Category Archives: Random Blogging

Distrust, American Style

A few years back, I wrote a book titled Distrust, American Style: Diversity and the Crisis of Public Confidence. (Still available on Amazon–hint, hint…). The book was a response–a rebuttal, actually–to arguments advanced by Robert Putnam (better known for Bowling Alone),  who had theorized that rising levels of distrust were a response to Americans’ growing diversity.

My own research suggested otherwise. Certainly, living in urban areas populated with lots of folks who look and act differently from you can generate some anxiety, but my reading suggested a different culprit: insecurity, exacerbated by crime and the lack of a social safety net.

A telling comparison can be drawn between the U.S. and Canada, countries with very similar cultural roots and environments. Canadians watch American television, read many of the same newspapers and magazines, and even have relatively high gun ownership rates–but far less crime and social distrust. What Canada does have that U.S. Americans do not is a strong social safety net, and most importantly, universal health care.

A recent study provides further evidence of the connection between economic security and social trust.

Greater income inequality, the team found, was correlated with lower trust in others, while greater poverty, more violent crime, and an improving stock market were linked with less confidence in institutions.

We might expect that people who live in constant fear that they are one illness away from bankruptcy, who live in neighborhoods where jobs are scarce and crime is rampant, would become wary and distrustful.

Ironically, however, income inequality is equally likely to create distrust and fear in wealthier precincts. Gated communities, booming sales of security cameras, the rise in “private” police, all testify to the insecurity of the well-to-do.

Poor people fear disaster; rich people fear poor people. And no one trusts anyone.

But hey–our taxes are lower than ever.

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Watchdog? What Watchdog?

A recent Gallup poll finds that public confidence in the media is at an all-time low. Interestingly, confidence was lowest among those who reported following the news most closely. In other words, the people who arguably know the most are the people most skeptical of what they are–and are not–being told.

In my Media and Public Policy class last Wednesday, students voiced their dismay over the Indianapolis Star, which has abandoned any pretense of investigative reporting on city and state government. If someone brings an issue to the attention of the paper, they may run it, but any visible effort to actually monitor local government, or to act as the eyes and ears of the voters, is long gone.

Local television news is equally superficial, although in fairness, it is often better than the current Star. Historically, the local channels have taken their cues from print media; in the absence of anything resembling meaningful local news from newspapers, they are floundering.

So we have lots of sports coverage. And at the Star, which has continued to “downsize” its investigative reporting capacity, a new reporter for the all-important “beer and entertainment beat.”

The national networks aren’t appreciably better . In fact, their credibility may be worse.

Politifact has a new rating system, which is using scorecards to track the accuracy–or lack thereof–of network pundits and “on-air personalities.”

Right now, you can look at the NBC/MSNBC file and see how that network’s pundits and on-air talent stand. For instance, 46 percent of the claims made by NBC and MSNBC pundits and on-air personalities have been rated Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire.

At FOX and Fox News Channel, that same number is 60 percent. At CNN, it’s 18 percent.

(Forgive the snark, but I can’t help attributing CNN’s better rating to the fact that it provides less news. I mean, how much misdirection can you work into weeks spent tracking a missing plane?)

So–we can’t rely on the veracity of the national news networks, and there is no local general interest journalism left.

No wonder no one trusts anyone anymore.

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And Now…The Other Side of the Story?

Yesterday, I posted about the newest crop of crazy running for what used to be a serious Congress. That post unleashed a lot of angst, doom and gloom in the comments. But now–as Paul Harvey might have said–for the rest of the story.

Because there are glimmers of hope.

From Pew:

But in addition to the generation’s Democratic tendency, Millennials who identify with the GOP are also less conservative than Republicans in other generations: Among the roughly one-third of Millennials who affiliate with or lean Republican, just 31% have a mix of political values that are right-of-center, while about half (51%) take a mix of liberal and conservative positions and 18% have consistently or mostly liberal views. Among all Republicans and Republican leaners, 53% have conservative views; in the two oldest generations, Silents and Boomers, about two-thirds are consistently or mostly conservative.

In short, not only are Millennials less likely than older generations to identify as Republicans, but even those who do express significantly less conservative values than do their elders.
…

The generational divisions among Republicans span different dimensions of political values. Some of the most striking generational differences within Republicans concern social issues like homosexuality and immigration, but younger Republicans are also less conservative when it comes to values related to the environment, role of government, the social safety net and the marketplace.

It isn’t simply changing attitudes. From The Guardian:

Two high schools in Colorado canceled classes Monday after dozens of teachers called in sick in protest of a conservative school board’s proposal to change the history curriculum.

This is the second such teacher sick-out in two weeks and comes on the heels of student walk-outs over the issue. At the two high schools where sick-outs were staged, Golden and Jefferson high school in Jefferson County, 73% and 81% of teachers called out, respectively.

Add in the spread of “Moral Mondays,” the efforts of moderate and liberal Christians to take back their religion from the kooks and theocrats, the successes of the “Flush Rush” campaign, the frustrations expressed by the Occupy participants, and hundreds of other indicators, small as they still are, and we do have evidence that the pendulum is about to swing.

The question, as several commenters noted yesterday, is whether that swing will be soon enough to save the nation from irrelevancy and decline, and strong enough to overcome the structural barriers that have been erected by the plutocrats.

Pete often ends his comments here by saying “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Me either.

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Mitch Evidently Started a Trend

According to Business Insider, Florida Governor Rick Scott has “pulled a Mitch” at Florida State University, appointing Trustees who then (what a coincidence!) appointed his campaign manager and crony as president.

According to The Times-Union, the state senator’s final interview with the FSU Board of Trustees Tuesday “came despite opposition to Thrasher from faculty and students expressing concern about the school’s reputation and the need for the next leader to have stellar academic credentials.”

Jennifer Proffitt, the president of the FSU chapter of the United Faculty of Florida, told The Times-Union that “It’s clear [Thrasher] does not have the qualifications to lead a research university.”

Thrasher is a former Florida house speaker and chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. He graduated from FSU for both his undergraduate and law degrees.

The Times-Union reports that Thrasher had the opportunity to speak to hundreds of students and faculty last week at an open forum. Of the close to 700 responses collected after the talk, 11% gave Thrasher ‘good’ grades, while 87% gave him ‘not good’ or ‘below average’ marks,” according to The Times-Union.

Another criticism of Thrasher is his close connections to many of the FSU trustees — most were appointed by Florida governor Rick Scott, whose campaign for re-election is managed by Thrasher. (emphasis mine)

The justification for placing politicians in these positions is that they will be good fundraisers. It is evidently irrelevant that they do not share the values of the academy–or even understand the mission of a research university. They are spectacularly unfit for the job of protecting scholarly inquiry and academic freedom.

Sic transit intellectual integrity and institutional credibility.

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Clueless and Mean–Not an Attractive Combination

Ah, Arizona! You do seem to produce some outstanding examples of defective humanity.

The recalled Arizona senate president who proposed the state’s controversial anti-immigration law said he could fix public assistance programs by forcibly sterilizing women who receive aid and by requiring drug tests for all recipients.

“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations,” said Russell Pearce on his weekly talk radio program. Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

He suggested drastic cuts to food assistance for needy families, reported Phoenix New Times, and he urged strict limits to items that could be purchased with what little help was available.

“No cash for Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, you’d only get money for 15-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and powdered milk – all the powdered milk you can haul away,” Pearce said. “If you want a steak or frozen pizza, then you’d have to get a job.”

Speaking of ding-dongs, this particular one evidently believes that unemployment is a choice– that jobs are plentiful and folks without them simply don’t want one. There is ample evidence to the contrary (most unemployed and underemployed people are desperate for work–and their incidence of drug use is lower than among the population at large), but I get the distinct impression that evidence is a foreign concept to this repellent excuse for a human being.

Punishing people for being poor seems to be the flavor of the day among the clueless and cruel political demographic.

Pearce’s delusions evidently aren’t restricted to the job prospects and drug habits of poor folks: Pearce, who served as first vice-chair of the Arizona Republican Party until the furor over these remarks prompted his resignation, and who lost a 2011 recall election over ethics concerns and his sponsorship of the controversial anti-immigration law, claimed on his most recent job application that he attended graduate school at the University of Arizona. Arizona begged to differ; the school had no record of him attending. He also claimed to have “attended graduate school” at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. I guess you could consider that technically true; Harvard reported that he once attended a three-week seminar there. And then there was this:

Pearce accepted but didn’t report nearly $40,000 in paid junkets and college football tickets from Fiesta Bowl officials while helping them receive state subsidies.

Maybe instead of sterilizing and starving poor people, we should sterilize and starve the unethical and soulless influence-peddlers living off the political fat of the land.

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