Time to get back on track.....So since your last blog you have:
Finished Barnett, seen part of the film "Control Room"; seen most of a film "The Yes Men"; and begun reading about the role of the State in the world and this thing called 'globalization' in the Power book.
So the next blog then is to do the following:
Go to Youtube and search for videos with "Naomi Klein" in the title.
You will find 4 videos titles:
"Naomi Klein - No Logo (1 0f 4)"
"Naomi Klein - No Logo (2 of 4)"
"Naomi Klein - No Logo (3 of 4)"
"Naomi Klein - No Logo (4 of 4)"
Watch them all and then react on your Blog using concepts from the recent reading and the videos in class.
Due before you leave for break.
Note: Your midterm will be distributed on Monday in class and Due the Monday you return from Spring Break. It is a take-home.
2.2.07
Klare Class Notes
Chapter 2
3 reasons Klare sites for prediction that oil will remain at the center of global conflict for the immediate future
Chapter 3
CENTCOM?
3 war cenario?
Saudi connection/link
Chapter 4
Goals of
policy in
Transit security
Resource development
Supply
Development projects. Contracts
Chapter 5
Oceans/seas
Development
Transport
Demand
EEZ's
Mischief reef
Chapter 6
Issue: Water Location:
Why is water going to be/already is an issue?
Internal destabilization by external interests
Water Again
T&E àEthnic Tensions:
-colonial constructions
-internal/external balance
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Klare Class Notes
Chapter 2
3 reasons Klare sites for prediction that oil will remain at the center of global conflict for the immediate future
Chapter 3
CENTCOM?
3 war cenario?
Saudi connection/link
Chapter 4
Goals of
policy in
Transit security
Resource development
Supply
Development projects. Contracts
Chapter 5
Oceans/seas
Development
Transport
Demand
EEZ's
Mischief reef
Chapter 6
Issue: Water Location:
Why is water going to be/already is an issue?
Internal destabilization by external interests
Water Again
T&E àEthnic Tensions:
-colonial constructions
-internal/external balance
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Post assignment #3:
1. Go to this link: http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/170
2. Listen to the entire program. (you can stream it or right-click and save it as am mp3 to listen to on your Ipod or other mp3 device.) It is Klare talking about his new book, "Blood for Oil".
3. Take note while you listen.
4. When you are done listening, react to what you have heard within the context of the course material we have covered so far.
Remember to follow the directions for posting outlined in the syllabus.
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29.1.07
Klare 1.0
Michael Klare. 2001. Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict
Klare's basic argument is that many past, some recent and most future conflicts will center around claim about ownership of, transport of, and access to, resources. He covers seven major geographic regions-the Middle East, the Caspian Basin, the South China Sea, and the Nile, Jordan, Tigris and Euphrates, and Indus River Basins-and introduces a host on intrastate conflicts over minerals, diamonds, and timber.
Ch1 The Contexts
What is CENTRAZBAT?
US security policy fundamentally changed in the late `90's, both geographically and operationally. Explain.
Explain the new relationship between US National Security and economic globalization.
What basic economic assumptions are built into the economization of National Security?
Explain EEZs and "lootable" resources and how these contribute to contexts of current conflicts.
On pages 13 and 14 Klare refers to Huntington, Kaplan, and Friedman. What is assessment of each?
Klare identifies 4 reasons that he thinks resources will be at the center of future conflicts:
a. economization of security
b. increasing worldwide demand
c. scarcity
d. ownership disputes
I will add a 5th…..Growth assumption and privatization…in a word, NEOLIBERALISM
To Klare, future conflicts will follow this geography….
a. resources that cross international borders
b. oceans and seas
c. transportation routes
d. Intranational factional conflict
Isn't it interesting that Klare is writing this book, making this argument prior to the "War on Terror" and that most if not all of the current new US Military deployments around the world correspond to resource conflict zones with US interests at stake. Isn't it interesting that such deployments and plans for them were well under way prior to the "War on Terror"? Some argue that this tactic is not new, that the "War on Drugs" was/is cover for meddling in the affairs of Latin American counties. What do you think?
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24.1.07
Blog Assignment #2 GPC
What if the movie The Matrix is a metaphorically accurate description of our social world? What if what you have been taught is the real world, what you have been taught is human nature, what you think are "common sense" self evident explanations for why the world is the way it is, is not true? What if, by looking across history and across cultures, by comparing hard data to what we "think" is true, we can see that societies come in many different forms, that the behaviors we attribute as part of human nature, or natural, are also similarly culturally diverse, and that our perceptions of the real world do not line up with the data? What if hard data, about income distribution, social class mobility, who has and uses social power, etc. shows us that society is not what we believe it to be? What if?
We have been learning a lot about how critical theorists within political sociology think about power in modern society. Our basic questions have been "Who rules?", "Why does everyone else go along with the ruling?" and "What are the consequences for our thinking of having a ruling class, a Power Elite (ie. G. W Bush and his entourage, or the whole enchilada)?" Critical social theorists look at the data and see a society (US) in which a ruling class has created the most successful, stable, and non-revolutionary society in history (the US and to some extent the rest of Western Capitalist society). Far from there being revolutionary sentiments among the masses or direct coercive control over the masses as Marx predicted, the working classes of this society "go along" for the most part with the status quo in which they have little real power or real wealth. Why do they continue to go along? Why do they not rise up as Marx predicted and demand a more equitable distribution of wealth and power? Why do they continue to live in false consciousness? Why are their sociological imaginations (follow the "next" link at the bottom of the page opened by this link) not actively discovering the social processes and structures that keep them from making any significant progress up the social ladder, even as they believe it possible? Why do we believe in the myth of meritocracy?
Gramsci and Marcuse try to answer this question. Gramsci's answer is hegemony...the development of a ruling set of ideas that makes acceptance of the status quo a "common sense" belief reinforced and replayed over and over again in the cultural practices of a society (like the Pledge of Allegiance, "one nation" really?, "with liberty, and equality for all" really?). To Gramsci, the ruling class transforms the cultural practices of the masses into practices that support and reaffirm an ideology that justifies the current power and wealth distribution. Where Marx saw the power of the ruling class lying in political and economic power, Gramsci sees the power of the ruling class lying in the "common sense" cultural practices, the hegemonic ideology of a society.
Marcuse adds to Gramsci by elucidating the intoxicating power of the market commodities of late industrial society. According to Marcuse, those not of the ruling class have their revolutionary tendencies and energies transformed into consumer impulses. The new social order creates false needs which integrate individuals into the existing system of production, consumption, and power relations via mass media, advertising, industrial management, etc. To Marcuse, the modern world is characterized by the invasion of market forces into our everyday lives and even our ideas such that we become preoccupied with consuming, we need to consume, consumption of every aspect of our lives is life itself. Thus revolutionary tendencies become needs to buy and wear a Che' t-shirt and eat Cherry Garcia ice cream. Radicalism becomes co-opted as part of the market.
So far in class we have focused in large part on the US. How we understand power in the US is crucial to understanding how we think about conflict in the world today since few of us have first hand knowledge of the causes and consequences of global conflicts, and therefore the possible ways of framing and understanding global conflict are in large part fed to us by "experts" and politicians, liberal and conservative, who are members of the ruling class, the power elite.
Is this problematic? Is there reason to question or think critically about the way global conflicts are framed for us by the ruling class? Here are some of your options:
1. Benevolent: If you believe that the ruling class is a benevolent force that shepards over all of us, this is not a problem. Just as our parents knew best when we were children, we rightly should deffer to the ruling class because they know best.
2. Just like us: Or if you believe that the ruling class is really just a collection of individuals who are just like average Americans, from similar backgrounds as average Americans, with similar outlooks and concerns as average Americans, and who by their individual achievements and qualities rose through society to their current position of power, then again there is no real problem with leaving the thinking about global conflict to them. They have earned their positions as framers of complex issues for the rest of us.
3. From a different world: Or maybe you think, or for the purposes of this class at least entertain the possibility that the interests of the ruling class are not the same as those of the average American, that the interests of the most powerful and richest among us are not the same as the typical 9 to 5 working American. And maybe you are now or have been thinking that the vast majority of those in the ruling class are from the ruling class by inheritance or luck, not achievement? Maybe you think there is really nothing in the genetics of a Rockefeller or a Kennedy or a Bush that makes them particularly more capable of ruling than you. In fact, maybe you are beginning to think that the lists of personal achievements that each of these folks can demonstrate to us has as much or more to do with the opportunities and advantages that their starting status birth positions in the ruling class afforded them. Ah, but this is radical hogwash. Or is it? You decide.
Read, skim, and explore the following web links.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/who.html
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Then write a post to your blog that answers the following:
a. What is meant by a "ruling class" or power elite?
b. Who are the ruling class in the US? Which case above (1.benevolent, 2. just like us, or 3. from a different world) seems to best fit the evidence? ie. How do the vast majority of people in the ruling class get to be in the ruling class?
c. What interests might the ruling class have in framing global conflict as it is often framed:
inevitable, a result of human nature and radical crazies, irrational hatred, etc.
d. How much of what you think about the world and about global conflicts is received knowledge, filtered through media, politicians, and other institutional sources?
e. Why does any of this matter to our course goals? Specifically to our ability to make sense of global conflicts and possibilities for peace in the world?
f. What can such an understanding of power contribute to our exploration of global conflicts?
Do not simply restate each question and then give a simple brief answer. This should be a flowing essay response that covers the questions above. Cut and paste where appropriate as long as you provide links to the original text for attribution.
POST BY Wed. 31st of January.
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23.1.07
MFD Kuhn resource
This is the best summary of Kuhn I have found. Read it and it will help you think through you papers on MFD.
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html
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20.1.07
More GPC Resources
Movies:
Barber (Jihad vs McWorld)
.....On Democracies
.....McLaughlin Group. 30 second Bio
.....McLaughlin Group. Why Jihad and McWorld are NOT Democracy
.....McLaughlin Group. What is Jihad and McWorld
.....1 Hour Debate with economist Tyler Cowen (Creative Destruction) at CATO Institute
.....More audio and video on Barbers Page
Robert Kaplan (Coming Chaos)
.....Briefing the Pentagon
.....On Imperial Grunts
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18.1.07
GPC resources
Huntington---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/sept11/flash_civClash.html
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/41032/
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=252
Drezner---
http://www.danieldrezner.com/blog/
http://danieldrezner.com/
Barber---
http://www.benjaminbarber.com/
http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-04barber-audio.html
Kaplan---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Kaplan
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/by/robert_d_kaplan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/sept11/flash_civClash.html
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/41032/
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=252
Drezner---
http://www.danieldrezner.com/blog/
http://danieldrezner.com/
Barber---
http://www.benjaminbarber.com/
http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-04barber-audio.html
Kaplan---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Kaplan
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/by/robert_d_kaplan
17.1.07
GPC Blog Assignment #1
- say something about yourself, who you are, or why you are in the class, etc.
- say something about your anticipations, hesitations, concerns, excitements about this course
13.1.07
this is the next step
so, for years I have maintained web pages for my classes. each summer I would diligently convert my syllabi into HTML. at the beginning of each semester I would direct students to those pages. sometimes on the university server, sometimes on a server I purchased hosting from. inevitably though, before the third week of the semester I abandoned the web page except as a reminder for students of what the course syllabus was. i found it too onerous to use the web page for regular communication between myself and my students. e-mail list serves became my default. cut and paste as I browsed and sent along. at the end of each semester however I was left with no continuous record of the communications I had had with my students over the course of the semester.
finally, I gave up on pages a couple of years ago.....but, e-mail is less than adequate, during the semester many students claim not to have received important information I sent via e-mail, and I find course-ware websites as onerous as web pages.
sooooooo, I have decided to make a foray into the blogosphere to see if this might be a means for communication with my students. we'll see how it goes.
below you will find the required book for the classes I am teaching this semester. they were my test posts...with the help of a program called Zoundry.
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Books for Sociology 420
Books for Sociology 420: Senior Seminar
1. A Hidden Wholeness --Palmer ISBN: 0787971006
2. Avoiding Politics --Eliasoph ISBN: 052158759X
3. New Rules of Marriage --Real ISBN: 1400064015
4. Fear --Robin ISBN: 0195189124
5. The Fire This Time --Labaton & Martin ISBN: 0385721021
6. Democracy's Edge --Lappe ISBN: 0787943118
Books for SOCI 288
Books for Sociology 288: Marx, Freud, and Darwin
1. The Freud Reader (Paperback) ISBN-10: 0393314030
2. The Marx-Engels Reader (Paperback) ISBN-10: 039309040X
3. Human Nature After
4.
Books for SOCI 308
Books for Sociology 308: Global Peace and Conflict
1. The Colonial Present Derek Gregory ISBN: 1577180909 Blackwell
2. Resource Wars Michael T Klare ISBN: 0805055762 Owl Books
3. Pentagon's New Map Thomas Barnet ISBN: 0399151753 Putnam
4. Wimp Factor Stephen Ducat ISBN: 0807043443 Beacon Press
5. Mountains Beyond Mountains Kidder ISBN: 0812973011 Random House
6. Power: A Critical Reader Egan & Chorb.ISBN: 013183438X Prentice
7. Peace by Peaceful Means: Johan Galtung ISBN: 0803975112 Sage
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