The Egyptian Elections

I hope that people realize that the Egyptian free elections are a huge deal, even for America. Egypt has been a close ally of America for many years and one of the only ones in the area. There are many moderate independent nominees but there is also a presence of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical, in my mind, Islamic political group. They are looking to make Egypt more of a theocracy, this would be bad news for Americas interests abroad. If Egypt were to become a theocracy, similar to what Iran has, it would be harder to communicate with them and we would lose valuable friend. It is important to have allies in that part of the world, especially since we know that Iran is not really a fan of America and is apparently trying to wipe Israel off the map.

Obama's Support of Marriage Equality

I'm going to start out by saying that I am in full support of gay marriage, it is a basic human right and it is ridiculous that it is being denied to some because of their sexual orientation. But Obama's public announcement of his support for gay marriage is nothing more than a campaign move, he has been in office for four years and he could have expressed his feelings about this at another time. I understand that he is a politician and this is what he is supposed to do to get people to vote for him. At this point I really don't think that he can even do anything about the subject. Marriage licenses are issued by the state governments, so defining marriage is up to the state, it would be denying states rights if congress voted in favor or against gay marriage. Yeah it is morally right to have gay marriage, but as our government is set up Obama cannot change any laws about it. Having said that, it is nice to see such a prominent, arguably the most prominent, politician be so adamantly in support of gay marriage, it means that the tides are changing. I truly believe either the next generation of politicians or our generation of politicians will legalize gay marriage.

The Bottom Billion: Post Five

Many people have almost given up hope that they can change the world, but it is definitely possible. If the efforts going to help the 'bottom billion' are unified and they address every single part of the problem then it can happen. First, we need to stop being afraid of military action, yes what happened in Somalia and Iraq were PR disasters but using military force to start change in countries that need it is something that might need to happen. The more peaceful attempts to create change in countries that are poor by the UN have almost all failed, they are too weak and they don't send a very forceful message to the governments of those countries. Also many countries need to be involved in this, it can't just be one, it needs to be a world effort. Change also does not happen in countries that do not want change, the societies of these low income countries need to want it, they need to want the social change in their country and want to fight for it no matter what. It should also be noted that the bureaucracy of international organizations and international committees leads to a slowing of change in these countries, so that should be avoided.

The Bottom Billion: Post Four

The third trap is location, many countries that are the poorest also happen to be landlocked or have bad neighbors and the combination of those two things usually leads to very bad things. Being landlocked is never a good thing because you lose so many valuable trade opportunities. If you are landlocked and you have neighbors that are at war or oppressive dictatorships or you are constantly at war with them it only puts you in a worse position. Because this also limits the supply of natural resources and products that would help your country progress and become more stable. Also it is true that if you are a coastal country you serve the world, you have reasons to be connected with many different countries but if you are landlocked you serve your neighbors, everything you do has to based around them because that is the only way that you will be able to best serve your own country. While helping these landlocked states come out of poverty may not directly benefit us, it definitely benefits the world and is the right and moral thing to do. By helping these countries you also decrease the risk of wars breaking out over precious natural resources.

The Bottom Billion: Post Three

Another trap that keeps low income countries poor are natural resources. On the surface it would seem as if the discovery of natural resources is a good thing for the country, because it brings in a lot of money. There are several problems with that train of thought though because as we know most of the diamond rich countries are in a perpetual state of unrest. The first problem being that since low income countries often have an increased rate of violence that there will be many people going to extremes to get their hands on the wealth that the resource provides. The second problem being a bit more complicated, since this resource most likely will become the countries main export all of the other products the country exports will lose their value. So while a few people are getting very very wealthy many others are falling further into poverty, creating an unstable environment. As members of America we should care about this because it directly affects us, if countries that supply us with much needed natural resources start to fail then it will hurt our economy, we should try our hardest not to let them fall into the natural resources trap.

The Bottom Billion: Post Two

According the Paul Collier the author of The Bottom Billion, the poorest countries in the world usually fall into traps that keep them impoverished. One of these traps is the conflict trap, this typically refers to civil wars or coups. These things tend to keep countries unstable therefore not progressing as they should be. As it turns out the political repression is not the main reason for civil wars breaking out. Take China for example, they are constantly being repressed, but they have yet to have political violence (apart from Tienanmen Square),  this is mostly because the government actually works out for them and has brought so many citizens out of poverty. One of the defining factors for civil war is having a large portion of the population living under the poverty line. People who are most likely to participate in political violence are young, uneducated and without any dependents. Civil wars and political violence are extremely detrimental to not only the country itself but also to all the surrounding countries because of the collapsed economy. Wars and coups keep love income countries from from growing and that keeps them dependent upon exports of primary commodities and because of this they remain poor which leads to wars and coups which keeps them poor, its a never ending cycle, this definitely affects the world in such a way that the G8 should want to step in and interfere with this.

The Bottom Billion: Post One

The poorest countries in the world coexist with the 21st century but they live in a reality that is more like the 14th century because of all the civil wars, sickness and ignorance. Right now around 5 billion people are reasonably wealthy and live in developed countries as opposed to 100 years ago when 1 billion people were rich and 5 billion people were living in poverty. The billion poorest people in this world are living in awful conditions and dying while we live in a 21st century world of material comfort. Being so well off in this world I think that we should be much more aware of the poverty some people face everyday. The least developed countries that are concentrated in Africa and Central Asia, can probably easily be brought into the 21st century, it might take some time, but everyone deserves to live like we do. Many organisations that provide aid for poor countries are focusing on countries that already have the means to become developed. They are sending their best people to Brazil and China when the countries that actually need the most aid are places like Chad and Laos. The problems of these countries usually lie with the government, usually that they are not run by competent people or their leaders are actual psychopaths. So if they want to become a developed country they will need to change their government to something much more effective,

The Occupy Movement

Okay, so many people seem to think I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm going to say it anyway. I truly believe that the occupy movement is wrong in many ways. OWS's goals include a more balanced distribution of income, more and better jobs, bank reform, a reduction in the influence of corporations on politics, forgiveness of student loan debt, and alleviation of the foreclosure situation which accounted for 20% of homes sold in 2011. 
1. Reduction in the influence of corporations on politics- If you look at lists of the top donors from every election since 1989 only 3 of the top 20 donors were corporations, the rest were comprised of unions and one political interest group. So if anything is too strongly influencing politics it is the unions in America. Source -  http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
2. Alleviation of the foreclosure situation- This was caused by the mortgages that were given out by banks to people who really couldn't afford them. If you bought a house you couldn't afford is it really the governments fault, and now that it is public information that you should not take massive loans for houses, I really don't think that people will keep doing this, so problem solved. 
3. Forgiveness of student loan debt- First, if you go to a private college and get a degree in art history or women's studies and you can't get a lucrative job after college, can you really complain? Second, the best universities in the world are in America and they are private. They charge a lot of money so they can have the newest technologies, the best professors and the best facilities for research. The tax payers are already on the line for public education and many other things, it is completely unreasonable to ask them to pay for PRIVATE education too. Third, you don't have to go to a private university, you can go to an inexpensive state school and get a job after college that might not directly relate to your major, so many people do menial labor after college, you can have that job and continue looking for a job that you would rather have, so that you can have some sort of stable income, its been done before and it won't kill you.
4.  More balanced distribution of income- The 'proposed' solution is to tax the ultra wealthy even more. The truth is this: the top 0.1% of income earners in America paid 50% more taxes than the bottom 80% of income earners in 2010. In 2008, the top 1% of income earners paid 38% of all federal income tax, the top 10% paid 70%, and the bottom 50% paid 3%. I included links to my sources. This is completely fair in my books. 
5. More and better jobs- If you tax wealthy corporations more and more they are going to have less and less money in which to hire new workers for their companies, which means downsizing the labor markets. Its a lose- lose situation here. 
         Also, protesting the NATO conference, really? NATO is a military organization that has been putting a lot of efforts into peace keeping. I HIGHLY doubt that officials from Belgium or the Netherlands are going to be able to help you with income inequality in America. 
     And that is all I have to say about it.

Affirmative Action Post

After reading all the articles about the 'race-neutral' college admissions policies, I have to agree with those rather than supporting affirmative action. The universities in Florida, California and Texas all show that their minority acceptance rate was the same or better after they got rid of the affirmative action policies. While looking at two potential candidates for a university who are the same in both academics and extracurriculars, that's when race can be seen as a plus, but having special programs for minority students is not very helpful for increasing the diversity of the school. Socioeconomic status could be seen as an even better way to classify the students, rather than by race. Students who grew up poor and live in impoverished areas should be given special consideration because of their situation. Race is not an indicator of struggles in life as much as socioeconomic status is, a rich Black or Hispanic student have probably not have had to overcome many obstacles in their lives than a White student whose family sits below the poverty line.

"White Like Me"

In Tim Wise's book White Like Me, he discusses the hidden biases in American society. For today I read the chapter called "Privilege", in this chapter Wise talks about how whites are born with certain privileges that are not afforded to minorities in America. One thing that he mentioned is that our schooling is mostly Eurocentric, and it is from the point of view of people from European descent. He then goes on to say that this is not fair to the minorities in America, that it is too 'narrowly' focused. I have to disagree with Wise on this topic. I do not believe that the school system is inherently racist, while a VERY SMALL percentage of teachers might be racist, it is presumptuous to think that all teachers have these biases. He recalls that teacher more readily punished children from minorities rather than white children. Most teachers will treat kids with the respect they ask for, I show up to class, do my homework and take my education seriously. Any student who does not take school seriously will be punished regardless of their race. And now back to the "Eurocentric" views in our history textbooks, it should be pointed out that most Americans come from European descent so it only makes sense that our books would encompass that aspect of our history. America has always been closer with the European countries than anywhere else in the world so it only makes sense that we have more history with those countries, we aren't belittling the success of people from Africa or South America, they don't have as much history directly relating to us. And I know that I have never been taught that any other race or ethnicity is any different than me or my way of life.Maybe I'm just denying because I don't want to face the guilt, but I truly believe students who are committed and focused on school will not get in as much trouble as back-talking slackers, no matter what their race is.

Implicit Bias

This is the second time that I have taken the IAT. The first time I received the results that I had a slight preference towards African-Americans, and this time I got moderate preference towards African Americans. This is not as surprising to me because I have always preferred the look of African Americans, I never wanted the blond barbies as a child. My mom has always thought it may be "I want what I can't have", that since I am blonde and perpetually pale I am jealous of people who have dark hair and dark skin. I agree with her, to a point. I may have grown up in the suburbs of Chicago but I spent my summers in Charleston, SC and I was exposed to many more black people there than I was in Highland Park. I realize that this test doesn't really define who we are, many of our automatic reactions are incorrect and most definitely not what we truly believe. The environment that we grew up in is more familiar and automatically the one that we feel safer in, it isn't that all white people are racist, it is that they have seen mostly white faces their entire life.

America and the World: Americas Role in this World

A lot of people feel that America gets much too involved in other countries affairs and that we should keep to ourselves. I can definitely say that I do not agree with that. We shouldn't be starting random wars with any countries, and I think that is something that NO ONE wants despite what many people think. We shouldn't be a 'hostile' nation, we should focus our efforts in the world on specific causes that cannot be argued with. One thing that we can help is starvation in places like India and Sub-Saharan Africa. We should be able to send troops there, not to keep peace, but to bring food, water and other essentials. America is so lucky to have all these resources and one of the things that this country is founded on is that everybody should be given the opportunity to succeed. Many people in the world don't even have access to clean water and a sustainable food source. These are basic human rights and with our power and wealth we should be helping out those less fortunate. By doing this we are helping the world progress and become more innovative and educated. Of course, there is no clear answer of how to fix the problem of poverty, we should be doing everything to help out. One day all of these efforts will work, making the world a better place is easy if you have the resources for it, which America most definitely does. While it is true that we also need to be looking out for ourselves, I think that by helping out in the world we are helping ourselves. The more advanced the rest of the world becomes the smoother it will run, at least, that is what I believe.

America and the World: Russia and Europe

I think it goes without saying that we have been closer with Europe than any other part of the world. It makes sense because we have pretty similar ideals and social norms.  This partnership with Europe is really important, it stabilizes our economy and our political alliances. It may not occur to many Americans that we need to keep up this relationship because we rely on Europe as much as they rely on us. If Europe's economy collapsed, ours probably would take a large downturn if not fail itself. Something that would be really good for Europe, and in turn good for us, is if they became a more 'unified' EU. They are sharing a very small space in the world and their governments need to communicate better. I think they are moving towards this now, France and Germany seem to be getting over their bitterness towards each other and really coming together. Europe also really needs to start considering Turkey a part of them, invite them into the EU. Turkey is a key nation for us to be supporting. It would be much better for America if they did not go further into the politics in the Middle East, because we are on bad terms with the Middle East right now. Russia is also a big part of Europe that people often forget about. We may have been in a 'battle' with them for a very long time, but now that time is over and we need to kind of lobby them towards the western world because their values and political systems would fit in much better than they do in Asia.

"America and the World" America and China

China is the new world power and we shouldn’t be afraid to admit that. The world is infinitely more stable with more than one world power. The world would be even better off if the super powers played off each other’s successes. Since America was the only super power since the end of the cold war the world has actually been less stable according to many political scientists. China’s ascension into the world’s scene has been very smooth because they are not looking to overturn the current world order; they merely want to join them.  China may be huge for manufacturing but they rely heavily on imports of raw materials because they do not have much of that in their country. It should also be noted that they would have no one to sell to if they were hostile and looking to convert the world into one communist nation. And yes people in China don’t live in the same kind of free world that we do, I have a friend who moved to China because of her father’s job. They do not allow the use of facebook or personal blogs and they are very strict about the use of the internet. America shouldn’t be feeling threatened by China but we should embrace their willingness to be a part of this world and use it to our advantage. The Chinese leadership is very intelligent and they are always seeking to be more informed about the world as it is. It looks like they are looking for the open relationship with the world that would be beneficial to us, we should be wary of any personal secret relationships they make, but since they have not moved towards that it seems that we have nothing to worry about. China is up and coming faster than we could ever imagine and there is nothing wrong with that, America should look for ways that we can benefit from their rise. We cannot think of it as us losing jobs to them, but an opportunity to create more jobs in our country to work with, in tandem, with the Chinese. 

Second "America and the World" Blog

This blog will be focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first thing that we must recognize is the inability for these two countries to come to a peace agreement by themselves. Their problems are too deep rooted for them to ever come to a settlement. America can serve to aid in these negotiations but it needs to go into this completely unbiased, America cannot favor either country more than the other. Many displaced Palestinians are still living in refugee camps that are breeding grounds for terrorism. While we may identify with the Israeli cause more we need to look back to our morals and realize that we cannot let people live like that. It is damaging to our image and if we were to help both sides somehow come to an agreement they would be much better off. Because of all the conflict in the area the countries have not been able to take advantage of economic opportunities that have risen in the Middle East.  Places like Qatar and Dubai are complete economic successes, if Israel and Palestine would focus less on each other they could become very rich countries, which I think should be a bigger priority for them. But the peace treaty that needs to be started by an intermediary, like the US, needs contain certain key points to work. These points are returning the countries to the 1967 borders so the land is more equally distributed, the peaceful sharing of Jerusalem and the demilitarization of Palestine. Currently Palestine only has 22 percent of its original land, while Israel has 78 percent, and both countries have roughly the same population.  There has very rarely been peace in Jerusalem and I think it would be a refreshing change if it was peaceful for once. And since Palestine is a pretty hostel country at the moment it should definitely be stripped of its military power. Yeah Israel has quite the military but they aren’t going to use it unless they are attacked first. 

America and the World: Chapter One

In the first chapter of my book, America and the World, which is a series of conversations between Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, they discuss how we got to our current foreign policy crisis. They both agree that it started when the Cold War ended. When the Soviet Union fell we became the only remaining superpower in the world and we were riding high for a long time. As a country we did not pay enough attention to our foreign policy because we believed that we did not need to be aware of the rest of the world. But we didn't realize that the 1990's brought a change to the world, the world became closer than ever with globalization. People could find out what was happening all over the world in seconds, it was no longer just what happened in your local area that mattered. Both of these men agreed that 9/11 was our wake up call, that we realized that we needed to keep up with the world. We can't hide from the world behind our oceans, we had to get out there and keep up or we would fall behind. It was noted that we made a wrong move in invading Iraq and getting involved in Iran, but eliminating the Taliban in Afghanistan was the right thing to do because of the actual threat that it posed. One of the things that really stuck with me was that the UN is not effective anymore and that it does not work in the world that we live in today. The UN's efforts to help keep the peace in the world are futile and either they need to become more effective or they need to be disbanded because they will only end up hurting more than helping. I intend to go into foreign policy work in the future and all of these problems are worth considering because of the rapid changes in the world. America should be always looking towards the future and being more of a role model for the rest of the world instead of intervening in everything, if other countries can look at how successful we are then they can learn from our example.