|
Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by Too-Polite Left |
 |
|
Wednesday, 08 February 2012 09:56 |
|
Intro: "Conservativism may be the refuge of the dim. But the room for rightwing ideas is made by those too timid to properly object."
A billboard put up by a 'birther' campaigner convinced that President Obama was not born in the United States. (photo: Bob Daemmrich/Alamy)
Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by Too-Polite Left
By George Monbiot, Guardian UK
08 February 12
 elf-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today's progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they no longer possess a vocabulary.
Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. 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 generalisation but empirical fact.
It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others – particularly "different" others – requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.
But, drawing on a sample size of several thousand, correcting for both education and socioeconomic status, the new study looks embarrassingly robust. Importantly, it shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low intelligence are drawn. Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to "rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasise the maintenance of the status quo". Even for someone not yet renowned for liberal reticence, this feels hard to write.
This is not to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. There are some very clever people in government, advising politicians, running thinktanks and writing for newspapers, who have acquired power and influence by promoting rightwing ideologies.
But what we now see among their parties – however intelligent their guiding spirits may be – is the abandonment of any pretence of high-minded conservatism. On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that there is no pool so shallow that several million people won't drown in it. Whether they are promoting the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the US, that man-made climate change is an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy, or that the deficit results from the greed of the poor, they now appeal to the basest, stupidest impulses, and find that it does them no harm in the polls.
Don't take my word for it. Listen to what two former Republican ideologues, David Frum and Mike Lofgren, have been saying. Frum warns that "conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics". The result is a "shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology" which has "ominous real-world consequences for American society".
Lofgren complains that "the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital centre today". The Republican party, with its "prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science" is appealing to what he calls the "low-information voter", or the "misinformation voter". While most office holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base".
The madness hasn't gone as far in the UK, but the effects of the Conservative appeal to stupidity are making themselves felt. This week the Guardian reported that recipients of disability benefits, scapegoated by the government as scroungers, blamed for the deficit, now find themselves subject to a new level of hostility and threats from other people.
These are the perfect conditions for a billionaires' feeding frenzy. Any party elected by misinformed, suggestible voters becomes a vehicle for undisclosed interests. A tax break for the 1% is dressed up as freedom for the 99%. The regulation that prevents big banks and corporations exploiting us becomes an assault on the working man and woman. Those of us who discuss man-made climate change are cast as elitists by people who happily embrace the claims of Lord Monckton, Lord Lawson or thinktanks funded by ExxonMobil or the Koch brothers: now the authentic voices of the working class.
But when I survey this wreckage I wonder who the real idiots are. Confronted with mass discontent, the once-progressive major parties, as Thomas Frank laments in his latest book Pity the Billionaire, triangulate and accommodate, hesitate and prevaricate, muzzled by what he calls "terminal niceness". They fail to produce a coherent analysis of what has gone wrong and why, or to make an uncluttered case for social justice, redistribution and regulation. The conceptual stupidities of conservatism are matched by the strategic stupidities of liberalism.
Yes, conservatism thrives on low intelligence and poor information. But the liberals in politics on both sides of the Atlantic continue to back off, yielding to the supremacy of the stupid. It's turkeys all the way down.
George Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land. His latests books are Heat: how to stop the planet burning and Bring on the Apocalypse?
 |
|
Can Democrats Landslide Republicans? |
|
|
Tuesday, 07 February 2012 17:52 |
|
Nader writes: "I often ask Congressional Democrats these days: 'If you agree that your Republican counterparts in Congress are the most craven, corporatist, fact-denying, falsifying, anti-99 percent, militaristic Republicans in the Party's history, then why are you not landsliding them?' Their responses are largely in the form of knowing smiles and furrowed brows."
Ralph Nader. (photo: TruthAlliance)
Can Democrats Landslide Republicans?
By Ralph Nader, Reader Supported News
07 February 12
 often ask Congressional Democrats these days: "If you agree that your Republican counterparts in Congress are the most craven, corporatist, fact-denying, falsifying, anti-99 percent, militaristic Republicans in the Party's history, then why are you not landsliding them?" Their responses are largely in the form of knowing smiles and furrowed brows.
There are answers that are more specific to account for the large election losses in 2010, the loss of the House of Representatives to John Boehner and Eric Cantor, and the prospect of losing the House and the Senate this November. Chief among them is that the two parties are vigorously dialing for the same commercial dollars to finance their campaigns. The resultant inhibitions and self-censorships bring the parties' real agendas closer together, erasing the bright lines that make elections clearer choices for voters.
Here are eight initiatives that could landslide the Republicans in November's Congressional contests. It starts with a ringing declaration that recalls the legendary labor rally challenge: "Whose side are you on?" With the two parties often seen as Republicrats or DemReps, due to the lack of credible, distinct differences on military, foreign policy, trade, agribusiness, energy and corporate crime/welfare subjects, among others, such a proclamation of "we the people" helps frame the details of this fresh approach, as follows:
First, resurrect the old Democratic Party's historic safeguarding of federal minimum wage and labor laws from Republican dissolution. It is astonishing that, since the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy, there have been so few high-profile champions in Congress for restoring the minimum wage - now $7.25 per hour - to its inflation-adjusted level of 1968 which today would be $10.00 per hour. That long overdue move would pour tens of billions of dollars into job-producing consumer demand during this recession. It would end a decades-long windfall for employers who have been increasing their prices and salaries while receiving many tax breaks during that period. To objections from the curled-lip House Republican Eric Cantor, the reply is: "You don't believe workers in your district should make as much as workers made 44 years ago when their productivity was half what it is today, Eric?"
The scholar who showed that keeping minimum wages current doesn't cost jobs is Alan Krueger, now President Obama's chief economic advisor. In 2008, Mr. Obama himself pledged to push for a $9.50 minimum wage by 2011.
Second, announce the filing of legislation that declares immediate drafting of all able-bodied and age-qualified children and grandchildren of all members of Congress any time that branch or the president plunge us into another war. Besides forcing Congress to pay attention to its Constitutional responsibilities to declare or not declare war, this legislation would ring with the authenticity of responsible humble servants becoming part of the risk presently hoisted on a few million, mostly low income, families.
Third, cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget, really end the wars, and switch the expected savings into repairing and renovating America through a public works program all over the country with good-paying, non-exportable jobs.
Fourth, shift much of the tax burdens to activities we do not like, such as pollution, huge Wall Street speculation, corporate crime waves and profits from systemic product waste. Even Exxon/Mobil supports the idea of a carbon tax, which would help the environment. The motto: Tax what you burn before you tax what you earn.
Fifth, announce a national energy conversion campaign based on efficiency and renewables. The only true energy independence comes from the sun in its many manifestations. This will create more local employment, and small businesses down to the community-neighborhood levels. Goodbye to the toxic fossil fuel and atomic energy cartels.
Sixth, crack down on corporate and governmental violations of our Constitution and laws. No more no-fault government and no more no-fault big business. If the law is to be observed in the streets, then it must be observed in the suites. People are being pushed around, disrespected, defrauded, injured, and given the runaround from arrogant corporate bureaucrats using nameless, robotic and tyrannical "fine print" barricades. There have to be accountabilities that the abused citizens can invoke.
Seventh is a proposal to establish a national complaint-handling system using the Internet to help consumers, taxpayers and workers, for a change. You got a beef with your insurance company, bank, energy company, pension fund, cable company, hospital, telephone/gas/water/electric utility, or some government agency and you can't get through to file your complaint?
A complaint-handling system will save billions of hours wasted on just trying to get through, much less getting your complaint heard. It will also be a good way to aggregate complaints to detect patterns for policy-making and enforcement corrections. Patterns lead to deterrence, fewer complaints, and fewer dollar losses. What a way to show sensitivity to the daily irritations and frustrations of the American people!
Eighth, create a democracy movement based on simple facilities for people who choose to band together in various roles. In return for what you the taxpayers have had to spend to bail out and otherwise privilege these large companies, the Democratic party can press for inserts in their billing systems and other corporate carriers inviting you to voluntarily join and contribute dues to a nonprofit staffed with full-time champions of your causes as consumers, patients, workers and taxpayers (inserts could also be sent in the communications from tax-collecting agencies) directly accountable to you. No results, then no dues next time, and no taxpayer subsidies. These facilities would shift some power from the haves to the have-nots.
Imagine the public discussion, excitement and participation these eight proposals would provoke. Previous non-voters along with regular voters would see they have a stake in these elections, and that one of the major parties at least wants to be on their side, and will strive to earn their trust by empowering them directly.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author. His most recent book - and first novel - is "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us." His most recent work of non-fiction is "The Seventeen Traditions."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
|
|
|
FOCUS | Why Democrats Fracking Suck |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
|
|
Tuesday, 07 February 2012 12:17 |
|
Pierce begins: "One of the things that's going on in the country is that people don't believe energy companies when they talk about how safe their operations are. This is because energy companies are profit-hungry monsters who would poison their own grandchildren for two points on the Dow."
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) joined with Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) to pressure the EPA to soften its report on fracking contamination. (photo: INNReport)
Why Democrats Fracking Suck
By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire Magazine
07 February 12
n moments that pass almost immediately, I get optimistic about the Democratic party in Congress. At times, they almost seem to get what's going on in the country. One of the things that's going on in the country is that people don't believe energy companies when they talk about how safe their operations are. This is because energy companies are profit-hungry monsters who would poison their own grandchildren for two points on the Dow. This is because, 22 months ago, an energy company almost blew up the Gulf of Mexico. So, when the energy companies come to people and tell them not to worry about the fact that the companies will be "fracking" for natural gas in and around their neighborhoods, the people reflexively say, "Frack, no," and start talking about groundwater. This is because what will happen after the inevitable contamination will be a quick-and-dirty settlement of all major claims and a government "investigation" conducted by members of Congress who are wholly owned subsidiaries of the same energy companies. Better to slow things down now than to pay for it later. That is why we have the EPA. There was a point where I thought Democrats understood this.
Then there is Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, sweetheart of the deepwater rigs.
Landrieu and a Republican senator from Ohio named Rob Portman have joined their oily hands to jack around with an upcoming EPA report on fracking-related groundwater contamination in Wyoming. The EPA already has made it known that the report will be both specific and damning as regards the reckless way the fracking procedures have been used in Wyoming and the terrible consequences that may result:
The EPA found that compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, a small community in central Wyoming where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals. Health officials last year advised them not to drink their water after the EPA found low levels hydrocarbons in their wells.
Now why should a senator from Ohio and another one from Louisiana want to slow-walk an EPA report about groundwater contamination in Wyoming? Because they're both a couple of 'ho's, that's why. Landrieu's been in the pocket of the extraction industries for so long that she probably has dryer lint in her ears, and Portman wants to be re-elected and so needs some of that sweet-sweet crude cash to do so. So the two of them draft a letter to Cass (Middle Ground) Sunstein complaining that the EPA might go too harshly on the frackers in Wyoming:
A false-positive link between hydraulic fracturing and groundwater contamination could form the basis for costly new regulation.... Unwarranted regulation of hydraulic fracturing could have substantial economic impact on the natural gas industry, the consumers and businesses that rely on it, and the millions of jobs that it directly or indirectly supports. There is little doubt that the regulatory response that this report could generate may exceed the $500 million threshold.
This is a threat, pure and simple. Get the EPA to soft-pedal its report or there will be hell to pay over this during an election year. And to hell with what might be going on right now with the water people are drinking in Wyoming. That a Democratic senator has signed onto this dangerous nonsense should give us all pause, but no real surprise. I'm sure there's some common ground to be found between the needs of energy companies to make every buck they can and the needs of the people whose tapwater explodes.
|
|
Rigging American 'Democracy' |
|
|
Tuesday, 07 February 2012 09:42 |
|
Intro: "Aided by Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court, America's ultra-rich are buying up the political process with vast sums of cash, some through dummy corporations. The money has made the GOP campaign nasty, but will dirty up President Obama in the fall."
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks to a policy forum in Washington. (photo: Legal Geekery)
Rigging American 'Democracy'
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
07 February 12
 atching the thunder and lightning of attack ads in the Republican presidential primaries is a glimpse of America's political future, where wealthy titans will battle in a shifting war of rivalries and alliances fought far above the average American voter, whose only role will be to be swayed by which ad makes which candidate look the worst.
Today, the titans are fighting mostly among themselves as they select their GOP hero to send down to vanquish The Other, President Barack Obama. But Democrats shouldn't take too much pleasure in the irony of Republicans tearing each other apart with unlimited corporation donations. Soon it will be Obama's turn - and if Democrats hope voters will see through all the negativity, they are naïve.
Modern advertising and sophisticated propaganda have proved they can prevail over reasoned thought, especially in a population saturated with media. And if money for ads wasn't enough, Republicans are guaranteeing their advantage by investing more money, state by state, to put up roadblocks to voting by Democratic-leaning demographic groups.
Much of this predicament comes from the 2010 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United case. Five Republican partisans on the court struck down legal restrictions against unlimited corporate and union spending on political campaigns. Of course, with unions weakened and under assault, the justices knew that the biggest spenders would be the ultra-rich.
Thus, casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson almost singlehandedly revived the floundering campaign of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich by giving - along with family members - millions of dollars to Gingrich's super-PAC "Winning Our Future." Adelson and Gingrich also have made no secret about why. Adelson passionately supports Gingrich's ultra-hard-line in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights.
Adelson has praised Gingrich's dismissal of the Palestinians as an "invented people" who have no legitimate claim to territory controlled by Israel. Adelson's money - and the nasty ads they bought - were credited with helping Gingrich defeat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in South Carolina.
However, Adelson has indicated that he might shift his allegiance - and money - to Romney in the general election against Obama, who is viewed with suspicion and disdain by Israel's Right. Romney has largely handed his foreign policy to neocon ideologues. Both Gingrich and Romney also have taken extremely hawkish positions regarding Iran's nuclear program, the issue at the top of Israel's priority list.
Adelson seems intent on buying the White House for Israel's Likud or at least making sure a staunch ally is in charge of the U.S. government. As one of the world's richest men, he is ready to flood the nation's televisions with ads that will make Obama look like America's Enemy Number One.
Romney's Rich Army
Of course, Adelson is not alone. Wall Street executives and hedge-fund managers have been bankrolling Romney, in particular, counting on him to repeal the modest reforms that Congress approved after the 2008 financial collapse.
Vying for the same Wall Street money, Gingrich upped the ante by also promising to repeal an earlier reform law, signed by President George W. Bush, that required CEOs to vouch for the accuracy of their companies' public disclosures.
Obama has his own super-PAC, but it is a piker when compared to the Republican super-PACs. The pro-Obama "Priorities USA" has raised $4.4 million compared to Romney's "Restore Our Future" at over $30 million, and Karl Rove's "American Crossroads" at over $18 million.
While noting that President Obama does lead his Republican rivals in donations to his campaign committee, New York Times correspondents Nicholas Confessore and Michael Luo wrote last week that "the money race is increasingly focused on outside groups that are legally not allowed to coordinate directly with campaigns but pay for advertising and other activities that support particular candidates.
"Most of the money disclosed this week went to independent groups supporting Republicans, giving them an enormous money advantage over similar Democratic groups in the first phase of the 2012 election cycle. … The contributions have already helped the Republican Party's elite donor class, who increasingly favor Mr. Romney, regain some control over the party's nominating process. …
"Restore Our Future [the pro-Romney super-PAC] raised at least $5.8 million from corporations during the last six months of last year, along with $12.2 million from individuals. American Crossroads [founded by Bush's longtime adviser Karl Rove] raised $4.6 million from corporations and $7 million from individuals."
On Monday, commenting on the power of this new political money, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote, "We have seen the world created by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, and it doesn't work.
"Oh, yes, it works nicely for the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, especially if they want to shroud their efforts to influence politics behind shell corporations. It just doesn't happen to work if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy."
End of the Road
Two years ago, in writing about the ruling - and other related developments - I called the moment "US Democracy's End of the Road," a culmination of not only the Right's cynical success in short-circuiting American democracy but also the Left's miscalculations over several decades in undervaluing the need for media outreach to the people.
In January 2010, I noted that the combination of the Citizens United ruling and the dissolution of Air America, an attempt by progressives to challenge the Right's dominance of talk radio, "had the feel of 'game, set, match'" and that it was "hard to see a road back for American democracy."
Beyond the massive investments by the Right in media over the past several decades, there was the parallel failure of the Left to build its own media-and-think-tank infrastructure to provide some counter-balance. That mistake was compounded by the bitter divisions between what might be called the "pragmatic" (or accommodating) Democrats and the "purist" (or principled) Left.
While that conflict had simmered since the days of the Vietnam War, it flared up in the crucial election of 2000 when a significant portion of the Left rallied behind Green Party candidate Ralph Nader who argued that there was "not a dime's worth of difference" between Democrat Al Gore and his Republican rival, George W. Bush.
Though Nader ultimately polled only a couple of percentage points, the margin proved decisive in the key state of Florida where a statewide recount would have shown that Gore narrowly defeated Bush. But Bush was able to rely on his brother Jeb's cronies in Florida and his father's friends on the U.S. Supreme Court to deliver the White House back to the Bush Family.
In other words, Nader kept the vote total close enough for Bush to steal Florida and thus the presidency. The next eight years also demonstrated that there was more than a dime's worth of difference between Bush and Gore, not only on important issues like global warming and preemptive war but on appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The five key Republicans who put Bush in the White House - Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia - relied on an upside-down interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to block a Florida recount. But arguably they were more interested in making sure the power to fill court vacancies remained in the hands of a conservative Republican. The last thing they wanted was to lose their majority. [For details, see Neck Deep.]
Their success in blocking a full recount (which would have narrowly given Gore the White House) and instead handing the presidency to Bush meant that O'Connor and Rehnquist could be replaced by Samuel Alito and John Roberts, who then became key votes in the Citizens United decision.
Naïve or Not?
Dionne wrote, "Two years ago, Citizens United tore down a century's worth of law aimed at reducing the amount of corruption in our electoral system. It will go down as one of the most naive decisions ever rendered by the court. …
"The Citizens United justices were not required to think through the practical consequences of sweeping aside decades of work by legislators, going back to the passage of the landmark Tillman Act in 1907, who sought to prevent untoward influence-peddling and indirect bribery.
"If ever a court majority legislated from the bench (with Bush's own appointees leading the way), it was the bunch that voted for Citizens United. Did a single justice in the majority even imagine a world of super PACs and phony corporations set up for the sole purpose of disguising a donor's identity?"
However, the court's ruling may not have been naïve at all. It may have been calculating, cynical and premeditated. The Republican justices may have realized just how important secret campaign money could be in getting the power to appoint future judges back in the hands of a political ally.
For more on related topics, see Robert Parry's "Lost History," "Secrecy & Privilege" and "Neck Deep," now available in a three-book set for the discount price of only $29. For details, click here.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, "Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush," was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, "Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq" and "Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'" are also available there.
|
|
