GOPer Doubletalk and BS

Mitch Daniels, the GOPer ex-governor of Indiana and current President of Purdue University, is trying to censor Howard Zinn's book A People's History of the United States. Daniels thinks that Zinn's book is

is a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page. Can someone assure me that it is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history."

Notice the language that Daniels uses; he wants to "get rid" of a particular book simply because he disagrees with it. This is the tendency of a potential dictator. The right wing war on science has turned into a war on intellectual freedom. The simultaneous attacks on science, trying to surpress the evidence for global warming , for instance, is part of the same tendency. It is right-wingers like Daniels who are trying to shove their propaganda down everybody's throat. When called on it, Daniels is now trying to make himself out to be the victim. Which is another trick that conservatives at all levels like to pull (compare, for instance, the Paul Deen kerfuffle). Another instance that the rightists might talk about "freedom" but are actually trying to impose their ideology on evryone else.

Hilter Would Be Proud

The right wing campaign against food stamps (which are no longer stamps but more like debit cards) is a good example of how right wing opinion makers use lies and distortions to affect policy. The big lie the right is promoting that "lazy, no good" aid recepients are eating on crab meat while the "good white working" (by implication White) people have to get by on hamburger. It's all a pack of lies but it workds for the right wing. The right has a vast apparatus starting with bloogers and talk radio blowhards who can infiltrate the right wing message into the mainstream media. The right used these tactics to destroy welfate and affirmative action. If they do the same to food aid, will be left with people starving to death in the streets. What good would that do?

Adolf Hitler himself pioneered the use of big lies to achieve political ends. In his book Mein Kampf he wrote "in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

The US Office of Strategic Services summed up Hitler's use of political lying: "His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."

The american right has adopted a similar policy of spreading political lies in order to achieve their ends. Does conservatism lead to fascism? That's a question for another time.

The Law is an Asshole

Specifically Florida's "stand your ground law," which allowed George Zimmerman to go free after murdering Trayvon Martin. Basicall, that law allows whites to kill blacks or anyone else they don't like. It's worse than vigilantism, it's a return to legalized lynching. That proves that racism in it's most violent forms is still alive today.

Line Them Up and Shoot!

I recently came across an interesting article on Huffington Post. A series of behavioral studies of upper class individuals revealed some interesting facts about how the rich behave. According to the findings:

Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals' unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.

There you have it. The rich aren't rich because they are smarter, have more talent or work harder than everybody else. They got rich by acting like scumbags. These assholes are complaining about having to pay taxes. They are lucky we don't stand up against the wall and shoot them!

The full title of the article is

Higher social class predicts increased
unethical behavior
Paul K. Piffa,1, Daniel M. Stancatoa, Stéphane Côtéb, Rodolfo Mendoza-Dentona, and Dacher Keltnera
aDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; and bRotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON,
Canada M5S 3E6
Edited* by Richard E. Nisbett, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and approved January 26, 2012 (received for review November 8, 2011)

Published in Psychological and Cognitive Sciences.

Beware Doughnut Hamburgers

To keep matters straight, celeb Chef Paula Deen is in trouble not for saying "n--r" 30 years ago, but for saying that an African -American employee was "black as a board." Paul Deen however, is acting like she's the victim. It's an example of how the denial of racism is prevalent among Whites, and not just Southerners. This is taking place while Trayvon Martin was murdered just for being Black. Deen's bahvior may not be on the same level as killing a person, but she still keeps racist attitudes alive, and that doesn't help things.