RNC in my backyard

So, the Republican convention is taking place in St. Paul (despite some last minute changes because of Hurrican Gustav). It strikes me as very telling that the Republicans are opening the convention on Labor Day. Only the Republicans would have so little respect for a day on which we, as a country, are supposed to show our respect for hardworking people. Despite all of their talk about "hardworking" Americans, let's force all the employees of Xcel Energy center, the staff, the maintenance crew, all of the technical advisers, the foodservice staff, etc., to report for duty on one of the few paid vacation days they are supposed to have. What kind of respect does that show for workers? You couldn't wait until Tuesday and give the workers a day off? A long weekend to spend with their families? I think this small symbolic example is a symptom of something much larger - lip service to the workers, while abusing them because without their jobs, they could not survive. And Republicans are not alone in this, but have certainly done very little to ameliorate the situation of the working class over the past 8 years. Days like Labor Day have grown less and less respected over the years - instead, they have become yet another opportunity for a "sale" - so that the middle class people who have disposable income can force low wage earners to come into work on their day off. Does this say anything about the culture of disrespect we have created towards the low and middle wage earners in this country? They work, while we party. They have fewer vacation days, worse benefits, less support for their families, and just as icing on the cake, we can't give them an extra day off here and there.

So depressed

I just finished reading an article in the Times about the treatment of detained illegal immigrants, and I am sitting here in tears. I don't exactly know what to do....the inhumanity of the world is sometimes overwhelming to me. Perhaps it is just that the 24 hour news culture perpetuates the feeling that the sky is falling, I don't know. But the fact that we let people suffer like that poor man Mr. Ng makes me despair for humanity. The crimes we perpetuate against those who are supposedly "not like us" - the process of dehumanization that is necessary to treat people like chattel, turns my stomach upside down. Part of the problem here, I think, is that we only see people as deserving of rights if they are like "us" - and in this case, that means, if they are American. What I don't understand is how to solve this problem - to get individuals and societies to view humans as valuable in their own right, not because of their national status. It's ironic to me that when I watch the Olympics, that most nationalistic of sporting events, I think to myself that at heart, people really are fundamentally similar. Those athletes often seem to me to have more in common as athletes than differences based on the team uniform they wear. I will try to avoid sounding insipid, but after a Russian and a Georgian athlete embraced at the end of an event (I think it was sharpshooting), one of them said, if nations behaved more like Olympians, there would be no war. And I know that many educated people would sit around and analyze that and say how trite and silly it was, but I think maybe they're all a little too jaded, and it's that jadedness that prevents change. Why not conceive of each and every other human as equal to us (unless and until they do something to prove themselves unworthy of humanity ala Hitler, Stalin, janjaweed, etc.). It seems to me that the fundamental assumption is always that "we" are better and more deserving than the "other" - thus we hear about American casualties of war (which are horrible, terrible, and undeserved), but not about Iraqi casualties (which are equally horrible, terrible, and undeserved). The people who are dying all have mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, children. That pain hurts, no matter who feels it.

I was struck by a piece on NPR in which Coco Wang, a graphic artist who detailed some of the most heartrending stories about the Chinese earthquake, described how her British friends were surprised at the level of emotion and love displayed by the Chinese after the earthquake. They thought, she said, that the Chinese were cold and emotionless. She had to point out to them that they are people, just like them, who have emotions and feel just the same as they do. It's that kind of recognition that might begin the process of understanding that we cannot torture or kill people simply because they aren't American, (or German, or Chinese, etc.).

Mr. Ng's wife and sons surely hope that we can start this process. It's unbelievable.

Obama

So I've just finished reading the New Yorker's recent profile of Obama (yes, in the infamous one with the Obama satire - all I have to say about that debate is - how stupid are you newspeople, for the love of Pete - it's SATIRE, look it up in the dictionary if you aren't sure what it means). I am feeling somewhat ambivalent, as usual, about Obama. I have been an Obama supporter since John Edwards stepped out of the race, and I still am. The piece is very straightforward about the fact that Obama is, indeed, (gasp) a politician who knows how to work the system. And that he is a pragmatic guy, who will compromise to make progress on an issue. I find these things comforting and reassuring, since otherwise, he would suffer a long slow Carter-esque death once he got to Washington. What I worry about at the same time, however, is that "young America" who have been whipped up into a frenzy over Obama (googling "Obama Mania" yields almost 81,000 hits), may be losing the rose colored glasses, growing disaffected, and may then, as usual, fail to come out to vote in November. Every election cycle, there are stories about the elusive 18-24 demographic, and I thought that this time, maybe this once, young people would come out in droves to vote for Obama and perhaps, just maybe, this country could begin to pull itself out of the horrific muck of the past 8 years. Because I'm not sure he can do it without them, and now I'm not so sure they'll be there. Not so sure what can be done about this problem, since it's not really Obama's problem, but the youth who are looking for a savior. And does this remind anyone of other dangerous times in history when people are desperately looking for a cure-all - one person who can save them from destruction? Obama is a politician, and he's a darn good one. He's also someone who is willing to compromise to get what he wants, not an ideologue. He also knows how to recruit good people to help him get the job done. Anyone who runs for President of the United States has to have a gargantuan ego (who sits down and thinks - I am totally qualified to be the leader of one of the strongest global powers in history). This is something we need to accept. The question needs to be - how does this person think about the issues? How do they approach a problem? Can they offer solutions, but be flexible when they need to and hard when they need to? Do they seem to be concerned for people's well being- or only their own? These are really hard questions to answer. Of course, no one really asks these questions anymore (thanks, Ryan Lizza, for doing so). I hope Obama lives up to his promise, and I dearly hope that if he becomes President he can energize our country and change our direction. We'll see....

What it's all about

I decided to start writing a blog because I think that sometimes I have good ideas. Maybe. We'll see. I've titled it "jumping off the ivory tower" because, I am an academic who is frustrated with academia. We've made ourselves irrelevant, and I'm hoping for a return to a time when people actually respected academics because they were out in the community, talking about issues and coming up with good ideas to solve real problems. That doesn't happen any more, at least not often, and instead, academics are forced to write articles and books about arcane material so they can get published and admired by a small group of other academics for how "smart" they are. It's much like a large middle school club, and to some extent, I feel as if the current negative view of academia is our own damn fault. Academia is there to educate, that is our job, yet most of us in the social sciences are stuck trying to publish on stupid irrelevant crap so we can keep our jobs - and our university administration doesn't care if we are good teachers, but only if we publish in high ranking journals that only other academics read (and students who might be forced to consult them and forget them for a paper). How ridiculous! So, in any case, my plan for the blog is to pontificate about things that make me angry, or interest me in general. Which has little to do with the title of my post, but I suppose I am just having one of those days on which I hate being an academic.