Jewish Democrats

Why are so many Jews in this country Democrats? (note: this does not include my own family, we dislike both Democrats and Republicans - often equally) My educated guess, made from my knowledge of jewish culture and political parties in the U.S., is that these Jews support the more fiscally involved government (a.k.a. socialism) and the more liberal social policies. What confuses me most is the high precentage of Democrats amongst the Jews living here in the North Shore. Democrats are far more likely to increase taxs on the upper-middle class bracket that they are a part of, so why vote Dem.?

A behavior I have indirectly noticed from my parents stories about their Jewish friends and colleagues is that quite a number of them have moved some of their money to Israel, which apparently has more money in its banks than Sweden or Suadi Arabia. (Unfortunately, I do not seem to be able to find this information on CIA Factbook a second time. I will keep trying to find it and may edit this post later.) This may explain how these same upper-middle class Jews can vote for the very Democrats that will pass the laws to take more of their money.

Other groups also seem to have strong affiliations with one party or the other. Any thoughts on those groups and why they choose the party they choose?

Roe v Wade

Last week in class we went through our last Herstory (history from the womens' prespective) presentations, one of which was Roe v Wade, the famous Supreme Court case that reduced the legal restrictions on abortion. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner links the decision in Roe v Wade, or, more specifically, the increased right to have an abortion, to a reduction in crime. I wonder what else is linked to abortion rights.

To my knowledge, more secular communities are more likely to be for abortion rights and the opposite is true for more religious communities, and this is regardless of which religion one is discussing at the time. I have also noticed that more secular communities tend to have more womens' rights. So, I began to wonder whether non-religiousity or womens' rights are linked to abortion rights and to what degree. I, personally, believe that both greater womens' rights and greater abortion rights are strongly linked to non-religiousity. A third observation I have made is that secular societies, that have less worship of either god or a person (a "Great Leader", for example), tend to be more prosperous, more financially stable.

If memory serves, during the Roe v Wade presentation, I made a comment linking womens' rights and a country's prosperity. Mr. O'Connor, in polite teacher fashion, shot it down. My question is: why? Did we simply have to move on with the class? Was I taking the conversation in a direction that was too controversial? Did he think I had no proof? Or did he simply disagree with my statement?

O'Connor and Bolos themselves encouraged us to pay attention to their biases via their options for a Final Exam essay. They opened the door, so let's step through it.

Obama's State of the Union

Just ten minutes ago, I finished listening to Obama's first State of the Union Address. It left me with far more questions than answers and the feeling that if he succeeds in even half of what he seems to be promising, I will be compelled (by my own opinoin of politicians) to worship him as the greatest president of all time - he will not succeed, at least not that much. He has promised budget cuts, but never explained where these cuts will come from, so I wonder how he'll keep that particular promise.

While the address left me quite somber as to the prospects of our government, one line of Obama's will leave me laughing for ages. "We cannot wage a perpetual campaign," he said, speaking of Congress; but look whose talking, campaigner extraordinaire! Much of what Obama has done all year was campaign. Any level of hypocrisy, no matter how small, should be avioded at all cost by a political figure as important as the President of the United States.

In class, we were asked to pay atention to what garners applause. Sorry, Bolos and O'Connor, I did a bit of the opposite. I noticed, when Obama spoke of removing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" laws for gays in the military, that the military personnel in the front rows, right up near Obama, didn't raise, didn't applaud, in fact, they were all frowning; and while I have hypotheses as to why, I would still love to know what others think of this.

Racism or Class Prejudice?

Yesterday, in class, we discussed racism in Huckleberry Finn. In the process we touched upon racism against African-Americans in today's America. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) for racism, made by Harvard researchers, was brought up. An African-American friend of another student in our class (Lizzy) apparently, according to the IAT, is racist against African-Americans. One of our teachers, Mr. Bolos, explained this by saying that this friend of her's had probably absorbed our racist culture, while if a white -America got the same result, it means that he/she is racist. I hope I misheard or misinterpreted what he said.

I just took the IAT for racism. It asks you to fill out a questionaire, mostly questions about age, education, and location, and match words and pictures to the correct category. First, you match good and bad words with the categories Good and Bad, then pictures or blacks and whites with the categories European-Americans and African-Americans. Afterwards, they combine Good with European-American and Bad with African-American and have you match words and pictures, then they switch the combination and you match the pictures and words again. Their calculation for your preference for one race over the other is based off how quickly you match the words and pictures in the different combinations. My result: moderate preference for White-Americans.

I am not surprised, but not because I think I am racist. I believe I have a class prejudice against those who live in this country's slums and projects and ganglands; I get uncomfortable, and sometimes scared, around people who dress "gangsta", especially when passing through said areas. This combined with the fact that a large percentage of the people who live in these places have dark skin is the most likely explanation for my results on this test; and, I would argue, a very good explanation for why many people, especially of the population that would take such an online test, have a preference for whites over blacks (54% of participants had a moderate to strong preference for whites).

The Butter Battle Book

Most of my favorite books growing up were Dr. Seuss books. One of them was called the Butter Battle Book. I found it funny how the two sides were stupid enough end up at a stalemate (a word I did not know at the time) where each side had a ultimate weapon that would entirely destroy the other side. This weapon was a small black ball, that if dropped, would detonate. One member of each side was assigned to hold this weapon and drop their's as soon as the other side dropped it. (A full summary can be found at this wikipedia article.)

This sounding familiar?

Looking at the story again, in my mid-teens instead of 4 or 5, I can see a frightfully obvious metaphor for the Cold War and the arms race. The Butter Battle Book has no resolution. Everyone continues to live in fear. It is an anti-war book. The hidden moral of this story is not so hidden...at least to those old enough to understand it. Perhaps I am alone in this, but when I was first read this story, and when I started reading it myself, I simply found the story amusing. I saw nothing wrong with the ultimate weapons, ready to drop. I just found it stupid to hold the weapons forever, wouldn't they get tired? They might drop them by accident. That's just dumb.

The discrepancy between the age at which I first heard the story and the age at which I understood it as an anti-war story makes me wonder just who the 'hidden' message was for; perhaps it was actually meant for the parents reading the book to their offspring? Are there other hidden morals and messages in childrens' stories that may be meant for the parents?

Do they help?

This last week I have heard some of my classmates talk about the Names program, training to help out in the antibullying program that Freshman go through. I was reminded of another anti-... program. D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). I did not go through that program myself since I left my old school district before junior high, but my brother did.

Do D.A.R.E. and Names actually do anything to help people? Do they prevent drug abuse and bullying?  We like to think that they do. It seems like they should. It seems like they might. It seems to work adequately, so why look for another method?

I have heard sceptics of both progeams, children and their parents, that claim the programs have an overall negligible, or even negative, effect. I do not know of any solid evidence to support these claims, nor do I have any to refute them. Despite the lack of hard proof in my possesion, I do believe the sceptics have a point; have studies (repeatable, large scale, studies) been done to prove that D.A.R.E. and Names actually decrease pre-teen/teen drug use and bullying, respectively?

Since I did not go through the D.A.R.E. program myself, I will not comment on it further; however, like most NT students, I went the Names progam Freshman year. For myself and, from what I could see, for my peers, nothing changed. Well, not quite. People were a bit kinder and more careful with their words for a month or two, but soon the majority of the student population was back to the bullying, coercing, norm. (Which goes steadily down as we become older and more mature.)

Questions: Why does no one make a study of the results? (Or, why can I not find a study?) Why do we even have these programs in the first place?................(I truly do not understand why.)

"Settlements"

Unfortunately I cannot link it because I do not know how to translate the article into English, but yesterday I read an article, in Hebrew, about the jewish West Bank "settlements".

(For those of you who like to analyze my use of quotation marks, I will explain "settlements". The word settlement, at least in this context, has the negative implication of wrongfully taking and settling land that belong to someone else. As of the end of the 6-day war in 1967, the West Bank has officially been a part of Israel. To my knowledge, all "settlements", villages, and towns in the West Bank are entirely legal.)

The official stance of the Israeli government regarding these "settlements" has changed from administration to administration. Prime Minister Olmert did not give many building permits. Prime Minister Netanyahu has given more. Despite this official difference, in practice, the "settlements" have been growing at a steady rate throughout. The majority of building permits issued to legalize the construction of housing units (apartments or houses) in the West Bank were and are issued by the local governments directly to local contractors who then just go ahead and build. So why is the federal government the one yelled at for the continued construction of "settlements"? Why does it matter what the federal government wants? Are the high-up politicians to squash the hopes of young families in the "settlements" who want their own home? Is the U.S.A., itself obsessed with housing everyone, going to continue to demand the federal government of Israel do this?

I wonder...



(I apologize if my bias ever offends anyone; however, I will not apologize for my bias. It is slight in most matters and my opinions are primarily based off fact.)