Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Separation Anxiety
Did Rick Santorum really read JFK's speech? Oh and by the way, wanting every child to go to college is snobish?
ead JFK's speech? Oh and by the way, wanting every child to go to college is snobish? Same cultrual or wedge issues, different presidential election. This Political Warrior post ran in 2007 when Mormon Mitt Romney adressed his ability to separate his religions beliefs with his governing plan.....same Mitt Romney, different election.
We know that informal qualifications for presidential electablity are more imporant than the formal (constitutional) qualifications that all of the candidates on both sides of the horse race have. And though we have a "Separation of Church and State" in this country -- Religion -- especially among Republican primary voters is a key qualifier.
Sen. John F. Kennedy confronted concerns about his religion head-on in the 1960 campaign that made him the first Roman Catholic to be U.S. president.
(in 2007) GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is trying to ease the concerns of Christian conservatives about his Mormon faith, in a speech Thursday from George H.W. Bush‘s presidential library at College Station, Texas, 90 miles from JFK‘s venue.
Here is the famous Kennedy speech, from the JFK presidential library. I hope you read it (but please, don't puke):
"These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute — where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote — where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference — and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew — or a Quaker — or a Unitarian — or a Baptist. It was Virginia‘s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson‘s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim — but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.
I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none — who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him — and whose fulfillment of his presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.
And in fact this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died — when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches — when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom — and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey — but no one knows whether they were Catholic or not. For there was no religious test at the Alamo.
I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts — why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their presidency to Protestants and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic church in such nations as Ireland and France — and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and de Gaulle.
But let me stress again that these are my views — for contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party‘s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me.
Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.
But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith — nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.
If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being president on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.
But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the presidency — practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution . . . so help me God."
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Monday, February 27, 2012
Must See Russian TV
That quote from the developer in one of the videos for you to finished here came to mind as I re-posted this picture found by a former student of a McDonald's outside of Moscow.
Tomorrow, Ch. 9 Hauss quiz. It would also be helpful to be mindful of the material in these videos.
Frontline: Rich in Russia (2003)
Nashi: The Putin Generation
Khodorkovsky gets six more years in Russia jail
Frontline -- Russia: Putin's Plan (2012)
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Comparative election scoreboard watching
First, while we all are focused on the likely return election of, "A Man Like (well, is) Putin" to the Russian presidency on March 4, a referendum in the near-abroad state of Latvia last week soundly rejected a referendum measure that would have made Russian the second official language. Wonder what Putin said in Russian. Insert your own expletive.
Here's how World Elections broke down the how the ethnic cleavage in Latvia:
"For Latvian voters who probably knew the referendum had no chance of passage, turning out was likely a way to assert their country’s independence because the linguistic battles between Latvian and Russian often carries a major nationalistic element: Latvian voters viewed the referendum as an attempt to encroach on their country’s independence and worry that Moscow might seek to influence Latvian politics through the country’s Russian minority.
Unsurprisingly, the referendum showed a wide schism in Latvian society between ethnic Latvians and ethnic Russians. The result was almost a picture-perfect map of an ethnic vote. Latvian-speakers were almost unanimous in their rejection of the proposals, with results in the few communities with barely any Russians often nearing 99% against. Russians were, on the other hand, slightly less overwhelming in their support, but I think we can still estimate their support of the proposals in the 90% range. Their votes, of course, were drowned by the heavy turnout and unanimous opposition of Latvians.
Given how polarizing the question of language is in Latvia, whereby most Latvians are quasi-unanimous in their opposition to Russian and the Russians quasi-unanimous in their support for Russian, the referendum never stood a chance of passing. The results were:
No 74.8%
Yes 24.88%
Invalid 0.32%
World Elections
_____________________
With his likely return to the presidency of Russia on March 4, Vladimir Putin will likely drum up Russian nationalism upon his return. How will he deal with near-abroad states like Latvia, Georgia, Chechnya? Will the past Iron-Fist approach fit? Here's how the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS) breaks down the Russian electoral system:
Prior to Russia's presidential election, the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran will hold its parliamentary election on March 2. Iran has a unicamerial Islamic Consultive Assembly -- the Majles --voters play a part in this complicated, non-democratic system outlined by the CEPPS here:
Iran -- Parliamentary -- March 2, 2012
Mexico has a Sexano presidency -- one, 6-year term. Felipe Calderon's successor will inherit a continued Narco War at home, a stalled (for years) cooperative immigration policy with the U.S., and an economy still slowed by global competition from China and India. Calderon's close, disputed, but legitimately reviewed 2006 election victory was seen as a major democractic step for the United States of Mexico. Legislative seats are also contested on the same day.
Mexico -- Presidential and Congress -- July 1, 2012
Nigeria's election of President Goodluck Jonathan and the UK's alternative vote referendum were both contested in 2011. Here's how the CEPPS breaks down the electoral systems there. In the UK, however, there was also electoral reform with the Fixed Term Parilament Act of 2011. Passed in September, the Act introduced fixed-term elections for the first time to the Westminster parliament. Under the provisions of the Act, parliamentary elections must be held every five years, beginning in 2015. The Act received the Royal Assent on 15 September 2011. Fixed-term Parliaments, where general elections ordinarily take place in accordance with a schedule set far in advance, were part of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement which was produced after the 2010 general election.
Fixed Term Parliament (UK) Act of 2011
Nigeria, April 2011
UK, May 2011
While the CCP has already selected its presidential successor, the Assessing Democracy Assistance Project analyzes the Chinese system, where it seems like there is some seeding of democratic principles and contests at the village levels.
Assessing Democracy Assistance in China
Friday, February 24, 2012
Voter Supression vs. Voter Fraud
A liberal, industrial democracy is one that has, among other factors, free, fair and competitive elections that follow legitimacy and rule of law.Having discussed with skeptism the upcoming legitimacy of the Russian presidential election, we turn to a deeper look into whether or not our American 2012 presidential contest will be clean.
Voter Supression vs. Voter Fraud. They were both among the seven problems that Time Magazine outlined prior to the 2008 election. Both the Democratic and Republican National Committees had teams of lawyers on retainer to fight to protect "democracy" as John McCain said.
A problem is how do we do that. While it is not voter registration procedures that have kept American voting at a lower rate than most industrial democracies over recent history, the case can be made that we do make it more difficult on our citizens than other countries. The top two problems, relating directly to Voter Supression (the GOP playbook) and Voter Fraud (a Democratic necessary evil) was highlighted in 2008 and continues to be an issue in the 2012 election season.
The Database Dilema
Voter registration in the United States largely reflects its 19th-century origins and has not kept pace with advancing technology and a mobile society. States’ systems must be brought into the 21st century to be more accurate, cost-effective, and efficient.
Research commissioned by the Pew Center on the States highlights the extent of the challenge:
- Approximately 24 million—one of every eight—voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid orare significantly inaccurate.
- More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters.
- Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.
Several other findings are included in the report: Innacurate, Costly and Inefficent .
On of the problems the Pew Center study did not find was a high number of fraudulent voters. However, that seems to be how law makers have tackled the problem since 2008.
Block the Vote Measures
The Brennan Center for Justice (New York University School of Law) issued a report on the new laws that have tighted restrictions on voting across the country, and could have a huge effect on the outcome of who gets counted (or not counted) in the contests:
"Ahead of the 2012 elections, a wave of legislation tightening restrictions on voting has suddenly swept across the country. More than five million Americans could be affected by the new rules already put in place this year -- a number larger than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections.
This report is the first full accounting and analysis of this year's voting cutbacks. It details both the bills that have been proposed and the legislation that has been passed since the beginning of 2011."
Voting Law Changes 2012
New Laws Could Block the Vote for 5 million people
_____________________
So what is the bigger problem, Voter Supression or Voter Fraud? Blog here. Are these tactics and institutional trials legit in our government, "of the people, by the people and for the people?"
Top Dairy Farmers of the 'Mother's Milk of Politics'
Super PACs, the political groups flexing their muscles in a presidential race for the first time, are disproportionately funded by a handful of donors.
USA Today analyzed super PAC donations since Jan. 1, 2011, and found that one out of every four dollars came from just five spectacularly wealthy donors -- Harold Simmons, owner of Contran; Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam; Houston home builder Bob Perry and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. All of the donors donated to Republican-leaning groups.
In a similar vein, the Associated Press found that of the $60 million collected by candidate-aligned super PACs, $33 million came from just 24 individuals. Every presidential candidate, including President Barack Obama, has a donor who has made a contribution of $1 million or more to his aligned super PAC.
The findings are a stark showing of how Citizens United and subsequent lower court rulings have altered the campaign finance landscape. Super PACs are allowed to accept unlimited donations from individuals and corporations, of which they must disclose, but they are not allowed to legally coordinate with the candidates they support.
The Best Government Money Can Buy Trailer
Quran questions: 'They hate us because we don't know why they hate us'
Writing about the motivation of Islamist radicals, American comedian Bill Maher once opined, "They hate us because we don't know why they hate us."
Same Jihad v. McWorld themes, different day, year, decade.
From FP Morning Brief:
Afghans protested for a third day against the burning of the Quran and other religious material at Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan. Crowds turned violent in parts of the country, sparking clashes that left seven dead and many injured.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a statement imploring protesters not to resort to violence, and called a meeting with both houses of Parliament. Some members of Parliament have called on Afghans to take up arms against the U.S. military in response to the incident.
The Taliban have also tried to use the Quran burning issue to rally support for their insurgency against the American presence. The group issued a statement calling on Afghans to attack U.S. military bases and American soldiers in order to "give a kind of lesson to them that they never dare to insult the holy Quran."
The Karzai government has used this episode to renew its demand that the large U.S.-run prison next to Bagram Airfield be handed over to Afghan control. U.S. officials so far refused, saying that the Afghan government lacks the capacity to run the site.
On Thursday, President Obama apologized to President Karzai, a move that was riduculed as weak by the GOP front-runners hoping to become the next Commander-in-Chief.
Questions on Hater Friday in the Jihad v. McWorld.
Should the President have apologized? Will it do any good? Is this cleavage of cultures just inevitable.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Classic Austerity Question to Answer: Guns or Butter?
Question: What is the difference between fiscal and monetary policy?Answer: Fiscal = budgetary choices of taxing and spending
Monetary = federal reserve decisions on interest rates and monetary supply.
Question: What is the best way to attack the budget in 2013, with a scalpel or a machete?
Answer: Depends on who you ask, the President who submitted his 2013 $3.80 trillion budget this week, or the House Republicans who re-titled the Fiscal Year 2013 Buget "Debt on Arrival."When Congress, using its Power of the Purse debates passage of the package, an age old debate will rage again. Guns vs. Butter. The president is proposing "strategic " military spending cuts that will help modernize our National Security, he says. He is also calling for the fairness of increased revenue raised by increasing the tax rate of those making of $250,000. GOP Congressional leaders don't that choice, they say the President is refussing to cut the fatty butter out of the budget, with what they say is miniumal entitlement reform in the plan.
Speaking of entitlements, here's a multiple choice stumper from one of the practice tests that await you the in May:
Which of the following programs are entitlements?
I. Medicaid
II. Medicare
III. food stamps
IV. Social Security
(A) I and II
(B) I, II, and III
(C) II and IV
(D) I and IV
(E) II, III, and IV
C is the correct answer because Medicaid and Food Stamps are means-tested programs whereas entitlements are not.
Entitlement (also called social insurance) - Gov't benefits that certain qualified individuals are entitled to by law, regardless of need.
Means-tested - Gov't programs available only to individuals who qualify based on specific needs.
Here's how this can get real confusing, even when entitlement reform is a huge part of the current budget/deficit battles on Capitol Hill. From Susan Milligan of US News & World Report (2011):
"For long-term fiscal health, the nation needs to do entitlement reform. But first, there has to be sense-of-entitlement reform.
Entitlements, of course, are those popular federal programs meant to address basic human needs and maintain basic human dignity. Social Security keeps senior citizens from crippling poverty. Medicaid provides healthcare to the poor and disabled. Medicare is a federal healthcare plan for the over-65 crowd. The cost of the programs represents a huge chunk of the federal budget, and there is really no way to balance the budget without addressing those long-term costs. Certainly, the budget cannot be balanced merely by cutting spending that is not part of the entitlement programs. The idea that this can be done without cutting defense spending, either, is just laughable."
Sounds like she wasn't reading her Patterson text. Make sure you review it.
The Two Teachers at CBS 2 School had their take, with a comparative analytical eye on last year's Grammy's:
Just look at this year’s Grammy (2011) winners and decide for yourself. President Obama could not have asked for a better opening act to his budget proposal this week.
Lady Antebellum, who brought both shock and awe to the Grammys this year, won big for their song, “Need You Now.” Equally showing shock and awe the president this week proposed his $3.7 trillion budget for 2012. The leadership from both political parties rained down criticism. Obama is going to need, at the very least, the help from his own Democratic Party.
President George W. Bush shocked us in 2002 by proposing a $2 trillion dollar budget. The trillion-dollar marker was first crossed back in 1967. It would not take another thirty years to add another trillion. Obama crossed into $3 trillion just six years later. Combined with historically high deficits today’s outrageous budget numbers make Lady Gaga look down right dull.
President Obama and his budget team are attempting to pass off these record deficits and debt by assuring us we were just “Born This Way.”
Strangely, the Republicans seem to be channeling Eminem. His most recent effort “Recovery” was the top selling album of 2010. The same could be said of the Republican Party. Aided by the Tea Party, Republicans have recovered their majority of the House of Representatives.
With their newfound confidence Republicans are “Not Afraid” to take a stand against the president and his “monsters.” Resurrecting memories from the Carter administration, House Speaker Boehner can be heard crying out, “Holla if you feel that you’ve been down the same road.”
The Grammy artist who seems to have touched closest to our nerves, however, is singer-songwriter Cee Lo Green. Some might remember him as vocalist of Gnarls Barkley and the smash hit “Crazy.” We were singing that song just as the unknown Barack Obama was deciding to run for president four years ago.
Today Cee Lo Green is singing a different tune.
He is no longer crazy. He is angry. The new normal is unacceptable.
His monster hit can be song in many different ways. Even Gwyneth Paltrow covered it during an episode of “Glee.” Cee Lo Green’s “Lady Killer” lyrics reflect the angst of our age.
President Obama is singing about mo’ green. You can understand if our first reaction is “Forget you.”
And here is a re-run graphic of what $1 trillion looks like....now times 3.80 and you have the 2013 presidentially proposed Federal Budget.
http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
A red-letter day
From the bottom of my heart, I am glad I told you all to stop reading at the Marxist-Leninist State heading on Pg. 214...re-affirming my belief that you all are of solid, hearts and minds. Good day for you, for me, not so much. So for tomorrow, to complete your Valentine's Day Quiz, blog you answers to questions 5 & 6, from the Hauss reading on the second half of Pg. 214.
(5) Explain the Cult of Personality that was prevalent in Communist systems. What type of legitimacy do these personalities have to lead? Did now President Obama have a Cult of Personality following during the 2008 campaign as some suggested?
(6) Explain nomenklatura in communistic systems. Can a comparison be made to any civic systems in the United States?
Blog your answers here (my preference) or bring me in the answer tomorrow. Enjoy Amanda's contribution of Communist valentine's above, read the rest of Hauss, Ch. 8, and cast your vote on the best valentine above in the comments section of this post.
Happy Heart's Day!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Chinese, Russia window on the world
As we begin our look into the Post-Communist World, we need to start with the basics in this three part intro assignment:
Part One:
In your C6 (5) CountryGroups, Access the constitutions of current day Russia and China and create a compare/contrast chart with the U.S. Constitution. List and explain a minimum of 5 comparisons and 5 contrasting observations. (similar to what we did for Great Britain).
Russia:
www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/constit.html
China:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html
Part Two:
Read and highlight the first two Chapters of the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels.
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
Part Three:
You will write an "I am not a Marxist" essay from the eyes of three leading Communist leaders. I will explain in class.
______________
From Political Warrior (3/1/11)
Unsettling? Foreign Policy reports on how Russia, China...and the U.S. view events in Egypt:
One of the principal bases of U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama has been to create as constructive relations as possible with Russia, China, and other great powers. The administration had some degree of success in 2010: notably the Russia "reset" policy and managing inevitable trade and other tensions with rising China. But 2011 looks set to be more challenging as events continue to unfold in Egypt after the mass demonstrations that ousted President Hosni Mubarak and as the United States, Russia, and China all prepare for elections in 2012.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/15/how_russia_and_china_see_the_egyptian_revolution
The Teaching Comparative blog has this:
The populist revolutions in the Middle East are prompting reactions in China. The reactions illustrate the fears of the authoritarians in China.
Well-Oiled Security Apparatus in China Stifles Calls for Change
Two months of upheaval in the Mideast have cast doubt on the staying power of all authoritarian governments. But in China calls for change are so far being met with political controls wielded by authorities who, even during a period of rising prosperity and national pride, have not taken their staying power for granted.
The nearly instantaneous deployment of the police to prevent even notional gatherings in big cities the past two weeks is just one example of what Chinese officials call “stability maintenance.” This refers to a raft of policies and practices refined after “color revolutions” abroad and, at home, tens of thousands of demonstrations by workers and peasants, ethnic unrest, and the spread of mobile communications and broadband networking.
Chinese officials charged with ensuring security, lavishly financed and permitted to operate above the law, have remained perpetually on edge, employing state-of-the-art surveillance, technologically sophisticated censorship, new crime-fighting tools, as well as proactive efforts to resolve labor and land disputes, all to prevent any organized or sustained resistance to single-party rule...
Chinese Move to Stop Reporting on Protests
Chinese police, citing newly enacted restrictions on journalists, have moved to forcefully prevent foreign reporters from covering public protests that have been largely nonexistent, establishing “no reporting” zones in Shanghai and Beijing and, in one case, beating a videographer and injuring two other reporters…
Why China Is Nervous About the Arab Uprisings?
As protests swept the Arab world, toppling two regimes, the Chinese government has strengthened its elaborate security apparatus with crackdowns on human rights lawyers and activists.
On the Chinese Internet, anonymous calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" -- modeled after the pro-democracy demonstrations in the Middle East -- have been squelched by authorities. Words like "Egypt" and "Tunisia" have been blocked on some Web searches and social networking sites have been made inaccessible.
Unlike Arab countries with deteriorating economies, China has experienced rapid economic growth in the past decade. Is that keeping a lid on broad discontent in China? If that is the case, why is the Chinese government so nervous? Could popular protests of a similar scale sweep China in the near future?...
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
From my Soap Box: Karl Rove, Really?!
I saw this ad and thought it was Pro-American......but I guess some political operatives don't see it that way.
Guardian Series on the EU....good stuff!
As The Guardian writes, "The European Union is grappling with its deepest crisis in 60 years, a malaise that goes beyond the euro debacle and the enormous tide of debt swamping the continent. The union seems exhausted. Expansion has ground to a halt. Sluggish EU economies are being eclipsed by rivals in Asia and Latin America. "Brussels" has become a dirty word, no longer only in Britain...
"At this critical juncture, six leading newspapers from the largest EU countries have come together in a joint project to build up a more nuanced picture of the EU and explore what Europe does well and what not so well.
"We begin by investigating the benefits the EU has brought to 500 million people and later today examine the national leaders labouring to steer it out of its current difficulties. Tomorrow we look at euroscepticism and national stereotyping. At the end of the week, you can take our "How European are you" test and see how you and other European readers rank."
The series' home page at The Guardian is at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/europa
The College Board's article on the Challenges of EU enlargement is linked here (thanks to apgov.org)
Challenges of EU Enlargement
The Pint: A battle EU supporters couldn't win
A classic blurb re-run to teach about the European Union and its struggles when its bureaucratic rules, backed up by legislation from the European Parliament, challenge national sovereignty, sparks fly. What's a sovereign nation to do?In this, the latest example involving the EU and its members, the EU bureaucrats, using their wide range of discretion, seem to have backed down.
The defenders of pints, miles, and pounds (as weight, not money) are not entirely satisfied. By the way, those of us not in the UK (or the Republic o Ireland) might not understand that the pint is the most important of these traditional measures.
EU gives up on 'metric Britain'
Bono: EU definition lies eight miles away
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601932,00.html
(Sustainable development in Africa may be one the topic choices for our final exam project. Following the lead of my favorite rock star when he read the founding document of the EU, the Treaty of Rome, 2007, we will consider the EU's role in Africa here in this re-run post.)
In saying the West’s (particularly Europe’s) greatest depends on how it deals with Africa, Bono wrote in an essay in Time Magazine:
“Fast-forward 50 years. An Irish rock star reads the treaty with the enthusiasm a child has for cold peas but does uncover what I think technocrats might call poetry. Not much of it--just a turn of phrase here and there. Like Article 177, which summons the signatories to foster "the sustainable economic and social development of the developing countries and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them" and calls for a "campaign against poverty in the developing countries." Not exactly Thomas Jefferson but a glimpse of the kind of vision that might bind us.
Over the next 50 years, we might need a little more poetry. Europe is a thought that has to become a feeling--one based on the belief that Europe stands only if injustice falls and that we find our feet only when our neighbors stand with us in freedom and equality. Our humanity is diminished when we have no mission bigger than ourselves. And one way to define who we are might be to spend more time looking across the eight miles of Mediterranean Sea that separates Europe from Africa.
There's an Irish word, meitheal. It means that the people of the village help one another out most when the work is the hardest. Most Europeans are like that. As individual nations, we may argue over the garden fence, but when a neighbor's house goes up in flames, we pull together and put out the fire. History suggests it sometimes takes an emergency for us to draw closer. Looking inward won't cut it. As a professional navel gazer, I recommend against that form of therapy for anything other than songwriting. We discover who we are in service to one another, not the self.
Today many rooms in our neighbor's house, Africa, are in flames. From the genocide in Darfur to the deathbeds in Kigali, with six AIDS patients stacked onto one cot, from the child dying of malaria to the village without clean water, conditions in Africa are an affront to every value we Europeans have ever seen fit to put on paper. We see in Somalia and Sudan what happens if more militant forces fill the void and stir dissent within what is, for the most part, a pro-Western and moderate Muslim population. (Nearly half of Africa's people are devotees of Islam.) So whether as a moral or strategic imperative, it's folly to let this fire rage.”
The entire text of Bono’s essay is linked at the top. You, of course, can refer back to http://www.data.org/ for more information. The ONE Campaign is an example of a grassroots (really netroots) linkage institution.
As a group, the EU countries have committed 0.7% of GDP to help the poorest of the poor. So far, as the saying goes the check is, well, in the mail. At the end of the essay, the songwriter pens, “What will define Europe in this new era…..Part of the answer lines eight miles away.”
If only it could become a hit.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Finances of the Super PACs
Here is a great link on the financials of each of the major Republican candidates' super PACs. It also has who are their largest donors.
Welfare State Analysis
1) Review the notes in your packet.
2) Click on the BBC link: Among the features, read:
3) Breadline Britain (timeline), Hard Times & Poverty in UK
4) Blunket on Welfare State & State of Welfare (charts) and
5) 1st Time Buyers & Then & Now: A Hospital's Story
When done reading and taking notes, write your own 10 question BreadlineBritain quiz (with questions & answers).
Do Not just copy the quiz that is on the page, although you should take that when you are done. Quiz must be typed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/business/2005/breadline_britain/default.stm
Part Two
In a one-page social and economic analysis, take a side on what the UK should do about its economic slump. From the The Times (UK): "Over the next five years, public spending is set to fall to an eight-year low as a proportion of national income, while taxes rise to a 24-year high."
The eurozone inflation rate fell to 2.7% in December, down from 3% in November, according to revised figures from the EU statistics agency. It had reached 3.2% in January 2009, the highest in the decade.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16594509
In your position paper, back one of two famous ecomonic thinkers.
John Maynard Keynes. Regardless of what other economists say, Keynes' brand of interventionist fiscal and monetary policy have trumped times like these since the Great Depression. The influential writings of Keynes, the British liberal who died back in 1946, still hold court in both Democrat and Republican circles in America and have been foundation of the British Welfare State. Central to his economic theory was the importance of deficit spending. The government is to play an important role in "priming the pump" of the national economy. Laissez - faire is out, active intervention is in. This is now economic dogma here in America. Not quite that far out in the UK.
Milton Friedman. Friedman’s view was that inflation, at the time a serious problem in many countries, was caused by governments pumping too much money into the economy.
At the same time Friedman was convinced that private individuals and companies should be given as much freedom as possible to carry out economic activities. Friedman became the most outspoken economist of his time, promoting small governments, low taxes, free markets and privatisation.He attacked even the dominant theory of the time, developed by the British liberal thinker John Maynard Keynes among others, who espoused capitalism with a softer, more human face.Friedman promoted capitalism in its basic and less human forms, centring on a fundamental belief in the working of markets and privatisation: market fundamentalism.
In 1976 Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, which gave him the status to impress not only generals like Pinochet, but others including British prime minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-90) and US president Ronald Reagan (1981-89).
Poor F.A. Hayek, the conservative economist doesn't get the nod on the blog. But he goes toe-to-toe with Keynes in this popular econ rap. Hayek also had the eye of the "Iron Lady." He received new attention in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of conservative governments in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. After winning the United Kingdom general election, 1979, Margaret Thatcher appointed Keith Joseph, the director of the Hayekian Centre for Policy Studies, as her secretary of state for industry in an effort to redirect parliament's economic strategies.
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