Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page on the US political system

The two authors of the study that looked at a large amount of data that enabled them to test various hypotheses about who runs America and came to the conclusion that the middle class and lower have no influence on policy had an extended interviewed on The Daily Show two days ago. They are careful to say that they themselves did not use the word oligarchy, which to them implies control by a very tiny group, say they top 0.1%. They think control here is by about the top 10%.
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Kidnapped girls in Nigeria

I have been following this terrible story out of Nigeria where the Islamist militant group Boko Haram that is so ruthless and reactionary that they make even the Taliban look progressive, has kidnapped an estimated 234 girls from a boarding school three weeks ago and taken them into the jungles and their fate remains unknown. Farouk Chothia gives some background on the group.
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This is the problem with ceremonial prayer

As justice William Brennan said in his incisive dissent to the majority ruling in the 1983 Marsh v. Chambers case that ruled that ceremonial prayer to open the legislative sessions was constitutional, the trouble with prayer is that you have no control over what the prayer giver will say even if you prescribe what prayers are acceptable, which you are not allowed to do anyway since that would be tantamount to having an official government prayer.
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Attacking the disabled

The assault on the poor has been extended even to the disabled and now even they are being portrayed as part of the ‘moocher’ class. Last year, there were a spate of news reports about the rise in the disability rolls following the recession. Of course, this set off a storm of speculation the ruling class, ever vigilant when it comes to rooting out any poor or working class families getting what they see undeserved relief, as to whether people were abusing the system to claim disabilities so that they could get some benefits while not working.
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The US’s obsession with death and killing and guns

The flip side of the US’s obsession with preserving the death penalty despite all its well-documented horrors is its obsession with the idea that the more that people carry powerful guns everywhere all the time, the safer they will be. Coupled with expanded ‘stand your ground’ and ‘castle doctrine’ legislation that enables people make much broader claims of self-defense, this has even led people to set traps for burglars, tempting them to enter their homes so that they could kill them.
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May Day celebrations around the world

Today is the day when the world (except the US of course, because as the one true exceptional nation, we don’t need no stinking worker solidarity) acknowledges the rights of workers and their hard-won achievements all over the globe that have made our lives so much better, and calls for greater unity among workers to achieve yet more.

Here is a nice compilation of photographs of May Day parades and celebrations.

Vatican III in the offing?

So it seems that pope Francis has convened an ‘urgent’ meeting of senior clerics of the church to take place this October in which they will discuss all the major issues that the church is confronting. He had earlier asked them to canvass the views of their members on these issues prior to the meeting and those results are currently being tallied, so that the discussions will reflect the actual concerns of people.
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