Jindal and the Dumbing of Louisiana: Tax Payer-funded christofascist “madrasas”

Posted: June 19, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: New Orleans, public education, religion, religious extremists, Republican politics, Voter Ignorance | Tags: , , | 12 Comments

Last month, Hurricane Bobby Jindal and the right wing Republicans that have overtaken the state since Katrina have taken a drastic step to subsidize religious indoctrination in Louisiana.  This can only spell disaster for a state that needs jobs in a modern world. Louisiana has become a stew pot for extreme right wing social engineering. Here’s some of the “Shocking Christian school textbooks” that will be paid for with your tax payer dollars and mine care of the Governor who kidnapped and assaulted a young woman in the name of exorcism.

This 2012-2013 school year, thanks to a bill pushed through by governor Bobby Jindal, thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution and states that the alleged creature, which has never been demonstrated to even exist, has been tracked by submarine and is probably a plesiosaur. The curriculum also claims that a Japanese fishing boat caught a dinosaur. On the list of schools approved to receive funding through the new voucher funding, that critics warn could eventually cut public school funding in half, are schools that teach from the Christian fundamentalist A Beka Book, Bob Jones University Press, and Accelerated Christian Education curriculum.

The Accelerated Christian Education curriculum is nothing more than hogwash and religious indoctrination.

So, what’s in the ACE curriculum? An August 29, 2009 story in the Times Educational Supplement, a British publication for teachers, provides an excerpt from an Accelerated Christian Education science textbook:

“Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. Have you heard of the `Loch Ness Monster’ in Scotland?

Direct Evidence Ignored.

`Nessie,’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur. Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all.”

Extract from Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc. (1995)

Is the text still in use today? The answer is yes, according to U.K. critic Jonny Scaramanga, who was raised on the ACE curriculum and now runs a blog titled “Leaving Fundamentalism: Examining Christian Fundamentalism in The UK”. In a popular post titled Top 5 Lies Taught By Accelerated Christian Education, Scaramanga states, “I called ACE [Accelerated Christian Education] on May 3rd, 2012, and was told that all of these PACEs are still in print and the content has not changed. These lies are still being taught in over fifty British schools today.” In the post, Scaramanga provides more detail on what ACE’s curriculum Science PACE 1099  has to say about the Loch Ness Monster: Some scientists speculate that Noah took small or baby dinosaurs on the Ark…. are dinosaurs still alive today? With some recent photographs and testimonies of those who claimed to have seen one, scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence… Among the other claims taught in ACE science curriculum, according to Scaramanga, are the following (the last three ACE curriculum claims are detailed in a subsequent post by Scaramanga titled, 5 Even Worse Lies from Accelerated Christian Education), – Science Proves Homosexuality is a Learned Behavior – The Second Law of Thermodynamics Disproves Evolution – No Transitional Fossils Exist – Humans and Dinosaurs Co-Existed – Evolution Has Been Disproved – A Japanese Whaling Boat Found a Dinosaur – Solar Fusion is a Myth.

This is nothing more than a political calculation for the ever ambitious Bobby Jindal.  However, this massive transfer of public wealth to religious fanatics will spell disaster for Louisiana’s public schools and students.

While other states often try to hedge about the impact voucher programs have on public education funding, Louisiana has made no attempt to hide that its new program directly defunds public education. Because Louisiana is a solidly conservative – and solidly anti-union – state, pro-voucher advocates faced fairly little political pressure to support public schools, and had no real political incentive for hiding the fact that these vouchers steal money from public education.

Just how much money are we talking about? According to David Kirshner, professor of educational theory, policy and practice at Louisiana State University, “Students who leave can carry…the totality of their public school funding to their new private or charter school.” This means that for each voucher student who leaves the public system, the state will now subtract the cost of tuition or up to that student’s per capita expenditures – an average of about $8,800 – from public education funding. If all 380,000 students that will be eligible for vouchers in 2013 get them, that could mean a net loss of $3.3 billion to Louisiana’s public schools for that academic year. Every mini-voucher’s cost – $1,300 or less – will also be deducted from public education spending.

No other state in the nation has implemented a voucher program that penalizes public education to this degree and with this much transparency.

There’s no doubt about the eventual effect withdrawing so much funding will have on public education in Louisiana. It’s a mechanism, Kirshner tells AlterNet, to bring about the “inevitable degradation of the public system.” Of course, the likelihood that all eligible students will flee their public schools in one fell swoop is small — but the program nevertheless clears a pathway for steadily defunding public schools in just a few years time. As funding dries up, these schools will have fewer and fewer resources – and fewer staff – to help students succeed on standardized tests. This, in turn, will lead to more schools being designated as “low-scoring” over time — and the number of students eligible for vouchers will inevitably grow, as well.

The scary thing is that this directly subsidizes religious institutions. Most of these are not your benign Jesuit institutes of higher ed, either.

Though specific data is not available on the number of private religious academies in Louisiana, it seems reasonable to assume that the state’s percentage of religious schools meets or surpasses the national average, given Lousiana’s status as a Bible belt state. And if this year’s small-scale program is any indication of where Louisiana’s vouchers will most likely be used, religion is a key component: based on their names alone, it is clear that most of the participating schools are Christian academies. (Though there are a number of excellent secular private schools in the state, few if any slots at these schools are awarded to voucher students in practice.)

Even leaving First Amendment concerns aside, the dominance of Christian school options raises many questions about how this shift to religious academies will affect the quality of Louisiana education. “Smaller, less prestigious” and often struggling religious schools are more likely to have spots open for voucher students, Stephanie Simon reports for Reuters. She writes,

The school willing to accept the most voucher students — 314 — is New Living Word in Ruston, which has a top-ranked basketball team but no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.

The Upperroom Bible Church Academy in New Orleans, a bunker-like building with no windows or playground, also has plenty of slots open. It seeks to bring in 214 voucher students, worth up to $1.8 million in state funding.

At Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, pastor-turned-principal Marie Carrier hopes to secure extra space to enroll 135 voucher students, though she now has room for just a few dozen. Her first- through eighth-grade students sit in cubicles for much of the day and move at their own pace through Christian workbooks, such as a beginning science text that explains “what God made” on each of the six days of creation. They are not exposed to the theory of evolution.

If this is what vouchers have in store for the education of Louisiana’s primary and secondary students, it’s not unreasonable to fear that the quality of education in the state will deteriorate quickly.

Worse yet, there are no real checks in the system to hold sub-par private schools – including religious institutions – accountable for the quality of education students receive. As LSU education professor David Kirshner tells AlterNet, Louisiana’s voucher program “does not require that private and charter schools that accept public funds be subject to the same scrutiny of standardized testing that was used to indict the public schools in the first place. So what we have in Louisiana can in no way can be counted as a push from worse to better. Rather it is only a push from public to private.”

And in the low-quality schools Stephanie Simon describes, the program may very well be a push from better to worse.

Much of the ACE curriculum, as an example, is filled with racial, gender, and political bias.  Here’s some quotes.

“For many years, the four racial groups were separated politically and socially by law. This policy of racial separation is called ‘apartheid’. South Africa’s apartheid policy encouraged whites, Blacks, Coloureds, and Asians to develop their own independent ways of life. Separate living area and schools made it possible for each group to maintain and pass on their culture and heritage to their children.

“For many years, Blacks were not allowed to vote in national elections and had no voice in the national government. Reporters and broadcasters from all parts of the world stirred up feelings against the white South African government. These factors contributed to unrest within South Africa. In addition, there are at least ten separate, distinct tribal groups in the nation. Because these tribes are not a cohesive group but are often in conflict with each other, much of the violence in South Africa has been between different groups of Blacks. In spite of apartheid and the unrest in recent years, South Africa is the most developed country in Africa, and Blacks in South Africa earn more money and have higher standards of living than Blacks in other African countries.”

…

“Men on the left cannot walk in wisdom.”

…

“True science will never contradict the Bible because God created both the universe and Scripture…If a scientific theory contradicts the Bible, then the theory is wrong and must be discarded.

Remember, our tax payer dollars are being used to indoctrinate children with this nonsense.  Bobby Jindal is basically funding the US version of “madrasas” that are producing extremists that will work to bring down our democracy and secular laws.

Taking on a Big Question: Why Embrace Plutocracy over Working Class Heroes?

Posted: June 9, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: religious extremists, right wing hate grouups, Voter Ignorance | Tags: , , , | 66 Comments

The UK Guardian has always been one of my favorite papers.  One of my high school social science teachers–Steve Wiitala–introduced me to the paper when I was taking an honors world history seminar class.  I’ve been reading it ever since. Jonathan Haidt–a psychology prof–asks a question that I’ve been wondering for years.  Why on earth would any working class person support some one like Ronald Reagan or Mitt Romney?  Why would they even consider voting for reactionaries funded by the likes of the Koch Brothers?  Why would they vote against their own interests?

I’ve always looked to the slave plantation model for answers.  White overseers for rich masters were given just enough special favors and made to feel above the plantations’ slaves that they felt better thinking “well, at least I’m not one of them”. White working class people have a history of indentured servitude and sharecropping.  Why go back to people that really would like to re-institute these things? Haidt says that fear of the collapse of society sends them look for order and anything national greatness.  I wanted to explore his arguments here.  (You can also watch this interview with Haidt by Bill Moyers. ht/ to EcoCatWoman.)

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

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

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

Brain research is beginning to find that folks that tend to call themselves “conservative” tend to be more fearful.  Chris Mooney–Author of The Conservative Brain–explains it like this.

Looking at MRIs of a large sample of young adults last year, researchers at University College London discovered that “greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala” ($$). The amygdala is an ancient brain structure that’s activated during states of fear and anxiety. (The researchers also found that “greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex” – a region in the brain that is believed to help people manage complexity.)

That has implications for our political world. In a recent interview, Chris Mooney, author of The Republican Brain, explained, “The amygdala plays the same role in every species that has an amygdala. It basically takes over to save your life. It does other things too, but in a situation of threat, you cease to process information rationally and you’re moving automatically to protect yourself.”

Haidt says that this kind of thinking has some disturbing impact on people that tend to obsess on fear.  Group loyalty can drive people who want to feel safe. Does this explain the effectiveness of Willie Horton ads and all those Rovian tricks that seem paranoid and some what zombieland-like to us?

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

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

Does our place in Maslow’s hierarchy really determine our susceptibility, vulnerability, and motivation at the voting booth?  Haidt says yes and sums his thesis up this way.

When working-class people vote conservative, as most do in the US, they are not voting against their self-interest; they are voting for their moral interest. They are voting for the party that serves to them a more satisfying moral cuisine.

So, these are the same motivators that drive people to guns, bibles, and tribal thinking that demonizes the ‘other’. Is the angry right just a bunch of folks that are scared shitless?  It’s an interesting theses.  Dr. Bostonboomer probably has more information on some of this than me.  I am interested in hearing your thoughts.  What is the appeal of voting for your own servitude?

Monday Reads

Posted: May 21, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: #Occupy and We are the 99 percent!, morning reads, religious extremists, right wing hate grouups | Tags: , , , , | 15 Comments

Good Morning!

I am exhausted and I’m not even in Colorado yet.  It’s a good thing I’m getting some limited exposure to the news these days because it’s full of things like this.  Here’s the five most offensive sexist and homophobic offerings by conservatives for the month from Sarah Seltzer at Alternet. I picked a few for you so this is a spew alert!

Rejecting Virginia judicial candidate because he’s gay, then saying “Sodomy is not a civil right.” In Virginia, members of the House of Delegates failed to confirm Tracy Thorne-Begland, an openly gay formal Navy officer raising children with his partner, as a judicial candidate.

His nomination had been seen as a given, with bipartisan support, until lobbying from “both the Family Foundation, a powerful conservative group that opposed his candidacy, and conservative lawmakers, who argued that his past indicated that he would press an activist agenda from the bench ” according to the New York Times.

Even worse? One of the leading opponents of the nomination, Bob Marshall, defended the decision after it got national heat:

Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks never took an oath of office that they broke. Sodomy is not a civil right. It’s not the same as the Civil Rights Movement.

…

Bills allows pharmacists to deny care to women they think “may” be having abortions.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback expanded the state “conscience clauses” to allow religious employees at pharmacies and medical facilities to refuse service to women they think “may” be having an abortion. As Robin Marty writes, he’s “legally blessed a virtually open-ended number of situations in which ‘religious’ workers can refuse to assist women under the guise that they believe they ‘may be’ terminating a pregnancy.”

So one consequence is simply refusing to dispense contraception and emergency contraception pills, neither of which terminate pregnancies. But there are other implications, as Marty notes, including that, “The law could also allow refusal of even more medically necessary drugs simply because they may relate to abortions…” like drugs that stop bleeding, for instance.

There’s more evidence that arrests in Chicago for protestors cum terrorists were the result of Cops Gone Wild. Naturally, you have to rely on the foreign press to get the story. Are we getting repeats of 1968?

Deutsch, the attorney representing the suspects, said at the hearing that police had planted weapons at the scene of the arrests. “This is a way to stir up prejudice against a people who are exercising their First Amendment rights,” Deutsch said. “There were undercover police officers that ingratiated themselves with people who come from out of town.”

In a case earlier this month five self-described anarchists were charged with plotting to blow up a bridge near Cleveland after planting fake explosives underneath that federal agents had sold them.

Natalie Wahlberg, a member of the Occupy Chicago movement protesting against income inequality, said: “The charges are utterly ridiculous. CPD [Chicago police department] doesn’t know the difference between home beer-making supplies and Molotov cocktails.”

The National Lawyers Guild, a group of volunteer lawyers representing the protesters, said on Facebook that police “broke down doors with guns drawn and searched residences without a warrant or consent”.

I am a long standing Monty Python fan as well as a big fan of the art of animation.  That’s why I was thrilled to learn what Terry Gilliam’s been up to in this week’s The Economist. Here’s Gilliam discussing the difficulties of being non-formula in Hollywood.

To what extent does your reputation as a maverick contribute to the problems you experience?

Hollywood still sees me as someone who won’t be controlled as easily as a young guy straight out of making commercials. They don’t want some ageing hippie who still hasn’t learned to play the game after all these years. And that goes against me sometimes. But it’s not just me. Hollywood has been afraid to take risks for a long time now. All the studios want is a safe pair of hands.

Can you give an example of a studio choosing a “safe pair of hands” over you?

The first Harry Potter film. I was the perfect guy for that movie. They all knew it. J.K. Rowling wanted me to do it; David Heyman, the producer, wanted me to do it. But one guy from Warner’s overruled everyone and Chris Columbus got the gig. I was furious at the time but in hindsight, the level of studio interference on a project that size would have driven me insane.

What effect is Hollywood’s “safe” approach having on audiences?

The longer you keep churning out this production-line crap, the more audiences are going to like it—and need it. There’s an element of security provided by re-makes and re-hashes. We’re at the stage where audiences just want to know that everything will be the same. Maybe it’s because the world has become so diffused and unclear that people just want to go back to what they know over and over again. People need to reassure themselves that Spider-Man can still do the things he’s always done.

I’ve developed a fascination with brain injuries while listening to a NPR series on all the problems that Football players appear to develop midlife.  Then there’s the the huge number of brain trauma patients coming out of our military these days.  Here’s an interesting article at The Atlantic on how a blow to the head some times creates a genius.  Warning!  Do not try this at HOME!

For a long time, it was a mystery as to how horses galloped. Did all four hooves at some point leave the ground? Or was one hoof always planted? It wasn’t until the 1880s when a British photographer named Eadweard Muybridge settled the debate with a series of photographs of a horse in midstride. Muybridge took a great interest in capturing the minute details of bodies in motion. The images made him famous.

Muybridge could be obsessive — and eccentric, too. His erratic behavior was blamed on a head injury he’d sustained in a serious stagecoach accident that killed one passenger and wounded all the rest. Now, researchers believe that the crash, which gave Muybridge a permanent brain injury, may actually have been partially responsible for endowing him with his artistic brilliance.

Muybridge may have been what psychiatrists call an acquired savant, somebody with extraordinary talent but who wasn’t born with it and who didn’t learn the skills from someplace else later. In fact, Muybridge’s savant abilities had evidently been buried deep in the recesses of his mind the whole time, and the stagecoach incident had simply unlocked them.

So, that should give you a few interesting things to think about!  I’m headed to Colorado on Wednesday so I’ll be a little scarce this week.  What’s on  your blogging and reading list today?

Attack of the Zombie Right

Posted: May 2, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: religious extremists | Tags: , , | 20 Comments

The image of Zombie is pretty pervasive in modern American Culture.  From movies to music videos, the zombie serves as that partial human driven by eating other people’s brains while incapable of any thought.  A few recent articles have applied the zombie concept to the American Right Wing. I thought I’d share that with you.

First up is an item from Henry A. Giroux at  Truthout who wrote a book using the rightwing Zombie prototype.  It was published in 2010 and is titled “Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism” . Giroux argues that Zombie reactionaries threaten the very stability of our Democracy.

But the new zombies are not only wandering around in the banks, investment houses, and death chambers of high finance, they have an ever-increasing presence in the highest reaches of government and in the forefront of mainstream media. The growing numbers of zombies in the mainstream media have huge financial backing from the corporate elite and represent the new face of the culture of cruelty and hatred in the second Gilded Age. Any mention of the social state, putting limits on casino capitalism, and regulating corporate zombies puts Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck,?Rush Limbaugh, and other talking heads into a state of high rage. They disparage any discourse that embraces social justice, social responsibility, and human rights. Appealing to “real” American values such as family, God, and Guns, they are in the forefront of a zombie politics that opposes any legislation or policy designed to lessen human suffering and promote economic and social progress. As Arun Gupta points out, they are insistent in their opposition to “civil rights, school desegregation, women’s rights, labor organizing, the minimum wage, Social Security, LGBT rights, welfare, immigrant rights, public education, reproductive rights, Medicare, [and] Medicaid.” [5] The walking hyper-dead even oppose providing the extension of unemployment benefits to millions of Americans who are out of work, food, and hope. They spectacularize hatred and trade in lies and misinformation. They make populist appeals to the people while legitimating the power of the rich. They appeal to common sense as a way of devaluing a culture of questioning and critical exchange. Unrelenting in their role as archetypes of the hyper-dead, they are misanthropes trading in fear, hatred, and hyper-nationalism.

The human suffering produced by the walking hyper-dead can also be seen in the nativist apoplexy resulting in the racist anti-immigration laws passed in Arizona, the attempts to ban ethnic studies in public schools, the rise of the punishing state, the social dumping of millions of people of color into prisons, and the attempts of Tea Party fanatics and politicians who want to “take back America” from President Barack Obama—described in the new lexicon of right-wing political illiteracy as both an alleged socialist and the new Hitler. Newt Gingrich joins Glenn Beck and other members of the elite squad of the hyper-dead in arguing that Obama is just another version of Joseph Stalin. For Gingrich and the rest of the zombie ideologues, any discourse that advocates for social protections, easing human suffering, or imagining a better future is dismissed by being compared to the horrors of the Nazi holocaust. Dystopian discourse and End Times morbidity rule the collective consciousness of this group.

Joshua Holland at Alternet  sees this new ‘conservatism’ as being deeply rooted in the chemistry of the brain.  Are ‘conservatives’ just natural born zombies?

Research suggests that conservatives are, on average, more susceptible to fear than those who identify themselves as liberals. Looking at MRIs of a large sample of young adults last year, researchers at University College London discovered that “greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala” ($$). The amygdala is an ancient brain structure that’s activated during states of fear and anxiety. (The researchers also found that “greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex” – a region in the brain that is believed to help people manage complexity.)

That has implications for our political world. In a recent interview, Chris Mooney, author of The Republican Brain, explained, “The amygdala plays the same role in every species that has an amygdala. It basically takes over to save your life. It does other things too, but in a situation of threat, you cease to process information rationally and you’re moving automatically to protect yourself.”

The finding also fits with other data. Mooney discusses studies conducted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in which self-identified liberals and conservatives were shown images – apolitical images – that were intended to elicit different emotions. Writing at Huffington Post, Mooney explains that “there were images that caused fear and disgust — a spider crawling on a person’s face, maggots in an open wound — but also images that made you feel happy: a smiling child, a bunny rabbit.” The researchers noted two differences between the groups. The researchers studied their subjects’ reactions by tracking their eye movements and monitoring their “skin conductivity” – a measure of one’s autonomic nervous system’s reaction to stimuli.

Conservatives showed much stronger skin responses to negative images, compared with the positive ones. Liberals showed the opposite. And when the scientists turned to studying eye gaze or “attentional” patterns, they found that conservatives looked much more quickly at negative or threatening images, and [then] spent more time fixating on them.

Mooney concludes that this “new research suggests [that] conservatism is largely a defensive ideology — and therefore, much more appealing to people who go through life sensitive and highly attuned to aversive or threatening aspects of their environments.”

Another Alternet author, Sara Robinson, reviews the state of Fascist America.  We seem to have a hard core right that is hard-wired to be commie-fearing, gun and bible toting zombie/fascists.  It’s nothing new.  Will these zombies always walk amongst us?

America has never been without fascist wannabes. Research by Political Research Associates estimates that, at any given time in our history, roughly 10-12 percent of the country’s population has been bred-in-the-bone right-wing authoritarians — the people who are hard-wired to think in terms of fascist control and order. Our latter-day Christian Dominionists, sexual fundamentalists and white nationalists are the descendants — sometimes, the literal blood descendants — of the same people who joined the KKK in the 1920s, followed Father Coughlin in the 1930s, backed Joe McCarthy in the early ’50s, joined the John Birch society in the ’60s, and signed up for the Moral Majority in the 1970s and the Christian Coalition in the 1990s.

Given its rather stunning durability, it’s probably time to acknowledge that this proto-fascist strain is a permanent feature of the American body politic. Like ugly feet or ears that stick out, it’s an unchanging piece of who we are. We are going to have to learn to live with it.

But it’s also true that this faction’s influence on the larger American culture ebbs and flows broadly over time. Our parents and grandparents didn’t have to deal with them much at all, because the far-right fringe was pushed back hard during the peak years of the New Deal. It broke out for just a few short years in the McCarthy era — long enough to see the rise of the Birchers — and then was firmly pushed back down into irrelevance again.

But the country’s overall conservative drift since the Reagan years and the rise of the Internet (which enabled the right’s network of regional and single-issue groups to crystallize into a single, unified, national right-wing culture over the course of the ’90s and ’00s) reenergized the extreme right as a political force. As a result, history may look back on George W. Bush’s eight years as the “Peak Wingnut” era — a high-water mark in radical right-wing influence and power in America.

I think social media has played a huge role in bringing on that “Peak Wingut” era, frankly.  I am amazed at the number of emails, Facebook posts, and blogs that cause me to think about erecting a huge stockade around my house.  I have to admit that watching Fox News these days makes me think I am living in Zombie Land. The access to the media and the internet has certainly brought the zombie memes to the front pages and airways.  We also have one of our two major political parties that’s had a zombie infestation.   It certainly was on full display during the Republican primaries.  What really amazes me is the number of cult beliefs that seem to have found their way into mainstream American Political Life.  Who would ever think we’d be having to have serious conversations about Ayn Rand or Ludwig Von Mises just as two examples?

The most distressing thing about all of this is that dialogue and compromise–both necessary features of a functional democracy–are next to impossible when facing a zombie army.  No amount of reason, data or science stops those zombies from trying to eat our brains.  Just turn on the 700 club on any given day, watch Pat Robertson, and just try to to convince me that there aren’t zombies among us.  And don’t even get me started on Ron Paul, Paul Ryan, or Allen West or the zombimbo twins of Bachmann and Palin.  So, what’s a democracy to do?

Friday Reads

Posted: April 27, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, education, morning reads, religious extremists | Tags: , , , , , | 46 Comments

Good Morning!

I’ve been livid recently about our Governor’s jihad against public education.  Here’s some details on how Bobby Jindal used the ALEC play book to turn the state’s public schools upside down.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has remade the Louisiana public schools system with impressive speed over the past legislative session. Last week, he signed into law a suite of landmark reform bills that will likely change the direction of public education in Louisiana forever. But not all change is good, and critics say both Jindal’s agenda and the strategy to move it come right from the playbook of conservative advocacy group ALEC, in an effort to revive Jindal’s national political profile.

Louisiana is now home to the nation’s most expansive school voucher program. Charter school authorization powers have been broadened. And teacher tenure policies have been radically transformed. Louisiana already had something of a reputation as a radical-reform state, thanks to the post-Katrina educational climate in New Orleans. But not all change is good, and education advocates have deep concerns about the efficacy of Jindal’s overhaul, and the interests that have push it.

ALEC has overrun Louisiana at a time when it’s losing corporate sponsors and cronies in various state legislatures.  ALEC still has some steam left, however.

ALEC will survive, of course, kept afloat largely by the billionaire Koch brothers and their corporate allies. But as activists keep up the pressure, they must not lose sight of the worst culprits, who must be identified and targeted: the more than 2,000 legislative members of ALEC. The Center for Media and Democracy maintains a list of lawmakers allied with ALEC at ALECexposed.org. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has begun to pressure dozens of Democrats involved with the overwhelmingly Republican group to quit. Their exit from ALEC would put the lie to the claim that ALEC is nonpartisan.

Common Cause argues that ALEC has abused its tax-exempt status by lobbying, and Wisconsin State Representative Mark Pocan has introduced a bill requiring ALEC to register as a lobbyist in that state. But especially as November approaches, the Exit ALEC movement must go beyond the group to confront some of the damage it has done. In the past two years, thirty-four states have introduced bills to restrict voting for some 5 million eligible voters; nine have passed voter ID laws; dozens of other states have gotten rid of early voting or tried to hobble voter registration drives. In Florida get-out-the-vote efforts by the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote have been sabotaged. The most affected are blacks, Latinos and other groups that skew Democratic.

If you haven’t been following CISPA, you really should.  Here’s a primer from Truth Dig.

What is CISPA?

CISPA, an abbreviation for the Cyber Intelligence Security and Protection Act, was introduced in the House of Representatives on November 30, 2011 by Mike Rogers (R-MI), as well as 111 co-sponsors. Since then, a number of amendments have been introduced. The House is expected to vote on the bill Friday and its author has said that the latest changes brought the number of supporting Congressmen “well past” the threshold of 218 necessary for the adoption of the legislation. It is therefore very likely that the bill will be passed by the House. However, it’s not all that certain whether the bill will be made into law, especially with the White House’s latest statement that President Obama would be advised to veto the legislation.

What does CISPA entail for internet users?

The act says it is meant to create procedures allowing “elements of the intelligence community to share cyber threat intelligence with private-sector entities and to encourage the sharing of such intelligence.”  It also states that a cyber-security provider or a self-protected entity may share “cyber threat information”  “with any other entity designated by such protected entity, including… the Federal Government.”

But what does that mean?

Unnecessarily broad definitions are the factor which makes CISPA so controversial with web users.

Experts argue that the bill would give the government the ability to circumvent internet privacy laws and obtain information on user activities from private companies – be it providers, hosting companies or social networks – essentially any company involved in the Internet.

The bill does specifically say that the Federal Government can only use the information obtained for a “cybersecurity purpose” or the “protection of the national security of the United States,” but the broad definitions of the terms could potentially lump an average Internet user sending an encrypted e-mail into the same threat category as a terrorist. Privately owned corporations could, under the pretext of cyber and national security, spy on users and transfer their data to a government agency.

“You will get no accountability for that,” explains David Seaman, host of The DL Show. “If findings are turned against you in the worst possible way, you won’t be able to get a lawyer and sue because of the litigation immunity.”

You can find more analysis and links at Cannonfire.  The House has already passed CISPA.  No surprises there since these guys are standing in line to monitor US women’s menstrual periods and want to peer into every woman’s uterus.  As usual, a few Democrats joined in the effort to expand government’s intrusion into your personal lives.  Here’s wishing Obama follows through with his threat to veto.

The final tally was 248-168, enough to pass the measure but not enough to override the threatened veto. Forty-two Democrats broke with the White House to vote for the bill, and 28 Republicans voted against it.

The administration and Democratic critics opposed the bill because of privacy and civil liberties concerns. The other main sticking point was that, unlike a Senate bill by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), CISPA would not mandate new security requirements for a critical infrastructure network.

Although those disagreements still exist, House Republicans have now jumped ahead of the Senate in a race to avoid the political fallout in the event of a major cyberattack.

At least some of CISPA’s Democratic supporters weren’t happy with their colleagues’ opposition to the bill, nor with the White House.

After the White House issued the veto threat Wednesday, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, Rogers’s chief Democratic ally, launched an all-out lobbying effort to persuade his fellow Democrats to back the bill.

Here’s an article that pretty much outlines my worst nightmares: “How Christian Groups Push Right-Wing Religion With the Help of Your Tax Dollars”;Taxpayer-funded crisis pregnancy centers are using religion to oppose abortion, and many of them only hire Christians.

If you want to help carry out the anti-abortion mission of the taxpayer-funded Care Net Pregnancy Resource Center, you have to be a Christian.

It’s right there on the Rapid City, S.D., center’s volunteer application.

“Do you consider yourself a Christian?” “If yes, how long have you been a Christian?” “As a Christian, what is the basis of your salvation?” “Please provide the following information concerning your local church. Church name … Denomination … Pastor’s name.” “This organization is a Christian pro-life ministry. We believe that our faith in Jesus Christ empowers us, enables us, and motivates us to provide pregnancy services in this community. Please write a brief statement about how your faith would affect your volunteer work at this center.”

But that hasn’t stopped the center from receiving federal funding and other forms of government support.

In 2010, it was awarded a $34,000 “capacity building” grant as part of President Obama’s stimulus bill.

Last year, the nonprofit National Fatherhood Initiative, with “support from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Family Assistance,” awarded the center $25,000 for capacity building.

And when South Dakota passed a law requiring that women get counseling from a “pregnancy help center” before receiving an abortion, the Rapid City center was quick to sign up — becoming one of three such facilities listed on the state’s official website.

When do we get our country back from these whackos and when do we get to say that they don’t get our money?

I’m sending Hugs out today to Senator AL Franken for this.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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