Giant corporations are raking in record profits, while millions of Americans remain scarred by the Great Recession and a recovery that has left them behind. Mammoth defense contractors push for more of everything military, while programs for the poor are on life support. Global polluters are blocking effective responses to climate change, while the disenfranchised …
Tag Archives: propaganda
The Predatory Presidency
The season premiere of BBC America’s Planet Earth II includes remarkable footage from the desolate Galapagos Islands. In one striking scene, baby marine iguanas race across the sand, desperately trying to elude dozens of snakes eager for their next meal. Although such stark life-or-death struggles are difficult to watch, it helps to remember that they reflect nature’s …
Bait and Switch: Psychology and Trump’s Voter Fraud
In recent days President Trump has, yet again, asserted that millions of people illegally voted against him last November. Lies of such magnitude and consequence from the White House certainly deserve the attention and scorn they’ve received. After all, once we move beyond the realm of “alternative facts,” the real evidence shows that a person is more …
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Resisting the Mind Games of Donald Trump and the One Percent
Smooth-talking con artists are familiar figures in American folklore. The well-dressed hustler arrives in an unsuspecting town. He pitches some miracle cure or get-rich-quick scheme, door-to-door or from atop a soapbox. Then before his customers realize they’ve been duped, he steals away in search of his next mark. It’s a risky vocation, one that demands …
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Forewarned Is Forearmed: Bush On Iran
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLioyP69N3I] The White House’s propaganda campaign laying the groundwork for military action against Iran dates back almost six years–to Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address in which he designated Iran as a founding member of the “axis of evil.” Since then, this drumbeat has waxed and waned as other concerns–primarily the disastrous invasion and …
Resisting the Drums of War: VIDEO
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRxvOBG-5DM] The Bush administration promoted the misguided and destructive war in Iraq by targeting five core concerns that often govern our lives—concerns about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. Looking ahead, the continued occupation of Iraq—-or an attack on Iran—-will likely be sold to us in much the same way. I examine these warmongering appeals—-and …
Dangerous Ideas
My research, writing, and consulting focus on how five key issues—and the beliefs we hold about them—profoundly influence our personal and collective lives. I believe that concerns revolving around vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness are crucial contributors to how we experience and make sense of the world, and that they are also the key …