I Don't Hate Hillary, But...

I don't hate Hillary Clinton. I think that she gets a bad wrap for things that, if she were a man, wouldn't be questioned. I think that people are scared of her because she is a strong, intelligent and powerful woman. I am appalled at the level of "I Hate Hillary" sentiment that exists in this country because I believe that most of it is driven by peoples' fears of strong, intelligent and powerful women.

All of that being said, I hate Hillary Clinton's politics.

The fact that her campaign, largely led by Bill, has gone on an inexplicable offensive in the past couple of weeks is bad for politics and it's bad for the Democratic party. Josh Marshall has an excellent post about trying to pinpoint where he finds a problem with "Bill 2.0". He settles, it seems, largely on the fact that Bill Clinton is the leader of the Democratic Party and, as such, has an obligation to ensure the health of the party—even if that means not supporting Hillary as much as he would otherwise want to. For Josh, the problem is that Bill Clinton is thinking personally when he should be thinking professionally. His obligation to his party and, given the way that the two parties control the election of public officials in this country, also his country should come above his family obligations. Bill's actions are bad because it leads to political dynasties, not because of the actions themselves.

I respect Josh's analysis and believe that he is right about the problems of political dynasties. From very early one of my largest reservations with Hillary Clinton is the fact that, if she is elected and subsequently re-elected in 2012, two families would have controlled the Presidency for 28 years. Over a quarter of a century ruled by two families. That's bad for democracy. But, I have a bigger problem with what has happened with the Clinton campaign in the past two weeks that really gets at my intense dislike for the Clinton's politics.

That problem is this: Hillary Clinton's campaign is designed to win her the nomination at all costs and that cost might be the health of the Democratic Party. The actions of her campaign in the past couple of weeks has demonstrated that she does not mind stepping on the party if it can be a stepping stone to her nomination. In the past two weeks, Bill Clinton alleged that Obama was suppressing votes and the campaign was simultaneously claiming that the Culinary Workers Union was ordering members to vote for a particular candidate. Those lines are straight out of the corporate anti-union tactics playbook. Of course, that shouldn't be a big surprise, considering Mark Penn is one of her top advisors, and CEO of the company that runs the PR for firms such as Cintas, who has run an intense anti-union campaign against UNITE HERE, the same international with whom the Culinary Workers are federated, and whose poor worker safety led to a record fine by OSHA for a worker's death.

Then, in the past week to stir up controversies over the fact that Obama is winning in South Carolina because he is likely to get more black votes, among the other questionable truths (h/t lmw) means that the Clinton campaign is intentionally using this race-baiting tactic because they know the saliency of race and politics in this election. This was confirmed today, when Bill Clinton subtly brought up that Jesse Jackson won S.C. in the 1984 and 1988 primaries. Feeding into perceptions that black voters are going to vote for Obama because he is black feeds straight into the kind of despicable behavior that Republicans have used against black Democratic candidates (see Harold Ford).

This win-at-all-costs politics is bad. Not only does it have the effect of suppressing voters who are not already active participants in the political process (among whom, I believe, the majority would support Democrats) but it also sells out the very base of the Democratic Party. Arguing that union bosses intimidate their own workers does nothing to help workers organize and it undermines the very institutions that are responsible for the largest and most effective political machine on the left. Claiming that Obama is going to win South Carolina because he is black, not for his politics, plays into the racial-quota race-baiting of the conservative movement. But, it is politically expedient. And, it's worked. Many of the major media outlets are covering Obama's huge margin among black voters (including the AP, CNN, Fox, and international outlets). And, it seems that Clinton's strategists agree, "Clinton campaign strategists denied any intentional effort to stir the racial debate. But they said they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as 'the black candidate,' a tag that could hurt him outside the South."

Even I have fallen into it. I have spent this entire post discussing Clinton when, in fact, the day belongs to Obama. He didn't just win South Carolina, he skunked Clinton there. His 55% percent mandate against two candidates is as high as Clinton's Michigan win against "Undecided." This is his day, his week and should be—at least until February 5th—his campaign. And, his victory speech was brilliant. It is worth watching all 17 minutes of it. But, talk about striking back with a brilliant political move, here is my favorite part of his speech:

We're up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. But we know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics. This is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore. This is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again. (Cheers, applause.)

But let me say this, South Carolina. What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation.

It's a politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won't cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote, the assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate, whites can't support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.

Obama is right and his politics are good for the country. Whether I agree with him about the issues (I think, in the end, I would tend to support Edwards the most on the issues), the fact that people are engaged, involved and active in a presidential campaign is better for democracy and could help prevent useless wars and unbridled corruption in the future. Obama's campaign will mean more to the politics of this country losing this election than Clinton's will winning it.

Speaking of the Katrina Disaster

Adding onto the moral crimes following the Katrina Disaster that I mentioned yesterday, today MSNBC is running this story describing how $600 million in HUD funds earmarked for community development in Gulfport, Mississippi are being diverted to fund the expansion of the public port there —including the increased development of casinos. The lobbyist-governor Haley Barbour has justified this diversion by highlighting the number of high-paying jobs that it is going to bring to the region. I'm not convinced and, apparently the citizens of the area are not, either:

That misses the point that plenty of homeowners who didn't qualify for that program and many non-homeowners still need help, say Steps Coalition members. “There’s no other explanation except that the state doesn’t think the lower income storm victims are as important a priority as the port," said Reilly Morse, an attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice, part of the coalition.

The whole thing is worth a read.

What's Not Asked is as Important as What Is

Global warming is certainly not the only issue being neglected by the major media outlets; however, I found this video particularly well-done pointing out how little of a focus it has actually received (h/t Bry):

Speaking of issues that have been neglected, wobblie has a great dispatch of his experience in New Orleans and the lack of political coverage about its reconstruction. What has amazed me, although being a sociologist it probably shouldn't, is the lack of connection that anyone sees from New Orleans to anything else in the country. Wob's picture of the lower Ninth Ward impressed me because of its familiarity. Not to New Orleans, mind you, but to Detroit. When I went out block-listing for the Detroit Area Study, I was amazed at the absolute abandonment of the city. We literally had addresses to be listed that were next to holes in the ground that used to be a basement with a house on top of it. No house, no families, just a masonry hole and foundation where a house once stood. Entire blocks were wiped out with a combination of overgrowth, vacant houses with anti-arson signs (to prevent Devil's Night fires) and holes. The conditions didn't look that dissimilar from New Orleans, other than the fact that there was snow and there were a few property lots still dotted with non-vacant houses.

It is depressing situation when there were calls to "never forget" the catastrophe and a brief moment to mobilize around issues of poverty and racial inequality in this country. Maybe getting the mainstream media outlets to cover these issues in the presidential race could be a project for The Point (h/t: Brayden) ?

Another Reason to Hate Wal-Mart

The company that is the bane of most small retailers', employees', social justice advocates' and anti-globalization activists' existences has given them all another reason to hate them. Wal-Mart has decided to go after the legal settlement money of employees who were catastrophically injured in an accident. The terms of the health care coverage plan offered by Wal-Mart (and many other employers) demand that any settlement money for medical expenses be given to the medical insurance company. To not do so, they argue, is double-dipping and getting the same money twice.

I see several problems with this. Often settlements do not cover the complete cost of medical services, meaning the family is forced to find money from elsewhere. Also, any award given in settlement is only net of the legal expenses that it requires to recover that award. Essentially, then, what Wal-Mart is doing is outsourcing it's legal costs to recoup the money for its own insurance claims. The insurance provider can receive up to 100% of the settlement award after legal expenses meaning that the former employee (who, now, has no health insurance because they are no longer an employee because of said accident) is left with nothing after paying for attorneys and insurance companies.

And, to stick their thumb in the eyes of this poor couple going through this, Wal-Mart is now suing not only for the money received in the settlement award, but get this, they are also suing for the legal expenses incurred by their company to try and get this money from the couple! Nevermind that they paid nothing to aid in the legal claim to win the settlement.

I hope that, if there is a Hell--especially the fire-and-brimstone one favored by the Waltons--that there is a special ring of it reserved for their family.

Writing, Just not Here

It has been well over two weeks since I last posted here, after expressing a hope that I would be able to write more frequently after my last post. Ah well, I recall hearing something about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions.

Most of the radio silence was caused by the fact that I was busting my behind to finish my second prelim—essentially our version of a master's thesis, I suppose. Anyway, it is a journal-length article that I am hoping to send out this month, meaning I'm not sure how much I will be able to commit to the blog in the near term. I did finish and defended last week, which was a huge relief. Although my committee gave me several great, albeit time-consuming, suggestions to make before I send the paper out for review, I am feeling really good about it. Now I hope that I can figure out how to incorporate all of the suggestions.

Passing this prelim made me step back and evaluate grad school. In part because I am looking to finish in the relatively near term, in part because this was the last bureaucratic hurdle (as in paper to get signed) to jump before moving onto my dissertation, and in part because it did feel like an accomplishment. Although completing my second prelim was considerably later in the timeline than it should have been, this was largely due to the fact that I have had several other opportunities along the way that have delayed this particular event but, I hope, have helped my career progress.

Thinking about this also made me realize that there is great advice out there about getting through grad school and different parts of the grad school experience. I realized one particularly salient suggestion from lmw's class on "Launching your Academic Career" which suggested: "Think about each step along the way and what issues you faced, how you handled them, and what you learned." Although I didn't write one out step-by-step, I was thinking that it might not be a bad idea to write it up now so that I can remember the pitfalls and get through the next several papers much more quickly.

It also made me realize how little instruction I have received on the "brass tacks" of writing. This is probably somewhat due to the fact that we all have our own styles of working and, to each of us, they all seem a little dysfunctional (see Impostor Syndrome). Part of it, I'm sure, is that there are, from what I can tell, deep divisions between the kind of writing for qualitative projects and quantitative projects^[1]. I am lucky to have had the good fortune and opportunity to collaborate on projects with two different professors, so that I could see how it's done. This is obviously the best, but there are some basic things that seem to be fairly consistent and it just seems weird to me that this part of academia is kind of left hanging. For instance, we don't really have an academic writing course or a proposal writing course as part of the curriculum. Although lots of professors will incorporate this into their classes, there isn't anything going over the basics of how that is done in a systematic way.

Part of me also wonders if it is because writing has become so basic to many professors (and, even, advanced grad students) that it is easy to forget what it was like to learn to do these things. Like riding a bike - I can remember learning, but I'm not sure that I could teach someone now how to do it... Or learning to drive, things that are so basic I do them mindlessly now took a great deal of effort to learn (which, caused endless consternation for both of my parents as they were teaching me...like, not SLAMMING on the breaks when I tried to stop). That's part of what I love about having both a grad student and larger community in the blogosphere—we get great advice on both levels. Now, I just need to be sure to do my part to contribute my fair share...

^[1] In fact, one of the interesting criticisms given to me in my defense was that I was trying to combine a sociology focused on cultural analysis and one based on quantitative writings and my writing ended up falling, unsuccessfully, somewhere in between those two.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

At least that is what they hear. Maybe the same is true for the readers of this blog; which is still coming out of the tryptophan-induced slumber of the holiday. This is despite the fact that I have really wanted to follow up on squire's and Dave's comments about tenure and its role in the academy. Despite my best intentions, I have not found time to do so. This is partly due to the fact that I continued my comments elsewhere and partly because Dave posted another great post about the "liberal" role of the academy.

Unfortunately, I still don't have time to do it now. I set a deadline for myself to finish a paper by tomorrow and "motivated" myself by guaranteeing that my committee would have it so that they could read it before I headed to Ann Arbor. I'll tell you - there is a certain part of me that can't wait for that point Jeremy describes about deadlines taking on less weight. Though, then, I guess, it also become easier for todays to become tomorrows...

Times & Tenure

This story from the NYT about the diminishing prevalence of tenure in American colleges and universities in their top-stories feed. I think that they do a decent job presenting the basics, but—as is always the case&mdahs;miss some of the larger issues that are presented with diminishing tenure track positions.

While the story talks exclusively about public universities and all of the examples cited here are non-flagship public universities, the same trends can be seen in private universities as well. The number of tenure-track positions is drying up across the board. While the administrators may cite the lack of public funds and the inconsistency of public funding from states (or cities and counties for many community colleges), this trend is not entirely due to the the lack of funds. It is true that public higher education has suffered in recent years and often the non-flagship universities are hit harder than the flagship universities^[1], but if it is also happening at private and flagship universities there must be something larger. Furthermore, this trend is coming at a time when tuitions are so high that Congress is considering action and endowments of many universities are through the roof.

Much of the problem stems from the fact that many universities are employing WalMart-like management strategies. WalMart, the biggest private employer in this country and largest retailer in the world, perfected the art of "just-in-time" delivery of goods. Rather than paying for the manufacture, shipping, and storage of a huge inventory, they honed the method of supplying just enough product to meet demand with as little time as possible. No sense in those Christmas hats sitting on the shelves on Boxing Day when they couldn't be sold until the next year. Get just enough to meet demand, get more delivered next-day if you run out and constantly re-stock the shelves straight from the delivery truck. The same now works for professors teaching classes. Rather than having a full-time job with job security, professors are hired on semester contracts. Their pay, healthcare (if they have it), retirement benefits (again, if they have it), access to the library and university facilities lasts for those 17-weeks. If the department has enough enrollment, the professors receive a full course-load—if not, well...I hope that they planned on getting half the paycheck or less for those four months.

What ends up happening to many of these professors is that they try to line up a full-time teaching load by stringing together three or four jobs at three or four local institutions. In Michigan, as the NYT article mentions, professors would go from U-M Ann Arbor to U-M Dearborn to Wayne State to one of the several community college systems in the area. While they are teaching full time, they aren't getting full-time benefits because they technically have three to four different employers. The pay is bad, healthcare is either not offered or unaffordable and they are lucky if they have an office in one of the four campuses, nevermind all four.

Just-in-time operations for retailers may work^[2], but for educators it is a disaster. Professors, at their best, are supposed to be working with students to provide them the tools they need to understand the world, both for their future employment and as engaged citizens. They are not lawnmowers, lawn gnomes, cheap clothes or groceries or any of the other thousands of items available at WalMart. They are not a product on a shelf waiting to be taken home by a family paying the lowest price. When a professor is teaching four classes at four different campuses without an office, they aren't providing office hours, answering student's questions, contributing to the service functions on campus - all of the things that allow professors to have a real impact on students' lives. No, they are driving interstate highways rushing back an forth, trying to grade one exam in time to receive another that day. And, of course, forget term papers or semester projects that allow students to expand their knowledge to their own interests. In the ever-demanding just-in-time world, they give tests that can be answered by scantrons (if they are allowed to use the grading machine). Ultimately, education as a whole suffers and students who have the most tenuous grasp on a college education, first-generation college students, minorities, working mothers who are enrolled at community colleges and local state universities are the ones who are forced to deal with this the most.

It's a deplorable situation that needs to be fixed. If Congress, state legislators, education policy wonks and others are serious about fixing American higher education, then this is a problem that urgently needs to be addressed. Otherwise, no amount of fancy new tech center, student gym or other expenditures made possible by the egotistically exorbitant gifts by donors so that they can view their name a building are going to matter if the professors mandated with teaching the students can't teach.

Cross-posted at Free Exchange

^[1] In my experience, this is in no small part due to the fact that many state legislators are often alumni of the flagship universities and tend to be less so for the non-flagship local campuses. Supporting a local branch of the state university system is seen as garnering pork for your constituents but trying to get money for the state flagship universities as part of one's alumni obligations is seen as noble -- and is one of the few things that can cut across party lines.
^[2] Of course, there are also major problems for workers and communities for the just-in-time methods of corporations like WalMart as well.