Thought Thanksgiving was about coming together with family and being grateful for what you have? Think again.
How Conservative Brains Are Wired Differently and What This Means for Our Politics Would the conservative brain respond to populist messages about Wall Street villains? President Obama has famously declared that Americans are not as divided as our politics suggest. But recent discoveries about the political brain seem to indicate that liberals and conservatives may be divided from one another by intrinsic brain chemistry. Over a dozen different studies have come to the same conclusion: liberals and conservatives are simply wired differently. The differences are numerous, from sleep patterns (liberals have zanier dreams and more fitful sleep) to conflict resolution (progressives are more likely to alter their behavior in response to cues) to social judgments (conservatives show more brain activity in making complex social evaluations.) But by far the biggest and most often-studied difference between the conservative and liberal brain is their response to stimuli invoking fear and disgust. Conservatives tend to react much more viscerally to negative stimuli than do liberals, and they are likelier to interpret new information as having a negative or dangerous effect on their lives. more . . .
By Les Leopold You're Likely to Be a Lot Poorer Than You Were a Few Years Ago—And It's All By Design Other developed societies have a much stronger social contract to protect themselves from the finance industry. The typical American is even poorer than his or her equivalent in Greece. The median Australian is four times wealthier. The Canadians are twice as wealthy. The U.S. continues to lead the world in billionaires (571 in 2014, with China a distant second at 190). But after decades of financial deregulation and attacks on employee rights, Americans rank 26th in median wealth (defined as assets owned, minus debts owed for the person on the middle rung of the wealth ladder).
By Karen Piper How Millionaires Buy Up Farmland And Hoard All Our Water When FOX News stands up for "family farmers," they are really fighting for Murdoch's rich friends.