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For those of you who want a collection of all the new anti-immigration stories not just in this country, but worldwide, CLICK THIS LINK if you want to see the not-so NEW world order.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Political scientists have long held that people's upbringing and experiences determine their political views. A child raised on peace protests and Bush-loathing generally tracks left as an adult, unless derailed by some powerful life experience. One raised on tax protests and a hatred of Kennedys usually lists to the right.
On the basis of a new study, however, a team of political scientists is arguing that people's gut reaction to issues such as the death penalty, taxes and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance. The research builds on studies that indicate that people's general approach to social issues is influenced by genes.
Environmental influences such as upbringing, the study suggests, play a more central role in party affiliation as a Democrat or Republican, much as they do in a person's affiliation with a sports team.
The report, which appears in the current issue of the American Political Science Review, uses genetics to answer several open questions in political science.
They include why some people defect from the party in which they were raised and why some campaigns, such as the 2004 presidential election, turn into verbal blood sport, though polls find little disparity in most Americans' views on specific issues such as gun control and affirmative action.
NATURE AND NURTURE
Geneticists who study behavior and personality have known for 30 years that genes play a large role in people’s instinctive emotional responses to certain issues — their social temperament.
It is not that opinions on specific issues are written into a person's DNA. Rather, genes prime people to respond cautiously or openly to the mores of a social group.
Only recently have researchers begun to examine how these predispositions, in combination with experiences, shape political behavior.
In the study, three political scientists combed survey data from two large continuing studies that include more than 8,000 sets of twins.
From a battery of surveys on personality traits, religious beliefs and other psychological factors, the researchers selected 28 questions most relevant to political behavior.
The questions asked people about issues including property taxes, capitalism, unions and X-rated movies. Most of the twins had a mixture of conservative and liberal views. But overall, they leaned slightly one way or the other.
The researchers then compared dizygotic or fraternal twins, who, like any biological siblings, share 50 percent of their genes, with monozygotic, or identical, twins, who share 100 percent of their genes.
Calculating how often identical twins agree on an issue and subtracting the rate at which fraternal twins agree on the same item provides a rough measure of genes’ influence on that attitude. A shared family environment for twins raised together is assumed.
On school prayer, for example, the identical twins' opinions correlated at a rate of 0.66, a measure of how often they agreed. The correlation rate for fraternal twins was 0.46. This translated into a 41 percent contribution from inheritance.
As found in previous studies, attitudes about issues such as school prayer, property taxes and the draft were among the most influenced by inheritance, the researchers found. Others such as modern art and divorce were less so. And in the twins'; overall score, derived from 28 questions, genes accounted for 53 percent of the differences.
But after correcting for the tendency of politically likeminded men and women to marry each other, the researchers also found that the twins'; self-identification as Republican or Democrat was far more dependent on environmental factors such as upbringing and life experience than was their social orientation, which the researchers call ideology.
Inheritance accounted for 14 percent of the difference in party, the researchers found.
UNDER SCRUTINY
The study's senior author, John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska, said his research team found the large difference in heritability between ideology and party affiliation difficult to believe but that it held up.
The implications of this difference may be far-reaching, the authors argue.
For years, political scientists tried in vain to learn how family dynamics such as closeness between parents and children or the importance of politics in a household influenced political ideology. The study suggests that an inherited social orientation may overwhelm the more subtle effects of family dynamics.
A mismatch between an inherited social orientation and a given party may also explain why some people defect from a party. Many people who are genetically conservative may be brought up as Democrats, and some who are genetically more liberal may be raised as Republicans, the researchers say.
In tracking attitudes over the years, geneticists have found that social attitudes tend to stabilize in the late teens and early 20s, when young people begin to fend for themselves.
Some "mismatched" people remain loyal to their family's political party. And circumstances can override inherited bent. The draft may look like a good idea until your number is up. The death penalty may seem barbaric until a loved one is killed.
The researchers are not optimistic about the future of bipartisan cooperation or national unity. Because men and women tend to seek mates with a similar ideology, they say, the two gene pools are becoming, if anything, more concentrated, not less.
Reichskanzler Bush and his cohorts may start to rethink their position on human cloning if they ever become cognizant of this study!!!
The Republiscum Paulists are the only ones really pro-creating in this cuntry at a rate that can rival those who traditionally become Democrats...Blacks and Hispanics...and the recent "majority" that got GW into the White House is precarious at best, and we all know how much they have been looking foward to their thousand-year rule.
The Associated Press
You cannot see a photo for this commercial on the Fox Sports site!!!
As Howard Stern gets ready to take the plunge on to satellite, everything he warned the industry about seems to be as visionary as Marshall McLuhan's prediction that television would make the world a global village, not to mention George Orwell's perspicacious observation that television would eventually be the preferred medium for fascist propaganda.
In the February 14th issue of Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria states that much of the progress in Iraq over the past eight months can be traced to Bush's willingness to reverse himself.
While Mr Zakaria shows how President Bush has been forced to re-evaluate his foriegn policies, if no one has ever said it let me say it here now---fascism begins at home.
Even though Hitler began his "illustrious" career with the Anschlauss of Austria, it was his domestic policies of intolerance that left a mark on history...and the persecution of Howard Stern AND Janet Jackson...a nigger and a Jew...demonstrates the direction this cuntry is headed.
In the November/December issue of Mother Jones, Todd Gitlin pointed out---The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States singled out the press for special mention and protection not because the founders admired the press of their time--it was raucous and wildly unreliable--but because they well understood the self-aggrandizing tendencies of unbridled power. They shielded the press not because they believed publishers to be saints or savants, but because they knew it might take unshackled sinners to curb the grandest sinners of all. Had they imagined global carnage and global warming two centuries hence and more, they might well have thought, "In the face of such dangers, now we will be vindicated for caring so assiduously for the liberty of the press. Surely in times that retry men's souls, the watchdogs of the press will bark." Imagine their chagrin if they could see the press becoming that sagging branch of distraction, "the media."
Although Mr Gitlin was writing about the failure of the press to accurately report on the plans for "war" in Iraq, the media has failed miserably in regards to Stern and Jackson, as it allowed George the Second and the reich-wing fundamentalists to goosesteop all over the First Amendment!!! In juxtaposition to what has happened in Iraq, the Stern/Jackson problem seems insignificant, but when your rights are being routinely denied, you should be questioning the quality of "democracy" you are living in...and THIS is one of the primary functions of the press, or at least it used to be.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said--Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere--and as this country rolls back to the Dark Ages of McCarthyism and Lenny Bruce-like obscenity laws, you have to wonder how far will the Fourth Reichers go before there is a call for re-education camps???
Yeah, i realize it is fashionable to compare Bush and his cohorts to Nazi Germany, but i think they could be more aptly compared to the Stalinists of the former Soviet Union. While there are no gulags, yet, we can already see the tentacles of the New World Order touching our every day lives!!!
On Xanga, a blogging community that used to be a free forum for ideas, the blogmiesters are busy trying to enforce this new pseuber-morality of the Bush fundamentalists, and that is only one example of how the new "morality" is cutting into the lives of people who once were able to exercise their First Amendment priviliges. And privileges are what the Bill of Rights has now degenerated into.
The press has dropped the baton, but thanks to the internet, many bloggers have taken up the torch, but now the same fascistly restrictive mentality that has the press running scared is slowly poisoning this last bastion of freedom. Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the LIBERAL Party is steadfastly becoming an un-American activity, but conservatives will also see the backlash of this neo-Victorian morality plaguing the country, because fascism tend to feed on itself, as George Orwell aptly displayed in Animal Farm.
Rush Limbaugh was hit with it when he criticized Donovan McNabb's popularity because of his race, and while you don't have to agree with him, it sets a precedent---opinion will soon be regulated by the FCC if said opinion can be found to be offensive.
Like Malcolm X, i LIKE knowing what the average Amerikkklan is thinking, but in their mad rush to prove themselves compassionate, the neo-cons will soon find themselves in the same boat as the alleged "liberals."
Just as the Bush fundamentalists believe that the poor will always be with us was a commandment rather than an ovservation, The Bill of Rights will soon be pared down to some version of All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.
Too many people have forgotten some of the comments George the Second said while campaigning for the 2000 elections...Jews cannot go to heaven because they don't have JC as their personal lord & saviour..."If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot
WASHINGTON -- The Army for the first time is placing women in support units at the front lines of combat because of a shortage of skilled male soldiers available for duty in Iraq and is considering a repeal of the decade-old rule that prohibits women from being deployed alongside combat forces, according to Pentagon officials and military documents.
The Army's Third Infantry Division has added scores of female soldiers to newly created ''forward support companies" that provide maintenance, food service, and other support services to infantry, armor, and Special Forces units that commonly engage in combat.
Army officials acknowledge that the changes will increasingly place women, who make up about 15 percent of the armed forces, in combat situations, but believe they are following federal law, which prohibits female soldiers from serving in units that engage in direct combat.
The Army maintains that it has not changed the overall Pentagon policy regarding women in combat, which limits women to serving on surface ships and in attack aircraft. But internal Army documents indicate the service is ignoring a 1994 regulation barring women from serving alongside units that conduct offensive operations.
The change made by the Third Infantry Division was prompted by a shortage of trained troops caused by the unexpected length of the Iraq war and has set off a quiet, but highly charged debate within the Army over the role of women in the military. As a practical matter, the guerrilla tactics used against US troops during the occupation have also blurred the traditional lines between combat and support functions and is expected to prompt a wholesale review of the definition of ground ''combat" within the Bush administration.
''After this operation is over the question of how they define combat has got to be raised," said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who heads the Women in the Military Project at the nonpartisan Women's Research & Education Institute in Washington.
US law prohibits women from serving in combat units, and the Army insists it is following the law. At issue is a separate Army rule that also bars women from front-line support units.
Opponents to putting women in ground combat fear their presence on the front lines -- even in a support role -- will harm the cohesion and effectiveness of fighting units, a view Republican and Democratic administrations have held for decades.
''The issue remains unresolved," said Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, who contends that the military is ''implementing illicit plans to force female soldiers into land combat units for the first time in our history." She asserts that the Army is circumventing regulations through ''subterfuge" by labeling the female soldiers as being ''attached" to the new units as opposed to ''assigned" to them.
Others military specialists, however, contend that the US experience in Iraq provides a powerful new argument for permitting women, who make up about 10 percent of the force there, to take on more combat roles because they have been shown to be as capable as men in handling the rigors of combat.
The Third Infantry Division is the first to attach support units to combat forces, but those changes will be expanded to other units as part of the Army's effort to make its forces more mobile and flexible. Most of the division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., has arrived in Iraq since Christmas to start a second tour there, and all its deployed units are scheduled to be in the country by the end of the month.
The Army, as required by law, has notified Congress of the division's changes.
''The whole structure of our Army changed," said Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Hart, an Army spokeswoman. ''The Third ID is the first unit to deploy with the reconfiguration, so this will be the first time where this is in question."
Women soldiers have found themselves in the line of fire more often in Iraq and Afghanistan than in any previous wars. Since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, about 30 women have been killed, most of them in hostile action, according to official statistics. In one attack, Army Private Teresa Broadwell, 20, was awarded a Bronze Star for returning fire when her military police unit was attacked in Karbala in October.
Army documents show that the strain the war has placed on personnel is a factor in women serving in units previously for male soldiers only.
A confidential Army brief given to commanders last summer declared that there are ''insufficient male soldiers [with the needed skills] in the inventory to fill forward support companies." The paper, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe, said that continuing to exclude women from support units that deploy jointly with combat troops would create ''a long-term challenge," contending that the pool of male recruits may be ''too small to sustain [the] force."
The Army could not immediately quantify how many women are serving in the forward support companies in Iraq. A company generally has 60 to 200 soldiers.
Late last year, Army Colonel Robert H. Woods Jr., a senior personnel official, suggested in a brief that the next step may be to either ''rewrite" or ''eliminate" the regulation that prohibits what the Army calls the ''collocation" of women with combat units.
Military specialists disagree about the implications. Opponents like Donnelly contend that it could be just the beginning of placing women in broader combat roles, a move she asserts has not been taken for good reason.
''If it stands, the same would apply to other units," she said. ''It will be an incremental change that is unjustified and very harmful to those land combat units," including weakening their fighting ability and creating romantic liaisons that would harm unit cohesion.
She is lobbying members of Congress and Pentagon officials to have women in the forward support companies reassigned.
''We have push-button wars and the battlefield is different, but there are certain things about combat that haven't changed," Donnelly said. ''Female soldiers are at a physical disadvantage."
The changes are being made out of ''expediency," she added, and if more male soldiers are needed, then the Army should recruit them.
Some of the division's soldiers also want women removed from the support companies.
''We are trained to engage in direct ground combat on land, and the collocation of gender-mixed forward support companies with us would seriously distract from the mission and possibly cost lives," a Third Infantry Division soldier who asked not to be identified wrote in a letter this month to Representative Duncan Hunter of California, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
The soldier said that when the division participated in the initial Iraq invasion, six female medics attached to his all-male battalion were romantically involved with male soldiers and one female medic became pregnant. ''It became an enormous distraction for the company commanders who had to constantly separate the pairs and deal with the pregnancy," the eight-year veteran told Hunter. The letter did not identify the soldier's battalion.
Still, proponents of giving women more opportunities in the military say research suggests Iraq has been a positive experience for women and the military.
''The general take is that they are doing very, very well," said Manning of The Women's Research & Education Institute.
''They are able to bond with men or pick up and shoot an automatic weapon when that is necessary. They have no problem living hard in the field," Manning said. ''All those old excuses for why women can't be in combat are falling by the wayside."
The Army, for its part, is closely watching the Third Infantry Division deployment. According to the December briefing by Woods, the Army will ''incorporate lessons learned from Third ID into future decisions on policy affecting assignment and utilization of women soldiers."
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.
? Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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