Beck and Call

There's a lot of interesting things to talk about with the Tea Party rally in DC over the weekend. Interesting to me, at least. Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Alveda King were the most famous of speakers. I watched Beck's hour long speech, but I only saw clips of the others. None of what they said was particularly interesting to me. It was mostly about returning to the values of God and what it means to love this country. I did take note that Beck mentioned mosques along with churches and synagogues as places Americans should go to get back with God. Muslim Americans might face the most amount of discrimination lately, and are mistrusted by both major political parties.

It's easy to mistrust what you don't understand. There are some very hateful things in Islam. And two, the only terrorists we've seen in this country lately motivated by religion were Muslims. The word "terrorist" is nearly synonymous with "Muslim Extremist." But let's pick at this perception. There are hateful things in the Bible too. Deuteronomy says a woman who marries and is not a virgin shall be put to death. The Bible says the same about people that eat shell fish, approach altars while sick, or labor on the sabbath. What do preachers do for work? They preach the word of God on the Sabbath. So they're laboring on the Sabbath then... right? The Bible advocates beating your children into obedience, how to treat your slaves, that Lot did the just thing by sending his own daughters out into an angry mob to be sexually assaulted to spare his two male visitors. Horrible, vile stuff. But Christianity has changed with the times. In the recent past, the Christian group, The Klu Klux Klan burned crosses as acts of terrorism. We can easily recognize the KKK as an extremist group that doesn't represent Christianity. We can do that only because we are familiar with Christianity and American culture to know they are the exception. But since most of us do not know or understand Islam, all them Muslim folk seem the same to us.

I saw a political cartoon with an Arab American hopping on one leg. It was after some recent failed terrorist plot. And the guy next to the Arab American was saying something like, "...ok great, now condemn terrorism while hopping on one leg and touching your nose with both hands!"

I think it's sad the way Americans mistrust Muslim Americans. Yes, it's scary that there are terrorist cells. Yes, you never know if your Arab neighbors secretly hate you and want to kill you. But that's true of all neighbors. Crazy runs in all ethnicities, religions, and nationalities.

Anyway, when Beck mentioned it a couple times in his speech, it made me wonder if it was possible for the Republican party to reach out to Muslims. Muslims are mostly independents and feel rejected by both parties. I've heard a lot of disparaging comments about Muslims made from Conservatives. Rush Limbaugh had a link on his website to a ridiculous propaganda video about how the birth rates of Christian Americans and Europeans are slowing while Muslim Americans and Europeans are growing, meaning the Muslims are going to out breed us like cancer. It was a well produced propaganda video, which made it all the more unfortunate. I generally like Rush, and I think that 95% of the time when he's called a racist or hate monger is just plain wrong. But he does hint at playing on Islamaphobia.

While I'm on the subject of Rush and racism. I want to point out something I think is funny that Rush does. He loves pointing out hypocrisy of Liberals. Many Liberals are racist depending on how you define the word. Many believe that African Americans are racially inferior and thus need extra help. This is racist by my definition. But anyway, so Rush will play a clip or read a quote of a Liberal saying something racist. He'll do so in the beginning of his show. Then he'll take part of it out of context and repeat it in new context throughout the rest of his show. Like, with the Tiger Woods scandal. Some Liberal called Tiger a light skinned negro, or something like that. I don't remember exactly. So for the rest of the show, Rush referred to African Americans as light skinned negros. Rush wasn't trying to be racist. He was using the phrase to poke fun at Liberals and left minded people. But his critics, who don't listen to his whole show to hear what he's saying in context, will say, "See! Rush is using the term 'negro.' He's a racist!" not realizing that Rush is repeating what someone "on their side" said and that Rush is doing this on purpose to try and get this reaction. It does two things. The next day on his show, Rush can play reaction clips and read quotes from Liberals calling him a racist not realizing the original context that Rush was quoting someone else. Rush's fans, who do know the context, can then laugh at Liberals. Rush becomes more popular with his fans. Rush's enemies, who don't bother finding out the context, then hate Rush even more and thus perpetuate his notoriety. And when Rush's enemies look towards Rush's fans and calls them "sheepeople," it makes his fans laugh at them because they don't get "the joke." And thus, Rush becomes more popular with his fans. The worst thing Rush's enemies could do is say, "Rush isn't a racist. He just says silly things to get ratings." If Rush's enemies stopped hating him, it would be a career killer.

Wow, I'm really getting side tracked. So Beck organized this rally on the same spot and day in history that Martin Luther King, Jr gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. Civil rights activists, who have incorrectly decided Beck is a racist simply because he's a conservative, decided to plan a counter rally with the purpose of stopping Beck from being able to distort and rewrite history regarding King's dream.

This was a waste of time in that respect. Beck mentioned King a couple times in his speech, but those references seemed thrown in and out of place. Like he felt obligated to mention King and edited his speech last minute to do so. Otherwise, his speech had nothing to do with race or equality. I noticed that nearly every shot of the crowd during Beck's speech had African American spectators. I wondered if the camera crew did that on purpose to make the crowd seem more diverse. The Tea Party is overwhelmingly white.

In sharp contrast, Rev. Al Sharpton's counter rally was overwhelmingly black in crowd representation. Sharpton is dead wrong about his opinion of conservatives. Many of the things Sharpton said were propaganda and unfortunate. He said that "those people" at the other rally are the same people that thought of civil rights leaders are trouble makers. That's a pretty despicable thing to say.

Working out at my gym as I do on the elliptical with 10 different tvs hanging from the ceiling in front of me and a box to switch my headphone mix to which ever one, I can see how different news organizations covered the rally. The fact that King's niece, Alveda King spoke at Beck's rally really upset Liberals who want so desperately to believe Beck is a racist and see proof of it. I watched as several news reporters asked Alveda the same question, "Do you feel like you're being used by Beck and the Tea Party movement?" As if "You're being used by the Tea Party movement and disgracing your uncle. What do you have to say for yourself?" is what they really wanted to say. Alveda was gracious about it, no matter how many different reporters asked her that. Her answer was that we need to love each other.

I thought about that as I watched the speeches at Beck's rally. I had read about the counter rally. Sharpton's words were divisive, but many of the other speakers gave more conservative speeches about turning to God, doing more for the community, and of individual responsibility. It occurred to me how similar the two rallies must have been in content, and what a missed opportunity that happened. Rev. Sharpton has said a lot of things that I agreed with in the past. I mostly like him and think he's a smart man. He's just dead wrong about the Tea Party and Beck. What if he had gotten over that and combined his rally with Beck's? And what better day to do so.

Then it got me thinking about the civil rights movement of today in general. The Civil rights act granted all Americans the right to vote without facing intimidation and it ended segregation. The Community Reinvestment Act of the 70's prohibited racial discrimination of bank loans. Many other court case decisions and laws have come down since then to change the practice of overt racism. What more can the Civil Rights movement do?

Then that got my thinking should the Civil Rights movement end and we, as a society, focus instead on loving each other rather than dividing each other? It's an interesting question because, after all, the Civil Rights movement can not gather steam unless it has an enemy. Does Rev Sharpton and Jesse Jackson need Beck and Limbaugh? If the racist boogiemen aren't out there commanding their sheepeople, do Civil Rights activists have any reason to rally people? And if this is so, who is the real fear monger? I'm not suggesting racism is over. Far from it. Overt racism is over. Racism has gone into hiding and many Americans think it's gone. The Civil Rights movement looks like a relic from the passed now. True or not, has that perception undermined the movement's ability to change anything?

If the Civil Rights phase is over, what's phase 2? Like I said, racism still persists. The Curious Formula is still around. African Americans live, disproportionately, in poverty. Well, you can't ignore the fact that poor people go to poor schools and rich kids go to rich schools. So poor people stay poor and have poorly educated kids that stay poor. Republicans want school vouchers and Democrats fight it. Get poor kids out of the ghettos and into good schools and let the poor schools collapse or get taken over by better management. This, I think, is the answer. It isn't a perfect solution. It isn't going to do much in the short run. But I think it's a necessary step for a long term solution.

Until then, Alveda King is right. Instead of focusing on our differences, we should focus on loving each other.

School Planning

Today was the first day of the semester. I tried to add an Econ class and there were people standing in the back of the classroom and I wasn't even on the wait list. I got confused about what time the class started and was a couple mins late. I just looked through the window and decided not to bother opening it. That's fine. I'll take micro and macro econ next semester. There are two upper division versions offered at Sac State over the summer that I'd need to take for pre-reqs for grad school.

This is "perfect" timing. I'll get another Associate's degree this semester in Physical Science. During the Spring semester, I'll be able to apply to grad school for a Masters in Economics. At the end of the Spring Semester, I'll earn my third Associate's degree, this time in Computer Science. Over the Summer, I'll be able to take intermediate level Micro and Macro Econ and hopefully get a letter of recommendation from the instructor, then, by the end of the summer, I will have completed all the requirements needed to get into grad school starting in the fall of next year. Only problem, I'll only have a few weeks into my first Econ classes to make the decision if I even want to study Econ at all, let alone go to grad school for it and make it my career. That's a lot of pressure.

What about Computer Science? I think I'd rather do CS, but because of the budget cuts, all the CSUs are closed to people seeking second Bachelor degrees. I could go for my Masters in CS, but there's a ton more pre-req classes I need to take first. Now, CSUS(and probably the others) allows you to take classes through their Open University program without actually being enrolled. It's a different price set up, but it's not radically different in costs. The problem is that they don't let you use any form of financial aid using the Open University. Since I don't have any money, this is a problem. I'll have to get a part time job to save up the money and wipe out my savings for the two Econ classes I'll take over the summer as is, and that's just two classes.

Now, once I get into grad school for Econ, I can take undergrad Computer Science classes as well to prepare myself for that. It's the same amount of work taking the undergrad pre-reqs needed to be able to start the Computer Science Masters degree program as it would be to take the graduate level classes to finish the Econ Masters degree program. There's another problem. Due to budget cuts, Sac State is hard capping grad students to only 9 units. Well, what if I'm a grad student taking under grad classes? Am I still capped? That would cut the amount of classes I could take in half and make getting a CS take twice as long.

At this point, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to just go be an economist rather than a programmer. But is that what I want to do? I guess when the time comes, I'll have a better idea. Maybe by then, Sac State will open up to second bachelor degree students or lift their unit caps. Who knows? I get really sick and tired my life plans being conditional on uncertainty.

Megawalk

I didn't know what to expect volunteering for Meg Whitman. I showed up to a tiny campaign head quarters in Rancho Cordova. There were about 8 people there. All of them were clean cut white guys in casual dress clothes. Something about too many clean cut whites guys in one spot creeps me out. I'm just being honest here. Like I think they're going to start telling me about Jesus and how I need to be saved.

They were actually really nice, as it turned out. I let them know I had no idea what was going on, but that I've been a registered Republican all my life and I wanted to help. They put me with another guy that's done "whatever it was we were doing" before, gave us a bunch of pamphlets, a folder full of addresses, and sent the two of us out to go walking door to door. It was called a Precinct Walk, as it turned out. I really, really hate bugging people about stuff. So going door to door to talk to people was flat out not something I wanted to do. I hate it when religious people come to my house with their talking points, completely unable to put together a logical argument or be able to follow what I say to them. Now I was about to do it to other people.

It ended up not being that bad though. We only went to the houses on our list and they were homes of registered Republicans. The guy I went with, Mike, was a pretty cool guy. We never argued with people. We just listened to what people had to say. On our list, about 4 out of 5 people weren't home or didn't answer. But the ones that did, they usually told us who they were for and who against. A few people spent some time talking to us and some of the comments they made really taught me a lot.

To give you an example. I go to the bios of candidates on their websites and they all have the same layout. They start with the city they grew up in, where they got their law degree, how many years they spent in the private sector being rich and awesome, and what they want to do in office. That sounds like common sense stuff to put in a bio to try and impress people. But it occurred to me that most voters really don't care about that stuff. They don't believe politicians in the first place, so their promises are meaningless. Their stances mean nothing. How they feel about abortion, the "ground zero mosque," and the rest is meaningless if they don't have the power at their office to affect it. A County Supervisor can't repeal Roe v Wade, so who cares if they're Pro Life or not?

A guy we talked to said he can never get a hold of any of his representatives. He got the impression candidates saw lower office as a stepping stone. They don't want to be there. They don't want to serve the people. They just want to move up the ladder and get on to bigger and better things. None of the three candidates we passed out fliers for where there today. I know Meg Whitman was in San Diego today doing a walk through a mall and talking to people. I'm sure the other two were equally busy. But it got me thinking, how great would it be to be a candidate walking door to door, listening in person to people tell you what problems, unique to that area, need to be fixed? How great would it be to tell them in real time if it's something you can fix or not, or if you have an easier solution? It would sort of be like being a legislative hero. Like, "I'll save you from rising property tax hikes!" or "I'll fix those pot holes!" Dun-da-Duuunnnn! Ok, now I'm being silly. But doesn't that sound cool, being able to help people like that? Yeah, I bet potholes take months of debate to be able to fix. Government moves incredibly slow.

Something else I was thinking. If there's a problem in my community, I don't really know who to go to amongst my elected officials. I'd bet an over whelming majority of people don't even know who their elected officials are at the local level or care, let alone who is responsible for what. It would be interesting to see a website with a message board with a list of what a candidate has power over, what are the top suggestions voters in that region have to better their community, and what the status of those ideas are(for example, looking for funding, dependent on a zoning law change, up for a vote, under review, etc). It makes sense to me that all candidates should have such discussion boards where other voters can discuss these issues and the candidate can respond. But I haven't seen too many. No doubt they get clogged with spam and topics on national politics. You'd need a moderator to clean it up. But it's doable.

It reminds me of when I got into the alpha testing for the MMO game, Champions Online from Cryptic Studios. We'd make suggestions to improve the game, and people from Cryptic would say if it was a change that made sense, why if not, or they'd ask our opinions about solutions to it.

My point is, a candidate could spend a lot more time building a fanbase with voters that way rather than going to big business conventions looking for big donors. Of course, what do I know? There has to be a reason why politicians go where the money is instead of focusing on the voters. But, I'm reminded of how much my blog helped my band years back, how many people came up to me at our shows and talked to me like they knew me. I think people would respond, especially in the Facebook age where word can get around rapidly.

In either case, if I can get into some Econ classes this semester, I'll see if I like it or not. To get into grad school for Econ, I'm going to have to pretty much ace all my classes. So assuming I can add, and that's a big if since the waiting list is long, I'll make a decision at the end of this semester if this is a good path for me, or if I should stick with Computer Science.