[IWE] The Authoritarians

[Ashton Brown]

A book title by Bob Altemeyer, reviewed in this typ. bitchin column of 
Glenn Greenwald -

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/02/20/various_matters/index.html?source=newsletter

(zIWE has missed a veritable sludgesslide of  aberrant psych goings-on - 
altogether approaching the consistency and viscosity of the river 
through Ankh-Morpork.  Surely it's best that we keep our densitometers 
in calibration..)

Excerpts:

> [...]
>
> For reasons I have detailed many times -- here and here, for instance 
> -- the administration's treatment of U.S. citizen Jose Padilla is one 
> of the most disgraceful though illustrative events of the last six 
> years (and there is a very vigorous competition for that distinction), 
> and the more light that is shined on what our country did to Padilla, 
> the better.
>
> (3) Bob Altemeyer is a Professor of Psychology at the University of 
> Manitoba, and has become one of the world's leading experts on the 
> psychological dynamics which fuel authoritarian political movements 
> and their followers. John Dean's best-selling book, 'Conservatives 
> Without Conscience' (which I reviewed here), relied on substantial 
> amounts of Altemeyer's research.
>
> Now, Altemeyer has written his own book, 'The Authoritarians', which 
> expounds on that research. He is releasing the book chapter by chapter 
> for free online, and the first six chapters can be read here 
> <http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/> . I have read the first 
> three chapters and highly recommend them. The book provides real 
> insight into the political movement which has been ruling our country 
> for the last six years -- a movement which has at least as much to do 
> with psychological drives as it does public policy and geopolitical 
> considerations.
>
> (4) Much press criticisms focuses on the media's malfeasance during 
> the Bush Presidency, but as Digby reminds us in a typically insightful 
> post, the genesis for many, if not most, of the fundamental media 
> defects is located in the Clinton years, and specifically the media's 
> uncritical, breathless treatment of all of the contrived scandals 
> churned out by the scandal machine that was really the precursor to 
> the Bush movement.
>
> [...]

Can't really say, bon appetit.