A 130 page study, Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, tells about the “Islamophobia echo chamber” — a well financed network of bigots — and how this influential group acts as a relentless propaganda machine, shamelessly attacking Islam and Muslims.

The report states: “These attacks go right to the heart of two critically important national issues: the fabric and strength of our democracy and our national security.

• Contending that some religions are not part of the promise of American freedoms established by our founders directly challenges who we are as a nation.
• One of Al Qaeda’s greatest recruitment and propaganda tool is the assertion that the West is at war with Islam and Muslims — an argument that is strengthened every day by those who suggest all Muslims are terrorists and all those practicing Islam are jeopardizing U.S. security.”

The report shows that the manifesto written by Anders Breivik — the 32 year old “self-described Christian conservative” who murdered 76 people in Norway — contained many references to American writers and speakers who are leaders in the Islamophbia network.

The purpose of the report, published by The Center for American Progress: “A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to expose — and marginalize — the influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.”

Over the last 10 years a number of tax exempt foundations have funneled over $42 million into funding “misinformation experts,” some with impressive academic credentials, and all well paid, for the “myths and lies about Islam and American Muslims” they produce.

The work of these “experts” then becomes part of the echo chamber where prominent personalities push their messages of hate. A lot of people are making money by keeping the hate stirred up, and, amazingly, many of these claim to be followers of Christ. The report cites right wing religious leaders: Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Ralph Reed, and Franklin Graham. It cites politicians: Newt Gingrich, Rep. Peter King, Rep. Sue Myrick, Rep. Allen West, Rep. Renee Elmers, Rep. Paul Broun and Rep. Michele Bachmann.

The venom is all heated up via hate radio and Fox News with personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mike Savage, and Glenn Beck. And well organized “grassroots” organizations, such as Brigitte Gabriel’s “ACT! For America” and Pamela Geller’s “Stop Islamization of America,” keep the hate stirred up.

The report says,

“These efforts recall some of the darkest episodes in American history, in which religious, ethnic, and racial minorities were discriminated against and persecuted. From Catholics, Mormons, Japanese Americans, European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans, the story of America is one of struggle to achieve in practice our founding ideals. Unfortunately, American Muslims and Islam are the latest chapter in a long American struggle against scapegoating based on religion, race, or creed.

Due in part to the relentless efforts of this small group of individuals and organizations, Islam is now the most negatively viewed religion in America. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Islam: the lowest favorability rating since 2001, according to a 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to a 2010 Time magazine poll, 28 percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and nearly one-third of the country thinks followers of Islam should be barred from running for president.

It is our view that in order to safeguard our national security and uphold America’s core values, we must return to a fact-based civil discourse regarding the challenges we face as a nation and world. This discourse must be frank and honest, but also consistent with American values of religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and respect for pluralism. A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to expose — and marginalize — the influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.”

The report hold out hope for change and cites businessman Herman Cain, who, it says, “once was a favorite on the Islamophobia network for his outspoken views about Sharia law when he first launched his campaign for the Republican Party nomination for president.”

“Since then, Cain has walked back from such extremism — and in the process irked the Islamophobia network to no end. Most recently, he retracted and publicly apologized for a number of these views. Cain in July went to the ADAMS Center in Northern Virginia, where he broke bread with Imam Mohamed Magid, the executive director of the center, and other Muslims. After the meeting, he said he was “humble and contrite for any statements I have made that might have caused offense to American Muslims and their friends.”

Furthermore, he said he was “truly sorry” for creating the impression that he was against the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. “We discovered we have much more in common in our values and virtues,” he said about his meeting. “In my own life as a black youth growing up in the segregated South, I understand their frustration with stereotypes. Those in attendance, like most American Muslims, are peaceful Muslims and patriotic Americans whose good will is often drowned out by the reprehensible actions of jihadists.”

Cain’s experience is instructive. Once he detached himself from the web of the Islamophobia network, he encountered American Muslims who shattered many of the false impressions and stereotypes he held. Cain also regained his place supporting American values of religious liberty, freedom, and equal justice under the law.

Of course, the Islamophobia network was utterly contemptuous of Cain’s efforts to reach out to moderate Muslims. At the Western Conservative Conference in Denver this summer, Frank Gaffney alleged that Cain had actually met with members of the “Muslim Brotherhood apparatus in Washington, D.C.” Gaffney added, “If, in fact, he’s now changed his position in ways that are being reported, that’s even more troubling than if he was spending time with Muslim Brothers.”

Such unchecked bullying by the misinformation experts should not be tolerated. Our nation needs more responsible conservatives to stand side by side with progressives to safeguard our national security and uphold America’s core values of religious freedom and respect for ethnic diversity. A required first step is to expose the influence of the organizations, individuals, and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America.”

It always makes me laugh to see the video clips, one after another, ala Steven Colbert, showing vocal Republicans all speaking from the same page. The latest mantra:

• “It’s class warfare,”
• “It’s class warfare,”
• “It’s class warfare,”

— Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, and many others, — all repeating the same party line.

This all in response to President Obama’s proposed “Buffett Rule” — named after the zillionare that suggested it — that the very rich should pay their fair share of taxes. As Timothy Noah says, “Obama isn’t even talking about making the rich pay a higher proportion of their income than the middle class in taxes. God forbid! He’s merely saying (with his proposed “Buffet Rule”) that the rich shouldn’t get away with paying a smaller proportion.”

Says Noah, “As recently as 2000 the 400 richest Americans paid 22.3 percent of their adjusted gross income in federal taxes. In 2008 (the last year for which data are available) they paid 18.1 percent. Again, this occurred while their income share was going up, not down.”

Paul Krugman prepared this chart from data from the Congressional Budget Office — that only goes to 2005, but shows a trend that today would be even more dramatic — that shows that changes in tax laws have greatly favored the wealthy. Because of changes in tax laws, an average income may have an increase of 4% in after tax income, but the very wealthy have a 20% increase.

Krugman makes the point that “across the board” tax cuts have greatly favored the wealthy, the same point that I attempted to make three years ago, concerning the 2005 law reducing Ohio’s income taxes: Ohio’s 2005 Tax Reduction Law Diminished, By 21%, The Progressivity of Ohio’s Tax Code.

It’s a simple principle applied many times. Suppose the wealthy were paying at a 40% rate, and the poor at a 10% rate — a tax cut of 50% would increase after tax income for the wealthy by 20%, but give the poor only 5% more.

One of my aggravations with Governor Strickland was that he didn’t push a progressive tax system. When he got into office in 2006, I felt he should have made a stand and challenged Ohio’s 2005 Tax Reduction law. A big reason Ohio is now in financial straits is that, with the passage of this law, the state’s income tax is much less progressive than it once was, and therefore producing much less income. On top of that, today’s Republicans have now abolished the estate tax, again, greatly favoring the wealthy.

Not only have tax changes favored the wealthy, but the income of the wealthy continues to rise. This is an interesting chart copied from a web-site that studies the distribution of wealth world wide:

The Question Is Not Whether We Want “Class Warfare”? — It’s: Can We Have “Tax Fairness”?

The Republicans are trying mightily hard to frame the question of seeking “Tax Fairness” as somehow a question of class resentment. They have no shame.

Southeast Local Schools Superintendent Mike Shreffler. (Picture taken from district's web-site.)

Southeast Local Schools includes the community of Apple Creek.

In a letter to his teaching staff (see below), Southeast Local Schools Superintendent Mike Shreffler describes a meeting he attended where Governor Kasish, in defending SB-5, told a “bold face lie.”  Shreffler said, “The absolute thing that bothered me the most about the whole ordeal was that he (Kasich) lied to the people in that room. He spread a bold face lie as propaganda in order to make his bill look valid. It made me sick. This Governor is a bully and the legislature is his posse.”

Laura Bischoff verified the letter in yesterday’s DDN, “School Superintendent Blasts Kasich.” Plunderbund printed the text in its post: Kasich on public employees: “we are at war with these people”

According to Superintendent Shreffler, Kasich lied about the amount that public employees pay to their retirement funds.  Writes Shreffler, “Kasich told the audience that public employees do not pay a dime into (retirement) and they do not pay a dime for their health insurance.”

There is no video, but I can imagine the exuberance with which Kasich would emphasize such whoppers.

The secret of good propaganda is to transmit a message that is absolutely false, while saying nothing that is technically untrue. On the national stage, someone like Mitch McConnell is a master of the art, and if Kasich hopes to play in the big time — as a VP candidate — he needs to start learning from the propaganda masters. Kasich tends to show all of his cards and feelings, for example, saying the state patrol officer who gave him a ticket is an “idiot.”

Kasich needs to study the 30 second pro SB5 commercial, “The Facts,” to see how to communicate a lie about how much public workers pay for insurance and retirement:

The Facts

Ohio is hurting. People and communities are struggling.

But with Issue 2, we can save taxpayer dollars, and fix our state. Issue 2 asks government employees to help by paying 10%  for their guaranteed pension and at least 15% of their health insurance.

With many families paying far more than that, asking government employees to chip in isn’t asking a lot. Issue 2’s reasonable reforms will save taxpayers dollars and make Ohio stronger. Vote “Yes” on Issue 2.

What is great about this propaganda entitled, “The Facts,” is that it gives no facts at all — only an impression that public employees are not paying for their pensions or health insurance.

In her DDN article, Bishoff writes, “State law mandates that public workers pay 10 percent of their wages toward their pension while their employers pay between 14 percent and 26 percent. However, about 6.6 percent of public employees have union and individual contracts that call for the employer to pick up all or part of the workers’ share as well.”

In Kettering Schools, the “public workers” who got such a sweet deal — of having the local board pay all of their retirement — were not members of the teachers’ union, but were all of the administrators.  And I imagine that is the case across the state. In Kettering, this past July, the school board voted to stop paying the retirement benefits of administrators, and, instead, increased the salary of administrators to compensate for this loss of benefit.

I watched WHIO Reports this Sunday with a debate, of sorts, between Jason Mauk, of “Building a Better Ohio,” who urged a “Yes” vote, and Melissa Fazekas, of “We Are Ohio,” who urged a “No” vote. Mauk communicated this very effective propaganda, that government workers are not paying 10% for their guaranteed pensions. And Fazekas, so far as I could tell, did not contradict him — and neither did Laura Bishoff, one of the moderators. I thought from a debate standpoint, Mauk had the better showing.

I’m surprised that the “We are Ohio” web-site doesn’t deal with this issue in an in-depth way. The web-site, disappointingly, does not seem thoughtful, at all. The only cure for propaganda is education, not more propaganda.

Superintendent Mike Shreffler’s Letter

September 9, 2011

Dear Staff,

I wanted to send this email to you for a week now. It has taken me the better part of this week to make sure I form my words correctly and present to you absolute facts. I am trying to do this (because) it is my duty as the superintendent of a legitimate public school district to fill you in on an occurrence I had last Thursday.

I was invited to hear Governor Kasich speak at a private “invitation” only event. At first, I declined, but after more consideration, I accepted and attended the event. Ohio House Speaker Bill Batchelder spoke for about 5 minutes and then the Governor spoke for about 20. The majority of people in the room were affiliated with the Republican Party.

When Batchelder spoke, he told this group point blank that Ohio is in the financial shape it is in because public employees have been bilking the state out of money for years. I promised myself that I would not become outraged to the point where I had to leave, so I stayed.

The Governor spoke for about 5 of the 20 minutes on Senate Bill 5. I thought you might be interested in some of the things he said. He told the audience that public employees do not pay a dime into (retirement) and they do not pay a dime for their healthcare insurance. As you know, this is a bold face lie. The public pension systems of Ohio have noted that 98% of public employees DO pay 10% of their salary to the retirement system. I hope you know that you do as well. Ten percent of your salary goes to STRS and the school district does pay an additional 14% for you. This is no different from an employee who has a pension from his or her company or a matched 401 (k). Nearly every professional employee of any company that is worth its salt has one or both of these benefits. Additionally, many public employees pay a percentage of their health care cost. You pay 20%.

The Governor said that “we are at war with these people.” He also said that he wishes they would just accept Senate Bill 5 because he is going to spend millions in tax payer money to defend it in the campaign. He said if it goes down, he and the legislature are going to “ram it through” in other leg at his polls are showing that as many as 70% of Republicans are going to vote the bill down and he doesn’t understand why.

He also tried to tell the people that he tried to sit down with union leadership and they declined. I guess he forgot that the union leadership approached him before Senate Bill 5 passed and he had the doors of the State House LOCKED for the first time ever in history. He locked us out of our building and said he was not discussing anything. His actions made that clear.

Although many people in the room clapped when he said other things, no one clapped during this Senate Bill 5 piece. He entertained about 10 questions. No one asked anything about Senate Bill 5. They all asked about why he is selling the turnpike to a foreign nation and why he is “selling jails” to private companies which may be foreign nations when the major religions have deemed this immoral, unethical and unjust. They also asked about tax abatements, Obama Care an every single question, he turned the tables around and made a comment that public employees have caused Ohio to be in financial ruin and that is why he was doing all of these things.

I could tell you more.

I understand that Ohio is in bad financial shape. I really do. I understand that we need reform. You cannot “ram through” reform and you cannot blame the state of the economy on the hard working people of Ohio. The absolute thing that bothered me the most about the whole ordeal was that he lied to the people in that room. He spread a bold face lie as propaganda in order to make his bill look valid. It made me sick.

This Governor is a bully and the legislature is his posse. We have to stand up to this bully AND to his posse. We need to make sure that our family members, our friends, our neighbors—anyone who will listen—know the truth and know that these lies are coming from Columbus. If you don’t stand up for yourself now, this wil cause a downward turn from which we will never recover.

Additional information:

As we speak, HB 136 is moving rapidly through the Ohio house. If passed into law, this bill allows ANY student in ANY public school to take their daily funding, which is now nearly $6,000 per student, and go to the private school of their choice if the family income is less than $95,000 per year. This money is deducted from the public school of residence. There is no regard for separation of church and state. I believe federal funds would follow the student as well. The private school is free to take or turn away any student they choose for any reason. They are free to kick them out whenever they wish. They are not accountable in any way shape or form as you are as a public school. If this bill passes, MANY of you will lose your job. First of all, we will deal with two different consequences of this bill. #1. Most private schools cost more than $6,000. So who will benefit? Upper middle class m of the crop that are given scholarships by the private schools. #2. If the private school costs less than $6,000 per year, the parent gets to bank the extra money. So that means if the parochial schools in our area choose to accept this, they could charge $4,000 per student and the parent would get a check for $2,000 for each kid. The lawmakers in Columbus keep trying to crush public education and we are hanging on by a thread. This and senate bill 5 will be the final nails in the coffin.

If there ever was a time to speak up and be active in government, it is now.

Hang in there,

Dr. Mike