Quote:Original post by _goatThere's a lot of other cultural differences in language as well - AFAIK the word "union" in America often conjures up imagery of the Mafia, but a lot of people here (since the last election at least) probably picture "working families".
*snip*
McCain picks Sarah Palin
One big difference between the Westminster parliaments is that party leaders need to be able to handle themselves well in an often hostile parliament, so an inexperienced PM or Opposition Leader would be torn apart. U.S. Presidents can get away with giving prepared speeches to non-hostile audiences.
We also don't have a stigma towards politicians that have risen up through the parliamentary system. Typically someone can't become party leader without "paying their dues" by rising through the back bench and a ministerial position (shadow or actual).
I guess that's why there's a big difference between Sarah Palin and Australia's Deputy PM Julia Gillard. I couldn't see Gillard becoming deputy if she didn't have the skill and experience to back her up. But then again, it's a completely different position - Deputy PMs have a cabinet posting as well, whereas if I remember correctly US VPs just chair and cast the deciding vote in the Senate (and protect the space-time continuum).
Unfortunately the Aussie pollie that Sarah Palin reminds me most of Pauline Hanson, who also swept into the media limelight as an outspoken right wing maverick politician with everyday roots (she ran a fish-and-chip shop before entering politics) who liked to drape herself in the Australian flag. But she self-destructed pretty quickly.
Question for the Americans here: I noticed McCain in his speech mentioned bringing the U.S. presidency back into the tradition of "Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan". One thing I've always wondered - what is it with the fascination with Reagan? Why's he so lauded as a great president? I'm asking because I'm ignorant of what the general U.S. opinion is of the man. All I know is his links to Reaganomics (which I think are bunk), various scandals like the Iran-Contra affair, and he happened to be around when the Cold War crumbled (but I felt that Gorbachev and Thatcher had a lot to do with that too.) I'm sure I'm missing the bit that makes him regarded as a legend but I don't know what that is.
Or is it because if you discard Reagan, you've got to go back to Eisenhower for a decent Republican president?
[Edited by - Trapper Zoid on September 4, 2008 11:59:45 PM]
We also don't have a stigma towards politicians that have risen up through the parliamentary system. Typically someone can't become party leader without "paying their dues" by rising through the back bench and a ministerial position (shadow or actual).
I guess that's why there's a big difference between Sarah Palin and Australia's Deputy PM Julia Gillard. I couldn't see Gillard becoming deputy if she didn't have the skill and experience to back her up. But then again, it's a completely different position - Deputy PMs have a cabinet posting as well, whereas if I remember correctly US VPs just chair and cast the deciding vote in the Senate (and protect the space-time continuum).
Unfortunately the Aussie pollie that Sarah Palin reminds me most of Pauline Hanson, who also swept into the media limelight as an outspoken right wing maverick politician with everyday roots (she ran a fish-and-chip shop before entering politics) who liked to drape herself in the Australian flag. But she self-destructed pretty quickly.
Question for the Americans here: I noticed McCain in his speech mentioned bringing the U.S. presidency back into the tradition of "Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan". One thing I've always wondered - what is it with the fascination with Reagan? Why's he so lauded as a great president? I'm asking because I'm ignorant of what the general U.S. opinion is of the man. All I know is his links to Reaganomics (which I think are bunk), various scandals like the Iran-Contra affair, and he happened to be around when the Cold War crumbled (but I felt that Gorbachev and Thatcher had a lot to do with that too.) I'm sure I'm missing the bit that makes him regarded as a legend but I don't know what that is.
Or is it because if you discard Reagan, you've got to go back to Eisenhower for a decent Republican president?
[Edited by - Trapper Zoid on September 4, 2008 11:59:45 PM]
Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid
Question for the Americans here: I noticed McCain in his speech mentioned bringing the U.S. presidency back into the tradition of "Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan". One thing I've always wondered - what is it with the fascination with Reagan? Why's he so lauded as a great president?
Quote:Ronald Reagan : Legacy : US Politics [Wikipedia]
Ronald Reagan reshaped the Republican party, gave rise to the modern conservative movement, and altered the political dynamic of the United States. More men voted Republican under Reagan, and Reagan tapped into religious voters. The so-called "Reagan Democrats" were a result of his presidency. Bill Schneider, senior political analyst at CNN, said, "[T]he whole Republican Party traces its lineage, its legitimacy to this one man.
More.
You'll note that it is mostly Republicans who fawn at the feet of Reagan, though Democrats will occasionally seize on his perceived popularity to score easy points.
Ah, I see. I guess it depends on whether you think the modern direction of the Republican party was a good thing [grin]. I was wondering why the (also admittedly small) amount of what I know about Eisenhower didn't paint him as acting typically like a Republican.
Quote:Original post by _goatQuote:Original post by OluseyiQuote:Original post by Mithrandir
I never understood why people are afraid of an intellectual being in the office. It's a very unique job. Wouldn't it make sense to have someone smart doing it?
Uneducated people distrust intellectuals because they don't understand them or what they're talking about, and because educated people have used that to cheat the illiterate in the past. That's why accusations of "elitism" are potentially damaging.
Of course, more robust social welfare policies would make it both more difficult - and less damaging when it does happen - for the uneducated to be defrauded, because they wouldn't be so dependent on the educated. On the other hand, they'd be more dependent on the state, which isn't an upgrade in the current US approach to government. Ah, impasse.
I think this may be (at least in the Western world) an American-centric sort of issue. If you take a look at recent British and Australian political leaders (I'm thinking mostly of Tony Blair and Kevin Rudd... especially Kevin Rudd), their aura of elitism has been far, far stronger than anything Obama "gives off". Yet they still manage to do very well simply because being called elitist doesn't have such an in-ground gut reaction to the populous like it does in America. Kevin Rudd's intellect arguably got him votes by a country fed up with John Howard's association with George Bush's administration. (Now, of course there were a whole bunch of issues, but we'll ignore them). And let's not forget that we have our own bunch of people who were ripped off by more literate people. And they're forced to vote. Hopefully someone could inform me more of the climate in Britain.
Americans like to think of the United States as being a classless society. That means we are not very good at recognizing class distinctions when we see them. This allows very wealthy and otherwise patrician politicians to present themselves as if they were regular workaday people. For example, George W. Bush went to very elite preparatory schools growing up and yet ran for President as if he was a down home sheriff from hard scrabble Texas. Cindy McCain inherited a very successful beer distributorship and is worth more than $100 million and yet she's not labeled as an elitist and Michele Obama, whose father was a city worker, gets tarred with the elitist tag line.
Who Are They Calling Elitist?
Quote:
The contemporary conservative obsession with the "liberal elite" has its origin in the campaign of 1964, when Ronald Reagan crisscrossed the country in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential aspirations, accusing liberals of believing that "an intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves." Richard Nixon took up the cudgel in his second State of the Union speech, complaining that "a bureaucratic elite in Washington knows best what is best for people everywhere." But it was Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew, who, aided by speechwriters Pat Buchanan and William Safire, showed right-wingers what political potential lay in this line of attack, with his orgies of alliteration regarding the evildoings of various "pusillanimous pussyfooters," "hopeless hysterical hypochondriacs of history," "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "effete corps of impudent snobs," to pick just a few of his favorite epithets for liberal opponents in the media and academia.
...
For a historical look at this phenomena...
Anti-intellectualism in American Life (I haven't read this book, but I have read some of Hofstadter's other books and he's definitely one of the better American historians of the 20th century, imo).
In considering the historic tension between access to education and excellence in education, Hofstadter argued that both anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were consequences, in part, of the democratization of knowledge. Moreover, he saw these themes as historically embedded in America's national fabric, an outcome of her colonial European and evangelical Protestant heritage. Anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were functions of American cultural heritage, not necessarily of democracy.
The Consequences of Democratizing Knowledge:Reconsidering Richard Hofstadter and the History of Education
Richard Hofstadter's Tradition
The Renaissance of Anti-Intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism: #Populism Populism can be another major strain of anti-intellectualism. In this context, intellectuals are presented as elitists and tricksters whose knowledge and rhetorical skills are feared, not because they are useless, but because they may be used to hoodwink the ordinary people, who are conceived of as the 'salt of the earth' and the source of virtue.
These links pertain to more recent discussions of the issue.
Talking to ourselves: Americans are increasingly close-minded and unwilling to listen to opposing views.
How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America
America anti-intellectual? Now, let's think this out
Silence in class: Are US campuses in the grip of a witch-hunt of progressives, or is academic life just too liberal?
The media's assault on reason
Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid
Question for the Americans here: I noticed McCain in his speech mentioned bringing the U.S. presidency back into the tradition of "Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan". One thing I've always wondered - what is it with the fascination with Reagan? Why's he so lauded as a great president? I'm asking because I'm ignorant of what the general U.S. opinion is of the man. All I know is his links to Reaganomics (which I think are bunk), various scandals like the Iran-Contra affair, and he happened to be around when the Cold War crumbled (but I felt that Gorbachev and Thatcher had a lot to do with that too.) I'm sure I'm missing the bit that makes him regarded as a legend but I don't know what that is.
Or is it because if you discard Reagan, you've got to go back to Eisenhower for a decent Republican president?
I thought the crowd tonight gasped at first when McCain said Roosevelt because in their minds they thought Franklin Roosevelt not Teddy Roosevelt. The Republican base has been trained to despise Franklin Roosevelt because one of their primary policy goals for the last three decades has been to dissolve the supposedly "socialist" institutions that FDR created in the USA as a part of the New Deal during the Great Depression.
1980 was a low point in US self-esteem. Vietnam and Watergate had soured many people's trust in the President. When the Iranian hostage crisis dragged on for a year, much of the country was angry and looking for some revitalization and Reagan stepped in to tell stories that let Americans feel good about America again (it didn't matter if the stories weren't true). Reagan became extremely popular because of this and managed to hang on to that popularity for most of his time in office. Reagan was nicknamed the "teflon President" because nothing negative seemed to stick to him. Even the Iran-Contra scandal didn't damage him as much as it should have.
Quote:Original post by LessBread
Americans like to think of the United States as being a classless society. That means we are not very good at recognizing class distinctions when we see them. This allows very wealthy and otherwise patrician politicians to present themselves as if they were regular workaday people. For example, George W. Bush went to very elite preparatory schools growing up and yet ran for President as if he was a down home sheriff from hard scrabble Texas. Cindy McCain inherited a very successful beer distributorship and is worth more than $100 million and yet she's not labeled as an elitist and Michele Obama, whose father was a city worker, gets tarred with the elitist tag line.
Who Are They Calling Elitist?
I find it particularly ironic that McCain tries to paint Obama as an educated elitist, when he doesn't even know how many houses he owns.
I'm sorry, but if you can't even be sure of how many houses you own, you forfeit all rights to claim that you're a normal working-class guy, and skyrocket into the bounds of elitism.
Either that or he has Alzheimer's...
Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid
Question for the Americans here: I noticed McCain in his speech mentioned bringing the U.S. presidency back into the tradition of "Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan". One thing I've always wondered - what is it with the fascination with Reagan? Why's he so lauded as a great president? I'm asking because I'm ignorant of what the general U.S. opinion is of the man. All I know is his links to Reaganomics (which I think are bunk), various scandals like the Iran-Contra affair, and he happened to be around when the Cold War crumbled (but I felt that Gorbachev and Thatcher had a lot to do with that too.) I'm sure I'm missing the bit that makes him regarded as a legend but I don't know what that is.
Or is it because if you discard Reagan, you've got to go back to Eisenhower for a decent Republican president?
I find it hilarious that Republicans refer to us Obama supporters as a personality cult, when they're the ones who fall all over themselves to worship the ground Reagan walked on.
I think Reagan skirted by mainly on sheer image and charm. Apart from that, "Reaganomics", in particular the "Trickle Down" theory provided the Republican elite with a convoluted way to justify their filthy rich, fat cat lifestyle, while at the same time convincing average poor Americans with socially backwards viewpoints to vote against their own economic interest.
I was only 8 years old when Reagan left office. But even at that age, when I heard him talking about "winnable" nuclear wars, I knew enough to recognize that he was out of his goddamn mind.
Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid
One big difference between the Westminster parliaments is that party leaders need to be able to handle themselves well in an often hostile parliament, so an inexperienced PM or Opposition Leader would be torn apart. U.S. Presidents can get away with giving prepared speeches to non-hostile audiences.
I think the US would be much better off if they did have a Presidental version of Prime Minister's Question Time over there; if they could get it anything like what happens in the UK at least it might prove amusing, and at the very least it might cause a rethink of who should be in power.
Quote:Original post by Brian Timmons
I find it hilarious that Republicans refer to us Obama supporters as a personality cult, when they're the ones who fall all over themselves to worship the ground Reagan walked on.
Lest we forget this gem:
Quote:
I was only 8 years old when Reagan left office. But even at that age, when I heard him talking about "winnable" nuclear wars, I knew enough to recognize that he was out of his goddamn mind.
Truer words were never spoken.
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