Response to: Unemployment Woes Continue

Unemployment is an issue for discussion. In a classmate's blog, a post introduces ideas to help the unemployment problem that is facing our nation today. The unemployment rates just seem to keep going up and up with little efforts to fix the problem. Any route that the government will try and take to fix this problem will just create more debt in our already dwindling economy. I have to disagree in the idea that the government should extend better unemployment benefits to the public. This would keep the public from continuing to try to find work, and just leave them to be lazy with no real reason to try very hard. This is a hard time for our nation but I believe we can push through it with a proper plan. Also, this idea is hard to believe that there wouldn’t be some kind of catch to it. I’m sure that with these benefits, debt would likely be involved.
The New York Times further writes on this topic saying that there are two reasons that unemployment rates are so slow. The first being that “there has been a big increase in the number of people not working purely by their own choice.” This category can be referred to as the “self-unemployed” and include “retirees, stay-at-home parents” and others doing “unpaid work.” The second explanation to the low rates would be a “jump in the number of people who aren’t working, who aren’t actively looking but who would, in fact, like to find a good job.” I think that finding a job is very time consuming and it takes a lot of will power. However, if you invest your time and attention to the situation, you will eventually be able to find something substantial.

Immigration

Illegal immigration is starting to become a crisis inside the US border. The House proposed a bill on Tuesday that would allow $600 million dollars in funding to tighten up border security. The Congress and the White House, “felt with a greater urgency to act” on this crisis due to the public’s outcry on the new Arizona immigration law that was passed recently. I think that the government is realizing that if they do not invest their money into our border security, then racism will start to become a major issue in the US against Mexican-Americans. The bill "includes $176 million for 1,000 new border patrol agents to form a strike force to be deployed at critical areas, $89 million for another 500 customs and immigration personnel, and $32 million to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles or drones." The government should’ve invested their time and money in this much sooner. However, to have light on this issue is a good thing and I see a good outcome in the future concerning our border patrol. The southern states that this has been affecting will feel safer and see a more control environment in their cities.
Racism seems to be becoming more and more of an issue between the government and the public. Fox News wrote an article about the NYC lawsuit that is ensuing between civil rights groups and the U.S. Census Bureau. The “civil rights groups on Thursday accused the U.S. Census Bureau of discrimination in its hiring of more than a million temporary workers to conduct the 2010 census, saying it ignored a warning from a federal agency that its hiring practices might violate the Civil Rights Act.” If these issues keep arising, the country will lose its sense of equality and the fundamentals that shape what our nation is today.

Response to Obama: the post-racist president?

I’m sad to say it, but racism is still a big part of everyday life in America. In Luke’s blog he wrote about Obama in his post, Obama: the post-racist president. I couldn’t agree more with Luke’s views on the issue of racism that has come up with Obama now being our country’s president. Racism is all around us. There are many forms of racism, including just looking at someone and already judging them by what they’re wearing. I believed that when Obama spoke of “change”, he meant it. I believed that when he became president it would’ve unified our nation and brought us together as one. However, I see the country more divided as ever.

The concept shouldn’t even be an issue if everyone is claiming that Obama has brought the country together. To have talk show’s episode’s devoted to issues of racial identity after the election is racist to me. Also, to have people voting for him just because he is black or to notice him because of his skin color is racist. I believe that yes, Obama was the best candidate in the election of the two. However, I also believe that he won the way he did because of his promotion of his race and leading people to believe that change was coming. I don’t see the change and I think the public is suffering with concerning themselves with his race instead of his work.

Reality TV

Reality TV shows have become a strong source of entertainment for the American public. However, certain shows such as the MTV hit show, "Jersey Shore," have created a sense of uneasiness and inappropriateness. The show has gotten so out of hand that the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, has claimed that the show is a "negative" view of his state and doesn't "depict the New Jersey he knows." I feel like reality TV has gone from somewhat reality to just fake entertainment. On the first season of the “Jersey Shore” a cast member named, Snooki, was soccer punched to the face at a bar on the beach. The hit was so graphic that it was not shown on TV but was leaked online. I believe that this kind of advertisement is wrong and should not be shown or become a laughing matter. These shows think that violence, profanity, and vulgarity are ways to engage the public. I think that it is poisoning the youth’s minds and creating a new image of what is right when it is just the opposite and is highly inappropriate. On the Fox News Strategy Room it became known that the show had drawn “outrage from Italian-American advocacy group UNICO.” The advocacy group has goals to “promote and enhance the image of Italian-Americans.” The shows cast members are constantly bragging about how they are “guido’s” and “guidette’s” when three of the cast members are not even Italian. They refer to the ethnicity as being a “lifestyle” and “not, like, Italians,” said J-WOWW of the show. I just don’t understand how someone can find fake Italians, who dress up like strippers, and party till they pass out entertaining. It’s disgusting and I hope the American public will soon realize the idiocracy of this show and have it, and others like it, cancelled.

Jed Lewison is a current Daily Kos editor and the creator and editor of Daily Kos TV. So as I was looking through the Daily Kos blogs of the day, I found one particularly interesting. Lewison posted July 23rd and writes about some newfound issues pertaining to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The chief electronics technician, Mike Williams, said "the general safety alarm was habitually set to inhibited to avoid waking up the crew with late-night sirens. As a result of the alarms not being on, they did not go on in the time of the emergency. Lewison just replies to these claims with "seriously?" He goes on to say, "What is the point of having safety measures if you aren't going to use them?" To me, these are the same thoughts that ran through my head when I read the opening statement on the blog about the alarms being turned off. Oil rigs are very unsafe environments and for them to have been ignoring areas of safety, the repercussions were disastrous. Obviously, the alarm didn't cause the oil spill but if a simple alarm that is there for a purpose wasn't used, who's to say that any other set regulations weren't followed. Lewison goes on to say that the “executives of other oil companies use stories like this to characterize the disaster as an example of individual corporate failure.” It seems that when a disaster like this hits our nation, the first thing the public does is find someone to blame. In this particular issue, so many articles are posted everyday with new information that could have contributed to the overall disaster. However, Lewison believes that although BP and Transocean failed “egregiously,” they are still two of the biggest companies in the industry and when this blows over, they will “once again be welcomed back in to the oil industry fold.”

Religious Freedom in NYC

There are alot of issues with the freedom of religion. USA Today published an article concerning the issue of whether or not there should be a Muslim Community Center only 2 blocks away from the World Trade Center site. USA Today states that if anything the new center "honors the values that the terrorists sought to destroy. It also undermines al-Qaeda's attempts to convince Muslims that the United States is at war with Islam, when in fact the USA is the home of religious freedom, including freedom for peaceful Muslims to practice their faith." If we as a nation do not go through with this center, how would that in any way be fair? I understand that the families of the 9/11 tragedy are still suffering but that does not mean to hate or discriminate against all Muslims. That's like saying that all white people should be punished for the past involvement with slavery. USA Today is right in saying that the center should be built. In a way, by putting the Muslim center in that location, it is defying everything that the al-Qaeda were trying to accomplish. I understand that it may be hard to see the positive side to the situation but the public should not discriminate because to single out one religion is constitutionally wrong. The US is seen as a place for equality and freedom of religion which is "one of the core personal freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment." If the center is not built due to the public's outcry, I believe that this would then just be the beginning of many more issues to come.

Ken Salazar's Off-Shore Drilling Plan

According to the New York Times in a recent article, Ken Salazar issued "revised rules on Monday for a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico." He is stating that there needs to be a higher standard of maintenance and control on these oil rigs. However, by putting a halt to oil production in order to take care of these new measures, thousands of jobs are at stake. These ideas should've been implemented from the beginning to prevent oil spills from happening. I mean, the airports have never been the same after September 11th, maybe the oil rigs now off the coast will be paying a heavier price. I agree that there should be some form of measures taken to prevent future oil spills but not at the expense of people losing their jobs just so that a company can cover their tracks and make their name clear.