This week we are discussing how one person or group can have an influence on the political process. I've stood on my soapbox and preached about the importance of voting. This is the most important aspect of a democratic society. That said, I am going to switch to groups and discuss the revolutions occurring in our world right now. We recently witnessed historical changes in North Africa. The governments of Egypt and Tunisia were peacefully changed. A peaceful protest in Libya is being met with violence and the citizens are fighting back. Yemen and other Mideast and African countries are saying enough is enough. Governments are listening and change is happening. But the question still remains, "are these changes going to make the countries better".  

Across our own country changes are happening as well. In the Midwest, local governments are trying to balance their budgets. They are doing it at the expense of public employees. In Wisconsin the governor is trying to take away the collective bargaining rights of teachers. He wants to make changes in their benefits, which the teachers union says they are willing to do, but he also wants to take away their right to negotiate in the future. The workers in this country have, historically, unionized to support their rights. The Republican governor now wants to take that right away. It is a form of union busting that we haven't seen in our country since the early 1900's. In Providence, Rhode Island the mayor sent out slips to all teachers saying that they could all possibly be fired. Why is there a sudden attack on our education system in this country. I am definitely a supporter of education reform, but without teachers, any kind of reform will not work. If money needs to be saved find another way to do it. An uneducated country is a week country. In order for us to continue to compete in the globalized world, we must be as educated as the next country.

Since we are talking about individuals making a difference in the political process, we must talk about Mark Zuckerberg. Unknowingly, he created a website that has caused upheaval in the world. The ability of young people to see the way the U.S. citizen lives is a major cause of the unrest in the Middle East and Africa. The technological age we live in now creates a world with few secrets. Globalization is happening and the world will never be the same. Thank you Mr. Zuckerberg. Little did you know that your social website would be the catalyst for world wide change.

Public opinion

I spent the first few hours of my day today reading up on the proposed budget plans that have been argued in the House of Representatives the past few days. It's a very interesting read. The House Republicans have decided that they want to cut the amount of money the government spends this year. Great idea right? Ridiculous is what it is. The places they want to cut would cost a possible 100,000 jobs, jobs for police officers, teachers and border agents. Is that why we elected the Republicans? Does the Tea Party really care about the citizens of the U.S. or just about not having Democrats in control. One new member of the house of representatives was quoted: “A lot of us freshmen don’t have a whole lot of knowledge about how Washington, D.C., is operated,” Representative Kristi Noem, a Republican of South Dakota, told the Conservative Political Action Conference last week. “And, frankly, we don’t really care.” Is that what we want from our politicians. Speaker Boehner was quoted as saying that if his proposed changes caused jobs to be lost "so be it". I feel like the Republicans took office with a plan. A plan to change everything that was done in this country over the past two years. President Bush got us into the mess and they have decided not to let the Democrats have a chance to fix it. They blame President Obama for everything that is wrong in this country when he actually inherited all of the problems.

In our class this week we are talking about public opinion. I truly feel like politicians have lost touch with the American people. With the changes happening in the world today, that is not a good position to be in. I wrote on my discussion board that when politicians don't listen, governments fall. Here in the U.S. that is far from happening, but our leaders need to take note. The older generations are becoming the minority and the younger generations are beginning to vote for change. How far that change goes is up to the politicians.

Public opinion is what our country is founded on. Although we are easily influenced by the media, we as a country are smarter than what Washington thinks we are. I some times wonder that with the cuts to education that the Republicans are trying to push through, if they want us to be dumber. Do they want to become an intellectual think tank that runs a country of imbeciles? We won't allow it. Our public opinion will turn against our leaders and we will vote them out of office. Americans believe our education system is important. It is proven over and over again in polls. Our country will only get better with more educated people. We rank around 25th, depending on which ranking you use, in the world in education. We are the richest country in the world and yet we rank 25th. That is unacceptable. Changes need to be made. Be careful Washington. We're getting fed up. The next President of the United States of America, from the Independent Party, is.....

Government vs. the private sector

I read a very interesting book last semester called Jennifer Government. It created a world where capitalism is king. All aspects of life were run by capitalistic corporations. The police force and the army were available to the highest bidder. Corporations with enough money could break any laws they wanted, including murder. Now the reason I bring this up is because of our discussions this week about the interaction of the government and the private sector. It seems to me that corporations and big business prefer to have no intervention by the government in their affairs. That is, until they go bankrupt. I do understand that without the bailouts by our government, we would be in a much worse economic state. My problem is that I don't believe businesses learned anything.

The reason we study history is to learn from the mistakes made in the past. Are the corporations going to learn anything? I doubt it. All business is founded on the principle of profit. Profit at the expense of everything. This cycle will repeat itself at the expense of hard working Americans. Throughout history we have seen the stock market crash numerous times. Although the majority of the citizens of this country do not own stock, when the rich take a hit so do the rest of us. Corporations deal with these problems the same way every time. They lay off employees, slow down production, stop buying materials, slow down spending, stop giving raises and stop hiring. When these corporations do this they are prolonging the problem. It is very much an action-reaction event. When it happens to one major corporation all of the others react the same way creating an economic issue like the one we are in now. A lot of corporations have investments in other corporations which in turn have investments in others and so on and so forth. When one company crashes so do many others. Somewhere along the line this cycle needs to stop. Our country's economy should not be controlled by so few.

I don't have a solution to the cycle but I do have some ideas how to change some things. We Americans, as a group, need to support small business. I have begun changing the way I shop over the last few years. If I can shop in small locally-owned places, I will. If I can buy products produced in my community, I will. If I have to shop in corporate-owned stores, I do a little research and support the places that offer better benefits to their employees. I refuse to support that giant superstore chain that has created a class of unskilled underpaid workers. We need to support our communities and stop sending our money to the rich fat cat CEOs. I know this is an almost impossible task, but if everyone did just a little bit to support their local communities, our economy would become more stable. We would become less reliant on the giant companies. Small business owners would have higher profit which would allow for more and better employment. If 100 small companies hire 10 employees isn't that the same as one big company hiring 1000 employees. Our capitalistic country was founded on the idea of fair competition. Big business has taken that away from us. The possibility of a small business owner attaining the rank of big corporation is minute. Support your local economy and our national economy will benefit.

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.
Benjamin Franklin

Power in politics

Chapter three is all about the power that is controlled by the top ten percent of our country. Power is just another word for money. I've seen a few posts on here that talk about the ability of our citizens to create better, wealthy lives with hard work. I believe this might apply to such a small percentage of people that it is really not worth noting. It takes more than a college education to be rich in our country. It takes a family with money or a lot of luck. My degree from Metro State is not going to earn me as much money as a degree from Harvard, a school that I was accepted at but couldn't afford. The class separation in this country is becoming unmanageable. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

Corporations are making sure that this statement stays true. The executives in large corporations continue to increase their wages while keeping the workers at the same level (adjusting for increase in living expenses included). The government can't control this and I wouldn't necessarily want them to if they could. In our capitalistic society most people believe that competition creates checks and balances in corporate America but this is not true. Who can compete with the likes of Wal-mart? They have gone out of their way to destroy their competition and they do it because they have the money to do it. They have created an uneducated, poverty stricken work-force that is not wealthy enough to do anything else. They do not pay their employees enough to go to school and look after their families. They do offer scholarships but only with a guarantee that the student returns to Wal-mart to work for the low salaries that they received in order to get the scholarship in the first place. Wal-mart is a great example of capitalism gone bad.

The people with the power

 The people with the money are the people with the power. Our government is controlled by the people with the money. Elections are won and lost by money. Our politicians are already wealthy when they take office. Where is the representation that is guaranteed by our Constitution? Our leaders are businessmen that have the interests' of big business in mind. We are not a democratic so much as a capitalistic country. We are controlled by Corporate America. The text book speaks about the ability of the voting public to "overcome the mobilization of bias that operates in favor of business" (Katznelson, Kesselman, Draper, 2006, pg.31) but is this even possible anymore? Our largest corporations are outsourcing to countries that offer less expensive alternatives to our own labor force and our government will not stand up for it's own people. The politicians always talk about offering incentives to companies that keep jobs in the U.S. and yet the only companies that receive these incentives have already outsourced to other countries. Why should an American company that opens a new factory or plant receive incentives if they have already opened ten other plants in other countries? Our government support for small business is always secondary to the needs of the corporations. The way you fix our economy is through support for the person on the street. Tax breaks for small businesses not corporate America. Companies are not going to leave the U.S. The taxes they would pay in other industrialized countries far exceed what they pay here. It is time for our government to stop being held hostage by the money of the rich. Support the middle and lower class. By supporting small businesses we create more jobs. Maybe not on the scale like we would see with corporations but 100 small companies hiring 10 people each is just as good for our economy as one big corporation hiring 1000 people. I do not want large corporations leaving our country but the corporations need to see that supporting our country is beneficial to them as well as our economy.

Power of the vote
As much as i believe in democracy and the right to express my opinion by voting, I do understand why so many people are disillusioned by the process today. The lobbyists control Washington now. The money is what wins elections, but that has not always been the case and (i believe) will not always be the case. In the last election the fervor that was created by the young voter was awesome. There were more first-time voters than ever before. The new generation of voters have strong opinions of how our government should be run. The political parties need to realize that the times are changing. The people want their voices heard. The young are not going to step aside for the political traditionalists. On both sides, the technology of today has changed the way Americans get their information and it is easier to spread your opinion. I see, in the future, campaigns being won and lost on the internet. President Obama's campaign was ahead of its time. Even the Democratic party itself did not realize the impact that the internet would have on the election. It only gets better from here. We will now be able to access political technology like never before. Politics has finally gone technological. Soon every vote will count and every opinion will be heard and politicians will finally have to listen to what we have to say!!!!!