Activity Lull (Music Monday added)

To all of you that tune in,

Sorry for the lack of real activity on here out side of the match analyses. It has been a long couple of week as I have started thinking of life after university and applying for jobs while keeping up with classes and activities. It feels good to be busy again though.

Joe Biden was on campus Friday and I saw his speech (as shown in the caption). Being someone interested in science and in education, I was happy with the large focus of the speech being on these topics. It should be worrying that Romney/Ryan rarely talk about plans for future generations to an even remotely productive level. We will see, given an Obama/Biden win, if America can rise above 16th in the world in education as stated by Biden.

As far as Music Monday, I have three pretty chill albums to look at. One is An Awesome Wave by alt-J because it's quite an adventure of an album. The intro (titled "Intro") is a very good and eclectic one. The second album is I Bet On Sky by Dinosaur Jr. The third album is Allah-Las by Allah-Las in what appears to be their first album. Give these three a try because their definitely worth at least a listen if you're into somewhat calm or alternative music.

Daniel

Thoughts After The DNC

I know these campaigns are steeped in rhetoric and I could really only handle a few speeches so I picked the biggest three (Michelle, Bill, and Barack). I consider myself generally a neutral and don't get too heavy into federal politics but I think this election really should be geared to an Obama second term. After the DNC, here are some big things for Obama's case that have come to my attention via television, social media and reflection.

Bill Clinton's Speech:
In my opinion, Bill Clinton did a tremendous job from a neutral's perspective. This is because he did something that I've really wished the candidates would do more often: accurate facts about what is important to people. Since the campaigns for 2012 started, I've been wondering both what the Republican party stood for and just how well Obama has Obama done given the childish behavior of the Republican Congress. Clinton's speech effectively cleared some things up and basically just showed that America is on the right track with Obama.

Obama's Speech:
Obama's speech had all the usual bells and whistles a Barack Obama speech would have and it was riveting to many. What really impressed me was the contrast in direction from Romney's speech. Both parties are planning on a substantial amount of spending (despite what the Republicans say) but Obama lays out investments that many less rich countries take for granted such as health and education. The incentive isn't to just make arbitrary jobs while cutting education and other long term benefits to society. From my understanding, the president is supposed to be thinking about the well-being of as many people in the country as possible and that seems to be an edge that Obama is socially more in touch with more demographics in American society.

What Republicans Stand For:
I don't see many reasons to vote for Romney/Ryan because they don't seem to propose many actual ideas and the few they do more often than not get deflated by non-partisans for serious inaccuracies. I also don't see how a party proposing small government wants to pass so much socially detrimental legislation. If government is meant to be small, why would it enact legislation denying marriage or abortions? It seems like Romney/Ryan are content on just not being Obama for this election but it says something that they can't even enlist an old Republican president to aid them. This seems to not be the case because the party is disjointed. They are not for much, just against a  lot of things. I have not heard many plans to better society or invest in the youth or sciences from the Republicans. It seems they rely on the naivety of their base more than actually pretending like they have ambition.

To sum it up, I really am interested in seeing the Republican response to the progress made in the DNC and also if the DNC will win over some undecideds. This is especially important since there is a huge movement to just not vote.

Food for thought,
Daniel

To Vote Or Not To Vote

As a non-American living in the USA, the political scene has been something that has been purely entertainment to me. Over the last few years though, as many of my friends have become old enough to vote, I have begun to pay more attention to it. Now many of the aspects of it are mind-boggling to an apathetic, pragmatist such as myself. I have my beliefs and attitudes to things but it's not natural for me to expect everyone to be on board with any one idea. Also the "facts" that either party seems to spurt are usually somewhat debatable as history is easily skewed and easy to revise.

I recently was introduced to this article on non-voters for the upcoming election and it got me thinking about the state of the elections right now. Before completely going into that, there are a couple things I've found interesting. First, people want to blame specific presidents for everything that has happened under their administration (and candidates do this during campaigning) but from what I learned in government classes, I thought checks and balances meant the president wasn't a monarch. It's an orchestra of politicians that make things move in Washington. So yes, they were in charge but I hardly see one man as responsible for anything the government does because if he was the only one with the stupid ideas. Second, people underestimate the "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" mentality that most successful politicians have to go through to get anything done. What this leaves is sketchy voting records if they run for president. Many times they are interested in a bill they've voted but it is just as likely they could have voted it in exchange for a bill they've proposed. That is politics.

But the sentiments of these non-voters seems to come from the fact that they see the president as just a cog in the government machine which is a fair argument in this system. Given that the president is only in for four or eight years and generally things have to align pretty well as far as Congress is concerned to get "their agendas" through. What it really comes to is the fact that the rich are closer to the higher end of Federal government than the poor or even middle class are. The heads of companies and other politicians are the ones with direct contact. Many people are seeing this and deciding not voting will show these people that they will not take this monopoly. My only argument is that if they are disenfranchised with the way Federal government works then they work on changing other levels or using communities or private sectors. Just not voting will only make it easier for the politicians you are against to keep doing what they're doing. It's a complicated scenario but I just found it interesting that this was an actual trend. I think people just need to watch out with Paul Ryan. He is an exact model of the current republicans and that is scary if Congress is on his side even as VP.

Well this has just been my insight so far. I don't claim to know the answers but I'm just trying to understand the way things work. This will be more relevant to me should I choose to be in America post college. Til then, I will work hard in my Dartmouth bubble.

Cheers,
Daniel

Summary of Importance Of Voting Abroad

Sorry readers for the little hiatus there. Just got to Munich this week and started my internship. I will probably have a couple more posts but this one I wanted to relay the information I got from a meeting in Nuremberg that I attended with my employer on the importance of voting abroad for the upcoming American elections. If you are not interested tin that then stop reading now.

So a little back story, my employer is Chair of Democrats Abroad in Germany but this event was a bipartisan one and part of Vote From Abroad. The presentation was led by Kathleen Burnett, the Chair of the Democrats Abroad Munich/Bavaria. The main objective of Vote From Abroad (which is bipartisan) is to get as many of the approximately 6 million Americans abroad to vote. If all Americans abroad voted, that would be about the amount of people in Missouri just to put that into perspective.

The presentation then brought up a few points on the importance of this election. The healthcare policy is obviously a big deal. The debate on taxes is a case where America needs to decide which they they want to go but both increase and decrease in taxes could potentially work. Jobs have been a term that both parties like to throw around but the Democrats seem to have more direction on what they actually want to do as far as job creation. Foreign Affairs is another topic that seems to be in Obama's favor. Obama has been disappointing in the Environmental department but the Republicans have yet to make a platform that exploits that. Human Rights (such as to women and minorities) seems to be much more of a concern for the Democrats than Republicans.

To bring it back to voting abroad, another big reason for the need to vote abroad is the fact that less Americans in America are being able to vote because of some of the new voting restrictions such as the need of specific forms of identification. Vote From Abroad focuses on the three Federal elections (Presidential, House, Senate).

They then went over the four steps to overseas voting. Changes have been made to the process so that if you request a ballot, you can request it be sent online. You still have to manually mail your vote in but it still makes the process more efficient. Voters abroad are also reminded that they must register for ever election year individually. You are not guaranteed a ballot if you do not ask for one. There are two ways to do this. The FPCA (Federal Post Card Application) and the FWAB (Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot). FWAB should be considered a back-up to the FPCA.

To round up the presentation, they talked about the MOVE (Military & Overseas Voting Empowerment) Act. This is what made the aforementioned process easier and there are many pros to this but as stated before, the cons are the fact that you must register for every election you plan to participate in and there is a grey area amongst local elections.

After this a few people got registered on the spot and that was the day. It was very interesting to me though not at all related to my internship. If you think this information will help anyone you know, forward them this link. For more information on each organization, go to their corresponding website:

• http://www.democratsabroad.org
• http://www.votefromabroad.org 

Until next time,
Daniel