As you may or may not know, President Obama is not a native American citizen. He was not born in the US. He was in fact born in Kenya, his ancestral homeland, and then quickly removed to his mother's country, the US, whereupon he used all the powerful connections of his lower class white mother and foreign student father to falsify the necessary documentation to make him into an "american citizen". Or something to that effect.
Of course none of this is true. It is however the determined opinion of a growing anti-Obama fringe movement dubbed "Obama Birthers". They are a people devoid of simple human logic, driven by an ideological determination that demands they find something, anything, to delegitimize the President. Why? I shall address that momentarily. It doesnt take more that a mite bit of logical thinking to see how silly the idea is. Why would a pregnant American woman travel to what was then still British Colonial Kenya to have her child? How did she do so without turning up any travel documents or being noticed by the colonial authorities? Why would she then hurriedly speed back to the US in a move that cannot have been healthy for mother or baby? How did she, on returning, manage to fake Obama's documents given she and her husband were hardly persons of influence. And of course never mind the fact that even IF Obama had been born in Kenya (and he wasn't) his mother's natural american citizenship would have transferred to him irregardless, making the whole issue moo*. It is of note that John McCain WAS born outside the United States, in the former Panama Canal Zone, but no one seriously questioned his eligibility for the Presidency, he too had an american mother (and father) who could pass to him that crucial natural citizenship.
In pursuit of their cause, Birthers have dissected the birth certificate provided by the Obama campaign last year, inventing problems with it and demanding that it is not sufficient and that Obama should provide more documentation or other evidence. Their cause has gone viral in recent weeks, spreading rapidly through the far fringes of the online right. It has popped up in press conferences and town hall meetings, annoying white house figures and forcing GOP politicians to defend the president and denounce their erstwise supporters. It is reminiscent of John McCain having to defend Obama against insult at McCain rallies last year.
This of course is not the only malicious rumor about the President. Many others have been tried. That he is a black nationalist. That he is a muslim radical (both of these are sometimes mixed with the Birther narrative). That he is a radical socialist. That he is anti-Christian hardline Secularist. And many more besides. The Birther idea has worked best because, unlike the others, it also poses a solution. A black nationalist/islamist/socialist/secularist is still allowed, constitutionally, to be President. Someone who is not a natural US citizen is not. The thinking is that if they can just prove their case, they can get rid of Obama and replace him with someone like Joe Biden, a more comfortable democrat to them.
Why they are so determined to get rid of Obama is related to a second reason for the movement's success. That if Obama isn't an American, then these people can pretend that everything he represents isn't American either. Birthers are often seen to proclaim things like "I want my country back!" in public appearances. Obama represents a more modern, urban, diverse and socially liberal America than these people are willing to accept. Obama is the symbol of fundamental changes that have been going on in how America is constituted for decades, and the Birther movement, flourishing in conservative rural strongholds and traditionalist parts of the suburbs, needs to believe that if they can kill the head, the body will die as well. They cannot accept that Gay Marriage has now swept New England (Rhode Island aside) and now threatens the midwest, that their schools have more and more hispanics, that the culture wars have died down, that the concerns of cities have asserted themselves in a political discourse so long dominated by suburb and country, that the country is less christian every year, and most of all they cannot accept that ever more "real" (which is to say Whites born to non-immigrant parents as far as most of these people are concerned) Americans simply don't care that it's happening. the "country" of which they speak is one that, to the extent it ever really existed, has now been envelloped in social changes they neither want nor understand. Of course, getting rid of Obama isn't going to change any of that. Indeed Obama has been far more conservative in office than the mass of his support anticipated. The mass of anti-Obama hysteria is just that, hysteria, whether its about returning tax rates to Clinton levels (when, apparently, there were no rich people and everyone was unemployed), or any of the silly lines of personal attack. It's not about the truth, it's about desperation, about the determined belief that there MUST be something insidious behind the scenes, that the changes in America cannot be real, they must have been masterminded by clandestine forces, because if they weren't, then they can never be reversed. And these people, can never have 'their' America back.
* - It doesn't matter, like a cow's opinion. If you don't get this reference you are a terrible, terrible human being.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
While We're There - More on Latin America
Well since I'm already on the subject and ordering my thoughts on Iran takes time, I thought I'd expound a little more on Latin America. More particularly on those Latin American states that have participated in Chavez's so called Bolivarian Revolution. That "revolution", and i use the term cautiously because none of its participant leaders came to power through revolutionary means, has entailed the massive centralization of power, the abolition of independent institutional forces within the state, the subjugation of civil society, the stoking of class and racial tensions and the suppression of the media and core popular freedoms. Simultaneously the process has involved pushing for economic nationalization, massive welfare projects, wealth redistribution and confrontation of Latin America's infamous super-oligarchs. The process has now been most obviously played out in Venezuela, but has also manifested in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, and other countries, such as Honduras under Zelaya, seemed to be heading in a similar way.
I bring all this up because I was reading an article on newsweek's website today, http://www.newsweek.com/id/204835/page/1 , about Venezuela and I was struck by the naivete of the reporting. Or at least the foolishness of the slant taken. Now I am no Chavista. I cannot stand the man or his minions, but those who seek to characterize him as nothing more than a madman despot are missing the point.
These guys, Chavez, Morales, Ortega and Correa, are the product of the still unresolved problem at the heart of most of Latin America. Inequality. Since the colonial era these countries have been constructed on a deeply unequal basis, and maintained on that basis. While progress has certainly been made from the days when a landed (if not titled) nobility of pale-faces lorded over a far browner peasantry, the region still contains large underclasses whose political discontent has latched as tightly to the Bolivarians as it once did Moscow's envoys.
So when that article, or the western thought process in general, bemoans the flight of educated Venezueleans, and the increasing limits on their lives under Chavez, they ignore the questions: where does Chavez come from? Who supported him? Who does now? and most importantly, Who can defeat him?
The answer to the last is not something many of the right wing intellectuals who so stridently denounce Chavez will like. The only way to beat guys like Chavez, and stop them coming back again in the future, is to tackle the social tensions that fuel them. That means supporting the kind of pragmatic center-left politicians that have been successfull in recent times in Chile and Brazil. And it means that we in the West need to support such individuals even as they undertake policies we won't like, policies that at times will look more like Chavez's than our own. It also means not allowing figures from the old oligarchies to take the place of the Bolivarians. We need to accept that the future successful leaders of Latin America are unlikely to be white folks (except in Argentina of course) from the same old established political dynasties. That group are unlikely to ever produce meaningful socio-economic change, because that would be a direct threat to themselves.
Fortunately Obama, in his handling of the Zelaya Affair, seems to have realized that last point and taken a stand against what increasingly to me looks like a coup by an oligarchy made nervous by Zelaya's willingness to address the fundamental issues of the underclass.
I bring all this up because I was reading an article on newsweek's website today, http://www.newsweek.com/id/204835/page/1 , about Venezuela and I was struck by the naivete of the reporting. Or at least the foolishness of the slant taken. Now I am no Chavista. I cannot stand the man or his minions, but those who seek to characterize him as nothing more than a madman despot are missing the point.
These guys, Chavez, Morales, Ortega and Correa, are the product of the still unresolved problem at the heart of most of Latin America. Inequality. Since the colonial era these countries have been constructed on a deeply unequal basis, and maintained on that basis. While progress has certainly been made from the days when a landed (if not titled) nobility of pale-faces lorded over a far browner peasantry, the region still contains large underclasses whose political discontent has latched as tightly to the Bolivarians as it once did Moscow's envoys.
So when that article, or the western thought process in general, bemoans the flight of educated Venezueleans, and the increasing limits on their lives under Chavez, they ignore the questions: where does Chavez come from? Who supported him? Who does now? and most importantly, Who can defeat him?
The answer to the last is not something many of the right wing intellectuals who so stridently denounce Chavez will like. The only way to beat guys like Chavez, and stop them coming back again in the future, is to tackle the social tensions that fuel them. That means supporting the kind of pragmatic center-left politicians that have been successfull in recent times in Chile and Brazil. And it means that we in the West need to support such individuals even as they undertake policies we won't like, policies that at times will look more like Chavez's than our own. It also means not allowing figures from the old oligarchies to take the place of the Bolivarians. We need to accept that the future successful leaders of Latin America are unlikely to be white folks (except in Argentina of course) from the same old established political dynasties. That group are unlikely to ever produce meaningful socio-economic change, because that would be a direct threat to themselves.
Fortunately Obama, in his handling of the Zelaya Affair, seems to have realized that last point and taken a stand against what increasingly to me looks like a coup by an oligarchy made nervous by Zelaya's willingness to address the fundamental issues of the underclass.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
A Tropical Interlude - Honduras and the "coup habit"
Well I want to take a break from slow-going Iran coverage to post a little something about events in Honduras and make a larger point about many Latin American countries and other "tempestuous" democracies.
The basics of the situation in Honduras are as follows: The President, a Mr Zelaya (or former President depending on your opinion) had pushed for a constitutional convention. According to Zelaya, this was to try and address the power of international commercial interests in Honduras. According to the opposition (and I say opposition but actually mean the legislature, courts and the military) this was part of an attempt to remove term limits (the constitution permits only a single 4 year term for presidents) and generally progress the chavezizing of the country. The existing constitution apparently (I say "apparently" because I can't find an english version and my spanish is somewhere between non-existent and awful) makes it illegal for an official to try to remove term limits. As the constitution also empowers the military to act in it's defence, Mr Zelaya was knocked off by the military (following a decision of the constitutional court, which ruled that he ought to be), put on a plane and sent into exile. The legislature has now appointed an interim successor.
I'm not going to pass judgement on Zelaya or his intentions, by all accounts he had become profoundly unpopular in Honduras and given the level of institutional opposition to him that is now apparent, I don't see it as likely that he would have been able to end term limits (presuming of course he ever wanted to) let alone do anything more radical, and even if he had removed term limits, he seemed to be in a poor position to win reelection, and without the necessary control over the state to steal the result.
But I do think it was a huge mistake to throw him out. It may have been legal (of course some would argue it is legal by definition because a court backed it, but we quibble) and it may indeed have been a way to remove a potentially dangerous chavista figure from office. Given the crooked nonsense Ortega has pulled in Nicaragua (not to mention Daddy Hugo himself) these people did have a reasonable basis to be worried. But this is a man who clearly has not penetrated the "deep state" and his Liberal Party, a more than century old organization, does not seem to me to be the kind of mass based movement-party that was instrumental in ensuring the rise of folks like Morales and Ortega. I have trouble seeing him converting his current position into anything particularly threatening, even if he had wanted to.
The problem with many Latin American countries, and many other countries around the globe, is that it is thoroughly dangerous to have a situation where the deep state runs for the barracks as soon as an elected offical spooks them. It prevents the establishment of real, functional politics. Look at the last 50 years of Turkish History, or the last 20 of Thailand's. When conservatives (where conservative is here defined as persons aligned with the institutional ideology and interests of the state, and opposed to their being changed) don't have to actually participate in politics to achieve their goals, parties to do so fail to develop, or develop poorly. By the same token so long as radical (where radical is defined as well... it should be obvious) politicians are tossed out whenever they try to do anything, instead of being dealt with using democratic processes, their constituency (which in the highly unequal countries of Latin America, are many) will continue to be susceptible to radical anti-system rhetoric, and will never become accustomed to the idea that the liberal democratic process can actually bring meaningful results for them.
Whether it's the Kemalists VS the AKP in Turkey, populist champions of rural Thailand VS the Bangkok elite, Latin American judges and generals VS Neo-Populists, or whatever else, the fighting between these groups and the failure to deal with them within the political, electoral realsm, distorts politics and endangers the stability of the state. Though they may well have had the best intentions in doing so, Honduras's generals have just set the progress of their country back years. And the most succesful Latin American countries will continue to be those like Brazil, where the radicals have been shown they can succeed within the system, and the conservatives have let them.
Ultimately it is wiser for all factions within society to remain in contact with the democratic institutions of state until it becomes ABSOLUTELY necessary for them to use other means. Stable democratic politics cannot come either from the barrel of a gun or the writ of a judge. Rather they emerge from the acceptance by all people that their interests can and will be represented by peaceful participation in democratic institutions.
The basics of the situation in Honduras are as follows: The President, a Mr Zelaya (or former President depending on your opinion) had pushed for a constitutional convention. According to Zelaya, this was to try and address the power of international commercial interests in Honduras. According to the opposition (and I say opposition but actually mean the legislature, courts and the military) this was part of an attempt to remove term limits (the constitution permits only a single 4 year term for presidents) and generally progress the chavezizing of the country. The existing constitution apparently (I say "apparently" because I can't find an english version and my spanish is somewhere between non-existent and awful) makes it illegal for an official to try to remove term limits. As the constitution also empowers the military to act in it's defence, Mr Zelaya was knocked off by the military (following a decision of the constitutional court, which ruled that he ought to be), put on a plane and sent into exile. The legislature has now appointed an interim successor.
I'm not going to pass judgement on Zelaya or his intentions, by all accounts he had become profoundly unpopular in Honduras and given the level of institutional opposition to him that is now apparent, I don't see it as likely that he would have been able to end term limits (presuming of course he ever wanted to) let alone do anything more radical, and even if he had removed term limits, he seemed to be in a poor position to win reelection, and without the necessary control over the state to steal the result.
But I do think it was a huge mistake to throw him out. It may have been legal (of course some would argue it is legal by definition because a court backed it, but we quibble) and it may indeed have been a way to remove a potentially dangerous chavista figure from office. Given the crooked nonsense Ortega has pulled in Nicaragua (not to mention Daddy Hugo himself) these people did have a reasonable basis to be worried. But this is a man who clearly has not penetrated the "deep state" and his Liberal Party, a more than century old organization, does not seem to me to be the kind of mass based movement-party that was instrumental in ensuring the rise of folks like Morales and Ortega. I have trouble seeing him converting his current position into anything particularly threatening, even if he had wanted to.
The problem with many Latin American countries, and many other countries around the globe, is that it is thoroughly dangerous to have a situation where the deep state runs for the barracks as soon as an elected offical spooks them. It prevents the establishment of real, functional politics. Look at the last 50 years of Turkish History, or the last 20 of Thailand's. When conservatives (where conservative is here defined as persons aligned with the institutional ideology and interests of the state, and opposed to their being changed) don't have to actually participate in politics to achieve their goals, parties to do so fail to develop, or develop poorly. By the same token so long as radical (where radical is defined as well... it should be obvious) politicians are tossed out whenever they try to do anything, instead of being dealt with using democratic processes, their constituency (which in the highly unequal countries of Latin America, are many) will continue to be susceptible to radical anti-system rhetoric, and will never become accustomed to the idea that the liberal democratic process can actually bring meaningful results for them.
Whether it's the Kemalists VS the AKP in Turkey, populist champions of rural Thailand VS the Bangkok elite, Latin American judges and generals VS Neo-Populists, or whatever else, the fighting between these groups and the failure to deal with them within the political, electoral realsm, distorts politics and endangers the stability of the state. Though they may well have had the best intentions in doing so, Honduras's generals have just set the progress of their country back years. And the most succesful Latin American countries will continue to be those like Brazil, where the radicals have been shown they can succeed within the system, and the conservatives have let them.
Ultimately it is wiser for all factions within society to remain in contact with the democratic institutions of state until it becomes ABSOLUTELY necessary for them to use other means. Stable democratic politics cannot come either from the barrel of a gun or the writ of a judge. Rather they emerge from the acceptance by all people that their interests can and will be represented by peaceful participation in democratic institutions.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
What the Hell is going on in Iran? My Take Part I
As I'm sure most of you know, The Islamic Republic of Iran is currently in the midst of a major popular movement protesting the results of this month's Presidential election and against the establishment's suppression of said movement.
I will not bore you with the basic details of the election or the Iranian system of government. I assume that if you're reading this from me you already have a decent understanding of what's going on over there and who the major players are. What follows then is the first part of my assessment of just what is going on behind closed doors in Iran and where all this may be heading. I know assessments like this, many from people with far more impressive credentials than I, have flooded the blogosphere in recent days, but bear with me, this is my first real post and I need to get into the feel of it.
To start with, I am DEFINITELY in the camp that believes the election in Iran was a fraud. More than that, I'm not sure a real election, the physical placement of ballots aside, actually occurred. Based on the speed with which the results were announced, the unexplained departure from established Iranian electoral practice in the administration of election day, the statistical quirks of the election data (expertly dissected by folks with better statistics skills than me, first among them Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight), and other such factors, I believe the decision that Ahmadinejad would win by such a huge margin was decided ahead of time, end-vote totals made up by electoral officials (or dictated from above) and that in the days following the election officials worked to produce the necessary province and then precinct level data to validate their original numbers.
I am NOT a believer in the so called "real results" of which I have seen several versions now, purporting to either show Mousavi with a large lead over Ahmadinejad or in one incarnation showing Ahmadinejad coming in third. I have no idea what real election results would have looked like, and Ahmadinejad may have won a plurality (though I'm relatively certain he couldnt have won on the first round) if those actual votes had been counted.
So, why was the election stolen? Mousavi is, as many including the President have pointed out, far from the Golden Boy some westerners would like to believe he is. As Prime Minister of Iran in the 1980s (the post no longer exists, its functions now absorbed into the presidency) he okayed the rampant popular supression, religious fanactism and generally islamicy revolutionness of his fellows. Whatever his campaign rhetoric, Mousavi's career does not hold a lot of optimism. Except for the following: many leading figures from the revolutionary era have become disenchanted with the form of the Republic over the years, some have become reformists and others have at least become pragmatic, Mousavi may well be one of these, but it is far from certain. So if Mousavi is not really some great liberal reformist, why is he such a threat to the establishment? Some have stressed that the Supreme Leader harbors a grudge against Mousavi from the 1980s. Others have argued that the electoral theft does not come from the clerical establishment, but from Ahmadinejad himself and institutions directly within his control, and that is was thus more about him keeping his job than anything else.
I on the other hand, think the matter lies in symbolism. Those of us who have watched the news coming out of Iran know that the protest movement is not a cult of personality. These people are not out fighting for the right of Mousavi to be President. They are fighting for their rights as citizens. Mousavi is their tool, little more. So in that sense the massive rallys in his favor in the dying days of the campaign, and his campaign in general, were a frightening alarm to the hardliners within the clerical establishment and within the various other parts of the government, that the popular reformist movement that rose to power under Khatami in 1997 was still very much alive. So it is that movement, rather than Mousavi as a person, that the hardliners want to keep out of power.
By the same token, Ahmadinejad is a symbol. I do not buy allegations that he is mastermind of the whole electoral theft, though he probably was involved deeply in it, fundamentally I think that if he had taken his own iniative on the matter the Supreme Leader would have been so pissed off at being sidelined (The Supreme Leader's ego, i shall discuss in my next post) that he would have thrown Ahmadinejad to the wolves. Ahmadinejad's value is in his status as a standard bearer and symbol of conservative populism. He is the hardliners answer to the reformist movement. An attempt to craft a mass popularity political movement within the system that is resolutely (and actively) conservative and anti-western. In other words, he is the hardliner's attempt to spread their dominance into the "republican" half of Iran's institutions. This constituency DOES exist, though it is not as large as Ahmadinejad works so hard to make it seem. But by and large after 4 years of his governance, of abrasive foreign policy rhetoric, wasteful oil spending, poor economic conditions and just general jackassery, Ahmadinejad has failed to be what his masters wanted of him. Much of the motivation for the electoral fraud I believe lies in the desperation of an establishment that, having failed to win even at a game in which it holds most cards, has now abandoned all pretence of democracy in favor of a bold power grab to protect their interests.
I will not bore you with the basic details of the election or the Iranian system of government. I assume that if you're reading this from me you already have a decent understanding of what's going on over there and who the major players are. What follows then is the first part of my assessment of just what is going on behind closed doors in Iran and where all this may be heading. I know assessments like this, many from people with far more impressive credentials than I, have flooded the blogosphere in recent days, but bear with me, this is my first real post and I need to get into the feel of it.
To start with, I am DEFINITELY in the camp that believes the election in Iran was a fraud. More than that, I'm not sure a real election, the physical placement of ballots aside, actually occurred. Based on the speed with which the results were announced, the unexplained departure from established Iranian electoral practice in the administration of election day, the statistical quirks of the election data (expertly dissected by folks with better statistics skills than me, first among them Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight), and other such factors, I believe the decision that Ahmadinejad would win by such a huge margin was decided ahead of time, end-vote totals made up by electoral officials (or dictated from above) and that in the days following the election officials worked to produce the necessary province and then precinct level data to validate their original numbers.
I am NOT a believer in the so called "real results" of which I have seen several versions now, purporting to either show Mousavi with a large lead over Ahmadinejad or in one incarnation showing Ahmadinejad coming in third. I have no idea what real election results would have looked like, and Ahmadinejad may have won a plurality (though I'm relatively certain he couldnt have won on the first round) if those actual votes had been counted.
So, why was the election stolen? Mousavi is, as many including the President have pointed out, far from the Golden Boy some westerners would like to believe he is. As Prime Minister of Iran in the 1980s (the post no longer exists, its functions now absorbed into the presidency) he okayed the rampant popular supression, religious fanactism and generally islamicy revolutionness of his fellows. Whatever his campaign rhetoric, Mousavi's career does not hold a lot of optimism. Except for the following: many leading figures from the revolutionary era have become disenchanted with the form of the Republic over the years, some have become reformists and others have at least become pragmatic, Mousavi may well be one of these, but it is far from certain. So if Mousavi is not really some great liberal reformist, why is he such a threat to the establishment? Some have stressed that the Supreme Leader harbors a grudge against Mousavi from the 1980s. Others have argued that the electoral theft does not come from the clerical establishment, but from Ahmadinejad himself and institutions directly within his control, and that is was thus more about him keeping his job than anything else.
I on the other hand, think the matter lies in symbolism. Those of us who have watched the news coming out of Iran know that the protest movement is not a cult of personality. These people are not out fighting for the right of Mousavi to be President. They are fighting for their rights as citizens. Mousavi is their tool, little more. So in that sense the massive rallys in his favor in the dying days of the campaign, and his campaign in general, were a frightening alarm to the hardliners within the clerical establishment and within the various other parts of the government, that the popular reformist movement that rose to power under Khatami in 1997 was still very much alive. So it is that movement, rather than Mousavi as a person, that the hardliners want to keep out of power.
By the same token, Ahmadinejad is a symbol. I do not buy allegations that he is mastermind of the whole electoral theft, though he probably was involved deeply in it, fundamentally I think that if he had taken his own iniative on the matter the Supreme Leader would have been so pissed off at being sidelined (The Supreme Leader's ego, i shall discuss in my next post) that he would have thrown Ahmadinejad to the wolves. Ahmadinejad's value is in his status as a standard bearer and symbol of conservative populism. He is the hardliners answer to the reformist movement. An attempt to craft a mass popularity political movement within the system that is resolutely (and actively) conservative and anti-western. In other words, he is the hardliner's attempt to spread their dominance into the "republican" half of Iran's institutions. This constituency DOES exist, though it is not as large as Ahmadinejad works so hard to make it seem. But by and large after 4 years of his governance, of abrasive foreign policy rhetoric, wasteful oil spending, poor economic conditions and just general jackassery, Ahmadinejad has failed to be what his masters wanted of him. Much of the motivation for the electoral fraud I believe lies in the desperation of an establishment that, having failed to win even at a game in which it holds most cards, has now abandoned all pretence of democracy in favor of a bold power grab to protect their interests.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Morning Good People!
What follows is a set of what I imagine will be frequently asked questions if I don't answer them right now. They deal mostly with my background and the nature of the blog. I hope to get an actual post, likely about Iran, up in the next 24 hours. So if anyone actually reads this, welcome and I look forward to reading your comments. I'll likely add to this/edit it at a latter time so as to make it more useful.
Question: Who am I?
Answer: I am just a college student from New Zealand living in Philly and interested in politics, economics and things of that nature. I love sandwiches and coca-cola and television shows made by Joss Whedon. Politically I identify myself as Liberal (though a little more in the European than the American sense), but while i agree with more Democratic policies than Republican policies, I don't identify as a Democrat. On specific policy areas I support policies that would be considered way out left in American politics (but generally aren't in the rest of the developed world) and on others positions that are decidedly on the right. On a few issues (such as electoral reform) I back positions that aren't really even on the page of American politics.
Question: What are you going to blog about?
Answer: Short answer: politics. Slightly longer answer: Any issue in global politics and American politics that interests me. Long answer: here are some of major interests: American political institutions, special interests in American politics, social issues in American politics Democratization, Political Change in the Middle East, The relationship between Islam and Democracy (and the prospects for Democracy in majority Muslim nations), The role of electoral laws and institutions in producing political outcomes, South African Politics, Turkish Politics, Brazilian Politics, the 'neo-populist' regimes of some Latin American countries, and much more besides. I hope to comment on all these and more over time. Since at the time of writing this I'm actually out of Philly and back in New Zealand, some NZ politics will probably creep in too.
Question: Why are you doing this?
Answer: Been meaning to for ages. Just finally got around to it. What's going on in Iran was also a major motivation.
Question: Why "Principled Pragmatism"?
Answer: Honestly, because about 15 other things I thought of were already chosen. One of them by a world of warcraft blog. That made me sad. The name I ended up with is essentially an effort to describe my own political affilation. I dearly value my principles and am in many sense an idealist. But I also have a very real and strong appreciation of the actual possibilities of world. I'll think of a better way to put this later.
Question: Who am I?
Answer: I am just a college student from New Zealand living in Philly and interested in politics, economics and things of that nature. I love sandwiches and coca-cola and television shows made by Joss Whedon. Politically I identify myself as Liberal (though a little more in the European than the American sense), but while i agree with more Democratic policies than Republican policies, I don't identify as a Democrat. On specific policy areas I support policies that would be considered way out left in American politics (but generally aren't in the rest of the developed world) and on others positions that are decidedly on the right. On a few issues (such as electoral reform) I back positions that aren't really even on the page of American politics.
Question: What are you going to blog about?
Answer: Short answer: politics. Slightly longer answer: Any issue in global politics and American politics that interests me. Long answer: here are some of major interests: American political institutions, special interests in American politics, social issues in American politics Democratization, Political Change in the Middle East, The relationship between Islam and Democracy (and the prospects for Democracy in majority Muslim nations), The role of electoral laws and institutions in producing political outcomes, South African Politics, Turkish Politics, Brazilian Politics, the 'neo-populist' regimes of some Latin American countries, and much more besides. I hope to comment on all these and more over time. Since at the time of writing this I'm actually out of Philly and back in New Zealand, some NZ politics will probably creep in too.
Question: Why are you doing this?
Answer: Been meaning to for ages. Just finally got around to it. What's going on in Iran was also a major motivation.
Question: Why "Principled Pragmatism"?
Answer: Honestly, because about 15 other things I thought of were already chosen. One of them by a world of warcraft blog. That made me sad. The name I ended up with is essentially an effort to describe my own political affilation. I dearly value my principles and am in many sense an idealist. But I also have a very real and strong appreciation of the actual possibilities of world. I'll think of a better way to put this later.
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