While President Barack Obama again heralded his keeping his promise to pull out of Afghanistan, news accounts this week revealed that the Administration is again discussing the extension of U.S. troops in that country past 2014. The Administration is determined to stay in a country where U.S. citizens are increasingly attacked not only by the Taliban but Afghan troops. Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated inclinations toward the Taliban and harsh treatment of women. Then there was Karzai’s recent position that women are worth less than men — presumably even those American women keeping Karzai and his corrupt family and friends in power.
Category: Media
There is an interesting ruling in Nashville this week where U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger ruled that ABC and the producers of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” are protected by the First Amendment right in making casting decisions — even in the face of discrimination claims over the failure to cast minorities on the television series “The Bachelor.”
Continue reading “ABC Wins Major Discrimination Challenge Over Casting Of “The Bachelor””
The largest distributor of magazines in Britain will now require people to show identification to confirm their age to purchase a new category of magazines that will join hard porn as potentially harmful to children: hunting and shooting magazines. After a campaign by animal rights groups, the retailer has agreed to restrict access to such magazines despite the fact that children can hunt and shoot in England.
Janis Lane is the Tea Party leader in Mississippi and she appears to long for the days when women were happy chattel. Lane had made headlines in complaining that women are inherently poorly suited to not just serve as bosses but to vote.
Continue reading “Meet Janis Lane: Tea Party Leader And Anti-Feminist”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
It has been estimated that approximately 50 million Americans watched the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney that took place on October 3rd. Many viewers of the debate are diehard fans of Sesame Street. They were taken aback when Romney brought up the name of one of this country’s most well-loved TV avian characters that evening. It’s a good thing that John James Audubon wasn’t alive to hear the words that emitted from Mitt’s mouth in responding to Jim Lehrer about cuts that he’d make in federal spending if he is elected President:
“I’m sorry, Jim. I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you too. But I’m not going to — I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”
The following day, PBS issued a statement expressing disappointment that it had become a target in the political discussion the previous evening. Big Bird himself issued no statement on his own behalf. Since the debate, however, he has appeared on television entertainment and news shows and in a number of Youtube videos. It has been reported that our fine feathered friend was truly disheartened when he learned of Romney’s plan to eliminate funding for PBS programs like Sesame Street, the show that brought him fame and helped to make “Big Bird” a household name.
Continue reading “Fowl Play?: Big Bird Enters the 2012 Presidential Debate”
Below is my column today in the Washington Post on the decline of free speech in Western countries. Speech is being balkanized into prohibited and permitted areas by redefining speech in terms of its social impact. Increasingly, it seems that the West is re-discovering the tranquility that comes with forced silence. What is fascinating is that this trend is based on principles of tolerance and pluralism — once viewed as the values underlying free speech.
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Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
The two major themes that run through most of my guest blogs here are the idea that we are being manipulated by a Corporate Oligarchy, whose aim is to re-establish Feudalism in an American format. The second theme is my belief that their method of control is perpetrating this revision of America through manipulation of the National myths to which we have all been exposed. They have worked hard and somewhat successfully to take the myths and turn them into memes. One myth that I’ve recently written about is the “American Dream” that all of us have an equal chance of fulfilling all our aspirations based on our innate abilities and hard work alone. One meme that has been developed from this is that our Elite 1% are entrepreneurial heroes, who are the only “job creators” worth mentioning. The truth is that most of the 1% inherited their wealth, like the Koch Brothers or Donald Trump, while many others were born in privileged settings and rose in the world through their contacts with others from the same background.
Gene Howington, a friend and another guest blogger, has approached the same territory with his four part series of discussions of propaganda methodology. Gene and I are running on parallel tracks getting at the same thing and interestingly both of us set out on our parallel paths independent of discussion with the other. Gene and I have both touched on the mechanisms that are being used and in Gene’s case eve the science of the manipulation, but I think both of us have missed the specific science that has been adopted by corporations and used to perform this attempt to control. Today I came across an article at Alternet.org http://www.alternet.org/ that flashed the proverbial light bulb in my brain. When I read it my thought was, of course……. .Why haven’t I as someone trained in mental health seen this connection before? I will present extensive quotes from the article and then link it. I think it is important enough that everyone who visits here should read this article through.
“The corporatization of society requires a population that accepts control by authorities, and so when psychologists and psychiatrists began providing techniques that could control people, the corporatocracy embraced mental health professionals. In psychologist B.F. Skinner’s best-selling book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), he argued that freedom and dignity are illusions that hinder the science of behavior modification, which he claimed could create a better-organized and happier society.”
Continue reading “Manipulated America: One Theory of How They Control US”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
One of the main problems with any legal principle is that we humans are so complex in our interactions that even the most hallowed of legal principles are bound to run into conflict with a real life situation that turns it on its end and leaves even the most principled among us at a loss. This is why the timeless practice of training lawyers to be able to argue both sides of a case arose. Even those who are most respectful of our legal system and our Constitution, recognize that with the variety of human situations, sometimes the legal process leads to results that are far short of the mark of what a person might consider to be justice. Recently, while watching a TV real life murder show called “Unusual Suspects” I came across a case, whose resolution, left me confused as to whether the result was correct in a Constitutional sense. The first ten amendments to our Constitution that are known as “The Bill of Rights” are legal principles that I hold sacrosanct. Historically, the founders put them in place to safeguard the people from the tyrannies that often flowed from autocratic systems of government. These were principle that history and experience had taught them were necessary to protect and preserve the freedom of citizens.
The Fifth Amendment became famous in the 40’s and 50’s when it was invoked at congressional hearings striving to root out “communists”. People in the glaring spotlight of Congressional Hearings, sworn under oath, would be forced to invoke the Fifth Amendment to assert their right not to incriminate themselves. What was unfortunate about these “witch-hunts” was that according to legal procedure, if the person under oath answered any kind of question it was deemed that their Fifth Amendment Rights had been forfeited, since any answer, no matter how innocuous could be considered to have opened up a line of questioning. Thus if one was asked to discuss where they worked they would have to invoke the “Fifth”, or otherwise be opened to questions on who they worked with. The result of this was that by exercising their Constitutional Rights, these witnesses were made to seem guilty of hiding something, merely by asserting their right to remain silent. People’s careers were destroyed having been guilty of nothing more than associating with people who believed in a different economic system, that wasn’t inherently illegal. As the title indicates I’m writing about another aspect of the Fifth Amendment and the result of a particular murder case that left me intellectually and emotionally conflicted. Continue reading “Double Jeopardy”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
In the case of Fourtin v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court of Connecticut overturned the conviction of Richard Fourtin. Fourtin was convicted of sexually assailing a twenty-five year old woman with significant mental and physical handicaps including cerebral palsy, mental retardation and hydrocephalus. The Court, in affirming the Appellate Court’s judgement, found that the woman could have used “gestures, biting, kicking and screaming” to indicate “her lack of consent to sexual intercourse at the time of the alleged sexual assault.”
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia is again making headlines with controversial public statements. I have previously written about Scalia and the advent of the celebrity justice. Scalia clearly relishes the public attention, even though his public controversies likely cost him the Chief Justice position on the Court. Continuing his celebrity tour before conservative groups, Scalia thrilled his “base” by declaring that the criminalization of homosexuality, abortion, and the death penalty are “absolutely easy” questions.
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
The 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Seems pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? Continue reading “The Shame and Waste of Fusion Centers”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
In my Social Work career I spent 37 years working primarily with people in poverty, whether from Race, ethnicity, economic situations, criminal history and/or addiction. In my Psychotherapy practice (part time) my patients were middle to upper class economically and yet as the years have passed my memory of them has faded. Still remaining though, burned into my memory, are the lives of those I met who lived in poverty. We see in this current Presidential election a sharp contrast between the philosophies of the two candidates. One believing in lowering peoples expectations for and the receipt of, what he deems “entitlements”. The other who defends what he calls self-funded programs and championing the Federal Government’s intervention to make health care more accessible. There is, however, one economic/social area where both candidates fully agree and this agreement represents exactly what is wrong with our country.
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, by their words and deeds, both believe fervently in the notion of the “American Dream”. If we look at the history of their lives we can understand how from their perspective, their lives have typified the “America Dream”. Romney was born wealthy, went to the best schools and came from a family that was highly prominent in his community. Obama, though born the child of an unwed mother, had the benefit of her intelligence, in addition to Maternal Grandparents who were relatively well to do. Their lives, though having different arcs, led them both to the point where they are competing for the highest office in the land. Neither man is lying when they extol America as the world’s shining light of opportunity for all, because their own lives bear that out. To me the problem is that reality shows that they are wrong in their belief and in their clinging to the myth of the “American Dream”, they ignore the most important issue of our time, American inequality of opportunity. Continue reading “American Dream Not American Reality”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
This campaign season we’ll hear a lot about “statistical ties.” The “statistical tie” misnomer is used to refer to the situation where one candidate leads another candidate but that lead is within the margin of error (MOE). However, what we’re really interested in is the probability that one candidate leads the other candidate.
Duluth, Minnesota Police Officer Richard Jouppi will face criminal charges for beating a man in a detox facility last month after a review by an independent counsel. Jouppi will be charged with counts of fifth-degree assault and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors.
Continue reading “Minnesota Police Facing Criminal Charges For Beating Man In Wheelchair In Detox Room”
Jason Cantrell, an assistant city attorney in New Orleans, has resigned after being given a summons for marijuana possession. Cantrell was in court when a joint fell out of his pocket in front of a New Orleans police officer. The incident not only cost Cantrell his job but has put his wife, New Orleans City Council candidate LaToya Cantrell in a difficult spot.