I haven’t been writing lately. I know. It’s not that I have been busy. I’m just really full of existential malaise. The current state of American politics is depressing. I have had general discussions with like minded individuals (mostly other academics that study politics). I have been wondering why things are in the state they are in and why it is so frustrating.
I have concluded that it is the culmination of several problems. One is the general shift to the Right that has been going on in America for the past 30 years. On top of this, the general tactic of the American Right is downright frustrating, seemingly on purpose.
First of all, I don’t know how many times I have to point out that Barack Obama is not “far Left” or a “Socialist” or anything extreme in any context. If one were to go to Political Compass, it’s pretty clear where Obama stands… pretty centered. He’s more conservative than the Labour Party and as authoritarian as the Conservatives in the UK. (Less authoritarian than any GOP candidate, aside from Ron Paul.) Obama has even moved farther right since 2008. Yet, the Conservatives continue to claim he is a “radical.” Yes, if Reagan was also a radical.
There is a constant distortion of the issues. This makes any semblance of a coherent ideology almost impossible. They claim to want a small government, but turn around and want the government to dictate which people can be married. They want freedom of religion, as long as everyone is a Christian. They want lower taxes but they want to decrease debt. They want to “take America back” to a period of unprecedented wealth, but they want to ignore all the tax rates and policies of that time period. They talk about fairness in tax code, but they don’t want to close loopholes that allow the wealthy to pay lower taxes.
Half of the claims made by the new Right are baseless. This whole Libertarian, Alex Jones conspiracy nonsense is dangerous… I see what the Libertarian newsletters say… it’s all hyperbole. The economy is going to collapse and we are going to be living in Mad Max world… so stockpile guns and food. If that is what you are anticipating, why should you be allowed to make any policy decisions?
My constant defense of President Obama is often taken to be support of President Obama. This is not the reality. I criticise this president all the time, but with valid criticisms. I want to talk about policy, not about if Barack Obama was born in Kenya or is a radical socialist… because that is just hyperbolic distortion. The only reason I tend to side with Democrats or President Obama is because they are the only legitimate counter to the current Right Wing extremists in America.
What resource has this president nationalised? The only thing close to socialism this president has done is the Affordable Care Act… which is the most business friendly health care act in the Western world.
A woman testifies that birth control can effectively be used to control uterine cysts… and she is called a “slut” for wanting her health insurance carrier to pay for treatment that some churches disagree with… really?
And then, when people question the president’s nationality, and we ask why… we are told that we are making distortions. I’m trying my best to find coherent ideology on the Right, and none of it is plain. None of it is open. Hidden under all these layers of hyperbolic subterfuge is this ideology of supply-side economics… a failed economic ideology… and moral legislation. Maybe they don’t want us to be able to see it plainly because it resembles fascism so much.
All I know is that when you put all these distortions together, you just get static. The American Conservative today runs on a platform of white noise. How do you debate that?
Tags: America, conservatives, distortion, distortion to static, GOP, static, Tea Party, The Roots, United States, white noise
Category Main category, New Right, Tea Party movement |
The entire country is aflame with the Trayvon Martin incident in Florida. I guess, it would be more appropriate to say that “Trayvon Martin murder in Florida.” For anyone that does not know, Trayvon Martin was a 17 year old Black male that was shot and killed by a self-proclaimed “Neighborhood Watch” man in Sanford, Florida. (If you need more information, Google it.) There are several things about this situation that I find concerning and/or troubling.
First, I really want to say that I really hope people really just want Zimmerman (the shooter) to have his day in court. If we just want to go after George Zimmerman in a wave of “street justice,” we are no better than what we accuse Zimmerman of doing. We should not want “retribution” or “revenge” in the name of “Justice.” None of this will bring back Trayvon Martin.
Also, i really wish the conversation would stop straying from the topic at hand. I feel the hoodies and the individuality of this instance are overshadowing the true problem here. Zimmerman shot and killed Martin and was not even charged by the police. All over America, Black males being murdered seems to illicit much less concern than anyone else being murdered. Every time a Black male is killed, people have to speak up and point out that he was not a criminal or immoral person. Why? The issue at hand is that murder is illegal. Do we really want to start placing levels of value on person’s murdered?
So, yes, this is bigger than Trayvon. It’s about everyone in America having equal protection under the law. It should not matter the colour of a person or their social status as to how much we care about their murder.
The other issue I see in this is the right of George Zimmerman to own a handgun. Is this what was in the Second Amendment? I don’t see it. Many of the defenders of the “Second Amendment” point out the text of the second amendment.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Everyone seems to want to ignore sections of this text. The NRA types want to ignore the text that says “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state…” This has nothing to do with George Zimmerman, especially in context of when this amendment was written. In the 1700′s, the contrast to a militia military was a professional military. George Zimmerman is not defending the United States from anything. Neither is someone who wants to shoot deer or rabbits in Montana, nor someone who feels safer from home invasion by having a gun in their nightstand.
The murder of Trayvon Martin brings a culmination of contemporary issues in America to the forefront. One is definitely the issue of race, which some GOP candidates and pundits want to decry. The truth is that Trayvon was murdered because he was Black and Zimmerman was not arrested immediately because he shot someone who was Black. This is not new. From Henry Louis Gates’ arrest in his own home to the murder of Amadou Diallo, Shawn Bell, and even Emmitt Till, Black males have been being treated as second class citizens in America.
Farther, how many of America’s children need to be shot before we realise where these “gun rights” get us. Can anyone name me one civilian with a gun that has defended the United States from foreign or domestic threats to the nation since the Civil War? When looking at gun violence in the United States and comparing it to other modern polities, it only compares to countries like Columbia. Is that our goal? To keep shooting each other?
I need to do another draft of this… I recognise that. I have just been really busy and not writing lately and felt the need to do something on here.
Tags: black, Florida, race, racism, Sanford, Second Amendment, Stand Your Ground, Travyon Martin, Zimmerman
Category news |
Google introduced a new privacy policy today. The internet is all a twitter with the news of Google’s new policy. There are complaints all over Western Civilisation. France announced a claim that Google’s new privacy policy is ’in breach of EU law.’ American legislators are trying to pass new laws. The world is in an uproar over this flagrant infringement on the privacy of people everywhere.
- Google
Only, this is pure hyperbole. What Google is doing is what companies have been doing as long as they have figured out how to do it – target customers/users. Google provides a ton of free services. Gmail, Google+, Google Maps, Google Earth, YouTube… the tradeoff is that they want to advertise products to us to pay for these services.
First of all: Guess what. Nothing you do on your computer is “private.” I worked in the IT field for a while. The general rule is “Do not email something you wouldn’t want your mother to see.” Because, guess what else. Someone could probably be reading it. Unless you work for a top level government agency with extremely high levels of encryption, any number of people could have access to your information. Farther, the people that manage the service you are using still have access to your email. Even if you are an agent for the CIA’s Clandestine Operations, the IT people have access to your private email. How do you think the email gets from your computer to another one?
Second, why do you think anyone gives a shit about what you do? Are you really that interesting? Why does anyone care that you were doing cocaine with two transexual prostitutes in a Super 8 on Friday evening? Because you might get ads for an STD test or Super 8 coupons? Or because you are embarrassed that people know this about you even though they don’t give a shit about you?
Here’s a tip: If you don’t want people to know something about you, don’t tell anyone. It’s not like Google or Facebook or Apple goes into your home and gathers personal information about you when you don’t want them to do so. They aren’t talking to your former friends and relatives to uncover your past… they are using the information that you typed and put on the internet in the first place.
I also find it rather odd that so many Libertarians and Conservatives don’t see the predicament they are in. On one hand, they tend to be all involved in “personal freedom” and “individual liberty.” On the other hand, Google is not a government agency. It is a private company offering a service. If people don’t like their terms, they do not have to use the service. ”Free Market Principles.” Or only when it suits you?
Let’s be brutally honest. I really am tired of getting emails about replica rolex watches, Viagra from Canada, discounted lumber, and a plethora of things I will never consume. I would be delighted to get targeted ads on Karl Marx t-shirts or atheist Children’s books… much more than ads for celebrating the Tea Party Patriots and Rick Santorum.
We live in a society rife with hyperbole. This is not “big brother.” This is not an erosion of privacy. This is Google trying to remain competitive in a capitalist society.
Tags: advertising, Big Brother, capitalism, Free Market, Google, hyperbole, privacy, privacy policy, target marketing
Category news, trends |
I posted this on Facebook and it’s getting quite a large amount of traffic… so, I might as well put it up here.
- Know your meme
Tags: Meme, political science, politics, what i really do
Category trends |
I have been working on an entry about outsourcing for some time. I find it difficult to make a concise and comprehensive declaration on the situation of jobs and outsourcing. Even more difficult is to make it attention grabbing. The truth of the matter is that it is not an attention grabbing subject unless one wants to use hyperbole. The only thing I can say that will grab attention is:
OUTSOURCING JOBS IS GOOD FOR THE AMERICAN ECONOMY!
also
PEOPLE WANT THE BENEFITS OF CAPITALISM WITHOUT ANY CONSEQUENCES!
There. I said it.
The complaint is that there are not enough jobs in the United States (and many European countries) and companies are sending jobs overseas. Some things I no longer have to clarify due to the nature of the news cycle. I had originally broken down how much these jobs pay but so many news stories have broken about the pay rates at Foxconn that this is no longer necessary.
I do believe that many people who have strong opinions about the situation of outsourced labour have a purely emotional response. It is this drive to resent the “other” and attach negative feelings on outsiders. When looking at the employment situation many aspects need to be considered. There is the aspect of Cost of Living (not CPI) and wages, economic theory, international relations, technology… it is terribly complicated. So, why the insistence that “Outsourcing is the problem” when analysing the employment situation?
Let’s look at this rationally: Foxconn employees make 31 cents an hour to assemble the iPhone. They work 12 hours a day, six days a week. I have heard the argument that American wages would only increase the cost of the product by 26%, but what most of these statements ignore is the situation that allows these phones to be assembled at such a high pace. When Apple needs new glass for the front of their phone, Corning can supply them with new glass the same day in China… the Corning plant is there, too. Most of the components are in Shenzen, or close to it. The cost of shipping components around the world would start increasing costs exponentially.
(more…)
Tags: apps, COLA, Cost of Living, CPI, Economics, economy, employment, foxconn, iphone, Jobs, NAFTA, outsourcing, reactionary, technology, unemployment, wages
Category Economics |
