On Voting in our sort of Democratic Democracy

The Infrastructure of American Democracy Is Dysfunctional by John Nichols focuses on issues with the current election process in relation to voting. It points out current issues with voting in America, the recommendations put forth by a commission under Obama, and what the author wants to see.

One of the main issues facing voter turnout today is the inconvenience of voting in America. While I have often criticized the Electoral College and first past the post system, under which you could theoretically “become president with only 22% of the popular vote” (CGP Grey) having not yet participated in voting I had no idea that voting is frequently an hours long process taking place on a work day and now feel I have a better understanding of why retired people vote in such larger margins. Another issue brought up is the inconsistencies in how states and cities run their vote. While I personally feel that having a one-size fits all isn’t necessarily the solution, streamlining and improving every cities voting process individual would take much more time and resources to develop.

The commission’s recommendations focused on improving the means by which people vote and allowing them to vote at earlier dates. While allowing people to vote at earlier dates is a step in the right direction, moving the official voting day to a non-work day would help make voting more convenient without confusion of finding when other days are available to vote. I’m unsure of the security of online voting but if it were well implemented I could definitely see it as an easier way for US citizens to vote.

The author expresses how he wants to see more public interest in voting through increasing social education regarding how and why to vote in addition to current plans to make the voting process simpler. While making voting easier to do will make people more interested in the political scene of America, the current system of counting votes through the Electoral College still makes it so that Americans who don’t live in swing states receive very little interest from political campaigns and candidates.

While I found the article informative about the voting process in America, I found its failure to address issues with our election process concerning as I view the inaccuracies in our election process and representation to be a far more significant issue than inconsistent and inconvenient voting processes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k Cgp Grey Electoral College

Drone Deployment Delivers Dubiously Determined Death

                In class on March 7, our class had Kathy Kelly as a guest speaker on the war in Afghanistan, her efforts relating to refuge work and the use of drone technology by the US. Her discussion focused on people’s efforts to move past war, the unreliability of drones in war, and some exploration of why the US is at war.

                The discussion of drone technology, and its use in Afghanistan, was quite informative to me as I had very little clue beforehand the extent to which drones are being utilized. Given that we apparently have drone surveillance of most of the country and its neighbors, I’m left confused on what it is that our country is fighting for given that if there was a clear idea of who represents a threat our country should be able to locate them with this level of resource investment, and if who is a threat is unclear then having surveillance from the sky doesn’t seem to be a very reliable method for identifying new threats.

                While it’s easy to criticize the unreliability of drones in light of significant collateral damage and civilian casualties, it is important to consider what they are usually being used instead of. Historically speaking, bombs have been frequently used by the US as a means to cause significant damage to our enemies with low risk to our troops and relatively little use of resources. The use of bombs is quite possibly the largest cause of civilian death in our countries history and to my knowledge has been largely replaced by drones as a slightly more selective and notably more precise tool for delivering the horrors of war. In light of this, I’d say drones are a step forward that is currently not as bad as what was used before, and has room for significant improvement in regards to reducing collateral damage.

                During Kathy’s real-life examples of the scenarios where drones have killed civilians, I took particular interest in the one that featured statements from the people who made the call to fire upon a caravan. While there were people supporting the possibility that the targets of interest were not threats, they were in the minority and ultimately I think nobody in the discussion wanted to go home and have to explain why they left several American soldiers without cover fire. What I saw and discussed with Kathy after the lecture was the lack of a nonlethal means for the pilot to interact with targets of interest. Kathy expressed an interest in the possibility but stated she didn’t know whether people where researching nonlethal tools for military drones. My own research on the matter has indicated it would be very easy to apply nonlethal weapons to drones and that people are interested in using this with local law enforcement drones if we ever use them. But I was unable to find any discussion of applying nonlethal weapons to drones used around civilian areas in Afghanistan.

                                Her discussion on the war highlighted several of the moral ambiguities and purposes of our military effort.  From a humanitarian perspective, the political pretenses of restoring the peace shake under the fact or how much we are subsidizing the Taliban in order to supply our troops in Afghanistan. Why our military started paying the Taliban, I still don’t know, but having deployed the army, the US government has too much vested interest to withdraw so for the foreseeable future our government will probably continue to pay to use roads in Taliban territory.  Her discussion on American interest in profiting off of the oil in Afghanistan was concerning, but without further information I can’t judge how much economics influenced our decision to start this war.

                Overall the unclear enemy and morality of our military effort leaves me reminded of the Vietnam War. In the Vietnam War “Troops were sent on search and destroy missions and often it was difficult to tell enemy from civilian.” (John Green on The Cold War in Asia) while in Afghanistan, similar efforts without a clear army to defeat have been unfolding. While seek and destroy missions in war are not uncommon, the lack of a victory in sight and stated confusion in identifying enemies leaves me further concerned about our continued involvement in Afghanistan.

                The discussion itself was quite enjoyable to me, and while I failed to take advantage of her built in question time, I liked that she had it. Overall I enjoyed her presentment of new facts and how, while she was definitely against the war, she wasn’t trying to vilify any countries but rather explore their actions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2IcmLkuhG0 (John Green)

The Truth of Venezuela.... maybe

                The article Venezuela's Deep Political Education Means Venezuelans Will Withstand Right-Wing Protests, by Kevin Zeese, and Margaret Flowers , reviews American action in Venezuela. The authors state what they see as the truth regarding democracy, economy, and more in Venezuela in order to clear up “falsehoods” (Kevin, and Margaret) of the opposition. While the truth is a valuable commodity, the articles clear bias against the American government and glorification of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, makes it hard to distinguish which statements are facts and which are just them repeating things that supported their reconfirmation bias.

                When defending the democracy of Venezuela, the authors cite positive studies, and transition to attacking American actions as anti-democratic. While Jimmy Carter does hail the voting system in Venezuela as the best he’s seen yet, he doesn’t touch on the election process in the link. While I myself will agree that the American election system isn’t very Democratic, the article takes it one step further by stating Secretary of State John Kerry “has flown his anti-democracy flag” (Kevin, and Margaret) because he didn’t think the election was legitimate. As far as asserting that Venezuela is a healthy democracy goes, while Jimmy Carter’s statement has helped, it doesn’t cover the election process itself and the authors’ response to a politician’s skepticism of the election hardly leaves me confident in the reliability of their statements.

                The articles section regarding the economy focused highly on American sabotage and ends with the growing economy in light of oil exports. While the authors provide two sources for their section on American sabotage, one of these sources fails to provide any sources for its info and the other cited home pages that gave no clear indication of where I could find the info they were cited for. While it would not surprise me to learn that America has been denying trade to Venezuela, with the lack of support for the authors’ statements I find it prudent to remain skeptical. I wish they talked more about how it is Maduro has played a role in their economic growth with the discovery of oil because so far I’ve read little in the article about how Maduro is leading his country.

                Perhaps I’ve been a bit over critical of the authors’ article, and it would not surprise me to find most of their statements to be true, but even if their accusations are true I would have difficulty making this out amidst the anti-American imperialism rants that fill the article. Reconfirmation bias is a huge factor in psychology and when the authors are consistently bashing one side while praising the other, it is hard to tell what’s based on fact and what’s based on bias for a new observer.

Government Guns Get Good at Grim Rates

                The article, Cover-up? Army historian says report on deadly Afghan battle was altered to absolve faulty gun by Rowan Scarborough, explores the American militaries current regulation rifle. The author is highly critical, both of the guns performance and of the government’s response to criticisms. This article is part two to the article Troops left to fend for themselves after Army was warned of flaws in rifle by the same author.

                The articles place a large degree of focus on the flaws of the current M4 rifle based on performance issues and user feedback. Performance issues under rapid fire and desert conditions along with range limitations paint the picture of a weapon ill-suited for its current use in Afghanistan. While I can definitely agree with the assessment that our current fir arm is not sufficiently adapted for our current war, it’s hard to ascertain the reliability of individual feedback on the gun. The article almost exclusively shares quotes from people with at least minor complaints about the gun, and the marines the Times interviewed about the weapon are stated to have loved the weapon, but the first things brought up about their interview are their issues with it. Other sources are clearly biased, like an employee for a company paid to research improvements whose improvements weren’t deemed applicable. While it goes into other individuals complaints about the weapon, reading through the comments you’ll find many people stating preferences and/or disdain for different guns, and with how widely used the M4 is, I wouldn’t be surprised to find someone with an even worse view of the gun than the “Put a flak jacket on the enemy and it’s virtually useless.” from Maj. General Robert Scales, an artillery officer. One section however focused, rather than on whether or not they thought the gun itself was good, on why the M4 is not suited for our current conflict. In light of this, I have difficulty judging whether the gun itself is notably subpar, although I find it easy to believe that the transition from urban to outdoors combat should have prompted a rethinking of the army’s standard armament.

                While government and company denial of issues with their policies or products isn’t uncommon, the length of time for which our army went without significant research into the issues with the M4, raises concerns. When field reports of tech failure go buried for almost a decade, it’s not hard to see that, when it comes to finding and solving issues, intelligent trial and error is not being applied. With how much military funding is being put out in the US we should be looking for ways to spend it more efficiently, rather than just being conservative in order to avoid transferring business and employment opportunities from an inefficient source.

                While I felt the article relied too much on biased sources, it raise some important facts and concerns for Americans and their loved ones in the military. If the US government is this slow to react to changes in war, how can we be confident when lives aren't at risk?