What's at the Heart of Right-Wing Outrage Culture? An Unshaking Belief in an Ultimate Truth. Photo Credit: a katz / Shutterstock.com The following is an excerpt from the new book On Purpose by Paul Froese (Oxford University Press, 2016): Politics deals with the hard truths of life.
To carry through a policy agenda, a politician requires popular support, yet the intricacies of policy tend to be highly detailed, complex, and—frankly—boring.
AynRand. Brain Structure and Political Orientation. Fear of Socialism. The True History of Libertarianism in America: A Phony Ideology to Promote a Corporate Agenda. This is an adapted version of an article that first appeared on NSFWCORP.
Published daily online and monthly in print, NSFWCORP is The Future of Journalism (With Jokes). For more features, or to subscribe, click here. This important article kicks off what will be a focus of coverage of AlterNet over the next few months on the corporate-funded "pro-market" arm of libertarianism in America and the sophisticated methods of inserting business propaganda into the public debate. Every couple of years, mainstream media hacks pretend to have just discovered libertarianism as some sort of radical, new and dynamic force in American politics. It’s a rehash that goes back decades, and hacks love it because it’s easy to write, and because it’s such a non-threatening “radical” politics (unlike radical left politics, which threatens the rich).
Milton Friedman. That is how libertarianism in America started: As an arm of big business lobbying. "I do not believe in democracy. Or in the words of Rep. Google Moving to Shut Down Alternative Media by Ranking Sites on “Facts” Rather than Popularity. Search Engine giant Google, the major driver of traffic to the majority of media portals is moving to change the way it ranks websites, declaring that it intends to use known partisan debunking outlets to determine the “truthfulness” of content.
Currently, Google rankings are determined by the number of incoming links to a web page, meaning that if a story becomes popular it can be driven to the top of search results, and by viewed by millions of people. However, this is a little too democratic for the liking of some, who only like to get their “facts” from pre-approved sources. Rocking the Cradle on Capital Hill- The Face of Nationalism You Don't Know. How to carve a Baby's Future(image by V Kontakte) When I was 4 years old I still remember standing in the warm summer sun trying to make sense of the world I was starting to know.
The Vietnam war was going on and my uncles were overseas fighting the enemy. I didn't know where overseas was or even what an enemy was beyond the fact they must be bad people if my uncles are fighting with them. I was told God loved us because we were good people. I imagined God in the vein He was described to me, a great bearded giant that lived on a cloud. I didn't know America outside of the people in my neighborhood and family, but I knew God loved America, that's where I lived, and that's what I was told.
You see at 4 years old I was a perfect ultra-nationalist. On not understanding "Charlie:" Why many smart people are getting it wrong. Many smart people are getting a flawed picture of Charlie Hebdo.
They are concluding, based on simplistic and misleading analysis, that many of the magazine covers and cartoons promoted racist views. In fact, as I will show, some of the covers elaborately lampooned racist views of right wing parties, like Front National, by imitating some of their imagery, inserting snarky comments, and even posting mock party logos next to the images. 7 Signs You May be a Victim of Statism. Gary ‘Z’ McGee, Staff WriterWaking Times “The State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters.
Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: I, the state, am the people.” -Friedrich Nietzsche Truth: the pill everyone wants, but just can’t seem to swallow. 8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance. By Bruce E.
Levine / alternet.org Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination. Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. The Creativity Pill - James Hamblin. Health People taking dopamine for Parkinson's disease sometimes begin to generate a lot of artwork.
Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are…Conservative. Scientists are using eye-tracking devices to detect automatic response differences between liberals and conservatives.University of Nebraska-Lincoln You could be forgiven for not having browsed yet through the latest issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
If you care about politics, though, you'll find a punchline therein that is pretty extraordinary. Click here to read more from Mooney on the science of why people don't believe in science.