Orwellian: NSA Can't Say If It Spies On You Because It Would Violate Your Privacy

06.21.12 - 11:02 AM

Orwellian: NSA Can't Say If It Spies On You Because It Would Violate Your Privacy

by Abby Zimet

Surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won’t tell two members of the Senate’s intelligence oversight committee how many Americans' emails and phone calls they're poking into without a warrant as part of its sweeping counterterrorism powers because such a review "would itself violate the privacy of U.S. persons” - and besides, figuring that out is “beyond the capacity” of the NSA. Think Orwell's doublethiink.

"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

AlterNet.org

AlterNet / By George Bauer

Why America's Extreme Politics Will Likely Get Even Worse

A convergence of term limits, redistricting, ideology and inexperience in Congress and state legislatures will result in even more partisan gridlock.

June 19, 2012  |  

 

 

 

Just when you thought political incivility and partisan gridlock couldn’t get any worse, get ready for more of the same or worse next year.

In state capitals, the triple-impact of term limits, 2010's political swing to the Tea Party right and the scourge of redistricting are poised to take a devastating toll, leaving state legislatures filled with the largest class of inexperienced ideological lawmakers in years. Nationwide, one-half or more are projected to have less than two years experience.

Moreover, as lawmakers are forced to step away from their severe campaign rhetoric and start governing, many will turn to the people with the longest institutional memories: lobbyists who are aligned with their partisan viewpoints.

Lost in this scenario, which has been discussed in magazines and Web sites catering to state legislators, is the art of compromise to serve the public.   

 

"The biggest thing over the years has been the change in statesmanship," Colorado legislator-turned-lobbyist Gayle Berry recently told the Denver Post. "Some of the lawmakers who had worked with governors in a different party worked in a more bipartisan manner."

 

​Berry should know: she's a former Republican state representative.

 

Redistricting's Shadow

 

Perhaps the greatest negative impact comes from redistricting.

 

Everybody knows the GOP, led by Tea Party activists in many states, swept 2010's federal and state elections. Control of the U.S. House went to right-wing Republicans and ideologues such as Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Florida's Rick Scott were elected governor. Another result of that sweep was the GOP taking control of the once-a-decade redistricting process, where state legislative and federal congressional district lines are drawn.

 

“They could rig the game in their favor, and have already drawn seats to their advantage in what were once traditionally competitive states," said Shira Toeplitz, who covers redistricting and political campaigns for Roll Call.

 

“Democrats chose a bad cycle to get wiped out,” said Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. “You just don’t want to get wiped out in an election year ending in a zero because of the implications for redistricting.”

 

In state-after-state, GOP lawmakers carved out new and oddly shaped Congressional and state legislative districts to bolster Republican candidates' chances. These steps deepened the partisan gains and divisions in many state legislatures and their congressional delegations. 

 

Some of the partisan gerrymandering was “downright ugly,” Toeplitz said. The Republicans were particularly effective in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, Gonzales said. 

 

“I’m not optimistic we’re going to see a well-oiled government moving into high speed in 2013,” Gonzales predicted. The GOP's line-drawers dominated the process in Texas and Florida, Gonzales added. 

 

These five states will play outsized big roles in the 2012 federal elections.

 

Of course, Democrats were successful in redrawing district lines in a few states, such as in Illinois, said Tim Storey, the National Conference of State Legislatures' (NCSL) redistricting and elections analyst. “Illinois may have been the most controversial redistricting of the cycle," Toeplitz said, "except perhaps for the Republican redraw in Texas which went all the way to the Department of Justice.” (Those districts are being contested in federal court.) 

 

The November general election will produce eyebrow-raising results. The average turnover rate in even-year elections is 17-19 percent, NCSL's Storey said. That spiked two years ago at 24 percent. “It was a wave election, it swept in Republicans in historically high numbers to state legislatures, and we anticipate that we’ll have a 25 percent turnover rate this time,” he said.

 

What’s even more frightening: Approximately half of all state legislators will have served for two years or less when the 2013 sessions convene. Along with that, he says 15 states have term-limit laws in place. 

 

The bottom line is an alarming bunch of fresh faces, fresh from ideology driven campaigns, will be sworn in to govern. In Florida, one in four state lawmakers will be freshmen next January. One-third of Colorado legislators will be rookies. And in California, analysts say up to 50 percent of state legislators could be first-timers.

 

And what do Americans get out of all this?

 

Rise of Ideology, Loss of Governing Skills

 

The experts say ideological newcomers will storm into state capitols or up Washington's Capitol Hill steps with an agenda. They are often less willing to compromise, while at the same time, will spend a great deal of time just learning how to play the game. Then they get angry when little or nothing of what they promised is accomplished. 

 

“Some Republican members were surprised after being elected in 2010 about how difficult it is to get things done in Washington,” said Gonzalez. But he sees no indication that conditions will change in DC next year. 

 

“Even if you have Republicans in control of the House, the Senate and the White House, Republicans will still have difficulty because you will have a crop of Tea Party-influenced candidates who will be pushing the envelope even further than a President Romney might want,” he said, speculating on the worst-case scenario for Democrats.

 

On the state level, newly elected legislators push their own agendas more vigorously whether they are on the right or the left, Storey said, because they don’t know how long they’ll be around.

 

The longer legislators work together, there’s less likelihood one party's members will try to undermine the other or refuse to work together. But under term limits and the New World Order of extremely partisan politics and redistricting, that is unlikely to happen now or next year. Political partnerships dissolve, leaving only room for inaction.

 

Gonzales says he’s seen growing evidence of an ominous new trend: When lawmakers of one party try to work with those on the other side or compromise on legislation, those same politicians are threatened with a challenge from the extremes in the next primary. 

 

The last two years in Congress have shown that lawmakers are “less willing to compromise, certainly on the House side,” Toeplitz said. 

 

The animosity has spread to the 50 statehouses and the 7,382 people who serve in the houses and senates there. “Legislators are frustrated by the hyper-polarized world in a number of states,” Storey said. “They work hard for very little compensation, they really believe they can make a difference and when things don’t go well, they decide it’s not worth staying around.”

 

If lawmakers are upset, so are the people who send them to do the public’s business. 

 

“A lot of voters are frustrated by the partisan gridlock in Washington and redistricting is not going to improve that by any means,” Toeplitz said. 

 

And uncertain economic times heightens partisan differences, Gonzales said. 

 

“Economic uncertainty causes more volatility and people are unsure about the direction of the country now, so we are experiencing these wild swings,” he said. “Because of the volatility, political parties feel more pressure from their base and are less willing to compromise.” 

 

That dynamic won’t change until Americans are more satisfied with their lives and the country’s condition, Gonzales said.

 

Lobbyists' Influence Will Grow

 

When all the factors are taken together, the legislative “field” becomes fertile ground for lobbyists, these experts have noted. 

 

Term limits and redistricting reduce the number of legislative veterans but the lobbyists remain. They know how the system works and they can exert more influence on newcomers, who are still trying to find their way. 

 

The hardcore positions taken at both the state and federal levels may mean more of the same vitriol in the months ahead on tax policy, immigration, funding for public schools, the future of health care, and what to do with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

 

But lawmakers now embroiled in ideological and partisan bickering might heed what’s been happening in Oregon. 

 

“The House there has an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, it has co-speakers -- one Republican, one Democrat -- and committee co-chairs,” Storey said. “They say they’ve had a very productive legislative biennium. They worked well together because they were forced to do that.”

 

Gonzales said he has been thinking a lot about what conditions lead to responsive governing.  

 

“Do we need the institutional knowledge or do we need fresh faces?” he pondered. “I think the answer is yes [both].. because there has to be a mix of people who know how government works and new people who bring a fresh perspective.”

 

If only the hardcore, take-no-prisoners politicians in both political parties would be willing to look, listen and learn.

 

George Bauer is a print and broadcast journalist living in Atlanta, Georgia.

As America Grows More Polarized, Conservatives Increasingly Reject Science and Rational Thought

AlterNet.org

TEA PARTY AND THE RIGHT  

AlterNet / By Amanda Marcotte

As America Grows More Polarized, Conservatives Increasingly Reject Science and Rational Thought

The Tea Party has intensified social pressure on conservative-leaning Americans to shun science and academia.

June 17, 2012  |  

 

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

 

 

Public education and even modern science are relatively new developments in human history. So it makes sense that it would have taken the populace a while to catch up to understanding that evolution did happen, and that angels probably aren’t real.

But recent polling data suggests that gradual acceptance of the facts may not be the trend when it comes to the theory of evolution. In the 30 years since Gallup started asking people whether they believe humans evolved, evolved under the guidance of God, or were created fully formed by God, the percentage of people adhering to the creationist view has actually gone up slightly over time, and now stands at 46 percent of the population. This is just the tip of the iceberg of a growing problem of public rejection of science.

At the same time, there’s been a steady rise in people who believe that humanity evolved without any supernatural guidance, and now stands at 15 percent. What this seeming conflict suggests is that the issue is getting more polarized, as people feel they either have to pick Team Evolution or Team Creationism.
It turns out that education isn’t enough to fight ignorance, not when it comes to heavily politicized issues like evolutionary theory. As Chris Mooney argues in his book The Republican Brain, political identity generally trumps sober-minded assessment of the facts when it comes to convincing people of an argument or idea. The theory of evolution isn’t being rejected on its merits by the people who don't buy it. It really can’t be by someone who is honestly assessing the evidence.

The Tea Party has only intensified social pressure on conservative-leaning Americans to shun anything perceived as irreligious or academic. Science has always had a political edge to it, but the culture wars ramped up by the Tea Party have taken the problem to a whole new level.

The past decade-plus have turned science from a mostly politically neutral issue into a heavily partisan one, with Republicans becoming the party of anti-science while Democrats increasingly tout their dedication to research and evidence-based policy. According to a study published in American Sociological Review, since 1974, conservative trust in science has been in a free-fall, declining 25 percent. In 1974, conservatives were the most pro-science group, higher than liberals and moderates. Now they’re the least pro-science group of all, with liberals showing the most trust in science.

People who frequently attend church were the most likely to lose their trust in science, reinforcing the cultural sense that faith precludes acceptance of religious facts.

Evolution is hardly the only scientific reality to suffer from conservatives' growing sense that their ideology is not compatible with science. In the short period between 2010 and 2012, the percentage of conservatives who accept global warming declined from half of conservatives to only 30 percent of them. That doesn’t reflect any kind of major shift in the evidence or the arguments around global warming--the scientific consensus that warming is happening and human-made has only solidified in the past couple of decades--so much as the strengthened perception that conservatism and believing in global warming are mutually exclusive. As the political media pays more attention to conservative distrust of science and liberal embrace of it, the image of who believes what will only intensify.

Climate change is strongly associated in the public mind, rightly or wrongly, with anti-capitalism. The theory of evolution faces a similar problem, especially as it’s routinely linked by religious and other thought leaders with a kind of subversive atheism. These kind of identity politics that create doubt about science have immediate negative impacts for all of us, especially with regards to global warming, but as with many things pushed by conservatives, working class and poor people are likely to pay the greatest price. Any liberal who focuses on economic issues should pay close attention, because in many ways, the war on science is a war on the most vulnerable among us.

The public’s resistance to evolution might not seem like a big deal at first, since the main result of conservative activism is that high school biology programs give up teaching evolution, while universities retain their evidence-based curriculum. In fact, Kevin Drum argued in Mother Jones that creationism in schools didn’t really matter because, “knowledge of evolution adds only slightly to a 10th-grade understanding of biology.”

The problem with that is that someone who doesn’t get proper education early tends to lag behind for the rest of their educational career, and the 10th-grader who doesn’t get real biology courses will often be too far behind her better-educated peers in college to even consider a career in science. How many potential doctors and scientists are being lost because they didn’t have the economic advantage of going to a private school that did provide a proper education, but instead went to a public school that dished out creationist propaganda?

As PZ Myers argued, the poor public education in science means that a shrinking portion of the American public is going into careers in science. Americans from working class backgrounds who go into these careers are far more likely to use their education and career contacts to return to their communities and improve the economic and health conditions back home. But with these declining numbers of American scientists, that possibility is being shut down.

The public’s rejection of global warming is even more dangerous for working class and poor people. It’s well-understood that poorer people bear the brunt of environmental destruction, since they can’t afford to move out of polluted areas that are linked to health issues like asthma and cancer. There’s no reason to think that global warming won’t create similar problems, with wealthier people abandoning areas that are now flood plains. As summers get hotter, air conditioning is going to become all the more necessary, but soaring fuel prices will start putting it out of reach for ordinary people, even as the annual death toll from heat stroke continues to climb.

But because the media portrays climate change as “controversial”--strictly because of conservative distrust of science--most Americans are oblivious to the severity of the problem. Campaigns barely touch it, and lower-income people have even more obstacles when it comes to demanding action on this issue, because they’re usually too busy worrying about immediate economic concerns. Better science education and more trust in science could help the raise the issue higher on the priority list for all voters, but especially those who will be most affected. As it is now, it’s nearly impossible to get the conversation started.
Science and science education feel like they’re academic issues that, while interesting and important, aren’t top-tier progressive issues like economic justice or healthcare access. But without strong social support for science, these goals will be much harder to reach, and in some cases, impossible. The high levels of scientific illiteracy in the U.S. should be as upsetting to liberals as high levels of reading illiteracy would be, and should be addressed just as seriously.

Amanda Marcotte co-writes the blog Pandagon. She is the author of It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments.

How Urban Outfitters Peddles Ironic Conservatism, Hipster Racism and Other Terrible Values

AlterNet.org

  CULTURE  

AlterNet / By Lauren Kelley

How Urban Outfitters Peddles Ironic Conservatism, Hipster Racism and Other Terrible Values

Every company uses consumers to sell products, but Urban Outfitters' way of doing so feels especially slimy.

June 11, 2012  |  

 

 

 

Urban Outfitters is the kind of place where you see a lot of young, idealistic progressive types both browsing the racks and standing behind the cash register. Young Republicans, not so much; for khaki pants, bow ties and pin-striped blazers, you’re better off heading to Brooks Brothers.
In 2008 the company sold all kinds of Obama T-shirts, including one that featured the now-famous Shepard Fairey illustration of the Democratic candidate, and no one batted an eye. College kids and hipsters wanted Obama T-shirts! Many of them would probably buy one today.

Which raises the question: Why on earth is Urban Outfitters now selling T-shirts featuring Mitt Romney?

There are a few reasonable explanations for why the Urban Outfitters Romney tees exist, actually. For one thing, Urban Outfitters (which also owns Anthropologie and Free People) is owned by a far-right conservative, Richard Hayne. All that youthful, vaguely hippie-feeling merchandise in his stores? That’s just a way to make some dough – dough that Hayne, in turn, gives to right-wing politicians like Rick Santorum. For Hayne, the young people and lefties who shop in his stores are just chumps to whom he can sell $69 peace-sign tank tops while supporting conservative politics.

Now the company is selling shirts that represent Hayne’s political perspective while appealing to hipsters’ penchant for irony, with slogans like “Mitt Is the Shit” and “2 Legit 2 Mitt.” Ironic conservatism: hilarious(ly stupid)! As Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams put it:

What’s revolting about the latest Urban Outfitters gambit is its sneaky ploy of making conservatism seem so uncool it’s cool, all funny and retro and Kelly Kapowski. Which, in turn, is how some doofus winds up using his chest as free advertising for a candidate he’d otherwise never in a million years vote for.

The other reason we can’t be surprised by the Romney shirts is that Ironic Conservatism fits so nicely into the Hipster Racist and Unabashedly Unethical oeuvres, of which Urban Outfitters has the market cornered. Let’s take a moment to remember some of the company’s least-great hits:

Anti-Semitic apparel: The Anti-Defamation League once went after Urban Outfitters for selling shirts with the slogan “Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl” and pictures of dollar bills and shopping bags. The company also once sold yellow shirts with a Star of David on the pocket, which of course has horrible connotations.

“Pro-ana” apparel: Who in their right mind would sell a shirt to young women with the slogan “Eat Less?” Urban Outfitters, that’s who.

“Ghettopoly”: It’s like Monopoly, but shockingly racist! The game, which drew the ire of the NAACP among other groups, featured liquor stores, “Ghetto Stash” cards, and crack, basketball and pimp playing pieces. “You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack. Collect $50 from each playa,” read one space on the game board.

The color “Obama black”: A few years ago, Urban Outfitters put a henley T-shirt in its online shop that came in the colors “White/Charcoal” and “Obama/Black.” Nothing to add.

Transphobic greeting cards: “Ye Olde Jack and Jill,” reads a card Urban Outfitters sold earlier this year. “Jack and Jill / Went up the hill / So Jack could see Jill’s fanny / But Jack got a shock / And an eyeful of cock / Because Jill was a closet tranny.” Off-color and irreverent is one thing, but using the transphobic slur “tranny” is another. It’s no surprise that Hayne’s views on LGBTQ issues are reportedly “bizarre and old-fashioned.”

Appropriating Native imagery: The blog Native Appropriations has detailed at length the many ways Urban Outfitters has appropriated Native symbols. Headdresses, “tribal” patterns and dream catchers have become hipster mainstays, in fact, and Urban Outfitters is in large part responsible for their proliferation.

Stealing designers’ work: The ripping off of indie designers’ ideas is a problem that’s rampant among all fast-fashion chains, and Urban Outfitters is no exception. Both Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie have been accused many times of stealing designs from local designers and jewelry makers who sell their wares at places like the Brooklyn Flea and Etsy.

Unapologetic use of sweatshop labor: Urban Outfitters not only uses sweatshop labor, they're proud of it. Hayne told the Philadelphia Weekly in 2003 that he has no qualms about his company sourcing the vast majority of its clothing from sweatshops in the developing world. He said he was aware that garment workers were not paid fairly, but “most of his customers could not afford the price he would have to charge to turn a profit” (little consolation for the people buying that $69 peace-sign tank top).

As a teenager growing up in Dallas, back before Urban Outfitters stores were ubiquitous, I looked forward to trips to Austin so I could visit the Urban Outfitters on Guadalupe. My friend and I would spend hours browsing the faux-vintage T-shirts and strings of fish lights. At 15, Urban Outfitters’ cool, edgy, ironic sensibility was everything I wanted in a store.

But I was being used. Yes, every company uses consumers to sell products, but Urban Outfitters’ way of doing so feels especially slimy: exploiting young peoples’ desire to be cool and progressive and ironic while supporting a conservative agenda and filling the world with mass-produced, racist bullshit.
Shoppers, we can do better.

Lauren Kelley is the activism and gender editor at AlterNet and a freelance journalist based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Salon, Time Out New York, the L Magazine, and other publications. Follow her on Twitter.

Why Working-Class People Vote Conservative

AlterNet.org

TEA PARTY AND THE RIGHT  

The Guardian / By Jonathan Haidt

Why Do Working-Class People Vote Conservative?

Sadly, when people fear the collapse of their society, they want order and national greatness, not a more nurturing government.

June 6, 2012  |  

Photo Credit: ajagendorf25

Why on Earth would a working-class person ever vote for a conservative candidate? This question has obsessed the American left since Ronald Reagan first captured the votes of so many union members, farmers, urban Catholics and other relatively powerless people – the so-called "Reagan Democrats". Isn't the Republican party the party of big business? Don't the Democrats stand up for the little guy, and try to redistribute the wealth downwards?

Many commentators on the left have embraced some version of the duping hypothesis: the Republican party dupes people into voting against their economic interests by triggering outrage on cultural issues. "Vote for us and we'll protect the American flag!" say the Republicans. "We'll make English the official language of the United States! And most importantly, we'll prevent gay people from threatening your marriage when they … marry! Along the way we'll cut taxes on the rich, cut benefits for the poor, and allow industries to dump their waste into your drinking water, but never mind that. Only we can protect you from gay, Spanish-speaking flag-burners!"

One of the most robust findings in socialpsychology is that people find ways to believe whatever they want to believe. And the left really want to believe the duping hypothesis. It absolves them from blame and protects them from the need to look in the mirror or figure out what they stand for in the 21st century.

Here's a more painful but ultimately constructive diagnosis, from the point of view of moral psychology: politics at the national level is more like religion than it is like shopping. It's more about a moral vision that unifies a nation and calls it to greatness than it is about self-interest or specific policies. In most countries, the right tends to see that more clearly than the left. In America the Republicans did the hard work of drafting their moral vision in the 1970s, and Ronald Reagan was their eloquent spokesman. Patriotism, social order, strong families, personal responsibility (not government safety nets) and free enterprise. Those are values, not government programs.

The Democrats, in contrast, have tried to win voters' hearts by promising to protect or expand programmes for elderly people, young people, students, poor people and the middle class. Vote for us and we'll use government to take care of everyone! But most Americans don't want to live in a nation based primarily on caring. That's what families are for.

One reason the left has such difficulty forging a lasting connection with voters is that the right has a built-in advantage – conservatives have a broader moral palate than the liberals (as we call leftists in the US). Think about it this way: our tongues have taste buds that are responsive to five classes of chemicals, which we perceive as sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savoury. Sweetness is generally the most appealing of the five tastes, but when it comes to a serious meal, most people want more than that.

In the same way, you can think of the moral mind as being like a tongue that is sensitive to a variety of moral flavors. In my research with colleagues atYourMorals.org, we have identified six moral concerns as the best candidates for being the innate "taste buds" of the moral sense: care/harm,fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Across many kinds of surveys, in the UK as well as in the USA, we find that people who self-identify as being on the left score higher on questions about care/harm. For example, how much would someone have to pay you to kick a dog in the head? Nobody wants to do this, but liberals say they would require more money than conservatives to cause harm to an innocent creature.

But on matters relating to group loyalty, respect for authority and sanctity (treating things as sacred and untouchable, not only in the context of religion), it sometimes seems that liberals lack the moral taste buds, or at least, their moral "cuisine" makes less use of them. For example, according to our data, if you want to hire someone to criticize your nation on a radio show in another nation (loyalty), give the finger to his boss (authority), or sign a piece of paper stating one's willingness to sell his soul (sanctity), you can save a lot of money by posting a sign: "Conservatives need not apply."

In America, it is these three moral foundations that underlie most of the "cultural" issues that, according to duping theorists, are used to distract voters from their self-interest. But are voters really voting against their self-interest when they vote for candidates who share their values? Loyalty, respect for authority and some degree of sanctification create a more binding social order that places some limits on individualism and egoism. As marriage rates plummet, and globalization and rising diversity erodes the sense of common heritage within each nation, a lot of voters in many western nations find themselves hungering for conservative moral cuisine.

Despite being in the wake of a financial crisis that – if the duping theorists were correct – should have buried the cultural issues and pulled most voters to the left, we are finding in America and many European nations a stronger shift to the right. When people fear the collapse of their society, they want order and national greatness, not a more nurturing government.

Even on the two moral taste buds that both sides claim – fairness and liberty – the right can often outcook the left. The left typically thinks of equality as being central to fairness, and leftists are extremely sensitive about gross inequalities of outcome – particularly when they correspond along racial or ethnic lines. But the broader meaning of fairness is really proportionality – are people getting rewarded in proportion to the work they put into a common project? Equality of outcomes is only seen as fair by most people in the special case in which everyone has made equal contributions. The conservative media (such as the Daily Mail, or Fox News in the US) is much more sensitive to the presence of slackers and benefit cheats. They are very effective at stirring up outrage at the government for condoning cheating.

Similarly for liberty. Americans and Britons all love liberty, yet when liberty and care conflict, the left is more likely to choose care. This is the crux of the US's monumental battle over Obama's healthcare plan. Can the federal government compel some people to buy a product (health insurance) in order to make a plan work that extends care to 30 million other people? The derogatory term "nanny state" is rarely used against the right (pastygate being perhaps an exception). Conservatives are more cautious about infringing on individual liberties (eg of gun owners in the US and small businessmen) in order to protect vulnerable populations (such as children, animals and immigrants).

In sum, the left has a tendency to place caring for the weak, sick and vulnerable above all other moral concerns. It is admirable and necessary that some political party stands up for victims of injustice, racism or bad luck. But in focusing so much on the needy, the left often fails to address – and sometimes violates – other moral needs, hopes and concerns. When working-class people vote conservative, as most do in the US, they are not voting against their self-interest; they are voting for their moral interest. They are voting for the party that serves to them a more satisfying moral cuisine. The left in the UK and USA should think hard about their recipe for success in the 21st century.

Jonathan Haidt is a professor of psychology at New York University's Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. To take the survey described in this essay, visit www.yourmorals.org/express_welcome_sacredness.php

Jonathan Haidt is an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Virginia.

What would Orwell Think?

June 4, 2012 at 12:44:48

What would George Think?

 
By Michael Pollok (about the author)

Perhaps George Orwell was nearly correct in his novel "1984"; simply substitute his vision of English socialism with American corporatism and you have the current conundrum in the United States.

Over the next few days, the 99% Working Group, pursuant to the 99% Declaration, will be sending out 3 million ballots to registered voters to elect a new Continental Congress which will meet in Philadelphia the week of   July 4, 2012. No one in the corporate-owned U.S. media, or PBS which gets its funding from corporations, is reporting the story.

Several people in the media promised to cover this story a nd have since reneged on that promise (or never really intended to cover it) most likely due to corporate pressure, threats from advertisers, competing political groups and financial conflicts of interest. This cowardice by the media is no different than the behavior of the skulking politicians purchased by unions, corporations and the wealthy to do their exclusive bidding regardless of the cost to the country. In partnership with the corporate media, the politicians have methodically sacrificed our republican-democracy to accumulate money and power for a tiny group of people on the left and right. Now that money is no longer merely property but protected speech, the accumulation of wealth and power for this handful of people has become completely unrestricted while remaining secret. Thus, not only can they legally bribe and purchase politicians, they are not required to disclose who is taking and receiving the bribes. A perfect storm of corruption.

Perhaps George Orwell was nearly correct in his novel "1984"; simply substitute his vision of English socialism with American corporatism and you have the current conundrum in the United States. Maybe Orwell was completely correct and the dystopian political system and society he described in "1984" was the successor to corporatism. Partially in response to changing demographics and massive wealth disparity, we are witnessing a transition in our political process from a weak central government, controlled by corporations and the wealthy, to something more oppressive, more desperate, with additional oligarchical traits and characteristics reigned by even fewer people.

Consequently, it is not an overstatement to say that the United States and Europe are one major natural disaster or financial crisis away from revolution or civil war. With over 150 million people living in poverty or on low incomes in the U.S., tens of millions of people unemployed, underemployed or unemployable, and trillions of dollars in personal debt owed to the very corporations that control the government, it will not take much to cause the population to revolt against those who economically oppress the majority to increase their own wealth, deplete natural resources and improve only their standard of living and security at the expense of everyone else on the planet. With the support of the military industrial complex, many civilian police departments have become paramilitary forces supplied with heavier and more lethal weaponry previously reserved for conventional military applications in warfare.  This militarization of local law enforcement combined with new legislation, including several shocking provisions of the 2012 Nation Defense Authorization Act, restricting civil rights, undermining privacy, and labeling peaceful protest groups like Occupy Wall Street as "terrorists" reveal that this government views the American civilian population as the new enemy and a threat to their continued governance for the benefit of corporations, unions, a select group of special interests and the ultra wealthy.

As bad as these actors are, the members of the media and the communications monopolies they represent are squarely to blame for the demise of our democracy. They fail to report the truth because they are "part & parcel" of the story. Orwell called it "double-think" or the ability to hold and express two contradictory views at the same time by means of collective self-deception. You know "A" is false and I know "A" is false but we tell each other it is true so often that we begin to believe it. The media's attacks upon the PACS and SuperPACS that funnel money into their bank accounts; hypocritical and feigned denouncements of "Citizens United" and crony capitalism are all concepts that are embraced by the corporate media in reality. In this world: 2+2=5 and if repeated enough you will believe it. The unlimited money being channeled to and greedily accepted by the media to control political debate and power in this country is destroying the foundation of our nation. This money determines what stories will be covered and how the stories will be spinned. It's no longer only about ratings; it's about power, control of the national discussion and the sale of books, entertainment properties and other products owned by the media conglomerates. Ethics simply do not apply. Thus, you might ask, if the members of the media oppose PAC money as a corrupting influence on democracy, why do they readily accept it? Because the members of the media may say they are against PAC money and still take it as long as 2+2=5 and you believe it.

The 99% Working Group

http://www.the99declaration.org

New York attorney and co-founder of the 99% Working Group whose mission is to fund and organize a new National General Assembly called "Continental Congress 2.0" which is a meeting of 878 elected delegates from all 50 states and the U.S. (more...)
 

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Chomsky: America's Rank Hypocrisy -- Why Is it Only an "Atrocity" When Other Countries Do It?

AlterNet.org

  WORLD  

AlterNet / By Noam Chomsky

Chomsky: America's Rank Hypocrisy -- Why Is it Only an "Atrocity" When Other Countries Do It?

How America's worst crimes are ignored, while we lecture others on human rights.

June 4, 2012  |  

Photo Credit: aheram on Flickr

 In his penetrating study “Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-Opted Human Rights,” international affairs scholar James Peck observes, “In the history of human rights, the worst atrocities are always committed by somebody else, never us” – whoever “us” is.

Almost any moment in history yields innumerable illustrations. Let’s keep to the past few weeks.

On May 10, the Summer Olympics were inaugurated at the Greek birthplace of the ancient games. A few days before, virtually unnoticed, the government of Vietnam addressed a letter to the International Olympic Committee expressing the “profound concerns of the Government and people of Viet Nam about the decision of IOC to accept the Dow Chemical Company as a global partner sponsoring the Olympic Movement.”

Dow provided the chemicals that Washington used from 1961 onward to destroy crops and forests in South Vietnam, drenching the country with Agent Orange.
These poisons contain dioxin, one of the most lethal carcinogens known, affecting millions of Vietnamese and many U.S. soldiers. To this day in Vietnam, aborted fetuses and deformed infants are very likely the effects of these crimes – though, in light of Washington’s refusal to investigate, we have only the studies of Vietnamese scientists and independent analysts.

Joining the Vietnamese appeal against Dow are the government of India, the Indian Olympic Association, and the survivors of the horrendous 1984 Bhopal gas leak, one of history’s worst industrial disasters, which killed thousands and injured more than half a million.

Union Carbide, the corporation responsible for the disaster, was taken over by Dow, for whom the matter is of no slight concern. In February, Wikileaks revealed that Dow hired the U.S. private investigative agency Stratfor to monitor activists seeking compensation for the victims and prosecution of those responsible.

Another major crime with very serious persisting effects is the Marine assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in November 2004.

Women and children were permitted to escape if they could. After several weeks of bombing, the attack opened with a carefully planned war crime: invasion of the Fallujah General Hospital, where patients and staff were ordered to the floor, their hands tied. Soon the bonds were loosened; the compound was secure.

The official justification was that the hospital was reporting civilian casualties, and therefore was considered a propaganda weapon.

Much of the city was left in “smoking ruins,” the press reported while the Marines sought out insurgents in their “warrens.” The invaders barred entry to the Red Crescent relief organization. Absent an official inquiry, the scale of the crimes is unknown.

If the Fallujah events are reminiscent of the events that took place in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, now again in the news with the genocide trial of Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, there’s a good reason. An honest comparison would be instructive, but there’s no fear of that: One is an atrocity, the other not, by definition.

As in Vietnam, independent investigators are reporting long-term effects of the Fallujah assault.

Medical researchers have found dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia, even higher than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Uranium levels in hair and soil samples are far beyond comparable cases.

One of the rare investigators from the invading countries is Dr. Kypros Nicolaides, director of the fetal-medicine research center at London’s King’s College Hospital. “I’m sure the Americans used weapons that caused these deformities,” Nicolaides says.

The lingering effects of a vastly greater nonatrocity were reported last month by U.S. law professor James Anaya, the U.N. rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples.

Anaya dared to tread on forbidden territory by investigating the shocking conditions among the remnants of the Native American population in the U.S. – “poverty, poor health conditions, lack of attainment of formal education (and) social ills at rates that far exceed those of other segments of the American population,” Anaya reported. No member of Congress was willing to meet him. Press coverage was minimal.

Dissidents have been much in the news after the dramatic rescue of the blind Chinese civil-rights activist Chen Guangcheng.

“The international commotion,” Samuel Moyn wrote in The New York Times last month, “aroused memories of earlier dissidents like Andrei D. Sakharov and Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, the Eastern bloc heroes of another age who first made ‘international human rights’ a rallying cry for activists across the globe and a high-profile item on Western governments’ agendas.”

Moyn is the author of “The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History,” released in 2010. In The New York Times Book Review, Belinda Cooper questioned Moyn’s tracing the contemporary prominence of these ideals to “(President Jimmy) Carter’s abortive steps to inject human rights into foreign policy and the 1975 Helsinki accords with the Soviet Union,” focusing on abuses in the Soviet sphere. She finds Moyn’s thesis unpersuasive because “an alternative history to his own is far too easy to construct.”

True enough: The obvious alternative is the one that James Peck provides, which the mainstream can hardly consider, though the relevant facts are strikingly clear and known at least to scholarship.

Thus in the “Cambridge History of the Cold War,” John Coatsworth recalls that from 1960 to “the Soviet collapse in 1990, the numbers of political prisoners, torture victims, and executions of nonviolent political dissenters in Latin America vastly exceeded those in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites.” But being nonatrocities, these crimes, substantially traceable to U.S. intervention, didn’t inspire a human-rights crusade.

Also inspired by the Chen rescue, New York Times columnist Bill Keller writes that “Dissidents are heroic,” but they can be “irritants to American diplomats who have important business to transact with countries that don’t share our values.” Keller criticizes Washington for sometimes failing to live up to our values with prompt action when others commit crimes.

There is no shortage of heroic dissidents within the domains of U.S. influence and power, but they are as invisible as the Latin American victims. Looking almost at random around the world, we find Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, co-founder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, now facing death in prison from a long hunger strike.

And Father Mun Jeong-hyeon, the elderly Korean priest who was severely injured while holding mass as part of the protest against the construction of a U.S. naval base on Jeju Island, named an Island of Peace, now occupied by security forces for the first time since the 1948 massacres by the U.S.-imposed South Korean government.

And Turkish scholar Ismail Besikci, facing trial again for defending the rights of Kurds. He already has spent much of his life in prison on the same charge, including the 1990s, when the Clinton administration was providing Turkey with huge quantities of military aid – at a time when the Turkish military perpetrated some of the period’s worst atrocities.

But these instances are all nonexistent, on standard principles, along with others too numerous to mention.

(Noam Chomsky's most recent book is ''Occupy.'' Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.)