The 2014 State of the Union

Check out the preview of the speech:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/us/politics/obama-pursuing-a-modest-agenda-in-state-of-union.html?hp&_r=0

Lessons from the 2012 election, I.

In the rear-view mirror, the 2012 election can be viewed as an unmitigated triumph for Barack Obama.  In what was widely predicted to be a nail-biter in an economic environment unfavorable to an incumbent, Obama was elected by an impressive 4% margin in the popular vote and the customary exaggerated margin in the electoral vote.  But while Obama's re-election marks only the second time since FDR that a non-Southern Democratic candidate has won with more than 50% of the popular vote, the message in such numbers becomes distinctly muddled when we take into account voting returns in Congressional districts across the country.  Of the 435 total districts, 219 (two more than half) had majorities favoring GOP candidate Mitt Romney.  There were only 15 districts in which voters split their ballots, preferring Obama for president and a Republican for the House.  And if we take the finding from the Cook Political Report that the median congressional district -- the 218th in a list of all of them -- was 52% Republican in its House voting in 2012, we are cautioned to conclude that Obama's re-election marks a meaningful nationwide movement in the political meter from the centrist-right status of the G. W. Bush years to a more pro-government or progressive mood in the Obama Era.

Many critics of the Electoral College's unit rule -- the practice whereby the winner of a state's popular vote earns all of its electoral votes -- have proposed a widespread adoption of what Maine and Nebraska do in translating popular votes into electoral votes in a manner that breaches the winner-take-all nature of the unit rule, and is therefore arguably more democratic and more fair since it minimizes the the prospects of a conflict between the popular and electoral votes as experienced most recently in the Bush-Gore contest in 2000.  In this election, however, the result would've been precisely what proposals of the Maine and Nebraska practice seek to avoid: a winner of the electoral vote of the candidate losing the popular vote.  Romney would have won with more than the 270 votes needed to be elected.  This will likely take the shine off the Maine and Nebraska examples as alternatives that states can adopt without a constitutional amendment that is likely to rid us of the most worrisome feature of the Electoral College--i.e., that its unit rule makes possible the prospect of a loser of the popular vote winning in the electoral vote.  But the more immediate effect of this outcome is the luster it removes from the size and significance of the Obama victory.

The vast majority of Republicans elected in the districts that voted for Romney won re-election by margins of more than 20%.  This provides these members with scarcely any political incentive to support the President's legislative program.  Indeed, it virtually guarantees that the House of Representatives will remain obstructionist in regards to Obama's initiatives for the foreseeable future.  The recent passage of legislation to avert the fiscal crisis provides an instructive example of what to expect in 2013: The package negotiated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden was passed in the Senate with only eight votes against the measure.  In the House, the measure was opposed by Republicans by a 2 to 1 margin; its passage therefore was due to the fact that all but 13 Democratic members voted to adopt the Senate package.  Because the measure postponed the so-called "Sequester" for two months, decisions on spending cuts are deferred for two months, approximately the same time that Congressional approval will be required to raise the debt ceiling.

So if one seeks lessons outlining key tea leaves from the 2012 election, an effort to interpret the aggregate results as an unambiguous affirmation of the Obama policy agenda would be well-advised to temper its enthusiasm with a frank recognition of the parallel political messages sent by the American electorate in 2012.

Second Presidential Debate

Obama is seen as the clear winner in the snap polls, and I'd agree: if Obama have given this performance two weeks ago, the election would have been over.  The question now is: is Obama's return to form sufficient to arrest, if not reverse, the momentum in Romney's poll numbers nationally and in the swing states.  The change in the nature of the race is a result of the gender gap's shrinkage to about dead even.  In the swing states, a poll from today had Obama leading Romney among women 49% to 48%. Of great significance was Romney's demeanor toward moderator Candy Crowley combined with his reference to women "in the binder" that he drew upon to fill his Chief of Staff position as Governor of Massachussets.  Romney also committed an unforced error in the Libyan matter by not knowing that Obama had in fact the day after 9/11 referred to the assault on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya as as resembling "acts of terror."  When corrected by Crowley, Romney was never the same: he sank into an incompetent slump.  It's poetic justice that Romney tripped himself on this matter since he had seized upon it as an opening to condemn Obama's foreign policy leadership before the attack on the consulate took place.  It was arguably an unseemly effort to gain politically from a national tragedy where all Americans should have been pulling in the same direction, at least until the facts were in.  But Romney saw evidence of Obama's "apology tour," his "leading from the rear," and he couldn't pass up the opportunity to score political points when events were still unfolding.

Now we watch the polls and the forecasters like Nate Silver and Larry Sabato.  One would think that the keys to an Obama win -- namely, women in Ohio and Iowa and women and Latinos in Colorado and Nevada -- will take what they need from tonight's debate.

The Veepstakes Debate: Hyperreality vs. Reality

The results of the flash polls following last night's vice-presidential debate are instructive precisely because they present such disparate representations of what took place when Biden and Ryan squared off in Danville, Kentucky.  The CBS poll of undecided voters had Biden winning handily: 50% thought he won, while only 31% thought Ryan was the victor.  CNN's poll, however, had 48% of a sample who'd been interviewed the week before and declaring that they intended to watch the debate giving the nod to Ryan as the winner with 44% favoring Biden.  This difference is well within the + 5% margin of error for a sample with 382 respondents.  Inspecting the composition of this sample, one finds that a plurality of the respondents favored Romney, leading one to discount the results relative to the CBS poll.  Persons interviewed by CNN had told Opinion Research Corp personnel the week before that they would be watching and willing to respond to a second interview on the Veep debate.

These differences have been dissected and spun a thousand ways in the post-debate analyses, but the most common characterization features the perrenial rivalry between the eye and the ear.  Those favoring Ryan were put off by Biden's facial gestures -- baring of teeth aka smiles -- in the split-screen visuals when Mr. Ryan was speaking.  Mr. Biden was seen as being disrespectful by viewers giving the debate to Ryan.  As David Brooks saw it, the old guy was treating the youthful challenger with visibly rude disdain.  Biden, by this account, was by body language repeating the same mistakes made twelve years earlier by then Vice President Gore in the first presidential debate of 2000 with Republican nominee George W. Bush.  Gore, it is worth recalling, was seen as winning on substance in the immediate post-debate polling; however, after four days of media-frenzied discussions of the Veep's invasion of W's space and childish antics during Bush's remarks, majorities came ultimately to conclude that, on second thought, maybe Gore wasn't the winner after all.

The debate about the debate will go on this time with no likely reconciliation between the two accounts, which brings us to the subtitle of this post: "hyperreality" vs. reality.  As the following link demonstrates, in full youtube visual splendor, hyperreality trumps reality in this postmodern moment.
See for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFTEkEd9nDo

Biden vs. Ryan: Pre-Debate Strategy

Joe Biden is tasked with a tougher challenge than is customary for incumbent vice presidents facing a challenge from the opposition's bottom of the ticket.  Normally, VP debates are relatively inconsequential.  Even when a line is esconced in electoral history -- e.g., "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." -- it is void of ties to contextual matters or overall electoral significance.  But President Obama's much-discussed underperformance in the first debate with Mitt Romney, coupled with its visible effects in the tracking polls, make tonight's event more crucial than is usually the case, if for no other reason than it offers a break in the pro-Romney, anti-Obama narrative that has dominated for the last week.  That this narrative has prevailed despite widespread acknowledgment that Romney's victory in the first debate was predicated in large part on notable discontinuities in the Governor's positions over time on fundamental fiscal issues like GOP brand-name fondness for across the board tax cuts.

Biden's tactical task is to strengthen the association between Romney and Ryan.  In this instance, that means forcing Ryan to defend his own budget, particularly the near-term cuts it dictates in Mediare as we know it as well as underscoring the undefined alterations in the tax code (with credits, exemptions and deductions) that would make an overall reduction in the individual and corporate rates "revenue neutral."  Romney's recent pivot to foreign-policy points of difference with Obama does not play to Ryan's strength; thus, Biden will likely use his time to call attention to Romney's intentions and to the continuities they display with foreign policy under Bush and Cheney.  Ryan has arguably been a drag on the GOP ticket, since he does little to enhance Romney's appeal among Independents and among those skeptical about a former governor's expertise in national security issues.  And because his budget puts policy on paper, the commitments to cutting popular entitlements while doubling down on supply-side adjustments of the marginal tax rates, Ryan offers a bigger, more stable target than the shape-shifting persona at the top of the ticket.

Prediction: Biden will meet expectations, and arrest the damage done by Obama's off-night in Debate 1.  It won't serve as a "game changer," but it will bolster confidence among the Democratic base and change the narrative going into Tuesday's second presidential face-off.

DT

Obama vs. Romney Debate 1

Who won?  Romney, at least in the short term.  The long term may prove otherwise because Romney repeatedly cited statistics and facts that, upon close and repeated scrutiny, may well prove false.  Obama clearly had an off night.  He spoke, by the clock, for four minutes more than Romney, yet he failed to directly challenge Romney on several points.  For example, Romney claimed that his tax plan would not reduce taxes further on the wealthy, yet one of its key provisions is to abolish capital gains taxes entirely.  He would have paid zero taxes by his plan last year.  Jim Lehrer would not as the moderator call him on that; but Obama shouldn't have expected someone else to do it for him.

This was a debate on domestic policy yet not a word on Ryan's and other Republicans in the House's record on domestic policy, including women's reproductive rights, the 47%, Bain Capital and the export of jobs, the alleged greater efficiency of private insurance relative to Medicare.  Obama was off his game, and Romney used an aggressive prosecutorial style fortified by dubious facts, e.g., 90 billion in subsidies to green energy, lowest drilling on government land ever. 

Many are blaming Lehrer for not controlling the debate better.  That was the intent: to let this be more like a real debate; and Obama was, quite simply, not as well-prepared as he should have been.

Is Bloom's Portrait of Iowa and Iowans out of Bounds?

The infamous article in Atlantic Monthly's online edition from the journalism professor at Iowa, Stephen Bloom, continues to elicit critical reactions from those who know the state best.  How fair was the Professor's Portrayal? 

We Built It!

Whatever happened to the sense of gratitude -- let alone recognition of the role of government, teachers, breaks, ohters -- that most Americans seem to feel about their luck in being alive in this country, at this time?  Watching the GOP convention speeches, framed around the the President's remark recently that no one, no matter how successful, does it solely on his own, it's easy for someone like me who was the beneficiary of a Congress who passed the National Defense Education Act to help finance the college costs of those like me from families who didn't have the means to afford tution and fees costs for all their kids.  The speakers -- Santorum, Nikki Haley, even Ann Romney, and Chris Christie -- hammer on the same point: we hearty individualists and we alone are able to say "we did it."  Good for them!  I can only say: it really is doubtful.

DT

The politics of student loans

A sobering series on college costs, the most recent post of which looks at the federal government's outstourcing to collection agencies to run down the delinquent in repaying their student loans. 

The link below is to the New York Times most recent article on the costs of college, both monetary and political.  All are sobering accounts of how students and their families have paid dearly for their detachment from politics and policymaking.  The problem, though, is that the anti-government and anti-political detachment fostered by this detachment only makes it worse.

Debt Collectors Cashing In on Student Loan Roundup

DT

The Road to Recovery?

As pointed out in an August 25 New York Times column by Charles Blow, a White House report issued a week earlier noted that:
      

“Since the end of the recession in June 2009, the economy lost over 300,000 local education jobs. The loss of education jobs stands in stark contrast to every other recovery in recent years, under Republican and Democratic administrations.”

 

For a time, the loss of teaching jobs was held in abeyance by the so-called stimulus, enacted by a strictly Democratic vote in 2009.  As federal funds ran out and the Republicans who controlled the House in the wake of the 2010 elections put efforts to curb the debt atop of their own recovery agenda, the recovery has slowed and job increases have been paltry and confined to the private sector.

 

Meanwhile, China and India continue to pour resources into education, far outpacing in the US in producing college graduates with training in Science, Technology, and Math (STEM) degrees.  Charles Blow's column proceeds to point out the consequences of these divergent paths for the next generation of Americans.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that these consequences are hardly hearty or worthy of national pride.

 

In 1957, I was a fourth grade student when the USSR launched Sputnik, the ICBM capable of carrying nuclear warheads from one side of the world to the other (in addition to winning the race for space).  The US response included passage of the National Defense Education Act, a program that was in place nine years later when I borrowed money from the early student loan program to pay for what my (athletic) scholarship didn't cover at Whittier College.  The interest on NDEA loans was 3%; the terms of repayment were such that if I chose to enter the education field, 10% of what I owed would be canceled from the total I borrowed up to five years or half of the value of the loan.

 

This is worth mentioning because hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomers like me benefited from this federal program.  That this program was part of national security seems, in retrospect, to make good sense (though at the time it struck me as odd to couple defense-spending with subsidies to college students).  The contrast today could not be more stark.  As college has become far more necessary for economic survival for today's high school graduates, and the costs of attendance have escalated at a rate the rivals only the growth in health-care spending relative to the cost of living, the attitude of lawmakers toward education at all levels has undergone a dramatic transformation. 

 

Under the terms of the Budget Control Act of 2011, passed in an eleventh-hour compromise after House Republicans threatened to allow the debt limit to expire for the first time in history, federal educational spending, already diminished on a per capita basis relative to my generation, becomes expendable -- literally.  Since the Super Committee created by the debt deal failed, as expected, to agree to an additional trillion dollars in savings over a ten-year period, the default option in that event that was part of the BCA goes into effect on January 1, 2013.  "Sequestration" -- automatic across the board cuts in spending programs in defense and domestic discretionary programs -- takes effect unless action is taken beforehand to "kick the can down the road" until the 213th Congress is in power.

 

Partisanship aside, this is no way for the world's oldest constitutional republic to run things.  And so it will remain until sufficient numbers of the masses most directly affected by these priorities make it plain to office-holders that this is unacceptable.  Or, at the very least, that this is an issue demanding debate in the presidential election.  The ball, as the saying goes, is in our court.

 

DT

The Oldest Story in American Politics

This editorial is from the local Tucscon, AZ paper about the two young men battling to take Gabby Giffords' district in the House.  It's a hoot, a tad partisan perhaps (but not in an unfair way), and it's a wonderful caricature on the state of American Politics at this point of the 21st Century:

High school graduate Jesse Kelly defeated a Harvard educated Air Force pilot, a nice American named Dave Sitton and Frank “Spank me, I’m bad” Antenori. Now that the fat lady has sung and the primary is over it’s time for Act II of “The Barber of Civility”: A contest between the guy who looks like the Jurassic Park professor without the pith helmet and a carpet bagging gun-toting Bible thumping gosh and shucks Gomer Pyle who can channel Sean Hannity.
Jesse will do great among the unwashed, the rural, the illiterate, the scared goobers willing to cheerfully vote against their own interests, whipping up the groundlings and the believers with rhetorical red meat so rotten with the stench of untruths that honorable flies will choose to lay their eggs elsewhere. And he’ll smile like a man surprised he said something resembling a coherent thought. And the crowds who hate elitists and grammar and syntax and critical thinking will slap their knees and hoot. Scan the online comment section for repugnant speech and unfiltered anonymous hatred of all who differ with the strict conservative view and and you have found your archetypal "here come the black helicopters from Kenya" Kelly supporters.

And he will be petted and stroked and groomed and cooed to by right-wing think tanks and he’ll be showered, nay, flooded with bags of cash from big oil and all the right PACs looking for a manly mannequin with a pull string. And he’s a pretty one. He’s tall and he’s handsome and he’s tall and he’s handsome. Elderly church ladies who can't tell you who the Vice-President is gaze adoringly up at Kelly, yearning to vote for him and to adopt him and to feed him apple pie. Goodbye Mo Udall, hello empty plastic Ken doll.

And he will be angry at those who question his ascendency and his indignant finger will raise up to poke the sky and he’ll thunder incoherent talk radio babble about freedom and liberty and liberty from freedom and FOX news and the right-wing machine will give him their cameras and their spotlights every chance they can.

He won’t represent you. He will represent the Tea Party fanatics, talk radio freaks, the hand-wringing evangelicals, the gun fondlers and the paranoid. The rest of you are just not Americans, you Marxists and Communists and baby killers and you can go to Hell for all he cares. He’ll terrify crowds with his tales of the liberal straw man, the wretched progressive sasquatch, the abominable secularists and he’ll shake the scarecrow and he’ll offer himself up as the great peasant’s torch just waiting to be pressed into battle against the fictitious kindling. Swaddled in the flag and clutching his sacred Constitution he’ll weep for America and prophesy a plague of socialism sweeping across the land that will rival the fire-in-the-sky visions of St. John. Evolution is a head-shaker and abortion is for harlots and those who are not with him are devils. The Word is Limbaugh and he is the word made flesh. Hearken to Jesse all ye Limbaugh Christians, the end times are upon us and the Messiah has a high school diploma. Reject him not, oh ye dittoheads. The Republicans have their man, their folksy Baron of bromides, their King of jingos, raised in the womb of the right-wing echo chamber. And their darling will have an army of fanatical feverish shock jocks who’ll trumpet at the Walls of Jericho for He who is Him everyday until Medicare, Social Security, Big Government, Taxes, the department of Education, our rotting public education system, and those diabolical regulators and the United Nations all come tumbling down.

At the final debate with Giffords in 2010 he was figuratively hoisted on the shoulders of believers with pitchforks and torches who cheered their Messiah with yahoos and slogans in lieu of palm fronds. How can one be civil when you’re debating an opponent who lies and smirks and makes George Bush sound look Stephen Hawking? His adherents cannot be moved by facts, they have found faith.

Sinclair Lewis had his Main Street Babbitt, we have Kelly. This Barber v. Kelly election will truly be an American spectacle rivaling the Scopes Monkey trial because its outcome will define us for years. Are we an easily frightened America aching for the shallow comfort of the primitive and the superstitious or are we the fearless America that questions, that embraces the future, that is modern and smart? Mark Twain and H.L.Mencken savaged their respective times as the gilded ages of carnival hawkers and tent evangelists and smiling shoeshine salesmen and gullible rubes willing to say yes to any smiling carpet-bagger. They are gazing up from Hell longing to see this show unfold. This summer the oldest American story shall repeat itself.

PS:DT--My guess is that the exact characters might change, but the essential elements of the story will be repeated dozens if not scores of times in this election.  The New Gilded Age indeed!

Kevin Bacon Theory of Politics

The game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", which I thought was Six Degrees of Separation, is the game where you try to trace your path to Kevin Bacon in the fewest possible steps.  In Six Degrees of Separation, the theory is that every one is connected within six degrees of separation.  This article states that the election has reached a point where they are starting to play this game more often.  Whether it be Mitt Romney and his "ties" to Ted Nugent who recently said that if President Obama wins the election this year that he will be dead or in jail by this time next year.  Or the most recent controversy of Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen, who has almost zero ties to the President, when she stated that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life.  This happens during every election, but the truth is if someone tried hard enough they could probably find a connection between the President or Mitt Romney to anyone.  So we better all watch what we say because who knows...it might be overheard by someone who thinks I am connected to the President.  And if I am connected to the President and I said it, it might as well have come straight from his mouth. Give me a break.

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/17/11250791-analysis-kevin-bacon-theory-of-politics-overtakes-2012-campaign?lite

Racism in Iowa

http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/16/ruling-expected-soon-in-iowa-employment-discrimination-lawsuit/?hpt=us_t2

I was reading an article today on CNN about racism and dicrimination in Iowa. A lawsuit has been filed for over 6,000 African- American applicates who felt that racism had a role to play in them being looked over for a job. The beginning of the article tells a stroy about a clear racist bias that lead to a women not being considered for a job. The lawsuit was filed against Iowa. The following is a block of a paragraph that I have trouble with.

"The plaintiffs' attorneys say the discrimination is not necessarily a result of racism. They say the discriminatory hiring was often the result of implicit bias – an unconscious preference of the mostly white hiring officials for white applicants over black applicants."

This was the plaintiffs' attorney and it makes it sound as if they don't want this to been seen as racism because that will have a negative affect on Iowa. Everyone would like to believe that racism was a thing of the past that has already been delt with but I don't think that is near to true. I was watching a national baseball game the other day and it was Jackie Robinson day, a day were every player wears Jackie's number 42 and everyone is suppose to honor how Jackie was able to perserver through racism and break the color barrier in baseball. Some would say Jackie Robinson was one of the most important figures in African- American history and they wouldn't be lieing. What shocked me most was an announcers comments on the day. He spoke about how, even today, we are still fighting for people's basic rights to be equal. And he made a broad and suprising statement that he cautioned American's to start treating one-another with equality because we like to move on too soon on issues of inequality.

We have been talking about whether people would like to take the easy and wrong path compared to the hard and right path and this is how I feel people view equality and racism. They feel like the issue is over and we have moved on but this is just the easy and wrong path. The issue of equality will always be there and we can't ignore it.

Do you feel racism is still an issue today? I have trouble believing it isn't with the actions and comments I've heard people have about Obama.

Is the "War on Women" Hoakem?

For those inclined to disregard recent allegations of the "fake" nature of the alleged war on women conducted by one of our nation's major political parties, it's worth noting that the whole story is not solely about contraception or about whether women choosing to be fulltime moms are "working" or not.  The story is about the same party's current effort to preclude a reauthorization of The Violence Against Women Act, passed initially in 1994 as part of an Omnibus Crime Bill that Republicans opposed because they "owned" the crime issue and couldn't conceivably concede this ownership to Bill Clinton.  And the story entails state efforts, successful in the case of Wisconsin, to repeal the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the first piece of legislation to be signed by Barack Obama.  That act made it legal for women not being paid as much as men for the same work to use the courts to sue their employers.  And if such policy issues are too abstract to have much persuasive impact, I'd advise the skeptics to read the following story and pass it along to those who consider allegations of gender-based political discrimination a bunch of malarky.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8168-murder-of-a-nobody

To mainstream media, the death of this lady at the hands of her husband, was back-page/two-sentence news.  And as only one of a thousand such stories a year in this country, perhaps the journalistic neglect is understandable.  Or perhaps, for exactly the same reason, the journalistic neglect is indefensible.

Gen Y Revisited: Sam Spade at Starbucks?

Today's column by David Brooks in the New York Times goes by the subtitle of this post, which refers to the noir hero from "The Maltese Falcon."  Brooks argues that Generation Y -- or a part of it, which he deems as anti-political to the core -- would do well to become reacquainted with the "moral realism" exhibited by such characters.  His point is that much of the idealism of GenY -- seen, for example, in much of the service-oriented, social-entrepeneurial activity of today's twenty-somethings -- is lacking in moral-political fundamentals.  His point is that the Sam Spade character was a man with a bit of a shady past, and as someone who'd been around the block, he was not caught up in his own virtue and innocence.  This sense of selfless virtue, says Brooks, is ultimately self-defeating: humans, we all eventually learn one way or another are mixed creatures, neither inherently evil nor unambiguously heroic.  Politics, to Brooks, is a undeniable part of our natures, and the pursuit of high ideals, no matter how praiseworthy, cannot relieve us of its burdens.  Being human is being a part of a community in which choice, individually and collectively, is inescapable. 

So to the litany of attributions laid on this generation by the Bucholz "Go-nowhere" meme is the claim that Gen Y's defining element may be its desire to flee from politics in its mundane, often-mind-numbing toxicity.  At a point in time when polls tell us that the percentage of Americans with "some" or "much trust in the government in Washington to do what is right for the American people" is at an all-time low of 17%, this desire to flee from the political is understandable.  What apparently is more difficult to understand is that, in the end, this effort to rise above the pettiness and ugliness that often accompanies political disputes only deepens the darker nature of our struggle to govern ourselves democratically.

As politically interested members of this generation, does Brooks's indictment of some of your cohorts hold water or not?

RICE DAY

Dear Capstoners,
I hope that the Queen is not mad with me for adding this new word to her language. But, I would like to say a big thank you to all of us that came to support our fellow classmates that did their presentations. It was a wonderful turn-out...That is the spirit. And to our fearless leader, Dr. Dani Thomas, a big thank you. We would not have done without you. Thank you for the extra time outside of class and for letting us in on the unique study and use of Q-methodology.....we are filled with gratitude...

This 'christian girl' from Uganda.

Op-Ed The PS 460 Capstone: The International student view

The PS 460 Capstone: The International student view

Growing up in Uganda, I have always been taught to respect my elders and not reply back at them when they say something to me. And here I am in America, the free world where I am taught the direct opposite of my cultural norms, to question every single statement. Yes, at times it feels like I am at crossroads, to endure with what I have been taught as a child or to embrace my new found liberties and make good use of them. And of course the answer lies in taking the bull by the horns and from a saying that goes, ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ And here I am in America, and definitely, I am going to do as the Americans do. I am going to make good use of my Western acquired education; I am going to ask questions, defend my view points and at the same time remain respectful while putting my view point across. Suddenly, I am shocked by my courage to speak out, to voice my opinions and asset myself, and because where I come from, in Uganda, women do not even speak unless spoken to. The nature of the ability to express myself freely is overwhelming and at the same time empowering. I now understand what the framers of the women emancipation felt when that came through. It is that untold, unseen gratitude and self empowerment that comes from being able to speak openly, precisely, articulately and yet respectful putting your point across to whoever is listening. It is that sort of communication that dons and majestically clothes the disciplines of Political Science and not forgetting International Relations. It is what I believe that makes for the closed door politics, when the leaders of the free world assemble to decide the fate of the rest of us, they sure put to use the ability to flawlessly make allies, and pull strings. It is not because they are always right or they know better, but because they have the ability to ‘sweet talk’ and of course make ‘political threats.’ It is the salt missing in the sauce of the African Politics. It is what our leaders in the ‘Other World,’ as the developing nations are dubbed in a more politically correct way lack. They love to fight, argue and spend time profiting from the national cake that they selfishly want to keep on eating with their close friends and family. And then we ask when the nepotism will ever end; simple, the day we learn to speak out, and train our people to stand for the truth, to be open minded yet engaged in the affairs of their nation. It is what the PS 460 capstone is has opened my eyes to. To the fact that scholars like Andrew Bacevich are dubbed realists of the canning world is not a fairytale. It is reality that some of us come to embrace and ensure that we make up our minds about our stand point on political issues and be ready to speak up and defend the core of our political beliefs without bias and threats from others on the opposite side. Bacevich in his book, Washington Rules: America’s path to permanent war refuses to view causes for the war in Iraq or the Global War on terror as a “Democrat-OR-Republican binary issue.” Instead states that any view of current American Policy needs to be viewed through a historical lens that stretches through many past presidential administrations. And of course many people may not agree with Mr. Bacevich, but he still speaks out and makes his point stand. It is therefore, such charisma that is needed to be passed on to all of us that are seeking political careers and even those just wanting to retire into the exotic resorts south in Mexico.

Op-Ed Kony 2012: My Ugandan view point

And it goes viral. Yes, the Kony 2012 video went viral making approximately 80 million hits in the few hours it was posted. As the whole world went on viewing this video, little did most people know that a single click and view was making Kony famous. And every corner of the world and even on the small Iowan campus of Wartburg College resounded the messages of the viral video. It took me a day or so to finally realize how much ignorant some people were, and of course to pay tribute to the power of the media. Name it, Facebook, twitter, you tube and all other media centers were reaping big from the stories about this ‘human rights defense’ video. I recall some friends in New Jersey and Minnesota calling me and asking me why my country was trending on yahoo and twitter.  I simply replied, it is all about Kony. Carol, one of my friends asked a rather ignorant question, what about Kony? I expected her to have at least made use of the search engines, the likes of Google and Bing to find out who this ‘made famous’ man was. And again, Carol is just one of the many ‘couch potatoes’ we have in the world. One of the most annoying remarks came in the Trumpet, a weekly student led newspaper for Wartburg College, one student noted, ‘When I heard about the things Kony was doing, I knew I had to do something.’ Seriously, what was this student going to do about it, and even more disturbing is the fact that this video made it seem like the war is still raging on in Northern Uganda. No, there is no more war up there, people in the affected districts of Gulu and Lira are healing, and the least they needed was a 17 minute video going viral world wide with falsified information. And, this is where my problem with the media and the West comes in. First off, the media is too focused on selling, than informing. This has created a need to verify the phrase that says, ‘if it bleeds, it sells.’ Given the content of the video, it is obvious that it was bleeding news and thus, it was bound to sale, but at whose expense? Of course, at the expense of the Ugandans that suffered through the war for close to 20 years. And this is where I ask a question which if most definitely; I do not expect an honest or straight forward answer to. Where were the media and the West all those 20 so years when Kony was actually abusing and terrorizing those innocent children and women in Gulu. Every single time an American soldier is killed or wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, we hear the entire buzz about it. It in fact makes national news, on huge news channel s like CNN. I do not understand why such fair media treatment is not accorded incidences like the Northern Uganda war, 20 years ago when it was actually taking place. These are not rhetorical questions; in fact they are food for thought to all of us with political ambitions  to act as a soul searching avenue to check our hearts, minds and souls and ask our selves, why all the bias and greed to want to become famous at the expense of others’ agony like Jason Russell and his mates.

Jason Russell and his co-founders of Invisible children may of course have some humane explanation for the making of the video, but to me, a Ugandan, I did not funny this video tasteful but rather a mockery and ingenuity of their greedy selves. Sometimes, it is just ok to hit the nail right on the head and call a spoon a spoon and not a shade. I do not at any one point condemn the video. It was short, yes but not exclusive of the subject matter. The content of the video begs questions that need to be addressed, and if I were the government of the Republic of Uganda, I would have asked for the taking down of video immediately. But of course, this is where the West and all its ‘freedom of expression and media’ nonsense come in. I would have thought that this video would have included more testimonies from several people portraying their lives during the war and after the war. In fact, the video leaves out an important part, the rehabilitation of the former child soldiers. So, maybe next time Mr. Russell and friends decide to pull off one of those videos again, they should remember to include and give credit to several organizations and of course the government of Uganda for the timeless efforts to end the war, and the tremendous rehabilitation being given to the former child soldiers and those countless raped girls. What these people need now is not another reminder of the treacherous and horrific moments they lived through for 20 years, but rather peace, calm and rehabilitation and not cameras hovering around them for selfish media and Western world interest. It is time the world woke up and embraced the reality that a 17 minute video with not so accurate information is not going to do anything constructive for the people of Northern Uganda and it is not going to capture Kony. Sadly, it made him famous and I have all reasons to think that the percentage of the profits named for Northern Uganda will never make it there.

And as if we have heard it all comes the infamous wikileaks....http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1383276/-/aw5a0jz/-/index.html

Is comfort a less repulsive alternative to laziness?

I wanted to try and get some more opinions on the discussion we had two Tuesdays ago. We discussed whether or not we believed it was in people's nature to be lazy. The question is 'will most people take the easy option when they are given a choice between something easy and something hard?' My opinion in class and on here is the same. I believe most people would rather go down the easy path without question. You might even be able to say that most people are naturally lazy, but this might be taking it a step too far. I believe people have just disguised their accepted norm of laziness and just called it a pursuit for comfort. Is that not what most Americans are trying to achieve in their lives, happiness and comfort?

We live our lives day after day striving for something. Most people get up and go to work to make money so they can buy themselves nice things and make their standard of living higher. People want things, things that can make their lives easier, more comfortable. But why? I believe people want nice things because society puts a high value on nice things. I think another problem with society is the given belief that most people want this dream of being rich and not having to work hard ever again. With the craze that hit Americans over the $640 million Mega Millions lotto I support my argument. The American Dream is to be stinking rich without any effort and never have to lift a finger for the rest of their lives.

However, somewhere along the line the word and idea of laziness gained a negative connotation. Even though it is the thing most Americans strive for everyday people still want to hide behind the idea of happiness and comfort.

Your thoughts or angry rebuttal to my potentially bone-head argument?

Op-ed: Democracy and the impermanence of its bearers

            Robert Kagan assures his readers that America is here to stay as the world's leading power in The World America Made. However, more interesting than his arguments for America's dominance is the reason why he is making them in the first place. He seems to be soothing an unspoken, panicky fear that exists about the perhaps inevitable downfall of America. Kagan automatically associates the fall of America with the extinction of democracy. This is because he says the policies of the United States made "the explosion of democracy possible" (p. 26). He views unfavorably the idea of a multipolar world, which is quite likely to be seen in the future. He reminds us that the last time European powers dominated the world, their world order "collapsed in two world wars" (p. 70). He is suggesting that world civilization would fall to pieces without America as the leader. First of all, what would our "downfall" look like? When one hears of a fall of a civilization, it conjures post-apocalyptic images of a chaotic society.

            We are often reminded how the great democracies of Greece and Rome fell. However, did they really fall or just change? Many of the city states of Greece were direct democracies, which was functional because of the small amount of people permitted to participate. On the other hand, according to history professor Paul Cartledge, "cities that were not democracies were either oligarchies- where power was in the hands of the few richest citizens- or monarchies" (2011). Democracy did not necessarily flourish in all of ancient Greece. Democracy existed where it was promoted by those in power. Democracy survived long after Alexander the Great's empire was divided. Democracy also remained after the Romans ruled parts of the old empire. It is important to note that even though Greek civilization fell, Greek ideas and culture had already conquered the Romans and was perpetuated by them. As for the fall of Rome, writer N.S. Gill questions if Rome really fell and notes "some prefer to say that Rome adapted rather than fell" (2012). The split of the empire in two, with the eastern half becoming the Byzantine empire, can be viewed positively, because irreconcilable differences in the leadership of the Christian faith made it impossible for the two empires to live peacefully as one. Rome still exists today, it is just not a massive world power anymore. However, the ideas of ancient Greece and Rome never fell and are still a part of western education.

            Democracy is an idea and does not belong to any one nation. Governments come and go, but ideas are immortal. Even if the United States declines as a world power that won't take away from its achievements as a nation. The idealism of thinkers like Thomas Jefferson will always be remembered. Democracy will continue to be practiced by nations that find it beneficial to them, just as it is now. Change is an evitable part of our existence, but it is not the end of the world. In my opinion, Kagan just needs to relax and perhaps write a more realistic sounding book instead of attempting to soothe his own paranoia.

Cartledge, P. (2011). BBC History Ancient History in depth: The Democratic Experiment. BBC . Retrieved April 9, 2012, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml

Gill, N.S. (2012). Fall of Rome. Ancient /Classical History. Retrieved April 9, 2012, from http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/romefallarticles/a/fallofrome.htm

Kagan, R. (2012). The world America made. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.