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Monday 13 February 2012

Michael Moore | A 75th Anniversary for the American Dream, a 25-Year Anniversary for Me
Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com: "On this day 25 years ago, in 1987, I became a filmmaker. It was around ten in the morning and the first-ever roll of Kodak 16mm film for my first-ever movie was loaded into my friend's camera to shoot the very first scene of 'Roger & Me.' I had no idea on that morning in Flint, Michigan what my life would be like after that, or what would happen to Flint, or to General Motors."
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Occupy Has Raised Class Consciousness: Now What?
Rose Aguilar, Truthout: "What's on the top of your demands list? ... First, we need to weaken the power of Wall Street with state banks, a more aggressive tax system that includes tax hikes on the rich, a financial transaction tax and a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.... Second, we need to focus on growing and strengthening Main Street with local food movements, local sustainable energy initiatives and worker-owned cooperatives."
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Missouri Will Balance Its Budget With Foreclosure Settlement Funds
Travis Waldron, ThinkProgress: "Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) announced that he would use the funds his state received from a $26 billion mortgage settlement ... to help balance the state's budget ... Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) and Attorney General Chris Koster (D) have pledged to put $40 million of the state's $196 million share of the settlement into the state's general fund to boost its higher education budget ..."
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Chris Hedges | Occupy Draws Strength From the Powerless
Chris Hedges, Truthdig: "There is a recipe for breaking popular movements. I watched it play out over five years in the war in El Salvador. I now see these familiar patterns in the assault against the Occupy movement.... How do we fight back? We do not have the tools or the wealth of the state. We cannot beat it at its own game."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Obama's New Budget Raises Taxes on Wealthy, Cuts Social Programs, and More
In today's On the News segment: Obama unveils his 2013 budget today, Athens is on fire after latest round of brutal austerity mandates, tens of thousands protested in Europe against multinational agreement on Internet property rights, and more.
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What I Learned in the Airport in Bahrain
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "... the monarchy in Bahrain can't have it both ways - open for business, but not open for observation.... Roll out the red carpet for the Americans who want to give you weapons, and the Americans who don't want you to shoot protesters are going to have their say as well."
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Dean Baker | Policy Follies in the Housing Market: The First-Time Homebuyers' Tax Credit
Dean Baker, Truthout: "What a credit like this can do is to cause people to move an intended home purchase forward. In other words, people who might have otherwise bought a home in the second half of 2010 or 2011 could be persuaded by an $8,000 credit to buy their home in 2009 or the first half of 2010. The result is that the demand for homes would be expected to plummet after the expiration of the tax credit. This is exactly what happened."
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The Plight of the Pregnant Worker
Dick Meister, San Francisco Bay Guardian Online: "... imagine a woman who, seven months pregnant, was fired from her job as a cashier because she needed a few extra bathroom breaks. That actually happened. So did the firing of a pregnant worker from her retail job after she gave her supervisors a doctor's note asking that she not be required to do any heavy lifting or climbing of ladders during the month-and-a-half before she went on maternity leave."
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Occupiers in Conservative Texas City Have Support of Mayor, Some Tea Partiers (Video)
William John Cox, Truthout: "Although protesters have been driven from their peaceful occupations of almost every location across the nation, including Wall Street, Los Angeles, UC Davis and Oakland, they have managed to hang on at a busy intersection across the street from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, one of the most conservative cities in the country."
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The 4- to 14-Year Old Window: Turning Children Into Evangelists in Public Schools
Katherine Stewart, Truthout and PublicAffairs: "When an after-school 'Bible study' program called the Good News Club showed up at the Santa Barbara public school where journalist Katherine Stewart sent her children, she decided to take a closer look at its sponsoring organization, the Child Evangelism Fellowship, and other groups like it. Stewart was surprised to learn that there is more religion in public education today than there has been in the past 100 years."
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*TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES*

There have been a few surveys over the years that reportedly conclude that many conservative voters, in general, have lower IQs than liberals.

This pattern most recently became a renewed topic of self-congratulation on progressive sites due to a recent Guardian UK column by progressive George Monbiot, which states, "It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalization but empirical fact."

But college-educated liberals who like to cast intellectual disdain on the right wing should be careful of falling into a trap. In a democracy, engagement in the debate of public policy is not limited to those who received the highest scores on their SAT tests. Whether or not the study that Monbiot references, or the others like it that have been released over the years, are valid, a democracy is open to all citizens: wealthy, middle class, men, women, black, white, educated and uneducated.

What may be at work here, however, is the issue of openness to new ideas and reason. Clearly, one thing distinguishing progressives from the populist right wing is their support of secularism over authoritarianism. While this split is not absolute (the Tea Party won't accept authority from a black president because they regard him as illegitimate based on race, but did accept authoritarianism from Bush and Cheney because they were white), it is, generally, a noteworthy distinction.

The right-wing mass of voters (as distinct from the money wing of the party made up of Wall Street and global corporations) believes, for the most part, in a hierarchical society - maybe due to a more limited sense of inquiry, maybe due to a yearning for psychological stability.

For the religious fundamentalists, for example, this plays out in women's subservient role to men as wives, and in a rejection of the sexual revolution. (Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and many other GOP politicians of religious bent represent this perspective.) Their acceptance of this way of life is due to a biblical "framing" of the world.

A new book, "Delirium: How the Sexual Counterrevolution Is Polarizing America," (recently discussed on Truthout) emphasizes that this religious outlook is extremely important in understanding the "social values" GOP voter. What could be more hierarchical than electing leaders who claim that God is providing them with their mandates?

In addition, when there is deep uncertainty and economic discomfort in the world, authoritarianism and the promise of "simple solutions" appeals to those who don't care or don't have the ability to think beyond immediate needs and self-identity (determined by categories such as race and religion). This explains why many poor or working-class whites (think Tea Party) support simplistic notions of public and economic policy and look to demagogues for narrow-minded leadership (think Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich, neither of whom are stupid, by the way).

Add to that the patriarchal and military reverence for authority of the South - which goes back to the Confederacy and a plantation-based society powered by slavery - and you have a pretty steroid-powered tilt toward authoritarian solutions among the right wing (which is pretty much the Republican Party, nowadays).

Not exclusive to the South, but certainly reaching its zenith there, is a simplistic allegiance to white Christian identity - and leaders who would use authoritarian means to preserve the rule of whites in the United States.

Secularism offers an opposite alternative. By its very nature of celebrating inquiry and diversity, however, it threatens those who find psychological reassurance in an authoritarian governmental-religious framework - and the "comfort" of white tribal "superiority."

Of course, being progressive, BuzzFlash at Truthout readily admits American politics are a lot more complicated than this basic dichotomy. There are many more nuances and uncertainties, an outlook that is itself anathema to those who embrace authoritarian and simplistic solutions at odds with the facts.

Mark Karlin
Editor BuzzFlash at Truthout

Paul Krugman on Severe Conservative Syndrome
Read the Article at The New York Times

Catholic Bishops Are Out of Rhythm With Catholic Women on Birth Control
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

America's Diplomatic War Against a Nicaraguan-Venezuelan Alliance
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Rick Santorum's Demeaning View of Women
Read the Article at The New York Times

Obama Administration Puts Pre-Election Breaks on Environmental Regulation
Read the Article at The Washington Post

Gingrich Claims Wealthy Liberals Riding New York City Subway Are a Sign of Moral Decline
Read the Article at Grist

Is the Masters-of-the-Universe Golden Age Over on Wall Street?
Read the Article at New York Magazine

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