Right America: Feeling Wronged

Last Tuesday we watched a documentary called Right America: Feeling Wronged - some voices from the Campaign Trail. Alexandra Polesi followed the McCain campaign and talked to the republicans who have very strong feelings about who runs the country. In the documentary we meet people who truly hate Obama.

The republicans we meet are the most extreme republicans and they are even very Christian or middle class from the country, and many of them are middle class, very Christians who live on the country. They believe that Obama doesn't have enough experience to be a president representing the entire country. They can't relate to him at all, some of them are very old-fashion and are not ready for a black president. The republicans call themselves the real Americans and Obama is not one of them. In the documentary they visited 28 states and I were surprised to see all of the people crying when they talked about Obama, small children certain that America will go under if Obama wins and churches encouraging not to vote for Obama.

Some of them have good arguments for not voting on Obama. The taxes will strike the small businesses and the middle class. Some are very Christian and are against abortion and gay rights and marriage, but most of them seem like they just don't like the person Obama and his politics is irrelevant to them.

The republicans feel like they're not heard and that everything in the media are focusing on Obama. The only channel who is objective is Fox news channel and I can see why this is frustrating. The media is especially slaughtering Sarah Palin, because she makes a lot of comments that makes her seem stupid.

"Nobama" is a slogan that is to see all over the country. I was very surprised when I was watching the documentary, how much the American engage in the election and how much feelings that are related to the subject. I can't even imagine how these people reacted when Obama won, and I don't think that these extreme feelings about politics are possible to find in Norway.

Senior project

In the next weeks, we will be working on our senior project. I have chosen to write about Obama and compare his popularity in the US and in Europe. I will be answering the following questions: Why is he having problems on the popularity poll? Why do Europeans like Obama better than the Americans?

I chose this topic because I find it interesting that he is more popular outside of his own country. This will be a good opportunity for me to learn about Obama's politics and the people's reaction to his decisions.

In this semester I will work on preparing for class and pay more attention to the topics we are working on. I want to be prepared to the final exams, so that is my motivation for paying extra attention this semester. The topics we learn about in this class are all important to know something about. And it might be an advantage to studies later in my life.

Electoral College In U.S. Elections

When it comes to the election of a president, you'd think that they would gather the votes from all the people in the US, but that is not how it works. The different states are defined as real states. The people vote in the state they live in and the presidential candidate with the most votes wins the votes from that state. The number of electors from each state is equal to its total representation in Congress. Each state has two senators and congressmen. The states are divided into districts and the numbers of congressmen represent the number of districts in that particular state. It is like this to make sure that a state with a small number of inhabitants does not have the same influence than a bigger state. But the result doesn't always represent the majority of the US. That is because small states are overrepresented compared to the number of inhabitants in the bigger states.

The electors from each state are voting on the same candidate and that represent the majority of the people in the state they are representing. This can be compared to "the winner takes it all" that we talked about in British politics. It is like this because in 1787 when the system was made up they couldn’t gather all votes from all of America because it is such a big country. The people from each state would send a person they relied on to represent them and their votes. There are other tracks from the history in the way of voting. For example they are waiting 41 days to formally declare the winner. The 41 days gave them time to assemble, discuss the candidate and send their decision to Washington DC.

The big states are very important to the candidates because they have a bigger amount of electors. In the US there are 435 congressmen, 100 senators and 3 electors from the District of Columbia. That means there are 538 electoral votes and a candidate has to get over a half of these. The magic number of votes is 270. In 2008 Barack Obama was the first African American to be an American president. He won the election with 365 electoral votes and 52,9 % of the popular vote.

Barack Obama's speech

Obama won the Nobel peace prize in 2009 and we have been focusing a lot on Obama this semester, so we analyzed the speech and answered some questions about the speech. He is a very good speaker and people says that the speech he held in due to the peace prize is the best speech he ever held, so far.

What was the Marshall Plan?

The Marshall Plan was the primary program, 1948-52, of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger economic foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling the threat of internal communism after World War 2.

Why is Obama humbled by this award?

He feel humbled because he haven’t really done anything to deserve the price yet, and the fact that he is actually the Commander in chief in two wars is also very special for a peace prize winner. He is very humbled by this award, I think, because he doesn’t feel that worthy to be in the same category as many of the peace prizes previously winners – at least not yet.

Who was Woodrow Wilson and why was he awarded the Nobel peace prize?

He was the 28^th President of The United States. In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including the armistice. He issued his Fourteen Points, his view of a post-war world that could avoid another terrible conflict. He went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles, with special attention on creating new nations out of defunct empires. Largely for his efforts to form the League, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Who are some of the previous winners that he mentions?

Nelson Mandela, Marthin Luther King, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Schweitzer, Marshall, Henry Dunant, Dr Henry Kissinger og Mr Le Duc Tho.

According to Obama, what is a just reason for war?
That sometimes you have to fight for peace, and that even though Ghandi and King’s non-violence plan is admirable, that’s not always enough and war might in some cases be necessary to gain peace. He explains the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as a war for peace because the war against terror will provide a possible World War 3.

What are Obama’s 3 ways to avoid war and keep the peace?

- We need a common law and defend those who suffer when these laws are not obeyed.

-Human Rights have to be central in every country, and it is important that every nation is a part of it.

-Obama sais that peace is not just the absence of war - and it is important to get this complete peace. “For true peace is not just freedom for fear, but freedom from want.”

What “old architecture” is buckling?

Old kinds of threats isn’t that intimidating anymore as the new threats such as nuclear weapons facing the world today.

What does Obama mean by a “gradual evolution of human institutions”? Where is this quote from?

This quote is from President Kennedy and he means that they want to achieve peace by gradual evolution of human institutions and not by a sudden revolution.

Why can’t Obama be guided by the example of King and Gandhi alone?

Because he says that war sometimes is necessary to gain peace.

The american constitution

A while ago there was a woman, Lee Ann Potter, in our school who told us about the American constitution and how the American politics works. I was going to write about this earlier, but I forgot to do it. I liked her presentation because it varied a lot in what she said and made us do. She engaged the students and pointed out the different ways the constitution affects us. In that way she made it interesting.

For example she showed us the preamble in art, a man called Mike Wilkin made a piece of art by car licenses from all the American states. It is the picture below and I find this peace of art pretty funny.

In 1976 the television channel thought about teaching the children something during the commercial breaks. They made funny cartoons which taught the children stuff like the preamble.

An important question she raised was: Why do we need a government? The people needs to have rules to follow and know that there will be consequences for their actions. With a government it is easier to have control over the people and to have some kind of a structure of the people.

Milk

Last Tuesday we saw the movie "Milk" in class. The movie is based on a true story about how Harvey Milk and how he fought for the gay peoples rights in San Francisco in the 1970s. We did not have the time to see the whole movie, so I am going to write this post based on the part I have seen.

In the 70s people were very intolerant to people who stood out, and especially the gay people were stroked by this. Harvey Milk was sick of being treated differently from other people because of his sexuality, he moved with his current boyfriend to San Francisco. They were supposed to open some kind of a store and live together. But they were treated very bad and they wanted to do something about it. They started campaigns for the gay people to be accepted in the community. Harvey Milk was a very good orator and after a lot of speeches and different campaigns he had gathered a lot of people. He was all over the news and the American people either hated or loved him. He encouraged people to come out of the closet and be themselves. He was a politician and after years of fighting he won a seat as a city supervisor in 1977. After being a supervisor for 11 month, he was killed by another politician. Milk is known for opening the American peoples mind for gay people. His fight was a necessary fight and I think a lot of gay people are grateful for the work he did.

Politics in the UK

In school today we have learned about how the British politics and how the system is built up. The people elect an MP(Member of Parliament) from their constituency. There are 646 constituencies in the United Kingdom and 646 members of Parliament. These are in the House of Commons and are elected in a general election. There must be a general election at least every five years, but the prime minister can ask the queen to dissolve parliament at any time. That meens he wants a new general election. The prime minister is the leader of the strongest party and his or her party is the government. The parliament “watches” the governement, make the laws and passes the budget.

There are also the House of Lords. The Lords are not elected, but given the title. You can become a lord if you are an expert in a field like: medicine, science, astronomy, education or something else. The House of Commons has much more power than the House of Lords. The picture on the top are the houses of parliament.