8 Reasons White People Get Suckered by Racial Demagogues Like Donald Trump

Donald Trump has written a virtual textbook about the worst aspects of right-wing American politics.

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Source:AlterNet

Author:Chauncey DeVega

Emphasis Mine

Donald Trump is not a riddle, a monster or a mystery. Trump has many antecedents in American history, and his ascendance was the wholly predictable result of a broken political culture.

For progressives and those others worried about America’s deep political rot, “Trumpmania” represents a supreme and rare teachable moment, one that exposes the racism, authoritarianism, and socio-political anxieties of white movement conservatives in the post civil rights era and the age of Obama.

In many ways, Donald Trump has written a virtual textbook about the worst aspects of present-day, right-wing American politics. This book, if ever published, would include the following important concepts.

1. White identity politics. Donald Trump has been endorsed by prominent white supremacists and white nationalists as their chosen candidate.

(Political socialization begins in the home. According to recently discovered news reports from 1927, Trump’s father was likely at least a sympathizer with, if not a member, of the Ku Klux Klan.) From the end of the Civil Rights Movement onward, the Republican Party has used a strategy of white grievance mongering known as the Southern Strategy to mobilize its voters.

As a complement to the Southern Strategy, since the election of Barack Obama, the right-wing Fox News hate media has obsessively channeled racist narratives such as “birtherism,” “black crime,” and most recently the lie that the Black Lives Matter movement is an anti-white hate group.

The Republican base is almost entirely white, increasingly alienated and upset about the perceived decline in white people’s political and social power, and feeling under siege in a country that is becoming more racially diverse. Donald Trump has combined the old fashioned racism of overt white supremacists with the modern white racist “dog whistle” politics of the Republican Party. He is the new face of American white identity politics in the 21st century.

2. Right-wing producerism. Donald Trump has presented himself as an “everyman” who can speak for the “regular” people who feel alienated and frustrated by the Washington D.C. “insiders” who do not look out for the “little guy.” This is the crudest form of populist politics. Trump then aims his supporters’ anger towards an enemy: immigrants from Mexico who are coming to American to supposedly steal jobs while they rape and murder white women; or the Chinese he presents as a stereotypical devious and sneaky “yellow peril” Asian foe that only Trump can outmaneuver and conquer.

In this script, Donald Trump then promises to protect benefits like Social Security and health care, while creating a more fair tax code for “hardworking” (white) Americans who are under siege by “parasites”, i.e. the poor on one extreme, and the corporate monied classes on the other. Trump’s “makers and takers” language is then mated with hostility to some type of Other in order to excite and mobilize conservatives via right-wing populist zeal.

3. Herrenvolk politics (a system in which minorities are disenfranchised while the ethnic majority holds sway). Donald Trump is using white identity politics to win supporters. Combining overt and subtle racism, part of Trump’s appeal is that he promises to protect the resources and democratic rights of white Americans against their supposed exploitation and theft by non-whites. This is one of the foundations of right-wing producerism.

In the right-wing conservative imagination, real Americans are “hard working,” “Christian” and “white.” Their rights and privileges are to be protected at all costs against lazy black and brown people who are welfare queens, thugs or “illegal” immigrants. The social safety net—while torn at by the 1 percent and right-wing plutocrats—exists to serve white people and “real Americans” before any other group.  As was seen in Nazi Germany, South Africa, Israel, and other racist apartheid societies, the State exists to provide support and service to the “ingroup” or “master race” while the “outgroup” is denied the same benefits and rights. This is the core of Donald Trump’s herrenvolk appeal.

4. Social dominance behavior. Donald Trump’s supporters are drawn from the same core of aggrieved and angry white voters who comprise the Tea Party wing of the GOP. Research on this group shows that they are racially resentful, fearful of social change, hostile to people who are not like them, believe in natural hierarchies and order, seek out strong leaders, are deferent to authority, and exhibit a type of “bullying politics.” In many ways, Trumpmania is a frightening reflection of the authoritarian values that have infected American conservatives.

5. Know-Nothings. Donald Trump’s nativist, xenophobic and racist politics are the latest version of the 19th century American political movement known as the Know-Nothings. The Know-Nothings 1856 party platform included demands that “Americans must rule America; and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all state, federal and municipal offices of government employment, in preference to all others…”

This is not unlike Trump’s ginning up of white anxiety and violence towards non-white immigrants.

6. The strong father and “manliness.” Donald Trump repeatedly talks about “strength” while slurring Barack Obama and other political enemies as “weak” or as “pansies.”

Trump is also not limited by what the right-wing sees as “weak” “liberal” notions of “political correctness” as he insults women and throws verbal bombs at any person who disagrees with him.

Right-wing ideologues and authoritarians idolize the strong father figure, one who often uses punitive means of discipline to maintain high levels of control over his wife and children. (The right-wing’s latest slur, “cuckservative,” also reflects their anxieties about white masculinity, race, and sexual potency.)

Donald Trump uses gendered language because America’s political class often defaults to a framework where the Democrats are framed as being weak, feminine or too intellectual. By comparison, the Republicans are depicted as strong, manly and decisive.

Donald Trump is playing the role of strongman for the right-wing ideologues and movement conservatives who are aroused by such a figure because the latter fulfills a psychological need for security and protection in a world they view as dangerous and changing too rapidly. His name-calling, bullying swagger, and indifference to norms of comportment and reasonable behavior are central to Trump’s popularity.

7. Performance art and spectacular politics. Donald Trump’s political success is a product of reality television show culture.

Reality television shows are scripted. The genre is wildly popular among American viewers because it is part of an “empire of illusion” that distracts and confuses the public while allowing them to live out their fantasies and wish fulfillment.

In keeping with that dynamic, Trump’s obsessions with “ratings” and public opinion polls that supposedly show his “popularity” are the result of a broken civic and moral culture that equates “likes” on Facebook or “votes” on American Idol with substantive measures of virtue or human value.

Ultimately, Donald Trump is using his background as a reality TV show host, business celebrity, and fan of professional wrestling to engage in a type of ridiculous and exaggerated performance art that mocks the notion of normal politics. Because Trump is not interested in normal politics—Trump is reality TV mixed with professional wrestling—he is relatively immune from derailment or substantive engagement by the news media or his political rivals in the Republican Party.

8. Conspiracy theories and the paranoid style. Donald Trump was one of the most prominent advocates of “Birtherism”—a belief that Barack Obama, the United States’ first black president, was somehow not eligible for the office because he is not a “real” citizen.

This is an absurdly racist claim; nevertheless it is one that is still believed by 66 percent of Trump supporters and 45 percent of Republicans. Birtherism was the first of many conspiracy theories that would be invented by the right-wing media in the age of Obama. Obsessions about Planned Parenthood, ACORN and Benghazi would follow. These delusions are part of a long pattern of right-wing paranoia that Richard Hofstadter detailed in his landmark 1964 essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”

The right-wing media and the Republican Party’s embrace of conspiracy theories and paranoid delusions contribute to a broken political system because too much time is spent on the absurd instead of doing the work of real governance. The conspiracy fantasies of Donald Trump and the American right-wing constitute an alternative reality that is immune from facts. Consequently, these beliefs function as a type of religious cult where faith—what is a belief that cannot be proven by ordinary means—is substituted for empirical reality.

Donald Trump’s “birtherism” alternate reality is compelling and exciting for those who believe in it. Such conspiranoid delusions are dangerous because they create extreme political polarization, a political system that cannot fulfill its basic functions, encourage violence, and tear at the common beliefs and values that create a sense of political legitimacy and community in the United States.

Informed citizens can create positive political change. An ignorant public can be easily swayed, manipulated, and duped to act against their self-interest and the Common Good.

Donald Trump is a charismatic figure who embodies the fears, hopes, and anxieties of an aggrieved and frustrated white America. He is the hero they are desperate for. He is a product of a particular coincidence of broken politics, an irresponsible Fox News echo chamber media, and a scared and racially resentful public.

Chauncey DeVega’s essays on race, politics and popular culture can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com/. He is a regular guest on Ring of Fire Radio and TV, and hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Follow him on Twitter.

 

See:http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/8-reasons-white-people-get-suckered-racial-demagogues-donald-trump

 

Republicans Reeling After ObamaCare Enrollment Surges To 17.6 Million

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Source:Politics USA

Author: Jason Easley

Emphasis Mine

President Obama’s signature health care law is surging past 2015 expectations as 17.6 million Americans have signed up under Obamacare.

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced the new numbersduring a speech at Howard University today:

According to a study we are releasing today, as the ACA’s coverage provisions took effect, an estimated 17.6 million Americans have gained coverage. And this progress has been even bigger for people of color: The uninsured rate among African-American adults has declined by more than 10 percentage points, compared to about 7.7 for the total population.”

….

The ACA is about more than the Marketplace. People are beginning to understand that the ACA is improving their care no matter where they buy their insurance. With new protections and required benefits, like preventive services at no extra cost, it’s improved the quality of coverage for all Americans. 

The promises made by Republican presidential candidates to repeal and replace Obamacare are looking like a political suicide mission as ACA enrollment continues to grow. By Election Day 2016, it is possible that the Republican nominee will be running on a platform of taking health care away from 20 million Americans.

President Obama’s health care law has not only been a political victory, but the President has changed health care delivery in a historic way. Thanks to the election of Barack Obama to the White House tens of millions of people have access to healthcare that they didn’t have before.

Hundreds of millions of Americans are benefiting from the protections offered to consumers under the ACA. Obamacare has been a raging success, and Republicans are reeling as they to figure how to reconcile their repeal and replace rhetoric with the real life outcome of taking access to health care away from 17.6 million people.

Republicans have been captured in their own Obamacare trap, and the biggest winners aren’t Democrats, but the 17.6 million people who now have access to affordable health care.

See: http://www.politicususa.com/2015/09/22/republicans-reeling-obamacare-signups-surge-17-6-million.html

Radical roots of the great grape strike

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Source: Portside

This is an expanded version of an article in the Insight section of the San Francisco Chronicle:  http://sfchron.cl/1QHt9Jt

Author: David Bacon

Emphasis Mine

This is an expanded version of an article in the Insight section of the San Francisco Chronicle:  http://sfchron.cl/1QHt9Jt

Fifty years ago the great grape strike started in Delano, when Filipino pickers walked out of the fields on September 8, 1965.  Mexican workers joined them two weeks later.  The strike went on for five years, until all California table grape growers were forced to sign contracts in 1970.

The strike was a watershed struggle for civil and labor rights, supported by millions of people across the country.  It helped breathe new life into the labor movement, opening doors for immigrants and people of color.  Beyond the fields, Chicano and Asian American communities were inspired to demand rights, and many activists in those communities became organizers and leaders themselves.

California’s politics have changed profoundly in 50 years.  Delano’s mayor today is a Filipino.  That would have been unthinkable in 1965, when growers treated the town as a plantation.

But a mythology has hidden the true history of how and why the strike started, especially its connection to some of the most radical movements in the country’s labor history.  Writer Peter Matthiessen, for instance, claimed in his famous two-part 1969 profile of Cesar Chavez in The New Yorker: “Until Chavez appeared, union leaders had considered it impossible to organize seasonal farm labor, which is in large part illiterate and indigent…”

After 50 years that curtain of silence is lifting. Dawn Mabalon, a history professor at San Francisco State University, has documented the radical career of Larry Itliong, who headed the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), one of the two organizations that carried out the 1965 strike.  Itliong not only shared leadership with Cesar Chavez, but actually started the strike.  In tens of thousands of words Matthiessen only mentions Itliong twice, in passing.

The Delano strike was not spontaneous or unexpected.  It was a product of decades of worker organizing and earlier farm worker strikes.  Leaders of the grape strike, like Itliong, had helped organize previous unions, including ones expelled from the CIO in the anti-communist purge of 1949.

The timing of the 1965 strike was not accidental.  It took place the year after civil rights and labor activists forced Congress to repeal Public Law 78 and end the bracero contract labor program.  Farm worker leaders then acted because growers could no longer bring braceros into the U.S. to break strikes.

The 1965 strike did not, in fact, start in Delano.  In Coachella, where California’s grape harvest begins, Filipino workers went on strike that summer.  They won a 40¢/hour wage increase from grape growers, and forced authorities to drop charges against arrested strikers.

Larry Itliong organized the Coachella strike.  He and the Filipino workers of AWOC then started the walkout in Delano.  Itliong had a long history as an organizer, going back to the 1930s.  He was a protégé of Ernesto Mangaoang, a revered leader of the CIO union for Alaska fish cannery workers, Local 7 of the United Cannery, Agricultural and Packinghouse Workers of America.  Itliong himself ran for office in that union.

The Federal government accused Mangaoang of being a Communist during the McCarthyite hysteria, and tried to deport him to the Philippines.  After UCAPAWA (renamed the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers) was destroyed in the 1949 purge of the CIO, Local 7 was taken in by Harry Bridges’ union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.  It became ILWU Local 37, and today is part of the ILWU’s Inland Boatman’s Union.

In leftwing unions Filipinos and other farm workers mounted huge agricultural strikes in the 1930s.  After World War Two, Local 7 struck Stockton’s asparagus fields in 1949.  Itliong was active in that strike, as was Chris Mensalvas, who later became Local 37 president.  The Federal government also tried to deport Mensalvas as a Communist.

In the early 1950s Filipino farm workers continued to organize with the National Farm Labor Union, headed by Ernesto Galarza (author of Merchants of Labor – The Mexican Bracero Story).  They struck the giant DiGiorgio Corporation, then California’s largest grower.  In 1959 the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) was set up by the American Federation of Labor, which had merged with the CIO to form the AFL-CIO in 1953.  Despite the federation’s conservative politics, AWOC hired Itliong as an organizer because of his long history among Filipino workers.  AWOC used “flying squads” of pickets to mount quick strikes, and struck the Imperial Valley lettuce harvest in 1961-2, demanding $1.25 per hour.

Many Filipino workers in Coachella and Delano were members of ILWU Local 37 in 1965, when the grape strike began.  Every year they would travel from the San Joaquin Valley (where Delano is located) to the Alaska fish canneries.  Through the end of their lives, they were often active members of both Local 37 and the United Farm Workers.

Cold war fears of communism were strong in the 1960s – one reason why the contributions of Itliong and the Filipinos were obscured.  The strike in Delano owes much to Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Gilbert Padilla and other Chicano and Mexican leaders who came out of the CSO.  But the left wing leadership of Itliong, Philip Veracruz and other rank-and-file Filipino workers was equally important.

The alliance between Itliong’s AWOC and the Cesar Chavez-led National Farm Workers Association was a popular front alliance of workers who had, in many cases, different politics.  AWOC’s members had their roots in the red UCAPAWA.  NFWA’s roots were in the Community Service Organization (CSO), which was sometimes hostile to Communists.  Yet both organizations were able to find common ground and support each other during the strike.  They eventually merged to form the UFW.

Both the Filipinos and Chavez, in the CSO, opposed the bracero program.  To organize farm labor they sought immigration policies favoring workers, which would keep growers from using braceros to break strikes.  The Delano strike was a movement made up of immigrant workers, who wanted to keep growers and the government from using immigration policy against them.  Their opposition to contract labor programs is as important for immigration reform today as it was in 1965.

Chavez willingly acknowledged that the NFWA hadn’t intended to strike for another two or three years.  The decision to act was made by Filipinos – left wing workers.  It was a product of their history of militant fights against growers.

The political philosophy of the Filipinos saw the strike as their fundamental weapon to win better conditions.  The 1965 grape strike was started by workers on the ground, not by leaders or strategists far away.  Although some couldn’t read or write, as Matthiessen charged, they were politically sophisticated.  They had a good analysis and understanding of their situation as workers, and chose their action carefully.

In Delano Filipinos used popular front ideas they’d used before – that workers and organizations with different politics, or of different nationalities, could work together to win fundamental social change.  Growers had pitted Mexicans and Filipinos against each other for decades.  When Filipino workers acted first by going on strike, and then asked the Mexican workers, a much larger part of the workforce, to join them, they believed that workers’ common interest could overcome those divisions.

Strikers in Delano developed close friendships and personal connections with each other.  Many of the Filipinos died as single men, because anti-miscegenation laws prohibited them from marrying non-Filipinas, and the immigration of women from the Philippines was limited until the late 1960s.  Cesar Chavez’ son Paul recalls the way the older Filipino men looked at him and other children of Mexican strikers as their own family.  In the wake of the grape strike, the UFW and scores of young activists from California cities built a retirement home for them in Delano, Paolo Agbayani Retirement Village, to honor their contribution.

Philip Veracruz, a Filipino grape picker who became a vice-president of the UFW and later left over disagreements with Chavez, wrote during the strike’s fourth year:  “The Filipino decision of the great Delano Grape Strike delivered the initial spark to explode the most brilliant incendiary bomb for social and political changes in U.S. rural life.”  The contribution of these Filipino workers should be honored – not just because they helped make history, but because their political and trade union ideas are as relevant to workers today as they were in 1965.

RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS REMEMBERED:
The first school in the nation named after Filipino American labor leaders is in Union City, the Itliong/Vera Cruz Middle School. The New Haven Unified School District Board approved the renaming of Alvarado Middle School, effective January 2016.

Filmmaker Marissa Aroy has released a video on Filipino farmworkers, “The Delano Manongs.”

David Bacon is a California writer and documentary photographer. A former union organizer, today he documents labor, the global economy, war and migration, and the struggle for human rights. His latest book, The Right to Stay Home (Beacon Press, 2013). discusses alternatives to forced migration and the criminalization of migrants.

Mythology has hidden the true history of how and why the great grape strike started, especially its connection to some of the most radical movements in the country’s labor history. After 50 years that silence is lifting. Dawn Mabalon, a history professor at San Francisco State University, has documented the radical career of Larry Itliong, who headed the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), one of the two organizations that carried out the 1965 strike.

See:http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-radical-roots-of-great-grape-strike_20.html

Republicans are Nothing More Than Cheerleaders for Hate, Ignorance and Intolerance

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Source: ForwardProgressives

Author: Allen Clifton

Emphasis Mine

Sometimes I’ve joked that my life would have much simpler had I just been a Republican. Doesn’t it just seem easier? Just grab a Bible; go to church 52 days a year; hang a flag at your home; go buy a gun; only worry about yourself; and repeat whatever talking points you’re fed by the conservative media and you’re good to go.
No complex or critical thinking is required. In fact, both of those are highly discouraged. Look at some of the more well-known members of the conservative media; people like Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly. These are people who’ve become stars among conservatives for simply spouting utter nonsense as often as possible. I firmly believe that right now I could go give a speech at a conservative event, have no idea what the event was about, and just using what I know about Republicans I could have people in attendance giving me standing ovations throughout most of my speech. It’s not hard to do. These are the people who claim to be “fighters for good, Christian family values,” yet support people like Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump (who was actually a speaker at the Iowa Freedom Summit) simply because they often make derogatory statements about President Obama and liberals in general. I’m not sure how you can claim that you’re defenders of “family values” when: Trump has been married three times (so much for that sanctity of marriage). Nugent dodged the draft (so much for supporting the troops), has threatened the president’s life and is an admitted sexual predator. Limbaugh has been married four times (again, so much for sanctity of marriage), is an admitted drug addict and constantly demeans women. Oh, but it’s okay because they all love guns and hate President Obama. And apparently that’s all you really need to do in order to be “loved” by these good, wholesome “Christians” standing for family values and the “moral majority.” And let’s not forget the “family values” that were on full display a few months ago by tea party queen herself Sarah Palin during a late-night drunken brawl her family was involved in. Apparently, even her 5-year-old grandson was a witness to it. Nothing says “good Christian values” quite like riding around in a limo late at night with several members of your family intoxicated, crashing parties – with a 5-year-old in the car.
But, again, she loves guns and hates President Obama, so she’s just fine by conservatives. The truth is, these people are nothing but cheerleaders for hate, ignorance and intolerance. Anyone can get on a stage and bash homosexuals, attack President Obama, praise guns and say “God Bless America” and these people would stand in awe, cheering like mindless drones programmed to respond to certain words or phrases. That’s really all it takes for conservatives to support anyone. If you can spout enough anti-liberal nonsense on a large enough stage, you’re only a few steps away being the next conservative hero. Because at the end of the day, these people don’t stand for anything. They claim they’re all about Christian values, but that’s negated when they throw their support behind adulterers and sexual predators. It’s just millions of people who are distracted by talking points, an American flag, a gun and the Bible. And when it’s all said and done, they’re really nothing more than cheerleaders for anyone who can get on a stage and preach hate, ignorance and intolerance.

See:  http://www.forwardprogressives.com/republicans-nothing-cheerleaders-hate-ignorance-intolerance/

How the Wall Street Journal’s Attempt to Take Down Bernie Sanders Backfired

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Source: AlterNet

Author: Tom Hartmann

Emphasis Mine

Bernie Sanders is leading Hillary Clinton in early primary states, and he’s gaining on her in national polls. Major media outlets are starting to treat Senator Sanders seriously, but not necessarily with complete honesty. Take for example Laura Meckler’s article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. It was provocatively titled “Price Tag of Bernie Sanders’s Proposals: $18 Trillion.”

The article starts off by dismissing Sanders’s campaign as a long-shot, and then goes on to call his proposals “the largest peacetime expansion of government in modern American history.” 

“In all” Meckler writes, “he backs at least $18 trillion in new spending over a decade… a sum that alarms conservatives and gives even many Democrats pause.”

That estimate may give conservatives and corporate Democrats pause, but the whole article should give any reader who can do simple arithmetic pause. One red flag is that the click-bait headline makes it seem like the piece is talking about a one- or maybe two-term estimate of what Bernie’s budgets might look like. Or even more extreme; that just getting his proposals off the ground would take $18 trillion.

But the reality is that we’re only looking at $1.8 trillion a year under Bernie’s sweeping proposals. But that’s just a little editorial sleight of hand to drive traffic to their site right? Well, not quite.

You see, the Wall Street Journal piece cited research by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. And there was just one small problem with their interpretation of his research. They blatantly omitted his conclusion.

But in the age of information, major newspapers are rightfully under more scrutiny than ever. Professor Friedman saw the Wall Street Journal’s piece and responded in the Huffington Post with “An Open Letter to the Wall Street Journal on Its Bernie Sanders Hit Piece.”

He writes that the Journal wasn’t completely wrong: the program would involve spending $15 trillion over a decade. But they left out the key detail: it would actually save the country a total $5 trillion over those 10 years. We’d see those savings in reduced administrative waste, lower pharmaceutical and device prices, and by decreasing the rate of medical inflation.

Because the simple fact is: We, as a people, are going to spend that $15 trillion on health care anyway. The difference is that under the current model, we pay that money to private insurance companies. And those private companies have much higher levels of administrative costs, fraud and general waste than Medicare does. Another difference is that the government would be negotiating drug prices, making drugs more affordable for everyone.

And who would see that $5 trillion in savings? Businesses for one. Along with state and local governments. Because they wouldn’t have to pay for their employees’ insurance — who’d be covered by Medicare for All.

And individuals, like you and me, wouldn’t have to worry about co-payments and deductibles. Or worse, finding that the “affordable plan” that we choose doesn’t cover a necessary procedure.

You see, as Bruh1 points out over at DailyKos, the Wall Street Journal presented government spending in a fundamentally dishonest way. Because what we spend can’t be separated from what we’d save by going with different policies.

Take Bruh1’s example of shopping for a car: “You don’t buy a car by saying ‘well it would cost me 10,000 here, but the same car would cost me 7,000 there, so the price tag on the 7,000 car is too expensive.’ You say ‘it saves me 3,000 to buy from the other guy.”

And that’s the point — it’s not $15 trillion that Bernie’s plan would cost the country, because we as a people will spend that amount, and more, on health-care costs anyway.

It’s $5 trillion that we the people will save with Bernie’s plan — and get back — by adopting an efficient and affordable single-payer health-care for all system. And that would be good for everyone, and the economy as a whole.

Unfortunately the Wall Street Journal’s analysis of Bernie’s proposals isn’t just another routine example of shoddy corporate journalism. It’s an example of how the corporate media tries to discredit and discard anyone who they can’t control. And that’s not just bad news for our political process. It’s also bad news for the Fourth Estate, which really should at least try to be honest in its critique of policy issues.

Thom Hartmann is an author and nationally syndicated daily talk show host. His newest book is “The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America — and What We Can Do to Stop It.“

See:http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/how-wall-street-journals-attempt-take-down-bernie-sanders-backfired?akid=13505.123424.D73aju&rd=1&src=newsletter1042811&t=8

Paul Krugman: GOP Debate Proves Candidates are Liars Living in “World of Fantasy and Fiction”

The “candidates went beyond expounding bad analysis and peddling bad history to making outright false assertions”.

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Source: AlterNet

Author:Scott Eric Kaufman

Emphasis Mine

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued Friday that all the GOP debate on Wednesday proved is that the current field of Republican candidates is dangerously out of touch with reality, and is more than willing to lie about it in order to win an election.

By way of proof, he noted that the only candidate who didn’t spout “economic fantasies” was Donald Trump, and the only one seemed “remotely sensible” on foreign policy was Rand Paul — both of whom aren’t electable for a host of other reasons. Indeed, he said, the entire field should be “scary” not just to Democrats, but to moderate Republicans, because it’s impossible to tell what they actually believe.

“The real revelation,” Krugman wrote,was the way some of the candidates went beyond expounding bad analysis and peddling bad history to making outright false assertions, and probably doing so knowingly, which turns those false assertions into what are technically known as “lies.”

For example, Chris Christie asserted, as he did in the first G.O.P. debate, that he was named U.S. attorney the day before 9/11. It’s still not true: His selection for the position wasn’t even announced until December.

Mr. Christie’s mendacity pales, however, in comparison to that of Carly Fiorina, who was widely hailed as the “winner” of the debate…

I’ve been going over what was said at Wednesday’s Republican debate, and I’m terrified. You should be, too. After all, given the vagaries of elections, there’s a pretty good chance that one of these people will end up in the White House.

Why is that scary? I would argue that all of the G.O.P. candidates are calling for policies that would be deeply destructive at home, abroad, or both. But even if you like the broad thrust of modern Republican policies, it should worry you that the men and woman on that stage are clearly living in a world of fantasies and fictions. And some seem willing to advance their ambitions with outright lies.

Let’s start at the shallow end, with the fantasy economics of the establishment candidates.

You’re probably tired of hearing this, but modern G.O.P. economic discourse is completely dominated by an economic doctrine — the sovereign importance of low taxes on the rich — that has failed completely and utterly in practice over the past generation.

Think about it. Bill Clinton’s tax hike was followed by a huge economic boom, the George W. Bush tax cuts by a weak recovery that ended in financial collapse. The tax increase of 2013 and the coming of Obamacare in 2014 were associated with the best job growth since the 1990s. Jerry Brown’s tax-raising, environmentally conscious California is growing fast; Sam Brownback’s tax- and spending-slashing Kansas isn’t. 

Yet the hold of this failed dogma on Republican politics is stronger than ever, with no skeptics allowed. On Wednesday Jeb Bush claimed, once again, that his voodoo economics would double America’s growth rate, while Marco Rubio insisted that a tax on carbon emissions would “destroy the economy.”

The only candidate talking sense about economics was, yes, Donald Trump, who declared that “we’ve had a graduated tax system for many years, so it’s not a socialistic thing.”

If the discussion of economics was alarming, the discussion of foreign policy was practically demented. Almost all the candidates seem to believe that American military strength can shock-and-awe other countries into doing what we want without any need for negotiations, and that we shouldn’t even talk with foreign leaders we don’t like. No dinners for Xi Jinping! And, of course, no deal with Iran, because resorting to force in Iraq went so well.

Indeed, the only candidate who seemed remotely sensible on national security issues was Rand Paul, which is almost as disturbing as the spectacle of Mr. Trump being the only voice of economic reason.

The real revelation on Wednesday, however, was the way some of the candidates went beyond expounding bad analysis and peddling bad history to making outright false assertions, and probably doing so knowingly, which turns those false assertions into what are technically known as “lies.”

For example, Chris Christie asserted, as he did in the first G.O.P. debate, that he was named U.S. attorney the day before 9/11. It’s still not true: His selection for the position wasn’t even announced until December.

Mr. Christie’s mendacity pales, however, in comparison to that of Carly Fiorina, who was widely hailed as the “winner” of the debate.

Some of Mrs. Fiorina’s fibs involved repeating thoroughly debunked claims about her business record. No, she didn’t preside over huge revenue growth. She made Hewlett-Packard bigger by acquiring other companies, mainly Compaq, and that acquisition was a financial disaster. Oh, and if her life is a story of going from “secretary to C.E.O.,” mine is one of going from mailman to columnist and economist. Sorry, working menial jobs while you’re in school doesn’t make your life a Horatio Alger story.

But the truly awesome moment came when she asserted that the videos being used to attack Planned Parenthood show “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” No, they don’t. Anti-abortion activists have claimed that such things happen, but have produced no evidence, just assertions mingled with stock footage of fetuses.

So is Mrs. Fiorina so deep inside the bubble that she can’t tell the difference between facts and agitprop? Or is she deliberately spreading a lie? And most important, does it matter?

I began writing for The Times during the 2000 election campaign, and what I remember above all from that campaign is the way the conventions of “evenhanded” reporting allowed then-candidate George W. Bush to make clearly false assertions — about his tax cuts, about Social Security — without paying any price. As I wrote at the time, if Mr. Bush said the earth was flat, we’d see headlines along the lines of “Shape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point.”

Now we have presidential candidates who make Mr. Bush look like Abe Lincoln. But who will tell the people?

 

See: http://www.alternet.org/media/paul-krugman-gop-debate-proves-candidates-are-liars-living-world-fantasy-and-fiction?akid=13496.123424.cK9QV1&rd=1&src=newsletter1042682&t=6

Ben Carson: Screw The Constitution, Muslims Should Be Banned From The Presidency

“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”

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source:Occupydemocrats.com

author:John prager

Emphasis mine

Among his peers, Ben Carson may be meek and silent, as we have seen at the most recent Republican debate, but when one gets him alone, the braindead neurosurgeon is just as bigoted as the rest of his compatriots. According to Carson, no Muslim should ever be President of the United States.

In an interview with NBC Sunday, Carson explained that Islam should immediately disqualify a presidential candidate. “Let me wrap this up by finally dealing with what’s been going on, Donald Trump, and a deal with a questioner that claimed that the president was Muslim,” Chuck Todd asked the presidential hopeful. “Let me ask you the question this way. Should a President’s faith matter? Should your faith matter to voters?”

“Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter,” Carson replied. “But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.”

“So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?” Todd asked.

“No, I don’t. I do not,” Carson said, adding:

“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”

The United States was not founded on one particular religion, no matter how much right-wing extremists like Carson scream it from the mountaintops, but instead on a freedom of religion. In other words, all Americans — Christian, Jew, Pastafarian, Muslim, Dudeist, or any other religion — may be President. Of course, in suggesting a religious test for the office of President, Carson’s suggestion is actually in violation of the Constitution. Article 6 of the Constitution makes this abundantly clear:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.“

For a candidate in a party that uses the word “Constitution” only slightly less than they say “Benghazi,” it is rather surprising that Carson would propose an unconstitutional idea like barring Muslims from running for higher office.

One of the right’s favorite boogeymen, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on Carson to hang his head in shame and drop out of the race after the brain surgeon‘s (a term that it is difficult to use sarcastically in this scenario) horrific remarks. In a statement, the organization blasted Carson’s ignorance and bigotry:

“Mr. Carson clearly does not understand or care about the Constitution, which states that ‘no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office,’” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “We call on our nation’s political leaders – across the political spectrum – to repudiate these unconstitutional and un-American statements and for Mr. Carson to withdraw from the presidential race.”

He said this incident demonstrates why the Constitution is needed to protect Americans of all faiths.”

Carson should not only drop out of the race, but out of the public eye because his sole purpose is to serve as an embarrassing reminder that we have a long way to come as a country. Carson is clearly feeling the “Trump effect” and has begun speaking more inflammatory in a desperate grasp for attention that only serves to remind us as to how unqualified he truly is for the job of President. Muslim-Americans have every right participate in the American nation and the right-wing’s campaign to marginalize minorities is an affront to our democracy.

 

John Prager is an unfortunate Liberal soul who lives uncomfortably in the middle of a Conservative hellscape and likes to refer to himself as an “island of reason in a sea of insanity.” While he is not a fan of politicians, period, he has developed a deep-seated hatred for the bigotry, fear mongering, and lies of the Right Wing. John also works as a counselor at one of Barry Soetoro’s FEMA re-education camps and as a HAARP weather control coordinator. John’s life’s aspiration is to rule the world with an iron fist, or find that sock he’s been looking for. John can be reached at americanlesionx@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.

See: http://www.occupydemocrats.com/ben-carson-screw-the-constitution-muslims-should-be-banned-from-the-presidency-video/

What Exxon Knew, and When

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Source: RSN via New Yorker

Author: Bill Mckibben

Emphasis Mine

Wednesday morning, journalists at InsideClimate News, a Web site that has won the Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on oil spills, published the first installment of a multi-part exposé that will be appearing over the next month. The documents they have compiled and the interviews they have conducted with retired employees and officials show that, as early as 1977, Exxon (now ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest oil companies) knew that its main product would heat up the planet disastrously. This did not prevent the company from then spending decades helping to organize the campaigns of disinformation and denial that have slowed—perhaps fatally—the planet’s response to global warming.

There’s a sense, of course, in which one already assumed that this was the case. Everyone who’s been paying attention has known about climate change for decades now. But it turns out Exxon didn’t just “know” about climate change: it conducted some of the original research. In the nineteen-seventies and eighties, the company employed top scientists who worked side by side with university researchers and the Department of Energy, even outfitting one of the company’s tankers with special sensors and sending it on a cruise to gather CO2 readings over the ocean. By 1977, an Exxon senior scientist named James Black was, according to his own notes, able to tell the company’s management committee that there was “general scientific agreement” that what was then called the greenhouse effect was most likely caused by man-made CO2; a year later, speaking to an even wider audience inside the company, he said that research indicated that if we doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere, we would increase temperatures two to three degrees Celsius. That’s just about where the scientific consensus lies to this day. “Present thinking,” Black wrote in summary, “holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”

Those numbers were about right, too. It was precisely ten years later—after a decade in which Exxon scientists continued to do systematic climate research that showed, as one internal report put it, that stopping “global warming would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion”—that NASA scientist James Hansen took climate change to the broader public, telling a congressional hearing, in June of 1988, that the planet was already warming. And how did Exxon respond? By saying that its own independent research supported Hansen’s findings? By changing the company’s focus to renewable technology?

That didn’t happen. Exxon responded, instead, by helping to set up or fund extreme climate-denial campaigns. (In a blog post responding to the I.C.N. report, the company said that the documents were “cherry-picked” to “distort our history of pioneering climate science research” and efforts to reduce emissions.) The company worked with veterans of the tobacco industry to try and infuse the climate debate with doubt. Lee Raymond, who became the Exxon C.E.O. in 1993—and was a senior executive throughout the decade that Exxon had studied climate science—gave a key speech to a group of Chinese leaders and oil industry executives in 1997, on the eve of treaty negotiations in Kyoto. He told them that the globe was cooling, and that government action to limit carbon emissions “defies common sense.” In recent years, it’s gotten so hot (InsideClimate’s exposé coincided with the release of data showing that this past summer was the United States’ hottest in recorded history) that there’s no use denying it any more; Raymond’s successor, Rex Tillerson, has grudgingly accepted climate change as real, but has referred to it as an “engineering problem.” In May, at a shareholders’ meeting, he mocked renewable energy, and said that “mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity,” which would stand it in good stead in the case of “inclement weather” that “may or may not be induced by climate change.”

The influence of the oil industry is essentially undiminished, even now. The Obama Administration may have stood up to Big Coal, but the richer Big Oil got permission this summer to drill in the Arctic; Washington may soon grant the rights for offshore drilling along the Atlantic seaboard, and end a longstanding ban on oil exports. All these measures help drive the flow of carbon into the atmosphere—the flow of carbon that Exxon knew almost forty years ago would likely be disastrous.

We’ve gotten so inured to this kind of corporate power that the report in InsideClimate News received relatively little coverage. The big news of the day on social media came from Irving, Texas, where the police handcuffed a young Muslim boy for taking his homemade alarm clock to school; all day people tweeted #IStandWithAhmed, and rightly so. It’s wondrous to see the power of an Internet-enabled world shining the light on particular (and in this case telling) injustice; there’s a principal and a police chief in Irving that will likely think differently next time. But we badly need the same kind of focus on the long-lasting, underlying abuses of corporate might. As it happens, Exxon is based in Irving, Texas too.

 

See:http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32488-what-exxon-knew-and-when

11 Distortions, Misrepresentations and Outright Lies in the GOP Debate

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Source: Alternet

Author: Zaid Julani

Emphasis Mine

Last night, millions of Americans watched two rounds of Republican Party presidential debates – first a debate among candidates who have failed to achieve more than one percent in national polls, and second a debate among relative frontrunners.

Both debates offered a window into an entirely different world, completely unrelated to the world we actually live in. Candidates made statement after statement that represented distortion, mistruths, and outright lies. Here are 11 whoppers:

1. Insisting That Hispanics Used to Love Republicans: Lindsey Graham scolded the other three candidates in his debate, telling them that Hispanics voted for “us” under previous Republican president George W. Bush. Although it’s true that frontrunner Donald Trump has depleted much of what was left of Hispanic support for the GOP, even under Bush, that wasn’t a vote they won. At the high point in 2004, Bush won 44 percent of that vote, and Romney won only 27 percent.

2. Ridiculously Saying That Iran Threatens The Whole Western World: Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee wanted the audience to know that Iran threatens the “essence of Western civilization.” Except Iran’s defense budget is around $10 billion, a fractionof our own $600 plus billion defense budget. How a country with no weapons of mass destruction and a tiny defense budget can be threatening the United States, let alone our NATO allies, was not explained by Huckabee. Probably because it makes no sense.

3. Implying the U.S. Government Funds Abortion: Over and over, the assertion was made that the United States federal government finances abortions, such as by giving subsidies to Planned Parenthood. While you can make a convoluted argument that money is indirectly spread around, the fact is the the federal government has followed a blanket ban on such funding except in cases of rape, incest, or when it threatens the health of the mother.

4. Claiming Obama Is Trying to Circumvent the Process to Let In Syrian Refugees: Bobby Jindal said that Obama was trying to “short-circuit the vetting process” to let in Syrian refugees, a dangerous dog whistle to imply that the president was going to let in terrorists. As CNN’s own fact-check pointed out, the 10,000 refugees – truly a paltry amount – are slated to come in through the exact same process as any other refugees.

5. Saying We Are Almost the Only Ones With Birthright Citizenship:Trump said almost no one else – including Mexico – has birthright citizenship, and moderator Jake Tapper agreed with him. That’s true, if you think the entire rest of the world consists of Europe. Almost everywhere in the Americas has birthright citizenship and that includes Mexico.

6. Rubio Telling a Fantastic But False Story About His Grandfather:Senator Rubio gave an emotional address about his grandfather supposedly fleeing Castro to come to the United States. There’s just a problem: the story doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. As has been reported in the past, his family came to the United States long before Castro even came to power.

7. Stating That North Korea Can Hit Us With a Nuclear Weapon: Rubio also claimed that North Korea could hit us with a nuclear weapon. Unless they plan to send a team on a boat carrying one, it’s not going to happen – there is very little evidence that they have a functional intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.

8. Saying, With A Straight Face, That Bush Kept Us Safe: “My brother kept us safe,” said Jeb Bush. This is a pretty ironic thing to say five days after the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, which his brother obviously did not keep us safe from.

9. Going Back to the Tired “Sanctuary” Arguments About Terrorists:Rubio made the argument that we needed to stay in Iraq, invade Afghanistan, and have our military all over the world to prevent terrorists from having “sanctuary” – but as the Boston Bombing, Charleston, and many other attacks prove, terrorists don’t need to have a physical space to plot attacks, and a giant military presence in a foreign country doesn’t necessarily prevent them so much as give them recruits.

10. Telling People Marijuana Is More Harmful Than Beer: Carly Fiorina, disupting Rand Paul’s more libertarian view on drugs, said that smoking marijuana isn’t like having a beer. Actually marijuana is much safer than alcohol – is linked to “one in 10 deaths among working-age adults can be attributed to excessive alcohol use.”

11. Lying About Vaccines: Trump boosted theories that vaccinations are linked to autism; despite Ben Carson’s intervention that this wasn’t true, Rand Paul still went on to tout the “voluntary” nature of smallpox vaccinations – actually they were not voluntary, they were mandated and financed by a global government effort through the World Health Organization.

See:http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/11-distortions-misrepresentations-and-outright-lies-gop-debate?akid=13484.123424.-yHQbT&rd=1&src=newsletter1042561&t=2

Chilling New Poll Finds GOP Fascism Is Very Real

A shocking number of Republicans say they can conceive of a situation in which they’d sympathize with a military coup.

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Source: AlterNet

Author: Heather Digby Parton

Emphasis Mine

Last week, as the nation observed the anniversary of 9/11, one could not help but look back at that time and contemplate the reaction by our fellow citizens and foreign nations. Rick Perlstein wrote a very poignant piece a couple of years back about the solidarity that horrible day inspired among all Americans and people around the world — and how it was lost.

Perlstein describes how bills such as the vote to authorize war and the Patriot Act passed nearly unanimously and without debate, which he says happened because in that moment of oneness,”it seemed unimaginable that this extraordinary grant of executive power could possibly be abused.” The man who should have been president, Al Gore, famously said, “George W. Bush is my commander in chief.”

Lefties from Ellen Willis to Barbra Streisand immediately fell into line and supported the president unequivocally. Bush memorably put this new sense of trust and good will into words when he addressed Congress and the nation on September 20, 2001, and asked the American people to pull together for the sake of the nation as a whole. He also admonished them to be decent to the people of Middle Eastern descent who lived among us.

“I ask you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many have come here. We’re in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them.”

Here is the notoriously fractious Congress all gathered together on 9/11 to sing God Bless America on the Capitol steps.

Sadly, as Perlstein pointed out, it didn’t take long for all of that solidarity to fall apart. One year later, conservative pundit Peggy Noonan was writing:

“So the Southerners are eyeballing the young Muslim males. Maybe these guys are bad guys. They allow themselves to think this in part because one of the things Americans regret most since Sept. 11 2001 is their lack of suspicion. We’re all very live-and-let-live. Before Sept. 11, young Muslim males could tell someone in passing that soon those towers in New York will go boom. And fearing to offend, fearing to hurt the feelings of another person, we’d let it pass. We’d mind our business, give them the benefit of the doubt. And now we wish we’d been less friendly, less trusting, less lazy or frightened. We wish we’d been skeptical. Hell, we’re the only nation on earth that is now nostalgic for paranoia.”

Noonan went on to condemn the “young Muslim males” — medical students — who inspired the column as bigots for failing to properly soothe a hysterical woman who panicked to see them eating dinner in a Georgia restaurant. (Jeb Bush, by the way, called the woman to congratulate her for her sharp observation.)

Anyone who was in America during that period also remembers the intense patriotic fervor exemplified by the anthem of the era, Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (the Angry American)”:

Hey Uncle Sam
Put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty Started shakin’ her fist
And the eagle will fly
Man, it’s gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom Start ringin’ her bell
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue
Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you’ll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A.
‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass
It’s the American way

As the Dixie Chicks found out, anyone who didn’t agree could expect to be met with a furious reaction from conservatives who enforced the new patriotism with near religious fervor. And their love of country was not confined to the military. When president George W. Bush donned a Navy flight suit and landed on an aircraft carrier in a fighter jet to (prematurely) declare victory in Iraq, the right wing went into a major collective swoon. You could even buy a bronze bust of George W. Bush wearing the jumpsuit that was advertised with this stirring sales pitch:

“President Bush is a Leader who has the courage to lead. It is political courage. It is not poll driven it is conviction driven. It is consistent and does not change because of pressure or threats of political survival. It is reconfirmed every day. It differs from combat courage in that it is thought oriented not reaction oriented. Combat courage does not necessarily translate into political courage. Combat courage is admirable and you only know if you have it when you are in combat. President Bush has demonstrated that he has political courage and this is why he was re-elected. By owning a bust of President Bush, Commander in Chief you will be making a statement and in a politically charged environment, it takes courage.”

In those days, Republicans believed that government and military leaders were heroic protectors of all we hold dear. But even as kitschy as Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” performance was, and as overweening as the GOP’s patriotic love of men in uniform, that statement above is a remarkable validation of the American dedication to the concept of civilian control of the military. He might have been wearing a fake uniform (he liked to do that) but they acknowledged and respected him for his political leadership.

Something seems to have changed their minds. According to this new YouGov poll, these same patriotic Republicans still love the military passionately but are no longer attached to that moldy old concept of civilian control:

“Republicans (43%) are more than twice as likely as Democrats (20%) to say that they could conceive of a situation in which they would support a military coup in the United States.”

More to the point, only 32 percent of Republicans state unequivocally that they would not conceive of a situation in which they would support a military coup. One would be tempted to think this is simply a matter of partisanship, but there is no evidence that Democrats have ever entertained the notion of a military coup, no matter who was president, even one as widely loathed as George W. Bush. It’s as “un-American” as it gets.

For years the right has accused the opposition of being unpatriotic and failing to properly love America. And here they are, endorsing something that’s only seen in Banana Republics and totalitarian police states.

But there is some good news in all this. It’s likely that as soon as they get a president they like, they will once again discover that the Constitution is sacrosanct and the president is worthy once again to be the Commander in Chief. For instance, the latest Washington Post poll shows that they are not so cynical that they cannot imagine anyone having the qualities that are required for such a job:

1) Republicans say by 64-35 that Trump is “qualified to serve as president.”

2) Republicans say by 60-35 that Trump is “honest and trustworthy.”

3) Republicans say by 53-45 that Trump understands the problems of people like them.

4) Republicans say by 54-42 that Trump “has the kind of personality and temperament it takes to serve effectively as president.”

So we can all rest easy. As long as a qualified leader like Donald Trump is in charge they are unlikely to support something as radical as a military coup. But Barack Obama has clearly worn on their last nerve. And you don’t even want to think about what will happen if Hillary Clinton becomes Commander in Chief. One can easily imagine them calling for this coup and telling themselves “it’s the American way.”

For these folks the American way is whatever they want it to be including, apparently, a military dictatorship.

 

Heather Digby Parton, also known as “Digby,” is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.

See: http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/chilling-new-poll-finds-gop-fascism-very-real?akid=13479.123424.9YvtrN&rd=1&src=newsletter1042471&t=6