Reflection: Americans can kill the Media Stars

Jon Stewart brought up an often underreported (and can you blame the media for this?) point about the hyperbolizing and overreacting nature that the media (particularly cable news media) has come to embrace in this country.  It seems that we can't go a few months (or even a few weeks) without incessantly hearing about unimportant drivel such as the Balloon Boy media stunt, the Bristol Palin never-ending saga, it goes on and on.  Meanwhile, we seem to forget that this country is still fighting two wars abroad, with countless troops stationed worldwide that are in harms way, or the fact that there are still millions of Americans in this country who live below the poverty line.  Disasters in Haiti and Southeast Asia have given us a glimpse of the true problems this world faces, as well as the neglect they receive by the mainstream media.  It's stories like those that prompt Americans watching the 6 o'clock news to say "wow, that's a shame," and then move on to the more pertinent issues of the day: something happened with Lindsay Lohan again!  When will she finally get her act together?  Her well-being and sanity greatly concerns me!

In our articles, we read that the increasing neglect by the media to report on matters, as well as the stories the media (purposefully?) overblows in order to increase ratings, has put our country at a risk in the future.  The 9/11 article discussed the very real dangers of the 9/11 attack, but explained that the media was all too eager to convince Americans that war, especially with a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on that fateful morning, was the right thing to do.  Imagine the day when North Korea test launches a missile that doesn't fail miserably.  I can only imagine that every single analyst (at least on FoxNews) that night will be crying out for a full invasion of North Korea.  If we're still playing the realist game in world politics, even on a relatively smaller scale than in decades past, shouldn't the attempted nuclear proliferation of North Korea be expected?

The presidency is the most powerful job certainly in this country, and if not the world.  But is the judgement of the president at the beck and call of what the media is reporting on that day?  Or can the president unfairly use the media to his/her advantage?  Don't Americans deserve a better leader than Bill O'Reilly or Keith Olbermann?

We'll get there, at some point.  Soon enough the populace will realize that the media is a business, and that the news that they receive may not always be the news they need or want to hear.  It's inevitable that something that grows so exponentially will eventually crumble beneath its own weight.  However, we may not recognize the point where the American people have reached a consensus to make decisions for themselves, rather than having their government or their media making those decisions for them.

It may not be a spectacular sight with fireworks and marching bands playing, but it will still be an important milestone in our society.

Because sometimes, the light at the end of the tunnel "is just New Jersey."

The Rally to Restore Sanity (Did Jon Stewart get ahold of our schedule?)

This was a full week for World Politics. Interesting readings, interesting classes, (finally) a Wednesday lab, and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. And everything had something to do with each other. Out of all three readings for last week, my favorite was “Simplicity and Spook” which I enjoyed so much that even though I had planned to just skim the beginning and finish reading on Monday, I wound up reading the whole thing at once. It seemed to put into words a great many things that I had been vaguely thinking about but never was able to put into words. We see ridiculous and irrational behavior in reaction to political and world events all the time, and realize, on some level, that it is ridiculous, but rarely do we stop to think about just what makes it ridiculous. People in a frenzy of worry make assumptions and hypotheses based on first impressions, worst case scenarios, or the first possible explanations that pop into their heads. This is fine when there is no alternative, but the danger comes when, instead of accepting or dismissing these reactions in favor of rational, reasoned explanations based on analyzing accumulated information, they cling grimly to their initial hysteria as though afraid of being “proven” wrong. And so we manage to go for long periods of time taking what was meant only to be a possibility as the truth. Later, we scratch our heads and wonder how on earth we ever were so stupid, but that doesn’t always stop us from doing the same thing again.'

I thought that this article, reading it just one day after a rally to literally restore sanity, was perfectly timed. Speaking of the rally, I was both exasperated and rather thrilled that so many people turned out. Being new to D.C., I’m not sure I’m qualified to make a judgement on just how overcrowded the Metro was, but when I have to take the red line north all the way to Rockville in order to get onto the red line going south to Judiciary Square next to the mall, because every southbound train is jam-packed, it’s pretty obvious there’s something big going on. However, the time and trouble it took was still an encouraging sign that people truly are fed up with overreaction, insanity, and exaggeration to make a public call for everyone in the country to just calm down and think for a minute. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were hilarious as usual, and for the most part waved away political debate in favor of light-hearted lampooning and entertainment, but at the end, Stewart became serious, calling for the news media to report events with responsibility and reason instead of stirring things up until everything seems so insane we cannot tell who the real bigots, extremists, and, well, insane people are. This really struck a chord with me. After all, in America the people have a great deal of control over the actions of our government, and if we don’t have a clear picture of what the world is like, how can we possibly pressure our elected officials to act in a reasonable manner? Again, I would like to marvel at the serendipitous timing of the Rally and the schedule of our class. Perhaps it’s a good thing we went overtime on the Risk game.

Reflection on the Restoration of Sanity

I attended the Rally to Restore Sanity this Saturday. The music performances and comedy sketches made the rally entertaining, but Jon Stewart's closing speech ended the rally on a (somewhat) serious note.

Stewart made the point that, in regard to the press and those in the political sphere"If we amplify everything we hear nothing," meaning that our overreaction to certain things makes the problems that arise harder to solve. He went on to exemplify, "just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more." Stewart also said "The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker..."

In regard to our national security, overreacting to situations can jeopardize our security. Labeling Muslims as terrorists doesn't solve the problem of terrorism, but creates hostility between Muslims and Americans. We must be focused when tackling national security and target the real threats. Exaggeration and overreaction from the press regarding certain issues deteriorates our security and only makes it complicated to implement effective security solutions and strategies.

Reflection: Rally to Restore Sanity

Who knew so many people could fit in the Metro? We started the journey after the rally started, yet the Metro was still packed with many enthusiastic and sane people. We even had to wait for a train several times in order to find one that had space. Speaking about packed, the rally itself was really packed. We walked toward the Capitol until we hit the wall of humans. We found pockets of space and moved ahead whenever we could. While we were close enough to hear and see the screen, it was funny that my mom who was watching the rally on T.V. had a better idea of what’s going on. Still, it was interesting to be a part of a massive blob of people.

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear tied perfectly into the class discussion of national security. If we label all Muslims as terrorists, that just increases the number of people who hate the U.S. Basically, if we expand the circle of hate, only more hate will come back to bite us. Hate stems from fear; fear often stems from lack of rationality. Stewart represented sanity and Colbert symbolized fear. I think they did a great job of proving that the world doesn’t have to be such a scary place if we think things out more. When we put things in perspective, we have a lot more friends than enemies.

Stewart’s speech at the end of the rally had some really valid points. I especially liked the part about not being able to tell who the real racists and bigots are. We all like it or not have bias against people who aren’t like us. A rational person would recognize this and try not to act on the bias. The people who act based on irrational fears are the real racists and bigots. If we call people racists and bigots the instant they say something questionable, we take attention away from the racists and bigots who earned their titles.

Lets hope sanity spreads across the U.S. and the world.

Security and Identity

Are there boundaries to security policy? This is a difficult question to answer, as almost anything that defines us as a state could, in some way, be interpreted to affect our security, beyond the weapons and manpower needed to defend ourselves from attack. The most distantly-connected aspects of our nation can have an impact on our ability to stay secure. Some are obvious, like, for example, the economic situation and our diplomatic ties: if we have enough money, we will be able to build proper weapons, if we have the right allies, they can help us. However, some are less directly connected, but just as important. For example, educational standards: if our population is well-educated, they can utilize their mental capabilities and knowledge to defend our country intelligently. And then there arises the issue of what makes a state more or less likely to be attacked, which is varied and could come in all shapes and forms. One could be direct and logical, and say that if we push green fuel, we will be less interested in foreign oil, and thus weaken the power of people in regions where America is not well-liked, therefore stopping a threat before it advances. Or one could be completely speculative and disconnected, and theorize that fighting global warming might improve America’s image in the world and stop a threat before even the motivation for the threat emerges. Even the craziest of ideas can, at least theoretically, be seen as possibly affecting a state’s security.

For example, take education. This one policy can affect our national security on many, many levels. On the most direct level, it can help fill and expand a workforce with a certain skill set, such as engineers who can design better weapons. On a slightly less direct level, it can create a large pool of extremely knowledgeable experts who can come up with better strategies and tactics for defending ourselves. On an indirect level, it can give a population the means with which to select better leaders, the information that lessens the threat of irrational, uncomprehending voter anger forcing the government’s hand on important issues of national security, and even could make people more knowledgeable about foreign countries, therefore lessening misunderstandings. And this is just one policy that could have a ripple effect of consequences that wind up profoundly affecting the security of the state. There really are no boundaries on what can be labelled as “security policy”.

Of course, this can lead into murky territory. It would help our security, of course, if we could meddle in other states’ affairs to the extent that we could make sure that they act internationally in a way that would strengthen our own security, help us out with all domestic issues that would make us stronger, and not do anything to help or incite our enemies. This of course, does not mean we should do this, because while it helps our own security, it may not do the same for that of other states. This is the murky part, because just like our national identity can affect our level of security, our approach to security can affect our national identity. For example, taking over as many countries as we can in order to control them and use them against our enemies is something most Americans would object to. Since in our definition of the concept, sovereignty rests with the people, we would only be defined as “the United States of America” as long as we had a say in how we as a state acted. However, if we all decided that controlling other states was a good idea, we would be blatantly violating our professed ideal of self governance, and would therefore render our national identity false. Our state would no longer be “the United States of America” as defined before we started controlling other states. On a similar note, it would help security if the government could arrest anyone they wished to, at any time. However, we as a country define ourselves by our commitment to liberty and our affording of natural rights, such as habeus corpus, to our citizens. Therefore, we would cease to be defending American ideals the moment we gave them up, and since our ideals define us, we would cease to be Americans. We would probably still be called “Americans”, but the definition of an American that runs deeper than the name would be lost.

I believe that things should stop being defined as “security” the moment they stop protecting a state, and proceed to destroy it. If we cease to become America, we are no longer protecting America, we have only a defensive shield left, and whatever we are defending would no longer resemble America, but would be something entirely different. This is a dangerously tempting path to take when our security is threatened. After all, it is very difficult for an enemy to harm something if it is destroyed before they reach it.

Keeping Security in Check with Our Interests

The new focus of the United States when it comes to its national security policy, however, is toward global terrorism, particularly terrorism arising in the Middle East.  

Since the beginning/initial escalation of the Cold War in the 1950s, there's been a larger effort on the part of the US government to become involved in international conflicts.  Through Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, with smaller yet significant conflicts arising in-between, the United States has justifiably affirmed its role as the global hegemony through a policy of internationalism and nation-building, in case anyone was doubting the power of the US.  

We were discussing in our group on Tuesday about the differences between the underlying themes of the 1950 NSC 68 document and the 2010 National Security Strategy.  Both were similar in the calling for necessary cooperation with our targeted enemy, whether it be through diplomatic negotiations/economic policy or through military actions.  However, the diplomatic channels between these two enemies were more open in the Cold War than today.  The relations between the US and the USSR eventually cooled with the introduction of detente policies beginning in the Nixon administration.  However, it's different in modern terms, because one remembers the confrontation in the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis between Adlai Stevenson and Ambassador Zorin.  But how can we confront an enemy that is not a state, or does not have recognition of international organizations?

The United States, since it has realized its global importance in the last century or so, has employed questionable tactics in the name of national security.  In the Cold War, Americans who even questioned the idea of social or income inequality were persecuted by the American public, as propaganda and fear against the Soviet Union provided the federal government with the mandate to imprison political dissenters.  Nowadays, the Patriot Act, along with other "security" initiatives that were a reaction to the 9/11 attacks, have provided the federal government with the authority to listen in on phone conversations, with other unprecedented measures for the sake of national security.  Think about it: if the Cold War were still going on, and we heard on the news that the USSR was wire-tapping on its citizens in order to "protect" its security, we would have laughed and said "Oh those silly Reds, when will they learn?"  The United States, in my opinion, doesn't need to wiretap on its citizens in order to protect itself from internal or external threats.  Torture is also a practice which the United States has ostensibly used in the past (and perhaps the present).  While I understand that our enemies are using similar practices, the United States should not stoop to the level of its enemies.  We're the global hegemon; we should take the high road whenever the opportunity arises, and maybe we'll pass our problems along the way.

With great power, comes great responsibility.  

Risk - at the end

Three teams winning the game of Risk that had gone on so long was not something I was expecting. The mutual win was unexpectedly satisfying. In games, the high point is usually when you wipe out another player, but this time, the hoops we had to jump through and the difficulty of designing a perfect solution to all three of our problems (combined with the pleasure of rubbing the Green team off the map) made the three-way win feel like just as big an accomplishment. After all, we got all of our goals, so why not go for a win-win-win scenario? It seemed that in this game, Liberalism definitely won out. Working together to achieve individual goals and mutual benefit worked, while not collaborating or considering the other teams’ concerns enough, like red and green, did not turn out quite as well.

Briefly, before deciding to join forces, the blue team briefly considered turning on the yellow team for gain, only to realize that the better, safer, and shorter strategy was to collaborate. Likewise, when yellow, blue, and black all decided to gang up on green in response to their unhelpfully realist actions, they were easily surrounded by troops of three different teams, all of whom were mutually committed to their destruction, and therefore eliminated them very quickly and easily. And everyone was glad for the earlier defeat of team Red as well, giving the game the same satisfaction of victory while still keeping the, well, risk of the game low by cooperating. By the end of the night, the teams trusted each other so much that, for the sake of troop movement logistics, blue had no concerns over letting black temporarily declare war on them, trusting that they would not be attacked.

The game showed that when individual goals could be attained without threatening each other, there is little reason not to work together. Too much suspicion raises the risk of attack, makes people less likely to act boldly, and more likely to disregard the concerns of other teams, losing an important bargaining chip in the process. However, out of everything that this class has done throughout the entire course of this game, the thing that I would say way most true to what I would imagine real International Relations to be like came in the form of a throwaway remark at 11:30, near the end of the game: “everyone wants to go to bed.” In real life, states want to achieve their goals and come to a solution as soon as possible, and whether it’s a game being dragged on a full class and a late-night meeting past the deadline, or a war lasting a year and a half longer that expected, the more the parties want to just get it over with, the more sure they are that the other parties share their goals, and the more risks they are willing to take to secure a solution.