibition,’ enacted on a federal basis in 1920 but in individual states as early as the 1880s.

Carrie Nation became famous for her attacks on alcohol-serving establishments, using rocks, bricks, and her signature hatchet to destroy liquor bottles, mirrors, and bar fixtures. Before resorting to violence, she would kneel outside saloons, sing hymns, and deliver strong sermons to patrons and owners, sometimes calling herself the “Destroyer of Men’s Souls”.

“A wide coalition of mostly Protestants, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade in alcoholic drinks during the 19th century. They aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as alcoholism, domestic violence, and saloon-based political corruption.”[2]

Alcohol prohibition led to massive increases in organized crime (bootlegging, speakeasies), rampant corruption of officials, dangerous unregulated alcohol leading to sickness/death, huge losses in government tax revenue, and a general disrespect for the law, with little measurable public health benefit, ultimately proving a costly failure. Ultimately, prohibition led to the development of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), significantly expanding the role and authority of the FBI’s predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), making it central to federal law enforcement by creating massive new criminal enterprises (bootlegging) that required federal intervention, strained resources, spurred corruption, and ultimately led to bigger federal crime-fighting roles and the rise of modern organized crime, impacting federal investigations for decades.

This powerful new agency could have drifted into irrelevance when alcohol was once again legal in 1932, but instead there is evidence that the federal official who spearheaded cannabis prohibition saw it as a way to maintain his department’s relevance and budget. Harry Anslinger, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), needed a new focus for his agency after alcohol prohibition was repealed. He launched a public campaign against cannabis (often using the “marihuana” spelling to associate it with Mexican immigrants), portraying it as a dangerous substance to justify his department’s continued existence. Anslinger’s rhetoric carried strong undercurrents of racial prejudice and xenophobia, targeting Mexican immigrants and Black jazz musicians.

Then as the ‘60s ended with massive marches in support of equal rights for minorities and women, against the Vietnam war, and in support of gay rights, President Richard Nixon officially launched the “War on Drugs” in the early 1970s, declaring drug abuse a public enemy and enacting significant federal legislation like the Controlled Substances Act to combat drug production, distribution, and use, though policies intensified under subsequent administrations.

One of Richard Nixon’s top advisers and a key figure in the Watergate scandal said the war on drugs was created as a political tool to fight blacks and hippies, according to a 22-year-old interview recently published in Harper’s Magazine.

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.

“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”[3]

A 2017 study showed that police forces which received military equipment were more likely to have violent encounters with the public, regardless of local crime rates. A 2018 study found that militarized police units in the United States were more frequently deployed to communities with large shares of African-Americans, even after controlling for local crime rates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarization_of_police#cite_ref-17

In the next administration, First Lady Nancy Reagan famously addressed the drug “problem” with her “Just Say No.” advice, unwittingly illustrating the parental role now assumed by government over the private, consensual behavior of drug users. Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, took it a step further. He promoted the 1033 Program (Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Disposition Services) in the early 1990s to transfer surplus military gear to local law enforcement for the “War on Drugs.” Nowhere in this rush to judgement did anyone point out that M16/AR-15 rifles, grenade launchers, armored vehicles (APCs, MRAPs), night vision, tactical robots, and “less-lethal” gear (beanbag/pepperball guns, flashbangs) have absolutely no effect on drugs. These weapons and the “war” in which they are being used are against PEOPLE—American citizens, most of whom simply preferered to toke a joint after work rather than drink an alcoholic beverage.

This despite the fact that in the 1970s and ‘80s, marijuana was by far the most widely used of illegal drugs, was found in multiple studies not to be addictive and also found not to be a ‘gateway’ to harder drugs, as so often alleged in government reports. Even today, with drugs like cocaine and even fentanyl in the headlines, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report 2024, the estimated number of people who used various drugs at least once in the prior twelve months was: Cannabis (Marijuana): 228 million users; Opioids: 60 million users; Amphetamines: 30 million users; Cocaine: 23 million users; Ecstasy: 20 million users.

All the while, the drug war of those decades provided cover for illegal U.S. government operations in Central and South America as those nations began to resist colonization by American corporations seeking to exploit natural resources like oil, minerals, and agricultural opportunities. Fertile land and cheap labor could produce crops such as coffee, bananas, and other foods requiring year-round growing seasons.

According to Tim Weiner, the Central Intelligence Agency “has been accused of forming alliances of convenience with drug traffickers around the world in the name of anti-Communism” since its creation in 1947.[4] The CIA has a long, controversial history in South America, primarily during the Cold War, involving covert operations like coups, political destabilization, and support for right-wing regimes (e.g., Operation Condor) to counter perceived communist influence, leading to significant human rights abuses and democratic declines, with operations continuing into recent times, such as those in Venezuela. Key actions included overthrowing governments (Chile, Ecuador, Brazil), supporting anti-communist forces (Contras in Nicaragua, a major scandal where in U.S. operatives sold guns to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Ronald Reagan administration. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua.), and involvement in conflicts like the Salvadoran Civil War, with consequences like suppressed democracy and economic impacts.

This kind of interference in the affairs of other nations more or less permeates American history. In the early 20th century, during the “Banana Republic” era of Latin American history, the U.S. launched several interventions and invasions in the region (known as the Banana Wars) in order to promote American business interests. During the Cold War (1950s-1980s), the CIA carried out coordinated campaigns to install South American dictatorships (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, etc.) to track, kidnap, torture, and kill left-wing dissidents, with CIA support and intelligence sharing. In Guatemala (1954), the CIA overthrew the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz, linking to U.S. corporate interests, using exile forces and propaganda. In Chile (1970s), CIA efforts undermined President Salvador Allende, paving the way for a military coup. Same idea for Brazil (1964): Supported a coup against President João Goulart, leading to a military dictatorship. Nicaragua (1980s): Funded and trained the right-wing Contra rebels fighting the socialist Sandinista government, with alleged links to cocaine trafficking. El Salvador (1980s): Trained and equipped military units involved in massacres during the civil war.

CIA interventions often resulted in the collapse of democratic institutions, reduced civil liberties, and economic hardship, despite justifications of promoting democracy or fighting communism, according to research. The support ‘troops’ for these political objectives has become de facto occupation of these nations with armed agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, with 87 foreign offices in 67 countries. For example, in the so-called “Southern Cone,” (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay), are considered to be transit zones for the movement of cocaine base, cocaine HCL, and heroin being shipped from Colombia and Peru to markets in the U.S. and Europe, or producers of coca leaves. The end result of these often violent interventions in the affairs of our neighbors is the current and ongoing flood of desperate people arriving at our borders.

Not only are drug laws used outside our nation’s borders as cover for extra-judicial interference in international relations, they also serve domestically to selectively target specific individuals and politically inconvenient groups or based on racism or other prejudices, most recently undocumented immigrants. This is a useful tool for xenophobes determined to turn the United States into a white patriarchal “Christian” nation. The current administration manipulates this demographic by playing up the drug war.

Public support for prohibition policies relies on judgments of morality, that becoming intoxicated is immoral, an echo of the early 1800s temperance movement which reached its zenith with alcohol prohibition, the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This same moral judgment about private consensual activity remains a strong current in the United States where prostitution, gambling, and drug use (other than legal drugs) fall under strong government control. While government cannot (yet) spy on the living rooms and bedrooms of its citizens, government agents find such laws useful in targeting specific types of people, as previously illustrated.

“Today, police make more than 1.5 million drug arrests each year, and about 550,000 of those are for cannabis offenses alone. Almost 500,000 people are incarcerated for nothing more than a drug law violation, and Black and brown people are disproportionately impacted by drug enforcement and sentencing practices. Rates of drug use and sales are similar across racial and ethnic lines, but Black and Latinx people are far more likely than white people to be stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, harshly sentenced, and saddled with a lifelong criminal record.

“The wide-ranging consequences of a drug law violation aren’t limited to senseless incarceration: people with low incomes are denied food stamps and public assistance for past drug convictions; states including Texas and Florida suspend driver’s licenses for drug offenses totally unrelated to driving; and numerous other policies deny child custody, voting rights, employment, loans, and financial aid to people with criminal records.”[5]

Despite apparent national political resolve to deal with the drug problem, inherent contradictions regularly appear between U.S. anti-drug policy and other national policy goals and concerns. Pursuit of drug control policies can sometimes affect foreign policy interests and bring political instability and economic dislocation to countries where narcotics production has become entrenched economically and socially. Drug supply interdiction programs and U.S. systems to facilitate the international movement of goods, people, and wealth are often at odds.[6]

“We are still in the midst of the most devastating drug epidemic in U.S. history,” according to Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow at the Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at Brookings Institution. In 2020, overdose deaths in the United States exceeded 90,000, compared with 70,630 in 2019, according to research from the Commonwealth Fund. Yet, the federal government is spending more money than ever to enforce drug policies. In 1981, the federal budget for drug abuse prevention and control was just over a billion dollars. By 2020, that number had grown to $34.6 billion. When adjusted for inflation, CNBC found that it translates to a 1,090% increase in just 39 years.[7]

What if that money had instead been applied to individuals and programs that support individual ambitions and needs—tiny homes for the homeless, for example? What if the costs of our interference in foreign nations had instead been directed toward helping the people of those nations deal with loss of farmland to multinational corporations, climate-change induced drought and hurricane damage, and support for social programs, education, and entrepreneurship, thereby reducing the urgency of people in those countries to flood to U.S. borders in hope of better lives?

Without hot button issues like women’s reproductory rights and drugs, politicians would have to gain votes based on performance rather than propaganda. Stepping away from “government as nannies” and the idea of controlling private behavior would allow taxpayer dollars to support programs that help deter substance abuse in the same way that public education has helped reduce the use of cigarettes. No one knows better than addicts that they, individually, are the only ones who can control their addiction. Ultimately, as free people, we must claim the fundamental right to kill ourselves if we wish it. Most importantly, awareness of draconian drug policies as a cover for illegal objectives both in and outside our nation’s borders would forever eliminate travesties such as the murdering of likely-innocent people in boats leaving Venezuela.

And, in the case of the current administration, understanding the real agenda of the drug war could rightfully turn the public attention fully to the president’s dirty Epstein laundry.

[1] https://muse.jhu.edu/article/240064

[2] Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking_allegations

[5] https://www.vera.org/news/fifty-years-ago-today-president-nixon-declared-the-war-on-drugs

[6] https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33582.html

[7] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/the-us-has-spent-over-a-trillion-dollars-fighting-war-on-drugs.html

The Mysterious Criminality of John Work

5 Star Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars Violence, Courage, and Resilience:

This meticulously researched work will be particularly interesting to those with Cherokee ancestry. The book creates a personal narrative that allows the reader a first-hand look at the challenges, both personal and political, found in this era. The focus on John Work provides compelling insights into the times. You won’t be disappointed.

~~~

Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, January 11, 1889

“John Work came to the West with John Ross and his party of Cherokee in 1838. He was then in appearance 25 or 30 years old, about six feet in height, weighing 180 or 190 pounds, dark complexion, black hair worn long like the Indians of that day. He was uneducated and unrefined but possessed a strong natural mind. His influence was felt in any crowd or community he associated with or resided amongst. He took up his abode along the line and soon became a frequenter of the gambling and drinking houses then so numerous on the border. He soon became notorious for his fighting and drinking qualities…”[1]

So begins a newspaper article written by Fayetteville attorney and historian James P. Neal (1820-1896). Neal was not alone in his fascination with John Work, a man who to this day remains an enigmatic and compelling figure. Work played an important role in the intertribal conflict of the Cherokee. But according to all reports, he was a white man.

For over 250 years, the Cherokee managed to exist alongside the increasing population of European immigrants before being pushed off their ancestral lands. With the 1836 signing of the Treaty of New Echota, the newly formed United States government sent military troops to force their move west, what became known as the Trail of Tears. Along with the Natives, their slaves, white spouses, and freedmen also made this journey.

John Work was not Cherokee, but he too trekked west on the thousand-mile passage. As he and the others struggled over mountains and rivers toward what is now Oklahoma, their fury grew, so that by the time they had built new homes and licked their wounds, certain selected assassins began killing the treaty signers. This ushered in an era of near civil war among the Cherokee.

One of the most notorious of the anti-treaty assassins was John Work. Little is known of this man whose skill with his Bowie knife became something of legend. Separate from his role in cold blooded murder, his story serves to tell the broader history of those years of vicious violence that spilled over the border into Washington County, Arkansas and helped shape the future of the county.

[1] Fayetteville Weekly Democrat Jan 11, 1889, p. 2. The story continued in the Jan 18 edition, p. 3. Neal never cites sources for his information.

NEW RELEASE! Available at Amazon.com

Arkansas and the Nation — Do We Have a Constitution?

https://www.5newsonline.com/video/news/local/arkansas-prison/franklin-county-prison-site-may-undergo-on-site-archaeological-work-ahead-of-construction/527-33b60464-ae22-4edf-86ec-a2a6576b58dc

Well, pig soooie y’all, doncha just love Little Miss Gub’ner Sarah and her special skills at getting her way? She decided she wanted a plop a prison down in Franklin County where people are outnumbered by rabbits and deer, so by god she’s gonna have it, by hook or by crook! Methods so far include secret purchase of land and not taking ‘NO!” for an answer. When questioned, her typical non-answer ensued:

Dietz noted that local elected officials have expressed frustration about being kept in the dark about the new prison. “Was this just strictly a state deal, so there were not any local officials involved in it leading up to it?” he asked the governor. Sanders dodged the question, saying it was “no secret” her administration was focused on public safety. https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2024/10/31/franklin-county-selected-as-home-of-new-3k-bed-state-prison

No matter what the locals want, Miss Sarah is gonna ram this through. But the legislative committee tasked with approving funding said “NO!”

A bill to appropriate up to $750 million for a new Franklin County prison failed in the Arkansas State Senate for the fifth time on Tuesday. 21 voted for the bill on Tuesday, the highest number yet. 9 voted against, and 5 were marked as present. 27 yes votes were needed, as a three-fourths supermajority is required for an appropriations bill to pass. https://www.4029tv.com/article/franklin-county-funding-senate-fails-fifth/64422978

Still ramming, the GOP Gov’ness continued to ignore the will of the people, something she apparently learned at the knee of Mr. Trump, for whom she spent two years lying as his press secretary. Currently, as of May 16, 2025, she (and the Department of Corrections following her orders) have taken the next step, apparently under the belief that sooner or later she’ll successfully run over local (and state) concerns:

Franklin County, AR (KATV) — The State Board of Corrections tonight selected builders for a controversial prison project in Franklin County. In a special meeting tonight the board selected Nabholz Construction, a prominent Conway-based construction company, and J.E. Dunn Construction Group, based in Kansas City to partner on the project. They took that step despite the legislature’s unwillingness during the recent session to approve a $750 million request to fund the project. Still the board is armed with $75 million that had previously been appropriated for prison construction – and they’re using it to move the process forward. [By now the estimated cost is $850 million. Stay tuned for further cost escalations.]

This fits right in with the operational mindset of the GOP. In Arkansas, that has meant stifling the voice of the people despite the state constitution’s protection of the right to petition, as described in Article 5, Section 1:

The first power reserved by the people is the initiative. Eight per cent of the legal voters may propose any law and ten per cent may propose a constitutional amendment by initiative petition and every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed. Initiative petitions for state-wide measures shall be filed with the Secretary of State not less than four months before the election at which they are to be voted upon; provided, that at least thirty days before the aforementioned filing, the proposed measure shall have been published once, at the expense of the petitioners, in some paper of general circulation.

Since Sanders took office, her handpicked attorney general and legislative minions have made every effort to hamstring the petition process, concluding the 2025 legislative session with the following:

Act 153 clarifies that the certification of ballot titles for initiatives, referendums and constitutional amendments as well as the signatures collected for those measures would only be valid for the next general election.
Act 154 expands the attorney general’s existing authority to reject a proposal if it conflicts with the U.S. Constitution or federal statutes and prevents the sponsor of a measure from submitting more than one conflicting petition simultaneously.
Act 218 requires signature gatherers, known as canvassers, to inform potential signers that petition fraud is a criminal offense.
Act 240 requires canvassers to request a photo ID from potential signers.
Act 241 requires canvassers to file a “true affidavit” with the secretary of state, the executive branch office that oversees elections, certifying they complied with the Arkansas Constitution and state laws related to canvassing, perjury, forgery and fraudulent practices in the procurement of petition signatures. Signatures submitted without the affidavit would not be counted.
Act 273 disqualifies signatures collected by canvassers if the secretary of state finds “by a preponderance of evidence” that they violated state law collecting the signatures.
Act 274 requires potential signers to read a petition’s ballot title or have it read to them; failure to ensure this would result in a misdemeanor charge against the canvasser.
Act 453 requires canvassers who are paid to collect signatures to be permanent residents of Arkansas. A sponsor of a ballot measure would be fined $2,500 per paid canvasser hired who does not meet this requirement.

This deliberate effort to block, restrict, hinder, impede, delay, inhibit, obstruct, undermine, and otherwise derail the efforts of Arkansas citizens to collect sufficient signatures with which to place a proposed measure before voters is a direct assault on citizens’ rights as clearly stated in the constitution. This most likely is an aftershock of the successful 2016 medical cannabis petition effort, the outcome of 17 years of citizen efforts. The likelihood of citizen efforts to further legalize cannabis, protect women’s healthcare rights, and other non-GOP ideas has driven this outrageous conglomeration of legislative foment and the governor’s veto of legislation that would allow drive-through delivery of legal medical cannabis to qualified patients from licensed outlets.

“This legislation would expand access to usable marijuana, therefore I am vetoing this legislation,” Sanders stated.

Never mind that a more informed point of view about marijuana would greatly reduce the need for new prison space… **

This is authoritarian thinking, apparently well learned from Trump and other GOP operatives (Stephen Miller springs to mind) in how to circumvent not only the letter of the law as written in the U.S. Constitution, but also the intent. Apparently the Founding Fathers didn’t know what they meant to say when they wrote “…no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Also, the Founders also apparently failed to designate skin color when they wrote “that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is . . . a citizen of the United States.” And so forth.

As things whittle down to the bone with these Republican yahoos, We the People are either going to have to settle for a king in the White House, or rise up. It gives some hope that over 200 lawsuits against Trump administration efforts have been filed. But, as repeatedly noted in the histories of democracy, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

**Possession of 1 ounce (28 grams) or more with two prior marijuana convictions is a Class D felony, carrying a penalty of up to 6 years in prison and a $6,000 fine. A total of 4,976 arrests for marijuana were reported for 2023, the last year available for such data. Huckabee is on record for opposing expansion of the medical marijuana program and legalization of recreational marijuana.

Stop Embarrassing Women!

Lately I’ve taken refuge from the 24-7 horror show originating in the White House. Facebook’s newsfeed is one refuge but even more enthralling are the “reels” Zuckerberg has allowed. Recently, the enjoyment of reels has been compromised by the addition of advertisements, but those are easily clicked through to the next short take on whatever video someone has to offer.

Among the widely varied subject matter are the law enforcement videos of arrests. These are fascinating for a variety of reasons, but for me the most fascinating (and disturbing) are arrests where women are pulled over for something minor like a missing tail light, or something major like weaving all over the road or driving the wrong way in a one-way lane. In any case, many of these woman are intoxicated to the point that they have no rational control over their circumstances.

The results are shocking. Instead of doing what the officer asks and providing driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance, she immediately launches into a loud, high-pitched, whiny voice to berate the officer and/or deny she’s done anything wrong, or otherwise refuse to address the matter at hand. After repeating the request multiple times and failing to secure a rational response, the officer asks the driver to step out of the car. Which of course she refuses with an even louder, shriller, repetitious, one-note tirade.

Then the situation spirals even further into chaos as the door is pulled open and the woman dragged out, still screaming her one-note hysteria. Wrestling, kicking, biting, and again refusing to LISTEN to anything being said, the woman then utterly humiliates herself as her clothing becomes skewed exposing various parts of her body while writhing on the ground. Ultimately there are charges not only for the initial problem—which could have been solved by simply following the officer’s requests—but also for refusing to identify herself, resisting, and assaulting a police officer among them.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/video/-karens-have-been-going-viral-but-their-behavior-is-not-new-and-it-s-dangerous-85240389836

As an aside, traffic stop drama runs somewhat parallel to Karen episodes where a woman charges into a situation that is NONE OF HER BUSINESS in an effort to correct what she sees as a wrong. In the process, she manages to gain the enmity of whichever neighbor/relative/business person is also involved and most often, the police are called because she is OUT OF CONTROL. I understand that perceived malfeasance/wrong actions can be frustrating, and I also understand the urge to correct wrongs. BUT it is not Karen’s job to do this. There are legitimate processes for determining the correct position of a property line, for example, or outlets through which to gain satisfaction for poor service or bad food or whatever has her panties in a twist. Have some effing dignity, for godssake!

Sisters!! Grow up! Shut up and listen, do what you’re told when dealing with officers of the law and other legitimate authorities. It’s not a genius level skill to simply deal with the situation at hand.

Women invite shame, ridicule, and condescending attitudes in general because we ask for it with our behavior. When faced with a mouse running across the floor, women scream. Why? What possible good does it do to scream? Either find a way to catch the mouse and toss it outside, or set traps. [Please not glue traps, which rip flesh off their feet or keep them in place until they died of starvation and thirst.] Same applies for rats, snakes, frogs/toads, and bugs. Meanwhile, shut up with the hysterical screaming already.

So while I’m excoriating my fellow women about absurd excesses, I’ll go ahead and jump in with all four feet: woman’s fashions. Apparently women lose all common sense in order to fit into some perceived fashion standard, which is probably set by a gay man somewhere in New York or Paris. [Not casting aspersions on gay men, but please.] For example, the current ‘fashion’ in women’s hair styles is for strands of hair to dangle into the face, over the eyes, thereby creating, I suppose, a tousled look which (one theorizes) appeals to men. While this might be functional and reasonable in bar or party setting where a woman might wish to appear ‘flirty,’ it is entirely ridiculous in a workplace or business setting.

Alongside the hair-in-eyes fashion, there are additional fashions that serve to signal ‘compromised.’ For example, tight skirts, again fine on an age-appropriate female in a social setting, but ridiculous when a person needs to WALK or perhaps RUN, or is in a location/situation where walking/running might be called for. The tight skirts serves as a hobble, making it impossible for a woman to out maneuver anyone trying to grab her.

Then there are the shoes. As if high heels aren’t enough, we now have high heels on top of platforms of an inch, three inches—you name it, they’re up there. Like other fashions mentioned above, these are signals that the woman wearing them is not capable of running, can easily fall even when simply walking, and is therefore suitable prey. This is, one supposes, meant to heighten her feminine appeal.

None of this is really new. We know about Chinese foot binding, basically crippling women for over a thousand years. We know about corsets, pulled tight in order to provide an hourglass figure and press the breasts upward and to reduce the woman’s breath to a whispery gasp while rendering her prone to delicate fainting spells. Platform shoes have been around several times as have tight skirts. [See https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/these-chopines-werent-made-for-walking/ and https://www.edwardianpromenade.com/beauty/the-hobble-skirt/] I’m waiting for full length gowns to make a comeback with several layers of fabric underneath, which not only shield the world from any view of legs but also make drowning likely if she happened to fall into water, with the added benefit for religionists to disguise any possible outline of legs or hips.

Can we, as women, PLEASE step back from these ongoing absurdities and question why we choose to present ourselves as physically compromised? Can we please think about function in how we dress or style our hair, so that our appearance serves our intellectual purposes? [This assumes we have purposes beyond falling down at men’s feet.] We need to stop dressing as though we are desperate for male attention or for ‘fashion’ approval. We need instead to present ourselves physically as we want to be known professionally, functionally, and respectfully.

Finally, can we ditch the little breathy high-pitched squeaky voice affectation and speak with authority? Thank you.

Woodstoves!

Bought a new wood stove lately? Who knew my longtime desire to buy one would bring me to the brink of despair. Let me tell you, my friend. This is not a step you should take without proper warning.

The old stove, fortunately still in my possession in case I give up this fight, was a Big Box model I inherited when my new husband and I moved into an old cabin. That was in 1974. Local lore claimed an old man named “Ringo” died in that cabin, tired of life, sick, and unable to gather wood. Reportedly, he froze to death.

Fire in the Big Box was simple. Two logs with space enough between them for some crumpled newspaper, a handful of twigs and other flammable bits gathered from the surrounding woods, and then another log across the top, positioned so that when the kindling burned up, the third member would not collapse into the middle but rather perch over the coals to burn freely. Air intake open and the damper open, a match set it off. It was safe to walk away to return a half hour later to shut the air intake and let that baby burn. Whenever fresh wood was needed, simply open the damper to let the smoke escape up the chimney, open the stove door to add wood as needed, and there you go! No smoke pouring into the room.

The problem with the Big Box was that by midnight, fast asleep, one started to sense the cold creeping in. Even the most magnificent fat cut of oak or hickory burned up in only 3-4 hours. That’s because any seal that might once have lined the top edges and front door was long gone and so even with all moveable parts closed, air still moved through the stove. Such things as seals or firebrick probably never existed as part of the stove—at least, in my fifty years with it, no such trace remains. So as my knees got worse with advancing age, trekking up and down the five steps to the living room where the Big Box held pride of place became a more troublesome issue especially at two a.m. when I slept past the life of the fire and only a few coals remained.

I lusted after those fabled wood stoves like Jøtul which held fire overnight. Not only would that solve my overnight heat problem, but it also offered a glass door so I would watch the flames leap and glow. Watching fire can lead to trance-like relaxation effects. These effects have been backed by research that shows that watching an open flame can decrease blood pressure. The longer you sit by the fire, the more relaxed you’ll feel. So when I finally had sufficient funds, I visited the local wood stove store and considered my options.

Admittedly, I failed utterly in the research-before-you-buy department. I’m here to share what I’ve learned.

News flash: Woodstoves now must meet new EPA standards, passed sometime in the 1990s, that specify several aspects of the device. Not only did this drive up the prices to absurd levels, but also led to the admonition by my two-man installation team who warned me that the stove would probably smoke. The Jøtul stoves meet EPA requirements with the use of a catalytic device that serves as a kind of filter, but as the EPA guidelines admit, the ‘catalyst’ can burn out within a couple of years.

In catalytic combustion, the smoky exhaust is passed through a coated ceramic honeycomb inside the stove where the smoke gases and particles ignite and burn. Catalytic stoves are capable of producing a long, even heat output.
All catalytic stoves have a lever-operated catalyst bypass damper which is opened for starting and reloading. The catalytic honeycomb degrades over time and must be replaced, but its durability is largely in the hands of the stove user. The catalyst can last more than six seasons if the stove is used properly; but if the stove is over-fired, inappropriate fuel (like garbage and treated wood) is burned, and if regular cleaning and maintenance are not done, the catalyst may break down in as little as 2 years.

Not that I would ever burn garbage or treated wood, but spending $300 every couple of years wasn’t on my list of things to do. And as I approach 80 years of age, I have little patience with machines that require “regular cleaning and maintenance.” So for nearly a month I lost sleep worrying about using the stove. It was still summer, so I had time to fret. Finally, after speaking with the store manager, they agreed to allow me to trade my unused Jøtul for a non-catalyst stove manufactured by Pacific Energy.

Beware! The store staff failed utterly to inform me that in many ways, the non-catalyst stove created more problems than the catalyst version.

But I didn’t know that yet. My decision narrowed to the model that allowed for 18” firewood, of which I already had over four ricks of seasoned wood. This model is Pacific Energy’s Alderlea T6. It’s a handsome stove, although several aspects of its construction are big problems.

One of the Alderlea’s many shortcomings is that while the manual states that maximum wood length is 20 inches, the only way to fit a log that size into the stove is on a diagonal from front corner to back corner. Even the owner’s manual phrase “Ideal Wood Length” of 16 to 18 inches placed “endwise” [does this mean end to end sideways or end to end from door to back of stove? No diagram.] leaves zero clearance between the burning wood and the door/firebrick, which means that the glass door quickly becomes coated with soot. So much for watching the fire. The fire box is exactly 18 inches square.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After multiple readings of the product manual, I began to break in the stove setting fires meant to burn off the ‘paint’ fumes with house windows open. Right away I noticed what is now a major problem: there is no way to manually vent the stove. Once wood starts burning, if I need to open the stove door to add more wood, or reposition wood, the only option is to open the door and do the task as fast as possible while smoke pours into the room.

Apparently Pacific Energy’s engineers believe the price of making the outside air ‘cleaner’ is to pollute my inside air. The manual fails utterly to address this issue. The instructions for ‘Lighting a Fire’ are:

Adjust air control to “High” position (all the way to the left) and open door.
Place crumpled newspaper in the center of the heater and crisscross with several pieces of dry kindling. Add a few small pieces of dry wood on top.
Ignite the paper and leave the door ajar approximately ½” until the wood kindling is fully engulfed in flame.
After the kindling is fully engulfed, [open the door while smoke pours into the room] add a few small logs. Close door.
Begin normal operation after a good coal base exists and wood has charred. [In other words, spend a half hour watching the stove or make repeated trips to check on it.]

Further instructions follow for Normal Operation:

Set air control to a desired setting. If smoke pours down across the glass, this indicates you have shut the control down too soon or you are using too low a setting. [Wrong. Smoke pours down across the glass with the air control wide open, max setting.]
For extended or overnight burns, unsplit logs are preferred. Remember to char the wood completely on maximum setting before adjusting air control for overnight burn. [“Char” is defined as partially burn wood so that the surface is black.]
Use wood of different shape, diameter and length (up to 18”). Load your wood endwise and try to place the logs so that the air can flow between them [while smoke pours into the room].
Do not load fuel to a height or in such a manner that would be hazardous when opening the door [while smoke pours into the room].

The instructions continue with information about restarting after an overnight or extended burn:

Open door and rake hot embers toward the front of the heater. Add a couple of dry, split logs on top of the embers [This assumes that you need to load wood ONLY when the previous load has burned to embers. What if you want to go to bed and the current load has only burned 75%? Even 90% burned wood smokes. You have to load while smoke pours into the room], close door.
Adjust air control to high and in just a few minutes, logs should begin burning. [If they don’t start burning, open door to add kindling or reposition wood while smoke pours into the room.]
After wood has charred, reset air control to desired setting.
To achieve maximum firing rate, set control to high “H”. Do not use this setting other than for starting or preheating fresh fuel loads.

Nowhere in the manual does one find a drawing showing the “H” and “L” positions. The lever which moves left to right for this function goes a half inch past the H and L lettering, leaving one to wonder if maximum left or maximum right are the correct positions, or if the lever must be positioned exactly under the H or L.

More instructions follow, including how to use the ash clean out system which proposes one use the tiny opening in the bottom of the stove to dump ash into the ash pan that sits underneath the firebox. One is cautioned not to leave the ash dump door open afterwards. One is not shown the location of the ash dump handle, just informed that the handle is located under the ash lip [also not identified in any drawing] on the left hand side. This is a total waste of owner manual space and engineering salary, and a stupid idea to start with. Just shovel it out, for god’s sake.

An entire page of the manual (27 pages in all) is devoted to the door glass. The #1 instruction regards the potential [unavoidable] darkening of the glass:

If glass becomes darkened through slow burning or poor wood, it can readily be cleaned with fireplace glass cleaner when stove is cold. Never scrape with an object that might scratch the glass. The type and amount of deposit on the glass is a good indication of the flue pipe and chimney buildup. A light brown dusty deposit in that is easily wiped off usually indicates good combustion and dry, well-seasoned wood and therefore relatively clean pipes and chimney. On the other hand, a black greasy deposit that is difficult to remove is a result of wet and green wood and too slow burning rate.
1. WRONG! My wood is well seasoned hardwood (12-18 months) and I don’t adjust the control lever to “L” until the fire is fully engaged, but every morning I must clean the glass, especially the lower side corners where the ‘black greasy deposit’ requires a single-edge razor blade to remove in addition to several applications of glass cleaner. Is this a malfunction of the stove? Queries to the manufacturer are met with advice to contact the dealer! Does this mean that two months into using the stove, I need to have my chimney cleaned?!

Further warnings on that page caution that “excessive ash buildup” should be kept clear of the front of the firebox because it will block air flow. Here’s the problem: Where exactly is this mysterious air intake? It is not shown on any drawing. There are two stair-stepped lips along the front where air might enter, so “excessive” ash remains undefined. Consequently, I keep the fronts of both steps clear. Once again, would a diagram be so hard?

Item #8 on this page is especially informative:

Be aware that the hotter the fire, the less creosote is deposited. Weekly cleaning may be necessary in mild weather, even though monthly cleaning is usually enough in the coldest months when burning rates are higher. When wood is burned slowly, it produces tar and other organic vapours, which combine with expelled…

And there the text ends. But apparently the conclusion is that closing the air intake completely is not recommended even though an overnight burn would seem to call for minimal air flow. If the best fire method for this stove is a ‘hot burn’ in order the keep the glass clear, how is that compatible with overnight heat?

Not that it actually matters. There is an ugly creosote buildup on the glass in both lower corners even with ‘hot’ fires, with any level of air control, and if I want to watch the fire through the glass, I have to ignore the creosote or clean it daily, which doesn’t last until the end of the day.

The next page of the manual is about maintenance. Monthly, I’m supposed to check:

Brick rail tabs and brick rails
Air riser tube in the back of the firebox
Back slide of airwash chamber
Baffle locking pin
Boost tube cover

Not only are there NO DRAWINGS showing the location of these various important maintenance parts, my knees don’t work well enough to crawl around peering inside or under the stove. This would also require that no fire exist in the stove at the time of inspection, meaning my house would have NO HEAT except for little electric heaters in the bathrooms. The last few days have bottomed at sub-zero temps, at no time without fire. That would be a summer job, so I can only hope that the brick rail tabs and airwash chamber are OK for fire throughout the winter.

Genius.

Further, the maintenance instructions continue with “Cleaning the Chimney System”:

Top baffle board/blanket
Baffle
Top heat shield and mountain bolt
Baffle gasket
Brick rails
Manifold

Again, no drawings, diagrams, or other user aid.

I can only hope that I can keep my fires going until warm weather without having something fall apart and/or a chimney fire. Not exactly the peace of mind I had hoped for.

I’m refraining, with difficulty, from speaking of the overall worth of the owner’s manual. After all, I’m a writer and wordsmith dedicated to communicating clearly–not a stove engineer. Somebody apparently did their best with this booklet, sadly. The lack of drawings illustrating the key components of the stove is enough of a failure that the countless other shortcoming hardly bear mention. Pages 11 through 20 detail installation methods. Page 25 is blank. Hint to manual editor: PLENTY OF ROOM FOR DRAWINGS.

There is, however, a full page breakout drawing of the stove PARTS, as if the manufacturer was more interested in selling parts than in adequately explaining the stove’s functions.

At the moment, I’m not sorry I bought it. It does a better job than the old Big Box in keeping heat all night–with luck and holding my mouth right, coals are left in the morning ready for fresh wood. I do have to live with smoke pouring into the room while I try to load in wood and kindling, at which point I’m reminded that I could have stuck with the Jøtul. At least its Norwegian inventors/manufacturers figured out how to create a more environmentally-friendly wood stove without any need to allow smoke to pour into the room.

Note: Look for future updates on this saga once I try to find a person who can service this stove, the possible need for parts replacements, and the status of creosote buildup in the chimney.

Another note: I failed to mention that I still have the Big Box in use at the back of the house and also have this jewel of an old wood cookstove in my dining room complete with hot water reservoir.

The Black Hole of Artificial Intelligence

Let this serve as a warning to anyone out there who thinks shifting government operations to AI is a good idea. AI will gut you with a rusty knife and never look back. As you read, think of yourself trying to talk to someone about your Medicare, or your military records, or your tax return.

While I research and write extensively on local history, I wanted to also write romance. So after researching options, I selected a pen name Z (not the actual pen name), established a Facebook page and an ‘author’ page for Z in 2012, and within a couple of years garnered over 800 followers for my sexy stories. Available as both ebooks and paperbacks, Z books are still available at Amazon and other outlets including Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and multiple other booksellers. Over the ensuing years, a total of 6,276 books were sold. Since this fiasco with Facebook, sales have dropped off to the point that I can no longer justify writing more in this genre.

In mid-November 2023, the link accessing my Z Facebook account suddenly disappeared from my real name page. At first I thought this was just a technical glitch. But over the next several weeks, as I contacted Facebook and META in every possible way, I reached the conclusion that there was no one in the wheelhouse. This has left me immeasurably sad and furious.

At first, I engaged in an online chat with a META helper but that ‘person’ soon directed me to send an email. Please note META AI misspellings and incorrect grammar are as shown. I wrote:

Dec 12, 2023, 6:34 a.m.: “The link to my other account, Z.524, has disappeared from my page. I can’t access either Z or her page for “Z Author.” I’d like to place a Christmas ad for book sales but the account has vanished.”

Response from META Support:

Dec 12, 3:06 p.m. “For us to continue thru the process kindly provide a copy of you [sic] valid Id and any information or documentation or proof your ownership of the Page. [Subsequent errors left as is.]

META Dec 12, 9:22 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case.”

Denele Campbell Dec 13, 5:49 a.m. “Here’s a screen shot of two of my many Z books as shown on my Amazon/KDP account. Note my image in the upper right corner. Do you understand that I, Denele Campbell, am an author working on nonfiction projects while Z, my pen name, writes smutty romance? That’s why I have different Facebook accounts. See enclosed my driver’s license.”

META Dec 13, 6:28 a.m. “We will update you once our Internal Team have resolution on this one. For immediate and real-time support, you may initiate a new chat via https://www.facebook.com/business/help. We appreciate your understanding about this matter, and we thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team we wish you and your business well, Have a good day head of you.”

Campbell Dec 13, 1:06 pm: “What additional information do you need? I responded to your earlier request six hours ago and have no heard back from you.”

Campbell Dec 15, 5:55 a.m. “Is this too hard for META?”

META Dec 15, 6:20 a.m. “Good day! This is Lai from Meta Pro Team. I hope this email finds you well. Please be advised that we are currently working on this case to be resolved urgently. We hope that you extend your patience with us on this matter. Rest assured that we are ensuring the best for a positive resolution.”

META Dec 15, 12:58 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case…”

Campbell Dec 15, 1:03 p.m. “Why am I getting these automated reminders?”

META Dec 16, 2023, 3:57 a.m. “Thank you for contacting Meta Advertising Support. I hope my email finds you well. Our Internal Team is currently looking into it and while it can be difficult to estimate how long it takes to resolve due to the technical nature and complexity of the issue, we will continue to keep you posted on any updates. Rest assured that we’ll be following up on your issue closely and will be updating you via this email thread once we received updates from the team. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach back out to me by replying to this email. For any other issues, please feel free to contact us again. You may also visit this link for other helpful advertising solutions: https://www.Meta.com/business/help. Thank you for advertising with Meta Pro Team. Have a great day ahead!” Franz

Campbell Dec 17, 7:41 a.m. “I cannot understand why it is taking so long for META to return my access to my pages for Z. I’ve had those pages for eleven+ years and NEED TO ADVERTISE my books BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

META Dec 17, 8:49 a.m. “I hope this email finds you both safe and in the best of your health

This is Natalia I am sending this email on behalf of my colleagues who are closely monitoring the case. Your concern is currently being looked into and while it can be difficult to estimate how long it takes to resolve due to the technical nature and complexity of the issue, we will continue to keep you posted on any updates. Rest assured that I’ll be following up on your issue closely and will be updating you via this email thread once I received updates from the team. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you for your continuous support. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach back out to me by replying to this email. For any other issues, please feel free to initiate a chat support session through this link: facebook.com/business/help For immediate and real-time support, you may initiate a new chat via https://www.facebook.com/business/help Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team, we wish you and your business well, Have a good day ahead of you!”

META Dec 18, 1:37 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case 1700280090499765. If your issue has not been resolved, please reply with the requested information so that we can work to resolve the issue.”

Campbell Dec 19, 4:51 a.m. “WHAT REQUESTED INFORMATION?!?!?!?!?! I have provided all the information previously requested.”

META Dec 19, 9:02 a.m. “Thank you for contacting Meta Advertising Support. My name is Cris and I am sending this email on behalf of my colleague who assisted you on chat previously about an issue with your ads with Case ID: 1700280090499765. I hope my email finds you well.
Please let us know if the issues still persist, kindly send us documentations like screen recording of the error that you are getting. Please feel free to reply to this email so I can assist you further.
I will look forward to your response. Just a reminder our system is set up to close out cases that have gone more than 48 hours without a response. If you are unable to get back to me within that timeframe, you may get an email regarding the case being closed and a survey. You may also visit this link for other helpful advertising solutions: https://facebook.com/business/help
Again, thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. We wish you and your business well. Have a great day!

Campbell Dec 19, 9:17 a.m. “Cris – do you not have access to this absurdly long chain of communications about this problem? I am so UPSET!!!!!!!!!! Here’s a screen shot of my drop down menu showing that I do not have access to my Z page. I have had that page for eleven+ years and suddenly about three weeks ago it was no longer on my drop down page menu.”

Campbell Dec 19, 9:19 a.m. Here’s the image of my FB page as Z showing the drop down menu for my other pages. Clearly Z profile is not listed. I can’t go to my Z page or advertise my books. Now it’s SIX DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS and I have not been able to advertise my books. I’ve sent META a copy of my ID. I’ve sent META a screen shot showing my Z book listings at Amazon alongside my name ID as owner of that account. WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?

Campbell Dec 19, 9:43 a.m. “You know, I’ve tried to be polite and civilized about this mess, but I am utterly SHOCKED that META is so incompetent as to first, delete my connection to my Z account and second, to spend TWO WEEKS pretending to “fix” the problem and still I can’t get into my Z account.”

META Dec 20, 6:30 a.m. “Thank you for your prompt response. I am writing about your concern regarding lost access on your account. Our Internal Team is still diligently working on the matter as we know that this is utterly important. We apologize for any inconvenience that may have been caused by this delay. Please know that we are working towards a viable resolution. Kindly expect a response in the next 24-48 business hours. For anything else, please do not hesitate to come to us through chat. You may access this link to come to chat with us at https://www.facebook.com/business/help Thank you for your patience and understanding throughout this process.” Abby

Campbell Dec 20, 2023, 9:26 a.m. “Without notification from Meta, I lost access to my Z account. For two weeks I have waited for you to solve this problem. I find it hard to believe that META is so utterly incompetent that you would not have this problem solved by now.

I have had my Z account for over eleven years. I have advertised and built up a following for my books. Now, suddenly, I can’t use the account because the link from my personal account to my pseudonym Z account has been cut off for no reason. I have yet to hear any explanation.

Is this the new META, frivolously ending people’s accounts without explanation then blathering on about fixing it while NOT fixing it? If so, I suspect META will not last long.

Will somebody please stand up and speak clearly about this situation?

By the way, here’s a screen shot of my Z gmail account.”

META Dec 20, 9:26 a.m. It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. We’d love to hear your feedback about your support experience. If you have a moment, please take this 15 second survey. Data from this feedback survey and other survey responses will be processed by Meta according to our Privacy Policy and will be accessible to Meta employees and our external support team only. It will be used to improve our support services and automated assistance. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can contact us again in the future: http://www.facebook.com/business/help/support.

Campbell Dec 22, 10:51 a.m. “What are you guys doing about my loss of access to my Z account? Looks like you’re doing NOTHING, despite all your emails saying you’re working on it. I mean, how much “work” does it take to reconnect my access? This is absolutely the most infuriating and disgusting experience I have ever had with Facebook.”

META Dec 22, 1:35 p.m. “This is James from Meta Pro Team. I hope you are doing well. I am writing this email on behalf of my colleagues to help you regarding your concern on regaining access to Facebook page. Your reference ID is 1700280090499765. As we’ve checked, your case is still ongoing and we are still waiting for an update from our Internal Team regarding the appeal for regaining access to Facebook page. Thank you for your continued response. We really appreciate your patience and tremendous understanding while we’re on the midst of checking your concern. Rest assured that our Internal Team are working on this case. We’ll certainly get back to you once the result of the request is already available.”

META Dec 23, 1:30 a.m. “Thank you for being patient with us. We know how your business means to you. We truly admire your patience and kindness in dealing with this matter. You can trust that we share the same objective here. This is regarding your case ID:1700280090499765. We understand how important this is for you and your business. However, after several escalations and investigations, our team has not reached final resolution. Should same concern persist, feel free to reach out via chat so we can attend to you immediately. We truly understand that we are not expecting this kind of resolution, but rest assured, that we can continue providing better support for you via chat or by reporting a problem via the Facebook App with these steps:

Report that something isn’t working on Facebook:
1. Log in to Facebook on a computer.
2. Click your profile picture in the top right of Facebook.
3. Select Help & support, then select Report a problem and follow the on-screen instructions.

At Facebook, we are always looking for ways to improve the experience for our users to make sure they have the best experience possible. Right now, we are tagging this case as done and we will be looking at a long-term fix that will require assistance from several channels and we are closing this case as Done. Please don’t hesitate to reach out via our chat channel for further assistance. You can also reach our chat support via this link facebook.com/business/help (https://facebook.com/business/help).
Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Have a great day! Thanks, Kate

META Dec 23, 1:30 a.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. We’d love to hear your feedback about your support experience. If you have a moment, please take this 15 second survey. Data from this feedback survey and other survey responses will be processed by Meta according to our Privacy Policy and will be accessible to Meta employees and our external support team only. It will be used to improve our support services and automated assistance. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can contact us again in the future: http://www.facebook.com/business/help/support. Abby

Campbell Dec 23, 5:11 a.m. “Words cannot express my absolute disbelief that this problem is now being kicked back to me. What is going to be gained by my starting over?! Why put me through this ridiculous process AGAIN? If you can solve the problem in the first round, why should I believe you can solve it this time? This is not user friendly, to say the least.”

META Dec 23, 8:29 a.m. “It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. We’d love to hear your feedback about your support experience. If you have a moment, please take this 15 second survey…” etc.

Campbell Dec 29, 5:45 a.m. “PLEASE help me with this. None of my help requests are being answered and I can’t find any other means of initiating a chat. Please note that on Dec 23, 2023, I received this message from META: “This is regarding your case ID:1700280090499765. We understand how important this is for you and your business. However, after several escalations and investigations, our team has not reached final resolution. Should same concern persist, feel free to reach out via chat so we can attend to you immediately.”

This is absurd–obviously if your team has not reached final resolution, THE SAME CONCERN PERSISTS!! I still can’t access my Z page. What is the problem?

META Dec 29, 5:23 p.m. “Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. My name is Iris. At Facebook, we are always looking for ways to improve the experience for our users to make sure they have the best experience possible. Rest assured, our team is aware of this matter and we will do everything we can to help you out. We appreciate your patience and ongoing partnership. Do take note of your case ID: 1700280090499765. Please be assured that I will be getting back with you within 24-48 business hours or may even be a bit longer depending on the issue at hand. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Have a nice day!

META Dec 29, 5:24 p.m. “Thank you for being patient with us. We know how your business means to you. We truly admire your patience and kindness in dealing with this matter. You can trust that we share the same objective here. We understand how important this is for you and your business. However, after several escalations and investigations, our team has not reached final resolution. Should same concern persist, feel free to reach out via chat so we can attend to you immediately.

We truly understand that we are not expecting this kind of resolution, but rest assured, that we can continue providing better support for you via chat or by reporting a problem via the Facebook App with these steps:
Report that something isn’t working on Facebook:
– Log in to Facebook on a computer.
– Click your profile picture in the top right of Facebook.
– Select Help & support, then select Report a problem and follow the on-screen instructions.

At Facebook, we are always looking for ways to improve the experience for our users to make sure they have the best experience possible. Right now, we are tagging this case as done and we will be looking at a long-term fix that will require assistance from several channels and we are closing this case as Done. Please don’t hesitate to reach out via our chat channel for further assistance. You can also reach our chat support via this link facebook.com/business/help (https://facebook.com/business/help). We appreciate you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Have a great day! Dona

META Dec 29, 5:24 p.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. We’d love to hear your feedback about your support experience. If you have a moment, please take this 15 second survey…” etc.

Campbell Dec 30, 5:26 a.m. “OF COURSE THE SAME CONCERN PERSISTS. META support is apparently not skilled enough to reconnect my Z.524 account for my access. While you tell me in one sentence that you are working on it, the next sentence tells me to START OVER with my problem. This is not acceptable. You have wasted over a month while I could not access my account. How hard can it be to simply reconnect me to my Z page? I’ve received nothing but reassurances without any progress.”

META Dec 30, 1:17 p.m. “I hope you are doing well and I hope this email finds you well!
I do understand that you are anxious to have an update on this case, however, the Internal Team is still reviewing the case. As much as I want to give you an update on this case, I do not wish to mislead you without any concrete findings with regards to the issue. Seeking your kind understanding on this. Rest assured, I will send you an update as soon as I receive a response from our Team. Thanks for contacting Meta Pro Team. Have a nice day! Abby

META Jan 1, 2024, 1:42 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case 1700280090499765. If your issue has not been resolved, please reply with the requested information so that we can work to resolve the issue.”

Campbell Jan 1, 2:08 p.m. “No, it has not. You HAVE NOT SAID WHAT INFORMATION YOU NEED. Please advise.”

Campbell Jan 1, 2:16 p.m. “I have sent all the information you requested. 22 hours ago. What else do you need? Here it is again. Here’s a screen shot of two of my many Z books as shown on my Amazon/KDP account. Note my real image in the upper right corner. Do you understand that I, Denele Campbell, am an author working on other projects while Z, my pen name, writes romance? That’s why I have different Facebook accounts. IF YOU REQUIRE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, YOU HAVE TO TELL ME WHAT MORE YOU NEED. Z IS MY PEN NAME — THAT MEANS MY REAL NAME IS Denele Campbell BUT I PUBLISH BOOKS AS Z. MY FACEBOOK PAGE FOR Z IS PART OF MY PROMOTION FOR MY BOOKS. I HAVE PAID FACEBOOK MANY TIMES FOR ADS.

META Jan 1, 9:05 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case 1700280090499765…” etc etc

Campbell Jan 2, 5:47 a.m. “Here is more information about my work under the name Z

1. My publishing account at Smashwords. image

2. My Z website: image

3. List of books published under pen name Z: image

4. My Z gmail account: image

5. KDP Sales report for 2023: image

Probably would have had many more sales IF I COULD HAVE ADVERTISED FOR CHRISTMAS ON MY Z FACEBOOK PAGE.

6. Please specify what additional proof you need that Z and Z Author are my Facebook accounts?

META Jan 2, 9:47 a.m. “I hope this email finds you well. We have received an update form our Internal Team.

Thanks for contacting us. We’ve received your request to gain access to the Page Z at www.facebook.com/100065664063967. We’d be happy to look into this, but please keep in mind that we are not in a position to resolve disputes between third parties. If you’d like us to help, please provide all of the following:

2. A signed statement from a person with sufficient knowledge and authority over this matter, which will need to be on company letterhead and should include all of the following:

A link to a published press release or news article about the connection between the brand’s names (both names must be present in the article/press release),
A link to your official website that states the connection between names (both names must be present),
Any legitimate DBA documentation same as asset name; and

g) A declaration that the information you have provided is true and accurate (e.g. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate”). Your statement must include similar language.
The letterhead should contain the following elements:

a. Mandatory elements: Business name, Physical address (typically the registered address of the business), Phone number and Company logo or official branding
b. Preferred elements: Email address and Website

3. Any one of the following documentation supporting your request:

Domain Name Assignment Agreement
Deed of Assignment of Intellectual Property
Utility Bill
Articles or Certificates of Incorporation, Formation, or Organization
Business License and Permits
DBA documents
Tax Certifications and Licenses
Bank Statements, Summaries, Letters
Credit Score Reports
Securities and Trading Documents, notably those originating from the SEC 8-K form
Trademark/registered/copyright document (e.g. Certificate of Federal Registration)

If we are able to process your request, only one admin will be added to the Page, and it will be the admin’s responsibility to manage the Page roles.

Campbell Jan 2, 10:35 a.m. “Please see my response below:

1. A copy of a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a current driver’s license or a passport, of the individual signing the statement. You can find the different kinds of IDs we accept in the Help Center: https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185?ref=cr A government issued ID is not going to happen. As I’ve stated repeatedly, I made up that name to use as a pen name for a series of romance novels. My real name and ID has been provided to you three times. My explanation has been stated REPEATEDLY. Surely I do not have to explain that authors often use pen names for publishing books.

2. A signed statement from a person with sufficient knowledge and authority over this matter, which will need to be on company letterhead and should include all of the following:
I am a self-published author. There is no “company” and NO ONE besides me is involved. Everything goes through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Do you want me to give you my password so you can look at my books alongside my Z books at Amazon?

2 a. a) A description of your relationship to the Page (including your authority to request a change in the person(s) who manages it, as applicable); IT IS MY PAGE. No one else is involved.

2 b. The name of the current person(s) who manage the Page and their relationship to the Page, or a reasonable explanation of why the current person(s) who manages the Page is/are not known to the requestor; My name is Denele Campbell. I’ve provided my gov’t issued ID three times. I own the page, started the page. Z is the name I use to write romance novels. Is this so hard to understand? Maybe a real HUMAN needs to read this instead of your AI.

2. c An explanation of your request detailing why you are requesting ownership, and whether there has been a termination of the employment and/or business relationship with the named person(s), as applicable I AM NOT REQUESTING OWNERSHIP. I AM THE OWNER. I started the page, I have maintained the page, posted on the page, and for some unstated reason by Facebook/META, my access was CUT OFF in November 2023. For God’s sake, haven’t I explained this enough? It’s my page, I started the page ten years ago and have used it ever since. I’m the one who should be demanding answers, like, after ten years, WHY DID FACEBOOK suddenly terminate my access to MY PAGE without checking with ME FIRST?

The Facebook account (URL/ID/associated email) needing to be added as the new admin of the Page; …When I began writing romance, I added the Z page. It’s always been there on my drop down menu of “profiles” alongside my Author Denele Campbell page…

2.f A link to your official website that states the connection between names (both names must be present) As I have stated, nothing in public is going to show a connection between these two names because of potential confusion to my Campbell readers. You have no right to demand this of me. I have supplied all the information you deserve after treating me this way, and I’m actually thinking I might need to sue META to make somebody wake up.

2.g. You want a certified statement that what I’ve said is true. I’m telling you it is true. WHY THE HELL WOULD I LIE?????????????

3. You want one of the following documentation supporting my request:
Domain Name Assignment Agreement
Deed of Assignment of Intellectual Property
Utility Bill
Articles or Certificates of Incorporation, Formation, or Organization
Business License and Permits
DBA documents
Tax Certifications and Licenses
Bank Statements, Summaries, Letters
Credit Score Reports
Securities and Trading Documents, notably those originating from the SEC 8-K form
Trademark/registered/copyright document (e.g. Certificate of Federal Registration)
Please understand that if we do not receive a signed statement with all of the information requested above, we won’t be able to help. Once you have provided the information, we may follow up with additional questions, however providing us with this information doesn’t guarantee that we’ll be able to fulfill your request.

That last bit about needing a signed statement is ABSURD. Here’s what I can provide: A screen shot of my author page at Amazon, showing my two pen names, one of which is Z (upper right corner)

Finally, let me restate that Facebook/META has violated my rights by not asking first before cutting off my access to my Z page. If you had asked, I could have provided whatever information you require. SURELY Facebook has more than one person by just about any name, so why pick on me for Z? I ASSUME there is somebody name Z, who is not me, who has demanded you eliminate me, but as I have said from the start, I did an internet search of authors by that name when I first started and found none, and proceeded to take that name for my romance novels. If somebody came along since then, that’s their problem, not mine.

Campbell Jan 2, 10:41 a.m. “Oh, and by the way, authors don’t need to use a DBA for a pseudonym/”pen name”/pka/”professionally known as” name.

Also online at https://www.kboards.com/threads/dbas-pen-names-publisher-names.254337/ :

“I respectfully submit that you’re overthinking it. I come from a business background as well and after consulting with an attorney and my accountant, we decided it was unnecessary to incorporate or file a DBA; there are no tax advantages, no intellectual property advantages… the only realistic reason you might want to is if you are publishing non-fiction advice and want a liability shield. And, as you say, there is the added issue that your pen name and real name are linked in public record when you create a corporate entity – if that matters to you, don’t do it.

“You can publish under any name you like. You can assign your royalties however you like. If you are looking for tax advantages like deferred taxation, assign your royalties to a trust, but you don’t need a DBA or to be incorporated to do that.”

MAYBE META NEEDS TO LEARN ABOUT PEN NAMES.

FACEBOOK lists over 30 people by the name Z. Have you removed access to them as well? If not, why not? WHAT ARE YOUR REASONS for inflicting this damage on me?

I’ve asked for answers before and got nothing but repeated BS. So I’m not holding my breath that you’ll answer me now.”

META Jan 2, 2:29 p.m. “Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. At Facebook, we are always looking for ways to improve the experience for our users to make sure they have the best experience possible. Rest assured, our team is aware of this matter and we will do everything we can to help you out. We appreciate your patience and ongoing partnership. Please be assured that I will be getting back with you within 24-48 business hours or may even be a bit longer depending on the issue at hand. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Have a nice day! Thanks, Abby

META Jan 3, 3:38 a.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. We’d love to hear your feedback about your support experience. If you have a moment, please take this 15 second survey…” etc.

Campbell Jan 3, 5:20 a.m. “Please note that yesterday I was too upset to realize I did not include my URLs for my Z pages.

[URLs]

Let me be clear. I am the creator and ONLY user of these pages. For reasons unknown to me, Facebook eliminated the link from my Denele Campbell page to my Z pages–without notification, without warning. I have spent a VERY FRUSTRATING month trying to get that connection back so I can use those pages.

This latest questionnaire/list of demands shows me that Facebook/META STILL DOES NOT UNDERSTAND that I am the only owner of these pages. PLEASE move this problem to a supervisor or someone who has a functioning brain.”

META Jan 3, 2024 7:53 a.m. “I hope this email finds you well. At Facebook, we are always looking for ways to improve the experience for our users to make sure they have the best experience possible. Rest assured, our team is aware of this matter and we will do everything we can to help you out. We appreciate your patience and ongoing partnership. Please be assured that I will be getting back with you within 24-48 business hours or may even be a bit longer depending on the issue at hand. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Have a nice day! Thanks, Abby

META Jan 3, 2:27 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case 1700280090499765. If your issue has not been resolved, please reply with the requested information so that we can work to resolve the issue.”

Campbell Jan 3, 2:46 p.m. “WHAT ADDITIONAL INFORMATION?”

META Jan 3, 2:51 p.m. “I understand the urgency of this case for this affects your business.
Due to the complexity of the issue, our Internal Team needs to review the case further. This requires them to do a critical assessment and analyze the root cause to prevent this from happening again. With that said, we would like to follow-up with you within the next 48 hours. We appreciate your patience on this matter. For reference, you may visit this link for our advertising solutions: https://www.facebook.com/business/learn. Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Enjoy the rest of the day. Thanks, Abby

META Jan 3, 9:11 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case…” etc.

META Jan 5, 3:55 p.m. “We wanted to follow-up regarding case 1700280090499765. Since we’ve not received any correspondence we’ll be closing out your case at this time. If you need further assistance and would like to reopen the case, please reply to this email as soon as possible.”

Campbell Jan 6, 5:27 a.m. “Contrary to your assertion, I have corresponded repeatedly over the last month. I have sent you the URL for both my Z accounts:

[URL]

I have sent my driver’s license and the explanation that while I am Denele Campbell, I am writing under the pen name of Z. I have sent you legal notice that pen names are not required to establish an official DBA. I have repeatedly sent you notice of the facts in this matter, that I created these pages in 2012, that I am the ONLY person who ever used these pages, and that everything in these pages is mine. I have sent screenshots of my various emails, Amazon author pages, and other material confirming that Z and Denele Campbell are the same person.

Since my access to these accounts was terminated by Facebook in November without any warning, I have repeatedly asked/pleaded/demanded my connection to my accounts be restored. I lost money over the holidays because I could not advertise my books. I have lost sleep over this mess, and yet I keep getting the same automated BULLSHIT from Facebook. I get automated replies to my queries. I get demands for documentation without any acknowledgement of the documentation I have already sent. I get these “OH, we haven’t heard from you so we’re going to close your case” notices when I have immediately complied with your requests without receiving any feedback.

It’s as if I’m talking to a machine, which I suspect is at least part of the problem, since I know Zuckerberg fired tens of thousands of employees. Without doubt, AI might be able to handle a lot of the busywork involved with administering Facebook, but AI is too stupid—apparently—to solve this problem. How hard is it to verify that Denele Campbell established Z.524? Do Facebook techs no longer have access to account origins or account activity that would show, in an instant, that these accounts are mine? Has anyone noticed that the Z pages have had ZERO activity since you cut my access? I have even sent a list of my Z books for a tech to compare to the books advertised on FB to see these are the same. But has anyone at Facebook bothered to compare?? Obviously not, or this problem would be solved.

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE! Restore my access to my Z accounts IMMEDIATELY. Stop with the polite automated messaging that goes nowhere. Send my case to a human who can actually THINK!”

META Jan 7, 4:55 a.m. “Good day to you! I would like to let you know that we are currently reviewing this matter. This may take longer or can be resolved quickly depending on the complexity of the issue. In the event that we received feedback earlier than the turnaround time frame, we will notify you immediately. Rest assured that we will be following up on your issue closely and will be updating you via this email thread for any updates. For anything else, please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you need further assistance and we’ll be glad to assist. Thanks for your patience…”

META Jan 7, 7:10 a.m. “Thank you for contacting Meta Advertising Support. My name is Cris and I am sending this email on behalf of my colleague who assisted you on chat previously about an issue with your Page with Case ID: 1700280090499765. I hope my email finds you well.
Our Internal Team have reached out and for us to continue with the request you’ve made, you need to resend a copy of your signed letter which includes the link of the Facebook Page link you’re requesting to get Admin role. I will look forward to your response, Denele. Just a reminder our system is set up to close out cases that have gone more than 48 hours without a response. If you are unable to get back to me within that timeframe, you may get an email regarding the case being closed and a survey. You may also visit this link for other helpful advertising solutions: https://facebook.com/business/help Again, thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. We wish you and your business well. Have a great day!

Campbell Jan 7, 7:20 a.m. “Regarding your comment, “you need to resend a copy of your signed letter which includes the link of the Facebook Page link you’re requesting to get Admin role.”

Please note that I will NOT be sending a letter or anything else in response to the email outlining all the steps necessary to “get Admin role.” As I HAVE REPEATED several times, the Z pages as specified in my messages were CREATED BY ME, NO ONE ELSE HAS EVER BEEN AN ADMIN BUT ME. What is so hard to understand about that? Try to move beyond your programming on this topic. Please restore my pages without further delay.

META Jan 7, 9:19 a.m. “I hope you this email finds you well! I understand that you are not comfortable in providing a letter as a requirement for your request. These kinds of cases are very sensitive because your personal information are involved, especially your card.
We want to make sure that your account will be secured before we take any actions. In case that the requested requirements are not completed, we will not be able to complete your request.
Our system is set up to close out cases that have gone more than 48 hours without a response. If you are unable to get back to us within that timeframe, you may get an email regarding the case being closed and a survey on how you were assisted. Not to worry if that happens, you can still reply to this email and we’ll be able to help. Looking forward to your response.
Should you ever need real time support, please do not hesitate to reach out to us and we will get back to you the soonest possible time. You may initiate a new chat via https://www.facebook.com/business/help.
Your satisfaction is our happiness! Again, thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. We wish you and your business well. Have a good day! Thanks, Ingrid

Campbell Jan 7, 12:47 p.m. “So does anyone in your department have the capacity to UNDERSTAND what I am saying? All I’m getting is automated messages from you and your associates.

I AM THE ONLY PERSON who has any involvement in the Z pages. I have REPEATED this information so many times I’ve lost count. I created these pages in 2012 and am the only person who has ever used them. I have sent you the URL for both my Z accounts. I have sent my driver’s license and the explanation that while I am Denele Campbell I am writing under the pen name of Z. I have sent you legal notice that pen names are not required to establish an official DBA. I have repeatedly sent you notice of the facts in this matter, that I created these pages in 2012, that I am the ONLY person who ever used these pages, and that everything in these pages is mine. I have sent screenshots of my various emails, Amazon author pages, and other material confirming that Z and Denele Campbell are the same person.

Since my access to these accounts was terminated by Facebook in November without any warning, I have repeatedly asked/pleaded/demanded my connection to my accounts be restored. I lost money over the holidays because I could not advertise my Z books. I have lost sleep over this mess, and yet I keep getting the same automated BULLSHIT from Facebook. I get automated replies to my queries. I get demands for documentation without any acknowledgement of the documentation I have already sent. I get these “OH, we haven’t heard from you so we’re going to close your case” notices when I have immediately complied with your requests without receiving any feedback.

It’s as if I’m talking to a machine, which I suspect is at least part of the problem, since I know Zuckerberg fired tens of thousands of employees. Without doubt, AI might be able to handle a lot of the busywork involved with administering Facebook, but AI is too stupid—apparently—to solve this problem. How hard is it to verify that I established Z.524? Do Facebook techs no longer have access to account origins or account activity that would show, in an instant, that these accounts are mine? I have even sent a list of my Z books for a tech to compare to the books advertised on Facebook to see these are the same. But has anyone at Facebook bothered to compare?? Obviously not, or this problem would be solved.

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE! Restore my access to my Z accounts IMMEDIATELY. Stop with the polite automated messaging that goes nowhere. Send my case to a human who can actually THINK!”

META Jan 7, 2:53 p.m. “I understand the urgency of this case for this affects your business. I am writing about your concern regarding <ISSUE>. Due to the complexity of the issue, our Internal Team needs to review the case further. This requires them to do a critical assessment and analyze the root cause to prevent this from happening again. With that said, we would like to follow-up with you within the next 48 hours. We appreciate your patience on this matter. Your Case ID is 123456789…” etc etc

META Jan 8, 9:37 a.m. “I hope this email finds you well. This is Dom from Meta Pro Team, emailing you on behalf of my colleague who is diligently working on your case ID: 1700280090499765. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we work on your case. I would like to let you know we have received an update from our Internal Team already. Please understand that in order for us to proceed with the Admin Dispute, we need you to provide a signed statement stating the following:

a) A description of your relationship to the Page (including your authority to request a change in the person(s) who manages it, as applicable);
b) The name of the current person(s) who manage the Page and their relationship to the Page, or a reasonable explanation of why the current person(s) who manages the Page is/are not known to the requestor;
c) An explanation of your request detailing why you are requesting ownership, and whether there has been a termination of the employment and/or business relationship with the named person(s), as applicable;
d) The Facebook account (URL/ID/associated email) needing to be added as the new admin of the Page;
e) The ID/URL of the Page;
f) Applicable for Business Entities/Advertisers only: If the supporting documentation provided shows ownership of a parent organization rather than the specific brand/company mentioned in the Facebook asset, you will need to provide further evidence of the link between the two brands by providing an official/reputable online source (to be included in the letter), or additional supporting documentation. Examples of appropriate supporting documentation include:
– A link to a published press release or news article about the connection between the brand’s names (both names must be present in the article/press release),
– A link to your official website that states the connection between names (both names must be present),
– Any legitimate DBA documentation same as asset name; and
g) A declaration that the information you have provided is true and accurate (e.g. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate”). Your statement must include similar language.
The letterhead should contain the following elements:
a. Mandatory elements: Business name, Physical address (typically the registered address of the business), Phone number and Company logo or official branding
b. Preferred elements: Email address and Website
Please understand that we need a formal letter from you to be submitted to our Internal Team.

Please submit your signed statement in PDF file so we can proceed with the request.
Looking forward to your response so that we can sort this out as soon as we can. Please note that our system is set up to close out cases that have gone for more than 48 hours without a response. If you’re unable to get back to us within that time frame, you may get an email regarding the case being closed and a survey. If that happens, you can still reply to this email and we’ll be able to help. You can also initiate a new chat via https://www.facebook.com/business/help for real-time support.
Thank you for contacting the Meta Pro Team. Have an awesome day! Warm regards, Dom”

META Jan 8, 1:46 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case 1700280090499765…” etc.

Campbell Jan 9, 5:36 a.m. [Attached PDF letter with information requested, repeated from earlier responses]

META Jan 9, 9:53 a.m. “Our Internal Team is currently looking into it and while it can be difficult to estimate how long it takes to resolve due to the technical nature and complexity of the issue, we will continue to keep you posted on any updates. Rest assured that I’ll be following up on your issue closely and will be updating you via this email thread once I received updates from the team. For your reference, here’s your Case ID: 1700280090499765.
We do apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you for your continuous support.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach back out to me by replying to this email.
Again, thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. We wish you and your business well. Have a great day! Justine

META Jan 10, 12:44 a.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? Hi Denele, It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job…” etc.

Campbell Jan 12, 5:26 a.m. “It has been days since this email. What is the progress/status?

META Jan 12, 8:17 a.m. This is Hannah and I’m responding on behalf of my colleague who is working on your case. We also would like to thank you for your patience while waiting for the update. Please be advised that we will not be able proceed if we will not receive the required details. Please include the following in a single PDF document.
1. A •copy of valid government-issued ID• of the individual signing the statement; any of the following are accepted:
• Passport
• Government ID
• Driver’s License
• For Civic requests, Government Employee IDs will be accepted.

2. •A SIGNED STATEMENT• that includes:

a. Government Letterhead or Seal, Company Letterhead
b. Clear and readable signature (signed by hand or digitally confirmed)
c. A description of requestor relationship to the Business and the Business ID number is required
d. An explanation of the request (reason why you lost access and/or why you need the access)
e. The Facebook account (URL or associated email) needing to be added as an admin
f. One of the following:
► The name of the current person(s) who manage the Business Manager OR
► A reasonable explanation of why the current persons who manage the Business Manager is/are not known to the requestor
g. A declaration that the information you have provided is true and accurate, e.g. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate” or similar

3. •EVIDENCE OF A CLAIM TO OWNERSHIP•. You may provide at least ONE supporting documentation:

• Credit Line Monthly Invoice
• Domain Name Assignment Agreement or
• Deed of Assignment of Intellectual Property or
• Utility Bill or
• Articles or Certificates of Incorporation, Formation, or Organization or
• Business Licenses or Permits or
• DBA documents or
• Tax Certs. and Licenses or
• Bank Statements, Summaries, Letters or
• Credit Score Reports or
• Securities and Trading Documents- Trademark/registered/copyright document: e.g. Certificate of Federal Registration.

We hope to hear from you soon. If you ever need further support, please do not hesitate to reach out to us and we will get back to you the soonest possible time. You may initiate a new chat via https://www.facebook.com/business/help. Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Have a great day ahead! Hannah

Campbell Jan 12, 8:24 a.m. “Hi Hannah — I’m enjoying seeing how many names are used by your AI system. As for the requested items, I provided those materials back in December the first time you asked for them. Have you lost the record of our previous emails?”

META Jan 14, 3:18 a.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. We’d love to hear your feedback about your support experience. If you have a moment, please take this 15 second survey…” etc

Campbell Jan 14, 5:05 a.m. “Dear META — What is the status of my appeal for restoring my access to my Z page?”

META Jan 14, 6:09 a.m. “Due to the complexity of the issue, our Internal Team needs to review the case further. This requires them to do a critical assessment and analyze the root cause to prevent this from happening again. With that said, we would like to follow up with you within the next 48 hours. We appreciate your patience on this matter. Your Case ID is 1700280090499765. For reference, you may visit this link for our advertising solutions: Advertiser Help Center (https://www.facebook.com/business/help). Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Enjoy the rest of the day. Jeff

META Jan 14, 7:15 a.m. “Thanks for contacting us. We’ve received your request to gain access to the Page Z at 100065664063967. We’d be happy to look into this, but please keep in mind that we are not in a position to resolve disputes between third parties. If you’d like us to help, please provide all of the following:
1. A copy of a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a current driver’s license or a passport, of the individual signing the statement. You can find the different kinds of IDs we accept in the Help Center: https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185?ref=cr
2. A signed statement from a person with sufficient knowledge and authority over this matter, which will need to be on company letterhead and should include all of the following:

e) The ID/URL of the Page;
f) Applicable for Business Entities/Advertisers only: If the supporting documentation provided shows ownership of a parent organization rather than the specific brand/company mentioned in the Facebook asset, you will need to provide further evidence of the link between the two brands by providing an official/reputable online source (to be included in the letter), or additional supporting documentation.
Examples of appropriate supporting documentation include:
– A link to a published press release or news article about the connection between the brand’s names (both names must be present in the article/press release),
– A link to your official website that states the connection between names (both names must be present),
– Any legitimate DBA documentation same as asset name; and
g) A declaration that the information you have provided is true and accurate (e.g. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate”). Your statement must include similar language.

3. Any one of the following documentation supporting your request:
– Domain Name Assignment Agreement
– Deed of Assignment of Intellectual Property
– Utility Bill
– Articles or Certificates of Incorporation, Formation, or Organization
– Business License and Permits
– DBA documents
– Tax Certifications and Licenses
– Bank Statements, Summaries, Letters
– Credit Score Reports
– Securities and Trading Documents, notably those originating from the SEC 8-K form
– Trademark/registered/copyright document (e.g. Certificate of Federal Registration)

Please understand that if we do not receive a signed statement with all of the information requested above, we won’t be able to help. Once you have provided the information, we may follow up with additional questions, however providing us with this information doesn’t guarantee that we’ll be able to fulfill your request.
If we are able to process your request, only one admin will be added to the Page, and it will be the admin’s responsibility to manage the Page roles.
Please note our system is set up to close out cases that have gone more than 48 hours without a response. If you’re unable to get back to me within that time frame, you may get an email regarding the case being closed and a survey. Not to worry if that happens, you can still reply to this email and I’ll be able to help, or you can chat back into us and we will be able to reference this interaction at that time as well.
Here’s our reference number: 1700280090499765
Looking forward to hearing from you soon so that we can assist you further. Have a great day ahead! Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Thanks, Jeff

Campbell Jan 14, 7:17 a.m. “I’ve already answered these questions THREE TIMES.”

META Jan 14, 7:34 a.m. “Thank you for your quick reply. I would like to let you know that our Internal Team has reviewed your case in detail and unfortunately the document previously does not include all information that can make them approve your dispute for the Facebook Page Z. To approve your request, our Internal Team must get the following requirements…” etc

Campbell Jan 14, 7:39 a.m. “As I have previously stated multiple times, Z is a pen name for my romance novels. I created the page in 2012 and am the ONLY PERSON to ever administer those pages. None of these documentation requests apply to my situation with the loss of access to my Z pages.”

META Jan 14, 7:46 a.m. “We definitely understand how important it is to get your request approved by our Internal Team so you can continue managing your work on the platform.
Please understand that if we do not receive a signed statement with all of the information requested above, we won’t be able to help. Once you have provided the information, we may follow up with additional questions, however providing us with this information doesn’t guarantee that we’ll be able to fulfill your request. If we are able to process your request, only one admin will be added to the Page, and it will be the admin’s responsibility to manage the Page roles. Please note our system is set up to close out cases that have gone more than 48 hours without a response. If you’re unable to get back to me within that time frame, you may get an email regarding the case being closed and a survey. Not to worry if that happens, you can still reply to this email and I’ll be able to help, or you can chat back into us and we will be able to reference this interaction at that time as well. Here’s our reference number: 1700280090499765
Looking forward to hearing from you soon so that we can assist you further. Have a great day ahead! Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Thanks, Jeff

Campbell Jan 14, 7:52 a.m. “Please see attached letter I sent DAYS AGO.”

META Jan 14, 7:53 a.m. “Thanks for contacting us. We’ve received your request to gain access to the Page Z at 100065664063967. We’d be happy to look into this, but please keep in mind that we are not in a position to resolve disputes between third parties. If you’d like us to help, please provide all of the following:
1. A copy of a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a current driver’s license or a passport, of the individual signing the statement. You can find the different kinds of IDs we accept in the Help Center: https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185?ref=cr
2. A signed statement from a person with sufficient knowledge and authority over this matter, which will need to be on company letterhead and should include all of the following:
e) The ID/URL of the Page;
f) Applicable for Business Entities/Advertisers only: If the supporting documentation provided shows ownership of a parent organization rather than the specific brand/company mentioned in the Facebook asset, you will need to provide further evidence of the link between the two brands by providing an official/reputable online source (to be included in the letter), or additional supporting documentation.
Examples of appropriate supporting documentation include:
– A link to a published press release or news article about the connection between the brand’s names (both names must be present in the article/press release),
– A link to your official website that states the connection between names (both names must be present),
– Any legitimate DBA documentation same as asset name; and
g) A declaration that the information you have provided is true and accurate (e.g. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate”). Your statement must include similar language.
3. Any one of the following documentation supporting your request:
– Domain Name Assignment Agreement
– Deed of Assignment of Intellectual Property
– Utility Bill
– Articles or Certificates of Incorporation, Formation, or Organization
– Business License and Permits
– DBA documents
– Tax Certifications and Licenses
– Bank Statements, Summaries, Letters
– Credit Score Reports
– Securities and Trading Documents, notably those originating from the SEC 8-K form
– Trademark/registered/copyright document (e.g. Certificate of Federal Registration)
Please understand that if we do not receive a signed statement with all of the information requested above, we won’t be able to help. Once you have provided the information, we may follow up with additional questions, however providing us with this information doesn’t guarantee that we’ll be able to fulfill your request. If we are able to process your request, only one admin will be added to the Page, and it will be the admin’s responsibility to manage the Page roles. Thanks! Abby”

Campbell Jan 14, 10:21 a.m. “META Support, please note that you are not understanding this situation. THERE IS NO 3rd party. I’ve stated my situation quite clearly SEVERAL TIMES. Please get this matter resolved immediately and STOP shuffling this off.”

META Jan 14, 12:18 p.m. “Thanks for contacting us. We’ve received your request to gain access to the Page Z at 100065664063967. We’d be happy to look into this, but please keep in mind that we are not in a position to resolve disputes between third parties. If you’d like us to help, please provide all of the following:
1. A copy of a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a current driver’s license or a passport, of the individual signing the statement. You can find the different kinds of IDs we accept in the Help Center: https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185?ref=cr …” etc.

Campbell Jan 14, 12:24 p.m. “You guys are stuck in ignorance.

THERE IS NO 3rd party. I am the only person who has ever used the Z page.

THERE IS NO ID for Z—it’s a name I made up for a pen name for my romance books.

You want my ID? I’ve sent it three times.

This has been going on since November 2023, same questions over and over and over. Why can’t you understand?”

META Jan 15, 1:13 p.m. “I hope this email finds you well. As per our internal team carefully check the following details require by our team. Thanks for contacting us. We’ve received your request to gain access to the Page Z at 100065664063967. We’d be happy to look into this, but please keep in mind that we are not in a position to resolve disputes between third parties. If you’d like us to help, please provide all of the following:
1. A copy of a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a current driver’s license or a passport, of the individual signing the statement. You can find the different kinds of IDs we accept in the Help Center: https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185?ref=cr
2. A signed statement from a person with sufficient knowledge and authority over this matter, which will need to be on company letterhead and should include all of the following:
e) The ID/URL of the Page;
f) Applicable for Business Entities/Advertisers only: If the supporting documentation provided shows ownership of a parent organization rather than the specific brand/company mentioned in the Facebook asset, you will need to provide further evidence of the link between the two brands by providing an official/reputable online source (to be included in the letter), or additional supporting documentation.
Examples of appropriate supporting documentation include:
– A link to a published press release or news article about the connection between the brand’s names (both names must be present in the article/press release),
– A link to your official website that states the connection between names (both names must be present),
– Any legitimate DBA documentation same as asset name; and
g) A declaration that the information you have provided is true and accurate (e.g. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate”). Your statement must include similar language.
3. Any one of the following documentation supporting your request:
– Domain Name Assignment Agreement
– Deed of Assignment of Intellectual Property
– Utility Bill
– Articles or Certificates of Incorporation, Formation, or Organization
– Business License and Permits
– DBA documents
– Tax Certifications and Licenses
– Bank Statements, Summaries, Letters
– Credit Score Reports
– Securities and Trading Documents, notably those originating from the SEC 8-K form
– Trademark/registered/copyright document (e.g. Certificate of Federal Registration)
Please understand that if we do not receive a signed statement with all of the information requested above, we won’t be able to help. Once you have provided the information, we may follow up with additional questions, however providing us with this information doesn’t guarantee that we’ll be able to fulfill your request.
If we are able to process your request, only one admin will be added to the Page, and it will be the admin’s responsibility to manage the Page roles. Thank you for your understanding .
Thanks, Abby”

Campbell Jan 15, 1:31 p.m. “This is just a repeat of what we’ve done FIVE TIMES already. I’ve given you all the information that applies to this situation. STOP ASKING for things I’ve already provided. These requests are the same words, over and over again. Is there a real person who can communicate with me?

META Jan 16, 9:15 p.m. “This is an automated reminder that we’re waiting on additional information from you to continue to work on your case 1700280090499765…” etc.

Campbell Jan 17, 5:15 a.m. What “additional information” do you need. Please specify.

META Jan 17, 6:52 a.m. “Thank you for being patient with us.
We know how your business means to you. We truly admire your patience and kindness in dealing with this matter. You can trust that we share the same objective here.
We understand how important this is for you and your business. However, after several escalations and investigations, our team has not reached final resolution. Should same concern persist, feel free to reach out via chat so we can attend to you immediately.
We truly understand that we are not expecting this kind of resolution, but rest assured, that we can continue providing better support for you via chat or by reporting a problem via the Facebook App with these steps:
Report that something isn’t working on Facebook:
1. Log in to Facebook on a computer.
2. Click your profile picture in the top right of Facebook.
3. Select Help & support, then select Report a problem and follow the on-screen instructions.
At Facebook, we are always looking for ways to improve the experience for our users to make sure they have the best experience possible. Right now, we are tagging this case as done and we will be looking at a long-term fix that will require assistance from several channels and we are closing this case as Done. Please don’t hesitate to reach out via our chat channel for further assistance. You can also reach our chat support via this link facebook.com/business/help (https://facebook.com/business/help). Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. Have a great day!”

META Jan 17, 6:52 a.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. We’d love to hear your feedback about your support experience. If you have a moment, please take this 15 second survey…” etc.

Campbell Jan 17, 7:07 a.m. “Facebook/Meta has done nothing toward resolving this issue. For two months you have sent the same messages, requested the same information (which I have supplied) and then when you run out of prefabricated responses, you decide the problem is solved. IT IS NOT SOLVED. I still do not have access to my Z pages where I need to advertise my Z books. Facebook has NOT restored my access to MY ACCOUNT for Z nor does anyone at Facebook seem to be capable of even understanding the problem. It is tragic that after all the creative work of Mark Zuckerberg in establishing Facebook that it has now descended to such an incompetent entity that it cannot even reconnect my page.

META Jan 17, 1:57 p.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. We’d love to hear your feedback about your support experience. If you have a moment, please take this 15 second survey…” etc.

Campbell Jan 17, 2:02 p.m. “Stop sending me “How did we do?” requests when YOU’VE DONE NOTHING to solve my problem. Is there a human tech anywhere?”

META Jan 17, 2:08 p.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job…”

Campbell Jan 18, 5:01 a.m. “Dear Meta –You say you are waiting on additional information, but you never say exactly what information you need. So STOP sending me messages that say “It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job. “YOU ARE NOT DOING A GOOD JOB.” You are doing NOTHING to solve my problem. I can’t access my Z page. I can’t advertise. META is dysfunctional.”

META Jan 18, 10:35 a.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job…” etc.

Campbell Jan 18, 10:35 a.m. “Dear Meta –You say you are waiting on additional information, but you never say exactly what information you need. So STOP sending me messages that say “It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job.” YOU ARE NOT DOING A GOOD JOB.” You are doing NOTHING to solve my problem. I can’t access my Z page. I can’t advertise. META is dysfunctional. Please search your premises for a human who has a functioning brain.”

META Jan 19, 3:47 a.m. “I hope this email finds you well. This is a follow up email regarding your Page Access. Please take note of this Case ID: 1700280090499765. We are more than happy to look at this issue, but before we do, we need some additional information from you to help us investigate the issue. There are 3 documents that must be provided to proceed with this matter. We will need you to please provide the following:
1. Copy of valid government-issued ID (of the individual signing the statement); any of the following are accepted:
• Passport
• Government ID
• Driver’s License
• For Civic requests, Government Employee IDs will be accepted.
2. A signed statement with the following details:
• Government Letterhead or Seal, Company Letterhead (where appropriate)
• Clear and readable signature (signed by hand or digitally confirmed)
• A description of requestor relationship to the Business and the Page ID (and authority to request access to the Business, as applicable)
• An explanation of the request (example: there has been a termination of the employment and/or business relationship with the named person(s)/Business and another person needs to be added as Admin)
• The Facebook account (URL/ID/associated email) needing to be added as an admin
• One of the following:
– The name of the current person(s) who manage the Page as applicable the relationship of the above person(s) to the Business OR
– A reasonable explanation of why the current persons who manage the Page is/are not known to the requestor
• A declaration that the information you have provided is true and accurate, e.g. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate” or similar
3. Evidence of a claim to ownership (one of the following)
Option 1: Individual amounts of the past three invoices on the ad account(s) that the Page own and include the last 4 digits on the credit card +the credit card expiration date. Note: Invoice information will only be accepted if included directly in the body of the signed letter/statement
Option 2: Credit Line Monthly Invoice for owned ad account
Option 3: Provide at least one supporting documentation:
• Domain Name Assignment Agreement or
• Deed of Assignment of Intellectual Property or
• Utility Bill or
• Articles or Certificates of Incorporation, Formation, or Organization or
• Business Licenses or Permits or
• DBA documents or
• Tax Certs. and Licenses or
• Bank Statements, Summaries, Letters or
• Credit Score Reports or
• Securities and Trading Documents- Trademark/registered/copyright document: e.g. Certificate of Federal Registration.
As soon as we have the above information, we would be happy to move forward with assisting you further.
NOTE: Our system is set up to close out cases that have gone more than 48 hours without a response. If you’re unable to get back to me within that time frame, you may get an email regarding the case being closed and a survey. Not to worry if that happens, you can still reply to this email and I’ll be able to help, or you can chat back into us and we will be able to reference this interaction at that time as well. For anything else, please do not hesitate to come to us through chat. You may access this link to come to chat with us at facebook.com/business/help Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. We wish you and your business well. Have a great day. Thanks, Joy”

Campbell Jan 19, 6:31 a.m. “Letter and information attached. Can we PLEASE get this resolved ASAP??”

Letter: Denele Campbell, Author

Etc.

Regarding

Z, Author – THIS IS MY PEN NAME, same address

Z email and website

To Whom It May Concern:

Regarding Case ID: 1700280090499765

Attached: Copy of valid government-issued ID (of the individual signing the statement); any of the following are accepted:• Driver’s License

This is my signed statement with the following details:
• Company Letterhead (see above)
• Clear and readable signature (signed by hand or digitally confirmed)
• A description of requestor relationship to the Business and the Page ID (and authority to request access to the Business, as applicable)

Z is my PEN NAME for certain material I write. I created these pages. I am the only admin to ever access these pages.

https://www.facebook.com/Z.524 and https://www.facebook.com/AuthorZ

• An explanation of the request (example: there has been a termination of the employment and/or business relationship with the named person(s)/Business and another person needs to be added as Admin)

In mid-November, for unknown reasons and without warning, Facebook/META ended my access to my Z page. I created the page in 2012 and have been the only admin. Currently no one is managing the pages.

• The Facebook account (URL/ID/associated email) needing to be added as an admin;

Denele Campbell

Since Facebook cut my access to my Z account, I cannot access any financial records from the Z account. Here are copies of my bank records showing payment for Z ads on Facebook, paid out of my personal bank account on MasterCard ending in xxxx:

I certify that the information I have provided is true and accurate.

Sincerely,

META Jan 20, 6:57 a.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job…”

Campbell Jan 20, 6:57 a.m. “Please do not send me surveys as if you have solved this problem. UNTIL YOU SOLVE THE PROBLEM.”

META Jan 20, 9:58 a.m. “I understand how you feel about this. I know the urgency of this matter, and the impact that it would cause you if not resolved right away. As a matter of fact, it is truly a pleasure for me if we get this sorted out and reinstate your advertising features.
The documents that we are asking is vital to have the internal investigation proceed.
Please help us to continue by providing the necessary document. Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team we wish you and your business well, Have a good day ahead of you!
Thanks, Abby

Campbell Jan 20, 10:21 a.m. “I supplied requested documents yesterday. Did you not receive them?”

Campbell Jan 20, 10:26 a.m. “Here they are again, attached as a pdf file.”

Campbell Jan 20, 10:38 a.m. “I cannot fully express the frustration and sadness I feel after 5 weeks of this runaround. Yesterday I supplied the information you requested. Today I received your notice: “I understand how you feel about this. I know the urgency of this matter, and the impact that it would cause you if not resolved right away. As a matter of fact, it is truly a pleasure for me if we get this sorted out and reinstate your advertising features. The documents that we are asking is vital to have the internal investigation proceed. Please help us to continue by providing the necessary document.” AGAIN, did you not receive what I sent?

META Jan 20, 1:46 p.m. “I understand the urgency of this case for this affects your business. I am writing about your concern regarding Page. Due to the complexity of the issue, our Internal Team needs to review the case further. This requires them to do a critical assessment and analyze the root cause to prevent this from happening again. With that said, we would like to follow-up with you within the next 48 hours. We appreciate your patience on this matter. Your Case ID is 123456789.”

Campbell Jan 20, 1:57 p.m. “Well, I’ve lost count on how many times you’ve said that. It’s been TWO MONTHS since I could access my Z page, and it seems like you guys are just repeating the same words over and over and over. Did you get the letter I sent as per your instructions? If so, what if anything else do you need?”

META Jan 20, 2:23 p.m. “Thank you for your prompt response. I am writing about your concern regarding <ISSUE>. Our Internal Team is still diligently working on the matter as we know that this is utterly important. We apologize for any inconvenience that may have been caused by this delay. Please know that we are working towards a viable resolution. Kindly expect a response in the next 24-48 business hours. For anything else, please do not hesitate to come to us through chat. You may access this link to come to chat with us at https://www.facebook.com/business/help

Thank you for your patience and understanding throughout this process.”

META Jan 21, 1:23 a.m. “We would like to inform you that we have done everything to resolve your issue. The Internal Team has completed their investigation and kindly asks you to perform the following actions as the next step to reach the solution. We hope this information will be useful to you and will proceed with closing the present support request. If any further questions arise, please do not hesitate to reach out to us again via the following link: https://www.facebook.com/business/help. You can also visit Blueprint for useful courses to help reach your advertising goals: https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/courses.Thanks for contacting the Meta Pro Team, we appreciate your feedback.”

Campbell Jan 22, 5 a.m. “OK, sounds good. You said: ” We would like to inform you that we have done everything to resolve your issue. The Internal Team has completed their investigation and kindly asks you to perform the following actions as the next step to reach the solution.”

YOU FAILED to name “the following actions as the next step” — Is this a JOKE?

Campbell Jan 22, 5:33 a.m. “It seems clear to me that no one at META is actually trying to restore my access to my Z pages. I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to meet your ever-changing requirements yet none of my efforts have been acknowledged. After weeks of emails and META lies, I am losing hope that I will ever be able to use my Z pages again. I’ve never had any acknowledgement or explanation of WHY my access to my pages was terminated. But I can assure you, this will not end here. I am going to warn other authors not to advertise on Facebook – apparently once an author advertises and builds up a following, Facebook can take it away without explanation, make a bunch of empty promises about fixing the problem, then fail utterly to communicate intelligently or fix the problem.”

META Jan 22, 8:26 a.m. “Please be advised that this case has already been tagged as closed. We recommend for you to raise another case on our end for us to proceed on your issue. Also, we highly suggest for you to provide the Case ID: 1700280090499765 to our next representative for reference. I hope the above information has been helpful. I will be closing this case now, if by any chance you have encounter an issue or need further assistance, please feel free to initiate a chat support session at the following link: https://facebook.com/business/help Again, thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team! Have a nice day!

Campbell Jan 22, 8:37 a.m. “WHY WAS IT CLOSED? Did you think the problem was solved? Surely not, since you KNOW it is not solved. Are you guys incapable of interacting with me in a timely or agreeable manner? Apparently you are incapable of solving this problem, which Facebook-META CREATED when you cut my access to my account. I’M NOT STARTING OVER. THIS IS THE LAST TIME I will give META a chance to restore my access to Z before going public.”

META Jan 22, 9:10 a.m. “How was the support you received from Meta? It’s important for us to know whether we are doing a good job…”

A Not So Modest Proposal

Social Support Programs: Address the Root

People Need Assistance in Accessing Support Programs. Will is a 61-year-old alcoholic who has managed to support himself through his excellent construction skills. After his work partner died four years ago, he lived in the attic of the man’s house until summer 2024 when the man’s 26-year-old son was jailed for beating up Will. When the son was released after four months, the widow chose to protect her son from future conflicts by telling Will he had to move out. He is currently living in a camper on a rural property by the generosity of an acquaintance. A wheel broke off his truck and he has no money to fix it, but without transportation, he can’t earn any money. He needs food stamps but has no computer or other means of applying. His phone ran out of minutes back in August.

Will is just one example of the problems facing people who need social support. What’s needed for Will and many others is an advocate who can assist him through the process but also, more importantly, to assess the person’s situation, capabilities, and needs and to assist that person in moving beyond their current status. Education, job training, mental health care, and/or medical treatment are among the needs often experienced by those seeking government assistance, but rather than actually helping people get the help they need, current programs throw out random packages of aid without any comprehensive effort at addressing the root causes.

An advocate for such applicants could assist in the process of seeking help as minimal as obtaining food stamps, but also gaining access to the full array of needed services, completing the application process properly, or assigning a counselor to help the applicant sort out his/her current life situation (in which case the advocate and counselor become a team). Without expert advocates to steer each applicant through an increasingly complex system, we risk wasting billions on systemic inefficiencies and do nothing to solve the problems that cause these people to need help in the first place.

Dispose of Outdated Laws

Drug laws: The drug war, like alcohol prohibition before it, frames the use of certain intoxicants as a moral failing. The result has been mass incarceration for private behavior.

All natural drugs should be immediately legalized, regulated like alcohol, and taxed. Tax proceeds for legal sales in Colorado, for example, have paid for homeless housing while reducing expenditures for law enforcement and prisons. This should include marijuana, coca leaf, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, opium, and Ayahuasca, among others. Persons wishing to consume any of these substances should be able to walk into a retail establishment like a liquor store anywhere in the country and buy a product that’s been certified for purity and dosage. Such products should not be controlled by pharmaceutical companies. Individual production of such substances for personal consumption should be allowed without taxation or regulation. Public venues which serve psychoactive drugs should be licensed in the same manner as establishments for consuming alcohol.

Anyone previously convicted or imprisoned for possession, “manufacture,” or sale of these substances should be released from incarceration and their convictions expunged from the record. Unfortunately, due to the massive numbers of persons involved, any compensation for their loss of income or other social costs is not feasible.

Substance abuse, like alcoholism, can become a serious problem for certain people. Currently, only the very rich can afford treatment programs that address the whole person through nutrition, counseling, and exercise, among other things. Tax revenues derived from retail sales should first provide for comprehensive treatment centers in every community where anyone suffering from addiction can be immediately admitted.

Performance testing for job safety should take the place of current drug testing. A brief interface with a computer terminal for tests tailored to immediately show competency to meet job requirements—attention, dexterity, coordination, etc.—should be part of the employee’s work day. A test failure, no matter what the cause of impairment—hangover, intoxication, fight with the spouse—could become part of that employee’s record with appropriate consequences for repeated failure. Intoxicated driving will be prosecuted.

Sex Laws: Prostitution should be legalized, regulated, and taxed as any other business. If a person wants to sell the use of his/her body for sexual gratification, it should be within his or her right to do so. Government licensing should include regular health inspections to ensure public safety. Houses of prostitution could include luxurious settings, the most attractive employees, or the most innovative approach – for example, offer an immersive experience in an establishment with fantasy themes (medieval, harem, S&M dungeon, etc.). There should be no restriction on how houses of prostitution or individual practitioners might combine their services with other services such as massage, restaurants, intoxication venues (alcohol and/or drugs), or even mental health counseling.

Nudity Laws: Allocation of designated locations where people can go without clothing should be legal in all states.

Facilities/Resources: Eliminating drug and sex laws will result in decreased need for jails and prisons as well as employees of the criminal justice system. Freed-up resources should be redirected to improving public defender salaries and providing for persons prosecuted for other offenses.

Reining in Corporate Greedmasters

CEOs and other top executives should receive pay based on the pay their workers receive. If the company is profitable enough to pay at CEO $27 million a year, workers should be earning far more than $15-$20 per hour. Likewise, prices for products that serve a lifesaving role for consumers should be regulated by the government just as utilities and other vital public services are regulated.

Healthcare: Medicare for everyone. Eliminate insurance companies unless they are non-profit. Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies must be non-profit. Drugs would be price controlled. Research for new treatments and new drugs would operate under federal grants.

Legal Services: Expand funding for free legal aid so that injured parties have full recourse to legal action.

Everyone is responsible

National service: Everyone reaching age 18 must serve whether Peace Corps, military, domestic infrastructure, civic duties or whatever else would benefit the public at large. No exceptions except for significant disability. Higher education, either college or vocational, can wait until the completion of two years’ public service. Serving in such duties should be in a location away from the family home, should provide food, shelter, and a minimal wage, and should result in free college/vocational training at its conclusion similar to the G.I. Bill.

Education

All secondary schools should be required to offer a curriculum that includes literature/language, basic math, basic science, state and national history, speech/debate, music, art, and domestic duties including balancing a checkbook, changing a tire, and nutrition/how to cook. Males and females need the same courses. Domestic duty classes would include thorough sex education with a segment where kids have to carry a baby (doll) around 24-7. Dolls used for this teaching experience should be computerized to function as close to human behavior as possible including messy diapers, hunger, and crying. Birth control pills should be freely dispensed at school health clinics with or without parental permission.

Teacher salaries should be competitive with other professions requiring college degrees even in the most impoverished districts.

States which allow religious schools and home schooling should be required to regularly test home schooled and religious school students for the same course requirements as public schools students. Non-public school students who can’t pass the exams cannot receive a diploma. Repeated failure to pass exams would require the student to enter public schools. Public school students who fail to pass exams would be entered into a special unit of the school system and assessed for need of nutrition, mental health, and family problems, among other things, and individually tutored until learning improves. Vocational training for all trades should be available and affordable as should college.

Homeless Population

An estimated 25-30% of homeless people suffer mental illness. Yet few programs addressing homelessness provide for treatment. Often these individuals end up in local jails because they can’t take care of themselves and there are no longer facilities dedicated to treating them.

“…during the Reagan administration, Federal funding for such institutions was shut down so that our wealthy class could pay less in taxes, and that put many thousands of mentally ill people out on the street corner. We have done nothing since to remedy this. A compassionate nation would care for these unfortunate people, and provide the mental facilities to house them where they could get the help they need that their conditions require.”[1]

Most homeless programs exhaust their resources in simply trying to feed and shelter the homeless. Most of them fall short even of that. Successful efforts to address homelessness are based on meeting physical needs as well as mental health concerns. Addiction is another illness at the root of many homeless situations. Until systemic remedies are put into place, homelessness will continue to plague us.

The more successful programs for the homeless are centered in tiny home villages or converted industrial/commercial properties. As shopping malls have become less viable, some cities and nonprofits have converted these sprawling spaces to homeless housing. Facilities serving the homeless would offer food service, counseling, health care, and job training.

Taxes

Poverty levels should be adjusted annually to meet the real costs of housing, food, and transportation. Persons earning above poverty level should pay income taxes on a sliding scale. Income at some level, say above five million, should pay a very high rate, as much as 70% of income.

In addition to legalized ‘sin’ transactions (drugs, sex) that would generate significant tax revenues, churches should be taxed like any other business. Penalties and additional taxes should be assessed against any corporation or individual found to be hiding income in foreign countries. No tax shelters.

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-successful-homeless-program

What Democrats Did Wrong

Party leaders failed to see the long term need for younger, more vigorous candidates. The bulk of Biden’s term suffered from his shuffling gait, whispery voice, and apparent mental decline. Not that Trump is so much younger, but his demeanor as a bully conveys a message of strength. Sadly.

Dems also failed to foresee Biden’s inability to win a second term and consequently failed to hold a 2024 primary that would have introduced all best possible candidates. Call it allegiance to a venerable old warrior (Biden) or inability to break out of an established order of candidate precedence, or fear of the unknown, this lack of a so-called ‘fair’ fight in selecting a presidential candidate played a significant role in Harris’ defeat.

Sorry, but Kamala Harris was not popular in the 2020 primaries from which she withdrew for lack of funding. Built-in negatives aside from her mixed race and being female included her speech affectations which make her seem smug. One would think that the defeat of Hillary would have been lesson enough. For now, the fight is still between present day realities which are incomprehensible to conservatives and the “good old days” when men were ‘successful’ if they knew how to saddle a horse.

During Biden’s term, there was no apparent coherent approach to illegal immigration. This played into Harris’ weakness on this issue, which Biden appointed her to address. Whatever policy recommendations she made failed to make news cycles. As noted by the Washington Post, “Harris, in fact, has never been in charge of the border. The Department of Homeland Security manages migration. Her immigration role for the Biden administration has included boosting U.S. aid to Central America, traveling to the region and discouraging potential migrants from making the dangerous journey to the United States.” Be that as it may, if there had been a strong Biden policy on illegal immigration and prominent promotion of those policies, Trump wouldn’t have been able to make that topic a centerpiece of his campaign.

https://abc13.com/migrant-caravan-immigrations-and-customs-story-migrants/4690683/

Yes, boosting U.S. aid to Central America is foundational to stemming the tide, as Harris knew. Sadly, the fact is that coherent immigration policies addressing root causes aren’t enough to stop people seeking better opportunities for themselves and their children. If your children are starving and your home and livelihood are daily threatened by violent gangs rampaging through neighborhoods, you too would leave behind everything you’ve ever known and walk to the promised land.

THERE IS NO GOOD SOLUTION to illegal immigration. There is no fence high enough, or military/border guard personnel vast enough to make illegal entry impossible. As climate change advances, more and more populations will face starvation and violent domestic turmoil. The U.S. cannot take them all. No one can. This message must be made clear. Trump’s plan to deport millions WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM. This is whack-a-mole thinking.

Biden, in the seeming tradition of Democrats and, in the words of Michelle Obama, “went high” when the Republicans “went low.” But we’re dealing with primitive thinking where the hero bashes the villain over the head. With no head bashing, there’s no hero. The villain wins. It’s past time for the Democrats to develop more than one track and start bashing. To greatest possible extent, yes, don’t give up the vision of a better world—peace, love, good vibes. But we also must carry a big stick and when somebody needs to get bashed over the head, bash the son of a bitch. The Biden administration’s justice department took waaaay too long quibbling over how/when/why to prosecute Trump for his shocking illegal acts. He should never have been free to run for re-election.

Not that Biden or the justice department had control over local and state prosecutions, but the failure of appropriate federal action left the door open for Trump to escape from prosecution in lower courts, as is now obvious. It was the first Trump presidency which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court, and that will be the case again. His sponsors are playing the long game, moves that have been feverishly planned since at least the 1950s. The strategy is to whip up fear and hatred to drive conservative voters to the polls, desperate to buy God’s favor by forcing the entire nation into a theocracy. None of this matters to Trump, whose entire plan involves self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, and eluding justice.

True to their religious belief system, conservatives prefer government which regulates what the population does in their bedrooms and allows the business segment to run wild. The opposite is true for liberals, who believe what people do in their bedrooms is no one’s business and what the business community does can ONLY be regulated by government. Who else can force corporations not to dump industrial waste in our rivers? Ensure clean drinking water and safe food supplies? Mitigate the onslaught of pandemics? Enforce design and construction standards for roadways, bridges, and buildings?

These requirements of government are easily forgotten by a fearful, angry electorate who is not educated to understand these fundamental duties, an electorate even more distracted by a wannabe dictator whose success depends on agitating division with lies and false promises. This can only be effectively countered by an equally vociferous Democrat whose presence and actions meet the pseudo-strength of a candidate like Trump. Potential right-wing demagogues have the advantage of money flowing from a huge array of business interests. Liberals have only the People to carry on the framework for freedom established by the Founding Fathers:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Foundational to this vision was EDUCATION. Public education was not an afterthought of the American Revolution – it was a core ideal of our Founders. They maintained that a well-educated population was the only means of ensuring America’s future. The roots of taxpayer-funded public education in the United States can be traced back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1647. The colony passed a law that required towns to establish schools, made children attend school, and allowed the state to levy taxes to support schools. This traditional determination now stands at risk from religious forces who have managed to divert tax dollars into support for private, religious schools which often slant their programs to fit a religious agenda.[1]

Could Obama have warded off this SCOTUS situation with his nomination of Merrick Garland for the post by steamrolling the Senate?

It is in full accord with traditional notions of waiver to say that the Senate, having been given a reasonable opportunity to provide advice and consent to the president with respect to the [Supreme Court] nomination of [Judge Merrick] Garland, and having failed to do so, can fairly be deemed to have waived its right. Here’s how that would work. The president has nominated Garland and submitted his nomination to the Senate. The president should advise the Senate that he will deem its failure to act by a specified reasonable date in the future to constitute a deliberate waiver of the right to give advice and consent. What date?…90 days is a perfectly reasonable amount of time.

– Excerpt from an op-ed column in The Washington Post on April 10 by Washington, D.C., lawyer Gregory L. Diskant, who is in private practice and also serves as a member of the national governing board of the liberal advocacy group, Common Cause.

“The Appointments Clause [of Article II] clearly implies a power of the Senate to give advice on and, if it chooses to do so, to consent to a nomination, but it says nothing about how the Senate should go about exercising that power. The text of the Constitution thus leaves the Senate free to exercise that power however it sees fit. Throughout American history, the Senate has frequently – surely, thousands of times – exercised its power over nominations by declining to act on them.

– Excerpt from a commentary about the Diskant column by M. Edward Whalen, president of the conservative advocacy group, the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, published April 10 on the National Review Online’s Bench Memo.[2]

Equally appalling was the lack of foresight by none other than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who refused to retire during Obama’s presidency, which would have allowed another justice to step in on her coattails. Despite her excellent record and unfailing support for liberal causes, a bit of hubris caused her to cheat the future of a suitable replacement.

Democrats need to wake up! Making nice is not always the best course of action when we’re dealing with not only ignorant tyrants like Trump but also foreign bad actors with their thumbs on the scales.

[1] In June 2022, in Carson v. Makin, the high court held that when governments choose to subsidize private schools, they must allow such funds to pay for religious schools. A majority of current justices appear to believe that excluding religious groups from government programs is a violation of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Although court precedents prohibit direct funding of religion under the establishment clause, the current court could decide that if the state funds secular public charter schools, religious public charter schools cannot be excluded from such funding.  See https://www.freedomforum.org/government-fund-religious-schools/

[2] https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-could-obama-bypass-the-senate-on-garland-nomination

What Trump Will Bring

In the pending Trump presidency, there will be no support for Ukraine or Palestinians, and it will be the desperate people of those countries who suffer. That suffering will spill over, from Ukraine into more of Europe, from Palestinian lands into Lebanon and the broader Middle East. Trump’s buddy Vladimir Putin is thrilled. The wealth of Ukraine in natural resources and rich cropland will strengthen the weaknesses of Russia and move Putin closer to seeing his lifelong dream realized, the re-creation of the Soviet empire.

If Trump et al succeed in tearing down the U.S. Constitution and all we stand for, pretty soon the war will be on our land, in our towns and farmland. Communist nations like Russia, Iran, and China will simply walk in through the doors Trump is leaving open.

There will be no acknowledgement of climate change or its inevitable, already-apparent crises as insurance rates skyrocket in a futile effort to mitigate losses from flooding, storms, and other weather extremes. If we’re troubled by immigration now, wait a few more years of uncontrolled climate change when entire nations are unable to house or feed their populations due to floods or lack of agriculture. Do we shoot them at the border? Let them starve?

What would Jesus do?

Most telling will be the nosedive of our economy, not just in the four years of Trump’s legal term of office, but thereafter as his exploitation of U.S. oil reserves undermines our future energy independence. Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ cries ignore the wisdom of alternative energy. He is simply too stupid to understand why we should use anything but oil even though all known reserves will run out by 2070. Theoretically, we may never run out of oil because, given the depth of the Earth’s core, there will be new wells to discover. That said, it’s highly unlikely that the practice of mining such depths will become economically viable.

Trump’s second presidency will expand on his previous dismissal of health crises preparation which left us vulnerable to the COVID outbreak after he liquidated the pandemic preparedness established by previous presidents. What will happen with the next pandemic? Researchers say there’s as much as a 50 percent chance that we’ll see something like this again in the next twenty-five years. Trump’s lack of intellect leaves the entire nation unprepared.

Even more concerning is his ignorance of history, which allows him to pursue his fantasy of shifting civil service jobs to political appointments in direct violation of the United States Constitution. Traditionally, the civil service has been a sector of government that operates under a merit-based system to ensure that government jobs are filled by the most qualified individuals. This system protects civil servants from political influence and allows them to make independent decisions without fear of reprisal. The civil service is a key part of the constitutional framework because it helps to uphold the rule of law and ensure that the government is run by merit, not political affiliation. Trump’s affection for the idea of government work force composed of loyalists completely overturns this tradition.

Trump doesn’t care what happens in the future as long as he stays out of prison for his multitude of felonies. He doesn’t care about the lives of anyone besides himself. He’s eager to turn over the economy to people like Elon Musk, who acknowledges he is autistic, a condition marked by impaired social interactions, verbal and nonverbal communication deficits, and restricted, repetitive behavior patterns and associated with poor emotional control. To place the future of the U.S. economy in the hands of such a person means loss of critical social support for the weakest and neediest among us. Such suffering would not be a concern to Musk. Or Trump, who, when confronted with the disability of his nephew’s son, famously told his nephew ““Those people…” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

Similarly, Trump has nominated Robert Kennedy Jr. to head the U. S. departments in charge of public health including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration. But Kennedy has no science or medical background, other than claiming to have had worms in his brain. He also reported that at one point, mercury poisoning in his body reached ten times safe levels. Studies show that high exposure to mercury induces changes in the central nervous system, potentially resulting in irritability, fatigue, behavioral changes, tremors, headaches, hearing and cognitive loss, and dysarthria (a speech disorder that makes it difficult to speak due to issues with the muscles, nerves, or brain that control speech). Kennedy’s negative attitude about vaccines no doubt attracted voters who were petulantly annoyed by public health measures enforced during COVID like wearing masks and being vaccinated to prevent spread of the virus.

Perhaps the most immediately dangerous is Pete Hegseth, a FOX News commentator and host of “Fox & Friends” now nominated to be Secretary of Defense. An Army veteran of eight years, he plans a “frontal assault” to reform the Department of Defense from the top down, including by purging “woke” generals, limiting women from some combat roles, eliminating diversity goals and utilizing the ‘real threat of violence’ to reassert the United States as a global power.” (ABC News) He has called the United Nations a ‘farce’ and “giant joke’ and believes military action is the best plan to solve world problems. Aside from his warmongering ideas, he has advocated for the pardon of war criminals. He holds no sympathy for Palestinians and embraces Israelis as “God’s chosen people” with “Zionism and Americanism at the front lines of Western civilization.” (Wikipedia) His concept of “civilization” apparently follows the same moral codes as Trump. “Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009. He married his second wife, Samantha Deering, in 2010; they have three children. In August 2017, while still married to Deering, Hegseth had a daughter with Fox executive producer Jennifer Rauchet, with whom he was having an extramarital relationship. He and Deering divorced in August 2017. Hegseth and Rauchet, who has three young children from her first marriage, married in August 2019.” (Wiki)

Even if the new Republican majority in the Senate rejects one or more of these nominations, there’s little likelihood that Trump’s subsequent appointments would be any less unsuitable for government positions. He has already put extremist Stephen Miller in a position that will control immigration, our very own Joseph Goebbels, a German Nazi politician who was the chief propagandist for the Nazi Party and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. He was one of Adolf Hitler’s closest and most devoted followers, known for his deeply virulent antisemitism which was evident in his publicly voiced views. He advocated progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust.

Finally, there is the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as the head of our national intelligence agencies. As noted by news media, Gabbard’s record “reflects an alarming pattern of siding with Russia and other authoritarian regimes, raising questions about whether she should serve as America’s top-ranking intelligence official. Her selection has alarmed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, though most Republicans have refrained from public criticism. …[She] lacks deep intelligence experience and is seen as soft on Russia and Syria. …Among the risks, say current and former intelligence officials and independent experts, are that top advisers could feed the incoming Republican president a distorted view of global threats based on what they believe will please him and that foreign allies may be reluctant to share vital information.” (Reuters)

But Trump’s voters don’t care about such details. He was elected because he made promises to enact policies which reflect old prejudices and enshrine ignorance under an authoritarian ruler. Old habits don’t vanish simply because new opportunities are presented, not when those habits have been ingrained for tens of thousands of years. The brain wiring isn’t there. The ‘conservative’ clings to the past because it is familiar.

Not better.

Coming soon: What the Democrats Did Wrong

In the United States today, apparently…

https://carolbodensteiner.com/2014/01/13/what-did-rural-life-look-like-1910/

Progress came too fast for the evolutionary capabilities of humans. Suddenly, within one hundred years, men were expected to accept women as equals after millennia of their submission. Men were expected to adjust to working with their minds instead of their hands, their bodies eager and waiting for the first throw of the spear, the first clubbing of an enemy. The majority of men needed those physical triumphs to feel like man, and they still do.

A significant percentage of women still believe men are their superiors, the representative of their male god who tells them how to live in submission. It’s too much to expect that suddenly after only 100 years of having the right to vote and the right to contraception, women would universally embrace the responsibility of citizenship, of bodily autonomy.

Sadly, an official return to policies constructed of old fears and prejudices destroys people, most of whom have worked for decades—lifetimes—to ensure that Americans are able to pursue our personal needs and dreams, to become who we want and need to be despite centuries of repression and exploitation. Progress means making the world a better place where people don’t suffer from old hatreds and fears. Now women are losing the right to control what happens to their own bodies. Men and women risk losing their right to live and love as they are—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and more. Anyone who isn’t white need not exist.

While attempting to fling us backwards to a time without electricity, running water, or air conditioning, not to mention television, cell phones, and antibiotics, conservatives seem to think society could obtain all those things WITHOUT concurrent changes in social norms. That’s not how it works. Advances in technologies and sciences go hand in hand with social change. In a democratic society, education sufficient to produce people who invent cell phones also produces realization of our innate value as individuals—no matter what gender, skin color, or ethnic background.

Back in the ‘good ole days’ women made the cloth. “Heagerty family members demonstrating the steps needed to spin cotton, Cave Springs (Benton County), about 1900. From right: removing the seeds, carding the fibers, spinning the thread, and winding it on a reel.” Jerry Ritter Collection (S-2004-20-6)

Irony is when people vote for policies that are oppositional to their personal needs. Irony occurs when those voters cherish their cell phones while remaining ignorant of the high levels of education required for their invention or the vast technological network that serves them. Irony occurs when those voters flock to doctors to deal with cancer and other life-threatening conditions whose increasingly successful treatments come about at the hands of highly educated scientists who understand the cellular function of DNA and RNA, terms about which those voters are utterly ignorant. Undoubtedly, key figures in those fields are women and/or LBGTQ+.

It’s called shooting yourself in the foot.

Next: What Trump Will Bring