The WAWG Blog

U.S. Car Makers Fail to Place a Single Car on the Top Ten Fuel Efficient Sedans List – Here are the top ten fuel-efficient sedans and their mileages (city/hwy):

• Toyota Prius — 48/45
• Honda Civic Hybrid — 40/45
• Nissan Altima Hybrid — 35/33
• Toyota Camry Hybrid — 33/34
• Toyota Yaris — 29/36
• Toyota Corolla — 28/37
• Honda Fit — 28/34
• Honda Civic — 25/36
• Nissan Versa — 27/33
• Kia Rio — 25/35

What did the Big Three U.S. automaker CEOs drive to Washingtonto show their commitment to being green? Robert Nardelli of Chrysler drove his company’s Aspen Hybrid S.U.V., which gets 22 miles a gallon on the highway and 20 in the city. What a laugh! Alan Mulally of Ford drove an Escape Hybrid S.U.V. — 31 m.p.g. on the highway and 34 in the city. And Rick Wagoner of General Motors drove a Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid Sedan, averaging 34 m.p.g., but only 26 in the city.

EPA Against Limiting Rocket Fuel Ingredient in Drinking Water – The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there’s no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country. The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses, according to some scientists.

Texas is Good at Polluting – Texas produces and consumes more electricity than any other State, and per capita residential use is significantly higher than the national average.
Texas consumes more coal than any other State and its emissions of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide are among the highest in the Nation.
Texas is #1 per capita in GHG emissions in the US, which is one of the worst countries in the world on a per capita basis. Thus, Texans are the worst of the worst when it comes to contributing to Global Warming. Cleaning up Texas’ act won’t change the globe but …
In 2006, total global emissions were about 42 gigatonnes. Texas emitted about 670 million tons, or about 1.6% of global emissions. To put in perspective, Texas had 23.5 million citizens in 2006, less than 10% of the US population and about 1/3rd of 1% of global population. Consider Texas’ emissions in that context: 0.3% of Global Population, 1.6% of global emissions.

Failing AIG Continues to Hand Out More Money to Executives – American International Group Inc. (AIG), the insurer whose bonuses and perks are under fire from U.S. lawmakers, offered cash awards to another 38 executives in a retention program with payments of as much as $4 million. The incentives range from $92,500 to $4 million for employees earning salaries between $160,000 and $1 million, Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy said in a letter dated Dec. 5 to Representative Elijah Cummings. The New York-based insurer had previously disclosed that 130 managers would get the awards and that one executive would get $3 million. AIG, which received a U.S. rescue package of more than $152 billion, has been criticized for saying it will eliminate bonuses for senior executives while still planning to hand out “cash awards” that double or triple the salaries of some managers.

More Proof That Electronic Voting Machines Do Not Work Correctly – Voting machine vendors were allocated some $3.9 billion federal tax dollars for their efforts at creating proprietary systems, which don’t even work as promised…or as required by federal law. Some 200 ballots were deleted because of software problems with Diebold optical-scan systems. The company has known about the problem for four years, but they allowed election officials to continue using the same systems in several states. Billions of dollars have been allocated via federal law for the testing, certification and “upgrading” to voting systems which are claimed as “proprietary trade secrets” from a handful of private corporations such as Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, Hart Intercivic and a few others. Virtually every single one of them has proven to miscount votes, break down during voting, and otherwise stay completely un-transparent to the citizens who they are supposed to be serving. The result has been a multi-billion dollar tax-payer boondoggle, and a voting system no more reliable or oversee-able than the voting systems they were meant to replace.

One-Fifth of World Coral Reefs Lost Due to Warming Seas and Pollution – A downward trend tied to warming seas has not reversed and the world has now lost nearly one-fifth of its coral reefs, according to a global survey released Wednesday. Much of the rest could be destroyed within 40 years by increasingly acidic seas if warming continues unchecked, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network stated in its report.

Where’s My Clean Coal?
Some politicians and the coal industry use the term “clean coal” to describe technologies designed to enhance both the efficiency and the environmental acceptability of coal extraction, preparation and use. But, it has been estimated that commercial-scale clean-coal power stations (coal-burning power stations with carbon capture and sequestration) cannot be commercially viable and widely adopted before 2020 or 2025. Right now, it’s a bunch of untested ideas, and no one knows if they will work or if they’re safe.

Regards,

Jim

In my article on November 12, 2008, I discussed the need to build a progressive empathetic foundation to at least match if not surpass the well developed and obesely funded conservative single-party foundation that brought us torture, preemptive war and now an economic disaster to compare with no less than The Great Depression. In my article on November 25, 2008, I discussed replacing the “you’re on your own,” “empathy deficit,” conservative cognitive policy with an empathic progressive cognitive policy. In this posting, I will try to describe the two individual worldviews behind these policies.

We are a country with basically a two party system. These two parties have come to represent two worldviews: conservative and progressive. We are also a country where our brains have two modes of thought which coincide with these two worldviews. These worldview are impacted by our capacity, or lack there of, for empathy, which can easily be killed by fear.

This posting reviews the history of these two worldviews, what some of the latest research says about the two modes of thought which support these two worldviews and what research on the brain says about empathy and its affect on these worldviews.

Thom Hartmann’s book Cracking the Code provides a detailed history of the conservative and progressive worldviews. It also includes footnotes and excerpts from historical writings by the authors that laid the foundation for conservative and progressive worldviews.

Here is Hartmann’s summary on the history of the conservative worldview from chapter one of Cracking the Code:

Conservatives, believing [Thomas] Hobbes‘s view of human nature to be inviolable cannot conceive of the possibility that civilizations can exist without constant warfare or an iron-fisted Church or State to prevent that warfare. This is the original modern conservative story. Conservatives believe in what Riane Eisler and others have called the dominator culture. They believe that human nature must be dominated for human societies to flourish because without constraint by domination the essentially evil nature of humans will emerge and society will dissolve into chaos.

Conservatives believe that government must be restrained and controlled precisely because it’s made up of flawed human beings, “the governed.” This is why they’re willing to allow corporations to take powers — like controlling our health-care system — that they would never allow to government. Corporations are essentially independent entities and totally without morality (and, thus, without immorality or evil). Being amoral they’re less dangerous in the conservative mind than a government controlled by humans, particularly the vast majority of people (whom John Adams called “the rabble”) because those people are, at their core, evil.

The conservatives’ core belief is that if our essential (evil) human nature is not restrained by something — God or priests or corporate bosses [? also humans] — harm will come to society. This is why conservative morality is nearly always focused on restraining individual behavior, particularly private behavior (With whom you are having sex and in what positions or ways? What you are smoking, drinking or snorting? Is there a fetus growing inside you?). And why they’re enthusiastic to “privatize” functions of government [privateering is what is happening], taking the commons out of the hands of We the (evil) People and putting it into the hands of morality-neutral corporations that, in their minds, answer only to a mechanistic and morally neutral “free market.”

In the 1600s, when Thomas Hobbes developed his philosophy, England was suffering from significant social, economic and political turmoil. His major work, Leviathan, was written during the English Civil War. Here is the essence of Leviathan:

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This inevitably leads to conflict, a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes), and thus lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (xiii).

To escape this state of war, men in the state of nature accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede their natural rights for the sake of protection. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace. However, he also states that in severe cases of abuse, rebellion is expected. In particular, the doctrine of separation of powers is rejected: the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers. [This reminds me of the unitary presidency of George Bush.]

Later in chapter 1 of Cracking the Code, Hartmann references another British philosopher from the 1600s, and Thomas Jefferson. This British philosopher, John Locke, who was born when Hobbes was 44 years old and about 14 years before the publication of Leviathan, provided the foundation for progressive philosophy to rebut Hobbes. Around 1689 Locke wrote Two Treatises on Government.

The First Treatise is focused on the refutation of Sir Robert Filmer, in particular his Patriarcha which argued that civil society was founded on a divinely-sanctioned patriarchalism. Locke proceeds through Filmer’s arguments, contesting his proofs from Scripture and ridiculing them as senseless, until concluding that no government can be justified by an appeal to the divine right of kings.

The Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society. Locke begins by describing the state of nature, a picture much more stable than Thomas Hobbes’ state of “war of every man against every man,” and argues that all men are created equal in the state of nature by God. From this, he goes on to explain the hypothetical rise of property and civilization, in the process explaining that the only legitimate governments are those which have the consent of the people. Thus, any government that rules without the consent of the people can, in theory, be overthrown.

Thomas Jefferson based some of our Declaration of Independence on Locke’s writings. As documented in Cracking the Code, Locke wrote the following:

Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrouled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate against the injuries and attempts of other men …

From this, Jefferson wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …

Here are Hartmann’s statements on progressives, also from chapter 1 of Cracking the Code:

Liberals speak of using the government for positive ends, but they don’t mean to further restrain people. Instead liberals believe that the role of government is to provide a framework within which individuals can achieve their maximum potential.

The closer we can all come to our true human nature, the better, liberals believe. Instead of restraining human nature, liberals want to promote it.

What should be restrained, in the liberal worldview, are those amoral institutions — like corporations — that serve to lock humans into particular social and/or economic roles that prevent both individual and societal self-realization and achievement of our essential human nature (Jefferson’s happiness).

This is why liberal morality is nearly always focused on providing for the needs of individuals within society — and was so well articulated by Jesus in the Beatitudes and Matthew 25 when He said, essentially, that we couldn’t claim morality if there were hungry, homeless, sick, thirsty, or imprisoned people among us whose needs are not being met.

(Does the word empathy come to mind after reading these statements on the liberal worldview?)

As a lead-in to the brain’s modes of thought that represent the conservative and progressive worldviews, here are a few more statements from Hartmann on Hobbes and Locke:

It’s interesting to note that Hobbes was born in a time of great poverty and upheaval in the England of the 1630s (which was then a third-rate power, its economy eclipsed by the Dutch and Spanish trading companies until the mid-1600s, when the British East India Company began successfully competing world-wide). He noted how poverty makes people desperate, and desperate people can be dangerous people. London was filled with them. And he assumed that such poverty and “criminal” behavior was the norm of all societies that preceded “civilization.”

Locke, on the other hand, was writing as the East India Company and British colonialism were having considerable economic successes, the Enlightenment was taking hold, and a more substantial middle class was emerging in England. He looked at the behavior of London’s emerging middle class as a more accurate reflection of the “natural” state of humanity.

Conservatives may well be right about the “true nature” of people — when they’re desperate. Liberals may well be right about the “true nature” of people — when their basic needs are met and they feel safe and secure.

The above excerpt implies that the conservative or progressive worldview could be driven by the environment that one grows up in and is surrounded by. Well, recent research by George Lakoff and others into cognitive linguistics shows that the conservative and progressive worldviews are actually programmed into the brain as we grow.

Their research, as documented in The Political Mind and on the RockRidge Institute web site, resulted in two idealized models of the family. These two models “come with distinct moral systems that are founded on different assumptions about the world, interpret shared values such as responsibility or fairness differently, and center around different moral priorities.” (Sound like something else you just read?)

(An interesting and related occurrence: When I googled “wiki The Political Mind,” the first result was a link to George Lakoff. The second was a link to John Locke.)

In The Nation as a Family, the Rockridge Institute concludes part 1 with:

In other words, our beliefs about what a family should be exert a powerful influence over our beliefs about what kind of society we should build. For instance, those with a strong Strict Father model are likely to support a more punitive welfare or foreign policy than someone with a strong Nurturant Parent model, who are likely to favor more cooperative approaches. Those with a strong Nurturant Parent model are more likely to favor social policies that ensure the well-being of people such as health care and education, whereas someone with a strong Strict Father model would object to social programs in favor of promoting self-reliance [“You’re on your own.”].

In The Conservative Worldview section of The Nation as a Family, the strong Strict Father model results in the conservative worldview:

• “The world is, and always will be, a dangerous and difficult place.”
• “It is a competitive world and there will always be winners and losers.”
• “Children are naturally bad since they want to do what feels good, not what is moral, so they have to be made good by being taught discipline.”
• “There is tangible evil in the world and to stand up to evil, one must be morally strong, or ‘disciplined.'”

In The Progressive Worldview section of The Nation as a Family, the strong Nurturant Parent model results in the progressive worldview:

• “It is assumed that the world is basically good.”
• “… however dangerous and difficult the world may be at present, it can be made better, and it is your responsibility to help make it better.”
• “… children are born good, and parents can make them better, and it is their responsibility to do so.”
• “Both parents (if there are two) are responsible for running the household and raising the children, although they may divide their activities. “
• “The parents’ job is to be responsive to their children, nurture them, and raise their children to nurture others.”
• “Nurturance requires empathy and responsibility.”

In The Political Mind, Lakoff discusses empathy and its importance in promoting the progressive worldview:

Empathy is at the center of the progressive moral worldview. …

… Empathy is normal, and it takes special education (such as basic training in the army), a special heartlessness, or a brain injury to disengage it.

In short, empathy is morally powerful, and its political power seems to arise from its moral force, which in turn is a consequence of the brain structure …

There is a moral here for progressives: The more they can activate empathy in the public, the more support will be available to them and the worse conservatives will do. Correspondingly, the more conservatives can generate fear in the public, the more support they will generate, and the more they will inhibit support for progressives.

If this is true, then progressives should be talking more about their moral worldview — about empathy, responsibility, and hope — rather than accepting fear-based frames to think and talk within. Instead of moving to the right and activating the conservative worldview, stay without your own moral universe and activate the progressive world view.

… We are born to empathize and cooperate.

American democracy was founded on the politics of empathy and responsibility, with the role of government being protection and empowerment. From these flow the progressive ideals of equality, freedom, fairness, opportunity, general prosperity, accountability, and so on.

Over the past few years, I have had discussions with my daughter about religions and what causes them to go bad or do good. I have had similar discussions with a libertarian coworker about government versus corporations and which is more likely to go bad or do good. Whether it is religion, government, large corporations, a family, or anything in between, they are all controlled or supported by all of us. And we have the ability to use these institutions for good or bad. One religion can be used against another or it can be used to help the least of us. One government can wage war against another or even against it’s own citizens, or it can help bring peace to other waring nations. Corporations can put profit above all else or work with it’s stakeholders to still make a profit. One member of a family can abuse another or can treat all family members with respect.

Either way, we Americans, with our history and worldviews, are responsible for what these institutions accomplish – good or bad – and empathy and fear are critical factors.

I close with a quote from George Washington, our first liberal president, “As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality [The trait of being generous in behavior and temperament].”

Illinois Governor Caught on FBI Wiretap Trying to Sell Obama Senate Seat – Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was unexpectedly taken into federal custody Tuesday morning on corruption charges related to his appointment of President-elect Barack Obama’s replacement in the Senate. “Governor Blagojevich has taken us to a truly new low,” US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a news conference Tuesday, accusing the governor of overseeing a “political corruption crime spree.”

Media Undercounts Obama’s Win Margin, Especially Fox News – Here are the number of votes that Obama won by according to various sources:

They are all off, but as usual, Fox News is way out in “right” field. Who needs a research department when you can just make up your own facts?

Pat Boone Tries to Use the Attacks in India to Put the Fear in Us – Remember clean-cut, nice-guy Pat Boone from the 50’s? The following is from a column in a conservative blog written by Pat Boone:

Pretty rotten thing that happened in Mumbai, huh?

Suddenly, hundreds of innocent, unsuspecting people are hostages, some of them being systematically murdered. Bombs are exploding, people are screaming …

When the dust begins to settle after many horrifying hours, the body count has reached nearly 200, and many more are injured and emotionally scarred for the rest of their lives. …

Thank God, it couldn’t happen here. Could it?

Look around. Watch your evening news. Read your newspaper.

Are you unaware of the raging demonstrations in our streets, in front of our churches and synagogues, even spilling into these places of worship, and many of these riots turning defamatory and violent? …

Really? Pat Boone says what happened in Mumbai, India is happening right here in the USA. Who is committing such horrific acts? He is referring to California’s Proposition 8 protestors, those terrible people who are marching for gay rights. How violent are they? The following is from the San Francisco Chronicle:

In San Diego, a crowd estimated by police at 20,000 and by organizers at 25,000 demonstrated against Prop. 8, while in Los Angeles police said between 10,000 and 12,000 people marched peacefully though the downtown area.

More on Pat Boone:

• In 2006, Boone wrote an article for WorldNetDaily, in which he argued that Democrats and others who were against the Iraq War could never, under any circumstances, be considered patriotic.
• He was interviewed by Neil Cavuto on Fox News, where he expressed his outrage against the opponents of George W. Bush (namely the Dixie Chicks) that their criticisms of the President showed they did not “respect their elders.
• In early 2007, Boone wrote two articles claiming that the theory of evolution is an “absurd,” “nonsensical” “bankrupt false religion.”

Burrowing Watch: Bush Appointed 18 Administration Officials Last Tuesday Alone – With only 44 days left in office, President Bush continues to “burrow” people into government positions that will continue long after President-elect Obama is sworn in. “All told, Mr. Bush has made roughly 30 personnel moves since the November election. James McCarthy, who heads the American Association for the Advancement of Science says, “It’s ludicrous to have people who do not have a scientific background, who are not trained and skilled in the ways of science, make decisions that involve resources, that involve facilities in the scientific infrastructure. You’d just like to think people have more respect for the institution of government than to leave wreckage behind with these appointments.”

Media Falsely Reports That Nobel Economics Prize Winner Said U.S. Auto Industry Will Likely Disappear – More fear, please! You may have seen this report which spread all across the media on Sunday:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Nobel economics prize winner Paul Krugman said Sunday that the beleaguered U.S. auto industry will likely disappear.
“It will do so because of the geographical forces that me and my colleagues have discussed,” the Princeton University professor and New York Times columnist told reporters in Stockholm. “It is no longer sustained by the current economy.”

But, Paul Krugman published this in his New York Times column on Monday:

Me, misreported
Urk. I gather that there’s a report on the wires quoting me as saying that the US auto industry would disappear. What I actually said was that the concentration of the industry around Detroit would disappear.
And did I really say “me and my colleagues”? I guess it’s possible — but that doesn’t sound like I speaking.

Regards,

Jim

TX SD 17: Joan Huffman Thinks Schools Have All The Money They Need – Joan Hoffman, who is running against Chris Bell in the runoff for the open seat in Senate District 17, doesn’t seem to have a clue about substantive matters of public policy. As noted in the TV commercial above, Huffman didn’t know how to fix the school funding problem, and says that schools have all the money they need. Clearly, she doesn’t have the kind of grasp that Chris Bell has on public policy issues.

Now would be a great time to make calls for the Bell campaign from the comfort of your very own home! You can get set up for virtual phone banking here. It is the very last election race that is ongoing in the nation, and you have a chance to participate in it.

State Board of Education Member Cynthia Dunbar Writes That Government Should Be Guided By “Biblical Litmus Test” – Right-wing State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar has written in her new book that that government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” Dunbar endorses a belief system requiring “any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern. Dunbar created controversy last month after predicting that Barack Obama would impose martial law if he were elected president.

State Board of Education Ignores Input From Science Teachers In Favor of Beliefs of Intelligent Design and Creationism Advocates – Proposed curriculum standards for high school biology in Texas being considered this week by the State Board of Education have been drastically edited to remove language that conflicts with the ideas and beliefs of intelligent design and creationism advocates. The curriculum standards proposed Monday can be found here. The curriculum standards proposed in September which were written by science educators are here. From the first notices of deleted paragraphs to the last, it is evident that the State Board of Education is attempting to sanitize biology curriculum standards of anything remotely related to evolution.

State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) has filed another bill to add an “English-only” amendment to the Texas Constitution – Evidently realizing that the previous constitutional amendment he proposed was patently unconstitutional, State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) has filed another, slightly modified, bill to add an “English-only” amendment to the Texas Constitution.

Cheney Personally Thanked Chris Wallace For Defending Bush; Promises Him ‘Special Exit Interview’ As Reward – Appearing on Mike Gallagher’s radio show today, Chris Wallace of Fox News revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney personally thanked him at his holiday party:

WALLACE: Let me ask you this, did the Vice President say to you, “thank you so much for defending the president and yes I’m going to be giving you a special exit interview in a couple of weeks?”
GALLAGHER: Did he say all that to you?
WALLACE: Yes.
Later in the interview, Wallace said that “a bunch of people” at Cheney’s party thanked him for his comments. “Cheney was genuinely grateful for what I had done, and Ed Gillespie, the senior counselor to the president, was there and genuinely grateful.”
Fox News – So fair and balanced .. And laughable.

Regards,

Jim

Reverend Rick Warren Says U.S. Should Overthrow Evil Governments Like Iran – Last night, on Fox News, Sean Hannity insisted that United States needs to “take out” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Warren said he agreed. Hannity asked, “Am I advocating something dark, evil or something righteous?” Warren responded, “Well, actually, the Bible says that evil cannot be negotiated with. It has to just be stopped…. In fact, that is the legitimate role of government. The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers. Not good-doers. Evildoers.”

Bush Interior Department Refuses to Follow the Law and Bureau of Land Management Changes Regulations – When the Bureau of Land Management announced that they were going to allow uranium mining along with oil and gas drilling around the Grand Canyon, the House Natural Resources Committee voted 20-2 to block mining in the area. Then the Bush Interior Department simply refused to issue the order on the grounds that not enough Republicans had been involved in the vote. Then on Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management stripped from its regulations the provision that gives two Congressional committees the power to compel the Interior Secretary to temporarily place public land off limits to mining and oil and gas development. So much for checks and balances. This Republican Administration just does whatever they want.

Mountaintop Removal Mining
One picture is worth a thousand words:

 

More than 400 mountains have been destroyed. – As threatened, the Bush Environmental Protection Administration has repealed key parts of the Stream Buffer Act. For nearly five years, since January 2004, the Bush administration has been working to essentially eliminate the more than 20-year-old buffer zone rule. Generally, that rule prohibits mining activities within 100 feet of perennial and intermittent streams.

Coal operators already can obtain variances to mine within the 100-foot buffer. To do so, though, companies must show that their operations will not cause water quality violations or “adversely affect the water quantity and quality, or other environmental resources of the stream.”

Ridiculously, the EPA and Office of Surface Mining had already been issuing such variances to operations that completely buried flowing streams, because blasting a stream out of existence somehow negates the need to worry about water quality. That’s how 1,200 miles of flowing water has been eliminated from the Appalachian region.
Now the EPA has stopped even the pretense of caring.

Way back when he was running (unsuccessfully) for a seat in Congress, Bush declared that he wanted to do away with both safety and environmental regulations. There are plenty of dead miners and ruined communities to mark his accomplishments in the White House.

Regards,

Jim

United States, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, and Russia Refuse to Sign Cluster Bomb Ban – Some 100 nations began putting their names Wednesday to a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs. Dropped from warplanes or fired from artillery guns, cluster bombs explode in mid-air to randomly scatter hundreds of bomblets, which can be just eight centimetres (three inches) big. Many bomblets fail to explode, littering war zones with de facto landmines that can kill and maim long after a conflict ends. Worldwide, about 100,000 people have been killed or maimed by cluster bombs since 1965, 98 percent of them civilians, says Handicap International, a campaign group. More than a quarter of the victims are children who mistaken the bomblets for toys or tin cans. But the world’s biggest producers and users of cluster bombs — including China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States — object to the ban and refuse to sign it.

Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions Continue to Rise – Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions rose from 7.1 million metric tons in 2006 to 7.2 million metric tons in 2007 – a one year increase of 1.4%. The main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, has continually rose (except for a minor fall in 2006) since 1990. The United States will account for 19.6% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2030.
So, have you made changes to help fix this? Have you changed your electricity provider to one that’s non-polluting (wind, solar, hydro)? Have you replaced your incandescent bulbs with CFLs? Does your vehicle have a low-emissions engine?

Drilling for Natural Gas May Be Polluting Groundwater Supplies – In order to get to the natural gas, some companies use a process called hydraulic fracturing where they blast fluid and a propping material (think sand) into layers of rock, cracking them and allowing the gas to flow to the surface. The fluids used by Haliburton, Schlumberger, and BJ Services, the three companies that dominate the hydraulic fracturing market, are proprietary, they argue. The companies refuse to disclose their secret chemical formulas, reports ProPublica, making it difficult if not impossible to determine what’s in them — and what could be seeping through the layers of rock. Contaminated groundwater near drilling sites has been reported in seven states.

Regards,

Jim

The talk of change is all around. We are seeing its potential in the transition from one president to the next. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of change that will rekindle the ideas of our founding fathers and their desire for liberty and justice for all.

Here is one more look at where we have been, but is is followed by a look at where we could be going with this change.

The following quotes from Senator, now President-elect, Barack Obama provide his perspective on what has gone wrong under the rule of Conservatives Without Conscience. He refers often to our empathy deficit brought to us by our authoritarian leaders and followers within The Republican Party.

In June 2006, at the Northwestern University Commencement Address, Obama said:

… for me the first lesson of growing up:

The world doesn’t just revolve around you. There’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us – the child who’s hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room.

A month later Senator Barack Obama Urges Students to Reverse ‘Empathy Deficit’:

Obama also railed against what he called an “empathy deficit,” which he said blinds many to the plight of struggling members of society. He urged students to put themselves in the shoes of the despondent and downtrodden, adding that true personal fulfillment only comes through working towards the public good.

In January 2008, Obama spoke on The Great Need of the Hour:

I’m not talking about a budget deficit. I’m not talking about a trade deficit. I’m not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

I’m talking about a moral deficit. I’m talking about an empathy deficit. I’m taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother’s keeper; we are our sister’s keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we’re still sending our children down corridors of shame – schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.

Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

More recently, President-Elect Obama reframed the empathy deficit in his nomination acceptance speech:

For over two decades, he’s [John McCain] subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy – give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is – you’re on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps – even if you don’t have boots. You’re on your own.

Others have also written about the authoritarian conservative rule of our federal executive and legislative branches of government and the history of this empathy deficit. John Dean (referenced frequently in this blog) wrote Conservatives Without Conscience (or Empathy) in which he writes about what has happened to the Republican party and the authoritarians that are responsible.

In another more recent book, The Political Mind by George Lakoff, Professor Lakoff explains the how and why Republican authoritarians gained control. In doing so, Lakoff also provides an understanding of the mind and how it changes, how to avoid falling into empathy deficit traps of the conservative mind set and how to rekindle your empathy and promote a progressive mind set.

Dr. Lakoff, professor of cognitive linguistics at UC Berkeley, hopes that we will learn to recognize the “conservative cognitive policy” that has plagued our country for decades and replace it with a “progressive cognitive policy” based on empathy for our fellow humans. Lakoff defines cognitive policy as “getting an idea into the normal public discourse.”

This conservative ‘you’re on your own’ public discourse, which has been promoted through an “explicit, well organized, and well funded” conservative (non-caring) cognitive policy, has attempted to:

• Replace medicare and social security with private medical and retirement accounts
• Replace public schools with school vouchers
• Replace progressive taxes, which impose higher taxes on those who benefit most from America’s infrastructure, with a Flat tax for the rich
• Use big government to attack social programs from within
• Use profit oriented private contractors to replace the protection and empowerment provided via our government
• Use the bad apple frame to transfer responsibility from those in charge to those placed in the bad barrel

Lakoff also writes of his hopes of replacing the empathy deficit with responsible and strong empathetic actions. Lakoff hopes a progressive cognitive policy will grow to support the “change we need.” This “conscious” change includes realizations that:

• “… empathy is at the heart of American democracy” and “ecological consciousness.” Empathy is caring “about fundamental human rights,” caring “about protecting our people in all ways,” caring “about empowerment of both individuals and businesses” and caring “about checks and balances against authoritarian power.”
• The moral base of progressive thought is the “politics of empathy, with the responsibility and strength necessary to act on that empathy.”
• Conservative politics is based on “authority, discipline and obedience”
• “The question of whether American politics should be based on empathy or authority will not disappear.” Both mindsets will continue to exist but both will be understood.
• “… there is no right-to-left line between progressive and conservative views …” There is a conservative strong-father mode of thought and a progressive nurturant mode of thought which can be mixed in varying proportions depending on one’s life experiences.
• “… nurturant upbringing is far better for children – and society …”
• “Advocates of strict father upbringing … would be recognized as being harmful to children.”
• Progressives would learn to “avoid using frames [and words or phrases] that best fit the other side’s values …”
• Progressive foreign policy will be focused “on people, not just states …”
• “Kinds of common wealth – the air, the airwaves, the rivers, streams, and aquifers, the oceans, the national forests – would be recognized as more valuable preserved than used and as property owned by all and kept in trust, with permits for use sold at auction and caps placed on pollution and reasonable use.”
• “Privateering would be a recognizable conservative strategy. … Deregulation and privatization would be understood not as elimination of government, but as a shift from … public government with a moral mission (protection and empowerment) to private government with only the mission of maximizing profits.”
• “Taxes would be seen as payment for both continuing protection and empowerment [by government].”
• “The immorality of the vast divide between the ultra-wealthy and the middle and lower classes would be manifest.”
• “Health would be seen as a matter of protection [like the military, police and EMTs], not insurance.”
• “Education would be seen as a matter of empowerment [like highways, the internet, banking system and the courts].”
• “Accountability would flow upward – toward those in charge, not downward to those who are powerless or subordinate.”

After detailing the above points in the last chapter of The Political Mind, George Lakoff concludes with:

… A new understanding is emerging about what it means to be human. Our political institutions and practices reflect our collective self-understanding. When that changes dramatically, so should our politics.

But, we’d better hurry up. The ice caps are melting.

If you would like to learn more about changing minds, there are many articles by and videos with George Lakoff available on the web. You can also visit The RockRidge Institute and the new Cognitive Policy Works. A related book you might also find of interest is Cracking the Code by Thom Hartmann.

The following was written by Mary Vogas and is the first in her series to discuss issues with the authoritarian membership of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).

It’s time to get involved  so our children will be taught sound science principles in the schools in Texas!  The countdown is in its final moments!  The Texas State Board of Education will be meeting in Austin on Nov. 18 – 21, 2008.  They will be looking at the science curriculum standards for Texas public schools.  The last time changes were made in the  science standards was a decade ago. 

The SBOE will be deciding if sound science will be replaced by political and religious beliefs.  That’s because some members of the SBOE are hung up on ideology that evolution is just about humans and apes.  But in biology, evolution refers to changes in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next.  The science community has spoken that biological evolution is a fact and has been proven.  There are over 100,000 published biological research studies that state that evolution is a fact.  Even Pope Benedict XVI has said that evolution can coexist with faith.  What has not been proven is how it occurs.  So the fact that evolution occurs has nothing to do with whether you believe that God created life on earth or not.  That is the “how” that science has not proven, and scientists do not suggest that they have.  If the SBOE rules that evolution is not a fact and classrooms around the state start teaching that erroneous concept, we will produce students indoctrinated with incorrect science principles!  It is a priority to some of the SBOE members to weaken teaching evolution as a fact.  We need to listen to professionals when updating our science curriculum, not lay people that use their own ideas to decide what Texas students will be taught!

The textbooks that would be forthcoming would be filled with wrong information!  And, as you know, the textbooks that Texas buys will be bought in many other parts of the country.  Texas could be  the cause of our whole nation going down the wrong path in science!  We are already lagging in comparison to other countries in science test scores; so think where we will be if these changes are made!

What happens in Texas will reshape what happens in the rest of the country.  So, get up and and get involved now before we have to wait another 10 years to undo the mess that will be upon us from the SBOE! 

Public testimony will be held on November 19. 
Register to testify.
Review the science standards on which you will be testifying.

The primary effort of this blog, with the help of John Dean, Robert Altemeyer, Shadia Drury, Philip Zimbardo and many others, has been about our close call with becoming a single-party state under the likes of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and other conservatives without conscience. This history has spanned almost 40 years and has been described relative to the Executive and Legislative branches of our federal government. It has been about a minority of the Republican Party that is strongly authoritarian; born-again white evangelicals lead by neocons that favor preemptive continuous war, fear mongering and rule by the unitary bully pulpit. It has been about what has happened and could have happened under the rule by this totalitarian minority.

Now that the nation has reached a major turning point, I will be taking this blog around that corner away from the “you’re on your own” me society toward a more empathetic society where a limited federal government empowers and protects its citizens from various abusive power brokers including big business and big government.

As we turn, I will do my best to explain why the authoritarians are who they are and what we can learn from them to replace their conservative infrastructure with a new progressive one. The conservatives have spent almost 40 years building this infrastructure and progressives have just laid a foundation for building theirs. Are we ready to build on this foundation?

“This [presidential] victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change.” – President Elect Barack Obama, 11/4/08.

Jim normally provides the postings under Bad Deeds. Now, however, he is trying to prevent future bad deeds from the Texas State Board of Education:

Would you like to be part of a statewide grassroots network of mainstream Texans who believe all students deserve a 21st-century science education?

Here are two ways you can support sound science in the classroom:

1. Sign the Stand Up for Science petition and help spread the message that cynical politicians should stop promoting a phony conflict between science and faith.

2. Join the TFN Stand Up for Science Response Team. The Texas Freedom Network (TFN) will notify you how and when to take action to support sound science. There are opportunities to testify at a State Board of Education meeting, become a postcard captain, write a blog entry, and much, much more. You make a difference by reminding people that we can do best for our kids and honor the faith of all Texans by teaching sound science in science classrooms and leaving personal religious views to our families and churches.

Regards,

Jim