Make their wallets "Itch"

Image source: AP Press

Income inequality has risen during past three decades. We still hear (and probably more frequently) "the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer" phrase that seems to linger in everyone's mind (even the rich ones).  The question is who is bothered by it and who is still benefiting from it.

The gap between the rich and the poor is certainly not a new topic.  During the Presidential debates, this topic was also discussed as candidates tried to provide their solutions which, presumably, would solve this problem.  Christopher s. Rugaber presents in his article "Why it Matters:Income Inequality" statements that each candidate made:

    President Barack Obama would raise taxes on households earning more than $250,000 a year, plus set a minimum tax rate of 30 percent for those who earn $1 million or more. He also wants to spend more on education as "a gateway to the middle class." Republican Mitt Romney blames Obama's economic policies for failing to create enough jobs so that middle- and lower-income Americans can earn more. He wants to cut taxes more broadly and says that will generate enough growth to raise incomes for all Americans.

Both statements might sound like a valid solution. However, the popular "fact checking" after the debates concluded that neither statement would bring a valid solution. Even though I would agree more with Obama's statement in regards to raising taxes, still there are flaws. The low- and middle-income classes have certainly been "drained" and, surely, "the rich" could spare more to "Uncle Sam," but I doubt that this would narrow the gap. On one hand, it seems logical that an increase in flow of money back to the middle and lower classes would benefit the economy. The change is slow and long and would take more than just a game with taxes. 

I particularly liked  Noah's argument about putting regulations on Wall Street. We have witnessed an example of increased gas prices couple of years ago and, as we know, hurricanes weren't to blame. Given excuses for supply and demand also weren't the reason. Actually, the supply at that time was higher than the demand and prices had to go down instead, but Wall Street played its role, once again, in getting rich richer and the poor poorer. Until the change will actually happen and there would be a narrower gap between the classes, I'd say make their wallets "itch."

Least Debatable

With presidential debates behind and discussions about who won them, there are still many unanswered questions. What about growing inequality, what about housing and education crisis? Which one of the candidates gave us answers to the possible solutions? Some of the media outlets have focused on this problem, like an article by Jake Miller "What they didn't say at the debates", which discusses the issues like housing and, particularly, education crisis. Even though avoided at the debates, for the average American, the growing crisis about those issues actually might be the most important ones.

Image source: cnn.com

The question that everyone seems to be struggling to answer is what could be done about it. As this article describes, Finland is currently leading as the nation with highest scores in education. However, if they have implemented ideas from the United States, why does the system seem to be failing here? Personally, I believe that one of the problems is certainly caused by the established individualism.

When I first moved to the United States, my dreams and hopes were focused on the education. I grew up under a different education system, the one that certainly didn't focus on individual tracks. As a student, you were placed in a classroom with other 20 or so people, staying with them through the next 10 or 12 years, going to the same classes and studying same subjects.

As socialist as it might sound, it also (as I've realized this now) taught us something. Not only you had to prove yourself (and your parents) that you can be a good student, but you had to stand for your classroom as a whole. If there were bad students who fell behind, your overall grade (average) of classroom dropped, compared to others. Also, even though there were some exemplary teachers, there were others, who would make sure you would not pass certain tests if they didn't like your attitude. Once again, as seen from examples in charter schools, competition is one of the driving forces. However, that competition in a socialist way was focused more on the whole group instead of an individual. Each student could learn how she or he would excel compared to the rest in the classroom.

The documentary that we have seen during class raised me a question: aside from funding, why would charter schools, without track system, seem to get higher overall scores than public schools? And why, after so many debates, the crisis still seems to be present without a definite solution to the problem.

The United States definitely have seen a decline in the education. Therefore, I would agree with Kumashiro that all schools could be better. But it would involve much more than teachers, parents or students themselves to get involved in order to fix the problem. In addition, I would hardly call this a "crisis," as American education is still valuable and desirable around the world. Being absent from the number one spot, does't necessarily constitute "crisis" yet. Maybe redirecting oneself from the individualistic approach would make a change. Maybe, but this would be only a fraction to the possible solutions of the problem.

Is America the greatest?

My friend shared this video on facebook after the presidential debate. His commentary was that candidates maybe should try answering this question as well, that is, why America is the greatest country in the world (or not). This clip contains speech by Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) from the HBO series The Newsroom. With current situation in the country and "ongoing debates," I thought this also ties in with our classroom discussions (crisis in education, economy, etc.). 

Even though this is a "played out scene," I agree with my friend that it sounds more realistic than current ongoing debates. This speech, lasting merely over three minutes, generated over a million views. The scene concludes that:

"The first step in solving any problem is to recognize there is one.
America is not the greatest country in the world anymore."

Of course, every controversial  issue cannot be without contradictions. In response to the video, Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association and contributor to Forbes magazine, states an opposing opinion to the question "Is America the Greatest Country in the World?". Shapiro argues that America (should say the United States) is the greatest country in the world and contradicts given statistics which suggest that we are just "another declining country."In regards to declining education, Shapiro states:

"We may not be the best at basics, but we are phenomenal at teaching students to challenge the status quo. Our First Amendment, our immigrant and diverse culture, our “can-do” attitude and our entrepreneurial spirit come together to produce a nation of innovators."

However, it seems that his overall conclusion falls into an agreement with character Will McAvoy, that America (the United States) was a great nation and, even though its power seems to decline, it can still sustain its greatness.

"We certainly have problems, and we must address them. Our politicians and even our voters are failing to deal with the big issues. We focus on meaningless political squabbles as the cost and reality of rapidly growing entitlements threaten to send us into an economic tailspin. We are living today rather than investing for tomorrow. And we are raising youth who may not understand the values that we once shared as a nation."

This issue would require a much more elaborate discussion. Every country thinks of itself as being exceptional. United States certainly is considered to be among, if not, the greatest nations in the world, however, its history is also among the shortest. Throughout the centuries, from Roman Empire to Great Britain, Germany, Russia, China (and others), countries witnessed the gain of the prominent power, as well as decline. While others hold strong opinions about exceptionalism (and we've learned in class about American students leading in "confidence"), one can no longer deny the fact that the United States is at decline. Discussions in class also seemed to be concerned about "the decline" of opinion, tolerance, education, etc. While the state of decline sounds negative, it also makes us fall back on reality, helping us to realize the problem and looking for solutions. Regardless the country or its power among others, most of us desire better for the future. Now, only if politics were the same way :).

To ban or not to ban

Courtesy of Fox News

After attending Deepah Kumar's presentation, the question about the relevance of Youtube allowing the post of "Innocense of Muslism" still resided in my mind. Of course, this was immediatly justified as the right to the free speech. However, to what extent can a free speech go? When Middle Eastern countries demanded Youtube to block this video, their response was that they weren't against free speech as long as it wasn't "insulting," "damaging," etc. In addition, the Russian government also has asked for the material to be blocked. They threatened to completely block Youtube services across the country if their demands weren't met. After reading articles for this week, it is clear that the dilema of people freely expressing their opinions on the internet and the political impact exists. How "freely" can we express our opinions and to what extenct can the government intervene? In response to "ban requests," a Youtube representative told BBC:

"We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions. This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere."

However, Rachel Whetstone, Google's director of global communications, said in her blog post that Google was not "the arbiter of what does and does not appear on the web." (BBC News)
You can read the full article here. Do you think "explicit," "extremist," material should be banned (as are children pornography sites) or should the internet be the "sphere" where the rights to the free speech are truly constituted?

Politicophobia

On wednesday night, Deepa Kumar started her speech with this video. Even though this video might seem absurd, the reality is that most of us still inhibit the so called "islamophobia." Therefore, during her speech, Kumar tried to educate audience that the image of Islam is not evil and is not natural. How the image of "muslim enemy" was constructed has an extensive history and, as Kumar points, is solely created in order to justify agenda of the empire by the "political elite."

While half of her book focuses on the history, the other half reflects the political agenda. While I can agree with majority of the points in her book, I was interested in hearing what Kumar had to say about current situation and the outrage about "the innocence of Muslims"(especially after I had watched the movie). In her words, this movie is only "the tip of the iceberg." That people throughout the Middle East simply were exhausted from occupations, regimes, constant promises, in addition of seeing their countries being destroyed and relatives killed. So no surprise that any, (even though satyrical and stupid) remarks diminishing their religion only magnified already inferior situation.

Kumar asked the audience what could we do about it. Firstly, she remarked that we must deconstruct those images of Muslims as "enemies" and have empathy for "the other." Also, another consideration was that we must encompass solidarity instead of sympathy. While her suggestions were fair-minded, couple of people in the audience still expressed their concern about nuclear weapons and Muslims burning American flags...to which, I thought, she responded with educated answers.

However, even thought I don't consider myself racist (at least try not to be one), her answers don't justify all the reasons either. I understand how people can get tired of oppression or living with fear and prejudice. We were oppressed by the Soviet Union: rewritten history, exile, injustice, restrictions, etc. however, the so called "uprise" and gaining independence didn't happen with civilians destroying their own towns, killing others, etc. Prayers and national songs were only weapons...

In my opinion, even with the current situation, if Middle East would've shown a different, calm, peaceful side (instead of "rage" and killing other people), the "upset" ones would've been the "political elite," since there would less reasons for them to intrude and further escalate the image of "Muslim enemy."

Intellectual power...

In regards to the prompt, honestly, it is hard to come up with the list of people I would consider "public intellectuals." The term itself is still debatable and each of us would probably create a different list. I guess, my doubts rise from what I would consider a "public intellectual" from the past versus modern day. 

In the past, I suspect that public intellectuals were concerned with more philosophical questions, such as existence of humanity (and maybe looked more like Rodin's "Thinker" too). In the present day, such postulations are taking a different approach, especially with an affect of mass media. Therefore, it is even harder to distinguish "public intellectuals" from "opinion makers" or media "manipulators." If journalists, politicians, academics, novelists, etc. are added to the list of intellectuals, then Wolf Blitz, Christiane Amanpour, even Jon Stewart could be added as well. The fact that I would recognize and listen to those names more than any of the top 100 on the li, I guess, proves that we live in the culture affected by the mass media. 

On that note, even though I can assimilate to Posner's statement in regards to declining quality, however, I don't think this makes "public intellectuals" endangered species. I would assume that with media's and internet's help, (Posner's provided lists even show that by "media mentions" or "web hits") the "popularity" those public intellectuals probably has grown larger. Moreover, existing criticism through blogging attracts larger audiences and ignites more discussions, engaging "public citizens." As Daniel Drezner states in his article:

The most useful function of bloggers is when they engage in the quality control of other public intellectuals. [Richard] Posner believed public intellectuals were in decline because there was no market discipline for poor quality. Even if public intellectuals royally screw up, he argued, the mass public is sufficiently disinterested and disengaged for it not to matter. Bloggers are changing this dynamic, however. If Michael Ignatieff, Paul Krugman or William Kristol pen substandard essays, blogs have and will provide a wide spectrum of critical feedback.

Overall, the term "public intellectual" itself has a short history. Whether they are on decline or not, the impact of internet increased awareness about them and gave opportunities to "under-recognized" journalists, activists, novelists, etc. to join the list. Therefore, whom people choose to listen to or consider them "as intellectuals" may vary greatly. If it wouldn't, then the debates about it wouldn't exist. 

Image: "Rodin's "Thinker" Source: prospectmagazine.co.uk 

Shadowing "Glass Ceiling"?

Photo from amazon.com

Interestingly enough, yesterday the NBC's Today Show featured Hanna Rosin, an author of "The End of Men: And the Rise of Women."

Rosin discussed that women are shadowing "glass ceiling," since more of them focus on education, successful careers, etc. Even though barriers still exist, author claims that social dynamics have shifted and women are adapting to the changes in the public sphere. StarTribune claims:

"The End of Men" is undoubtedly an attention-grabbing title, but as Rosin writes, "[the] 'end' might not be a permanent state of existence." Readers would do best to see Rosin's book in this light. It's not the final word on gender roles in the 21st century, but it's a notable starting point for a fascinating conversation."

Do you agree that women are surpassing men?