How are you going to make a change?

In our chapter this week we discussed Interest Groups, "organizations that citizens form to influence policymakers" (p.137), and Social Movements,"a group of people with a common ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals" (p. 137).  I feel like this chapter made me have an ah-ha moment.  I started to understand what Lobbyists do and who they are supporting.  I started to see historical events from their roots of social movements and be able to put together the final results.  Were the original founders of our country involved in a social movement?  I had always thought that social movements were radical protests and unruley and people getting pepper srayed and taken to jail.  In my head it seemed like they were not very effective.  It always seemed like the way to go about getting results was Interest Groups, but I didn't know all that goes into the special interest groups.  Like everything else that we have seen with politics, businesses make up the largest interest groups and the largest number of groups.  They spend billions of dollars of year on hiring experts to influence policymakers.  While Interest Groups tend to be more organized than Social Movements, they both want basically the same thing, to influence policymakers and to motivate other voters to vote on their behalf-to be heard!  I guess I never thought of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks to be social movements because of the massive effect they had.  It is amazing how much work one person can do when backed by many!  The grouping of people bound with a similar belief can be like a pebble in the ocean creating waves. 

"Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist."
      Richard M. Nixon~37th President (1969-1974)

Oh, Government and the Public

Public opinion influences the structure of government in many ways.  When white southerners that had been previously Democratic switched to supporting the Republic party, it was due to the support the Democratic party was giving to the black southerns.  The white southerners did not support civil rights legislation and liveral social programs.  While these movement drove white southerners away, black southereners have dominantly voted Democratic. The swing at the time gave the Republican party the majority for the first time in the 20th century.  So, the opinion of the public can sway the direction the government goes. It is not just opinion of the everyday citizens that affect government. When a candidate is voted into office, they often feel obligated to support the views of their affluent financial supports and their party activists. Mark Hanna was qouted as saying " There are two things that are important in politics.  The first is money, and I can't remember the second."  I think that statement is something that all Americans think of when they think of politics. 
Technology plays a huge part in politics and the informaiton that gets out to the public and how the public interacts with the government.  Technology has been named the primary reason Barack Obama won the 2008 Presidential elections.  Obama took to blogging, twitter, and personally emailing potential voters.  Radio, television and the internet help get the candidates word out to the people.  I believe that candidates start out with the best intention and want to help out the people the want to represent, but campaigns are corrupt.  It is solely about winning and they do it best by bashing the other candidates.  They stop telling the voters what they can do, but what bad things the other candidates have done.  The voter ends up not knowing what they are voting for, but more likely voting for agianst what they don't want.  This part of the government is where I start to get confused and frustrated.  I get lost in the information that it provided through the media and don't always take the time to do my own research on the issues and candidates.  How many more voters would vote if we all took the time to do our own research and learn the real truth?  Would government then represent the desires of the public?

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we've been waiting for.  We are the change we seek."
      Barack Obama~44th President (2008-Present)

Shaping America

Are we able to pinpoint historic events that shaped the country into what it is today?  I think so.  I think that there are many events that impacted our country, the one I want to focus on is the Great Depression.  Weak banking, overproduction, and a bursting credit bubble can all be blamed for the Great Depression.  When Franklin D. Roosevelt became President in March of 1933, the country was in desperate need for change.  Franklin D. Roosevelt promised the American people "A New Deal".  Roosevelt and his advisors studied the works of John Maynard Keynes a British economist.  Keynes believed that the way to fix the economy is to increase spending.  By increasing spending, it creates demand, demand creates a need for more production, which creates a need for more workers to produce the demanded products, creating money for the people for them to spend and improving the economy.  Roosevelt increased government spending, created outlines for welfare to help people in need, Social Security was created, child labor laws were put into place, minimum wage was established and labor unions grew.  These policies he implemented changed America forever.  President Obama has tried to implement the same theory by increasing government spending to increase consumption.  The idea of you have to spend money to make money.  It worked back then and the country was incredibly prosperous for 25 years. Why would we not try a formula that had such great results again?!  I know that there is so much more that accounted for the recovery of our country during those incredibly rough years, but I feel like it was President Roosevelts brave actions and determination to rebuild our country that was crutial in turning the economy around and shaping the United States into what it is today!

"I do not look upon these United States as a finished product.  We are still in the making."
     Franklin D. Roosevelt~32nd President (1933-1945)

Opportunities and Challenges

     Happy Labor Day weekend all!  This week I am diving into the opportunities and challenges of democracy and the opportunities and challenges of capitalism in democracy.
     The opportunities of democracy starts with the involvement of the citizens in decisions.  The power to vote.  Democracy also provides protecion of the rights of the citizens.  There are checks and balances in place to make sure that one person cannot make all of the decisions.  Making government agencies work together.  A challenge is that there is not 100% particiation of the citizens.  When everyone des not participate, everyone is not represented.  Democracy is also plagued by inequalities.  The wealthy have more pull and seem to be more protected by the government while the poor participate less and laws seem to fail that are set out to procect them.
     With all of the opportunities that Democracy has, it provides a perfect platform for capitalism to flourish.  Capitalism promotes competition in the economy.  Prices are set by the price the producers are willing to sell for and the consumer is willing to purchase.  If prices are too high, consumers won't buy the product, and if another producer is selling the same product for less, the consumer is going to buy the less expensive product.  This promotes competition in cost and quality.  Because government regulation is limited it allows capitalism to grow.  Growth in the economy is the best way to measure the well being of a society.  Capitalism needs regulation to survive.  To keep one company from having a monopoly, rules are in place to keep an open market.  To make sure the foods are safe for consumers to consume, rules are in place.  A challenge that capitalism in democracy faces is that the American people hold the government accountable for a poor economy and high unemployment,  but retaliate when government gets too involved in business.  Another big challenge is that corporations spend a lot of money in donations to campaigns and through lobbying influencing the government to act with their best interests in mind and not always the interest of the general population.  So a balancing act is created to find the right amount of government involvment to keep the capital model true and for the well being of the society.

I am not sure if my views are right, but that is the greatest thing about this country, I have the opportunity to voice my opinion and learn more through the opinions of others!!

"I like the noise of democracy."
     James Buchanan~15th President (1857-1861)
    
    

So...this is me!

     Hi! I'm Heather.  I am a wife, a mother of 4, work part-time and am a full time student.  I am currently enrolled in an American Government course, it is a required class and it is a 1000 level course.  With that being said, this is the class that scares me the most!  I have veryh strong opinions about everything but usually keep my mouth closed when it comes to politics.  For a couple of reasons; I feel like there are people that are incredibly passionate about their views and are unwilling ot listen to another point of view, so why bother speaking?; there are people that know SO MUCH about politics that my two cents sounds ignorant; and the people that know just as much about it as I do se we just share a smile and find something else to talk about!
     So while this class scares the living daylight out of me, I am also really excited at the possiblity to learn enough about the American government to be able to understand it and confidently hold my own in a conversation!
     Please pardon my "simple" talk in these first few posts, hopefully I will soon be a lot more intersting, informational and you might just get a laugh here and there!
                
                                Heatherb

"Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."
                                                                                     John F. Kennedy