Letter to Rosemary

Rosemary,

Thanks for your comment on my blog. I read your story and I'm sorry to hear about the trouble you had getting in to U of M. I'm sure you know a lot more about the specifics of U of M than I do, and you're right -- there are many high schools in our country where the top 10% of the graduating class will not be middle class and wealthy (or white). Therefore, Bush's "Texas 10 Percent Plan" would definitely make for a certain amount of diversity in college admissions. However, looking at the big picture (even just in a state like Michigan), I doubt there are enough of these schools to ensure that minority enrollment at our nation's most prestigious universities is even close to proportionate with the minority population of the country. In fact, there's plenty of evidence to this effect -- see, for example, this article from the Detroit Free Press which discusses the effects of Bush's and other plans that attempt to achieve diversity w/out regard to race.

As for whether Michigan's admissions policy is exclusionary, well, you're right -- it absolutely is. By definition, Michigan (and any other school) has to exclude the majority of people who apply; therefore, perhaps admissions policies should more appropriately be called "exclusions policies." And yes, unfortunately, you were one of the many excluded from U of M. Were you excluded because you're of European descent? Perhaps. However, there could have been any number of other reasons. I know that one thing admissions committees usually consider is age and maturity -- not because they have prejudice against people who are too young, but simply because they know they're not doing anyone any good if they admit someone who is not emotionally and psychologically mature enough to handle the pressures of college. Since you graduated from H.S. early, it seems possible that the admissions committee decided not to admit you because they thought you'd be more successful in school if you waited a year? It also seems very possible that some of those "less academically qualified" minorities you knew who were admitted had been through different life experiences that suggested to the admissions committee that they were better prepared for challenges they'd face at the university. I assume by "less academically qualified" you mean by this that they had lower GPAs or test scores? Or are you also considering honor societies and club memberships? What about work experience? What about the neighborhood they grew up in? What about participation in volunteer and civic activities? What about that whole "overcoming adversity" thing? Which do you think is the most qualified 18-year-old: The straight-A student who has grown up in a relatively stable family and home (someone with "all the trimmings"), or the B or C student who ended up in jail by the time he/she was 14 and then turned his/her life around in the final years of high school and wrote a great essay showing how committed he/she is to success in college? From where I sit, there's no easy answer to that question, but I'm sure it's one admissions committees have to face more often than you think.

Finally, I wonder if the divide on this issue comes down to how we view ourselves and each other. If an admissions committee thinks your success in high school was the result of your individual merit and effort, they're going to try to reward you for that and admit you. OTOH, if the committee thinks your success was the result of your individual merit and effort combined with your circumstances in life (parents, friends, home life, etc.), then that committee is going to look beyond your numbers for other reasons to admit you. People who take the Bush position on this issue want to believe -- and they want you and me to believe -- that we're all inviolate individuals, that we, alone, are responsible for our actions and our fate in life, and that all other factors are irrelevant. This fantasy makes them feel better when they see homeless people on the street and experience a momentary pang of conscience that asks, "Why am I so wealthy while he is so poor?" If they can answer with "Because I'm just a better person than he is," then they can keep walking and feel no guilt. This myth of the individual is much simpler than trying to account for all the factors and people who have helped us get where we are (good or bad) in life. People against affirmative action want life to be clean and simple (like Rupert who comments on your blog that he "just want[s] a simple answer"). Too bad life isn't simple, as your own experience so clearly shows. The bright side might just be that you learned a lot more from being rejected at U of M (and from the course your life took from that point) than you might have learned had you been admitted. I hope so.

Posted 10:10 AM | general politics

Progress—Finally!

Finally all five schools I've applied to have requested my file from LSDAS. The waiting game continues, but at least this is a sign that the application process is moving along...

Posted 11:56 AM | law school

Conspiracy, Death Penalty

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a lot of talk about "connecting the dots" and there were a lot of questions about why the CIA, FBA, NSA, etc. hadn't been able to make the connections. Well, who needs a bunch of bloated and insidious government agencies to connect the dots when you can do it yourself? Check out Alternet's Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of 2002 for dot-connecting extraordinaire.

In other news, Mark Fiore has some reassuring news for those who are dismayed that the death penalty is under attack after Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of everyone on death row in his state: Execution by AmeriCo—Alive and Well!. I tried to say about the same thing the other day (scroll down to the 5th paragraph), but the beauty of cartoons is often their concise eloquence.

Posted 11:48 AM | Comments (1) | general politics

Imaginary Relations

Perhaps it's all the talk of various tax/stimulus proposals, but articles about economic and social class in America seem to be popping up all over. First there was The Triumph of Hope Over Self-Interest in which David Brooks argued that political movements based on class issues will never be successful in America because everyone so deeply believes he/she either is middle class or will be soon. Brooks contends that this is true because Americans are just so damned hopeful and optimistic—they prefer to believe anything is possible rather than accept some negative idea that they're going to be stuck shoveling crap their whole lives. What Brooks fails to address there is how people become so "optimistic" in the first place, and how they maintain that "optimism" in the face of ugly reality. Then answer to those questions is simple: Hollywood (and the media more generally) is a great teacher and reinforcer.

To help explain how this works, check out Scenes from the Class Struggle on Fox, in which Carina Chocano takes on "Joe Millionaire," Fox's little ditty wherein a $19k/year construction worker pretends to be worth $50 million while 20 women vie for his affections. She's right—the show would be ten times better if it featured the truly rich; only then would the show be able to emphasize the social inequalities and injustices created by class difference. But that's surely something Fox would never want to do since one of TV's major functions in our society is to reinforce the dream and myth that we can all be rich someday, or at least middle class.

Even better is Caryn James' Upward Mobility and Downright Lies, which takes on movies like "Maid in Manhattan" and "Sweet Home Alabama" to make the same point: Hollywood narratives repeatedly argue that upward social mobility is an easy, everyday occurrence in America. However:

that persistent idea ignores the realities of today's economy and research about social mobility. The aristocratic politician Ralph Fiennes plays in "Maid in Manhattan" precisely fits the profile described by the Princeton economist Alan B. Krueger in a November article in The New York Times, which said that new studies show it takes an average of five or six generations to change a family's economic position, and that wealth tends to linger in families. Such inherited wealth helps create political dynasties like that of the Bushes and of the Fiennes character — an assemblyman, a senator's son running for his father's seat, and not the kind of guy likely to take up with a maid. As Mr. Krueger added in an interview, "Recent trends in income distribution have made upward mobility less likely" than it was even 20 years ago.

And such research isn't brand new. As Kevin Phillips says in "Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich," published last year, the increasing gap between the median American family income and the richest 1 percent has been "a point of national discussion for over a decade." By the turn of the 21st century, he writes, the United States "had also become the West's citadel of inherited wealth."

"Aristocracy," he adds, "was a cultural and economic fact."

The people who are perhaps most resistant to this message are those few who really have moved upward—the nouveau riche—and boy do they get mad when anyone questions their social position. [link via Slactivist] The kind of militant self-absorption shown in such rants is perhaps the extreme form of what's motivating the current Bush position on affirmative action—both arguments are founded on the idea that people should earn what they have in life, rather than having it given to them. I mean, that's what Bush did, right? But the logic behind those arguments is that we should live in a fair, just, and equal world—if one person has to work for what he/she has, others should also have to work for what they have—and this is exactly the point: People who argue for real tax relief for poorer Americans or for affirmative action programs are not asking for handouts and free rides, they're also asking for a more equal and just world. The difference is that the social conservatives believe they got wherever they are on their own, while progressives recognize that we are interdependent, social animals who don't live in our own personal vacuums.

Posted 10:09 AM | general politics

Failure of Courts

Larry Lessig's candid meditations on the recent Supreme Court decision against the public domain in Eldred v. Ashcroft offer a fascinating look into the mind of a Constitutional lawyer of international repute. Lessig is understandably disappointed in the Court's decision, and it seems he's doing some soul-searching to reassess how he feels about the law, the courts, and the principles that have motivated him thus far:

But as I read these opinions, I realize the hardest part for me is elsewhere. I have spent more than a decade of my life teaching constitutional law—and teaching it in a particularly unfashionable way. As any of my students will attest, my aim is always to say that we should try to understand what the court does in a consistently principled way. We should learn to read what the court does, not as the actions of politicians, but as people who are applying the law as principle, in as principled a manner as they can. There are exceptions, no doubt. And especially in times of crisis, one must expect mistakes. But as OJ’s trial is not a measure of the jury system, Bush v. Gore is not a measure of the Supreme Court. It is the ordinary case one needs to explain. And explain it as a matter of principle.

I’m not sure how to do that here. I don’t see what the argument is that would show why it is the Court’s role to police Congress’s power to protect states, but not to protect the public domain. I don’t see the argument, and none of the five made it. Nor have any of the advocates on the other side identified what that principle is.

As someone who plans to start law school in the fall (if someone would just let me in ferchrissake!) and who has read Lessig's The Future of Ideas, it's a little difficult to watch Lessig's disillusionment. He talks about being naive, but could anyone really think the law was a matter of principle and not, at the same time, a matter of politics? Do Constitutional lawyers really teach (and believe) that the Supreme Court somehow functions on a higher plane than the rest of the world, a plane where there is always a valid and just reason for all decision/actions? I suppose something like that is necessary if people are going to accept that the Court's decisions are pretty much the last word on the contentious issues in our society, but it seems pretty clearly to be another in the many fantasies that compose our national self-narrative (i.e.: "Everyone has an equal chance to succeed in America!" "America is always working for greater peace, justice and democracy in the world! "The Supreme Court makes decisions on principle, not politics.")

The comments to Lessig's post help put it into context. Since the individual comments don't have permalinks, I'll post a bit from my favorite here: After reminding us that we live in a country in which the President can declare a "Sanctity of Life Day" despite Roe v. Wade, a country in which citizens can become "enemy combatants" and lose virtually all of their rights simply on the government's say-so, and a country whose President was installed by this very Supreme Court, this poster connects the dots:

All along, you’ve treated Copyright as an issue separate from encroaching fascism. But it isn’t: fascism is the union of state and corporate interests.

And that’s the real message of this decision: corporate interests won out over a perfectly valid and good constitutional argument, and this is perfectly in keeping with the times we live in.

Prof., it’s time to come off of the fence: the problem is political, not legal, and it goes far further than just copyright.

This battle is lost. You could turn around and say “well, that was the war, and we lost, and it’s over until the next copyright case”. And that would be ok, valid as far as it goes.

Or you could say “That was the battle, and we lost because the Supreme Court no longer serves the interestes of the people, but has been corruped as have most other branches of our government: by corporate interests and big money. And so, for justice to ve served, we must continue the battle against those interests, until our democracy is restored“.

You’re good enough to make a difference. Rest a while, and then get to work.

Think about that for a minute: "Fascism is the union of state and corporate interests." Does that seem like the world you live in? Why is Bush pushing "tort reform"? Is it to help corporations, or citizens? Why does Bush refuse to participate in the Kyoto Protocol on global warming? Does that help corporations, or citizens? Why have Republicans pushed "deregulation" of nearly everything for years? Does deregulation help corporations, or citizens? Hmmm...

On the question of faith in the legal system, see also the recent case of Bush v. Kucinich, or another case decided by Bush-appointed Federal Judge John Bates in which Bates rejected the General Accounting Office's attempt to subpoena the records of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. Bates appears to be saying that there's almost no way to use the legal system to hold the executive branch accountable for its actions. Imperial presidency, anyone?

But, of course, there's always a vocal contingent in support of the good old American way. According to Jeff Jarvis, the Eldred side in Eldred v. Ashcroft was the "communist" side. I wonder if people like Jarvis have ever considered that an enormous amount of the technology they use to produce their web content is available to them only because it was released to the public domain. Right.

UPDATE: Do you Want to Believe?

Posted 09:05 AM | law school

Educational Economies

Yesterday President Bush said the University of Michigan's admissions system is an unfair and unconstitutional "quota system." Meanwhile:

At a White House briefing, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer highlighted a program Bush spearheaded as governor of Texas.

Bush opposed racial preferences at state universities, opting instead for a program he calls "affirmative access," under which the top 10 percent of all high school students are eligible for admission.

Ok, so we have the Bush Administration's position—get rid of race as a factor in college admissions and replace it with merit. Sounds good, doesn't it? And that's the trouble—like nearly all of Bush's policies, it sounds good, but in practice it's just not that simple.

Let's grant that quota systems are bad, and that there has never been an affirmative action program without flaws. Let's also put aside for the moment the fact that Michigan's admissions system is not, in fact, a quota system, and that it is not in any way exclusionary toward anyone. Let's say that we buy Bush's argument and give automatic entry to the top 10 percent of all high school students in Michigan. Who do you think that 10 percent is going to be? Well, let's look at what kinds of things help students make it to the top 10 percent of their class. Things that probably help students perform well are having parents who went to college, having perhaps one parent who doesn't work and has time (and a car) to take the kids to extra-curricular activities and to help and encourage them with their homework. It also probably helps to have parents who can pay for those extracurricular activities, and have the time and resources to seek out the best ones. I'm sure it also helps to live in a stable household in a safe and comfortable neighborhood so you can focus on learning and developing practical (socially acceptable) skills instead of worrying about your safety all the time. What all this means is that the top 10 percent of any school class is going be comprised primarily of middle-class and wealthy students. Money is closely correlated with "success" in our culture. So Bush might be right that considering race in admissions is not necessary, but privileging "merit" will only increase the gaps between the haves and the have-nots in this country; it may or may not increase racial and ethnic diversity, but it certainly will make higher education more economically homogenous (which would be just fine for Bush and Co.).

Underlying Bush's position here and on so many issues is one of the central myths that conservatives (or more precisely, neoconservatives) like Bush want to believe—and they want us to believe—namely, that we live in a friction-free world governed by "natural" laws (e.g., the "law" of supply and demand) which allow us to make clear and simple connections between cause and effect, action and reaction. For neoconservatives, if you work hard in school (and you're "smart"), you'll naturally (as if by natural law) rise to the top of your class. There are no complicating factors in his equation—factors like race or economic inequalities. No, for neocons it's simply, "work hard, reap your rewards." And while we all know this isn't true, we all want to believe it is because we'd all like to live in such a simple world. Too bad we don't and can't.

Here's where the Bush stand on Michigan's admissions policies [1] connects with his position on the economy: To make college admissions more fair we should not privilege race, but poverty. But, of course, we couldn't do that, because that would be "class warfare," and as we all know, poverty is always only a temporary rest stop on the highways of American life, all of which lead to fame, fortune, and magnificent success. It's not true, but people want to believe it so badly that they'll simply ignore overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For example, no one really believes Bush became President through hard work or intelligence—at least not through these qualities alone. His birth into a wealthy and well-connected family also had an enormous effect on the course of his life. Yet, instead of taking Bush himself as proof that the Horatio Alger, protestant work ethic, anyone can succeed in America narrative is 99 percent fiction, Americans seem to pretend that somehow Bush as an exception to the rule. "Oh yeah, Bush got where he is 'cause his daddy was rich, but still, anyone can succeed in America." Conservative author David Brooks recently explained exactly how this works (although for him it's a good thing). Unfortunately, in many ways, Brooks' analysis sounds all too accurate. Where he's wrong is that Americans aren't suffering from false consciousness. After explaining that "Americans admire the rich," Brooks contradicts himself when he writes:

Nor are Americans suffering from false consciousness. You go to a town where the factories have closed and people who once earned $14 an hour now work for $8 an hour. They've taken their hits. But odds are you will find their faith in hard work and self-reliance undiminished, and their suspicion of Washington unchanged.

The contradiction is that Brooks is arguing that Americans are not suffering from false consciousness, yet he admits they maintain their faith in "hard work and self-reliance," despite the fact that their experience proves to them over and over that these great values will not bring them success in this country—especially as "free trade" moves more and more jobs overseas or forces American workers to accept lower wages, while Bush proposes to allow the richest 1 percent of Americans to keep even more of their vast wealth. The definition of false consciousness is believing X in the face of overwhelming evidence for Y, so how can Brooks claim that the average American consciousness isn't a false one? (See also the letters responding to Brooks' piece.)

Regardless, Brooks is correct that Americans don't like to be reminded that they're not rich, or that they might never get rich thanks to structural inequalities (like education or tax policies). This is why Bush can keep a straight face when he proposes a tax plan that overwhelmingly and unashamedly favors the rich; he knows that as long as he can keep his smirk in check, he can tell Americans that giving money to rich people is good for poor people, and that cutting the government's income while increasing its expenses (primarily for the military) is also good for the country. It doesn't make sense, it flies in the face of their own experience, but they want to believe it's true, so the administration might just get away with it. The logic of this plan relies on more of those "natural" laws that neocons love so much. This time it's that if you give a rich person a dollar, he/she will invest it. While this may be true, again, the way this works is not that simple. Since we don't live in a friction-free world, wealthy Americans who save tax money may invest it, but that investment is not necessarily going to benefit average Americans because, in a global economy, there's no telling where an invested dollar might go. On the other hand, if you allow poorer people to keep more of their money, they'll almost certainly spend it places where it will help local economies and conditions—places like grocery stores. But in presenting plans like this, Bush relies on the the American public's desire to live in a simple world, and it's much simpler just to accept the President's arguments than it is to dig out the reality that they obscure.

More than 90 years ago Antonio Gramsci wrote:

What comes to pass does so not so much because a few people want it to happen, as because the mass of citizens abdicate their responsibility and let things be.

Bush's "success" as President proves Gramsci correct.

Footnote:
[1] And it's not just Michigan's admissions policy—Bush's entire educational agenda is founded on this myth that if you simply work hard you'll succeed, regardless of other factors. His support for charter schools and voucher programs is based on the same logic, a sort of social darwinism that continuously blames the victims as it steadily widens the gap between rich and poor, have and have-not. The kinds of "choices" that these programs allow students and parents to make are only available to those with the resources to make them (the wealthy). So vouchers and charter schools allow wealthy students to aggregate with other wealthy students, allowing their parents to pool their resources to make superschools, while poorer students are left to fend for themselves in the "bad" schools that will now have fewer resources than ever. Oh, but if you work hard, you can do anything in America.

Posted 02:26 PM | Comments (1) | general politics

Free Books

Check out Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, a new sci-fi novel by first-time novelist Cory Doctorow. Under one of the new licenses from Creative Commons, the complete book is available to download absolutely free in a variety of forms. You can even print a copy for yourself, if you so desire. Of course, you can also buy a copy of the real thing—an actual, dead-tree, bound book. It's an interesting and refreshing experiment, especially in light of the Supreme Court's awful decision yesterday against the public domain. Copyfight has just about all the news that's fit to click regarding the decision. [link via Scripting News, which also links today to more inside scoop from Lessig on the decision.]

Instead of getting all morbid and ranting about what a huge step backward this is for freedom and creativity and American culture, I'll just ask: Is Cory Doctorow related in anyway to E.L. Doctorow of Ragtime fame?

Posted 12:47 PM | ai books

SUVs and SOBs II

The first installment of SUVs and SOBs talked about Keith Bradsher's new book, High and Mighty: SUVs, which debunks the myths of SUVs as safe vehicles (for their drivers or anyone else), and argues that driving SUVs is immoral on multiple levels—primarily because SUVs pose such a threat to drivers in other vehicles and because they consume so many resources. It turns out that Bradsher's book couldn't have come out at a better time. First, and most recently, you've probably heard about the "SUVs support terrorism" ad campaign being led by Arianna Huffington, and also about the tv stations refusing to run them. Call it a more aggressive take on last November's "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign; both are attempts to get people to think about the effects their massive consumption of resources might have on the world around them. Of course, as Bradsher's book shows, such campaigns will largely fall on deaf ears if they try to reach SUV drivers, since, on average, SUV drivers are very antisocial people. That's why the Huffington campaign seems so great to me—it makes an argument that's sensational enough to get people who don't drive SUVs to question those who do. With enough of that kind of thing, even antisocial SUV drivers might find the disapproval associated w/driving their vehicles too much to take. If the campaign seems far-fetched, don't forget that the U.S. government produced similar propaganda during WWII. (My favorite slogan: "Should brave men die so you can drive?")

Meanwhile, did you know that our tax code offers huge incentives to Detroit to continue making SUVs, and to buyers to continue buying them? It's true. First, a tax loophole exempts "light trucks" from a tax automakers pay on high-pollution vehicles they sell. (Note: The information I found on this is from 2000, so this may have been changed since then.)

Second, another tax loophole gives tax rebates to buyers of the largest SUVs. Apparently only "small business owners" qualify for this rebate, but there are enough of them to translate into a lot more SUVs on the roads. Plus, since the tax advantage is so great—as much as $25,000, which might make a $50k SUV downright affordable—that lots of small business owners who have no use for an SUV are choosing to buy one anyway, just because it's such a good deal for them. I understand that this tax break was meant to help small business owners afford the equipment necessary for the work they do, but the unintended consequences here are too serious to ignore.

Posted 11:39 AM | Comments (1) | general politics

What War?

This may sound random, but I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I keep hearing things about our "wartime President" and that this or that is necessary in "a time of war." The thing is, I just can't find any evidence—other than rhetoric from the Bush Administration, of course—that we, the United States, are at war. Did Congress ever officially declare war on anyone or anything? Did I miss that somewhere? And if not, shouldn't we be concerned that our government is in violation of Article I of the Constitution of the U.S. if it claims to be at war w/out official declaration from Congress?

I'm not talking about a war against Iraq, specifically, but a war on anything—terrorism, terrorists, Osama bin Laden. I mean, many people have said we're at war with these things, but there's a difference between people (even the President of the U.S.) saying we're at war and the U.S. Congress officially declaring war. I know, for example, that Congress "authorized the use of force" against Iraq, but does that mean war? Does that authorization give Bush and the Defense Department and everyone else the same rights and options that an official declaration of war would give them?

A Google search on the subject turns up some interesting things from the past year or so, but if anything, all these pieces simply raise the problem (or related problems), but don't answer it. The one piece that seems to directly address the question of whether the U.S. is really at war with anything argues pretty convincingly that, indeed, it is not.

As I write this, I vaguely recall some punditry about this problem sometime in the last 18 months, but for some reason, no one seems interested in pressing the point that we've got a problem if we allow presidential rhetoric to push us into a war that seems to exist only because the executive branch of government says it does. I've been told that the last time Congress actually declared war was WWII, meaning that Korea, Vietnam, and Gulf War I were all wars in which Congress abdicated its responsibilities. So I guess the precedent for this was set long ago and we can expect to go to "war" any time a President decides we should, despite the fact that the framers of the Constitution wanted to prevent exactly that possibility when they gave Congress the responsibility to "make" (later changed to "declare") war. Brave new world and all that, I guess?

Posted 10:49 AM | general politics

What Will Be in 2003?

Hi hi hi hi. After a looong and luxuriously stress-free break from school/work and other demands of "real" life, the time has come for getting back to business—both here at ai and elsewhere. But rather than bore you with a litany of the mundane and unfun things I now must do to prepare for the spring semester (which begins next week), I'm going to indulge in the belated but fun ritual of annual predictions/hopes. I'm no oracle, so these are just a few ideas that are a combination of what I think might happen, as well as what I hope will happen in 2003.

First, we're going to war. [1] I still have hope that this won't happen, but not much. What I think will happen is that the U.S. will commence battle during sweeps month (is that Feb. or March?), both to get maximum viewers for the show when they want to brag about something, as well as to make sure there are plenty of other diversions (in the form of a new tv lineup) for American couch potatoes if things don't go smoothly. There seems lots of reason to believe things won't go that smoothly for the U.S.—Iraq could attack Israel or gas U.S. troops, or the growing peace movement could reach critical mass and U.S. leadership could find itself engaged in a war w/out popular support. (This would be especially likely if Rep. Charles Rangel is successful in his attempt to bring back the draft. He won't be, but his effort has opened a new avenue for critique of Bush's war plans.) At this point it's looking like the best outcome here is that an attack on Iraq creates enough global anger at the Bush administration that the U.S. will be forced to start playing nicely with others and the Bush administration will have zero hope of being re-elected in 2004.

Many things in 2003 will likely hinge on what happens w/Iraq and N. Korea. If there is war on Iraq, and if it is "successful" (meaning not too many Americans die and somehow international and domestic opinion blesses it as a "good or at least not bad thing"), the Bush Administration will probably have carte blanche to continue its insanity of tax cuts, increased military spending, and starving all other domestic and social programs. But that's a big if. On the other hand, if the Iraqi war doesn't happen or goes south somehow, perhaps Americans will wake up and start being a little more critical of the dismal places Washington is sending our country (and our world). Already it's starting to look like Democrats (and many Republicans) are gaining traction w/their criticism of Bush's tax cut/"stimulus" plan—very few people seem convinced that allowing the wealthiest Americans to keep more cash is really good for anyone but the wealthiest Americans. [2]

In 2003 we'll see a shakedown of democratic candidates for President. I haven't had a chance to really take a look at the field as it's forming, but from the little I've seen, John Edwards looks like a great potential candidate. I'll be following his campaign via Oliver Willis' blog, Americans for John Edwards. If Edwards can maintain his "raw potential" approach as something of a Democratic outsider (and if he really turns out to be the people's candidate he claims to be), he just might be able to re-invigorate the Democratic Party and have a good chance at getting the nomination. With regard to the 2004 election, I predict (hope) that as the contest heats up, a vigorous national debate will begin about the value of the electoral college. [3] Following an earlier post on the subject, I also predict that blogs will begin to play a bigger role in the political process. [4]

In an issue of special local interest, I predict (hope) that Illinois Gov. George Ryan's commutation of death sentences in Illinois will trigger a nationwide debate about the justice and necessity of the death penalty. Have you ever stopped to think about the connection between the death penalty and the U.S.'s militant foreign policy? Is it merely a coincidence that one of the only "free" countries in the world that still sanctions state executions is also the "free" country that is most aggressive militarily? We seem to have a culture that says that when someone does something we really don't like, that person has to die. On a micro level, this means the death penalty; on a macro level, it means war. In most free countries, people do not sanction state executions; they put a higher premium on human life than we do. Perhaps this also makes them much more reluctant to go to war. I submit that this is a good thing. So here's hoping that Americans will pause to seriously examine their approach to state-sanctioned murder on both micro and macro levels.

Another domestic conversation that will continue to heat up in 2003 concerns America's dependence on foreign oil, global environmental degradation, and the morality of driving SUVs. I've talked about this before, but also look for an upcoming post to return to this—it's becoming one of my favorite topics.

In my own life, it's looking more likely that by August I will be living in D.C., where I hope to be attending law school. Right now my ideal scenario is that I'll be awarded the Public Interest Scholarship at American University, which will allow me to afford to pay rent, eat, and be a good student. Honestly, the prospect of attending law school without a really significant scholarship is looking pretty scary. How do you concentrate on your classes when every breath you take costs approximately $5?

Finally, I have yet to hear from any marketing/video maestros with brilliant ideas of how I should go about selling myself to the producers of "Survivor," so whether 2003 will see me taking a critique of social darwinism to national prime-time television remains an open question. ;-)

Footnote:
[1] This "war" will not only ultimately prove a mistake for America's long-term health and security, but it will also be illegal and reveal some of the deep problems with our so-called "democracy"—primarily that Congress has abdicated its constitutional responsibility to declare war. This is such a crazy fact that it deserves a post of its own—look for it to follow this post.

[2] I heard Cokie Roberts on NPR this morning saying that the Bush Administration is breaking new ground in attempting to use tax policy for purposes of social engineering by reducing the so-called "marriage penalty," rewarding investment in the stock market, etc. I couldn't believe what I was hearing; tax policy has always been used for social engineering—it's called redistribution of wealth! The problem with the Bush vision is that it wants to do all it can to make sure wealth is redistributed up into the higher classes, rather than the other way around. If there's anything new about this it's simply the brazeness with which it's now being done. In the past the plutocrats tried to be more discrete about their attempts to shortchange the poorest Americans in favor of the wealthiest; now they seem to feel they don't even need to pretend anymore.)

[3] For those readers who have detected any cynicism in ai, please attempt to recall the last time there was a vigorous national debate about anything. If, like me, you have trouble thinking of a recent example, I think you'll agree that my predictions in this regard are quite optimistic—utopian, even. ;-)

[4] If you haven't heard it already, check out the story of Tara Sue Grubman, the woman who sort of ran for Congress via a blog. She didn't win, but she did show the value of a blog to allow voters to get to know a candidate, and to allow a candidate to communicate directly w/voters in a relatively raw way. Sure, a blog could be "spun and polished" just like a tv commercial, so blogs will likely have a positive effect on the political process only if candidates use them honestly. Yes, another big "if."

Posted 09:39 AM | life generally