Barack Obama v George Bush: Realist Analysis

On January 20, 2009 Barack Obama took office after running on a campaign of hope and change. This essay will examine the first 10 months of his presidency, and compare it to the rule of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Several policy areas will be examined, with special focus paid to international security issues, including the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fate of the Europe-based missile defence shield within the context of a stronger Russia, and the foreign policy toward North Korea and Iran, especially as relates to their respective nuclear ambitions. Recognition will be given to the so-called Bush Doctrine, a four pillared policy framework of preemption, unilateralism, American primacy and democracy promotion, and it will be compared to the actions of Obama along these lines. Further, the major international events that occurred during the Bush and Obama presidencies will be discussed in terms of the underlying theoretical frameworks influencing them, as well as the presidents' respective foreign policy responses. From this analysis, it will be noted that there have been several course corrections between the administrations, with a renewed focus being placed on the neo-Liberal ideas of multilateralism and institution-building by Obama, even if in name only. However, it will be shown that the underlying state of the international political system is one of continuity, reflecting the dominant ideological realities of the realist/neo-realist tradition.
[continued after the jump, or click on title to view full article]

Analysis of film Arguing The World

Below is something I've been working on at school. Since McMaster has essentially eaten up all my time for the past few months, I thought it might be good to post some of my work to prove I am still alive (don't people usually go bungee jumping for that same reason?). So here is my analysis of the film Arguing the World.

Arguing the World: A Marxist Analysis of the New York Intellectuals

Wesley Kellar

The film Arguing the World follows the lives of four New York intellectuals from their modest childhoods, through their early experiences with academia and their subsequent careers as influential thinkers and social commentators. This paper will begin with a summary of the film, paying special attention to the early school days of Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe and Irving Kristol, and the subsequent changes in their respective theoretical subscriptions. Following this, the film will be analyzed with reference to material relevant to the study of sociological theory, with particular focus paid to parallels with the life of Marx and connections to the Marxist paradigm. In so doing, this essay will prove the utility of the Marxist theoretical framework in the study of sociology and the world.

This section summarizing the experiences of the four New York intellectuals draws entirely from the film Arguing the World (Dorman 1998). The film begins with a discussion of the childhood of each of the four characters profiled. Each was a Jewish child growing up in New York, experiencing the burdens of poverty and discrimination. Bell came from the lower east side, Glazer was raised in the Bronx to a working-class family, Howe recalls a difficult move to the East Bronx and a resulting drop in socioeconomic status, and Kristol relates that he barely noticed his poverty in Brooklyn, because everyone he knew was also poor. These trying economic circumstances helped lay the foundation for the brilliant careers that followed. The result of their lack of money was that all four young men attended the City University of New York (CUNY), a relative dumping ground for the “smart poor” (Dorman 1998).
[continued after the jump, or click on title to view full article]

Eco News

Greenpeace is still working tirelessly to bring some sense to Canada's tar sands - never thought I would see such devastation of Canada's environment and reputation as the tar sands.
Meanwhile, French protest groups are gearing up to try to stop a large installation of wind turbines near Mont-St-Michel - only in France would such a protest against clean energy be so vocal.

No Logo

Image by Gauravonomics via Flickr

Woah - been a while since my last post. I started school in September and am just now reaching some sort of equilibrium with sleep. Have even found some time to read my favourite shit-disturber du jour Naomi Klein. If you haven't checked her out, do so now. A few interesting points from No Logo (her first book, and not her best):

- after a 2+ year libel trial in the UK, a judge ruled that McDonald's is 'culpably responsible' for cruelty to animals, they are 'antipathetic' toward unionization efforts, and that their workers suffer in terms of low pay and bad conditions. Best of all, the judge ruled Ronald McDonald et al 'exploit children' with their ads, which are misleading. While nice to see that someone has the sense to call things like they are, it might've been nice had McDonald's been the ones on trial, rather than two citizen activists sued by the Golden Arches company for libel.

Naked Hitler In AIDS Awareness Ads

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2009/09/04/aids-ads-featuring-hitler-sending-the-wrong-message.aspx

Bring Your Own Coconut

Yeah it's definitely beautiful out here in Vancouver - definitely worth a trip or two if you can swing it. Trains are nicer for that kind of thing (where the act of getting there is as important as the destination ... think kodak moment) although a bit more expensive.
I've been dying to go to the Science World that is maybe 25 min from my friend Wren's place, right at the edge of downtown (right by the Pacific too).
A few days ago we went to English Bay (a beach downtown - yes, downtown!) and chilled on the beach with one of her uber cute friends, while I drank wine from a salsa jar - I felt like a movie star.
right now i am nicely toasted - just got back from a BYOC (bring your own coconut) party. was actually kinda awesome, wasn't sure I would enjoy myself, but turned out awesome, topped off by the walk home to Wren's with 5 or 6 other people, all stumbling (thankfully downhill) 40 blocks while drinking rum and lime juice out of coconuts with smeared lip-gloss faces.
Culminated in a visit to the park where we were the victims of a drive-by by cops. They were pulling some crazy intimidation techniques in order to detect terrorists who could potentially pose a threat to the Olympics (I have quickly come to learn that this basically means all locals not involved with the service industry, Natives or Aboriginals of any nation, and youth in general). The cops pulled through the middle of the park, drove right beside where we were standing, playing with a neighbour's dog, then sloooooooowly cruised by, staring us down and daring us with their eyes to twitch the wrong way the whole time. Ridiculous.

[with modification, from a note to a friend]

Playing Dress Up

Before I forget, just wanted to mention the trend that I've noticed is sweeping the city - t-shirts printed with graphics to make them look like they are a suit and tie. Weirdness.

Lost in the City

Image via Wikipedia

So I went with the friend I am staying with in Vancouver downtown so she could run some errands. She dropped me off at the library so I could do a bit of nErdy stuff (update my blog, check my email, hopefully find a new book or two to devour while I am here). On the way in we passed by some awesome grafiti (pics to follow). Then she dropped me off and said "meet you here in an hour and a half" and vanished into the throngs. 20 seconds later I realized the library, part of Simon Fraser University, was closed for a summer break. So now here I was, completely lost in a strange city, with no where to go and nothing to do for an hour - surely I couldn't get into much trouble, could I?

After getting forcibly removed from the hallway outside the library (where I had planned to camp out with my laptop) by campus security ("But I'm from Ontario," I insisted. "Do you want me to get my taser out?" he responded.), I began hoofing it about, trying to look like I belonged. After nearly getting hit by a car (the driver's fault), and stumbling into a drugged-out crazy pregnant woman (definitely my fault), I decided the best thing to do would be to find somewhere to sit down where I wouldn't be in danger of a) getting shanked b) accidentally shanking someone.

[By the way, the pic on the right is purpotedly of McFog (!!!!!????), the mascot of SFU. Awesome.]

More to come.

Vancouver Hell Cats

Have been in beautiful BC (I'd call it La belle province if that wasn't already taken) for the past few days now with my oldest, bestest friend Wren (see: photo). Settling in nicely (minus the fact that last night we were rudely awakened at 4AM by full bottles of wine (one opened but full of water) crashing down around our heads like bombs. They were being thrown from above by her cute but evil kitties Mogs and Minx, who managed to look completely uninterested by the watery carnage they had inflicted upon us from above.
More to come.

Real Life Vs Blog Land

And so for the third time in a week I've been through something IRL that I just have to blog about - but haven't, because its an unresolved issue revolving around people who read my blog. Whoops! I've been trying to decide how best to go about handling this push/pull situation - should I just throw caution to the wind, and pour everything out onto the web? This kind of consequence-be-damned approach appeals to my cavalier values. I'm thinking maybe I could just start prefacing my entries with a warning, such as "spoiler alert - this blog may contain my thoughts and feelings on _______". That way when I am confronted by an angry/hurt/confused friend I can just say "didn't you read the warning?".

I'd love to have some thoughts on this predicament, and how I should tackle it (or how other fellow bloggers do). Much appreciated! (And by the way, once these various situations have resolved themselves a little I'll be sure to post the juicy stuff here).

BC Bound

It's official, I'm taking off - don't worry, I'm not talking about some five dollar strip tease in a back alley (sorry girls). Instead, I'm leaving my recession-depressed province of Ontario (represent!) to fly to the depression-proof (unless you're affected by the weather... pathetic fallacy, anyone?) province of BC for a little time to work on my tan and recharge my batteries (which are apparently solar powered). Gonna stay in downtown Van (that's Vancouver for the uninformed) for a few weeks, and hopefully visit some family, including a trip to Winestock 2009 to see my uncle at his vinyard.

Lost and Found

I have been reading a lot more since I got off my anti-depressents - not sure if they were somehow affecting my attention span or what. Have been on a Tom Robbins kick lately, and loving it, but it has been having some interesting spillover effect into my "real" life - been doing this weird soul-searching, what-is-the-meaning-of-life thing, trying to figure out where I'm going and why, etc. So far I haven't found any answers, and I'm scared to death that I'm gonna end up wasting my summer vacation/school career/life, on banalities and pointless whoop-dee-doo.

I've been thinking - maybe I should train-hop out west to visit my friend Wren (this at least would be real, novel, exciting).

I've been thinking - maybe I should join the HCBP protests (this would be something I believe in, would connect me to my community, would be dangerous and selfless).

I've been thinking - maybe I should have a child (this would grant me immortality, would allow me to correct my parents' mistakes while making my own, and to mould a life in my own image).

So far I haven't come to any decisions, leaving me feeling paralyzed and distrustful of my faculties and more lost than ever, but I am happy that I am finally having these thoughts again, important and all-encompassing, for the first time since I popped the first pretty little Effexor in my mouth nearly two years ago.

[taken from an email to a friend]

Antoni Gaudi

I recently stumbled across a post on one of the blogs I follow about a mug designed by Antoni Gaudi. This led me to look up some of his other work. I found out that he has mostly worked with buildings as his medium of choice (rather than cups and spoons). Here are some awesome pictures from GreatBuildings.com, let me know what you think (or point me to others!).

[Final exams coming up Wed and Thurs - stay tuned for more good stuff after that]

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Alice In Wonderland (2010)

Upon a little further research I found out that Johnny Depp couldn't have possibly been in Sherlock Holmes - he was busy filming Alice In Wonderland for Disney, along with Helena Bonham-Carter and Tim Burton (what a dream team those 3 are). Also with Anne Hathaway and Crispin Glover. Mostly this post is just an excuse to show off some of the art for this movie. Be sure the check out the link to the trailer below, brought to you by my good friends at Zemanta.

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[up @ the cottage for a week - no internet! ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!]

Secret Homosexual Handshake - Beware!

All Good Christians must beware the secret homo-handshake, lest they be unwittingly pulled into a public washroom by Satan incarnate, and forced to endure hours of carnal delights. This article is the funniest thing I have ever seen, and I only wish I had the time/brain capacity (@ 5:00AM) to give it the full run-down). I can promise I will delve a little deeper tomorrow into the disturbed minds of these paranois religious bigots. God bless freedom of religion (too bad it wasn't freedom from religion...).

Sherlock Holmes: Former Drug Addict?

Just a quick blurb to talk about Robert Downey Jr.'s new role as Sherlock Holmes in the upcoming Guy Ritchie flick. What a brilliant choice for the troubled-addict-turned-iron-man. One can only imagine Johnny Depp partaking in a blood ritual, having sliced his agent from ear to ear for missing out on this reimagining featuring RDJr, Jude Law, and Mark Strong (of recent RockNRolla fame). Fingers crossed for something great.

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Harper Visits Pope

In a completely unrelated story to this one called Harper's War on Gay Pride, the Harper family recently met with Pope Benedict XVI. They traded gifts and Harper listened to Benedict's "perspective on a number of important issues".

There was no indication whether they spoke of abortion or gay marriage. According to some, these topics are considered sensitive because, despite the Pope's position (and that of a number of Harper's MP's), the Harper government has taken no steps to limit access to abortion or ban gay marriage.

Truly Harper is a rogue social progressive, championing the rights of the people in the face of cruel religious oppressors.

Site Maintenance

The last week or so has brought about 3 entire site redesigns as I search for the perfect template. My HTML skills, initially nonexistent, are now merely terrible - progress! It is now easier to read and write comments, and the site is optimized for higher resolution screens (apologies to Eee PCs - I will try to introduce flexible page size coding in the future). Stay tuned for more changes to come, and feel free to make format/HTML suggestions (anyone good at scripting?).

Harper's War on Gay Pride

In the most shocking example of discrimination I have heard of in a long time, Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy has been pulled off her portfolio because she awarded money to gay pride events. Toronto's Pride events are a cultural event like any other, and draw tourists to the city from the entire Golden Horseshoe and beyond. The fact that sexual orientation is protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms begs the question of how Harper's government expects to deny Pride funding without being challenged - and overturned - in court. The idea that Pride could be controversial to some Canadians underlines the need for the event, to help educate people on what should already be a moot point by now. While I have never been a fan of wasting taxpayer money on court challenges, Harper has consistently thrown our cash into protracted battles against socially progressive programs (InSite, medical marijuana and lisenced growers, etc.), and it is time someone stood up to his misogynistic, patriarchal war on common sense.
Pride is a tourist event like any other, serving as a celebration of all types of sexuality, as well as an educational forum. It has transformed itself into a family friendly event, and done wonders for Toronto's reputation as an inclusive city of diversity. The fact that the grant was used to address accessibility for handicapped attendees further proves that Ablonczy was in the right.
Canadian white supremists will be happy to note that Harper is one step closer to denying permits for Caribana due to its potentially controversial racial motif.

[source links to follow]

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Tar Sands Terror

Alberta's tar sands are a global embarrassment, the biggest environmental catastrophe in human history - and things have only begun to ramp up. There are hundreds of reasons not to exploit the Boreal forests and vast wetlands of northern Canada - the tailing ponds are vast dams of toxic sludge which are constantly leeching into Alberta's rivers (which eventually flow into America, the Arctic, and the Pacific). These "ponds" have and will kill birds who come into contact with them - often causing them to drown! They are also suspected of causing mutations and deformities in fish, in areas relied upon by Natives for food (although this is debatable). New regulations regarding tailings ponds (requiring faster 'cleanup' and increased regulation) have been slammed by industry as too difficult, and by environmental groups as insufficient.

Native communities downstream from Fort McMurry and other hotbeds of the tar boom are experiencing elevated rates of rare cancers, miscarriages (up to 1/3 of pregnancies), and the feminization of children (fewer and fewer males are born). There is evidence that the doctor who first sounded the alarm about these health effects is being silenced by Health Canada - for raising "undue alarm". [continued after the jump]

Wallabes Are Getting Stoned

Image by spakattacks via Flickr

Recently reports have surfaced of wallabes chowing down on opium and then acting strangely. This begs the question of how secure the world's medicinal opium supply is (although industry reports suggest everything is fine), not to mention the future of these poor wallabes.

Additional sources show this type of animal drug use is not isolated to wallabes - deer and sheep have both also been known to wander in slow-moving circles after contact with the poppy fields.

Elephants have been known to raid villages in India and elsewhere searching for moonshine rice beer. These destructive pachyderms have killed hundreds of villagers while looking for a good time, and many have met their own end in their lust for a good stiff drink, including some which were electrocuted.

Reports of UK sheep chowing down on psilocybin - magic mushrooms - have surfaced, although there remain questions of what has caused these isolated incidents from being more prevalent.

Studies at McGill University, known as a party school, have examined the effect of alcohol on monkeys. This follows repeated reports of vervet monkeys stealing drinks from tourists in St. Kitts, after developing a taste for booze.

Reproductive Human Rights

Image via Wikipedia

A recent decision by the BC Human Rights Council ruled that Dr. Gerald Korn, an ob/gyn practicing in the province for several decades, contravened the human rights of a lesbian couple to whom he denied access to artificial insemination based on their sexual orientation.

His claim was that by providing the service he was opening himself up to risks to his practice, of an efficient/economic nature. Luckily the BC Human Rights Council ruled against him, and this ruling was in essence backed by the BC Supreme Court. This kind of discrimination is clearly in contravention of the Canadian Federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act (esp. section 2e), as well as common sense. It brings up interesting issues surrounding the role of medical practitioners in society, and what rights they have to deny services on moral/ethical/financial grounds. In my opinion, there is very little room for a doctor's personal moral/ethical beliefs in diagnosing or treating patients, especially as they relate to areas protected by the Canadian Human Rights Act.

A recent California case has mirrored the Canadian case. In it, a lesbian couple has claimed that they were discriminated against by a clinic which refused to treat them because of their sexual orientation. The clinic however has blamed communication problems and denies that the couple's sexuality was at issue, instead stating that the treatment was denied because the prospective patient was single. This case is drawing interest from conservative religious and gay activist groups, many of whom have been granted an audience before the court. Pharmacists in the US have been increasingly granted the right to refuse to fill certain prescriptions based on moral grounds (manifesting as denials to provide contraceptives - and, sometimes illegally, to even transfer prescriptions to another pharmacist), which has combined with the lack of acceptance of the morning after pill (which is often not kept in stock at certain chemists) to add up to a barrier to choice of crisis proportions. However, discriminating against services or treatments is far different from discriminating against people.


In both of these instances, the morals of the doctor were pitted against the rights of the patients to receive care. This is a sticky human rights issue pitting freedom of religion against freedom from discrimination and issues of universal access to health care (at least in Canada, where lip service is generally backed up - despite notable inequalities in access to reproductive services experienced in rural, eastern, and aboriginal communities). While "No one can force me to carry a child" has a long tradition of acceptence, "No one can keep me from having a child" deserves just as much sway.

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Follow the Money

Understanding that media has become more concentrated is an abstract mental construction - time to break things down, especially in light of the fact that a 2006 BBC poll found that residents of many nations trust their media more than their governments.

As of 2001, there were 14 players in Canada`s daily newspaper industry. That`s a remarkably small number for a diverse and dispersed nation of over 33 million. Of the 103 papers owned by these 14 corporations, 70 were owned by the top four (Southern Publications, Quebecor Inc., Osprey media, Hollinger Cdn. N.L.P.). Since 2001, concentration has increased even further. Since newspapers are such an integral part of the information distribution network for Canadians, this is a frightening series of events. However, scarier still is how the same companies which control the flow of news through their paper chains also own local and national television channels and radio channels.

Other worrying recent events are summarized nicely in the following excerpt:

Astral Media owns 29 radio stations in Quebec and the Maritimes and 17 pay television stations (including The Movie Network, Mpix and Family Channel, and half of Teletoon). In April 2007, Astral Media announced it had struck a cash and stock deal to acquire 52 radio stations and two TV stations from Standard Broadcasting.

CanWest Global owns the Global Television Network's 11 stations as well as the three TV stations in the CH-branded network. In January 2007, in partnership with a group from Goldman Sachs, CanWest bought Alliance Atlantis, which added 13 specialty channels including Showcase, HGTV Canada, Food Network Canada and History Television. CanWest owns 11 of Canada's biggest dailies (including the National Post, The Gazette in Montreal, the Ottawa Citizen and both of Vancouver's dailies, the Vancouver Sun and The Province).

CTVglobemedia owns the CTV network and its 24 affiliates, and has full or partial ownership of 17 specialty television stations, The Globe and Mail and 35 radio stations across the country. CTVglobemedia's other conventional television assets include A-Channel, a second system that operates in major markets of Ontario and British Columbia: CKX-TV, a CBC television affiliate in Brandon, Man.; TQS; and ASN, a cable channel in Atlantic Canada.

Osprey Media owns 21 dailies in Ontario (including the Kingston Whig-Standard and Peterborough Examiner) and 36 other papers. In 2001, Osprey bought 16 dailies and 12 other papers from Hollinger International. In 2002, Osprey acquired 30 more newspapers (including four dailies) from CanWest Global.

Rogers Media owns several over-the-air and specialty TV channels (including OMNI, Rogers Sportsnet, the Shopping Channel and the Biography Channel), 44 radio stations in six provinces and magazines such as Maclean's, Chatelaine and Canadian Business. In June 2007, Rogers Media bought five Citytv stations, in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

Torstar Corp. publishes the Toronto Star, The Record in Kitchener-Waterloo, the Hamilton Spectator, and the Guelph Mercury. The company also publishes 95 community newspapers in the southern Ontario marketplace.

Quebecor Media owns eight dailies and 200 other local and community newspapers. In 2000, Quebecor bought Quebec's largest cable company, Videotron, and its French-language TV network, TVA.

Some proponents of media concentration suggest that fewer players mean that the industry is more competitive globally. They also point to the role played by the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in permitting the changes that have occurred over the past decades. However, the CRTC has been criticized for lacking the political willpower, oversight, or enforcing powers to actually resist consolidation. In fact, the history of the CRTC shows the body often reverses a previous decision, is ordered to reconsider a decision (as has happened multiple times), or simply rules according to a market-oriented values system. This commission has not earned the trust of Canadians, especially in light of the further media consolidation that is occurring each year. Please contact the CRTC, your MP, your mom and your neighbour, and help to shine a light on the issue of media concentration and the biased approach taken by the CRTC.

Who Is Telling You Your Opinion?

If you are Canadian, then chances are you are getting your information about your community, nation, and the world from one of a small handful of media conglomerates. This is true for newspapers, television, radio, and increasingly internet, and these various forms of media are often all under the control of one company. This kind of oligarchical control over the information that Canadians receive is unacceptable - there have been a plethora of stories (usually printed by a rival conglomerate) about the centralized owners of a media chain interfering in the editorial independence of journalists. This has taken the form of everything from issuing stories 'of national interest' that local papers must run, a relatively benign event, to killing stories attempting to expose Jean Chretien's involvement in corruption, and subsequently firing the journalist responsible for the story, for supposedly unrelated reasons. This type of undemocratic influence rips at the very heart of journalism's supposed role as an unbiased source of information.

In a democracy, the principle of an informed citizenry is key to allowing elected officials to be held accountable for their actions, and for keeping important and unresolved issues at the forefront of the social imagination. The concentration of media ownership which has occurred over the past three decades has served to limit the number of choices Canadians can make for their news. In addition, those sources that remain are increasingly accountable to anonymous shareholders, forced to prioritize a profit above their responsibility to report in an unbiased and accurate manner. This is not suggesting that media companies have were not interested in profit in the past - rather, it seems that the balance of power has swung away from principled editors and toward amoral owners and investors, to the detriment of the wider public.

Coupled with the shifts toward fewer news sources presenting fewer opinions, and the power shift toward self-interested capital at the expense of principles, has come the misguided belief that the public should in some way be consulted about what news is presented to them. This misguided notion has resulted in the extensive use of polls and ratings micromanagement. This is especially unfortunate in light of the fact that polling reliability is being called into question. Again, by no means have media ever operated in a vacuum, separate from the wants of the public they serve. However, an unfortunate side effect of the modern media corporation's propensity to worship at the altar of public opinion is the distortion of news media into a new breed of "info-tainment". This new species of media passing itself off as news is more likely to dedicate air-time or page-length to celebrity gossip and prolonged scandals than it is to less popular, though still vital, issues such as campaign finance reform.

Another problem facing the profit-driven, consumer-generated media choices being presented is that they are invariably the most violent and sensationalized stories from around the world, selected more for their shock value (and subsequently their ratings value, and subsequently their advertising dollar pull) than for their intrinsic worth as news. While unfortunate that humans are drawn to extreme violence, it is more unfortunate how modern media cater to these tastes like never before. This can help explain why heavy media consumers overestimate their likelihood of being involved in violence, why they experience higher levels of anxiety, and why they are more likely to behave in antisocial ways toward others. There are, of course, other studies which deny that violent media have a negative effect on viewers.
Since there are fewer voices presenting fewer issues, focusing increasingly on titillating our basest fascinations, there is a dearth of stories Canadians need to hear - such as the issue of media concentration.

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