LibertyVoter.Org

By Jacob Sugarman, AlterNet

Eight years ago, Barbara Weed returned to her South Leamington home in the U.K. to find a message from her son, Tom. He was moving in with a friend, he informed her, and she shouldn't try to contact him. Weed hasn't had direct contact with her son since, and knows only that he's living in a foreign country. 

“It’s a pattern all too familiar for some families who’ve had a child watch [Stefan] Molyneux’s videos and listen to his podcasts,” writes Ben Collins in the Daily Beast. “At first, it’s just their kid watching videos about something controversial but familiar—The Matrix, The Martian, or Donald Trump. Then, a few months and a few more podcasts later, there’s a note on the door. After that moment, they never see their child again.”

Molyneux, a self-styled anarcho-capitalist with ties to the so-called alt-right, is among the president's most prominent proselytizers. As Collins' report makes clear, he's also an accused cult leader.

Among Molyneux's more effective tools of indoctrination is a lengthy video posted to the website UnTruthAboutDonaldTrump.com deconstructing what he contends are the media's willful misconceptions about our reality show host-cum-president. Molyneux insists he simply wants to provide a “fair assessment of the man's character,” acknowledging Trump's policies and positions are “well worth an examination, and certainly not above criticism.”

“For the first few minutes, it’s hard to disagree with him,” Collins notes. “Molyneux, slowly reading along from a PowerPoint-like text of talking points, breaks down passages from Trump’s Art of the Deal. He contends that Trump can’t possibly be as dimwitted as the media makes him out to be and convincingly argues that it all must be part of Trump’s plan…He is charismatic, open, immediately transfixing—almost enough for you to forget the video’s 73-minute run time.”

While his recordings indulge far-right grievances ranging from feminism and multiculturalism to postcolonial themes in Marvel's Black Panther, Molyneux's message to his acolytes is as simple as it is insidious: families are inherently abusive and must therefore be renounced. Molyneux calls this process “deFOOing” from one's “family …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Robert Reich, RobertReich.org

Baby Boomers—my generation, born between 1946 and 1964—dominated politics and the economy for years. There were just more boomers than people of any other generation. But that’s no longer the case. Now, the biggest generation is the millennials, born between 1983 and 2000.

Millennials are different from boomers in 6 important ways that will shape the future.

1. Millennials are more diverse than boomers—so as millennials gain clout, expect America to become more open. More than 44 percent of millennials identify as a race other than white. And they’re more accepting of immigrants: 69 percent of millennials think that newcomers strengthen American society, compared to 44 percent of boomers.

2. Millennials are more distrustful of the political system than boomers—so as millennials gain power, expect more anti-establishment politics. A strong majority of millennials think the country is on the wrong track. Most disapprove of both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Virtually no millennials—only 6 percent—strongly approve of Donald Trump, compared to 63 percent who disapprove. A strong majority—71 percent—want a third major party to compete with Democrats and Republicans.

3. Most millennials have a tougher financial road than boomers—so expect them to demand changes in how we finance higher education. According to Pew Research, millennials are the first generation in the modern era, “to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty, and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than any other generation at the same stage of life.” No surprise, then, that millennials are living at home much longer than previous generations, and getting married later.

4. Millennials view the social safety net differently than boomers—so expect them to demand that Medicare and Social Security are strengthened. As boomers move into older age, more and more of the federal budget is going into Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Many millennials even doubt Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will be there for them when they retire.

5. Millennials care more about the environment—so expect them to demand stronger environmental protection. Over 90 percent of them believe climate change is occurring, compared with …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Bobby Azarian, Raw Story

A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.

Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge. On the other hand, religious beliefs are not usually updated in response to new evidence or scientific explanations, and are therefore strongly associated with conservatism. They are fixed and rigid, which helps promote predictability and coherence to the rules of society among individuals within the group.

Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview.

Since religious beliefs play a massive role in driving and influencing human behavior throughout the world, it is important to understand the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism from a psychological and neurological perspective.

To investigate the cognitive and neural systems involved in religious fundamentalism, a team of researchers—led by Jordan Grafman of Northwestern University—conducted a study that utilized data from Vietnam War veterans that had been gathered previously. The vets were specifically chosen because a large number of them had damage to brain areas suspected of playing a critical role in functions related to religious fundamentalism. CT scans were analyzed comparing 119 vets with brain trauma to 30 healthy …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Robin Scher, AlterNet

Food is a key part of any culture. Take the USA: Could there be a more potent symbol of all things Americana than BBQ? For many, to go against this national pastime amounts to a form of treason. Which is why it should cause little surprise to learn that a new culture has begun to take root among African Americans: veganism.

In years past, this dietary decision was largely associated with being, like, super white. In part, this could be due to the fact that avoiding all animal products is seen as a bourgeois indulgence, enjoyed by the sorts of people who like to proclaim that “All Lives Matter.” That perception is starting to shift.

“The black vegan movement is one of the most diverse, decolonial, complex and creative movements,” said Aph Ko, founder of the website Black Vegans Rock, in a recent New York Times article. And Ko should know. Back in 2015, she compiled a list of “100 Black Vegans” to highlight the fact that veganism is more than just an animal welfare-based lifestyle choice. Listed among Ko's cohorts are a diverse group of individuals such as civil rights activist Coretta Scott King, neo-soul superstar Erykah Badu, the Williams sisters, and comedian Dick Gregory.

The Times listed a number of other notable vegans: Kyrie Irving from the Boston Celtics is just one of a number of professional basketball players to stop eating meat, prompting Kip Andersen (director of the documentary “What the Health”) to proclaim in an article for the Bleacher Report that the NBA should be renamed the National Vegan Association.

Animals and race

A number of factors account for …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Pankaj KC, AlterNet

With the Chinese New Year’s start last month, the Year of the Dog is now underway. For many of us, dogs are beloved members of the family. In numerous countries, dogs are not only companion animals, but they’re also valuable community members, guarding farm animals and people from intruders and wild predators. Of the estimated 700 million dogs on the planet, an estimated 75 percent are stray or free-roaming.  And it may be a surprise to learn that up to 10 million of these dogs are brutally killed every single year, primarily in a misguided attempt to stop the spread of rabies.

Although canine rabies has been eliminated in the United States and across the developed world, this disease is still a dire global problem—a forgotten crisis. Some 59,000 people around the world still die of rabies every year, most of them children. Ninety-nine percent of human rabies cases are transmitted by dog bites.

When dogs contract rabies, they suffer a violent, distressing death. But many millions of dogs also suffer cruelty at the hands of governments and local communities fearful of the disease. The most frequent response to rabies outbreaks is mass dog culling, perceived as a cheap and easy way to control the disease. But mass culls have consistently failed to stop the spread of rabies, no matter how many dogs are killed. And such culls typically use highly cruel methods—such as electrocution, shooting, poisoning, or simply beating dogs to death.

Fear of rabies leads to the long and painful deaths of dogs who have done nothing wrong and are not infected. But this problem is one we can solve: by vaccinating the majority of dogs in …read more

Source: ALTERNET