The WAWG Blog

First of all, a short summary of The Lucifer Effect. It explains how events like Mi Lai, Abu Ghraib, and The Stanford Prison Experiment turned good people evil.

Part of this explanation involves “bad barrels.” A bad barrel is an environment in which a person lives or works which negatively alters how that person completes assigned tasks. Anyone living in a bad barrel is highly susceptible to performing evil acts that they would otherwise never consider. Individuals who are known as ‘good’ outside the bad barrel learn to commit acts that they would never consider outside of the bad barrel.

The prison at Abu Ghraib was one such bad barrel. Professor Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect, inadvertently created a bad barrel, a mock prison, in a basement at Stanford University. The war environment, or maybe even a war mentality, can create a bad barrel. I have posted that listening to Fox Noise and hate radio in isolation also creates a bad barrel.

Building bad barrels of significance takes a lot of resources, and “Koch Kash” from multinational corporations and individual billionaires are key resources, especially since the publication of The Powell Memo and the Supreme Court’s activist Citizens United decision.

Our national politics now include at least two major bad barrels. One of those barrels is encircled by The Beltway around Washington, D.C. which contains over 20 corporate lobbyists for every Congressional representative. The other is The White House. Civil servants, spanning decades of influence, have also helped bring us to where we are today. The predominant political influence inside those barrels is right-wing authoritarianism.

These right-wing authoritarian bad barrels, with all the lobbyists, civil servants, and Koch Kash, will corrupt almost every politician sent to Washington, D.C., regardless of party affiliation.

Those two bad barrels have taken decades to create and that transition is how we’ve gone from good, to bad, to ugly. And getting back to ‘good’ may require getting from ‘ugly’ back to ‘bad’ first.

Here are the definitions of the good, bad and ugly in terms for our two-party system and authoritarianism:

Good – From the passage of Social Security in 1935 to passage of The Clean Air and Clean Water acts of the early 1970s, we maximized the protection and empowerment of citizens. This period included more liberal to moderate perspectives in both parties and a populous that had suffered a depression and multiple wars together giving them a sense of community and caring for others.

Bad – The Powell Memo of 1971, which kicked off this era, was the formal declaration of corporate war on American democracy. It was the beginning of the end of our citizen-driven government. This period began the purge of liberals from both parties and the takeover of the Republican party by the authoritarian religious right.

Ugly – This era signifies almost absolute control by a right-wing authoritarian minority, funded heavily by right-wing corporate America and right-wing billionaires. Almost all Republicans and a few Democrats represent this minority. In the Senate, they represent a minority of small populated states with right-wing voters. In the House, the Tea Party represents the major portion of this minority. Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, and Senator Bill Frist gave rise to this era in the mid 90s.

We made a lot of progress after the Great Depression, but during the ugly years we lost so much and we suffered the Great Recession. To get back to the good years, we must both redefine American capitalism to promote sustainability and democracy, and educate and involve more citizens, especially minorities, in the political process to destroy the bad barrels in D.C. and rid us of the, white, right-wing authoritarian, minority. This minority is currently tearing down our system of representative governance and replacing it with one of corporate governance run by the ONE% with Koch Kash, all to prove they are right and punish the rest of us.

The July 25, 2013, email newsletter from Popular Resistance put it this way:

A simplified explanation of the strategy to transform our society from a greedy plutocracy to a cooperative democracy, from our destructive path to a sustainable future, is that there are two simultaneous tracks – protest [including voting] what we do not like and build what we want. We call this “Stop the Machine-Create a New World.”

As states give to and take from national citizenship dues coffers, some get back more than they give, and Red states are the biggest net takers. That leads me to another comparison, but one looking at large multinational corporations, and a question for which I don’t really know the answer. What is the net income/loss for the nation, or states for that matter, as corporations give and take, especially, if you go beyond what they might pay in citizenship dues and include transfer costs related to pollution, its impact on our health, and poorly paid employees with no benefits. How many large multinational corporations would be defined as ‘net takers?’ Just the dirty energy industries like Koch Industries? Just fast food? Just Wall Mart? Just high-tech? Just international banks? Just hedge fund managers? Just brokerages? Or all of these and many more?

Depending on your media sources, you may have seen the news about the 40 year anniversary of ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council. Well, ALEC and other conservative, pro-corporate governance of America, organizations were inspired by a document published 42 years ago. On August 23, 1971, attorney, and future Supreme Court Justice, Lewis F. Powell Jr, drafted a confidential memorandum for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that is now know as The Powell Memo. It “describes a strategy for the corporate takeover of the dominant public institutions of American society.”

Two years ago, on the 40th anniversary of The Powell Memo, Greenpeace posted a story about it:

“Historian Kim Phillips-Fein describes how “many who read the memo cited it afterward as inspiration for their political choices.”  In fact, Powell’s Memo is widely credited for having helped catalyze a newbusiness activist movement, with numerous conservative family and corporate foundations (e.g. Coors, Olin, Bradley, Scaife, Koch and others) thereafter creating and sustaining powerful new voices to help push the corporate agenda, including the Business Roundtable (1972), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC – 1973), Heritage Foundation (1973), the Cato Institute (1977), the Manhattan Institute (1978), Citizens for a Sound Economy (1984 – now Americans for Prosperity), Accuracy in Academe (1985), and others.”

What are we willing to pay for unlimited free enterprise for the loss of our representative government?

Listening to a right-wing caller on the Thom Hartmann show recently, reminded me of a key element from the right-wing authoritarian message machine. They make false claims about government, but the real problem is: massive corporate servitude. From any contract we sign that forces us into arbitration if we are harmed – arbitration that favors the corporation, to medical care costs set by the corporate “chargemaster,” to corporate commercials selling us things we don’t need, to corporate sponsored ALEC writing our state laws, to thousands of corporate lobbyists in our capital, to exorbitant corporate campaign donations, multinational corporations govern our lives. And they have the resources to sue anyone if anything impacts their profits.

“Excessive [corporate] intrusion” into all areas of our democracy is the major problem we are facing today. Corporate governance, which is only accountable to a few major stockholders, has replaced our representative governance, which is now only loosely accountable to its citizens. Remember the polls showing 90 percent of the public wanting limitations on guns sales and the 45 Senators that voted against that law? But no one’s talking about this problem because the right-wing authoritarians are pushing a false problem which they have manufactured and which supports their only reason for existence – to prove they are right.

Remember, you won’t find ‘protecting and empowering citizens’ in any corporate charter or by-laws. Protection and empowerment is the moral responsibility of nurturant parents and representative government.

Corporate governance diminishes our liberties and freedoms. Women are losing their liberty to choose – unless they can afford ‘safer’ for-profit facilities. Citizens are losing their right to vote unless they can pay a for-profit government contractor for a voter ID. Some of us still don’t have the freedom to walk our streets – just for the sake of maintaining gun manufacturer profits.

Corporate servitude IS replacing equal protection and empowerment of citizens by its representative government – except for the ONE%, who can afford their own protection and empowerment. One day, corporations will be selling our children to the wealthiest bidder.

Greg Abbott dreams of being Governor. Texas doesn’t need that kind of nightmare. Attorney General Greg Abbott uses his position as the chief law enforcement officer of Texas to protect polluters and defend voting maps that were found to discriminate against Hispanic and African-American Texans. He doesn’t want LGBT Texans to have even the most minimal of civil rights. And his radical agenda is costing millions and millions of taxpayer dollars.

Greg Abbott’s lawsuits against the federal government since President Obama took office cost Texans more than $2.5 million dollars.

Greg Abbott sued the federal government several times to deny Texan women access to basic medical care. [http://digitaltexan.net/2012/state/texas-attorney-general-sues-feds-womens-health-cuts/article29724/#.Ud7-SaWSJFR]

Greg Abbott uses the 700 lawyers as part of his staff — paid by our taxpayer dollars — as a tool of his hidden political agenda. What good have Greg Abbott’s wasteful lawsuits done for Texan families?

Greg Abbott supports voter suppression. Voter ID measures are nothing but voter bullying, aimed at stopping voters who are older, poorer or from the Hispanic and African-American communities. Abbott doesn’t want these communities to vote. And he wants to spend your money to make sure that they don’t. [http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2012/08/19716.html/]

Greg Abbott’s lawsuits against the federal government since President Obama took office cost Texans more than $2.5 million dollars. [http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2012-09-09/texas-spends-big-bucks-suing-federal-government#.Ud781KWSJFQ]

Greg Abbott released the social security numbers of millions of Texans. [http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Texas-AG-releases-voters-Social-Security-numbers-3510642.php]

Greg Abbott sued the federal government to prevent healthcare programs like Medicaid from benefiting Texas families. [http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/texas-attorney-general-greg-abbott-opposes-federal/nRwsY/]

Greg Abbott led the charge to defend district maps that discriminate against Hispanic and African-American voters. He’s paid millions of our taxpayer dollars to Chicago lawyers who have failed to defend these unjust maps. And he’s pushed for the first special session to force through discriminatory redistricting, rather than letting the courts weigh in. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/texas-redistricting-case-five-things-you-need-to-know/2011/12/13/gIQAdowHsO_blog.html]

Greg Abbott Used Taxpayer-Funded Video For Campaign Purposes. [http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/politics&id=4706828]

Greg Abbott opposes even minimal civil rights for Texas’ gay couples. He thinks gay couples shouldn’t receive things like health insurance or benefits when a loved one passes away. That’s not kind, and it’s just not Texan. [http://hq-equalityfederation.salsalabs.com/o/35034/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=13485]

Regards,

Jim

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” — Thomas Jefferson

Just as it is the moral responsibility of nurturant parents to protect and empower each child equally, it is also the moral responsibility of a people’s government (of, for and by) to equally protect and empower each citizen. The children, as they mature, and later, as they become citizens, should benefit significantly from a balanced implementation of this moral responsibility. I say “should” because multiple variables affect the actualization of this responsibility and the well-being of children and citizens.

One key variable is caring. The benefits of actualizing this moral responsibility are maximized when parents and/or governments care deeply for all those for whom they are responsible. Funding/income/revenue is another variable, but caring is more significant than funding, and most other factors. Caring has life long psychological impacts. Funding is fleeting and just one of many helpful tools in life’s tool box.

So, to maximize the benefits of the moral responsibility to equally protect and empower our children and citizens, maximize caring and make sure the funding is available as needed to compliment that caring. Or to minimize the benefits, eliminate the caring and withdraw the funding.

But isn’t the latter just what many state Legislatures and Governors are doing to millions of American women? But what should one expect from right-wing authoritarians who only care about themselves and are making sure they keep what is ‘theirs.’ They cut school funding and enabled transfer of some of the available funding to for-profit corporations. They rejected Medicaid funding, among other hateful acts, and now they want to force women to give birth to children in states where caring is a no longer a government goal.

And just how will forcing the delivery of an ‘unwanted’ alter the strong and natural tendency of women to care for a child – especially one from a pregnancy complicated by horrendous situations like rape or incest? Won’t resentment override caring? Won’t the lack of caring harm an unwanted for life and create a burden on society that could be prevented?

Is it morally right to bring an ‘unwanted,’ especially one created from abuse and later subject to other abuse, into such an uncaring world?

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.” — Thomas Jefferson

Here’s another message I’ve sent to the Supreme Court:

On behalf of the Texas Republican Party, thank you.

With our contested voter ID law and formerly illegal district maps being implemented, the Battleground Texas effort will have an even more challenging time of turning Texas blue.

Thanks for delaying the inevitable and keeping Republicans in control of Texas for some unknown number of additional years. Thanks for assuring that future presidents of the United States are less likely to be Democrats and, in turn, for making sure you are joined by future justices of like partisanship.

Shame on the Robert’s right-wing, authoritarian, activist members – “The Hateful Four.” You’ve overthrown decades of still valid court precedence based on gut feel instead of discriminatory laws passed by Texas and other ALEC controlled state legislatures.

Things have changed “dramatically” since the Civil Rights Act. We have ALEC. We have billionaires like the Koch Brothers buying our government. We have a Supreme Court that has voted in favor of the US Chamber of Congress more often than not. We have hate radio. We have partisan entertainment referred to as news. We have banks to big to prosecute. We have more and more wealth concentrated with those of excessive wealth. We have a Congress that is controlled by a minority, extreme right-wing caucus. We have fewer union members. We have negative wage growth for average Americans. We have millions more without health insurance. We’ve had a Great Recession and we have a Supreme Court that is aiding this destruction of our democracy .

If you agree, make a donation to Battleground Texas.

While driving home from lunch today and listening to the discussion on NPR’s ‘Talk of the Nation’, the strong unreasonable comments of a caller disturbed me.

This caller was stating that overruling California’s Proposition 8 was not right. Prop 8 was the will of the voters of California and as such was the law of California voters. The courts had no authority to overrule people’s desires. What the people wanted was what was right.

There was no reasoning with this caller about the legal process of determining if a law was constitutional or not. For him it was all about the will of the people, as if they were always right.

In the battles against DOMA, Prop 8, Texas 2013 Special Session SB 5 and others to come, we need to understand why this caller, and millions of others like him, including Perry, Dewhurst, Taylor, and Dan Patrick, don’t see these issues the way progressives do.

Throughout my blog, I refer to these individuals as right-wing authoritarians (RWA) or conservatives without conscience as John Dean calls them. The key word is authoritarian. These authoritarians come from what Professor George Lakoff calls the strict-father family model. There is a dominant male figure who rules this family and who uses severe punishment to teach respect for authority and to teach what is right. This family model includes a subordinate female who does as directed by the authoritarian male.

The male authoritarian places high value on his sense of what is right. His gut tells him he is right. His authority cannot be questioned and if it is, he will mete out the appropriate level of physical punishment to correct the situation.

In the case of the RWA who called supporting Prop 8, his gut told him he was right about that support and it’s authority/constitutionality could not be questioned. How dare the US Supreme Court, or any other court, question what he ‘knows’ is right. These courts are wrong and deserve some level of punishment. How he and others like him will vent their anger, who knows? They will certainly use their anger to GOTV.

Now apply this to what happened in Austin with SB 5 on June 25th. There are a lot of upset Texans, grown as RWAs who strongly desire to teach the orange shirted mob what is right by applying an appropriate punishment.

With that it mind, I predict our state leaders will come back in the second special session with a more evil SB 5 to punish women even more deeply, and they will line the walls of the visitors’ gallery and halls of the capital with as many state troopers and other law enforcement as they can muster to keep the “unruly” orange shirts under control.

The government not only has PRISM, but there is also NUCLEON, MAINWAY and MARINA. The first two collect content from the internet and phone calls. The other two collect metadata from phone calls and the internet. This data collecting is generally referred to as Hoovering, after J. Edgar. This Hoovering includes phone and internet usage by all Americans. However, they store our data separately, in perpetuity, and require additional steps to investigate.

Details available from AP and Wash Post. Here is a summary:

How long will our communications be kept and who define and redefine the parameters that define a security risk?

Ben Franklin said:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. (Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759)

After WWII, Martin Niemöller said:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.

We are sliding down the slippery slope. How long before only those in power are ‘free?’ How long before our corporate owned government legislates that personhood applies only to corporations and we all “owe our soul to the company store?”