Friday, February 27, 2009

The Obama Budget: A Return to Equality

by Doug Drenkow

Stoked by the changes going on in DC, I just had to share with you, below, a few excerpts from today's most-e-mailed article in the New York Times online. And remember: This isn't about "class warfare" -- even though that is what you'll continue to hear from those on the Right who, as the article reports, for some 30 years have been effectively looting the national treasury and all the other wealth created by the hard-working, anything-but-rich people of this great nation.

No, this is simply about restoring fairness and wisdom to our economic policies. Why, even the rich will ultimately be enriched if the poor and middle class have more money, since it is the "anything but ordinary" Americans (as Obama so wonderfully put it) who buy most of the goods and services sold by the companies the rich are invested in. There's a word for that phenomenon: It's called "progress."

Our nation, plundered by greed, will be restored by hard work and common sense. And I don't know anything more American than that.

A Bold Plan Sweeps Away Reagan Ideas

By David Leonhardt

The budget that President Obama proposed on Thursday is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters. ...

More than anything else, the proposals seek to reverse the rapid increase in economic inequality over the last 30 years. They do so first by rewriting the tax code and, over the longer term, by trying to solve some big causes of the middle-class income slowdown, like high medical costs and slowing educational
gains. ...

[T]he average post-tax income of the top 1 percent of households has jumped by roughly $1 million since 1979, adjusted for inflation, to $1.4 million. Pay for most families has risen only slightly faster than inflation.

Before becoming Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers liked
to tell a hypothetical story to distill the trend. The increase in inequality, Mr. Summers would say, meant that each family in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution was effectively sending a $10,000 check, every year, to the top 1 percent of earners. [emphasis mine]

Mr. Obama’s budget reflects that sensibility. Budget experts were still sorting through the details on Thursday, but it appeared that various tax cuts and credits aimed at the middle class and the poor would increase the take-home pay of the median household by roughly $800.

The tax increases on the top 1 percent, meanwhile, will most likely cost them $100,000 a year. ...

And if the economy remains weak into next year, as many forecasters expect, Congressional Republicans will try to pin the blame on the looming tax increases on the affluent.

It was Chris Matthews (or perhaps his likewise great MSNBC colleagues Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow) pointed out, can you even imagine a U.S. politician on the national scene, let alone in an address to a joint session of Congress, unabashedly calling for higher taxes on the wealthy even just a couple years ago?

It's horrific that it took a financial crisis that has us not just "on the brink" but actually going over -- The GDP shrunk by 6% last quarter! -- but finally it seems like some common sense has finally been pounded into the American psyche. 69% of the public thinks Obama's doing the right things on the economy; and after watching the Obama speech, over 80% think the economy will get better.

But like any wounded animal, the Right is now more dangerous than ever. And you and I know they are capable of anything to keep their power. However, what they don't seem to realize is that the people at large -- the everyday households whose consumption accounts for two-thirds of the GDP and whose votes put the hands on the levers of constitutional power -- are the real "powers that be" ... as long as we are properly informed and not misled.

And that is precisely why I am surely stoked by the events ongoing. We have an extraordinary leader in Mr. Obama -- Damn my slowness in finishing my Web site / portolio; I need to apply for a job with his administration! -- and in this economic crisis unlike any we've ever seen -- comparisons to the Great Depression may even be inadequate if things continue unabated -- eyes and minds are being opened, unlike I've ever witnessed before. As Obama says, we have great challenges but also a great opportunity to do a lot of good.

But just remember, it was 30 years of lower taxes on the rich -- and fewer regulations on their financial shenanigans -- that got us into this mess in the first place. The only thing that will get us out of it will be tax breaks targeted to and investments in the things that help the other 95% of the population. As the song says, This Land Is Your Land!


Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Wednesday, February 25, 2009

What Happened to the American Media?

by Sadbuttrue

Earlier today I was reading THIS POST at Ice Station Tango and it brought to mind a documentary I saw a couple of years ago on CBC's excellent news magazine The Fifth Estate. I couldn't remember what it was called, but it wasn't hard to find. It's called Sticks and Stones. In short, it's an examination of the 'left-wing bias' exhibited by the US media, focusing on FOX "news", Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter. I didn't know that it was available for viewing on line or I would have posted it long ago. Now that questions are being asked about the role of FAUX, CNN, and others in manipulating the American public into supporting policies that have damn near destroyed the country, it is not only still relevant, it is MORE relevant than ever. YOU MUST WATCH THIS!!

What happened to the American Media? After Nixon's demise, the right wing of the Republican party decided that they could no longer afford to allow the free dissemination of information to the US public. The simple solution? Have their friends buy up the major networks, newspaper chains and magazines, so they could be controlled from the top on the corporate level. The Left's Media Miscalculation was to stand by and watch them do it.
"The American Fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

-- Henry A. Wallace, Vice President to FDR, 1944 --
The Danger of American Fascism
Having wrested control over the channels of public information, they went on to remove any impediment to their injecting their poisons into the public dialogue. The first step was to get rid of the fairness doctrine.
Under FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler the FCC began to repeal parts of the Fairness Doctrine, announcing in 1985 that the doctrine hurt the public interest and violated the First Amendment.

In 1986 the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a loose interpretation by the FCC of an aspect of the Fairness Doctrine, ruling that Congress had "never made the doctrine a binding requirement." In August 1987, the Commission abolished the doctrine by a 4-0 vote, in its Syracuse Peace Council decision. The FCC insisted that the doctrine had grown to inhibit rather than enhance debate and suggested that, due to the many media voices in the marketplace at the time, the doctrine was perceived to be unconstitutional.

In the spring of 1987 Congress attempted to contest the FCC vote and restore the Doctrine (S. 742, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. (1987)), but the legislation was vetoed by President Reagan. Another attempt to resurrect the doctrine in 1991 ran out of steam when President George H.W. Bush threatened another veto. (Wikipedia)
The next step was to further remove any requirement that a "news" show tell the truth. FOX and a number of other "news" organizations took it to court in an elaborate and complicated case that began in 1996 with an investigative report into the effects of a Monsanto product given to dairy cows called BGH. Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson were reporters at FOX affiliate WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. They produced a story that, while true, was not exactly friendly to Monsanto.
"The station was initially very excited about the series. But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired."
A wrongful dismissal lawsuit was filed by Akre, which she won.The jury unanimously ruled that she was only doing her job as a journalist by refusing to air “a false, distorted or slanted story.” FOX appealed, and the result was stunning. "During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves."
On February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the settlement awarded to Akre. The Court held that Akre’s threat to report the station’s actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida’s whistle blower statute, because Florida’s whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted “law, rule, or regulation." In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a "law, rule, or regulation," it was simply a "policy." Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.
Well, not wanting to resort to such an obvious pun, I am unable to avoid it. 'It is up to the station' sounds to me way too much like putting the FOX in charge of the hen house. [insert groan here]

Having got the media under their control, and the law out of the way, the right wing media bandits were and are well equipped to launch whatever attack on the truth they pleased. Looks like they've done pretty well so far. This recent Glenn Greenwald piece is a case in point. Calls to Investigate Media's Pre-War Behavior - yeah, getting the country to agree to an unjustified, unnecessary, and extremely expensive war is, I would say, a pretty good shakedown of the system's effectiveness. Now they're probably trying to change the rules so that calling a tail a leg really makes it a leg. Then we'll really be in trouble.

Related Links:
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

-- Abraham Lincoln

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

-- Abraham Lincoln

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

-- Abraham Lincoln


Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Israel: Neocon Welfare State in Denial

by Omyma

Israel, America's sacred cow, can do no wrong. This creates a certain ethical difficulty, because Israel is in fact doing almost everything wrong.

If Our Sacred Cow needs money, the Treasury's coffers are always open, such as back in July 2008:

While almost all federally financed programs were denied any funding increase for the coming year, aid to Israel from the United States will increase thanks to a legislative loophole and some deft maneuvering by pro-Israel lobbyists.

Congress bypassed the normal appropriation process on June 26 when it approved a $170 million raise in military aid to Israel, as part of a larger supplemental spending bill. The increase contrasts with the standstill in budgeting for almost all other government programs.
In August of 2007,
Jerusalem and Washington signed an agreement that should direct $30 billion to Israel over 10 years.
Nancy Pelosi, for one, gave increased aid to Israel her foot on the gas pedal.

The first indication of the special maneuvers came at the annual conference of Aipac, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the podium.
“I don’t know if Harry or John Boehner told you this earlier,” Pelosi said in her June 4 address, referring to Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House Minority leader John Boehner, “but the first installment of this increase, $170 million, will be in the supplemental appropriation bill the House will consider soon, in fact, that we are considering now, so we can expedite this.”
It was no loopholes barred for Israel. And it is always that way.
On June 19, (2008), Aipac’s director of legislative policy and strategy briefed congressional staffers and explained the need for increasing foreign aid to Israel, stressing that the Jewish state’s expenses on security are higher than any other country in the industrialized world because of the threats it faces.

Bipartisan support for bypassing legislative hurdles was apparent in the June 27 Senate vote, which tallied 92 supporters and only six senators opposing the bill. Aid to Jordan and Mexico are the two other foreign military assistance items included in the bill.

The $170 million raise to Israel will bring the overall military funding to $2.38 billion — the highest of any such package.

The new aid to Israel is part of a larger deal which includes multi-billion-dollar arms deals with Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries, all aimed at strengthening nations seen as crucial in curbing Iran’s influence in the region. That package is an arms deal and does not require the appropriation of any funds.
The Gaza Operation alone cost about NIS 3 Billion, or about $722,705,186.19 in US funds. Yes, that's almost 723 million bucks! Your taxpayer dollars paying to slaughter an unarmed largely civilian population by a heavily-armed sophisticated military operation.

Oh, and every little attempt by Palestinians in their own defense - the horror! - against the Israeli war machine (and home-bulldozing operation), such as the Intifada, is used by Israel as part of their propaganda and lobbying program to obtain even more aid, especially military aid, from the U.S.
The Israeli treasury would prefer to raise money by taking advantage of the rest of the $9 billion in guarantees granted to Israel by the United States in 2003, during the second intifada.

That gave Israel the right to issue $9 billion worth of bonds on the U.S. market, repayment of which is guaranteed by Washington. American backing for the bonds means that the interest Israelis have to pay on the bonds is as low as possible - just a hair above the rates on comparable bond issues backed by the Federal Reserve. Israel has used only $4.4 billion of the guarantees. The last time the state issued bonds in the United States backed by the guarantees was in 2004.
Aside from that purely military package, aid to Israel is huge - "Annual U.S. Aid to Israel Is Double Entire United Nations Budget":
The annual $3.5 billion in U.S. grants and additional $2 billion in U.S. loan guarantees for Israel amount to more than $1,000 per Israeli . That helps explain why Israel's per capita gross domestic product now is somewhere between Spain's and Britain's, and far above anything recorded in the developing world. Yet no Western European country receives U.S. foreign aid, and no developing country receives anything remotely approaching total U.S. aid to Israel.
Another statistic puts the figure per Israeli more conservatively,
The $3 billion or so per year that Israel receives from the U.S. amounts to about $500 per Israeli.
Were one to crunch the numbers for Jewish Israelis, who mostly benefit from that aid, the number would be even higher. And note the above statistic is for direct aid, not including side benefits (which were accounted for in the higher stat).

Some in Congress, however, are reviewing this, a point not lost in Israel:
Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, visited Gaza last week with fellow Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and was struck by "the level of destruction, the scope of it, specifically the civilian targets - schools, hospitals, industry."

Baird also said Israel had "apparently willfully destroyed any capacity of the Palestinians to rebuild their own infrastructure."
Baird called for President Obama to re-evaluate U.S. aid to Israel. But is there even a chance of that? Senator John Kerry, who also visited Israel, has made no such re-evaluation calls. He is taking what has always been the U.S.'s No Questions Asked Stance when it comes to Israel. He strongly defended Israel's right to defend itself against the rocket attacks, affirmed that the U.S.'s stance against Hamas remains firmly unchanged, and put the onus of stopping the violence squarely on the head of Hamas - and by implication, the Gazans and the Palestinians.

Kerry represents the status quo, and those who dare to speak or even hint at any change in attitude towards Israel to something more, shall we say, critical, or requiring some kind of responsibility or accountability on the part of Israel... this is blasphemy. It's beyond unpatriotic. It's heresy. Israel is our sacred cow, our holy grail. It is not a nation, it's a cause. And the cause is Zionism.

Without going into what Zionism is or is not, or arguing about its merits or lack thereof, the net result is the creation of Israel as a welfare client of the United States. Without U.S. aid, Israel would be in deep trouble. Even its GDP is all tied up in that aid. In reviewing the figures below, bear in mind the huge difference in size between Israel and the United States. Israel's population is about 7,337,000, of whom about 5,542,000 are Jews. That latter statistic is important, because Arabs are second-class citizens in Israel, and U.S. aid is not really directed at them, and they are generally harassed by the government. Compare that with New York City, which has over 8 million people.

Ifamericansknew has some statistics on this, giving a total (for all time) conservative estimate on U.S. aid to Israel at about $114 Billion.
It must be emphasized that this analysis is a conservative, defensible accounting of U.S. direct aid to Israel, NOT of Israel’s cost to the U.S. or the American taxpayer, nor of the benefits to Israel of U.S. aid. The distinction is important, because the indirect or consequential costs suffered by the U.S. as a result of its blind support for Israel exceed by many times the substantial amount of direct aid to Israel. (See, for example, the late Thomas R. Stauffer’s article in the June 2003 Washington Report, “The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion.”)
A case can be made that among the "incidental" costs of U.S. support for Israel is in the Iraq War, which is considered in the Arab world to have been waged largely at Israel's behest, protests and explanations to the contrary notwithstanding. I personally think oil had something to do with it, not to mention Haliburton. But indeed Israel fits into the U.S. picture of power in the world, using Israel as a military "hitman", a perennial excuse and threat to weild against the Muslim and Arab world.

And there are still more "costs":
Among the real benefits to Israel that are not direct costs to the U.S. taxpayer are the early cash transfer of economic and military aid, in-country spending of a portion of military aid, and loan guarantees. The U.S. gives Israel all of its economic and military aid directly in cash during the first month of the fiscal year, with no accounting required of how the funds are used. Also, in contrast with other countries receiving military aid, who must purchase through the DOD, Israel deals directly with the U.S. companies, with no DOD review. Furthermore, Israel is allowed to spend 26.3 percent of each year’s military aid in Israel (no other recipient of U.S. military aid gets this benefit), which has resulted in an increasingly sophisticated Israeli defense industry. As a result, Israel has become a major world arms exporter; the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports that in 2006 Israel was the world’s ninth leading supplier of arms worldwide, earning $4.4 billion from defense sales.
In other words, the U.S. is subsidizing a substantial part of Israel's GDP. The tangled web of U.S.-Israeli financial relations is difficult to determine, since much of it is undocumented or intertwined with the secret, black Pentagon "budget". But the more you look, the more you wonder if the U.S. is really a government for the U.S. people or, perhaps, the Israeli people.
Before 1998, Israel received annually $1.8 billion in military grants and $1.2 billion in economic grants. Then, beginning in FY ‘99, the two countries agreed to reduce economic grants to Israel by $120 million and increase military grants by $60 million annually over 10 years. FY ’08 is the last year of that agreement, with military grants reaching $2.4 billion (reduced by an across-the-board rescission), and zero economic grants. Then, in August 2007, U.S. and Israeli officials signed a memorandum of understanding for a new 10-year, $30 billion aid package whereby FMF will gradually increase, beginning with $2.55 billion in FY ’09, and average $3 billion per year over the 10-year period.
That was Bush's gift to Israel - the creation of a permanent welfare state in the Middle East. What, they worry? No wonder they can mow down Palestinians with impunity. They're our little spoiled child. Or better yet, our little spoiled fetus. After all, they're still fighting for this arcane notion of "right to exist". Something like the right to life. Even though Israel is a recognized state with its own military, economy, government, etc., etc., yet their number one priority is always sucking from that umbilical cord. And the U.S. staunchly refuses to come to term, literally.

The right to exist, in fact, is not to be confused to recognition. Hamas has agreed to recognize Israel formally. It's the "right to exist" clause that they, and more moderate Palestinians refuse. Because it means the right to exist as a Jewish state. That gives them the right to expel thousands of Israeli Arabs now living in Israel. And this is not empty talk.

Here's what Yisrael Beiteinu said:
“We’ll move the border. We won’t have to pay for their [i.e. Israeli Palestinians'] unemployment, or health, or education. We won’t have to subsidise them any longer.”

“When there is a contradiction between democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and Zionist values are more important.”

“If it were up to me I would notify the Palestinian Authority that tomorrow at 10 in the morning we would bomb all their places of business in Ramallah.”
Israel is a nationalist state based on racism. That's especially sad in light of its inception being as a response to the Holocaust and the atrocities committed against the Jews. That such a nation, such a hope, should end up as a right-wing security state whose existence is based on race supremacy above all, subsidized heavily by the U.S., is something of which Israelis and Americans are both in a state of supreme denial.

Gaza woke some people up. But in Israel, politics is swinging even farther to the right. Patriotism, nationalism, militancy are everything in Israeli politics.

What about the Palestinians' rights? Well, it's not about human rights or cooperation or even peace. It's about power and money. It's a spoiled fetus who always gets its own way, protected by a nation now under stress of economic doom.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Right Wing 'Shock Doctrine', Idiocy and Evil Intentions Come Home to Roost

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Shortly before his death, the late Hunter Thompson wrote that '....the American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime'. He said that our prospects for the future were even worse. Indeed, we are poised on the brink of a financial collapse that may yet make the crash of '29 and the subsequent Great Depression look like a walks in the park.

The difference is that in 1929, the US still had industries and small farmers many of whom survived the depression very well. As youngster, I recall talking to some of these people and listening in awe. Some of them actually lived off the land like pioneers. For some, 'polk salad' was a staple. Others lived off ' 'Possum'. Still others waged war on the 'game warden' who might have prevented their living off the land. A great Uncle wrapped up a 'Game Warden' in a cow hide, hoisted him over a high limb in the Texas 'Big Thicket'. He left him there --swinging in the high branches. They were inventive, resourceful and ruthlessly determined to survive. The 'man' would not deprive them of a right to survive.

Thompson wrote that he was 'surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. As I have written on this blog, the US has exported its industries, primarily to China. We have Nixon and the Bushes to thank for that.

Even before the US entry into WWII, Adolph Hitler and his 'inner circle' often ridiculed American automobiles and highways --or lack thereof. Germany had the autobahn. Albert Speer, in his "Inside the Third Reich" recalled an auto 'trip' he took with Hitler. They were overtaken that evening by someone in an American made auto. The Nazis would not be outdone. As I recall, Hitler, himself, was behind the wheel in a Mercedes. In a burst of testesterone, Herr Hitler put his 'pedal to metal', overtook the American car and left it 'in the dust'. Speer recalls that they all had a good laugh. At our expense.
It could be argued that the way in which Thompson wrote a lot of his work is attributed to the New Journalism movement during the 1960's, led mainly by Tom Wolfe. New journalism aimed to revolutionize and break all the rules of traditional journalism, including features like writing as if you are inside the head of a character or documenting everyday events and details. Thompson has adopted many of the features that are deemed to be part of this movement, but he has made a positive contribution and a significant impact on it by taking these features to a new level and putting his own spin on them. Thus publicizing an original branch to this wave of new styles, although what he writes about is largely non-fiction he relies on satirical devices to drive his point's home.

--Hunter S. Thompson's World of Fear and Loathing
As Thompson pointed out:
Our highway system is crumbling, our police are crooked, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security, once the envy of the world, has been looted and neglected and destroyed by the same gang of ignorant greed-crazed bastards who brought us Vietnam...
Hitler and Goring must be laughing in their graves. The American GOP has achieved in the US almost everything Hitler might have dreamed about except the extermination of Jews, Gypsies other 'untermenschen'. The GOP with key and strategic Democratic sellouts here and there betrayed the people and subverted the Constitution

Thompson called 'disastrous' US defeats all over the world. The 'Gonzo' also predicted that the 'stock market' would never come back.

There were other 'harbingers', prophets warning of impending disasters. In his 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' of 2004, John Perkins gave us an insider's account the 'neo-colonist' exploitation of the Third World by what Perkins called a cabal of corporations, banks, and the US government.

It was done against the backdrop of 'economic hitmen' laughing it up, toasting the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom up that the world had ever seen. As a counter-point, Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine seemed to be working according to plan.


Naomi Klein: Shock Doctrine


The book and film argue that free market policies of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics rose to prominence in Chile under Pinochet, Russia under Yeltsin and in the US under George Bush. The Katrina disaster is the most recent example. The 'privatization of Iraq's economy' under the Coalition Provisional Authority was not popular and was not Democratic. The citizens of Iraq were, in fact, in a state of shock. The US even boasted of its campaign of 'Shock and Awe'. As I have written myself --short a revolution, we are fucked!

Two big factors have already made the US a THIRD WORLD nation

  • Reagan's tax cut of 1982 which began a trend in which wealth trickled up to the top one percent. The trend, reversed in Clinton's second term, resumed with Bush Jr. Today--as a direct result of unfair REGRESSIVE taxation --the nation's elite of about 1 percent of the populations owns MORE than about 90 percent of the rest of the population combined.
    Nearly three decades that Reaganomics has been allowed to survive, if not thrive, have been enough to allow the trickle-down theory to come to fruition. Unfortunately, it is debt -- and not wealth --that has been trickling [down].Reagan's economic target was to drown government in a cocktail of lowered government spending, deregulation and reduced tax rates. However, in order to shrink government to bathtub size, the role of private business had to expand to fill basic needs, which was totally fine with Republicans.
    But another consequence of Reaganomics, one that doesn't jive so much with traditional Republican values, is the reduction of states' powers. Local governments are beginning to see the real meaning of trickle-down economics: dwindling federal funds make it harder for states and cities to meet annual budget requirements. While the U.S. government can live on credit, many local budgets are required by law to be balanced. So the largest tax cuts to date were bound to trickle down to local governing structures, and now many governors and mayors are responding in an uncharacteristically Reaganistic fashion.
    Take Obama's home territory, for example. Chicago, under the firm grip of Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley, is deeply committed to privatization. Not because it's a popular idea, mind you, but because the city is desperate for funds.

    Still, they don't call it the Chicago school of economics for nothing.
    --Local and State Governments are Selling Off Public Property and Services
  • Deals cut by R. Nixon, Ronald Reagan primarily have resulted in the outsourcing of a) jobs; b) entire industries. As a result --the CIA lists the US as leading the entire world with by far the BIGGEST BALANCE OF TRADE DEFICIT! In stark terms, one is hard pressed to name a single industry in which the US still leads the world! Yet --we OWE the world for having picked up and carried our debt.

    The US simply cannot continue to survive as a nation, let alone a world power. And for all of this we owe the GOP for having been its architect and the Democratic party for having caved on crucial issues.

    Supply-side economics is not a 'hands off' policy at all. It is, in fact, an active, deliberate distribution of wealth upward to an increasingly tiny elite. It is pseudo-economics touted to justify big tax breaks for the upper ten percent of the nation's income recipients and wealth-holders. Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, called 'supply-side economics', a trojan horse advocated by what he called a 'noisy faction of Republicans'.

    If the US should slide off into another great depression, it will be because consumers of all classes and primarily the middle and lower classes do not have money to spend. Another great depression will result for two basic reasons:
    • the investor classes have exported their tax cut windfalls offshore causing net declines --not increases --in jobs;
    • The productive (working) class is taxed disproportionately, effectively robbing them of their purchasing power which alone drives the economy.
    It is easy to understand, then, why economies contract. A contracting economy is an economy that is in depression. GOP supply-siders have a stake in promoting the simplistic 'theory' that the great 'Stock Market Crash of 1929' was the primary cause of the Great Depression.

    As class warfare propaganda, this myth is matched only by 'supply side (trickle down) economics. Indeed, many believe that the crash of Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 is one and the same with the Great Depression. In fact, there were many causes for the Great Depression which was, in fact, the contraction of the money supply among those who were most likely to spend it.

    Nevertheless, the crash is significant. Stockholders lost more than $40 billion dollars within two months of the crash. The market had regained some of its losses by the end of 1930 --not enough to prevent the nation from entering the Great Depression.
  • Bank Failures

    More significant, is the fact that millions lost their 'savings'. People save in order to spend. It is spending that might have kept a viable economy afloat. In the 1930s, over 9,000 banks failed at a time when bank deposits were uninsured. Surviving banks stopped making new loans, reducing total amount of money in circulation. That's called a 'contraction'; the other word for 'contraction' is 'depression' as in 'Great Depression'. The same thing happened recently, when those favored by Reaganesque 'tax cuts' exported their monies to offshore tax havens. Another 'contraction' occurred! It is often called Reagan's recession. Others, recalling that it was the deepest, longest 'contraction' since Hoover's 'Great Depression' of the 30s will call it what it was in fact! Depression!

    As a result of the '29 crash, fears, and bad news, millions of all classes just stopped buying, leading to sharp reductions in production and jobs. As unemployment increased, people fell behind in their installment payments; homes and items were repossessed. Inventories increased, sat idle, and could not be sold. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose above 25%.

    American Economic Policy with Europe


  • As businesses failed, it was hoped that the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 would protect American companies. The act charged a high tax for imports causing a reduction in US-foreign trade.

    Drought Conditions.

    While not a direct cause of the Great Depression, the drought that occurred in the Mississippi Valley in 1930 was of such proportions that many could not pay their taxes or other debts. They were forced to sell their farms for no profit to themselves.

    This was the topic of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. GOP policies are clearly responsible for the income and wealth disparities that are at the root of every GOP recession/depression since 1900. Ronald Reagan's GOP tax cut of 1982 is the easiest target. Several points should be made about this improvident move. One --if 'tax cuts', the GOP panacea for every evil, were in any way effective against depression, then why did a depression of two years follow the Reagan tax cut?

    Instead of making peace with the GOP, the Democrats should have waged JIHAD! By bending over and taking it, by capitulating to the robber barons, the US has been sold down the river.

    It's all over folks. This US may not come back in our lifetimes.

    Saturday, February 21, 2009

    Why the GOP Remains a Threat to Democracy and World Peace

    by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

    I smell the sweat of a right wing focus group! Since when did the Heritage Foundation put its OK on the new meme: "...but the Democrats are just as bad as the GOP?" Oh yeah? If that's true, then rewind the time machine and vote for Sarah Palin! Or Dan Quayle! Would you support a doctor who advertises: I'm a quack and you may die of a heart attack -- but so is Dr Bob where you may die of cancer?

    It's time to take an objective look at GOP psychopathy which is the source and origin of the recent Bush administration. The GOP must be held responsible for catastrophic economic failures and a panoply of capital war crimes so huge that they may never be investigated and prosecuted.

    Democratic failures are failures of omission. GOP crimes are crimes of commission. The issue is not whether Dems are better but, certainly, they are different and different in ways that are identified by sociologists and psychologists. The new 'meme' is intended to blur the differences. If this meme is true, then the GOP has nothing else to recommend it; the electorate cannot even vote the lesser of two evils! In advertising, a leading product will distinguish itself from the wannabes. The wannabes on the other hand will try to blur the differences. Brand 'X' is just as good --or Brand 'A' is just as bad! The GOP message is merely: vote for us 'cause the Democrats are just as crooked!

    It's fact check time.

    The GOP are lying again. Democrats have never tried to rewrite the Constitution as did Bush, supported as he was by the GOP leadership and rank and file. Moreover, Democratic constituencies have never benefited from war as did the elite robber barons who make up the Military-Industrial Complex. The GOP is defined by its real and significant constituency i.e, the top one percent of the nation, owning some 90 percent or more of its total wealth. They are not now nor were they ever members of the Democratic party! Moreover, it was not Democratic policies nor Democratic regimes which brought out this result. It was --specifically --the regime of Ronald Reagan which enrich the rich by way of its infamous 'tax cut' of 1982.

    This elite does not care which party it tries to own or corrupt so long as they rule. The ruling elite does not care who takes their payoff money so long as they get a return on the investment! That the ruling elite has succeeded in 'acquiring' and thus owning the GOP is perhaps the most significant difference between Democrats and Republicans. If the Democrats had literally auctioned their 'souls', we would have a right to expect ol' scratch to have lived up to his side of the bargain.

    One is either a part of the solution or a part of the problem.

    The GOP 'way' requires regimentation and obeisance. They have an agenda: world domination and thus continued profits for the merchants of death, their lobbyists on K-street, and the 'think tanks' and focus groups who are tasked with trying to make the whole scam plausible.

    There is the problem of 'organization'. The GOP differs qualitatively from the Democratic party, a difference of structure which follows from the mindset. Numerous studies have identified several 'traits' that are statistically much higher among GOPs than Democrats. Those traits include psychopathy and authoritarianism. Will Rogers put it this way: 'I am not a member of any organized political party; I am a Democrat!"

    Independent, creative, constructive thinkers are by definition and inclination anathema to the GOP and the GOP to them! Will Rogers was right. Had he been wrong the Democratic party might have opposed the GOP more effectively. But doing so would have redefined the party and blurred the differences with the GOP. But I don't want GOP-lite! Clinton supporters called it 'triangulation'. I don't think the measly gains have been worth the Faustian bargain required to get them.

    John Dean's Conservatives Without Consciences, inspired by some very serious research, is must reading. Though he still claims to be Republican, Dean asserts that the conservative mind-set is characterized by the recurring qualities of 'the unbridled viciousness toward those daring to disagree with them' as well as by the big business favoritism that has cost taxpayers billions. Unless you are a member of the ruling 1 or 2 percent, those 'gains' have come out of your ass.

    It was a dirty job but someone had to do it.

    Even before Dean published, a Stanford University group had revealed its findings indicating that Republicans have more nightmares and night terrors than do Democrats. Nightmares are generally believed to be manifestations of deep-seated fears, insecurities and anxieties. We must put into that context remarks by Republicans at the GOP National Convention in Houston in 1992. "He made us feel good about ourselves!" They were quite right. Reagan, indeed, made them 'feel good' about being greedy, bigoted, selfish and self-centered, psychopaths.

    Deans's book is based upon other studies identifying 'authoritarian' characteristics of the 'conservative mindset', specifically Robert D. Hare's now-standard text on psychopaths, Without Conscience of 1993. As I have charged, this 'type' is challenged to make valid inference from premises. Observations by professional psychologists and psychiatrists have repeatedly confirmed my allegations that 'psychopathic' Republicans often work backward from a conclusion to a premise. This mentality may be expected to deny science, evolution, or pragmatic approaches of any type. This mentality may be expected to support a war of aggression against Iraq and for all the wrong reasons. This group will never admit its failures and it will justify worse atrocities to cover up past mistakes. It is a moral and psychological black hole.

    The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' description of antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders, for example, provides a diagnostic context for behaviors that Dean describes as belonging characteristic of "social dominants" and "double highs." Antisocials, for instance, "show little remorse for the consequences of their acts.... They may be indifferent to, or provide a superficial rationalization for, having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from someone (e.g., 'life's unfair,' 'losers deserve to lose,' or 'he had it coming anyway')... They may believe that everyone is out to 'help number one' and that one should stop at nothing to avoid being pushed around."

    These people exist as a class! Statistically, they are more often found in the GOP. They are attracted to the GOP --a group of like-minded 'psychopaths'.

    This ceased being guess work when Carl Jung --in his 'The Undiscovered Self' --wrote that about 30 percent of every population is certifiably psychopathic, utterly lacking empathy. 'Thirty percent' is about the size of the GOP 'base'. In Germany, Jung's 'thirty percent' became Nazis, in America --Republicans! Not coincidentally, the Republican Party rose to prominence in the US as the party of the so-called 'robber barons', almost all of whom were, arguably, authoritarians, believers in eugenics, white supremacy, and the 'White Man's Burden'.

    How many 'robber barons' were Democratic? Was J.P. Morgan or Rockefeller Democratic? Was Henry Ford --whose portrait hang in Hitler's office --Democratic? I don't think so.

    Evil is Banal; just ask a Republican

    Dr. Gustav Gilbert, tasked with keeping Nazi war criminals alive until they could be hanged, wrote of the nature of evil itself. Evil, he said, was the utter lack of empathy. Hannah Arendt said something similar: evil is banal. I submit that there is no party more banal than the GOP unless it was Nazis who perpetrated genocide with milky-faced bureaucrats, accountants, and pencil pushers. Their infamous 'meeting' at Wannsee was just 'business as usual', bureaucrats and lawyers trying to the loophole that would make legal acts of mass murder and genocide. More recently --during the Iraq war --it was the Bush administration that work mightily to make legal the crimes that it had already committed.

    The 'utter lack of empathy' is among the symptoms of psychosis and may be found in spades among those Republicans who cheered Bush's war of aggression against Iraq though Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 911. These 'psychopaths' --driving huge Humvees and SUVs --often said that a war against Iraq would result in the theft of Iraqi oil so that prices at the pump would decline.

    American industrialists were not inclined to turn down a quick buck. While Americans were at war with Hitler, the American corporate establishment was ideologically sympathetic to Hitler --his cause, his war aims, his partnership with big corporations like I.G. Farben, Thyssen, Krupp and other big corporations, including American companies, who financed Adolph Hitler. [See: Who Financed Adolf Hitler?]
    On December 20, 1922 the New York Times reported that automobile manufacturer Henry Ford was financing Adolph Hitler's nationalist and anti-Semitic movements in Munich. Simultaneously, the Berlin newspaper Berliner Tageblatt appealed to the American Ambassador in Berlin to investigate and halt Henry Ford's intervention into German domestic affairs. It was reported that Hitler's foreign backers had furnished a "spacious headquarters" with a "host of highly paid lieutenants and officials." Henry Ford's portrait was prominently displayed on the walls of Hitler's personal office:

    --Henry Ford and the Nazis

    Opposition to US involvement in World War II is most often linked to Charles Lindbergh.
    However, most AFC supporters were neither liberal, nor Socialist. Many simply wanted to stay out of the war. Since many also came from the Midwest, an area never as sensitive to European problems as the east coast, isolationist arguments was soon buttressed by more traditional prejudices against eastern industrial and banking interests. (Almost two-thirds of the Committee’s 850,000 registered supporters would eventually come from the Midwest, mostly from a radius of three hundred miles around Chicago.)[13] Many AFC supporters were certain industry and the banks wanted war for their own profit.[14] Many other supporters were Republicans who flocked to the AFC for partisan political reasons. [or treasons?] Still others were covertly pro-German. Some were German-Americans whose sentimental attachments had not been diminished by the crimes of the Nazi regime. Others, whether of German origin or not, were attracted to Hitler’s racism and anti-Semitism.

    --David Gordon, America First:the Anti-War Movement, Charles Lindbergh and the Second World War, 1940-1941, History Department, Bronx Community College / CUNY Graduate Center

    Ideologically, Bush and Lindbergh have much in common. It is no stretch to imagine this faction welcoming a Hitler victory in Europe, perhaps plotting a Nazi coup d'etat in the US had Hitler won in Europe. Certainly, Prescott Bush had planned a coup intended to overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictatorship. It would appear that where Prescott Bush failed, his idiot grandson succeeded. [See BBC: US Businessman (Prescott Bush) Planned Fascist Coup in US ]
    Lindbergh wanted Hitler to destroy the Soviet Union, and was willing to accept Nazi domination of Europe as the price.[118] His protests to the contrary are not convincing.[119] Long before most Committee members, he had come to believe the existence of the Soviet Union had made Hitler’s dictatorship necessary. The German invasion of Russia in June 1941 made the need to keep America out of the war greater than ever. As a result, the efforts of America Firsters to keep America neutral became more frenetic as German successes in Russia mounted, and Roosevelt’s efforts to enter the war increased.

    --David Gordon, America First:the Anti-War Movement, Charles Lindbergh and the Second World War, 1940-1941, History Department, Bronx Community College / CUNY Graduate Center

    Lindbergh opposed US entry into WWII for the same reasons the Bush family continued to do business with Hitler and the Nazis' after war had begun. The Bush family were Hitler's trading partners. The Bush family were traitors.
    The debate over Prescott Bush's behavior has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

    ...

    Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.

    The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen.

    The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized. --

    British Guardian: How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

    By now it is common knowledge, verified in the public record, that in October of 1942, Prescott Bush was accused of "Running Nazi front groups in the United States". He was charged under the Trading With the Enemy Act as the US government shut down the operations at New York's Union Banking Corporation.

    Bush's actions might have been considered high treason. They are interesting by virtue of the myriad connections about what is commonly referred to as the "Bush Crime Family" and partners --Avril Harriman, the Rockefellers, Allen Dulles, James Baker III, Gulf Oil, Pennzoil, and ominously, Osama bin Laden. The connections are labyrinthine, involving a host of corporate connections, high ranking Nazis, the CIA and Allen Dulles.

    More recently, we have learned of yet more Bush family treasons: Prescott Bush, the "President's" grandfather, was involved in a fascist coup attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.
    The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

    --William Bowles, The Bush Family Saga

    Now that the cat is out of the bag, Bush apologists would have you believe that the Bush/Nazi nexus is long over. Not so! Documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress confirm that the Bush family continued 'Nazi' dealings well into 1951. GWB's grandfather, Prescott Bush and his 'Nazi' colleagues --a 'secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures' --routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

    This web including former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and younger brother, E. Roland Harriman and the New York private banking firm of Brown Brothers Harriman, presided over a 'quarter-century [1924-1951] of Nazi financial transactions. These activities included a financial relationship with the German city of Hanover and several industrial concerns. They went undetected by investigators until after World War Two.

    The sub-plot is equally interesting. Allen Dulles found a 'young Naval Officer' who was in charge of captured Nazi documents that would have revealed Dulles to have been a traitor to the United States. The 'young Naval officer' eagerly sold out, agreeing to bury the documents if Dulles would finance the young man’s first political campaign. The 'young Naval officer' was Richard Nixon.

    By contrast, people attracted to the Democratic party are not attracted to the GOP for these very reasons. As a rule, 'authoritarian' types are not interested in joining the Democratic party, attracted as they are to a party that more nearly embraces 'German discipline'.

    The 'mentality' which became Nazi in Germany became Republican in America

    Psychopaths prefer to be told what to think. I am telling them to shut the fuck up. In both the Nazi party and now, in the GOP, they are told from the top what to think, how to think and how to 'spin' it.

    If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it's a duck. Bush's criminal and unconstitutional assault on the Bill of Rights as much as the well-planned campaign of frauds intended to justify the attack and invasion of Iraq 'swims like a duck'. It is traced to identifiable 'conservative mindsets' as they have been identified by eminent psychologists. Psychologist Bob Altermeyer calls these people RWA, or Right Wing Authoritarians.

    Dean's 'Conservatives Without Consciences', cites the work of Bob Altemeyer who sums up his own work accurately and wittily in The Authoritarians.

    'Authoritarians' are submissive to authority as were Hitler's Nazi minions but they are, like Adolph Hitler and George W. Bush, tyrannical when they are themselves in power or positions of 'authority'. This mentality is most surely the origin of the Nazi war criminal defense: "But ve vere only folloving orters!"
    With eagerly subservient Republican majorities controlling both houses of Congress, Bush and his vice-president could do anything they wanted. And so they did. Greed ruled, the rich got big, big tax cuts, the environment took one body blow [190] after another, religious opinions decided scientific issues, the country went to war, and so on. Bush and his allies had the political and military power to impose their will at home and abroad, it seemed, and they most decidedly used it.

    A stunning, and widely overlooked example of the arrogance that followed streaked across the sky in 2002 when the administration refused to sign onto the International Criminal Court. This court was established by over a hundred nations, including virtually all of the United States’ allies, to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and so on when the country for whom they acted would not or could not do the prosecuting itself. It is a 'court of last resort” in the human race’s defense against brutality.

    Why on earth would the United States, as one of the conveners of the Nuremberg Trials and conceivers of the charge, 'crimes against humanity,” want nothing to do with this agreement? The motivation did not become clear until later. But not only did America refuse to ratify the treaty, in 2002 Congress passed an act that allowed the United States to punish nations that did join in the international effort to prosecute the worst crimes anyone could commit! Talk about throwing your weight around, and in a way that insulted almost every friend you had on the planet.

    But the social dominators classically overreached. Using military power in Iraq to 'get Saddam” produced, not a shining democracy, but a lot of dead Americans, at least fifty times as many dead Iraqis, and the predicted civil war. The 'war on terrorism” backfired considerably, as enraged Muslims around the world, with little or no connection to al Qaeda, formed their own 'home-grown” terrorist cells bent on suicide attacks--especially after news of American atrocities in Iraq raced around the globe. Occupying Iraq tied down most of America’s mobile ground forces, preventing their use against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan which had supported the 9/11 attacks, and making American troops easy targets in the kind of guerilla warfare that produces revenge-driven massacres within even elite units.

    --Bob Altemyer, The Authoritarians
    Both Altemeyer and Dean are confirmed in their opinions of the state of the American conservative movement by 'conservative' criticism leveled at them. It is characterized by fallacious appeals to authority and orthodoxy --tactics that are observed to be rampant throughout 'conservative' politics.
    Their [Altermeyer, Dean] work does not appear to have earned widespread acceptance among academic psychologists. No matter: in Dean’s mind, as he spends the bulk of Conservatives Without Conscience arguing, the theory of the authoritarian personality establishes the malevolence of conservatives as scientific fact.
    Dean, of course, speaks from the 'experience' of having been a 'Goldwater Conservative'. I speak from the experience of having interviewed numerous 'conservatives' and, in the process collecting a series of 'self-reinforcing' rationalizations.
    Is it true, for example, that 'Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us”? Maybe Altemeyer thinks that anyone who answers 'yes” pines for a charismatic nationalist leader a la—who else? Adolf Hitler. But, in fact, any effective political leader could fit the description. In the civil-rights era, for example, did not our country 'desperately need' (to rectify injustice) a 'mighty leader” (he certainly had a large following) such as the sainted Martin Luther King Jr. who was willing to 'do what it takes” (organize marches and boycotts) to 'stamp out” (end) 'sinfulness” (segregation) and 'radical new ways” (racist backlash)? Logical consistency would compel nearly everyone to agree with the statement, no matter how provocatively phrased. If it turns out that only conservatives say that they agree, this shows only that conservatives understand the meaning of words.

    --Conformity Without Conscience, The American Conservative
    The 'refutation' misses the point that 'conservatives' --statistically --will never recognize any other condition. In other words, any status quo --especially those caused by the conservative mindset itself--will always be seen by the RWA as requiring a strong leader. Nothing is proven. The 'conservative' mindset just repeats a faulty premise or, worse, mistakes a pre-conceived notion for one. The conservative mindset may never notice or grasp the significance of evidence that the 'mindset' itself and policies issuing it from it are the cause of the status quo cited to justify war, torture, or even atrocities. This is most certainly the case with 'terrorism' cited to justify wars of aggression and torture which are themselves the root cause of 'terrorism'. You have thus entered the circular, self-reinforced world of GOP delusion! [See: Terrorism is worse under GOP regimes]

    Typically, as predicted by Altemeyer, his studies are dismissed not because they are objectively flawed but because they do not conform to pre-conceived, conservative models of the world.

    It does not follow that because Martin Luther King Jr may have been a 'great leader' that he was, therefore, 'authoritarian'. It is interesting that the example of Ghandi was not cited by the conservative authors whose assumptions are predictable and self-reinforcing: that no one but 'authoritarian conservatives' may be great leaders. Conservative logic argues as follows: Martin Luther King was a great leader. Therefore, he must have been an 'authoritarian conservative'. In the GOP/conservative bizarro world, houses precede their foundations, conclusions precede their premises. Welcome to Alice in Wonderland!

    That, of course, brings me to yet another symptom to be found in abundance among members of the Bush regime and his many supporters throughout the GOP: delusions! Delusions are typically associated with 'psychoses' --schizophrenia, global psychopathology. I am inclined to assign Bush and his supporters into one of two camps: those who are truly 'delusional' and those who exploit delusions for political gain, i.e, those who know better but tell the lies anyway knowing that they will be eagerly lapped up by those whose belief in them is irrational and symptomatic. The GOP thus feeds upon its own insanity.

    Yet another category are those 'Republicans' who may know better but for emotional reasons chose to support Bush. It was Republicans of this sort who supported the disastrous economic policies of Ronald Reagan, 'trickle down' theory, in particular, because it made them 'feel good about themselves'. The tax cuts, they willfully believed, would not merely make them even richer but monies not paid in taxes would somehow 'trickle down' and assuage them of the guilt they might have felt about being petty, greedy, intellectually dishonest members of a self-absorbed and 'psychopathic' elite of 'Right Wing Authoritarians'.
    The last string of studies I want to lay before you ... concerns authoritarians’ willingness to hold officials accountable for their misdeeds. Or rather, their lack of willingness--which catches your eye because high RWAs generally favor punishing the bejabbers out of misdoers. But they proved less likely than most people to punish a police officer who beat up a handcuffed demonstrator, or a chief of detectives who assaulted an accused child molester being held in jail, or--paralleling the trial of US Army Lt. William Calley--an Air Force officer convicted of murder after leading unauthorized raids on Vietnamese villages.

    ...

    If some day George W. Bush is indicted for authorizing torture, you can bet your bottom dollar the high RWAs will howl to the heavens in protest. It won’t matter how extensive the torture was, how cruel and sickening it was, how many years it went on, how many prisoners died, how devious Bush was in trying to evade America’s laws and traditional stand against torture, or how many treaties the US
    broke. Such an indictment would grind right up against the core of authoritarian followers, and they won’t have it. Maybe they’ll even say, 'The president was busy running the war. He didn’t really know. It was all done by Rumsfeld and others.”

    --Altermeyer, op cit
    Applying standards inequitably must surely stem from the observed inability of 'conservatives' to think logically. 'Conservatives' work backward from conclusions, in a biased search for supporting premises. Dick Cheney is a text-book example! He recently quashed facts not liked by the conservative 'authoritarian' in power; he moved to quash a report that supports the critics of the Bush administration with regard to the greenhouse effect.
    "This is the story of a White House and vice president's office that work together to squelch information, to squash it, to stop it from getting to the public so that there would be no information out there, so that there wouldn't be a push for them to act," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who appeared with Burnett at a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Boxer accused White House Press Secretary Dana Perino of lying about the redaction of Gerberding's testimony and engaging in a cover-up.

    --Cheney Wanted Cuts in Climate Change Testimony, Boxer Claims Cover-Up, ABC News
    It is in this mindset that we find the origins of the GOP attack on the Bill of Rights.

    Altermeyer believes that conservatives have a problem with 'evidence' in general. This is an issue that seems especially relevant to the debate about 'torture', a debate in which the 'conservative' defense of Bush is flatly indefensible.
    Authoritarian followers aren’t going to question, they’re going to parrot. After all, in the ethnocentric mind 'We are the Good Guys and our opponents are abominations”--which is precisely the thinking of the Islamic authoritarian followers who become suicide bombers in Iraq. And if we turn out not to be such good guys, as news of massacres and the torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, by the CIA, and by the arms-length 'companies” set up to torture prisoners becomes known, authoritarian followers simply don’t want to know. It was just a few, lower level 'bad apples.” Didn’t the president say he was sickened by the revelations of torture, and all American wrong-doers would be punished?

    ...

    Sitting in the jury room of the Port Angeles, Washington court house in 1989, Mary Wegmann might have felt she had suddenly been transferred to a parallel 76 universe in some Twilight Zone story. For certain fellow-jury members seemed to have attended a different trial than the one she had just witnessed. They could not remember some pieces of evidence, they invented evidence that did not exist, and they steadily made erroneous inferences from the material that everyone could agree on. Encountering my research as she was later developing her Ph.D. dissertation project, she suspected the people who 'got it wrong” had been mainly high RWAs. So she recruited a sample of adults from the Clallam County jury list, and a group of students from Peninsula College and gave them various memory and inference tests. For example, they listened to a tape of two lawyers debating a school segregation case on a McNeil/Lehrer News Hour program. Wegmann found High RWAs indeed had more trouble remembering details of the material they’d encountered, and they made more incorrect inferences on a reasoning test than others usually did. Overall, the authoritarians had lots of trouble simply thinking straight.

    Intrigued, I gave the inferences test that Mary Wegmann had used to two large samples of students at my university. In both studies high RWAs went down in flames more than others did. They particularly had trouble figuring out that an inference or deduction was wrong. To illustrate, suppose they had gotten the following syllogism:
    All fish live in the sea.
    Sharks live in the sea..
    Therefore, sharks are fish.
    The conclusion does not follow, but high RWAs would be more likely to say the reasoning is correct than most people would. If you ask them why it seems right, they would likely tell you, 'Because sharks are fish.” In other words, they thought the reasoning was sound because they agreed with the last statement. If the conclusion is right, they figure, then the reasoning must have been right. Or to put it another way, they don’t 'get it” that the reasoning matters--especially on a reasoning test.

    Authoritarians do not 'infer' well; in other words, as a class, they lack critical thinking skills, logic! They are often fail to execute simple syllogisms.
    A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".

    As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

    All of them "preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality".

    Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

    The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

    "This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.

    One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

    The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false".

    Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study "is not critical of conservatives at all". "The variables we talk about are general human dimensions," he said. "These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal."

    --Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
    We should teach people while they are still in school real critical thinking skills! Now --that would shake up the political landscape and blast holes in the 'conventional wisdom'. It would also put more than a few loudmouths, pundits, and poll-impaired consultants out of a job! Somehow --the message must be made clear even to conservatives, in language that even they must understand: torture is not OK! EVER! It is immoral and it is a war crime! Bush is culpable and should be prosecuted.

    A new poll of citizens’ attitudes about torture in 19 nations finds Americans among the most accepting of the practice. Although a slight majority say torture should be universally prohibited, 44 percent think torture of terrorist suspects should be allowed, and more than one in 10 think torture should generally be allowed.

    The findings of the WorldPublicOpinion.org poll put the United States alongside countries like Russia, Egypt and the Ukraine and lagging far behind allies like Great Britain, Spain and France in how its citizens view torture.

    The poll found 53 percent of Americans believed all torture should be prohibited; the average in all 19 countries polled was 57 percent. Poll: 44% of Americans favor torture for terrorist suspects

    --Nick Juliano, Tuesday, 24 June 2008, Majority disapprove of torture, 1 in 10 favor in any instance

    Ronald Reagan must be forever remembered as a feeble minded 'psychopath' who made an entire 'party' of psychopaths feel good about themselves thus relieving them of something that both the GOP rank and file and 'psychopaths' in general find oppressing: responsibility. The GOP raison d'etre is that of escaping responsibility, though it is only through the acceptance of responsibility for one's own actions that one is free. In this context, it is easy to understand the GOPs fascination with authoritarian and fascist-leaning regimes. When a dictator is in charge, the individual is relieved of all responsibility for his life and others. But neither is he free!
    PRINCETON, NJ -- There is a significant political divide in beliefs about the origin of human beings, with 60% of Republicans saying humans were created in their present form by God 10,000 years ago, a belief shared by only 40% of independents and 38% of Democrats.

    Gallup has been asking this three-part question about the origin of humans since 1982. Perhaps surprisingly to some, the results for the broad sample of adult Americans show very little change over the years.

    Between 43% and 47% of Americans have agreed during this 26-year time period with the creationist view that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so. Between 35% and 40% have agreed with the alternative explanation that humans evolved, but with God guiding the process, while 9% to 14% have chosen a pure secularist evolution perspective that humans evolved with no guidance by God.

    The significantly higher percentage of Republicans who select the creationist view reflects in part the strong relationship between religion and views on the origin of humans. Republicans are significantly more likely to attend church weekly than are others, and Americans who attend church weekly are highly likely to select the creationist alternative for the origin of humans.

    Implications

    Although it is not a front-burner issue (particularly in light of the economy and the price of gasoline) the issue of teaching evolution in schools came up on the campaign trail last year, and could resurface in one way or the other between now and the November election.

    Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain is facing the challenge of gaining the confidence and enthusiasm of conservative Republicans. Turnout among this group could be an important factor in determining the final vote outcome in a number of key swing states. As seen here, Republicans are in general sympathetic to the creationist explanation of the origin of humans, and if the issue of what is taught in schools relating to evolution and creationism surfaces as a campaign issue, McCain's response could turn out to be quite important.

    Survey Methods

    Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,017 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted May 8-11, 2008. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

    Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

    In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
    I prefer facts to frames, verifiable data to punditry, reality to myth making and slick, focus group approved propaganda. Jacob Bronowski summed it all up very well in a single sentence: behave in such a way that what is true may be verified to be so!



    Mel Brooks - The Hitler Rap

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    Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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