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	<title>Chant Down Babylon</title>
	<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum</link>
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		<title>Dialogue or Neutralize &#8211; Continued&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve reflected on the limitations of dialogue previously, here. Joe Keohone&#8217;s latest piece in the Boston Globe (on the interaction between information and political belief) provides more grist for the mill. Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. The implications for organizing are simple &#8211; don&#8217;t waste your breathe on conservatives die hards. These folks don&#8217;t partake in dialogue. They have their preconceived ideas and their &#8220;facts&#8221; that they use to rationalize their views. And reality has that liberal bias. I&#8217;d want to know more about how this rigidity breaks out along the continuum. I&#8217;ve met plenty of progressives who are set in their ways and aren&#8217;t too interested in counterfactual data or the necessity for nuance or grey zones. But I&#8217;d like to think that &#8220;our&#8221; side is more open to discourse. After all, there is some evidence that liberals are more flexible [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/07/31/dialogue-or-neutralize-continued/</link>
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		<title>Matt Bai Cringes in Fear &#8211; Delivers the Usual MSM Acceptable Race Analysis</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In his piece on race, Bai manages, once again, to say very little, add roughly zero to the discourse and get several things dead wrong. I&#8217;m not sure how it is possible to write about the Sherrod case without actually pointing the spotlight on the ongoing conservative race-based politics. Breitbart&#8217;s hit job on Sherrod follows a familiar conservative trope on race &#8211; turn reality upside down, ignore facts, and cry &#8220;reverse racism&#8221;. And Breitbart&#8217;s last 15 minutes in the spotlight showed him deploying another conservative stratagem &#8211; use code to stir up the angry white male base. His  ACORN set up was part of a larger conservative fixation about ACORN, a group that organized in urban neighborhoods, provided services to help residents facing foreclosure and, perhaps most frighteningly to conservatives, registered millions of black and brown citizens to vote. Let us not forget that this fixation on ACORN and &#8220;voter fraud&#8221; (another fictional  conservative dog whistle) led to Karl Rove and Attorney General Gonzalez to have to leave the Bush administration in shame. Nonetheless, the outcome of the ACORN hit job was that grassroots group went out of business. I doubt that conservatives will now rush to American cities to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/07/25/matt-bai-cringes-in-fear-delivers-the-usual-msm-acceptable-race-analysis/</link>
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		<title>Should rich people pay more taxes?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Andrea writes: Isn’t it already their fair share if they’re paying the same rate as people making $40,000? If they make more money, they’re paying more taxes, the rate doesn’t have to be higher. They pay more taxes, but they get the same roads, schools and police that they don’t even use as much. Good question. Why should the rich (the 5% of the population that earns over $150,000) pay more, don&#8217;t they already pay more  taxes? Well, yes they pay more taxes.  But that&#8217;s because they earn more- the top 5% take in a third of all income in the U.S. The question is whether the top income earners are paying the same percentage of their income as we do. Nobody would argue that people with low incomes should pay more of their income in taxes than the wealthiest. The answer is that when you take into consideration all the taxes we pay, sale tax, property tax and income tax, we pay more of our income in taxes than the wealthiest. Granted the income tax system is slightly progressive, meaning the more you earn the more you pay but that is more than offset by the fact that sales [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/07/23/should-rich-people-pay-more-taxes/</link>
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		<title>Is Carl Paladino on the Al Qaeda Payroll?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Carl Paladino has a plan to stop a mosque from being built a few blocks from Ground Zero in NYC. Hmm&#8230; Let&#8217;s think about this for a minute. Right now Al Qaeda is a marginalized faction among Muslims all over the world. Most Muslims don&#8217;t see a conflict between the United States and Islam in general. Sure, there is some justified anger in certain regions about the US coddling of Israel, but by and large, if you ask any ten Muslims on any street around the world who&#8217;d they&#8217;d rather do business with, the United States or Al Qaeda, is there any doubt that 8 out of 10 would pick the US? This situation stinks for Al Qaeda. One way they could bolster their recruiting efforts would be if the United States were perceived to be against all Islam in general. Instead of being perceived as an open and inclusive nation we would be seen as a place that discriminates against anybody calling themselves Muslim. So, if Carl Paladino succeeds in making this about America versus Islam, then Al Qaeda benefits. Al Qaeda gains more recruits, more donors, and expands the network. How is it possibile that Carl Paladino could [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/07/23/is-carl-paladino-on-the-al-qaeda-payroll/</link>
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		<title>Understanding &#8220;The Dollar&#8221; and its Role in Wall Street&#8217;s Attack On Your Quality of Life</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In my last post I underlined the importance of unmasking deficit hawk bullshit. We can&#8217;t let those clowns kill sensible solutions to our current miserable economic conditions. Katherine Sciacchitano&#8217;s article in Dollars and Sense comes to the same conclusion but comes at it from the point of view of &#8220;the American dollar.&#8221; The article really helped me understand why it sucks that the world monetary system is pegged to the dollar and how that has lead to the current  global economic recession. Do you understand global monetary policy? I sure as hell didn&#8217;t. This article has at least given me a clue. Sciacchitano ties together the IMF&#8217;s predatory relationship to developing countries, assaults on labor, the housing bubble, 1970&#8242;s stagflation and OPEC, trade deficits, the fall of American manufacturing and, most importantly, how this increased Wall Street&#8217;s power over domestic policy. Once again, Keynes emerges as the tragically correct figure who got ignored. Check it out. No tag for this post. Related posts No related posts.]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/06/12/understanding-the-dollar-and-its-role-in-wall-streets-attack-on-your-quality-of-life/</link>
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		<title>No, Now is Not a Good Time to Freak Out About the Deficit</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I replied to a Facebook post from Tom Belknap and he said I should post the reply so here it is&#8230; In a recent post Paul Krugman puts up a pie chart from the IMF. It shows what actually is going on with the US deficit. We should pay attention and draw the proper lesson, not run around screaming that the sky is falling. Krugman is pointing out that the stimulus dollars (in yellow) are a small piece of the pie, and that the larger pieces are about how the recession has lowered the amount of revenue that government can collect. So the deficit is driven by the recession (people aren&#8217;t earning as much so therefore they aren&#8217;t paying as much taxes, therefore there is less revenue), not what Obama proposed to do about the recession (stimulate the economy by putting dollars in peoples&#8217; pockets so they can spend spend spend, thereby giving other people more income, so that they can then pay more taxes). The next logical stimulus step would be to spend government dollars to put people to work (the last employment figures showed that the Census hiring was the only reason we got an uptick). But the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/06/08/no-now-is-not-a-good-time-to-freak-out-about-the-deficit/</link>
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		<title>Dialogue or Neutralize?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Matt Yglesias just posted an email from a Liberal reader who urges Yglesias to be more civil. The reader doesn&#8217;t like the &#8220;base riling&#8221; and thinks that a more civil and engaging dialogue might change some Conservative minds. Yglesias reserves the right to scorn and mock stupidity. More on that in a few paragraphs. I&#8217;ve also encountered (many times) a similar attitude and I think this is actually a problem for the Left. There&#8217;s a bunch of new research into how differently Liberals and Conservatives process political issues. And Liberals need to understand that although they value polite rational discourse not everybody else on the planet experiences the public sphere the same way. Lakoff and Haidt and others have written about this. We&#8217;re talking about concrete differences in brain response to public policy issues and very different value systems. Think Women are From Venus Men are From Mars type difference. Some folks just don&#8217;t agree that the way you arrive at truth is through some sort of interpersonal dialectic, let alone &#8220;building consensus.&#8221; That&#8217;s part of it. The other part is that history isn&#8217;t kind to the notion of dialogue as a social change mechanism. Politicians need to engage others [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/04/25/dialogue-or-neutralize/</link>
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		<title>Thinking About the Proliferation of Microscopes Up the Butt of the Tea Party Movement</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Now, to be fair, I have to admit that I did field a call from a rep from the television show, Wife Swap, who wanted to do a show with an anti-war family and a "bomb the towel heads" family. ]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/04/22/thinking-about-the-proliferation-of-microscopes-up-the-butt-of-the-tea-party-movement/</link>
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		<title>Taxing Wall Street</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In my last post I advocated for a stock transfer tax because its the right thing to do and our schools are facing painful budget cuts. We tax just about everything, why not stocks? Wall Street shouldn&#8217;t be an exception. The latest issue of Dollars and Sense lays out another reason to tax stocks. John Miller points out that Wall Street has changed its purpose, from providing a mechanism for investment in production to socially useless speculation, &#8220;During the 1970&#8242;s, for every dollar of new investment in plants and equipment, $1.30 in stocks were traded on the U.S. exchanges&#8230; But from 1998 to 2007, $27 in stocks were traded&#8230; for every dollar of corporate investment in plant equipment. Such a rapid stock turnover has diverted the attention of managers of enterprises from long-term planning.&#8221; Miller points out that a transaction tax &#8220;can actually enhance, not diminish, the efficiency of financial markets.&#8221; Let&#8217;s make sure Albany hears us and goes after the revenue rather than massive cuts to our children&#8217;s classrooms. No tag for this post. Related posts No related posts.]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/04/20/taxing-wall-street/</link>
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		<title>We Don&#8217;t Need to Cut Education Funding</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Let’s put things in perspective – the Masters of the Universe on the payroll at Goldman Sachs (yes, the folks who recklessly gambled away the entire world economy by peddling CDOs and making side bets with CDSs) just pulled down more than twice as much in bonuses than the entire NYS deficit. ]]></description>
		<link>http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2010/03/29/we-dont-need-to-cut-education-funding/</link>
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