The results are in...now what?

In sort of a piggyback to my last post, and the issue of women's suffrage, I came across this image in my search for responses to the outcome of the election. Being from a conservative state following the win of Obama was quite an experience, I witnessed some things via facebook and twitter posts that one would hope this country had overcome. This image may not be as blatantly hateful as some of the more choice posts by my fellow Kentuckians, and it probably is backing a more liberal message, but it really got me to think about the hate mongering that an election spurs on. This elephant clearly representing Mitt Romney, and his feelings toward woman's rights being expressed during the campaign for the presidency, and then the subsequent outcome of those ideals on the way the election progressed. It seems to be stating that due to Romney's very conservative ideas on the way that women should be treated had a negative effect on the way that women voters acted in the poll booth. I think this image is successful in bringing up this topic, and poking fun at the matter. It is easy to read the message, and clearly is a reaction to the outcome of the 2012 election. I think that in some cases people overreact to the new people, or the remainder of people, in office can come across as uninformed and influenced mostly by spur of the moment emotions and reactions. This image is effective for me because of its lack of overly emotional hate filled ideas.

Why don't we cherish this...right?

Reflecting on the recent election and the general lack of enthusiasm as some of my peers for going out right away  voting it makes me think about why we as American's don't exercise this right  and cherish the ability that we have to make the decision about who becomes our president. Especially as a woman, which seems to tie in with this cartoon and the fact that the image speaks to woman's suffrage and how hard our predecessors worked to be able to vote, all I can think is why do we take for granted this priviledge. I travelled to China over this summer and was acutely made aware of the political suppression that the Chinese suffer, it was taboo to even bring up politics in a public environment. It made me rethink the things Americans take for granted and how much we overlook how important each and every one of our votes count. We have the mentality that if we don't live in a swing state that our votes are not significant enough to make it matter rather or not we vote, but I think that if it was important enough for there to have been a movement in order for each and everyone of us to vote then why don't we make it our civic duty each election to make our voice known? I don't know the voting stories of many of my peers, but I was elated to go into that booth and then on top of it all I got a sticker!!!

Election Night in The Johnson House

During the last election I was in a dorm room at my University with a roommate who had very different political views than myself, this year however I was safely ensconced at home with my loving family bubble of support surrounding me. I was, however, just as nervous about this election's outcome as the last. I watched the NBC coverage of the states being called in, and up until around 10:00 I wasn't convinced that it wasn't going to be a clear winner.  Brian Williams stuck out in my mind as being perfectly bipartisan, and one particular moment, and the relevancy of twitter updates really stayed with me. During the coverage the theme of reading of twitter updates was something that was very different from the last election and the coverage of it that I remember, it was interesting to have a play by play of other people's reactions to the race as well as my own reaction to compare it to. I think that one particular twitter comment, and the reaction of Brian Williams was quite hilarious, however not exactly relevant to the political situation, but Donald Trump was certainly put in his place. It is astounding to me that this nation has become so fixated on what celebrity's are doing, thinking, and saying that we now have something as useless as twitter to keep up with their lives. This has become such an issue that the twitter accounts of celebrities become relevant to the coverage of the election of the President of the United States. While it is interesting sometimes to know what other people's opinions of the happenings of election night are, I don't believe twitter updates need to be a part of national coverage. Although I must say that it is always nice to see how negative comments made by celebrities can have a greater effect now than perhaps four years ago.

candidates in my living room

The living room candidate is a website we were recently made aware of in my political history class. It allows visitors to view for free the campaign commercials of presidential candidates from the very first TV ads to today's advertisements. One particular ad that caught my eye was from the successful campaign of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992. This ad is listed under the title "Milwaukee" and focuses on everyday people and their common complaint of how the Bush administration has overlooked their lives and their incomes for the past four years. I think that this ad is successful in that it brings the issues right to your door, these are everyday people, or so they are portrayed to be, it allows the viewer to watch the commercials and think to themselves "I am just like this person". If the people in this commercial were any indication of the the rest of the country, then we were in a lot of trouble. By showing the people that every viewer at home could relate to, and showing that Clinton and Gore sympathized with these people and would strive for a better economic future for them, it made people want to rally around this future that is promised by a new direction that Clinton would bring to office. I think that it may be successful in targeting this area, but it does leave a lot of gaps in the constituency, ones that I'm sure other ads filled.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1992

Is This Real Life?

Surely nobody on the Romney/Ryan campaign team would have been proud of this Ohio rally attendant's choice in attire, and I'm sure it isn't a piece of clothing that they have endorsed, but I am still absolutely appalled by this image. one would hope that in this day in age the merit of a political official would be based upon the good or bad deeds he or she has accomplished while in office, and not by the color of their skin. I don't care which political party you affiliate yourself with, a joke this offensive should be appalling to anyone. If you don';t like the current president that is your own opinion, and as an American we are all entitled to our own opinions, but we didn't have the civil rights movement as a joke, and the color of our president's skin, something which should be celebrated, shouldn't become a joke either.

Will my Kids be Able to Afford Higher Education?

Growing up in my household not going to college was never an option, and in America it is forced upon children from an early age that those with a college education will have better opportunities for careers and livelihoods. These days however it is becoming increasingly difficult for college students to be able to afford their education, with many students coming out of college over 100,000$ in debt. On top of that the job market is not what it was in my parent's day, and those of us with a college education are lucky to find jobs that would have been considered in high demand 20 years ago. As a person who is about to graduate from college in less than a year, with a degree in art no less, it scares me to death to think about the opportunities I might not have in the future. With the ever increasing federal loan rates, not to mention outlandish private loan rates, it is frightening to think about the many children who may not get the opportunity to even attend college in the future. While this cartoon was clearly made by a non GOP party member, focusing on the believe by many liberals that the GOP is trying to cut funding for higher education in order to bring down national debt, it still brings to the forefront the fear of many high school graduates thinking about pursuing a college education. How in the world am I supposed to be able to afford my college education without being a 7 foot tall basketball star? 

I Wonder What Will Happen to Snuffaluffagus.

A highlight of the presidential debate this year was when Mitt Romney, in trying to make light the cutting of funding for PBS, made the mistake of targeting Big Bird in his argument. While I think the onslaught of political cartoons at his expense have been a bit much, it was merely a bad joke, I was pretty appalled when this subject of sesame street was brought up in the presidential debate. What I wanted from this debate was a chance to really learn the facts of the candidate's platforms, what I got was a chance for Mitt Romney to make himself more likeable and Obama to stick with the same facts of his entire campaign. This political cartoon is one that I found particularly interesting, as it brings back Romney's earlier flop concerning the recorded private fundraiser and his attack of the 47% of America that he believes to be freeloading off of the government. It also pulls into play the issues of outsourcing, and how many jobs America has lost to cheaper labor across seas. While I don't think that Romeny really thought before he went after Big Bird it is clear that Americans have latched onto this statement against a figure of most of our childhoods and run wild with it, this is certainly not the first cartoon I have seen dealing with the beloved feathery giant and his impending pink slip. I think in a time like this it is more important for our presidential candidates to honestly stand behind their platform, as opposed to cracking jokes about a children's character.

Horrible bosses...

I recently read an article having to do with a devastating email sent out to the employees of David Siegel, which strongly urged them to take into consideration the consequences the company would have befall it if Barrack Obama was re-elected this November. His email included the following: "The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company.” He doesn't condone Mitt Romney in the email anywhere, but the intent of the message is clear, which is to force his workers into voting for the republican candidate. One of the main differences between the platforms this election is which economical group is going to be taxed more heavily in order to alleviate the debt that this country has built up. Obama's campaign would focus this higher taxes on large corporations as opposed to the middle class, which he has said is the back bone of the country, it has been proven in the past that if the middle class flourishes so does the country. By taxing the higher income groups the middle class could stuff flourish and the debt would be decreased, sounds like a pretty sounds plan to me. Clearly this idea doesn't sit well with CEO David Siegel, his intention to force his employees into voting for his candidate is clear whether he wants it to seem so or not. I think it is astounding that someone, who names himself responsible for the jobs and welfare of his employees could think this gives him the right to voice his opinions to the extent in which he did so. This is America, the country of free speech and the freedom to choose the political candidate that you feel is going to make the best choices for your nation. While Mr. Siegel may have had the right to voice this opinion, I don't think bullying your employees into voting is the way to go about swinging votes in your direction.
The article can be found here: http://voice4america.com/paulbrown/2012/10/10/ceo-employees.html 

reflections on the trauma of my age

These past few weeks in my visual culture of politics class we have been focusing on trauma in art, more specifically on the influences of trauma on memorials. In an effort to make fresh the greatest trauma of the majority of our class's lives we watched different footage of the falling of the world trade centers on September 11, 2001. To be quite honest apart from that day and the following weeks, as well as the occasional footage screened on the anniversaries of the even I had not seen or watched any images of the falling of the twin towers. For me this moment in class brought back a lot of strong memories, ones that viewing the new 9/11 memorial in New York doesn't quite bring to surface. I was in the 6th grade, in my health class. These classes were held in two mobile homes outside of the main school building, later on the significance of being away from the main school would hit me, but not at the time of course...I was only 11. I vaguely remember another teacher coming in and telling something to my teacher after which we were ushered back into the building, and the humming in the halls about the planes having hit the World Trade Centers was everywhere. I can honestly say that as an 11 year old from Kentucky, and not a very worldly 11 year old at that, I had no idea what the World Trade Centers were, and how this news could possibly impact my life. It wasn't until we were brought into my English class and our teacher had the news on, and we witnessed the planes flying into the buildings, did I begin to fathom the magnitude of this horrific event. I haven't really pondered these memories many times in my life, but watching the footage that a family filmed that lived directly across the street from the buildings made me think of where I was that day and what I was feeling. It wasn't nearly as horrific as witnessing the even 500 yards away, but it still left an impact on my short life. When we began looking at memorials in class we focused on Maya Lin's Vietnam War memorial as well as the new 9/11 memorial. It was interesting to study the differences in feelings one has in viewing these memorials, and the peaceful intimacy that ensues as compared to the violence of what they are meant to represent. I personally believe that the footage from the New York apartment has a bigger impact, although that may not necessarily be a good thing. The memorials are poignant reminders of what happened, which serve as a way to lead us into our own thoughts and recollections. I think memorials serve as an integral part of society, and they can have as much of an impact as footage in this digital age. 

debate or reality tv?

My parents have always been big fans of "Sunday Morning" on CBS and the week preceding the debate they had a special giving a little history on past debates. They went over the debates that may have had an effective role in turning around the election for one party or the other, including the famous Kennedy vs. Nixon debate, as well as the Carter vs. Reagan debate. I have never had a grand interest in politics, not having been able to vote in previous elections I didn't think that I needed to watch the debates, I listened to what my family said about the participants, and then based my opinions on that. This year however I am a registered voter and this is the first time I have an active interest in the election, but I have to say that the debate didn't go necessarily how I thought it would. After having watched the special on "Sunday Morning" I believed that there would be a clear winner, and the debate would follow all ideas I had on debating, either the ideas I got from said special, or the fictional debates I had seen in movies or in school. To my surprise this was not how this year's presidential debate went at all. I watched the debate on NBC in my basement, with my boyfriend playing on the computer inputting tidbits of his opinion every now and then. After the debate I saw the media's reaction, and recognized that they felt very strongly that Mitt Romney was the clear winner, but I didn't exactly see it that way. I recognized a tired president who is juggling many things on his plate other than just the presidential election, but mostly I could not help but notice how passive Obama was versus Romney's bowling over of the mediator. Poor Jim Lehrer really didn't even need to be in the room as the participants were clearly going to address topics that they wanted to, and had been told to push. I think that Barrack Obama simply is not a confrontational man, and I believe that is a good quality in the leader of the free world, yes there were some issues that needed he needed to be more assertive about, but all in all he he appeared to me to be holding his composure not exhausted. Maybe restating the same facts over and over again wasn't the best idea, however at least he stuck to his facts. From the platform that I have seen Mitt Romney running on to his platform sold at the debate, there seemed to be a pretty big shift in the ideas. This debate, for me, turned into one big reality tv show, where the contestants are fed a plan, and then told to stick with this plan in order to gain more viewers, or in this case voters. Next time Obama may want to change his tactics, and it will be interesting to see how the next presidential debate goes down.

Drums of War

In a recent posting to the website Voice 4 America accusations made by former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich concerning the recent attacks on U.S. Embassies in Libya and Egypt were brought to my attention. Gingrich proposes that President Obama refuses to pronounce these actions as acts of war and merely names them "acts of senseless violence". I can't argue that these attacks were not awful, and that they were or were not acts of war, but I believe that Gingrich's idea that due to Obama's extreme left view of the world he is impeded in his decisions to claim these as acts of war. I believe that due to the current situation, and the fact that we have been a country at war for over 10 years, as hard as that is to believe coming from life at The University of Kentucky, we have to pick and choose what is necessary to take action against. I am a firm believer that we wouldn't be in the situation as a country that we are in if we had not rushed off to war in the first place, and as the website claims Gingrich "banging the drums of war" reminds me a lot of where we were 10 years ago. I do not think that Obama's decision to not act against these attacks is not a result of his "extreme leftview" but merely a president in an election year critically thinking the actions that he makes and their repercussions, which is something that may have been helpful in our last president.
Here is the website: file:///Users/appleowner/Desktop/gingrich-opinion-act-of-war-not-senseless-violence.html

Political cartoon in the Herald Leader, concerning the question that both parties have been slinging, "are you better off than you were four years ago?" This image would argue that Mitt Romney sure is, as is the country given the state it was in four years ago. I don't know if Romney really has something to hide in his taxes, but I usually don't hide things I'm not ashamed of. I think this political cartoon is pretty genius.

Middle class: pols love, don't understand it: a response

In all recent political advertisements and speeches it has been clear that a major target audience within both parties is the middle class, why is this? An article in today's issue of the Herald Leader tried to tackle this question and I found that it was lacking in any new evidence to support its claims. The article posed the question "if we get our economy growing at a decent clip will all be well for the middle class?"...sadly the answer is apparently no. I would place myself in the category of middle class and not surprisingly so would almost all other Americans, so wouldn't it make sense for both parties to try and swing the middle class vote? I believe it would. The author has some ideas about improving the state of the middle class in the future, including better and more jobs and increasing the level of higher education in the U.S. and I agree to some extent, but will this help the middle class or just make it larger?

occupy this.

I recently attended a presentation given by artist and activist Blythe Riley concerning her experiences within the occupy movement. I have to say that some personal accounts of the movements that she was involved in both interested and appalled me. I was not appalled by the activists, it is anyone's right to protest for the freedoms that they believe are being denied them, I was appalled by the reactions of some of the authority figures. The strongest reaction I had was to the activists within the group "Occupy Museums" prompt removal from the museum of finance when they were simply presenting the museum in question with a cardboard model of a house. I believe that it was quite obvious that the stunt was harmless and that the Museum of Natural History had the correct reaction in letting the occupy movement go about their business. Some of the responses of the crowd to Riley's presentation were odd to me as well, I think that many people saw it as a means to get a response from the authorities when clearly it was meant as a means to simply get the word out that something is wrong. I don't find some of the ideas of the group to be all that worth wile, such as the new economy ideas, but it is clear that they are trying to steer our future in the right direction. Her talk was eye opening, especially to someone who had only seen a few of the news reports on the activities of the occupy movement, and the fact that she opened her talk with an activity on whether or not we have debt brought her talk more to home.

I recently perused the flickr stream of photos from the republican national convention. I understand the need to point out the uplifting generally upbeat side of any political situation, but these photos just left me with a need to ask what else is going on? These photos seemed to be like painting an old moldy wall, the bad stuff is bound to come up eventually. I found it particularly interesting that there are no images of the current runners for the presidency, they focused on past presidents and the good ole' days of the republican party. Use these images to let us learn about the issues that the convention will address and don't show us your cute little secretaries in their matching outfits, where is the substance?

political image: pertaining to the fact that Americans take the right to vote for granted and then when they are unhappy with the consequences of an elected political officials actions they have no right to be when they did not act on election day when they could have had a hand in choosing someone else.

politics is...

This is my first post in a blog pertaining to a class I am taking at the University of Kentucky; the Visual Culture of Politics. We were given the task to give our own definition of the term politics. Given the current year and the election coming up there could not be a more controversial or important topic, and due to the fact that I will be voting for the president for the first time in my life I believe it is time for me to really delve into my thoughts on the matter. To me politics encompass the governing body of a people, and the decisions which said governing body make which will have influence or impact on the governed body. While politics involves the governing body it also has to do with one's own personal beliefs about the governing body. One can get into an argument over their beliefs on who should be the governing and call this argument political, while they themselves are having no direct impact on the governing body. I also think that politics has to do with the division of power within a group of people. We choose our political leaders because we believe that they can give us as a group the things that we either want most or need most within our community. From the class president in a small elementary school to the leader of the free world we are essentially asking the same thing of our appointed command. Any act that a governing body carries out would also be considered politics to me, as it is what is essentially anything to do with that group of people and the way they are structured. Essentially politics are the governing bodies and who decide who gets what, when, where, and how.