Daily Archives: December 27, 2021

Every movement contains a range of viewpoints, from moderate to extreme. Unfortunately, Americans on each side of the political spectrum believeincorrectlythat hard-liners dominate the opposite camp.

After the killing of George Floyd last year, for example, liberal protesters across the nation pushed for criminal-justice reform, and many of the specific changes they sought enjoyed a lot of popular support. Even recent polls have shown that, regardless of political affiliation, most Americans remain in favor of police-accountability measures (such as body cameras and a registry of police misconduct), the banning of choke holds, and tackling racial injustices head on. Some activists went much further, though, demanding the complete elimination of police departments. Conservative pundits noticed. Soon, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson was presenting call after vivid call to abolish or radically defund policing. They would like to eliminate all law enforcement for good, he told viewers.

Read: Americas real wokeness divide

But supporters of police abolition are the exception, not the rule, on the American left, according to research that my colleagues Matthew Feinberg, Alexa Tullett, Anne E. Wilson, and I conducted. In late October 2020, we asked more than 1,000 people in the United States whether they agreed that police departments are irreversibly broken and racist, so the government needs to get rid of them completely. Only 28 percent of the self-described liberals even somewhat agreed, indicating that this was not a solid consensus on the left.

Although far out of step with what most liberals actually thought, Carlsons sampling of liberal views was emblematic of what conservatives believed about liberals. Conservatives in our sample estimated that 61 percent of liberalsmore than twice the actual numberendorsed the abolition of law enforcement. This is a striking example of what plagues our politics: a false polarization in which one side excoriates the other for views that it largely does not hold.

Left-leaning readers might not be surprised that conservatives would accept as widespread a caricature of the radical liberal, given that they are so clearly blinded by racism or pro-police sentiment that they would excuse even the most unjust excesses of force. But waitis this portrayal of conservatives accurate?

No. It isnt.

Just as liberals came to rally around #BlackLivesMatter, conservatives gravitated to #BlueLivesMatter. From the vocal conservatives who made excuses for misconduct or blamed victims, some liberal commentators concluded that the right is dominated by police apologists. In fact, many on the right recognize both the humanity and hardship of police officers and those harmed by them. When we asked conservatives if police were almost always justified in their shootings of Black people, only 31 percent of respondents even somewhat agreed with the sentiment. Liberals, on the other hand, estimated nearly double that number of conservatives57 percentgave police a free pass.

Some caveats: Our research, which is available as a preprint, is under review and subject to change. We drew our large samples of respondents from online survey platforms, not from nationally representative polling. We recognize that this sampleand therefore our estimates of the prevalence of liberal and conservative opinionsis not an exact microcosm of the country. Still, other researchers have concluded that these platforms are reasonably comparable to nationally representative polling.

The gap that we identified between what partisans really think and what their opponents think they think shows up again and againbut only on a particular kind of issue. People have a more accurate view of the other sides position on many standard policy issues, such as taxes or health care. But specifically on culture-war issues, partisans are likely to believe a caricatured version of the opposing sides attitudes. These misconceptions have hardened into enduring stereotypes: liberal snowflakes and free-speech police, conservative racists and deplorables.

In reality, just a third of liberal participants agreed even a little with banning controversial public speakers from college campuses, but conservatives estimated that 63 percent of liberals held that view. Only 22 percent of conservatives expressed hostile and unwelcoming attitudes toward immigrants, but liberals thought that 57 percent of them did. Our data suggest that many people are walking around with an exaggerated mental representation of what other Americans stand for.

Where do these ideas come from? Partisan media outlets have an incentive to stoke their audiences outrage by making extreme views seem commonplace. In our work, we saw that the more people reported consuming partisan news (a category in which, drawing on the work of other researchers, we included Fox News and MSNBC), the more they believed in a caricatured version of the other side.

Conor Friedersdorf: Americas blue and red tribes arent so far apart

Peoples perceptions of others are powerful, even when theyre wrong. We found that people disliked their opponents primarily for the fringe views most opponents didnt actually hold. Worse still, partisans who disliked their opponents most were least willing to engage with them, which likely forecloses the chance to have their misperceptions corrected through real-life personal contact. Instead, an oversimplified, exaggerated version of the other sides views is allowed to live on inside of everyones head.

Whats more, partisans told us they were hesitant to voice their opinions about the most extreme positions expressed by people on the same side of the spectrum. For example, liberals were less keen to talk publicly about the downsides of censoring free speech than they were to talk about the benefits of universal health care. So although a majority of liberals opposed censorship, their reluctance to criticize it openly might have led conservatives to think that most on the left favored it.

So what should politically minded Americans conclude from our researchthat, gosh, their opponents are just like them, and everyone should join hands in the center? Nope. Some policiesand some partisansdeserve forceful opposition, even contempt, from the other side. Vigorous disagreement, both within and between parties, is essential in a functioning democracy. But democracy also requires at least some level of mutual comprehension. No matter where people are on the political spectrum, they ought to know whom theyre fighting with and what theyre even fighting about.

Original post:

Conservatives and Liberals Are Wrong About Each Other - The Atlantic

New Years is approaching, and one resolution will help our democracy: Make a friend with opposing political views and be kinder to people you disagree with politically.

Liberal women, this especially means you, given new research from media company Axios showing just how intolerant young leftists, particularly females, are compared with conservatives.

Axios, working with the Generation Lab, found just 5 percent of Republican college students said they wouldnt befriend someone from the opposite party vs. 37 percent of Democrats.

It also determined 30 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of Republicans wouldnt work for someone who voted differently from them, while 71 percent of Democrats but only 31 percent of Republicans wouldnt date someone with opposing views.

Researchers found college-age women more likely than men to take strong partisan stances, with 76 percent of women and 86 percent of men saying theyd work for someone who voted for the opposing candidate. Axios reported just 68 percent of women, as opposed to 84 percent of men, would shop at or support the business of someone from the other party.

This new research is sad but not surprising, given how liberal our college campuses are. A 2016 Econ Journal Watch study examining voter registration of economics, history, journalism, law and psychology faculty at 40 leading universities, for example, found Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 12 to 1.

The study, conducted by Brooklyn College business professor Mitchell Langbert, George Mason University economist Daniel B. Klein and FICO economist Anthony J. Quain, noted the liberal ratio among faculty under age 36 was 23 to 1.

Samuel Abrams, a Sarah Lawrence College politics professor, found similar trends in his 2018 survey of 900 university administrators (people who manage professors and campuses). He reported, Only 6 percent of campus administrators identified as conservative to some degree, while 71 percent classified themselves as liberal or very liberal.

This year, student newspaper The Harvard Crimson surveyed 236 arts and sciences faculty members, and a mere 3 percent described themselves as somewhat or very conservative, versus 76 percent who identified as somewhat or very liberal. Thats a ratio of 25 to 1.

While the University has made a concerted effort across the past decade to promote gender and racial diversity among its faculty, Harvard has not made any explicit attempts to bolster representation from across the ideological spectrum, the papers Natalie Kahn wrote in April.

The left frightfully claims our democracy is under attack, but democracys root demos means people. If millions of liberals refuse to speak with and feel concern for millions of conservative people even though liberals claim to be enlightened and tolerant who is the threat to democracy?

Democracy Dies in Darkness, The Washington Post intones. Does that include darkness about half your fellow citizens?

Michael Barone wrote in The Wall Street Journal about how liberals are so immersed in cultural crock pots that they dont realize their ignorance.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues have shown that conservatives are better at understanding liberal views than the converse, Barone noted. Thats not surprising: Whereas liberal views permeate the news media and popular culture, liberals can easily avoid exposure to conservative views. That distorts their view of the world and produces oversensitivity to leftist social-media mobs along with overconfidence in demographic trends.

In a related vein, last summer the Cato Institute released research about political expression and self-censorship. It found 62 percent of Americans say the political climate prevents them from saying what they believe up from 58 percent in 2017.

Majorities of Democrats (52 percent), independents (59 percent) and Republicans (77 percent) feel they cannot express their views. Strong liberals are the only political group comfortable sharing their views (58 percent).

Cato found 31 percent of Americans support firing Donald Trump donors and 22 percent support firing Joe Biden donors; but 50 percent of strong liberals support firing Trump donors and 36 percent of strong conservatives support firing Biden donors.

My colleague Carrie Lukas wrote a whole book about our lopsided anti-conservative cultural bias. In Checking Progressive Privilege, she declared, Progressive privilege isnt just unfair to conservatives; it has warped our entire political environment and made our country more divided. Recognizing progressive privilege is the first step to ending it, so that we can have a fairer, more truly inclusive society.

To strengthen democracy, we need stronger civic fabric, which means speaking with and humanizing people with whom you disagree. Heres hoping for a brighter new year in which we do just that.

Carrie Sheffield is a senior policy analyst at Independent Womens Voice.

Go here to read the rest:

Liberals should resolve to be more tolerant in 2022 our democracy depends on it - New York Post

What do you need, really, to be a teacher, anyway? asked the late Norm Macdonald in a stand-up routine, before answering his own question: Lets say youre teaching the third grade. What, what do you need? A fourth grade education. Really, anything above that ... youre overqualified, really, you know?

Norms joke was, of course, not serious. It was an exaggeration for comedic effect and not a suggestion for public policy. The question it raises, if not the punchline, though, was a valid one how much education does one need to teach?

According to pending federal legislation, quite a lot. The House-introduced reconciliation bill, the "Build Back Better" bill, includes a provision for universal, high-quality, free, inclusive, and mixed preschool services run by the states but funded by Washington, provided that at a minimum, [states] requir[e] that lead teachers in the preschool have a baccalaureate degree in early childhood education or a related field by not later than 7 years after the date of enactment of this Act.

In light of the predictable costs this mandate would impose, one has to wonder: What dire problem is it trying to solve?

The bizarre thing is that it can be hard even to find proponents arguing for this policy on the merits. A New York Times article discussing the bill mentioned this provision and cited an essay it had published four years ago arguing for the requirement. That piece cited evidence that high-quality early childhood education helps children, especially disadvantaged ones, for the rest of their lives but that low-quality preschool can hurt more than none at all. This is all well and good as far as it goes, except that the referenced study made no mention of the education of its educators as a variable.

Its little wonder that the American Enterprise Institutes education research fellow Max Eden has denounced college requirements for preschool teachers as regressive, declaring that there is no evidence to support this will help with student outcomes.

Why, then, are lawmakers considering a federal law that would fund preschool programs only if lead teachers have years of experience in special collegiate programs? After all, how many people genuinely believe preschool instruction is a discipline that requires years to learn and not a matter of brief on-the-job training?

Its no secret that college graduates are more liberal than the typical person. Pew Research Center polling over the past 20 years has seen the proportions of white Democrats self-identifying as liberal scale directly with education levels. More education tracks with more liberal engagement and activism and familiarity with niche woke jargon. In 2015, the share of mostly or consistently liberal people was 26% among those with high school or less education, 36% with some college, 44% with a college degree, and 54% with postgraduate experience.

And those numbers consider people on the basis of education in general theres reason to believe that those with college degrees in the humanities would be even further extreme than a generic graduate. A 2016 study that analyzed the party registration of college professors found that more hard disciplines, such as economics and law, featured less skewed ratios of registered Democrats to Republicans than departments such as journalism/communications and history. (Education was not a department studied.) History professors who were registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans 33.5 to 1. If increased Democratic registration tracks with more humanities fields, such as education, and with more liberal attitudes, then the above numbers about self-identified liberalism probably understate the ideological slant of this group.

With this in mind, its hard not to view this provision in a more sinister and power-centric light. Requiring preschool educators (or at least the lead teachers in charge of the rest) to have college degrees is a way to require that an ideologically distinct set of people oversees the full-time instruction of impressionable minds. That is the simplest way of explaining a national requirement that is so stringent yet also so starved for evidence or even vocal support. This rule is about influence and power.

Noah Diekemper is a senior research analyst at Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.

The rest is here:

Proposed regulation would ensure more liberal teachers, not better education - Washington Examiner

Indias Liberal front is floundering in the deep waters of confusion and inaction. The rapid rise of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has caught it off-guard, creating a political moment characterized by what an editorial of Krisis journal has called the feeling of being caught in a wave, heading somewhere dangerous, yet feeling unable to change its direction. An important feature of this image of citizens seized in a right-wing wave is that it includes those repulsed by it but unable to find anchors for resistance or to imagine viable alternatives. What accounts for the failure to construct a strong counter-narrative? In India, the Liberal political class instead of adapting to the changing realities has resigned to its tradition of smug righteousness, unwilling to understand the worth of its electoral bromides.

The volatile shifts of politico-historical tectonic plates in India make it amply clear that the extreme Right emerged from the womb of a defective liberal ideology that slowly became antithetical to the peoples interests. In response to the imperialist depredations of the British empire, a sustained anti-colonial struggle was launched which to acquire a certain effectiveness had to foster mass participation and that in its turn required a degree of accommodation of alternative perspectives. Thus, mainstream Indian nationalism developed a relatively unificatory and subaltern stream though it was kept in check by a Congress leadership of high-caste, middle-class professionals with sizeable properties and business clout.

Through the dynamic interaction between the overflowing energy of a genuinely grassroots movement and the calibrating control exercised by a conservative domestic elite, modern pathologies of communalism were born. While the oppressed sectors of the independence movement advanced a broadly socialist and secular agenda, the bourgeois nationalist establishment weakened the potency of these programmatic horizons by de-coupling politics from economics. In this way, secularism was emptied of its radical message of the civil equality of denominationally different individuals and communities.

What was the necessity of this ideological operation? Aijaz Ahmad writes:

the idea of one kind of equality leads, necessarily and logically, to other ideas of equality: the idea of secularism leads to ideas of political democracy; the idea of political equality leads to the idea of economic equality; the idea of socio-economic equality among men leads to similar ideas about equality between men and women, between individuals of one caste and another, one race or nation and otherideas of equality in one domain lead necessarily to ideas of equality in other domains; that the logic of such ideas would take us and should take us far beyond the conventional confines of democracy or socialism or secularism; that the logic of secularism, the logic of democracy would take us, step by step, to communism itself.

After the defanging of secularism, what was left was the half-hearted notion of tolerance castigated by K. N. Panikkar as a doubtful alternative to secularism. In his words: tolerance is sufferance or endurance and can even turn into tyranny, when exercised by a religious majority. The tolerance of Hindutva, for instance, concedes to the non-Hindus a subordinate position, devoid of rights and privileges. The practical failures of this strategy of tolerance were evident in the bloody partition of the subcontinent that accompanied the transition to independence.

In the immediate post-partition years, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru contained these communal explosions by stitching a social contract dominated by modernist developmentalism. Economic planning and sovereignty, the provision of some basic services for the poor and the illiterate, the principle of affirmative action for Dalits, and subsidies for farming came to be accepted as standard fare. However, actual implementation was lacking. Tanika Sarkar comments: Most of these policies remained solely on paper, while the poor continued to live their lives without the protection of any safety net whatsoever. Nonetheless, the tenacity of certain principles cleared a space for the contestation of poverty and class exploitation. Rights and equality were given the status of absolute goods, of desirable norms.

Although the normative consensus around the need for eradicating poverty was politically progressive, the cultural field was not incorporated in this framework. A civilizational discourse of multiculturalism built on the myth of an enduring Indian nation, from the Vedic times to the modern inadvertently promoted Hindu religiosity and symbolism. Through his inclusive notion of unity in diversity, Nehru constructed the contours of what Anna Guttman has called nationalist classicism. It is worth quoting her at length:

Nationalist classicism opposes colonial classicizing discourses, however, in that it seeks to conceive of ancient civilizations as alive, rather than dead, in emphasizing the connection between the lands ancient and contemporary inhabitantsthis assertion is double-edgedthe proximity of ancient and modern Hinduism might point just as convincingly to the backwardness of the modern form as to the enlightened nature of the ancient. A reliance on classicism can also lead to a distortion of history that privileges certain kinds of identity. In India, the consequences of this are particularly problematic. Though Nehru rejects the British periodization of Indian history and its creation of distinct Hindu and Muslim eras, there can be no doubt that he is especially interested in ancient India. The classical period precludes not only Indian Muslims per se, but Islam itself, and, by extension, their entire way of life. Any insistence on continuity between the Indus Valley civilization and contemporary South Asia inevitably made non-Hindus uneasy.

Thus, Nehru in his efforts to highlight the achievements of the colonized people in response to the ideological violence unleashed by the British rulers adopted a rather static view of Indian history, frequently allowing culture to pervade the entire arena of the countrys history. This was linked to the need he felt for erecting a strong nation. Pritam Singh notes:

Nehru was not a believerbut his almost romantic notion of Indias oneness since time immemorial meant that he equated the religion with the nation. In his much celebrated book The Discovery of India, Nehru writes: Hinduism became the symbol of nationalism. It was indeed a national religion, with all those deep instincts, racial and cultural, which form the basis everywhere of nationalism today. He held contradictory positions on the Hindu institution of caste, praising it as a great historical institution at one point and considering it outdated at another point but avoiding the subject of untouchability all together. Nehrus Hindu bias was not religious per se but was closely entwined with his passion for building a strong united India with a highly centralized power structure.

Though Nehru harbored Hinduist assumptions, these strands of his thought were marginal due to the overwhelming influence exercised by political society. It was only in the Nehruvian era that the Indian state performed an educational and ethical function, trying to spread modern and progressive values, evident in the new textbooks of the period. This ability of the Indian state to transcend the divisions of civil society and propagate the figure of the abstract universal citizen proved to be phenomenal. This was bound to happen because the rugged realities of civil society constitutively shape the texture of the state, which derives its contingent legitimacy from the internal motions of civil society.

Beginning from the 1980s, the Congress party started abandoning the post-colonial ethos of sovereignty and secularism in favor of a more overtly communal politics. Themes of aggressive national unity arising due to the turmoil in the states of Assam, Kashmir and Punjab were routinely highlighted and given a religious form by the insistence that unity could only be maintained by Hindus. The 1984 general elections, held after Indira Gandhis assassination, were won due to the undertow of Hindu chauvinism cultivated in different regions. When this focus on identitarian specificities combined with the immiserating effects of neoliberalism, the fortunes of liberalism drastically declined.

Whereas the Right used its network of overlapping fronts and tightly-knit cadre organizations to provide its support base with a sense of political belonging and social coherence, the Liberal camp stuck to its mode of haphazard politicking. Opportunist deployment of religious themes could not compete with the systematic communalism of the Right. Hypocritical adherence to the precepts of democracy appeared argumentatively inferior to the concrete claims of exclusionary glory offered by neo-fascists. In short, the Congress incomplete political prioritization of the conservative ideological elements of the anti-colonial struggle was fully carried forward by the Indian Right. Today, we need to honestly acknowledge this dimension of the present-day political crisis so that the battle for democracy and secularism can be rejuvenated.

See the article here:

How Indian Liberalism Aided The Rise Of The Right OpEd - Eurasia Review

The Foundation for Middle East Peace had a webinar about the state of U.S. politics on Israel/Palestine as the year ends, and here are some of the takeaways.

Peter Beinart the former liberal Zionist who came out a year ago for one democratic state said that liberal Zionism is becoming discredited among progressives due to the failure of the two-state solution, so liberal Zionists are joining the broader movement for equal rights. Beinart said there used to be two parallel tracks on the American left, the BDS call from Palestinians of 2005 and the two-state agenda pushed by J Street and other liberal Zionists, but the second discourse is collapsing.

I think whats happening is that the boundaries between these two movements are starting to collapse. Or another even more provocative way you can say it, is the Palestinian solidarity movement is in some ways becoming broader and taking in. Its not necessarily an equal marriage. I would say because the movement on the ground has made the two state solution and the idea of liberal Zionism harder and harder and harder to maintain, then I think ultimately whats happening and ultimately what we have to move towards and I think is happening is a broader Palestinian solidarity movement in which people who used to be liberal Zionist or support two states, and more people inside the Jewish community, and others, find their way into it.

Now its not an easy set of relationships always, and I think it involves lots and lots of different kinds of conversations and things that are difficult to figure out in a lot of ways You dont see it necessarily manifested in Washington, where a group like J Street is still much, much more influential than the Palestinian solidarity groups, but if you think of where the momentum is coming I think especially because the Black Lives Matter movement forced a new kind of reckoning in the American public square with the lack of representation from Palestinians, which I dont think is going to end. So Palestinians are going to become more prominent in these conversations. We will see a broader Palestinian solidarity movement, in which Jews including Jews who once considered themselves liberal Zionists and maybe even some who still do consider themselves liberal Zionist will find a place. I think that will ultimately be a more powerful opposition to the status quo than what weve had before.

Fadi Quran, a leading Palestinian human rights worker formerly of Al-Haq, now with the activist network Avaaz, said he was hopeful about the ways the Palestinian narrative is gaining a global audience.

From a more Palestinian perspective what has dawned more and more, for my generation, is that our narrative, just whats going on with us the fact were surrounded with cameras that literally flash red, yellow or green based on facial recognition, that theres a whole system of surveillance, that weve had a woman who fought and almost went on hunger strike just for the right not to have to give birth in a prison. The narratives of people in Sheikh Jarrah [occupied Jerusalem] surrounded by one of the most powerful armies in the world, staying strong and standing for their homes and two basically early 20-year-olds [Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd] just kind of carrying the movement on the back There are people literally who have been buried mothers were holding on to the graves of their kids who were killed so the graves wouldnt be razed by the Israeli military.

All the stories and then the epicness of having 200 kids in prison by Israel right now, and still kids going out in the face of tanks to throw stones. The power of this narrative if we speak to it just factually but also in depth really carries a whole new generation of people. Thats what we saw in May [during Gaza onslaught] More than at any other time, despite all the strategic efforts to silence the Palestinian voice, our voice and that narrative at least for a glimmer managed to break through. And then it was silent.

Lara Friedman of Foundation for Middle East Peace said some had hoped that the Biden administration would lead a breakthrough on Israel-Palestine, but it has proved to be a great disappointment.

Their performance thus far would suggests that there is really no energy there. The energy there is going to be spent on, Well we managed to delay temporarily one settlement, but by the way weve given in on the consulate, weve given in on the PLO mission, and weve given in on all the other settlements and by the way were not going to say a word publicly to defend the NGO sector [the six leading Palestinian groups smeared by Israel as terrorist] even though defending human rights organizations is supposed to be the core identity of this administration. Its hard to believe that people are still holding out hope. Pressure is going to matter.

Beinart said that the political reality of Israel Palestine can be characterized by the fact that not even Bernie Sanders can support one democratic state yet. And by the way that the Israel lobby crushed Omari Hardy, an appealing young Florida state legislator who dared to support BDS and run in the Democratic primary for Congress in Fort Lauderdale.

A guy who has a moral compass woke up one day and said, you know what, Palestinian rights are consistent with everything I believe. And he gets predictably snowplowed. He had to explain 17,000 times why he supports BDS.

No one ever asked Hardys many primary opponents why they didnt support the human rights reports naming Israeli apartheid, Beinart said.

That political dynamic seems very far from changing. Politicians will look at [the pushback against Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman] and think, Who needs that? Who needs that level of headache? We havent changed that political dynamic, sometimes I feel like were still very far away.

(Beinart also said that no one came to Hardys defense except for Twitter and Jewish Currents, the publication he works for. Our site and others supported Hardy. Our friend Roger Waters was a leading advocate for Hardy. Despite Beinarts concern about cancel culture, he always cancels us.)

Lara Friedman echoed Beinarts point by noting the prominence of Rep. Ritchie Torres, a progressive who represents the South Bronx and is relentlessly pro-Israel, and beloved by the party establishment and Israel lobby for that stance.

I always say to people, Look at Ritchie Torres. Thats so much the direction, certainly the energies of those who have power thats the direction they are organizing around.

Friedman warned that Democratic Party fear of supporting Palestinians can lead to terrible policies. She said that Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar recently called for the removal of the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Hes dogwhistling to the end time folks. Hes referencing scripture about the abomination and desolation on the site where the temple must be rebuilt so you can have the second coming of Christ. That scares the crap out of me. I really worry that Democrats who by and large dont want to spend too much political capital on Israel Palestine in defending Palestinian rights and free speech, I worry that they have their heads in the sand as to how bad this can get. And I think thats going to be tested next year.

On the upside, Friedman said, the discourse is changing and Democrats are being forced to reckon with the shifting and more honest narrative around the Palestinian experience. And alluding to the global controversy over the Israeli spyware company, the NSO group, she observed, Any conversation about weaponized surveillance takes you back to Israel and any conversation about Israeli surveillance takes you back to Palestinians.

The bottom line is at this point if youre talking about the erosion of democratic values, and liberal values, worldwide and youre not talking about Israel, then its clear youre making an exception and youre a hypocrite. That I think is something that strengthens those of us who say if you care about this worldwide, you have to care about Palestinians.

Quran described his detention by Homeland Security in the U.S. at Israels behest two months ago.

If youre Jewish American, on so many levels, your voice matters more than a Palestinian and at the same time we are going against actors that will go to all ends possible including the worst lies to devastate those of us who have the loudest voices

I had the experience and I didnt share this before, but I will share it with you. When I traveled to the U.S. in October to visit my father who is sick, for the first time in my life, I was stopped by Homeland Security in Dallas airport. They stopped me, they interrogated meWhere do you work? Have you been arrested? Etc. Etc. The core question, the last bit, because the lieutenant who was interrogating me really felt for me, and I showed him my phone with my personal messages to members of Congress Whoever told you Im an evil person, these senators wouldnt be messaging me if I actually was. He was like We got a report against you from an allied government claiming that you support terrorism. We have been investigating you since May. I was surprised that he shared this information. Theres nothing on you, Im going to let you go. But it was, The moment you booked your ticket we have to bring you in and interrogate you on this

These actors that want to silence the work that we are all doing are going to go to that level and more. And I think we need to be prepared for it next year. But we also need to remember the sacrifices we make they literally will benefit all the other struggles we care about.

Beinart and Friedman also had an interesting if coded discussion about rhetorical concessions the left will have to make to broaden the movement for Palestinian rights. Friedman said that the next generation of Palestinian leaders is brilliantly using the idea of post colonial framing for understanding the Palestinian issue. But that concept will be very challenging for a lot of people who see themselves as allies. There is a reservoir of support that can be tapped into that wasnt there before, as people see that simply reciting the catechism of two states is not going to do it.

Friedman had this good observation: Every movement has its assholes. That doesnt mean a movement is discredited. Its only this movement that is held to that standard.

Thanks to Yakov Hirsch expert on Hasbara Culture for pointing out this dialogue to me.

BEFORE YOU GO Stories like the one you just read are the result of years of efforts by campaigners and media like us who support them by getting the word out, slowly but doggedly.

That's no accident. Our work has helped create breakthroughs in how the general public understands the Palestinian freedom struggle.

Mondoweiss plays a key role in helping to shift the narrative around Palestine. Will you give so we can keep telling the stories in 2022 that will be changing the world in 2023, 2025 and 2030?

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Liberal Zionism is collapsing into the Palestinian solidarity movement everywhere but Washington Beinart - Mondoweiss

If political philosophy were a religion, the belief that corporations do not pay their fair share of federal taxes would be up near the top of commandments. Corporations, thou shalt pay more. So, I am going to commit liberal economic heresy by making the case that liberals need to turn this belief on its head and take the position that corporations should pay no taxes.

I say this not because I am in the pocket of global corporations. I say this because the focus on corporate taxes distracts from the reality that corporations are not people and only people can or should pay taxes. We have gone down this fantasy that corporations are like other natural Americans with rights like the rights to due process, the rights to engage in political speech and soon, if the Republicans get their way perhaps even the right to vote. The Supreme Courts Citizens United decision has led to the total corruption of our political process by allowing corporations and their thinly veiled political action committees to buy the services of elected officials. This decision was largely based on the concept that corporations have rights.

If corporations doubled the amount of taxes they pay the federal government today, it would still represent less than 15 percent of total federal tax revenues. The fight to increase corporate taxes is a fools errand. We should change how we treat all corporations.

Many if not most small businesses form corporations that are also known as pass-throughs. These are S-corporations, LLCs and other forms where if the corporation earns a profit, those profits are allocated to the owners of the corporation who report those earnings on their personal income tax returns. We already have the structure to accomplish what I am suggesting. In effect, all corporations should be pass-throughs like S-corporations.

The shareholders of public companies only get their share of the profits when the boards of those corporations decide to distribute some, usually not all, of those profits in the form of dividends. What if this decision was taken out of the hands of the corporate bosses and all profits had to be distributed to the owners of the corporation? This would fundamentally change corporate financial behavior. Corporations might more likely be interested in expanding their operations by borrowing money than sharing profits with shareholders. Economists refer to this conflict of interests within corporate behavior as agency problems. And think of all of the brain power that is currently being used to avoid corporate income taxes could be repurposed into something that actually benefits society.

I dont think we as average tax-paying Americans should lose any sleep about how corporations might adjust to a reality that they have to distribute all their profits to shareholders. They have some of the best legal and accounting minds money can buy. Our concern should be on collecting the amount of money the federal government needs to do its job for the American people from the American people.

Shareholders would be paid their share of the corporations profits. Many shareholders would need those profits to pay taxes on their share of corporate profits. This would put pressure on corporate leaders to be better stewards of corporate resources. And it would force investors to stop treating their investments as tax-avoidance strategies.

Eliminating the corporate income tax would also eliminate a complaint of double taxation made by those on the right for years. Corporate profits are taxed and when dividends are paid out, the recipients then pay taxes on those dividends. Eliminating the first tax eliminates the double taxation.

Eliminating the corporate tax rate should only be done if it is combined with further simplification of the tax system. First and foremost, income is income. A second harmful delusion we suffer from is that income earned by those who own stock is different from income earned by workers, or income from people and companies who own commercial real estate. Income is income and there need be only one tax rate on all income in a given bracket.

This is not to say there should not be progressiveness in tax rates. If you are in the highest income bracket, your taxes should be determined by your total income regardless of whether it comes from rents, labor, capital, of financial shenanigans like carried interest, or distinctions between long-term and short-term capital gains. If we tax income progressively there will tremendous gains in the efficiency of the economy.

Eliminating corporate income taxes and simplifying our tax system is an important step to eliminating corporate abuse, malfeasance, corruption of our political processes, and the unproductive war between real Americans and fictitious pseudo-persons like corporations. I think we should call the right wings bluff on corporate income taxes and eliminate the corporate income tax. I suspect they would not be in favor of what I am suggesting.

Fred McKinney is the co-founder of BJM Solutions, an economic consulting firm that conducts public and private research since 1999, and is the emeritus director of the Peoples Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac University.

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Fred McKinney (opinion): Time for liberals to understand the truth about corporations - CT Post

Putting a bunch of Deep South conservatives and New England liberals together sounds like a recipe for fireworks. But a funny thing happened when that potentially combustible combination met online this fall.

Understanding. Civility. Maybe even friendship.

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute programs at LSU and the University of Southern Maine offered an eight-session opportunity for political opposites to talk with each other. When all was said, the participants found out they weren't quite as opposite as they expected.

That gives hope to the participants.

I had lunch with one of my fellow OLLI students just yesterday, and I asked him: 'Am I overstating the case here that most of us, the liberals and the conservatives, agreed on most issues most of the time at least to some extent much more than we disagreed? said Bud Snowden, of Baton Rouge. And he said thats absolutely right.

How can this be if, as pundits say, Americans are as divided as any time since the Civil War? The programs creator thinks the pundits have it wrong.

Mike Berkowitz, of Saco, Maine, organized and moderated the program. He says both traditional and social media have distorted Americans actual political and social differences, hyping the disagreements and obscuring areas of common ground to create the impression of an unbridgeable divide.

He said he believes if liberals and conservatives take the time to understand each other's beliefs and talked to instead of at each other, theyd be surprised.

So, Berkowitz started the Conservatives and Liberals; Not Conservatives vs. Liberals course.

The Louisiana-Maine program had participants meet on the Zoom video conferencing site for two hours weekly for eight weeks to explore the different philosophies on hot-button topics like abortion and gun control and to discuss their individual views. Berkowitz moderated the meetings and encouraged them to keep the discussions respectful.

Thats not to say the participants didnt come in with preconceived notions.

I didnt see compassion with conservatives, said Dorry French, of Falmouth, Maine, when asked about her stereotypes. Redneck, uninformed maybe I should quit while Im a little bit ahead.

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My stereotype of liberal northerners: rude, arrogant and condescending, Snowden said. That stereotype was dispelled. It really was.

The process of dispelling such stereotypes involved more than just conversation.

Berkowitz led participants through the book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, which explores why liberals and conservatives have different intuitions about right and wrong.

That established a way for the students in the class to see how those who profoundly disagree about things like abortion based their beliefs in something both sides valued.

Both conservatives and liberals have a lot of compassion, said Keith Fleeman, of Auburn, Maine. Liberals have compassion, it seems to me, toward the person who is carrying the child, and conservatives have more compassion, I think, for the fetus itself that it comes to term. Ive learned to see the compassion on both sides.

It made the point that it was about differences in values, not 'these people are stupid' or 'these people are wrong, said John Kovich, of Baton Rouge. The training helped a lot.

No one changed their political views, Berkowitz said, but that wasnt the point.

Rather, they discovered that they were more like their political adversaries than they suspected. They said their discussions were more productive than ones they attempted with family and friends and much better than those that take place online.

Those who participated said they enjoyed it so much that theyve discussed continuing the virtual meetings.

It made a huge difference to be able to look people in the eye, even on a screen, and feel like you were getting to know a person rather than just a set of opinions, Snowden said. That made a huge difference to me in terms of saying what I needed to say and to hear what I needed to hear. That wouldnt have happened in a purely digital exchange, I dont believe.

But being around Yankee liberals was a new experience. What I came to understand is these are just people like I am.

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Peace on Earth? Program shows how conservatives and liberals just might get along - The Advocate

Theres bad news for Scott Morrison, with polling predicting a heavy defeat for the prime minister at the upcoming federal election.

The results of the latest quarterly Newspoll analysis show Labor has increased its advantage and the number of seats it would win from the Coalition has lifted from nine to 12 based on the state two-party preferred swings.

This result would hand Anthony Albanese a majority with more than 80 MPs in the House of Representatives.

The polling also shows Labor on track to take two electorates held by cabinet ministers - Peter Duttons seat of Dickson in Queensland and Ken Wyatts seat of Hasluck in Western Australia.

It also showed the opposition likely to win the West Australian seat of Pearce being vacated by former attorney-general Christian Porter.

The analysis suggests that Victoria will have the smallest swing to Labor.

The 4.78 per cent swing to Labor in NSW since the last federal poll would see Mr Albanese gain the seats of Reid and Robertson, which are held by the Liberals on margins of 3.18 and 4.24 per cent respectively.

In Victoria, a 2.86 per cent swing to Labor would see it also pick up the Liberal seat of Chisholm, held by Gladys Liu on a wafer-thin margin of 0.5 per cent.

In Tasmania, assuming the national swing to Labor of 4.53 per cent is replicated, Mr Albanese would win the battleground seats of Braddon and Bass, which are held by the Coalition government on margins of 3.09 per cent and 0.41 per cent respectively.

In Western Australia, Labor would win the seats of Swan, Pearce and Hasluck - held by the government on margins of 3.2, 5.2 and 5.9 per cent - and also pick up the seat of Tangney, held by Special Minister of State, Ben Morton.

The Newspoll analysis shows that in South Australia, Labor is on track to win the seat of Boothby, which is being vacated by Liberal MP Nicolle Flint.

- With AAP

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Newspoll latest: Bitter blow for Prime Minister Scott Morison and the Liberal Party ahead of looming 2022 federal election - 7NEWS

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what's on the radar of our editors for the morning of Dec. 23 ... What we are watching in Canada ...

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what's on the radar of our editors for the morning of Dec. 23 ...

What we are watching in Canada ...

Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced Wednesday evening that his province had recorded about 9,000 new COVID-19 cases during the day, and he said the "exponential" rise in infections over the past week will necessitate new restrictions.

As of Boxing Day, he said, private gatherings in the province will be limited to six people or two-family bubbles. Restaurants, which are already operating at half capacity and have to close at 10 p.m., will also have to limit groups at tables to six people or two families.

Quebec has already requested military help to accelerate the province's mass vaccination campaign.

Meantime, Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, says Omicron is now the dominant variant in several provinces.

"There were over 11,300 new cases yesterday alone," Tam said Wednesday. That was up from an average of just 5,000 cases per day last week. She added, "modelling shows that by the beginning of January we could have very high number of cases, which underscores the need to act urgently now to reduce the acceleration."

To avoid a sudden rush on the health-care system, Tam urged all Canadians to do what they can to lessen the spread of the virus.---

Also this ...

A Liberal MP has found himself in hot water after defying advice not to travel out of the country unless the trip is essential.

Chief government whip Steven MacKinnon issued a statement Wednesday saying he is "profoundly disappointed" that Liberal MP Yves Robillard travelled outside Canada, in contravention of party instructions. Robillard has been censured.

The whip says Liberal MPs were told to avoid non-essential international travel as the COVID-19 Omicron variant increases its grip -- mirroring the government advice to members of the public.

MacKinnon said although Robillard is fully vaccinated, the MP's trip during Parliament's holiday break was not considered essential, and he will be removed from his duties as a member of the standing committee on national defence as a result.

MacKinnon, who did not mention Robillard's destination or reasons for travel, intends to talk to the MP about his decision to leave Canada when Parliament returns. Robillard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

---

What we are watching in the U.S. ...

WASHINGTON President Joe Bidens message to the American people on confronting the Omicron coronavirus variant comes with a heavy dose of cajoling as some other countries are issuing decrees to their citizens.

America's ideologically-polarized reaction to vaccines and masks, and its federal system in which states have broad authority over health matters, limits some of the options Biden can exercise at least without stoking political flareups that could distract from his urgent public health message.

Jen Kates, director of global health for the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, says one of the major lessons the U.S. has learned from the pandemic is that politics matters.

We are a big country, we are a complex country, and on every issue, partisans are divided, she said. That, coupled with local control, and we end up with a disjointed response.

France has banned public concerts and fireworks displays at New Years celebrations while calling on people to avoid large gatherings and limit the number of family members coming together for Christmas. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and state governors agreed on restrictions to take effect before the new year, including limiting private gatherings to 10 people, closing nightclubs and holding large events like soccer matches without in-person audiences.

In the U.S., Biden has not issued fresh travel warnings nor urged the cancellation of public events.

On Tuesday, the president seemed to be taking pains to try to connect with viewers on TV. He avoided a catchphrase that he and other members of his administration have often used pandemic of the unvaccinated and instead tried to appeal to vaccine refusers as fellow Americans.

I, honest to God, believe its your patriotic duty, Biden said, urging the unvaccinated to get their shots.

He even invoked his Republican predecessor. Just the other day, former president (Donald) Trump announced he had gotten his booster shot, Biden said. It may be one of the few things he and I agree on.

---

What we are watching in the rest of the world ...

BEIJING China has ordered the lockdown of as many as 13 million people in neighbourhoods and workplaces in the northern city of Xian following a spike in COVID-19 cases, setting off panic buying just weeks before the country hosts the Winter Olympics.

State media say city officials ordered all residents to stay home unless they have a pressing reason to go out and suspended all transport to and from the city apart from special cases. One person from each household will be permitted out every two days to buy household necessities.

Xian on Wednesday reported 52 new locally transmitted cases of the coronavirus over the previous 24 hours.

China has adopted strict pandemic control measures under its zero-transmission program, leading to frequent lockdowns, universal masking and mass testing.

Those measures have been stepped up in recent days ahead of the start of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games on Feb. 4.

The Xi'an restrictions are some of the harshest since China in 2020 imposed a strict lockdown on more than 11 million people in and around the central city of Wuhan after COVID-19 was first detected there in late 2019.

Social media posts recorded panic buying of groceries and household products, with the government saying new supplies would be brought in on Thursday.

---

On this day in 1983 ...

Jeanne Sauv was appointed Canada's first female governor general. The former broadcaster and federal cabinet minister had also been the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons.

---

In entertainment ...

MINNEAPOLIS Court officials are edging closer to dividing up pop superstar Princes estate.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Wednesday that November tax filings show the Internal Revenue Service and Comerica Bank & Trust, the estate administrator, have reached an agreement in November on the total value of Princes assets.

The specific number hasnt been disclosed but it could be more than $100 million. The IRS last year determined Prince's assets were worth $163.2 million. Comerica put the number at $82.3 million. IRS officials felt Comerica's total was so low they imposed a $6.4 million accuracy penalty on the estate.

The Carver County probate court still must approve the agreement. The court is set to begin discussions in February on how to divide up the assets.

The estate likely will be divided between New York music company Primary Wave and Prince's three oldest heirs or their families. Primary Wave bought out all or most of the interests of Prince's three youngest siblings.

Prince died of a fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park home in Carver County in April 2016. He didn't have a will.

---

ICYMI ...

A University of Calgary paleontologist says she has seen well-preserved dinosaur egg fossils before, but nothing like this.

The fossil, the subject of a new paper published Wednesday, is so detailed it's revealing even more about the deep relationships between dinosaurs and birds, their modern-day descendants.

Darla Zelenitsky says the find is of a 65-million-year-old type of theropod dinosaur called an oviraptorid, a species already on an avian evolutionary path.

First discovered in China about 20 years ago, the specimen is so completely preserved it reveals the posture of the soon-to-be theropod inside its shell. With its back curled up against the broad end of the shell and its head tucked in between its arms and legs, it looks much like an unhatched chicken.

Zelenitsky says "The skeleton is curled up in a birdlike embryonic pose." She adds "birds were thought to have a unique posture within the egg before hatching. It's evident from this fossil that some of these postures seem to have first evolved in their dinosaur ancestors."

It's the first time scientists have been able to see how dinosaur embryos were positioned inside their eggs. Previous egg fossils have been too fragmented. Zelenitsky says "this reinforces the link between those theropod dinosaurs and birds." That link is growing stronger as more evidence comes in.

---

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 23, 2021

The Canadian Press

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Quebec's COVID Count Rises and a Liberal MP gets Censured: In The News for Dec. 23 - Times Colonist

news, latest-news,

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has appointed new Liberal upper house MP Peter Poulos to the position of parliamentary secretary for Wollongong and the Illawarra - a post that has been vacant for almost two years. As part of the role, Mr Poulos will be responsible for liaising with NSW Government ministers on Illawarra-specific issues, as well as advocating for the region as a whole. Despite hailing from Rockdale, Mr Poulos is no stranger to the Illawarra, having spent almost a decade working as a staffer in the Wollongong office of federal Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, and says he is keen to hit the ground running. Read more: The moment a scared little boy finally embraced life with his Thirroul foster family "I see the Illawarra as a gigantic think tank that drives ideas, and my role is to help nurture those ideas and bring them to the government," he said. "I'm looking forward to getting down to the Illawarra and meeting up with as many people as I can." Mr Poulos said the premier phoned him before Christmas to give him the good news and a brief run down of the expectations that came with the new role. "He [Mr Perrottet] would like me to primarily coordinate all the ministers, ensuring they remain focused on the Illawarra region," Mr Poulos said. "He was very clear on me making sure I'm liaising clearly with them. He's appointing a number of parliamentary secretaries in the regions but he consider the Illawarra a focal area on interest." When asked what his priorities were for the region - and which ministers might be among the first to soon visit - Mr Poulos cited the premier's announcement earlier this month that his government would establish a new cities ministry, focused on bringing to life the expanded vision of the 2017 Greater Sydney Commission to include Wollongong, Newcastle and the Central Coast. Former transport minister Rob Stokes has been appointed to oversee the new portfolio, which Mr Poulos said gave taxpayers a clear indication that Wollongong was a priority area for the new premier. "My role will be to do everything I can to engage with the new minster for cities and get him to connect with the region to unlock its potential.," Mr Poulos said. The last parliamentary secretary for the Illawarra was former Liberal Kiama MP turned independent Gareth Ward, who held the position from April 2015 to March 2019. The Illawarra Mercury newsroom is funded by our readers. You can subscribe to support our journalism here.

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December 26 2021 - 3:51PM

Oversight: State Liberal MP Peter Poulos has been announced as the new parliamentary secretary for the Illawarra. Picture: Supplied

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has appointed new Liberal upper house MP Peter Poulos to the position of parliamentary secretary for Wollongong and the Illawarra - a post that has been vacant for almost two years.

As part of the role, Mr Poulos will be responsible for liaising with NSW Government ministers on Illawarra-specific issues, as well as advocating for the region as a whole.

Despite hailing from Rockdale, Mr Poulos is no stranger to the Illawarra, having spent almost a decade working as a staffer in the Wollongong office of federal Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, and says he is keen to hit the ground running.

"I see the Illawarra as a gigantic think tank that drives ideas, and my role is to help nurture those ideas and bring them to the government," he said.

"I'm looking forward to getting down to the Illawarra and meeting up with as many people as I can."

Mr Poulos said the premier phoned him before Christmas to give him the good news and a brief run down of the expectations that came with the new role.

"He [Mr Perrottet] would like me to primarily coordinate all the ministers, ensuring they remain focused on the Illawarra region," Mr Poulos said.

I see the Illawarra as a gigantic think tank that drives ideas, and my role is to help nurture those ideas and bring them to the government

"He was very clear on me making sure I'm liaising clearly with them. He's appointing a number of parliamentary secretaries in the regions but he consider the Illawarra a focal area on interest."

When asked what his priorities were for the region - and which ministers might be among the first to soon visit - Mr Poulos cited the premier's announcement earlier this month that his government would establish a new cities ministry, focused on bringing to life the expanded vision of the 2017 Greater Sydney Commission to include Wollongong, Newcastle and the Central Coast.

Former transport minister Rob Stokes has been appointed to oversee the new portfolio, which Mr Poulos said gave taxpayers a clear indication that Wollongong was a priority area for the new premier.

"My role will be to do everything I can to engage with the new minster for cities and get him to connect with the region to unlock its potential.," Mr Poulos said.

The last parliamentary secretary for the Illawarra was former Liberal Kiama MP turned independent Gareth Ward, who held the position from April 2015 to March 2019.

Read more:

Liberal senator Peter Poulos appointed to vacant parliamentary secretary role covering Wollonngong and the Illawarra - Illawarra Mercury