Web Critique 15

Website Name:  http://amnesty.org
Operated By:  Amnesty International
Funded By: Donations

The website of Amnesty International is a very good resource to people who would like to have their eyes open to human rights violations around the world. I believe the best feature of the website is the ability to look, by country, at current human rights violations. There is also a downloadable PDF file titled “The State of the World’s Human Rights”. Amnesty publishes such a report each year outlining the state of human rights by region and by country. They offer the report in a good number of different languages. There are many fantastic education resources on the site, many of which are in other languages than English, such as “Human Rights Bingo”, education blogs, the link to Amnesty’s site www.respectmyrights.org which has two great interactive tools, the Poverty Trap, and the Housing Journey regarding how lack of housing affects human rights, and more. Overall, Amnesty International is doing good work. I don’t personally agree with all of their stances, but they are a loud voice for many many good causes and their website is a big part of their movement. 

Instructor Notes - Equality & Civil Rights

Instructor Notes for Week 12 - Chapter 16 - Equality & Civil Rights It is amazing to many that the hard won civil rights we are studying this chapter this week are now being questioned by some in our society. Beginning with the issue of race, there is an excellent book entitled The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, the former director of the Racial Justice Project of the ACLU in Northern California. She also served as a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court. In it she says, “Recent data shows, though, that much of black progress is a myth. In many respects, African-Americans are doing no better than they were when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and uprisings swept inner cities across America. Nearly a quarter of African-Americans live below the poverty line today, approximately the same percentage as in 1968. The black child poverty rate is actually higher now than it was then. Unemployment rates in black communities rival those in Third World countries. And that's with affirmative action! When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our "colorblind" society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure--the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate.” An excellent synopsis of the book can be read athttp://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/glenn_loury/louryhomepage/teaching/Ec%20137/The%20New%20Jim%20Crow-from%20The%20Nation.pdf (Links to an external site.)  If you have not read it, I suggest you put it at the top of your list. If you don’t have time to read the book, watch this video - THE NEW JIM CROW Online Documentary   (Links to an external site.) During the 2012 election cycle, we heard and read about irregularities with our various state voting systems and the number of voter suppression laws that have been passed in numerous states. It was not really that many years ago that women finally got the right to vote in this country and now many are being disenfranchised by these new laws. Once again, the issue of affirmative action is before the Supreme Court of the United States. After integrating our schools with the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we now see many of our schools walking back their integration policies used for years, i.e. here in the city of Wichita. The 2012 election cycle has also highlighted class wars between the top 1% and the 99% and the “War on Women” concerning equal pay for equal work and personal health choices for American women.   All of the above issues are still relevant today so pay close attention to this chapter this week and you will be better able to discuss these issues and make decisions about who you want to represent you and your family at the local, state and national levels. Finally, with the most recent issues being raised about local policing and our civil rights, I'd like to share this video with students so that you will be protected if you are stopped by the police. Most of our officers follow the rules and will not use undue force with the public. But, it is good to know how to behave in these circumstances and hopefully have the best possible outcome.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDptsf81lVc&list=UUV3Nm3T-XAgVhKH9jT0ViRg (Links to an external site.)

Discussion 7

Prompt: Should former members of Congress be free to become lobbyists once they leave office?

My response:

Yes, for two reasons. 

(1) To restrict this would be infringing the freedom of both the interest group and also the ex-Congressperson.

(2) The whole reason for hiring ex-members of Congress is that they are knowledgeable about how the government works. They are highly desired for their experience. It makes sense for interest groups to hire members of Congress. Interest groups are fine and are an important part of the pluralist model. We don't want unqualified people running interest groups in America. I think it's best if we have great minds working in the interest groups and then they can all duke it out together. :)

Instructor's Notes-Ch. 1 and 2

by Dr. Ramona Becker

Instructor Notes for Part One - PartOne in the textbook (Chapter 1 - Freedom, Order, or Equality &Chapter 2 Majoritarian or Pluralist Democracy) Two themes underlie The Challege of Democracy. The first is that contemporary government involves tradeoffs between three important political values--freedom, order, andequality. Keep these political values in mind as we study and discuss issues this semester.In the Overview each week, you will find a brief synopsis of the chapter(s) that should be quite helpful to you. When appropriate videos are available online, the links will be provided to you in this area. Each week's assignments will have the same basic format. Each lesson will have a Discussion Forum that is a critical part of the class. You may select the discussion question(s) that interest you the most. You will have a self-test that you may take as many times as you like until you achieve the grade you desire. It will be graded and should be an easy A most of the time. You will also have a Web Critique to do each week. You may select which website you want to critique from the choices provided. My students in past classes have truly enjoyed and appreciated these great links.

Discussion 4

Prompt:  

In the United States, the mass media are predominantly owned by for-profit corporations. Do those companies have any particular obligation to the public in how they cover the news? Or, is their obligation to simply focus on returning a profit for their investors?

My response:

I think that morally, these corporations should be committed to providing truthful information to the public. However, even the most committed to honestly still may subtly instill a bias into their reporting. Also, from a Capitalistic standpoint, the media will do what it takes to continue receiving funding from their corporate owners. These two simple facts are why we as the public need to be discerning when processing data from the mass media. Simply asking ourselves "what are they really trying to say?" or "what message are they trying to imprint upon the public?" can go a long way in decoding the rhetoric so commonly seen especially in newspaper headlines, major television news channels, or opinion websites. The reason I mention rhetoric is because many reporters, writers, news anchors, and politicians are expert rhetoricians. They know how to say something and send a message that may not be overt. I am not saying we should be constantly fearing conspiracies or brainwashing, just that we need to realize that everyone has an angle, which is not a bad thing. It's only natural. We can have freedom from being tossed to and fro by the opinions of the mass media with a little thinkwork of our own. 

Freedom vs. Order Discussion

Original Prompt:
Considering what values are most important to you, is freedom more important than order? If there is an issue, such as airport security, how much freedom is the right amount an individual should have to surrender for his/her safety? 

My response:

"I think that freedom and order must be balanced. I don't think one is honestly any more important than the other, because order is needed to protect our freedoms. Without enforcement of order for myself, those around me may have their rights infringed by me.  In difficult situations, I think that there are a few considerations. The first consideration is the magnitude of the risk to others. The basic right is life. In the example given (airport security) the damage that can be done is great, so people should be willing to give some freedoms (a search of personal belongings, body scan with x-ray, etc).  The second consideration is that in that case, passengers are actually giving up some of their freedoms in exchange for the protection of their basic rights to life/property. Third consideration is that if they have nothing to hide, a minor inspection should not be too offending. So, I think that currently the giving up of some rights to privacy is a reasonable amount of freedom to require passengers to give up."

In Response to:

Article shared by Dr. B:http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery

Me: "I think that the 2nd Amendment article makes very good points, which very well may be why the Civil War was so violent, but may it also be that the Framers of the Constitution were also protecting our right as stated in the Declaration that "it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."? How would a people ever hope to wage a revolution without bearing arms? No government which wielded such power would give it up easily. I am not saying this needs to be done by any means, but that if we are to retain the right to choose a government for ourselves, the means by which that may be done in the face of tyranny and abuse must be retained."