doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
politics
barriers
05 years ago
A month or so ago, I watched a few documentaries on the Sundance Channel about the issue of immigration over the U.S.-Mexico border. I watched these shortly after having returned from northern Mexico, the very area where immigrants arrive in the United States after walking for miles and days over the harsh desert.
The first documentary I watched was Crossing Arizona. This production tried to look at the issue from both sides but I always felt like the makers were trying to make a very specific point about the issue that leaned a bit more toward those who are fighting immigrants. They didn’t talk as much to the people who were trying to come across the border, to them as they did cross over, or understanding what would incite someone to risk his/her life to go to a country that both wants them and hates them. They are entering a very racist, elitist, judgmental society that will treat them badly. And yet, they come by the 1000s.
Why?
The documentary didn’t discuss that at all. Instead, we heard plenty from the so-called Minuteman Project. We heard all about their rights and their feelings about this issue (which, obviously, are very negative toward the immigrants). We heard from a Native American man (Tohono O’odham nation) who puts out water, shares what food he has in his truck, and fights against tribal customs to assist the crossers. While the description of the film says that farmers are interviewed, there was very little of that.
Really, though, the voices of the immigrants themselves were hardly existent at all. I’m not sure if that was intentional but it reminded me of how much disrespect is given to them. We speak of the immigrants, the illegal aliens, the migrant workers. We don’t speak about them as people but as groups (and I’m guilty of this as well). Sure, they did follow 3 men but they didn’t give them a big voice in the film. The “guardians of the border” had much bigger voices.
Why?
I watched another documentary about this topic, as well. Wetback follows the migrants across the Rio Grande. This film gives voice to the people moving across the border, understanding why they make the journey. It delves into the reasons for taking this chance, for making this journey
Maybe this is due to the differences in the ethnicity of the filmakers (although I can’t be particularly sure of ethnicity because there is little about Dan DeVivo, editor of Crossing Arizona). Maybe this is due to who gave them access.
What I’d like to see, though, is a film that actually discusses the real issues of this situation from all sides. I’d also like to hear from the U.N. on this and how the Mexican government (really) feels about it, as well.
We need the migrant workers. Our society doesn’t work without them. But they need a voice and they need to be given more respect. They do an amazing job and we all benefit from their work.
They should, too.
theatre of the absurd
0
I’ve been listening to some podcasts on rhetoric lately. Last night I was listening to one about the Roman rhetoricians (specifically Cicero). Most of this I have studied in my classes but I think that some of it went by so fast that I missed it.
One of the main tenets of Roman rhetorics (and politics) was that they put integrity way above anything else when it came to holding a respected position within the Senate. Of course, you had to be well-connected and wealthy in order to even get in to the Senate (although Cicero was an anomaly in this – neither well-connected nor wealthy but intelligent and convincing beyond imagination).
I’m sure this changed over time. I mean, there was plenty of back-stabbing in the ancient Roman Senate (et tu Brutus?). But they really tried to make the offices those that were respected and deserved that respect.
Fast forward.
The Democrats aren’t even in office yet and there are rumors of bribes and improprieties. Barak Obama has a real estate connection with a man who is known to play dirty politics. Pelosi is aligning herself with a man who refuses to vote in favor of ethics reforms.
Where is the integrity in our representative government?
Are there no untarnished people left who go to work in government?
Is everyone corrupt?
Is it possible to hold an elected position and not be corrupt?
I’m at the point of where I won’t trust anything that anyone says because they are all out for themselves. It’s all about *memememe* not the common people.
Yeah, yeah…the Romans weren’t about the common people either. But at least they put integrity at the top of their priorities.
election day
0
I have to say that I’m relieved that today is election day.
The political ads have been inordinately mean this year. They don’t tell the truth. They sensationalize the facts. The rhetoric is interesting but it is also dismaying.
On both sides.
Since I have TIVO, though, I really don’t see that many of the ads. I race by them, deciding to use my own judgment to elect my representatives or to choose the propositions I will support.
It’s the phone calls that bother me. Every day, all day long, the phone rings with pre-recorded messages urging me to protect my rights, to listen to famous people, and to believe that the world is doomed if I don’t rise up and do my duty to vote. Every day. Even Sundays.
I got home from vacation and was amazed that I had so many messages on my voice mail. It wasn’t until I started listening to them that I realized that only one was really for me. The rest were all political phone calls.
I don’t even listen to them anymore. I hear the beginnings of the ad and I hang up.
Ed Harris, I think you’re an amazing actor but I think that I understand the threats to a woman’s right to choose far more than you do. I don’t need you calling me, telling me that my rights and my freedoms are at stake.
Governor Napolitano, I admire you and will vote for you. You don’t have to call me.
Ellen Simon, you’re running against Renzi. Need I say more? Please don’t call again. You’ve already got my vote.
It’s great that I’m so popular (hah!). But really, it makes me want to turn my phone off and hide from them all.
damage
0
“There is no way of measuring the damage to a society when a whole texture of humanity is kept from realizing its own power, when the woman architect who might have reinvented our cities sits barely literate in a semilegal sweatshop on the Texas- Mexican border, when women who should be founding colleges must work their entire lives as domestics.”
Adrienne Rich
Long before we had decided to go to Puerto Peñasco, I was outraged over the politics that are being raised up around the southern U.S. border issues.
I have lived in Arizona for more than twenty years. I have lived with migrant workers as my neighbors, my co-workers, and my friends. I consider the work they do to be invaluable to the economy of the United States.
I’ve wanted to write about the border issue for some time now but I could never quite find the right time. How did it fit in with everything else that was going on?
But this is the thing…
A giant wall will not keep people out if they want to get in bad enough (history has shown us that).
A giant wall only serves to create boundaries between the communication that needs to be ongoing between the nations of Mexico and the United States.
A giant wall creates an air of separatism and an “us versus them” mentality that is not conducive to being good neighbors.
Most of the migrant workers don’t want to live in the United States. They love their own country. That’s where their families are. That’s where their lives are.
They come to the United States to help their families escape the devastating poverty they face in their homeland. They send money home. They return home as often as they can. They, the majority, only come here to work, to earn money, to feed and clothe and house their families.
And I don’t see anything wrong with that. It is a symbiotic relationship. We need them as much as they need us.
But they should be paid a fair wage. And they should be treated well. And they should have benefits while they are here. And they should be able to go home without fear of losing their jobs, of being shot, of dying along the long desolate border.
And it is long and desolate.
As we drove through the hundreds of miles of desert yesterday, I considered the plights of the people trying to make better lives for themselves. Saguaros, chollas, ocotillos, organ pipes, scorpions, snakes, dry sand, hot sun, blowing winds, and no water are only a few of the perils they face as they try to cross the border. That doesn’t take into account steep, rocky mountains, the so-called “minutemen” who “guard” our borders, the border patrol, and the ever-vigilant inhabitants of border towns. Because, afterall, we don’t want them in our backyard.
Children sell tortillas, handmade toys, and washed windshields on the streets just to be able to eat. Children. Children the same age as my beloved niece.
They shouldn’t have to live life like that.
The politics that are happening right now affect real people. Children and adults alike are being told that they are not good enough to share in the wealth that we squander. They do not deserve it because they were not born in the right country, 50 feet across a manmade border.
Shame on us.
don’t fence me in
06 years ago
My beloved state of Arizona is in the national news again.
Nothing to be proud of, to be sure.
Earlier this week, we made the national news because a local case is being presented to the Supreme Court.
In the summer of 2000, in the neighborhood next to mine (at the time), Eric Clark took his brother’s truck out for a midnight drive. He was racing up and down the streets with the radio blaring.
The police were called. This was supposed to be a simple public nuisance case where the teenager would be pulled over, hands slapped, parents admonished, and everyone would go on their way.
It turned into a nightmare for two families and a small city that prides itself on low crime.
Eric is a schizophrenic. His parents had desperately tried to get help for him but to no avail. He often talked about aliens and how Flagstaff was filled with 50,000 aliens and how even his parents were aliens. That night, Eric was in the depths of a delusional schizophrenic episode. Everyone he came into contact with were aliens and they had to be dealt with.
One of the people the seventeen-year-old came into contact with was Officer Jeff Moritz. Moritz was a four-year veteran of the Flagstaff Police Department, the father of one with one on the way.
In the early hours of that June morning, Eric and Moritz met up. Eric shot Moritz, knowing he was an alien. Moritz was the first Flagstaff officer shot in the line of duty.
A manhunt insued. It was a scary time because we didn’t know if the assailant was going to shoot anyone else. We didn’t know anything about him until much later. He was a few streets over from me the entire time.
The State of Arizona refuses to accept Eric’s plea of insanity. They agree he is schizophrenic. They agree he was delusional during the shooting. They refuse, however, to allow Eric to get the help he needs and want to send him to prison for the rest of his life.
The Supreme Court is going to decide if the right to put a killer into an institution for the mentally impaired is okay in light of a serious criminal act.
Eric Michael Clark is a sick young man. He needs serious help.
–
And now, the infamous Arizona Minutemen are demanding that President Bush take action on our borders. They say that if he doesn’t, they will erect fences on their own property to keep out Mexican nationals.
I keep getting images of the Berlin wall. Nearly twenty years ago, the Germans realized that a wall is a detrimental thing. It does not promote good relations. It does not stop people from crossing if they really want to. It is a blight on the face of the earth.
Sometimes I think that my fellow country-men are so backward thinking. We’ve become a xenophobic nation.
We don’t look at ourselves as citizens of the world. Instead, it’s us versus them. Us against the world.
Our government has fostered that feeling with the whole “You’re either with us or against us” talks that have occurred since 9/11.
What a sad, hateful way to live.
eh?
0
Yesterday, in a discussion with the press, President Bush threw a slight temper tantrum. He stated,
“I hear the voices and I read the front page and I hear the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what’s best.”
Okay, first of all, he’s finally admitting that he hears those little voices.
DUDE…that’s an illness. Get some serious help. I mean, really. I can forgive Bush if he’s hearing voices and acting on his illness. But he can’t be president anymore.
Time to get out.
And “the decider”??? What the heck?
Okay, my seven-year-old niece doesn’t even say, “I’m the decider and I decide.” No, she says, “I’m the leader and I choose.”
That sounds more like a young kid throwing a tantrum than it does the President of a nation. But, then again, we’ve never had a President quite like Bush, have we? Maybe he is a big five-year-old….ala Tom Hanks in Big. Huh.
Seriously, though. “I’m the decider.”
I was in my car, listening to that, and laughed all the way home.
invisible empire
0
“The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.”
~ Woodrow Wilson ~
I’m standing in front of the Capitol Building, talking to my brother on the phone. I’m complaining that I can’t get a good reflection in the reflecting pool because of the wind.
He says to me, “I heard on the news that Congress has only been in session 9 days since January.”
I think about that. Nine days. One day less than my vacation.
And they get paid what? $150,000 + a year. Of OUR money.
For what? To implement rascist immigration laws. To attack a woman’s body. To inact regulations that are aggressively against our civil and personal rights.
Nine days.
How would you like to do an ineffective job 9 days out of 90 and get paid a princely sum? I know I would.
I think that my time in D.C. really gave me a different perspective on how disconnected our congresspeople are from us. They have no clue what it’s like to be a normal citizen of the United States.
And really, it makes me question if we are given equal representation or if only those who have power and money are represented.
beacon of truth
0
Sometimes the lawmakers in my state amuse me. Sometimes they just piss me off. Right now, the members of our state representatives are pissing me off.
On Monday, our misongynistic state legislators decided to make it illegal for a woman to sell her eggs. But there are no similar bills to bar a man from selling his sperm.
Oh, no…a man can make money off of his bodily functions but a woman…oh…a woman…she can do evil things with those eggs – IF SHE SELLS THEM. Not if she donates them. Only if she sells them.
According to the local newspaper, the real credit for this goes to Bob Stump, a very conservative representative from the Phoenix suburb of Peoria.
Rep. Bob Stump, R-Peoria, said the disparate treatment is justified. And, he said, it has “nothing to do with gender politics.”
Uh-huh. Tell us another fable, Bob. Tells us how much you love and respect women. How much you believe that they have the intelligence to know how to take care of their bodies and protect themselves.
Because, frankly, if I don’t have a man telling me what to do with my body, I just might hurt myself. I’m so helpless.
And make money off of my body? Oh…the horror!
Grrrr.
This stuff pisses me off.
One more way that my rights over myself are taken away.
And, it seems, some of the female legislators felt the same way.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, said there is no reason to have one set of laws for men and another for women. “You keep your hands off my eggs and I’ll keep my hands off your sperm,” she said.
Amen, sister.
blogging and hierarchies
0
I work for a technology department at a state university and we offer trainings on emerging technologies and existing technologies that could be used in classroom settings. Since I have been blogging for nearly 10 years and I have four (or is it five…hmmm) different blogs going, I am the resident expert on blogs.
My blogs don’t have to be popular, mind you, to give me the status of “expert.” I just have to know how to set them up, what the positive and negatives are for educational purposes, and explain general uses for them.
Because of this status, people send me links all of the time. If it mentions blogging, I get the link. Sometimes they are interesting. Yesterday, one of my co-workers sent me this one. It is very interesting.
However (yeah, there had to be a “however”), all of this talk about “A-list, B-list, and C-list” blogs is starting to irritate me. First off, what arbitrary criteria is used to determine the list that you’re on? Who makes these decisions?
Secondly, a majority of the so-called A-list blogs are written by men about politics. It’s rare to find women on those lists and if there are women, they have to write about politics, as well.
Well, as the old saying goes, everything is political. So why, then, aren’t the private sphere issues (those issues that women tend to write about more – home, education, rape, abortion, prostitution, etc.), just as important as Washington politics?
This reminds me of the 1960s and 70s when women were fighting for equal rights and were asking the same questions. Why are home life or women’s issues not considered as important as those public issues of politics or a man’s job? What is it about women that is so threatening that we can’t talk about them or promote them?
So, interestingly enough (or not, depending on your point of view), my entire thesis project is based on the disparity between the promotion of men’s blogs versus women’s blogs and the necessity of promoting women’s blogs because the issues are important.
If you don’t believe me, check out raven star watcher. This is a blog where three women talk about their different lives involved in child prostitution in North America. Yes, in North America. It is still ongoing. It is something we should be talking about – something we should be hearing.
But, of course, it’s not A-list, so it just can’t be that important.
Can it?