Your Brain On Politics

ALL ARTICLES, Documentaries, History They Don't Want You To Know, War State America, Your Brain On Politics March 30, 2017

Now More Than Ever: The Lessons Of George Orwell’s ‘1984’

  Empire Files (2/1/17) Their are very few literary masterpieces that can transcend generations. There are even fewer that serve as a blueprint for the future. One of those books is 1984, one of the most prolific novels of our time. The author was born Eric Arthur Blair, but was probably most know by his pen name, George Orwell. George Orwell was one of the greatest visionaries of the twentieth century who identified himself as a democratic socialist. Under the Soviet Union he was forced to flee under communism suppression of socialist dissidents. War is Peace Slavery is Freedom Ignorance…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, War State America, Your Brain On Politics March 30, 2017

Orwell’s Newspeak: Control The Language, Control The Society

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by eactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. “Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s…

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan, Your Brain On Politics March 30, 2017

The Science Of ‘Blue Lies’ Helps Explain Trump Supporters’ Orwellian Level Of Loyalty To Lies

  By Jeremy Adam Smith Scientific American (3/24/17) President Donald Trump tells lies. His deceptions and misleading statements are easy to unmask. In the latest example — after hundreds of well-documented lies — FBI director James Comey told Congress this week that there is “no information that supports” Trump’s claim that President Obama tapped his phone. But Trump’s political path presents a paradox. Far from slowing his momentum, his deceit seemed only to strengthen his support through the primary and national election. Now, every time a lie is exposed, his support among Republicans doesn’t seem to waver very much. In…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Rethuglicans, Trumpenstan, Your Brain On Politics March 20, 2017

Gas Lighting America: How To Resist By Keeping Your Sanity In Trump’s Crazy Making America

“One of the most insidious things about gaslighting is the denial of reality. Being denied what you have seen. Being denied what you have experienced and know to be true. It can make you feel like you are crazy. But you are not crazy.”   By Ariel Leve The Guardian (3/16/17) Right now, many Americans listening to their president are experiencing what I experienced frequently a child. Nothing means anything, and reality is being canceled. There is confusion, there is chaos, everything is upside down and inside out. When facts and truth are being discredited, how is it possible to…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, M. Taylor Columns, Resist!, Rethuglicans, Your Brain On Politics March 20, 2017

Here’s How Gas Lighting Works In Every Day America: Twisting The Meaning Of A Single Word

  By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (3/20/17) Every victim of a crazy, abusive relationship or childhood suffered at the hands of an abusive parent knows what it means to be the target of “gas lighting”, even if they have never heard the term. It is taken from “Gaslight”, a 1944 Oscar-winning mystery-thriller movie starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotten about a woman whose husband slowly manipulates her into questioning her reality and making her believe she is going insane. Gaslighting is when someone in some position of relationship or power lies with a boldness then denies…

ALL ARTICLES, Your Brain On Politics March 16, 2017

Your Brain On Politics: Why Piling On Facts Is Not Enough In The Battle Against Fake News

By Shankar Vedantam NPR (3/14/17) As the country has become increasingly polarized, we increasingly seem to disagree not just on policy but on the facts themselves. So how do you get people who believe false things to change those beliefs? The usual tactic is to offer information or evidence. But new social science research explains why this approach is often counterproductive. To explain all this, we’re joined by NPR’s social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam. Shankar, good morning. SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Hi, Rachel. MARTIN: How can more information be counterproductive? VEDANTAM: There have actually been a number of experiments over the…

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan, Your Brain On Politics March 9, 2017

Your Brain On Trump’s Lies: Guess Who Wins

It doesn’t matter how implausible the statements are; throw out enough of them, and people will inevitably absorb some. Eventually, without quite realizing it, our brains just give up trying to figure out what is true.   By Maria Konnikova Politico (Jan/Feb 2017) All presidents lie. Richard Nixon said he was not a crook, yet he orchestrated the most shamelessly crooked act in the modern presidency. Ronald Reagan said he wasn’t aware of the Iran-Contra deal; there’s evidence he was. Bill Clinton said he did not have sex with that woman; he did, or close enough. Lying in politics transcends…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Your Brain On Politics March 2, 2017

Angry white men’: The Sociologist Who Studied Trump’s Base Before Trump

Michael Kimmel, one of the world’s foremost experts on masculinity, examines its role in men’s adherence to – and departure from – far-right movements.   By J. Oliver Conroy The Guardian (2/27/17) During the Obama years, various commentators made wild predictions about the death of the white male as a politically relevant demographic. Then came Trump, propelled to power by a wave of angry white men. The sociologist Michael Kimmel is one of the world’s foremost experts on the phenomenon. As the director of Stony Brook University’s Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, he’s a leader in the…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Your Brain On Politics February 27, 2017

A Deep Look At What Ails Us: Healing Our Collective Sickness

  (Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free to use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )   *****   We always know that a civilization is breaking down when it excludes recognition of and social response to its own degenerate trends.   (Editor’s Note: The political, economic and environmental collapse are about more than bad actors, political action groups and elections. There are deeper psychological and spiritual dimensions creating a feedback loop of sleepwalking into destruction and denial. Author Paul Levy provides a deeper assessment of what is really happening to our world, and each of…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, Your Brain On Politics February 13, 2017

Mike McCabe – The Lesson For Democrats: Messaging Alone Won’t Win

By Mike McCabe Blue Jean Nation (2/8/17) In this post-truth, alternative-fact world, “messaging” is a popular buzzword in political circles. Those who win are convinced superior messaging is the secret of their success. Those who lose are convinced that faulty messaging was their downfall and all they need to do to win is get better at it. There are messaging gurus on both sides. They get a lot of attention and make a lot of money doling out advice. Messaging has become something of an obsession, especially on the Democratic side. To hear Democratic insiders tell it, bad messaging is why…