Disgraceful Media: The Shirley Sherrod Spectacle

Boy, does Fox News love to put on a show!

For a long time now, I have banned Fox News from my TV programming.  It is not because I am some liberal who can't take views other than my own, nor because I have some left wing agenda.  It is because this channel is a disgrace - seriously.  Fox News is irresponsible, blatantly biased, yellow journalism of the 21st century.   It baffles me that America would allow such a politicized news outlet to even be called a news outlet.  There are no "news" being presented by Fox, because behind the news what they present is a clear motivation to persuade the viewer into one direction (theirs!).  It's just.. so awful! it reminds me of Venezolana de Television, which at least doesn't pretend to be unbiased as it is run by the government (if you speak Spanish, you will notice that only glancing at the headlines it is obvious who they favor).  That there may be a portion of this country who only get their news from this news-outlet-farce is not only worrisome, but downright scary.

Proof of my assertion is this week's Shirley Sherrod circus.  The whole story can be sumarized in the following events: idiot blogger posts a doctored video of Sherrod talking about how she allegedly didn't want to help out some white farmers.  Fox News and other media outlets get a hold of this and run it.  The stupid Department of Agriculture fires Sherrod.  Finally somebody thinks of checking the source and listening to the whole tape.  It is revealed that no, she was not being racist, in fact she did help the white farmers.  The administration apologizes and she is offered her job back.  The media outlets go back on their accusations and start running the story of the how "badly" the administration handled the case (not how badly they handled the new, duh).

Upon this dizzying whirlwind of events, we realize that this is a story of flat-out yellow journalism that was able to affect somebody's job.  What?! There could be something scarier than Americans being glued to Fox News; the government listening to Fox News!  The real story here is that of Shirley Sherrod.  A woman whose dad was killed by white men who were never convicted, who was able to overcome her injustice-driven anger to lend a hand to a white couple and save their farm.  It is ironic and tragic that such a story, which should serve as an example to overcoming racial problems in America, ends up being twisted into a story of racism in America by some idiot blogger.  That Fox News would deliberately take this twist and place it as front-page-style news is simply irresponsible.

This whole fiasco reminded me of a recent piece I read in the New York Times, by Paul Krugman.  The piece is called The Pundit Delusion and it deals with the ways in which politics is driven by stupid media pundits.  I agree! not a lot of Political Science makes it to the media and we end up having these ridiculous theories crafted by these "analysts" on these networks.  Who are these people?! what do they know?!  Ah you may ask the same about me, "who are you Black Mamba!?", "what do you know!?".  I will proudly say I am a Political Scientist and I'll tell you what I'm not: perfect.  And I'll tell you what I try to do, despite lacking perfection, I try to think critically - I actually like to explore both sides of an issue.  I may not always succeed, but I surely try, very hard.  And sadly, the same cannot be said about the current state of affairs of Journalism in America.  It has gotten so partisan, that the only alternative to partisan news is reuters news blips. Sad!

**Although I will make note that there is one news show out there that is very much worth people's attention: Fareed Zakharia GPS.  Great interviews, great pieces, really thoughtful... just great journalism.  I don't ever feel like I'm being persuaded, I feel like I'm being stimulated.

A long time ago, when I was in the seventh grade I used to aspire to be a journalist.  I had this admiration for journalists and the difficulty of their job.  There I was thinking "wow presenting a news without putting your own interpretation of it, that is so admirable!".  What do you know, it was really when I moved to America that this dream quickly died.  I have been disillusioned ever since and I can't get my head around the fact that "news outlets" such as Fox News have the high viewership they do.  It makes me a little sad for America, actually.

The Token Post on the Financial Reform Bill

Everybody's talking about it, so why not us!?  Obama's signing of the financial reform bill has to be the biggest news in America this week; aside from Lindsay Lohan going to jail (lame).  Ok, so maybe it wasn't the biggest news, after all, everybody knew it was going to pass.  But it is very significant because it marks the second big reform that Obama has achieved in his presidential term.  How big of a reform is it? if you ask me, not that big.  The biggest points that the bill addresses are the following: emergency lending from the Fed, bank equity (trying to separate deposit banks from wall street banks), and the consumer protection agency.  These are basically three major ideas: (1) no more bailouts (2) reduce bank greed (3) protect main street from evil wall street.  How effective will these proposals really be?  In my own investigations, I have found that point number 2 is probably the most watered down of them all.  The Volcker rule was supposed to really crank down on bank activity, but as it made it to Senate (where progress goes to die, haha) it was loosened.  The protection agency is another, interesting story.  It feels a little out of place in the Fed and a lot of its provisions feel to me like they are just assurance by the government that the consumer "is not alone".  The biggest test will be, are these regulatory powers of the bureau significant? and if they are, will they really have a big impact?  Overall, most importantly, is this bill really going to prevent another financial crisis??

Personally, I feel like this bill is the equivalent of reducing the speed limits to stop accidents.  Sure, many accidents are deterred by the speed limit, but still accidents will happen.  It's kind of naive to think that we have the power to prevent bad economic times.  It's almost as if saying that we will prevent bad things from happening in life.  Sure, one cannot stretch this analogy, we do have the power to alter the severity of bad times.  We do have the power to prevent really bad economic times as opposed to just bad times.  Thus, it is comforting to know that this recession wasn't a depression (which it could have been), thanks to the changes we made after the depression.  In that case, that was like placing seat belts in cars to avoid deaths in accidents - a major step indeed.  I find that the general doom and gloom during this recession is a little misplaced.  Personally, I have not found a job since I graduated, duh, things are bad.  But the truth is I can find a paying job - as I did.  It's like in that post from Cobra The American Dream Apparently Still Requires Work, the kid in that article found a job, it just wasn't the job he liked.  What else is to be expected from bad economic times?!  The important thing is that there are at least some jobs to be found.  What is our unemployment rate? It's less than 20% by a lot! Sure we have doubled our unemployment rate and that sounds pretty bad, but again, what do we expect?

Either way, back to our Financial Reform Bill.  The private equity folk are not going to be happy with this legislation, but they should take a chill pill.  Just because bank activity is no longer going to be free of rules does not mean that America's economic future is dim.  Seriously, let's face it, this bill is not threatening to Wall Street and they know it! this is exactly why the bill was not great news and why it's passing was not able to send stocks tumbling (something that, allegedly, Bernanke was able to do single handedly on thursday, by just saying "economic recovery will be hard").  To be honest, that this bill is not so restrictive is good, because even though our instincts make us want to choke Wall Street, it really isn't the right way to apply punishment.  We do want a successful financial system and we don't want to cripple it with regulation so that we lag behind economically when we do recover - that would not be progressive!  As Bernanke said, economic recover will be hard, but we have to believe in it.  Many questions remain unanswered in the reform package: what happened to regulating Fannie and Freddie? what about non-bank institutions?  Like the Healthcare legislation, all we know right now is that "we'll see".

Much like the Healthcare bill, we are left with a better understanding of what Obama's progressive reign will be like.  The two bills have been watered down versions of what they promised to be.  I'm sure many people on the left will cast judgement on Obama: either failed progressive promises or "he was a centrist after all".  But this is change we can believe in.  Let's face it, Obama didn't pass either bill, congress did!  That these bills are watered down is a reflection of how conservative America really is.  I mean, what are these "centrist" democrats? they are just borderline democrats! they might as well be "moderate republicans".  This is who people voted for and the majority are conservative.  That Obama needs to be pulling republican strings and "convincing" these non-democrat democrats to be voting for bills, in a supposed democratic congress, paints a sad picture for progressive policy.  As financial reform passed, the energy bill died, what are we to expect after November when the congress is no longer controlled by democrats?  Let's face it, America doesn't like reform.  And the reason for that is our lack of education reform.  Conservatism thrives where education lacks.  Now that we're done helping people get insurance and getting back at Wall Street, it would be a good thing for progressives to try to solve their conundrum and do something about our kids: let's now, finally, please focus on education! This issue is just as important as the economy - if not more.

Somalia and The Failed States Threat

The end of the cold war was a real tragedy to some countries, such as Afghanistan.  To be sure, it is ironic that we’re still dealing with the Cold War – even if indirectly.  But it makes sense, now that the world is not fighting over communism and the “free world”, what are we going to fight about?  Disgraced Political Scientist Samuel Huntington made his sensational, and surprisingly heralded, claim that the new world order would be based on the fighting amongst “civilizations” as opposed to ideology.  This was a subtle way of saying that the west would be battling the east.  (see Wikipedia article for a condensed version, as well as a lovely little map of the civs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clash_of_Civilizations).  I don’t buy it.  I respectfully disagree with Mr. Huntington and will give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this is how the world looked in 1992.  Eighteen years later, it is evident to me that the clash is not between civilizations but between nations and non-nations.  In my view, the post cold war era has been marked by the rising power of the poor, disadvantaged, angry, unstable countries – the ones that were kept stable by the old world order of the Cold War.  Terrorism is nothing but the war instrument of the poor and it thrives in the most unstable and fractured nations.  It is no coincidence that Osama bin Laden launched his attack on the U.S from the wretched land that is Afghanistan.  Nowadays we don’t even fight countries anymore.  The world has changed a lot since Huntington’s piece and the greatest change has been communication.  Borders have been broken by that single change in our lifetime and now identity can be formed away from the state.  The fact that people can live in a state but in their minds live in another world (aided by enhanced communication), is exactly the consequence of our great technological discovery.  This is how our Times Square would-be bomber camouflaged himself as just-another-immigrant, but really was giving his allegiance to an organization that was more like a social club than a country.  But here he gets arrested and put in jail for the rest of his life… in Yemen, where he got trained, he runs free.    In the failed states is where we risk the most. 

Somalia is a security threat that nobody talks about (except probably Obama’s security team, of course).  Topping the charts as the number 1 failed state three years in a row is quite a sad accomplishment.  That poor country has seen itself unfold in a way no other country in the world has.  It even beats Zimbabwe and Myanmar if only for the fact that they have some semblance of order.  Somalia has lost it all and descended into pure chaos.  Mogadishu is real hell on earth.  But there are a lot of hells, why does this one matter?  A clue lies in last week’s events in Uganda.  A group of people were watching the glorious game in which Spain won the world cup for the first time and bam; a couple suicide bombers disrupted the festivities.  This event seems random, although it is reminiscent of the embassy bombings in Kenya.  But one thing is different, the target was not the west, it was Uganda.  Who would want to suicide-bomb Uganda?  Apparently, it was Somalia’s insurgency group Al-Shabab.   This may seem random too, but the truth is that much like in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over, the warfare in Somalia has brought a bunch of angry extremist men to rule in Mogadishu.  These angry extremist men were, much like in Afghanistan, flooded with weapons during the Cold War.  As is custom, the angry extremist men have committed atrocities across the city in their quest to take over the country; infamously executing people for watching the world cup (so lame).  A lawless land such as that is perfect breeding ground for extremist, clearly, but can also become the new home of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that may get tired of being harassed in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The truth is that there are plenty of failed states where these people can go and that is precisely why failed states will become the security threat of the near future.  They technically already are, look at Yemen, Christmas pants-bomber and Times Square bomber were both trained there.  Yemen is not nearly as chaotic as Somalia, but it has proved nearly impossible for its government to control its territory or its citizens’ terrorist activities.  The same can be said about Pakistan, although the government there has a little bit more control and, well, America has a mandate to drone-bomb it.  That America is able to drone-bomb Pakistan is such a crucial step in the war on non-state actors (aka: war on terror).   Al-Qaida will never admit it, duh, but their operations have been severely weakened by America’s aggressive tactics in that lawless border. 

It’s funny how things change.  Surely Mr Huntington would be thinking that his theory is being proven given the fact that all the extremists in failed states happen to be Islamic, but I still don’t buy it.  Correlation does not mean causation Mr Huntington.  It is not a problem of Islam, it is a problem of weak states!  There just happen to be a lot of poor states that have Islam in it because, guess what! It’s a religion that happens to have a lot of people in it!  Somalia is not a failed state because of Islam, neither is Afghanistan.  The causal link here is far more complex than religion; it has to do with the particular state history, or more, a history of state weakness.  The issue here is not that Somalia is plagued by an evil group of extremists, but the fact that since Somalia failed at being a state, one of the consequences of such failure is the growth of extremists.  In short, extremists don’t cause the failure, the failure causes the extremists.

The case of Somalia is truly a tragedy.  Most of Africa is plagued with tragedy and it’s hard to even tell whose worse than who, but Somalia definitely tops the chart as one of the worst places on earth.  Foreign Policy ran a very short account describing what it's like to visit Mogadishu in this article with a very witty title: Mogadishu was a Blast.  Definitely worth reading.  Additionally, they also ran a story about how the administration is handling the matter, see article: Obama's Failed State Policy.  Sometimes, as a personal totally biased opinion, I feel like I wish America could just take over Somalia on the basis of terrorist activity and just rebuild it.  It seems like the best thing that could happen to it at this point!! but sadly, I cannot help to be reminded of Afghanistan.  We thought our invasion of it was the best that could happen to it... but has it been? many years later, Afghanistan is still pretty failed.

Independence Day Blues

This past sunday was the celebration of America's Declaration of Independence.  The mood in the nation's capital was one of contentment.  Despite rough economic times, it's still good to be an American.  Americans have a lot to celebrate, indeed.  In 234 years they have managed to go from a broke, New World ex-colony, to the world's super power - or at least, to the world's top dog.  Coincidentally, the next day (July 5th), Venezuela celebrated its own Declaration of Independence.  For most Venezuelans, it is safe to say that the contentment does not exist and the pride is lukewarm.  The glorious revolutions of two men - Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin - never did carry out what they promised.

Hugo Chavez has a habit of glorifying the revolution of Simon Bolivar and the meaning it had.  But it is not just Chavez, in Venezuelan culture Bolivar is like a God.  Imagine if in America George Washington were revered as the "liberator", the "the father and savior of this country".  Imagine if Washington had liberated Canada and Mexico too and tried to rule all three countries at the same time, haha.  Imagine if every single city in America had a Washington Square with a big statue of Washington, imagine if Washington's portraits hung in every single public office, and lastly, imagine if the glory and praise of the founding fathers combined into one man; general Washington. One would never notice, as many in Venezuela never do notice, just how harmful this glorification of Bolivar has been to Venezuelan political development, because we see it as just culture, just part of our history and folklore.  But the truth is that Bolivar was not all that we praise him to be and the cult of Bolivar is the root of a dangerous political habit that slows our development today: the longing for the messiah.

The idea of strong personalistic presidencies - strongmen - that has been at the heart of Latin American politics started with Simon Bolivar.  Though obviously it also takes its roots on the colonization style of Spain, which was far more centralized in its authority than England was to America - hence why America was much more prepared to govern itself than the Latin countries upon independence.  Bolivar singlehandedly liberated five countries and vocally expressed his desire to rule over all of South America as one country.  I mean, wow, that is an entire continent, what was he thinking?? Regardless, he may not have ruled an entire continent, but he surely felt like he was entitled to do so.  In fact, it turns out - contrary to what Chavez may profess - Bolivar was the son of Spanish immigrants and in the pyramidal societal structure, he was second to the top (Spanish born "peninsulares" were in the number one spot, duh).  The struggle for who was to be in charge of the colonial territory rested in the two groups - the Spanish born daddies and the New World born sons.  Sadly, for all the flowery talk of freedom at the basis of Latin American independent movements, the changes of decolonization were very small.  What happened was that the sons kicked out their daddies and ended up ruling just like their daddies.  The social hierarchy which placed whites at the top (socially and economically) and everyone else at the bottom, remained, despite the abolition of slavery.  That is because the one thing that did not get abolished was the ways and means of ruling: there was no abolition of the hacienda.  Upon Bolivar's exile and death (as he literally got kicked out for his dictatorial ways), the Gran Colombia split into three countries: Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.  These countries then entered the period of Caudillism which was pretty much rotating leadership between hacienda owners, whoever could kill the other off.  The hacienda system is appalling mostly in that it was feudalism in the 1800s.  Thus, while America was establishing it's system of government, there was chaos and survival of the fittest in South America.

Despite the fact that this past was, in the case of Venezuela, 199 years ago - which seems like a long time - it is still present in our political culture.  Latin Americans still look for messiahs in white horses that will come to liberate them and fix their situation, change it, take over the country, fire every one, throw a coup de eta, etc.  Over two hundred years ago it was the messianic Simon Bolivar, after independence it was the Caudillos, in the 1900s it was the Perons and the Pinochets, and in modern times it is the Chavez and Correas.

The problem lies with the basic concept of rule by one versus rule by a group.  In America, the notion of the founding fathers - a group, not a single man! - reinforces the idea of consensus building, federal government, you have the "united" states of america, the idea that many parts make the whole.  In South America, because of the fact that our independence movements were about two people - one that owned the south and another that owned the north - our political histories have been molded to glorify the messiah, not the group.  This explains why so many of our democracies are strongly presidential, where the popular support lies with the president and not the congress.  Yes, in America congress has low approval ratings, but in general congress is strong because the people make it so and the system is designed so that the group can be represented just as the single man (the president) is, as equally as possible.  In Latin America, the president is always more powerful than the congress (the group), with few exceptions.

Laying that much power in one individual is the greatest danger to a system as fragile as a democracy.  Yet, our obsession with messianic presidents is not something people realize and it is a sad reality.  Once Latin Americans realize that the problem is not their leaders but their own notions of what their leaders should do, perhaps then they will be able to build better governments.  But until then, we will continue to fall victim to the dangers of placing too much power on one man.

When Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin met at Guayaquil to "discuss the future of South America", Bolivar made a toast to the revolution in which he described himself and San Martin as "The Greatest Men in South America".  To this day, South Americans believe Bolivar's description of himself, without asking of themselves what, aside from beating the Spanish in battle, did he do that was so great in establishing functional governments?  Let's face it, if we are going to hold Bolivar accountable for everything beyond just the battlefield, we need to really question his political legacy.

These are the questions that need to be asked.  No one likes to revise history or question their deeply rooted notions, but how can a country change if it can't seriously reflect on its own past?

As to the past and Latin American history, I too held these deeply rooted notions dear.  But I came across a  book that made me question the past that I had been taught and gave me a new perspective.  You can say that book is the reason for this post and the reason for my evolution of thought on Latin American history.

Below is the book in question. Anyone interested in this subject should pick it up!! it's a must read and not horribly dense.  It offers a window, an overview to the patterns and recurring themes in Latin American history.

The American Dream - apparently it still requires work!!!

[Warning - *mild* rant ahead]

The NYTimes has this habit of publishing lame, hyper focused feature pieces about the various incredibly lame problems that affluent white people from the North East have to deal with.  This week is no different: a lovely 4-page article focusing on the inability of this one son of a relatively well off Boston family to find a job after graduating from a good school in 2008.  Heavens to Betsy, what a calamity!  What is the economy coming to?  Of course, maybe this is just one of those dumb but somehow moderately wealthy families who thought they had made it big in America and could afford to send their son off to college to pursue some useless degree.  I mean, the article sure makes it seem as though he were educated and perhaps even groomed to be getting an awesome job out of college - and to be honest, its not that hard: learn how to do something useful that not many other people know, like programming, or electronics. That's how our parents and grandparents made their humble fortunes, and quite honestly I would find it horribly distressing if America had sunk so far that someone with obviously useful trade skills were unable to find a job after over two years of searching.

Its amazingly telling of the bias and misdirection inherent in this article that such a crucial fact to determining the kid's ability to get a jobs, namely what he majored in, would be omitted until the third fucking page.  Way to go NYTimes - stroke the elite white liberal's limp, deflated ego-penis.  Maybe if you lie and tell them how big it is anyway the whole problem with the economy will go away?  Seriously - why else would you waste print space in what I consider an otherwise upstanding publication with a story Political Science major can't find a cushy corporate job?!?  Oh, apparently he also has a minor in history - big fucking deal!  Why didn't he stay in academia where his fucking training was?  I simply don't see how he, his parents, his grandparents, the journalist, or anyone reading the article could seriously run with this piece from start to finish and not see the horribly warped expectations.  Its honestly embarrassing - to the point where I'm tempted to go on a personal vendetta to bring as much public ridicule and shame to the Nicholson family for their utter failure to be good Americans.  These people are why America is weak and failing!  This is why China is pulling ahead of us!  Of course, I highly doubt the elite ruling class of the Boston-New York-DC suburban mega-sprawl will ever actually realize this fact - after all, China is still far behind us in terms of number of Political Science majors per-capita, and to families like the Nicholsons who manage to clear $175,000+ a year in income, said metric is obviously the only one that matters in determining a country's economic strength.

Seriously, its almost like the baby boomers are a bunch of completely unrealistic, impotent idiots.  How the fuck are they the ones with all the money and social power?

And NYTimes, if you have to go ahead and run a piece like this because somebody's daddy knows someone, don't title it "A New Generation, an Elusive American Dream".  Title it "some dumb schmuck of a kid who is apparently surprised that spending 4 years learning 'political science' didn't automatically get him a golden ticket to 75k+ out of college".  Of course, that's probably too long, so how about this: "The American Dream - apparently it still requires work".  Normally I don't get so worked up about this sort of thing, but sometimes living on the East Coast can drive me absolutely batty.  I had no idea until I came out here that rich white people could be so privileged, so entitled, so idiotic, and yet still be so glorified by community and culture of the area.  Its so shockingly insidious that after half a decade here I'm still surprised by what I see sometimes, and this article is absolutely no exception.

PS: If this offends any poli-sci students out there, go take a long hard look at yourselves and what you're doing that's useful with your lives, and then if you still feel offended go fuck yourselves.  The only respectable poli-sci, history, English, or otherwise "humanities" majors I've ever met were the ones who knew their degrees weren't going to be good for much more than wrapping around a brick and throwing at someone through a window.  And to be honest, those were coincidentally also the ones who managed to find shit to do after college.  I'm going to attribute it to their inherent goal-oriented, brick-throwing natures.