April 2010 Archives

A page one story in yesterday's New York Times described the use of powerpoint in the U.S. military.  The powerpoint image below, shown at a military briefing last summer, prompted the leader of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan to declare, "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war." 

 I would love to hear from you about the use of powerpoint in the classroom.   Is it a help or a hindrance?  Does it make learning easier or more difficult?  Is it time to bring back the old-fashioned way of doing things?  Outlines on the chalkboard?   

 

For those of you who are curious about the contents of the citizenship exam, the US government helpfully provides flashcards to assist in studying for it.  citizenship test M-623_red.pdf

In a continuation of today's discussion of immigration, I was hoping to draw attention back to NAFTA and the ramifications that this policy has had on Mexican laborers. As noted in Crossing Arizona there are a number of people who view the establishment of NAFTA to be an important factor in the somewhat recent increase of illegal immigration across the Mexican border. In class there were some students who disagreed with this notion, opting instead to assert that ultimate responsibility for this dilemma cannot be limited to any particular policy, NAFTA or any other. To a large extent I agree with this. Certainly it must be acknowledged that complex social and political issues such as illegal immigration are created and affected by multiple factors. To look at one policy and assume that it is the sole source that fosters strife would be, in my opinion, rather naive. However, I do believe that even though NAFTA cannot be looked at as the only factor influencing the influx of Mexican immigrants, I do believe it is a significant one that should not be overlooked. By removing tariffs on many US agricultural exports into Mexico in the interest of US and Canadian corporations, working and lower class Mexican citizens have experienced dramatic decline in employment and wages. As a result, my have found themselves forced into situations that otherwise would not have been the case; specifically, they have had to look to undocumented work in America to maintain the livelihood of themselves and their families. In turn, this has resulted in elevated immigration across the southern border, as well as - some argue - a decrease in various manual labor jobs here in American. Given the growing domestic unemployment rates, it is of little surprise that this has become a more prominent topic within the political sphere. The question that I would like to pose here is that if you do not view NAFTA to be a significant factor in the influx of migrants, what is? Can you address other factors that you feel are as significant, if not more so, than this policy?

Also, below I attached a link to an interview I watched a while back addressing this topic (i.e. the effects of NAFTA). The interviewee is Noam Chomsky (yes, I am introducing him to the blog again) and the interviewer is Zach de la Rocha, the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine. For those of you who don't like de la Rocha, I apologize; luckily he plays a minor role. Though Chomsky does not bring the disscussion of NAFTA back to illegal immigration specifically, the content covered by is pertinent and the gap between what is said and the implications that it has on illegal immigration is an easy gap to bridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPiIFiasPwU

Subsequent to today's discussion that tried to sort out the complex relationships among social class, race, ideology, and partisanship and whether or not people are voting "rationally," I learned of a brand-new paper by some Princeton sociologists that takes a new approach to these questions.  Their results, the authors believe, "suggest that voting behavior cannot be explained in terms of whether or not the working class has 'abandoned' the Democratic party or whether or not 'values trump economics'.  The story that emerges from this analysis cannot be reduced to such one-dimensional sweeping statements."    They find a large group of voters for whom economic and moral ideology are inconsistent with other another (that is, people who are liberal on redistributive issues, but conservative on moral issues and vice versa).  This group, which they call "the alternatives" in order to distinguish them from "ideologues," or those people for whom economic and moral ideology are congruent, are more likely to be either wealthy individuals who are not particularly religious, or low income poeople who are also religious.  Given that the present political party system in the U.S. doesn't offer these voters a comfortable party "home," some people in this group prioritize economic issues, and others, moral issues, in order to make a partisan choice.   

Here's the paper.  It's pretty technical, but you should be able to get the gist of it without much problem.  I'm sure it won't be the last word on this fascinating and complicated political era in which we are living.   

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/21/south.park.religion/index.html?hpt=C2

 

Creators of 'South Park', Matt Stone and Trey Parker are feeling heat over portrayal of the prophet Mohammad in their 200^th episode. The two part episode that concluded Wednesday has caused the pair to hear some pretty crude remarks from Islamic extremist groups, some going as far as to say that they will wind up dead. While 'South Park' has often created controversy and pushed the limit on its portrayal of people, this has been one of the more controversial episodes.

 

While not directly related to politics, this story serves an indirect relation to politics in the here and now society. During one part of American history defamation of religious figures such as Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, etc. would have been greatly disturbing to many people and more than likely not allowed. However, the growing secularism in the United States has now allowed people to portray these sacred figures in ways that were once thought unimaginable. This growing secularism has created a broader free speech when it comes to religion. While, this growing secularism is not necessarily put in the same context that we talked about a few weeks back, we see the effects that secularism has on different parts of society.

 

What do you think? Do you think 'South Park' has taken it too far? Has secularism resulted in a growing acceptance of satirizing religious figures?

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/starting-school-too-young-can-be-bad-for-childrens-education-608683.html

In this week's Newsweek magazine, there is a fairly critical essay about our favorite Frenchman as a historian of American democracy.  Based on your own reading of his masterpiece, is this characterization fair?  If you were to write a "yes, but" response to the essay's author, what would you say?

A new study conducted by the Pew Research Center and posted on Yahoo News found that four out of five Americans don't trust the government.

The poll was based on four surveys done from March 11 to April 11 on landline and cell phones. The largest survey, of 2,500 adults, has a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points; the others, of about 1,000 adults each, has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100419/ap_on_re_us/us_government_distrust

While such a perspective might not have been surprising in 1790 (indeed, the Founding Fathers called government a "necessary evil" and thought that citizens should never trust it), this study necessarily suggests that people from both the right and left seem to distrust government. This force is obviously fueling the so-called Teaparty Movement, but it's likely also a sign of increasing party polarization.

Perhaps there has been a recent increase in distrust of politicians in general, but I believe it's more likely that individuals favoring either party are blaming politicians with an opposite party affiliation for incompetence and/or dishonesty (i.e. Liberal: "Those damn conservative hicks are doing everything in their power to make sure the poor die off by withholding healthcare v. Conservative: Those damn liberals are spending this country into poverty with all their counterproductive legislation).

Does anyone think that the growing resentment of Washington will allow for a strong third party candidate? I don't, but I think it might force the evolution of one or both of the parties (likely the Republicans). Perhaps libertarianism and the principles of a limited government will make a triumphant return.

In concluding our discussion of political polarization last week, we talked about how polarization may contribute to the public's negative views of government.  New survey results released from the Pew Research Center today confirm that discontent is widespread, even extending to other institutions in American society (though colleges and universities, religion, and small business appear to be spared the public's wrath).  The Pew report also finds that higher levels of discontent are linked to more motivation to vote in the 2010 midterm elections, especially among Republicans and Independents. 

Political science used to view these sorts of public sentiments rather nonchalantly, (though this view has been disputed recently by a small, but growing, group of investigators, including yours truly).  Here's a classic recitation of the "no worries" argument, published shortly after Nixon's resignation:

To use another baseball analogy, political systems,like baseball teams, have slumps and winning streaks. Having recently endured a succession of losing seasons, Americans boo the home team when it takes the field. But fans are often fickle; victories quickly elicit cheers. And to most fans what matters is whether the home team wins or loses, not how it plays the game. According to this analysis, a modest "winning streak" and, perhaps, some new names in the lineup may be sufficient to raise the level of trust in government (Jack Citrin, 1974, American Political Science Review).

What do you think?  Will a "winning streak" and "new names" make people feel better or does this discontent arise from something more fundamental? 

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After the fallout over the Iran-Contra affair, mastermind Col. Oliver North narrowly escaped a conviction due to a legal technicality. During the U.S. Senate hearing on the Iran-Contra affair in 1987, Col. North called those in opposition to the government's approach un-American for not supporting the clearly righteous actions of the government. Interested in highlighting a teaching moment in the midst of the tense rhetoric, then-Senator George Mitchell (D-ME) offered this stunningly eloquent lecture in which he teaches Col. North that dissent against the government's actions, especially when those actions are obviously illegal, is not at all un-American. In fact, the right to disagree with government actions is a hallmark of being American! Now as a commentator on FOXNews, North is going after the Obama administration for its "Anti-American" philosophy. Obama has clearly chosen to do things a little differently then passed administrations, but his actions are not "Anti-American" simply because they differ from the approach of the Reagan administration. It's time for Olie to tone it down and put his tail between his legs again.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd012010s.gif

Thanks to my polisci friends who blog over at the Monkey Cage, I found out about this video clip from John Cleese that provides a much more humorous take than lecture did this morning about how polarization can stimulate political involvement.  Enjoy! 

According to the BBC world news, the Ukraine announced that by 2012 it will be rid of all of it's fissile material.  This announcement came just before the summit on nuclear issues to be held in Washington DC.  These two events are following the recent treaty signed by Russia and the United States to reduce nuclear missile stock piles and pledges to increase nuclear security.  Certainly this is a step forward towards a safer America, right?  But not everyone agrees with President Obama's plan to increase national security through nuclear arms control. 

I had a conversation with a coworker two days ago and he was of the opinion that reducing our nuclear arsenal was a "stupid idea" and that it would only help to reduce the deterrent capability of the United States from nuclear attack.  Perhaps the main reason for maintaining such a large stockpile in the first place.  For me I hadn't given this topic much thought, other than absorbing what the media has had to say on the subject.  But after a bit of reflection, I have to disagree with proposition that a world with more nuclear weapons is a safer one.  The attitude of bigger and more is better is one best left in the past.  We are no longer facing large imperial nations bent on world conquests with tank divisions, bombers and fighter squadrons, and hundreds of thousands of infantry at their disposal.  Instead we are facing underground organizations, working out of grass huts wielding AK-47s, road side bombs, and hijacked airplanes.  Using a nuclear weapon against this type of foe would only increase their strength and standing on the world stage, not to mention destroy the credibility of the United States.  Besides, what would we even target?  A cave in Afghanistan with 20 Taliban rebels??

This treaty between the United States and Russia is a move towards heightened national and international security and stability because the more weapons that exist, the more fissile material that exists, the more nations with nuclear capabilities, all serve to destabilize the world situation and our degenerate our national security.  After the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States spent a fortune helping the successor states secure the former Soviet's arsenals of nuclear weapons.  There was a fear then of these weapons falling into the hands of those who wish Americans harm.  President Obama is only continuing the policies pursued by the Clinton administration (Former President Clinton reduced America's nuclear arsenal by half in the 1990's).

So what if we pledge to get rid of a few nukes, the United States will still have enough firepower to destroy the world many times over.  But the key is not about our arsenal strength, the goal of the reduction is to get others to reduce their nuclear strength and to work towards increased nuclear security.  The Obama Administration giving the world a sign of good faith, setting the example and leading from the front. 

On its face, this may seem like a move towards weakening our military capabilities but truly this is a step towards increasing our strength and national security.  One final thought, the US has been reducing its nuclear arsenal for years, why are people worried about it now?

One of the things we talked about last week that is pushing Members of Congress to be less moderate is the role of primary elections in selecting party nominees for the general election.  In this weekend's New York Times, two primary election contests were profiled, one in Kentucky within the Republican party for one of the state's US Senate seats, and the other in Arkansas within the Democratic party, also for a US Senate seat.  In both states, opposition to the incumbent (in Arkansas) or the heir apparent (in Kentucky) is being led by groups further to the left (e.g., Moveon.org) or the right (e.g., the Tea Party), respectively. 

Primary elections were reforms introduced by the Progressives as a way to wrest control of the nomination away from party leaders and "smoke-filled back rooms" and give it to rank-and-file party members.  A century later, however, these two stories seem to suggest that control over the nomination belongs to extra-party organizations that are probably no more representative of the party's rank-and-file than were the old party bosses of yesteryear.  Is there a better way to do this?

     As month after month of the health care debate dragged on, everyday seemed to bring another poll proclaiming Americans' overwhelming opposition to the bill. Now that the legislation has passed and the fight over health care is (mostly) over, I think it important to look back on the path we've traveled over the last year and think critically about how we arrived where we are. How did the man responsible for "cramming this bill down our throats" get elected in the first place? I mean, he did tell us during the campaign that health care reform was his legislative priority, right? A careful look back will reveal that Americans have not always been as "opposed" to health care reform as recent polls would have us believe. In fact, in recent years polls showed that a majority of Americans supported such reform.
     A majority of Americans were supportive of president's proposals as recently as September of last year, according to a Rasmussen tracking survey. So what happened? Prominent members of the conservative minority gained the upper hand in the message war by twisting such admirable initiatives as mandated insurance reimbursement of end-of-life consultations into the ridiculous notion of government-run "death panels." The vehicle of delivery for such obscene comments was dangerously mainstream. In the case of the "death panels," a prominent propagator was the 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. After resigning as Governor of Alaska, Palin turned to Facebook and Fox News to address her followers. In an August  2009 Facebook post, the Governor refers to "death panels" that will choose who lives and who dies in America. Even office-holding Republicans got into the mix. Video of Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley's (R-IA) commentary on the government "pulling the plug on grandma" circulated widely. Our very own Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), trying to remain an attractive 2012 presidential candidate to Republicans across the nation, was careful not to put to much distant between himself and the "death panel" concept. O
     The true shame in this rumor is that it rallies Americans who may well benefit from the passage of substantial health care reform to oppose the legislation. It is informative to listen to the actual experience of someone in this situation. Undoubtedly liberal MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann recently lost his father to a protracted illness, but he candidly shared his personal experiences with viewers of his weekday news opinion program. In a shockingly personal special comment, Olbermann describes the his family's experience with end-of-life counseling and the relevant improvement that Americans would experience under the then-pending legislation, rebranding them instead as "life panels."
     While the results of the 2010 mid-terms are still anybody's guess, I believe that Americans will continue to learn more about the actual contents of the health care and will be increasing favorable to those who worked to pass it. Already, a March 23rd USA Today/Gallup poll shows that a plurality of Americans support the new health care bill. With 7 months remaining until the elections, I am confident that the true path of our year-long march toward health care reform will come to the fore and Americans will remember why they favored this approach in the first place.
    
 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35590.html

Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak recently announced his retirement.  Stupak is best known for the role he played in health care reform, where he held out on his vote until Obama signed an executive order reaffirming the Hyde Amendment, basically stating that no federal funds would go to provide abortions.  Conservatives, for some reason, consider this a betrayal of anti-choice principles, and groups such as the Susan B. Anthony List and the Tea Party have run attack ads and held rallies in his district since the health care vote, and are now apparently claiming responsibility for his not seeking re-election.

The most disappointing aspect of health care reform, to me, was the executive order reaffirming the Hyde Amendment.  Granted, it didn't go as far as the original Stupak-Nelson amendment would have, which would have barred even private insurance companies from offering abortion services if they wanted to accept any federal funds, but it is still a major loss for the pro-choice movement.  Apparently what insurance companies are going to be required to do as far as separating funds for abortion and any other services is going to be difficult and expensive, and many people suspect this will lead insurance companies that currently cover abortion to end up dropping it.  The idea that Stupak "sold out" or "betrayed" the anti-choice movement is absolutely ridiculous.  I'm not exactly sure, other than overturning Roe v. Wade in the process of health care reform, what would satisfy people on the anti-choice side.  The fact that an anti-choice Democrat was attacked by the rightwing for only sort of infringing upon women's rights instead of straight-up taking them away highlights the polarization of American politics that we have recently been discussing in class as well.  Abortion is one of those issues that it seems the right and the left will never be able to see eye-to-eye on, or apparently even come to a decent compromise on. 

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/04/evolution-big-bang-polls-omitted.html

One thing we've discussed in class is the connection between American's declining religion compared to the rest of the world. However, this study suggests that Americans are not relying more on science to answer many of the world's mysteries in place of religion. 

"45% of Americans in 2008 answered true to the statement, "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." The figure is similar to previous years and much lower than in Japan (78%), Europe (70%), China (69%), and South Korea (64%). The same gap exists for the response to a second statement, "The universe began with a big explosion," with which only 33% of Americans agreed."

This begs the question, what do Americans believe in?

Sarah

In the TED presentation, Science can answer moral questions, the speaker talks about the relationship between human values and science.  Sam Harris (the presenter) describes to the audience that the the separation between science and human values is an illusion.  There are truths to be known about how human communities flourish that will lead us to a universal conception of human values.  Sam Harris posits that "whenever we are talking about facts, certain opinions must be excluded, that is what it means to have a domain of expertise, this is how knowledge counts." He then poses a fundamental question that, "how have we convinced ourselves that there is no moral expertise, how have we convinced ourselves that every opinion counts? How have we convinced ourselves that every culture has a point of view on these subjects worth considering?"  To illustrate what he means, he gives an interesting illustration involving the Taliban.  To paraphrase, essentially he says that if the Taliban have no intellectual authority to contribute and be taken seriously in the physical sciences, such as physics, then why is there ignorance (as perceived by Sam Harris) any less profound in the subject of morality?  Sam Harris' driving point is to argue that there are indeed right and wrong answers to morality, which is determined by the results leading to the flourishing of civilization.

Now as this view relates to Tocqueville, Sam Harris is a well known Atheist.  Tocqueville values religion in his book, Democracy in America, and in particular Christianity because he saw it as an element in the nature of the puritans, in their plurality of sectarianism, that gave Americans common mores for which they could come together and cooperate with each other.  On the large scale because the Europeans-Americans were Christian and so could relate to another, but also sectarian, in that they had enough autonomy of their identities that they could organize at the local level and form townships that were in more of a brotherhood with one another because of the specifics of their particular way of religious expression.  The Puritans tended to have more of an emphasis on faith and the moral characters of individuals, rather than theology.  Well, coming back to Sam Harris, I would say that his humanistic thinking, to persuade Americans to take a more scientific approach as a new doctrine rather than continue with the more established  authority on morality that is the bible expressed through church institutions, is a danger to democracy as Tocqueville might see it.  For one, replacing Christianity with humanist values, the consideration for fellow man along lines of morality would transition from the respect for a Creator whose life he holds of everyman, would instead by replaced by the personal whims of the individual and what he/she would consider best for themselves.  The idea of an afterlife I would say provides a powerful incentive for humanity to at least take a more serious pause before for their actions, than the passions of man to be seen pious by his fellows.  So this corrosion of the responsibility to be moral, from a higher power to a more local level diminishes its power over men to do the right thing.  Also, Sam Harris gives the interesting example of why some may think his humanist approach to morality may not work as a genuine replacement to religion.  For instance, in Christianity, it is not permissible to lie, and he gives the allegory of a game of chess having absolute objectivity much like the church. In the game of Chess, it is often understood that the most disastrous thing that could happen is for a player to lose the Queen piece. However, under certain circumstances, it is often necessary, if not brilliant, to lose your queen.  So if what was at first an absolute rule, don't lose your queen, becomes subjective to circumstances, and you makes exceptions, than in the same way, his humanist philosophy is riddled with holes because your morality is not based on anything that is firm, but rather its foundations shift with however the sands underneath it go, and just like their is a multiplicity of moves and strategies in chess, this drifts Americans away from a common understanding that is what Tocqueville saw had the role of uniting them to common identity.  After all, it is well understood from history from the golden image of the Babylonian Empire to the Arab conquests of the Middle East and North Africa during the rise of Islam, that religion is the best means of uniting people from different cultures and linguistic groups. 

 This is the link to the video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html 

I'm sure you've all heard about the killing of several civilians, including Reuters employees, by the American military in Baghdad. In my mind, this is completely unacceptable. Why isn't it the biggest story in the news? Why aren't their court marshals? Soldiers who don't think it's important to distinguish terrorists and insurgents from regular people not only aren't fit to serve in my nation's military, they aren't fit to clean the mud from my shoes. I'm disgusted.

I'd like to bring attention to the activities and motivation of the increasingly-popular "Tea Party" movement. What are your opinions on this development? They're currently supported by the Republican Party, but is their ideology more libertarian than neoconservative? It seems to be. I wonder if it's a development worth keeping an eye on, or just another insignificant, unorganized fad. Thoughts?

-Noah

In response to the discussion of socialism, I believe I'm not the only one in class who is frustrated by the fairly generous use of the word as a pejorative these days. Keep in mind that the people accusing the Democratic administration of socialism are the same people who can't even figure out how to spell the words on their protest signs.

It's one thing to have social and economic political values that are further right than those of the administration, but it's another thing entirely to throw around a word like socialism. I couldn't stand the right-wing policies of the Bush administration, but I never would have called him a 'Nazi' or a 'fascist' or something similar, because it just isn't true.

In regards to the place of socialism on the political spectrum, I must add to one of the previous comments on the subject. On an economic scale with pure communism at the far left and pure capitalism on the far right, socialism would indeed fall to the left-of-center. However, a socioeconomic ideology common in Europe, social democracy (the true middle of the spectrum), is not the same as socialism itself, though many Americans use the terms interchangeably. Even so, the Obama administration isn't social democratic. Considering this, it seems foolish to accuse it of socialism.

-Noah

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/07/rnc-reports-big-fundraising-haul-in-march/?iref=allsearch&fbid=lA71hLT-gC3

 

The funding for RNC ($11.4 million) has increased by $4 million since last month, but did not exceed the Democrat's $13 million in March.  It will be interesting to see the funding next month after the Steele incident.

On April 19th, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.  The case involves a student group, the Christian Legal Society, that sought to register as an official student group at the University of California's Hastings College of Law.   Hastings refused the request, arguing that the group's rules about membership violated the school's anti-discrimination policy.  The case has been winding its way through the lower courts and has finally reached the Supreme Court.  Which groups at the University of Minnesota are entitled to receive support has also been controversial.  What do you think?  Should students organizations that have rules (either official or informal) that restrict membership to certain groups of people (or people with certain beliefs) be allowed to receive financial and other kinds of support from a public entity?  What are the implications of the politicization of the Court (exemplified by its clerks) for this particular case, or more generally, for the legitimacy of the Court's decisions?

I am sure that most of us have seen this clip, but for those of you who haven't it is a video of Jon Stewart appearing on the former CNN show Crossfire.  The show was canceled soon after and largely because of this interview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

In this interview, Jon Stewart accuses many partisans of being insincere, accuses the hosts of engaging in partisan hackery, and in response to a comment of one of the hosts that Crossfire was a debate show, replied that calling Crossfire a debate show was the same thing as referring to professional wrestling as an athletic competition.

I agree with most of what Jon Stewart says.  This sort of politics is what is contributing to the political polarization that we discuss in class.  As we saw today in the charts Professor Rahn showed us, there is less overlap in the ideology of Congressmen from the two parties then there used to be, and I bet that a similar chart using TV personalities would yield similar results.  The most public opinions in politics (both among media and elected officials) are some of the most polarized and unreasonable opinions.

Moving back to some of Jon Stewart's points, any figure who takes either party's position on every issue is clearly a party hack.  The issues facing our country today are more complex than they ever have been, and the solutions are no less complex.  With the amount of issues that an individual can have an opinion on, if those opinions line up perfectly with a party's platform, than that inividual cannot be looking at the issues objectively.  If I use myself as an example, I am conservative, and within the last couple years, I have even accepted the label Republican, but I will be the first to confront my conservative brethren and tell them that the Republican Party is wrong (I believe) on the issues of education spending and gay marriage.

My challenge to any readers is (and it doesn't matter if you post it as a response or just think about it) to think about which party you are closest to, and then name a high profile issue that you agree with the other party on.

Although we talked about this topic quite a while ago I thought it would be fun to bring it up again. Has anyone seen this new show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution? If not check it out here:

 http://www.hulu.com/search?query=Jamie+Oliver%27s+Food+Revolution&st=0

Jamie is tackling one of the biggest problems in America, obesity. He believes that the way to combat this issue is to start with them children (starting with meals in schools) and eventually it will work its way up to the adults. By switching out all of the processed meals with fresh food Oliver believes that he can start a food revolution in the unhealthiest city in America.

I think that this is an incredibly interesting and exciting movement. With the drastically high rates of childhood obesity in the US this is exactly what needs to be done. It does cost more to supply the schools with fresh food, but if it helps to get the rate of obesity down it will ultimately lower health costs.

What do you guys think of this movement? How do you think it will affect the way tax payers feel about where their taxes are going? Do you think that it would be met with a lot of opposition if it became a more widespread movement? Pros/cons? Anyone?

As the partisan divide grows and grows, there is much hyperbole on both sides.  Nazi, socialist, communist are all the lovely terms thrown back and forth.
Especially with the health care debate, the term socialism and socialist have been popular labels for anyone who supported the legislation.  So with this in mind I started to think about what a good definition of socialist would be.  I think I have an idea, but I am looking to the class for your thoughts on what the term "socialist and socialism" means in the context of the health care debate. 

What prompted me to ask is after having seen signs being held by people at tea party rallies, accusing Democrats of being socialists, and in particular labeling George Soros a socialist (i think he is more of a capitalist, given he made $3.2 billion last year alone), but maybe my definition is wrong. 

Let me know what you think, give me your definition. 

To find out more about how congressional and presidential elections are financed, take a tour of Open Secrets, a website maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.  In the 2008 election cycle, for example, 70% of Michele Bachmann's campaign donations come from individuals and the remainder from PACs.  In contrast, only 25% of Collin Peterson's campaign arsenal came from individuals. 

I stumbled upon a most interesting group, Morningside Analytics, that finds clusters of bloggers who are connected to one another.  They produce something called the Political Video Barometer that "lets you explore what videos are getting traction in the Blogosphere, and who is pushing them:  liberals or conservatives--or both. Videos included are the 100 most blogged YouTube videos by conservative and liberal bloggers in the last 14 days as well as the 20 most blogged in the last day."

It looks like their data are proprietary, but they let you glimpse its possibilities with a slideshow on their home page.  Among other things, they discovered two clusters of parenting blogs, which they dubbed "traditional parent" and "liberal parent", that are connected to larger conservative and liberal blogger networks. 

Analysis of Amazon.com reading lists similarly shows that political birds of a feather flock together (see below), and more recently, two history books from dramatically different perspectives,Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States, and Schweikart and Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States have been battling it out on the New York Times bestseller list in the wake of Zinn's death.  Does anyone else find this disturbing?

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Many years ago, Puritan Jonathan Edwards preached "Sinner's in the Hands of an Angry God" and found a receptive audience. Today Lady Gaga's music video "Bad Romance" has nearly 170 million views on YouTube.

   These leaders in popular society each represent the spirit of the times in which they lived. Edward's sermon is still read because it contributed to a religious revival which shaped the social fabric of an emerging United States. Lady Gaga is popular because she follows the religious dogma of our time: that the achievement of pecuniary contentment and social popularity will bring security.

   To many individuals, Lady Gaga represents the culmination of a long uphill battle to throw off the moral prudishness of Puritan culture and replace it with moral permissiveness. I posit first that the creation of a society where Lady Gaga's work is both accepted and widely popular is a society in direct contention with the moralism of Puritanism. I posit secondly that this cultural shift from moral constraint to a moral permissiveness, where the definition of morality has been altered, represents a danger to American democracy.

   Tocqueville speaks of the necessity of association to combat despotism. When individuals do not adhere to any largely set code of conduct but substitute that code for an individually determined moral standard, they give up the potential for association based on common religious belief. How would one judge Lady Gaga in our post-modern age? The tools for judgment are religious tools and as such they have been discarded in favor of a freedom to act and live as one believes will please them the most. This is the victory that has been won in our society. The right to individually choose the path which one believes will bring security.

   One of Tocqueville greatest fears was that individuals would choose security over political freedom. When weighing the costs and benefits of making such a choice in a society where the individual has no standard for judgment beyond "What will bring me the most pleasure or contentment?," what is to keep us from choosing security? That fiery pit of hell, of which Edwards spoke, has been deemed an unacceptable burden on social freedom and the spirit of the age is to "eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." When the majority of individuals in a democratic society use a hedonistic framework to interpret political realities, the individual who promises the most (the best liar) is the most likely candidate to win political power. And if a democratically elected candidate knows that he is able to dupe the electorate, what will keep him from attempting to assume more permanent political power?

    Lady Gaga illustrates the phenomenon that rejecting a religious moral code often leads the individual and society to take the place of godhood by determining moral standards.  If one is forced to choose between a degree of social slavery through religion with political freedom or social freedom from religion with political despotism, perhaps a religion which fosters a unifying moral code would be preferable to a fragmenting ideology which elevates individual judgment to godhood? Once the individual identity has been emphasized to such a degree, what will keep the danger of Tocqueville's soft despotism at bay?

 

 

http://www.isthmus.com/isthmus/article.php?article=28440

This story illustrates what we've been talking about in class recently about how neighborhoods and cites are becoming so homogenized politically that it's hard for people within these areas to imagine that anyone who thinks differently than them can possibly exist within their community. Being a Madison citizen for eight and a half years myself I can attest that this story perfectly exemplifies how they look at people of a political persuasion other than their own.  Republicans are so outnumbered that very few even try to run for office (city offices that is).  Two political parties vie for power in Madison; Progressive Dane (think Green Party) and the Democrats. Of course there are both conservative and liberal cities alike across the country that are becoming more and more ideologically uniform and consist of citizens who only follow news sources that echo there point of view. Madison Wisconsin is the epitome of this phenomenon.  

A recent poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports shows that 31% of Americans polled believe Russia will honor the news arms reductions treaty which is to be signed by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. While this is a slightly higher percentage of people who believe both nations are working to honor agreements, it does not go without showing that Americans by and large remain deeply suspicious of diplomatic relations with the former Cold War nemesis. 
Russia, a nation which has largely benefited from the oil boom that came to characterize the latter part of the last decade, has become increasingly strident on global affairs and have seen Russian-American relations become increasingly strained. Recent moves by the Obama administration to hit the 'reset button' on diplomatic relations have been met with mixed results. Russia continues to assert itself on global affairs by courting nations that are hostile to American interests and individual liberties in Russia have been diminished by an increasingly authoritarian government led by former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. While Putin currently holds the Premiership title of the government, there is little doubt as to who really dictates Russian affairs, and that Putin may be looking to regain the Presidency in a few short years.

Not all political scientists are critical of the role of blogs in contributing to heightened partisanship.  According to this view, blogging and blog readership represent a new and important component of civic engagement.  See, for example, this defense by Henry Farrell, one of the authors of the study I mentioned in yesterday's class.   Tocqueville himself, though no fan of electoral politics, nevertheless recognizes them as useful in combatting the individualism to which democracies give rise: 

I know that one can object to me here with all the intrigues that arise in an election, the shameful means the candidates make use of, and the calumnies their enemies spread.  These are occasions for hatred, and they present themselves all the more often as elections become more frequent.  These evils are undoubtedly great, but they are passing, whereas the goods that arise with them stay.  The longing to be elected can momentarily bring certain men to make war on each other, but in the long term this desires brings all men to lend each other a mutual support; and if it  happens that an election accidentally divides two friends, the electoral system brings together in a permanent manner a multitude of citizens who would have always remained strangeters to on another.  Freedom creates particular hatreds, but despotism gives birth to general indifference (p. 486).