A struggle in Brew City

Here in Milwaukee, poverty is a large problem. Along with the issue of poverty comes segregation and disenfranchisement of minorities. 50% of black males between 18-29 in this city are unemployed. Teen pregnancy is already a large problem, and the numbers are growing. A large percentage of these pregnancies are with men over 18. The Milwaukee public school system is about to be taken over by the mayor. A solution is needed.

While Milwaukee has its flaws, there sure are many people willing to kick the horse when it's down. Many people are opposed to the way the city is run, including the large portion of residents on welfare. When even hearing the word welfare, they clam up, picturing the stereotypical "welfare queen" who abuses tax payers by living off of the monthly checks, and producing nothing of worth for society. These ideas are prevalent amongst blue-collar whites who live just outside the city, convinced their less-than-ideal living conditions are the fault of some community of lazy minorities in Milwaukee, sucking the state's funds dry. Many in Wisconsin are quick to blame any deficit in the state budget on "lazy Milwaukee," and of course, their solution is to take away funding from the biggest city in the state. These people and their representatives demand concessions in funds for the school system, and public works projects around the city, and expect those funds to be directed into their no-name, manufactured villages. Alone, these people can't challenge the power of Milwaukee, but when you take into account that most every other small city and town in Wisconsin shares these pseudo-racist views, along with the senators and the governor, it isn't surprising that funds for our slowly dying city are constantly on the chopping block in the state senate.

The coming gubernatorial election pits Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker against the mayor of Milwaukee, Tom Barrett. Walker is at the lead of anti-Milwaukee feelings in state legislature, and never fails to invent new ways to cut city funding. For the last year, Walker has been taking motorcycle trips around the state to court the conservative vote for the upcoming election. He has devoted large portions of working time to these trips, in spite of concerns by citizens that he isn't spending enough time doing the job he was elected for.

Walker has pledged to cut busing in Milwaukee, and work to privatize most public works, in an attempt to cut costs.

Although Barrett isn't the shining example of political genius, the fact that he's the mayor of Milwaukee means if he enters the governorship, it will be with the knowledge of our city's needs and desires. Come election time 2010, I will be first in line to cast my vote for Barrett, and hopefully the solution for Milwaukee's problems will begin to form.

An in-depth study of my political compass

There are many ways to describe my political beliefs. One may think that being such a politically-minded person, my views would be easy to state. I suppose the opposite is true, the more involved in politics one is, the more complicated his or her opinion on world events becomes. I can no longer reference a single political ideology when talking about my beliefs. I consider myself an economic Socialist, and a social progressive, yet hold no allegiance to the SPUSA, nor the SWP. Let's analyze where I stand.

My social stance isn't all that hard to understand, like most other progressives, I believe in equal rights for every man, as well as strong social development programs. In terms of economics, I advocate for a strong centralized system of state enterprise for primary goods. Rephrased: I believe the government should control the means to produce and sell certain products deemed necessary for the common good. This would remove the profit incentive from human needs. For example, in certain countries in Africa, foreign private companies own the only readily available supply of water. If one wants water, they must insert money into the local pump. I believe most Americans on both the right and left would agree this is wrong. Although maybe not as harmful, here in America, certain industry needed for the good of the country should be nationalized. This would include the ever-failing auto industry, and of course, health care, if that could be called an industry. Foreign produced goods should be heavily taxed, and large tariffs should be installed to ensure production stays inside the country. Besides the auto industry, there are many more institutions in the country that should be brought under governmental control, such as lumber production, and oil drilling. These can be discussed at another time. Many would claim that the profit incentive helps foster new ideas, and streamline business, I don't disagree, however when the profit incentive is introduced into the production of goods essential for human well being, the only new ideas fostered are more ways to extract money from an impoverished population.

Many critics would call these ideas tyrannical and overbearing, they live in a fantasy world. The American "Right" today believes in a country of independent contractors. To them, every man is in charge of gathering the items he needs for survival, and may charge any fee for the things he produces, since they are, inherently, his. This "survival of the fittest" concept breeds not only a fearful civilization, but one unable to be bothered with the concern of his brother. It incorrectly presumes that each idea, or good, is the product of only one mind, and runs contrary to the communal ideas of man that have ensured human survival since the Neolithic Revolution.

I consider myself a proud Socialist, and I will continue to fight for decisions I believe will improve the way this country operates.

America's double standard on Sexuality

It seems not a week goes by nowadays without some minor celebrity getting naked, either in a badly shot sex tape, or a photo "leak." My first memory of this was the Paris Hilton sex tape, it seemed the public was so blown away by the fact that this media whore had filmed herself having sex. For years on end now, the tapes and leaks have continued. Newscasters interview media experts, books are written, and lawsuits abound when the celebrities decide to sue for the rights to their images. Throughout the process, the masses are obsessed.

Flashback: The 38th Superbowl: Halftime, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson are performing a "medley" of songs, including Timberlake's "Rock your body" during the last line of the song, I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song, Jackson's nipple is shown for 9/16's of a second. This simple act resulted in over $500,000 worth of fines from the FCC, not to mention mainstream America's horror, resulting in talks of society corrupting the youth of the country. After this, the means of broadcasting were changed, resulting in signal delays, more laws against nudity, and a general crackdown. What I find so damn appalling, is that these puritans who couldn't stand the sight of a nipple, said nothing about the constant sexual gesturing, subliminal sexual messages, and suggestive clothing worn by the performers throughout the rest of the performance. Every frazzled soccer mom had absolutely no problem with her son or daughter listening to Timberlake's CD, with its songs about sex, bondage, etc, yet as soon as a nipple was shown, society is indecent.

I'll agree with those who say this generation is growing up in the most morally destitute society in America's history, yet brief harmless nudity isn't to blame. On European television, it's no surprise to see male and female nudity, yet their culture isn't filled with hyper-sexualized celebs or a culture of perversion.

There's such a double standard here. Americans are obsessed with sexuality, yet punish small amounts of harmless nudity in public. To sing about oral sex is acceptable, to watch glorified porn on Cinemax after 10:00 is acceptable, to talk endlessly about the most recent celebrity sex scandal is perfectly normal, yet to show breasts on television? It's indecent for the children! The same tikes whose eyes are shielded from the hideousness of the naked body are busy pretending to blow each other up in video games that cheer death, gore, and debauchery.

I can't help but feel that this trend is just one of the standards left unturned by the sexual revolution. Although most baby boomers would like to say their generation paved the way for equality amongst genders and sexual rights, all it seems to have did was create an unhealthy, yet delicate balance in society. No nudity in public, but let repressed sexuality abound.

I'll leave with a question, what is so indecent about our bodies, that we have to impose laws against letting them be seen?

America needs a friend like Abu Dhabi

A strange sounding headline got my attention on the BBC website today, "Abu Dhabi gives 10bn to Dubai to help pay debts." I was confused since I've never heard of Abu Dhabi before, turns out it's the Capital of the U.A.E. Since Dubai has lost so much money in the economic downturn, its neighbor came to the rescue. Dubai had loans to repay, but not the accumulating interest kind America has with China, turns out Dubai was afraid of coming up short on repaying a special "Islamic Loan" which doesn't accrue any interest according to Islamic law. A story like this makes me envious that America doesn't have a friend like that. Would Canada hand over billions if the U.S was in danger of defaulting on its loans? I doubt it. I believe there is little sympathy in the world for the suffering of the U.S during this downturn, and maybe that's a sign that we need to work harder to foster bonds with our neighbors of the world.

The Pope and population Control

Today in HIST1015 a discussion opened up on the use of contraceptives in society, primarily among people of the third world. A document that Pope John Paul II wrote claiming that modern civilization was turning into a "society of death" was debated. Obviously the abortion discussion can be had over and over again, mostly with no real ground taken by any side. The question of abortion and its legality seems to be stuck at the 38th parallel. The topic of this debate didn't focus on abortion however, it centered on the usage of contraceptives to prevent birth.

The class seemed to be mostly in support of contraceptives, yet one student in particular seemed to defend the pope's irresponsible comments by blaming the hyper-sexualized culture, in which the U.S and much of the so called "developed world" live in, for most of the unwanted pregnancies. The question then became whether or not humanity should strive for a solution to over-population.

Many Americans are quick to demonize China's One Child Policy as tyrannical. In their eyes, each family should make an individual choice of how many kids to have, the consequences be damned. It then becomes a question of at what point does your expression of freedom infringe upon mine? This "freedom to die" thought process is fairly easy for many Americans who have never even dealt with food shortages, much less starvation. During the Great Leap Forward, when Red China was experimenting with homemade steel production, a large crop failure spread claiming the lives of around 30 million Chinese. In many high population developing countries, a small failure in the food supply ends up killing hundreds if thousands of people. Such a event could be triggered by something as minimal as a few extra days of the monsoon rains.

In the next fifty years, the population of the world will double. One would assume in today's society of science and real world solutions, ideas about how to stem the ever growing population of the world would abound, unfortunately this isn't the case. Most of brightest minds are busy coming up with new products to sell, or solving the humanitarian problems in the present, instead of the near future.

I saw a statistic a couple weeks ago. In the next twenty years, water in dry parts of the world will become more valuable than oil. An answer to the growing population, which takes place almost entirely in the developing world, needs to be found. The last thing that the world needs is the leader of the world's largest religion condemning condoms and birth control.

Healthcare in the grand ol' USA

The senate is currently in session debating the health care bill. While this statement would have been cheered in the Clinton years, when the nation's hopes for universal coverage were dashed, now the concept has grown stale. The House passed a version of health care reform with something like a four vote margin. Obviously, the senate has one fourth less representatives, and will most likely be even harder. The shocking part of this process isn't that conservatives and the multi-billion dollar health care industry are in the trenches fighting it, its the honest-to-god stupidity of the American people who are against it.

The television commercials are saturated with ads of old folks asking why the government would want to hurt them, to deny them coverage. Opinion polls show that almost half the population, when asked if they support the bill, say no. In a country in which the top 10% of the population con trolls 90% of the wealth, its absolutely amazing that any common citizen would vote against something conceived to help the common man. We're not talking about 30% of the population that could stand to gain from this, or even 40%, but every single person not currently ensured by expensive, "elite" health coverage."

Although the Conservatives are certainly to blame, the democrats aren't blameless either. A group of democratic congresswomen will not vote if it doesn't include coverage for abortions. Of course the fact that most current health care plans don't include abortion coverage either seems to have no affect on their opinion.

If it were up to me, the single payer option would be the only option, and to hell with the costs, or the profit incentive. Hopefully the bill will pass, as it will be a big step forward. Maybe then the American people will awaken to the truth.

West Bank settlement and Mob Mentality

Today the BBC reported on intense Israeli protests over the ever controversial West Bank settlements. Many of the settlers are protesting over the halt of further expansion on the bank. Obviously their own boundaries aren't enough, and they must expand forward, gobbling up Palestine, or as the U.S and Israel would have us call it, the "Palestine territories." What makes the situation so historically ironic, is that the reason for the settlements, "there's not enough room to live, so we must expand" is the same reason used by the Third Reich for the Lebensraum action that annexed Poland, Austria, and the surrounding area. The fact that the U.N. itself deems these settlements illegal says a whole lot about arrogance of the Zionist state. That the Jews, after their Holocaust, would elect a ultra-nationalist leader, and impose themselves on an innocent people makes the sickest joke out of such a terrible event in history. The U.S. should recognize Palestine as a state, and cease funding the military of such an oppressive government.

On an unrelated note, a discussion in POL1201 on Tuesday brought up an interesting discussion on the forms of democracy, specifically, if a violent mob is democratic. Some of the students claimed that democracy mostly is a peaceful movement, and though the professor disagreed, I couldn't agree with his acknowledgement that a mob is undemocratic. Democracy does not mean "informed, calculated judgement of the people" it only means rule of the majority, and hence, if a mob is created, with no real leader, it is a democratic mob, its destruction cannot be pinned onto one person or idea, each person taking part is making a choice for themselves, regardless of whether or not it is a good one. Such a concept could explain why the founding fathers put barriers to true democracy into the constitution, and are we safer because of it? I don't really know.

On fellowship among leftist groups.

While in POL-1201 today, I noticed that among the usual speakers in class, there are at least three progressive socialists varying in levels of leftism. All three of these young men annoy me unending with their classroom maneuvering and gesturing. They speak with an air of superiority, of quite elitism. It seems impossible for them to state the answer to a question without attempting to question the professor, and just generally make an ass of themselves.

While this alone may not seem surprising for college, what shocks me is that instead of finding fault with them, I should agree with these men, I should applaud them. Whatever my inner reasons for disliking them is, it reminds me of the never ending differences that Leftist groups around the world have.

During the rise of Fascism during the 1930's, there was no vestige of numerous fascist and right leaning groups vying for power amongst each other. There was just the Fascist party, unfettered with challenges by other rightist parties.

Fast forward to the present. The conservative cancer that plagues our country comes from only one party, only one strain of thought. The religious, economic, and political right all unify around one banner, the Republican Party. For Leftist parties, the result is the opposite. Numerous small parties hang on to their faction, and refuse to compromise or ally themselves with other similar groups. Even here in America, there are at least many Marxist based political parties. The CPUSA, SWP, SPUSA, SEUSA, SA, and other smaller, state or region based parties.

Obviously, this causes splints and infighting amongst comrades. Why this problem plagues the left, and not the right is confusing, and warrants a longer study than this blog post. My belief is that the root idealogy, the Utopian principle of Marxism is the reason.

Everyone has their own idea of the perfect society.

The fact that I find larger fault with the other leftists in my class than with any conservative, is proof enough of the difficulty of uniting the left. Unless a point in which the differences between leftist groups can be put aside is reached, there is small hope of electing a socialist or true leftist in the U.S.