Post Free Week

Sorry folks, but there will be no new post this week. I'm taking a temporary break before addressing the big surprise topic of this month next week. This week's quote is by Mustafa Kemal, the leader of Turkey in the wake of the end of the Ottoman Empire. I like his leadership style, and the way he handled the Turkish people in the face of collapse was great. So until next week, bye!

Why Right Ain't Right: The Rise of Right-Wing Extremism

Greetings and welcome all to my blog!

I have made this post on Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. day, not because it necessarily relates to his cause, but because it is a Monday holiday. This week I tackle the growing global movement towards nationalism and right-wing extremism that the USA and other countries seem to be taking. A horrifying event to me, it is something that needs to be addressed. This week's quote is by Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Russian Bolshevik party which overthrew Tsar Nicholas the Second in the early 20th century and implemented communism. I enjoy his quotes. 

Moving on, rightist extremism is a fairly visible trend, at home and abroad. Here in America, it can be seen with the increasingly conservative Republican Party, which continually distances itself from its past leaders claiming that they were too "liberal". In the rest of the world, it can be seen in right-winged leaders taking power in many countries in order to cut spending and alleviate economic hardships. In more extreme forms, it can be in political activists or groups making very strong displays of what they believe, sometimes violently. No matter where or under what circumstances, this is a serious omen. While conservatives may not feel any problem, increasing rightism in the world is not something new. We have experienced something like this before. 

During the 1920s and 1930s, to be specific. Under eerily similar conditions, the power of the right-wing became swelled on a global scale. And don't think I'm joking here, either. The rise of these leaders and movements was primarily due to harsh economic troubles and fear for the safety of nations. Back then, military leaders and extreme rightists took power by taking advantage of this fear. Hitler, Mussolini, and eventually Franco all took hold of incredibly vulnerable countries, with devastating results. Most of us are familiar with World War 2 and the Holocaust, I presume. Fascism was the main concern; the rise of absolute autocrats in Europe and Latin America became very apparent once Germany invaded Poland. The US didn't even make real attempts towards helping the world until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. But the fact of the matter was that humanity began to realize just how dark the souls of humans become. We saw for the first time just how terrible things got when we turned our backs on each other. We saw how easily we could be manipulated, and what the consequences were when it happened. I don't consider fascism truly "defeated" until Franco's Spain was toppled at his death, although some say it ended when the war did. We thought it was all over.

It may not be. Look at what is going on. The world is experiencing an economic slump greater than it has felt in decades. Money is tight, and people are scared. They fear for their families, friends, and selves. But few fear for those other than their compatriots. Right-winged leaders are taking hold once more in Europe, and Latin America may be soon to follow. They are numerous, and control some powerful countries; Cameron in the UK, Sarkozy in France, Rajoy in Spain, Monti in Italy, Merkel in Germany, the list goes on and on. The point is that we may be headed in a direction we have already been on, one which we all know where it leads to. While fascism may be away down the road, it is not impossible. We know for certain that people have an incredible capacity for cruelty and so called "justice" in the name of their movements, like Anders Breivik of Norway, who fired on many people in the hopes of seizing right-winged power in Europe and starting a movement (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8657141/Norway-killer-Anders-Behring-Breiviks-plan-to-seize-power-in-Europe-after-London-visit.html). It is also obvious that we are turning to the right more and more as we become more desperate for solutions. 

This is an atrocity. We can't let this happen. We know how bad things become when the extreme right takes power, and we can't allow it again. Even when it's not fascism, the right wing can cause serious problems for our country and the world. In America, Reagan ran a huge deficit and allowed lots of job losses for lower class workers due to trickle-down economics. Bush had us involved in two wars, only one of which was fully justified. Along with beginning drone strikes in other countries as well, he began making huge tax cuts, thereby defunding expensive wars. No matter what way we look at it, while life under right-wing leaders may seem fun, it isn't for everyone, and they have left behind messes time and again. Europe has it no better. Their experiences with the right are often worse, especially in the cases of Germany and Spain. Yet Europeans are once again turning to the right to solve their problems, generally by austerity measures this time around. It's not hard to see that the people have a problem with this; protesters in places like Greece sometimes turn violent in a fight against austerity. While this is a good sign, presidents and prime ministers generally hold power longer than people can keep protesting. As such, I fear for our world. 

For those of you wondering at home, the Tea Party does not have your best interests at heart (unless you are rich and/or own a corporation, of course). Global conservatives do not have the world's interests at heart. Most are focused on improving their own country at the expense of others, a problem of the past. If we wish to pull through our hard times, we must be willing to help each other out, despite our reluctance to hand over cash when we feel that we are in tough times. No matter how bad it becomes, consider this: a 10-year-old boy in Somalia has just stolen food from the black market in order to feed his many siblings. He goes without food, because he could not steal enough. He may have malaria, and most likely has no parents, or even a house. Yet you sit there reading this on your computer (or phone, or whatever). We can't forget what happens when we ignore the world to focus on ourselves. When we turn our backs, the worst is soon to follow. 

That is all for this week, and I hope I have given a posting which everyone will understand and enjoy. If you have comments, questions, etc. you can post them in the comments here. For something more private, email me at zerospintop@live.com. I also have a Facebook, a Twitter, and a Google+ account as well. This is SuperJew McLovin signing off, and Happy MLK Day! 

American Idol(ism): Our Problem With Voting

Hello again to you my readers!

I have returned after a short dry spell to readjust myself to my normal posting schedule now that holidays have ended. This week, I address voting in America, and specifically the problems we face when it comes to getting people to vote. Our voting rates hover around 50% at each presidential election, and it is generally less with congressional, state, and local elections. Obviously, this is not a good thing to keep democracy efficient. It is my belief that if a country must have democracy, it must be wholly supported in order to fill the will of its people. The same is true of any form of governance. This week's quote is by Ernesto Guevara, a revolutionary Argentine leader of the past whom I draw inspiration from. Alright, that is all on that.

Moving on, I'd like to start by validating a claim that some Republicans have said President Obama believes. While I don't know if he believes this or not, it is true. We as Americans are lazy. It is a fact. A good lot of us are obese and/or diabetic (http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html), and we make laziness an acceptable societal behavior by making it "funny" on TV all the time. You know what I mean; some character will be lying on the couch, and will try to reach the remote. They end up not getting up because they're too damn lazy. Everyone laughs, etc. In my eyes, it is not funny. The fact that we make this seem to be a normal, tolerable behavior is sickening. What, you can't get up to change the freaking channel once in a while? How lazy are we? This is pathetic, especially for the nation that claims to be the world's lone superpower. How do we plan to defend ourselves if we can't even get off the couch to try? Normally, this would not be a politically important problem. However, we have allowed our laziness to spread into our effectiveness as a nation.

Compared to other effective first world democracies like Italy and Australia our voting rates are not good. Just look here (http://www.idea.int/vt/viewdata.cfm#). You can look up our voting rates, as well as voting rates in all other countries that vote. In presidential elections, we aren't absolutely terrible. We are terrible when it comes to congressional elections. We rarely make it to the halfway margin. Australia rarely falls below the 90% margin. This isn't good. A cornerstone of the democracy Americans praise is voting. In order for our system to work, we all must have input to ensure the full will of the people is heard. However, this is not what is happening. It appears that our voting rates are comparatively low, sometimes only a little and sometimes drastically. This causes wide ramifications for how our government is run for us.

When we vote, we give a mandate to those taking office. This mandate describes that the officials being voted in will do as the people wish, and will serve his/her people as they served him/her into office. It is a good thing most of the time. If enough people vote for a certain candidate that means that s/he has the right to govern and has been chosen by true consensus. But this is the problem we get; not enough people vote. When this happens the candidates receive weak mandates, meaning they didn't receive much of a call to rule. Therefore, their right to do so can easily be called into question. It can also lead to illegal rule, where a candidate is voted in solely because the voter turnout was heavily swayed to one side while the other side was too lazy to get out and vote. While we don't have the problem of fraudulent elections, if voting rates continue dropping we just might. We also don't have a problem with voter fraud inherently, although it could be possible in the future.

Before I keep going, I'd like to address our so-called voter fraud troubles. Some of you may recently have been hearing about voter ID laws passed in many states. Most are nonsensical to some degree. Some have been challenged in court. All because conservatives cry out that we have rampant voter fraud. Really? Voter fraud? You think we are collectively active enough to illegally vote rather than do it legally? What could make anyone think we would do that, lazy as we are? Also, being a citizen who is of voting age should be all that is required to vote. If you are a citizen, you are inherently American, and part of that is voting. Case closed. And when states pass voter ID laws, it is ridiculous. The party that claims to love the constitution is doing what it can to prevent Americans from taking part in our government. They are restricting democracy they claim to hold on to with their dying breaths. This is a serious fault. We cannot expect to believe that we have voter fraud problems; we are not the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and we are not Burma. We are the United States of America. No one is stuffing ballot boxes that easily, trust me.

Anyway, we need to find out why we are so lazy and correct it. I'm sure our collective fatness is probably responsible to some small degree. But it is far more than that, I assure you. It is not normal for a country's people to have more voter turnout for American Idol than the presidential election. I personally believe that we are simply lazy as an inherent trait of Americans. Therefore, I believe we must provide some form of incentive for voting. Perhaps we can go the way of Australia and impose a fine for not voting. They do have some pretty high voter turnout rates, after all. I think this a fair solution to our problems. However, some people would claim this is unconstitutional and that it is in contrast with democracy. Good enough argument, I suppose. If so, another solution is necessary. If anyone here has taken U.S. history in ninth grade, you'll remember the party machines of the early 1900's. These party machines were strongly partisan groups that would provide jobs to people in exchange for votes. While this was a heavy indicator of corrupt democracy, it was efficient at bringing out voters. We need something similar but nonpartisan today. While I don't suggest hiring common folk in exchange for the promise of voting, there must be something that makes us as Americans want to participate in democracy. Maybe it could be a tax incentive, or some form of salary bonus that would come with all the more voting people do. While this problem is hard to tackle with positive incentives, it is possible. And perhaps if this problem is solved, our system will be a better representation of America as a whole.

Well, that is all for this week, and if anyone would like to post comments/questions/criticisms/praise you can do so in the comments section here. My friend Danyal Ahmad is president of the nonprofit corporation which is currently in the process of applying for a 501(c)(3), the Citizen Empowerment Foundation, to ameliorate our problems with voting, so I'm glad some of us are making progress, and if anyone else would like to get in on that then do so. If you would prefer somewhere else, I also have a Facebook and a twitter, along with my email at zerospintop@live.com. This is SuperJew McLovin, signing off.