DIGITAL Magazine ALL NEWAL DIGIT MAGAZINE The Nation’s new Digital Magazine format offers: CLICK HERE -The Page-turning TO VIEW IN THE experience of a print magazine RENHANCEDEADER FoRMAt PLUS: -Live Web Links -Multimedia Access DOUBLE ISSUE THE RIGHT-WING GROUP SUBVERTING OUR DEMOCRACY THE CIA’S SECRET SITES IN SOMALIA JEREMY SCAHILL END OF MURDOCH EPOCH? D.D. GUTTENPLAN CLINTON’S SHODDY HAITI SHELTERS ISABEL MACDONALD AND ISABEAU DOUCET AUGUST 1/8, 2011 THENATION.COM A PORTRAIT OF THE NEW INDIA SIDDHARTHA DEB Now in Paperback 2 The Nation. August 1/8, 2011 With a New Epilogue on Exchange Obama’s Russia Policy THE TRIALS OF JANET MALCOLM MIRIAM MARKOWITZ DAVID BROOKS ON THE BRAIN GARY GREENBERG INTIMATIONS OF APOPLEXY GEORGE SCIALABBA JUNE 6, 2011 THENATION.COM POEMS VéNUS KHOURY-GHATA ERICA Science vs. Blatherskite FUNKHOUSER Chicago some amazing, if tentative, discoveries Gary Greenberg’s rant on David Brooks’s concerning the political aspects of the newest book [“The Dumbest Story Ever human mind: Told,” June 6] is another in the long line § Democratic and Republican biases re- of sarcastic, culturistically fundamental- garding political information (Kaplan), as ist diatribes against what is in fact valid well as their differing disgust reactions to and factual information essential to un- Abu Ghraib (Hamman); derstanding human behavior. What are § Liberals and conservatives as to toler- Greenberg’s credentials that he can repu- ance and perceived threats (Kanai); diate so facilely all neurological, evolution- § Aggression and bullying (Decety); ary and cognitive science? § Empathy (Iacoboni); I find Brooks generally annoying in try- § Roles of reason and emotion in politi- “Stephen F. Cohen is far and ing to tie conservative “values” to this sub- cal thinking (Westen); away the most original, creative, ject, but the science he has attempted to § Racial biases based on skin tone (Ron- informed, and insightful observer understand is not the problem. To sneer at quillo). writing on Russian affairs today.” the extraordinary new insights the discovery But instead of incorporating those find- — Alexander Rabinowitch, author of mirror neurons has given us is sophomor- ings into their work, psychoanalytic profes- of The Bolsheviks Come to Power ic. Mirror neurons, oxytocin and empathic sionals (this time, Gary Greenberg) respond functions that underlie the emergence of with nonscientific, sarcastic (shame-based) conscious feelings and cognitions are im- attacks on the whole fMRI endeavor. It “A brilliant and important book.” portant components that help us understand seems they intend to preserve the dark ages — Dan Rather, HDNet who we are—not through reductionist, pat of Freud, which not only provide them with answers but through descriptions of somatic personal and professional sustenance but “Provocative and insightful.” and neural system components that in inter- are conjured out of their roots in Western — New York Review of Books action with external environmental systems, religion/philosophy. They would extend cultural and physical, within which we are their reign as the experts on the human “An extraordinarily rich book ... situated, give us a handle on some of the baf- condition. But their work has become “so fling complexities of which both religion and last century” (Freeman). an absolutely vital beginning point cultural anthropology are deeply ignorant Meanwhile, the hard sciences will still be for anyone interested in a serious and dismissive. sliding human beings into fMRI machines, study of political and foreign policy It’s time the left, like the right, started stimulating them, observing the brain’s re- developments involving Russia.” respecting the recent findings of science sponses, for more hard data. They will do so — Slavic Review and adapting their ideals to them. Science is without much regard to their findings being not a religion to be repudiated, à la funda- hijacked by us politicos to pursue our pre- “[George] Kennan’s understanding mentalists, but important knowledge to be existing agendas (this time, David Brooks of the right and Greenberg of the still largely of the Russian state ... has proved to accommodated and applied. It is of course embedded in cultural and political forces, psychoanalytically guided left). have enormous currency over time. but that is not a reason to deny its validity. In this, the right has an advantage over Cohen’s views should be given sim- That form of reasoning is notoriously right- the left. It was never much influenced by ilar credence.” — Current History wing. Nothing in science requires a moral the psychoanalytic construct and its cob- reset in order to acknowledge it. It requires web confusions. It may turn out that it is in the nature of conservatives to avoid family “This masterly investigation of us to take the effort and have the courage to therapy, even when they (Newt Gingrich) ‘lost opportunities’ is necessary constantly re-evaluate and re-understand an infinitely perplexing world. and their loved ones would clearly benefit background for understanding Jan Arnold from it. Meanwhile, many on the left (Oli- Russia and the world today.” ver Stone) seem to bathe in it, even to the — Robert Conquest, author of Boulder, Colo. point of making movies based on it rather The Great Terror Through the use of fMRI brain-scanning than empirical reality. News flash: we aban- machines, neuroscientists are making doned Afghanistan to invade Iraq for oil, not [email protected] (continued on page 34) www.cup.columbia.edu · cupblog.org The Nation. since 1865 Inside Exchange 2 Science vs. Blatherskite Debt Ceiling Delusions OUR READERS AND GARY GREENBERG Editorials & Comment As the partisan fight over the debt ceiling approached the 3 Debt Ceiling Delusions 4 Sky Falls on Murdoch August 2 deadline, President Obama presented Republicans D.D. GUTTENPLAN with what, at almost any other time in recent history, 5 Noted 6 Trading Against Colombia would be seen as a conservative’s dream: the debt ceiling in three stages while DAVID CALLAHAN AND LAUREN DAMME $4 trillion in spending cuts over ten allowing Republicans the symbolic op- years, and the offer to restructure core portunity to vote against it. In the mean- Columns pieces of the Democratic legacy, includ- time, we are confronted with grim news 6 Deadline Poet ing Social Security and Medicare. GOP about a jobs crisis that has spiraled into a A Summary of Public Response to the News That a Tabloid Hacked the Phones… House Speaker John Boehner walked genuine emergency, even as it is treated CALVIN TRILLIN away from the deal not because as the “new normal” or a mere 9 Diary of a Mad Law Professor EDITORIAL the cuts weren’t steep enough inconvenience. Slouching Towards Faux but because they would be President Obama and his PATRICIA J. WILLIAMS achieved, in part, through tax increases team have recently taken to talking about 10 The Liberal Media on hedge-fund managers, private jet “a unique opportunity to do something The Twilight of Social Democracy owners and oil and gas companies. big” with regard to the debt ceiling. Lit- ERIC ALTERMAN The Republicans have once again tle, however, has been said about applying shown themselves to be a party, to para- that desire for bigness to job creation. Articles phrase Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Obama wants to play the role of rea- 11 The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent, for the sonable adult, urging members of both JEREMY SCAHILL 1 percent. It is a party that accepts no new parties to “eat our peas.” But being rea- 16 ALEC Exposed taxes, no closing of loopholes, no crack- sonable means leading a nation that cries JOHN NICHOLS downs on overseas tax havens and no out for relief and reconstruction after 17 Business Domination Inc. increase in corporate tax rates, even as the months of stalled job growth—not acting JOEL ROGERS AND LAURA DRESSER biggest corporations pay little or no taxes like a hostage negotiator. 20 Sabotaging Healthcare WENDELL POTTER on billions in profits. It is a party that em- And if lines are being drawn in the braces savage cuts in the social safety net sand, the president must draw his as 21 The Koch Connection LISA GRAVES but then draws a line in the sand to pro- well. Yes, he should demand that the 22 Starving Public Schools tect the wealthy. To Republicans, shared rich pay their fair share, but insisting JULIE UNDERWOOD sacrifice is anathema. Now, as before, the that they contribute to deficit reduction 23 Rigging Elections global economy may be their victim. cannot be our fundamental cause. We JOHN NICHOLS What’s worse is that, rather than must draw our lines on behalf of the job- 24 A Creditable Left being chastised, the GOP has been less, who now spend, on average, forty RICHARD SENNETT empowered by an establishment media weeks looking for work. We must draw 26 Like Water for Gold in El Salvador obsessed with debt and deficits. When ours on behalf of the elderly, who cannot ROBIN BROAD AND JOHN CAVANAGH Republicans decry tax increases, it is all afford a smaller Social Security check. 30 The Shelters That Clinton Built too rare to hear the media respond with We must draw ours for the hundreds of ISABEL MACDONALD AND ISABEAU DOUCET facts or to offer historical perspective. thousands of families who have already In the 1950s, the corporate sector ac- lost their Medicaid. Books & the Arts counted for an average of 27.6 percent President Obama was elected, in part, 35 The Girl From F&B of all federal revenues; in 2010 it was because he challenged the smallness of SIDDHARTHA DEB 8.9 percent. And individual tax rates for our politics. But his actions on the debt 39 Raisin (POEM) the richest are now lower than in all but negotiations suggest that he has em- GREGORY PARDLO five of the past seventy-nine years.