Painful Politics

Shapiro, I believe, is telling the Clinton administration to show that it is doing good things for education as oppose to highlighting a few small accomplishments.  Shapiro wants details.  Also, later on in his piece he emphasizes how important it is to teach students in a way that connects to their lives in order for them to access the material better.  This is something we talk about in our class all the time.  He talks at length about standardized testing and how it stifles creativity and critical thinking.  Additionally, Shapiro points out that standardized tests tend to keep the culture of power at the top.  Again, something we have talked about at length during this course.

But I think Dr. Bogad had us read this article for a bigger purpose.  A presidential election year has such a focus on fake promises that I have a hard time sifting through what each candidate will really do and what policies they will really put into place.  Yes, I can look at their past history as far as their politics go (president, senator, governor). I fear that the uneducated voter listens to one source and receives a biased view of the issues at hand.  It is time consuming to watch the network news, cable news, read newspapers and listen to talk radio.  Who has time!  Shapiro emphasized this frustration when he mentions that it looks like the Clinton Administration is concentrating on education reform but in fact is more concerned about educating kids that will go into corporate jobs.  So the bias begins …

I have to say that I found this assignment particularly difficult.  I first started with the big guns … Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Brien, and I just couldn’t research them and listen to their screaming, cocky rhetoric any longer.  I literally spent hours trying to find the right biased article, related to the election, and related to a particular issue.  So, I went with Peggy Noonan who is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal.  Noonan is politically conservative and was a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and a speechwriter for George Bush when he ran for office.  The piece I chose is called “Noonan:  It’s the Circumstances, Stupid” and it was written on August 17, 2012.  In the piece she talks about how important it is for Romney and his running mate, Ryan, to stick together as the campaign comes to its final days.  Noonan wants the Republican Party to focus on the mantra that they are going to “save” the country.  I guess she thinks that the American people are stupid and will all of sudden forget about all the programs they plan to cut as they “save” the country.  She creates a scenario where an old lady is in a wheel chair heading for a cliff and suddenly a young guy, Paul Ryan, stops her from falling off the edge.  She calls this “comic and sweet”.  I call it just more disgusting political crap, which is why I try to avoid reading and listening to some of these fools.  Additionally, she refers to Obama as the “big loser in the White House”.  Really?  Very strange and somewhat immature.  After reading her column, it is hard not to feel that she is so narrow-minded. 

I lean Democrat but never vote for a candidate just because he or she is a Democrat.  I try to get an unbiased view of how the candidates feel about issues that are important to me personally such as abortion, education, and gay rights.  I have never missed voting in any election but I know that my vote for president really does not matter.  What I really try to focus on is the local issues and the local candidates.