Because of this:

Obama’s a helluva lot more human than the botox domme Queen Cindy and her gigilo soldier of fortune John Sidney McCain. You all have a helluva lot of a greater chance surviving the next four years with an Obama preznitcy than with a McCain-Cheneyburton oligarchy. If you vote “Mc$ame” like Rove wants, or you simply sit out this $election on your hands in petulance, you, personally, are making one of the biggest mistakes of your life.

And this

you whiners need to just register (R) and send in your KKK membership dues. Now that the Alaskan lady is running you have a reason to vote for McCain. (I kid of course, but seriously, get over it as Lord Cheeto is fond of saying)

And this

Stephanie Coontz makes all the so-called relationship, marriage and family experts from the conservative thinktanks look like the frauds that they are. Her most recent book, Marriage - A History, is a masterpiece of scholarly research made accessible to the general public through great writing.

Today, in a Guardian column, she uses the 45th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique to revisit its impact.  Read more…

Groups

Social groups have specific characteristics: (a) they consist of two or more people who (b) interact in an ordered fashion, (c) share specific values and norms, and (d) have at least some sense of unity and common goals.

Group conformity / obedience

One of the main influences that groups exercise over their members lies in their capacity to induce conformity – the process through which members modify their behavior to comply with the group’s norms or decisions. Research shows that group pressure does not have to be intense to produce conformity.

One such experiment was conducted by Solomon Asch (1956) to show the power of groups to influence behavior. Asch assembled 6 to 8 students, all accomplices except one, the subject of the experiment. The students were shown a line on card 1 and asked to pick the corresponding line on card 2 (see diagram).

It is obvious that the correct answer is A. At first, Asch’s accomplices answered correctly but in further rounds of the experiment they started answering incorrectly. Asch wanted to see what the subject would do: would he provide the correct answer despite the group’s incorrect consensus or would he go along with the group?

One third of the subjects went along and provided the wrong answer and later admitted they knew it but did not want to be singled out. In other words, they were willing to compromise their judgment for the sake of going along with the group’s (wrong) answer.

Here is a video to illustrate this dynamic further:

  Read more…

After weeks of looking back and taking stock of what happened to the major players in the progressive blogosphere (PB1.0), let's move forward, shall we?

It's time to come out and stake our claim to a place in the blogosphere. We need to define ourselves as we are already being defined by others as "just disgruntled HRC supporters over there at Corrente."

The Principles

What we for PB2.0

• Promotion of Justice / Social Justice
• Promotion of truth no matter what
• Promotion of the tools of critical analysis
• Party invariance
• We are not impartial, we are progressives

What we don't want for PB2.0

• An exclusive focus on electoral politics
• Too close a relationship between the blogosphere, the media and party politics

Here is the second part of my review of Manfred Steger's The Rise of the Global Imaginary (part 1 here). In the last part of the book, Steger focuses on the sometimes conflicting ideologies derived from the global imaginaries.

Starting from the collapse of the USSR, Steger argues (correctly, I think) that the first winning ideology in the decontestation game was market globalism, the ideology that managed to decontest "globalization" in the limited sense of deregulated markets on a global scale.

To explore the tenets of market globalism, Steger reviews the writings of one of its main proponents and popularizers: Thomas Friedman. Needless to say, this is painful to read as is anything related to Thomas Friedman (hence no links), however he is indeed a central figure in the promotion of market globalism. He is also a good representative of the way this ideology was promoted by the political, economic and corporate elites in the 1990s (or the transnational capitalist class as Leslie Sklair calls this group, Friedman belongs to the ideological sub-group of the TCC).

  Read more…

Via Avedon, find out at this site, here is mine (coulda been worse!):

Feel free to leave yours in the comments!

Coss-posted from The Global Sociology Blog, a proud PB2.0 Blog!

I have already blogged a bit about Manfred Steger's concept of social imaginary but that was before the actual publication of his book on the subject. Now that I have had the time to read the book, let me offer the following review.

Let me say right off the bat that I am a big fan of Manfred Steger's writings on globalization. His Globalization: A Very Short Introduction is still the best introduction to globalization on the market and the one I use for my undergraduate classes. His other book, Globalism: Market Ideology Meets Terrorism is a great exploration of the ideological and cultural implications of globalization.

In his latest book, The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from The French Revolution to the Global War on Terror, Steger offers another analysis of the ideological dimensions of globalization, but more in-depth than in his previous books.

  Read more…

I am a big fan of science-fiction in general (good science-fiction is always good sociology), and of Joe Haldeman (that website needs some updating, Joe! Oh well, we can console ourselves with Live Journal) in particular ever since I read The Forever War. I have read all his books since and they keep getting better (The Accidental Time Machine was great but then again, I love the time travel sub-genre). The latest one is Marsbound. It belongs to the first contact genre, humans meet aliens.  Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

What happens when a small island African country discovers oil in its territorial waters? (Via Der Spiegel) In a perfect world, it should be the way out of poverty and to development and higher living standards for all. But this is not a perfect world. And this is not a hypothetical situation. It is the story of what happened to Sao Tome and Principe (See the BBC country profile for Sao Tome and Principe for general background information on this country.).

And it is a textbook example of how power differentials and resource curse combine to create a situation where a few will benefit tremendously and the many will be left in the same abject poverty as they were before and where transnational corporations and richer and more powerful countries can throw their weight around with the help of corrupt officials.

  Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via Jay Livingston at Montclair Socioblog, a beautiful short film that won in Cannes.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

It is pretty clear that Russia and Georgia are at war (see excellent background article here). It is not like there were no warning signs that Russia did not enjoy having its power challenged, as happened with the independence of Kosovo where the UN ignored Russia's opposition and went ahead with support for the new republic over its objections. Then, a few weeks ago, I posted on the fact that it seemed that Russia was engaging in a new Cold War in an attempt to reclaim some global military leadership. The invasion of parts of Georgia in support of independent movements in Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia should be read in that context.

As usual, I find Michael Mann's conceptualization of different forms of power useful to understand what is going on here. As Jonathan Steele puts it in the Guardian, this is not just an economic war, a "pipeline war", but a war of political influence. Political power, more than economic, might be at work here:

  Read more…

This is my selective review of the draft of the Democratic platform (changes might still be made). I'll just highlight the stuff I really like or dislike. You can go read the whole thing itself, just follow the link. Here we go

Preamble

"A great nation now demands that its leaders abandon the politics of partisan division and find creative solutions to promote the common good. A people that prizes candor, accountability and fairness insists that a government for the people must level with them and champion the interests of all American families. A land of historic resourcefulness has lost its patience with elected officials who have failed to lead."

Uh oh, this does not start well. Partisan division is NOT the problem. Republican governance is. Creative solutions are good, but they include first sending the Republican leadership back to the hole they crawled out of.

"And so, Democrats –through the most open platform process in history –are reaching out today to Republicans and Independents who hunger for a new direction and a reason to hope."

I think I'm going to need a puke bucket AND a large supply of barf bags to make it through this.

  Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

As the Olympic Games started in Beijing, the question of human rights in China has been already well discussed. What was interesting to me was a Guardian op-ed by Brendan O'Neill on the journalistic and activist distortions and myth created regarding the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989.

"Many have accused the Chinese of trying to control international perceptions of Tiananmen Square – Beijing's "blackened heart", as one reporter describes it – and no doubt that is true. Disgracefully, the Communist party of China's official position on the 1989 massacre is that it wasn't a noteworthy event. Officials still refer to it as "the incident", a shocking label for the Chinese military's massacre of anywhere between 300 and 1,000 people on the hot, heady nights of June 3 and 4 1989.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Scott Jaschik was at the ASA meeting (I had breakfast next to him on Saturday morning) and he has an interesting article in Inside Higher Ed regarding the relationship between sociology, criminology and criminal justice. These disciplines are usually considered to be "cousins". Sociology broadly provides most of the background that goes into criminology, understood as the study of the ins and out of the criminal justice system with a theoretical background. Criminal Justice often includes the more vocational aspects of the field, something often nicknamed the "cop shop" aspect of teaching. So what are the issues here?  Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

This session by ASA President Arne Kalleberg (website) deserves a post of its own, because I thought it was so good and important. The title says it all: when it comes to the meaning of work, socio-economic forces have made work more insecure, unpredictable, and risky. In other words, in the brave new world of work, the French concept of précarité is the name of the game: work has become more precarious.

Kalleberg divided his presentation into four sections:

• The causes of growth of precarious work as global challenge
• The consequences
• Rethinking the employment relationship
• Challenges for public policy and sociology

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

I know Robert Fisk is controversial. But he lives and breathes the Middle East and has intimate knowledge of it. In his latest column for the Independent, he reports on the restraint that Al Jazeera has shown considering the amount of atrocities on tape it receives:

""We've trained ourselves not to go to the maximum in our feelings when we see terrible things like this," Ayman Gaballah, Al Jazeera's deputy chief editor, says bleakly. And I can see why. There are other tapes, other outrages too terrible to show. George Bush wanted to bomb the station's headquarters in Doha but staff have shown great sensitivity with what they show the world from Iraq. There is no proof that any of Al Jazeera's reporters was ever tipped off about anti-American attacks before they happened – in Iraq, I investigated these claims in 2003 and 2004 – but plenty of proof that some things are too awful to see.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Echidne has a great article over at Alternet regarding the non-sensical and stupid thesis that there are few women in politics because they do not have the ambition, drive and thick skin to face the political world. In other words, states the stupid thesis, they have an inner glass ceiling. This is idiotic, of course, Echidne lists all the relevant arguments, so, just go read, ok? Then come back and read some of the background I have to offer on this.

According to Paxton and Hughes (2007), women represent approximately half of the world’s population but only 16% of national parliaments. Of 190 countries, only 7 have women as head of the government. Women are 9% of ambassadors to the United Nations, 7% of the world’s cabinet ministers and 8% of the world’s mayors. In politics and government, the gender gap is extremely wide and well represents the global persistence of patriarchy.

In addition, in no country do women make half of the parliament even though a few countries come very close (See table). Interestingly, some countries of the global South seem to do a better job than some Western countries when it comes to promoting women in politics. After all, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia and Chile have or have had female presidents; in contrast, France and the United States have not.

(Hideous table alert)

  Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Things that suck

Another session, another !@#$ baby.

The universe turning against you:

• Being delayed at Logan Airport long enough to see O-Force One (Change you can believe in!!) for the big birthday bash, apparently.
• Sitting on the plane next to a woman (with young child!) wearing a pink "Obama Mama" shirt (that'll teach me to upgrade to Economy +)
• Driving home in the biggest !@#$ thunderstorm with lighting that makes you think you're in a rave party.

The Thing that Really Sucked

Kevin Bales did not show up for the session on human trafficking and slavery. Damn, I really wanted to see him, he's my hero!

Putting a session on such an important topic as human trafficking (which definitely fits with the general topic of labor) on the last day, where most people have already gone home.

Things that don't suck

The session on human trafficking and slavery, which had two very interesting contributions.

  Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

In addition to the plenary session which I'll talk about below, I attended a couple of teaching workshops sessions that are probably of interest only to me, but they provide me with materials for

Things that suck and make me run out of the room within the first 20 minutes of a session   Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Progress!! I managed to get Japanese food AND utensils, which avoided my having to resort to the same creative, yet shameful, solution as I did yesterday.

Things that suck

Please, my fellow sociologists: do NOT bring a goddamn infant to a presentation... believe it or not, it'll end up crying (no way??!!)... and you may be used to your spawn wailing, but it annoys the rest of us (especially me, which is all that matters).

CLIQUES!! Star sociologists hang out together and with the few non-stars that managed to latch on to them and ignore the rest of the vulgum pecus.

Things that do NOT suck

Being reminded why sociology is great and important and why I majored in it in the first place.

Panel 1 - Public Sociology

Ok, so, on to business. The first panel I attended was a panel on public sociology regarding sociology and the media.

[Disclaimer: I'm a big supporter of public sociology, which is why I blog... duh.]

  Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Things that suck:

• Having one's flight delayed for 2 hours because of a big time thunderstorm in Chicago

• Being seated on the plane next to a big guy (so, no armrest separation possible) who progressively opens his legs wider and wider... guys, keep your goddamn legs together and stop encroaching on women's already drastically limited legspace, ok?

• Being surrounded by people who must think their disgusting habits have to be shared in public (picking one's nose, chewing gum with one's goddamn mouth open and making a lot of slushy noise, manicuring oneself by opening one's mouth really wide and shoving half one's big finger in there)... seriously, I wish there were 2 economy cabins: one of normal people like me, who just read, rest and have their Ipods on. And then one for families with kids and people with gross habits... a sealed and soundproof cabin for them... heck, different flights altogether.

Another post as part of my social justice series.

Bruce Western - of Punishment and Inequality in America fame - hopes so (via Chris Uggen ) in this article in the Boston Review.

"The British sociologist T.H. Marshall described citizenship as the “basic human equality associated with full membership in a community.” By this measure, thirty years of prison growth concentrated among the poorest in society has diminished American citizenship. But as the prison boom attains new heights, the conversation about criminal punishment may finally be shifting.

For the first time in decades, political leaders seem willing to consider the toll of rising incarceration rates. In October last year, Senator Jim Webb convened hearings of the Joint Economic Committee on the social costs of mass incarceration. In opening the hearings, Senator Webb made a remarkable observation, “With the world’s largest prison population,” he said, “our prisons test the limits of our democracy and push the boundaries of our moral identity.”

  Read more…

Jeremy Seabrook has a very pessimistic but, I think, powerful column in the Guardian in light of Barack Obama's world tour. It centers on Obama but has wider implications for the way we consider political leadership in the global context. For those of us who regularly read Seabrook, it is a well know fact that he is vehemently opposed to corporate globalization (he writes for the New Internationalist as well) and is a subscriber to the Habermasian school of Crisis of Legitimacy in the political sphere. This column is no departure from this.

His starting point here is the focus on personality politics:  Read more…

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via McClatchy,

"A Senate committee on Thursday heard appeals for the creation of a federal task force to combat polygamist sects that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described as sophisticated organized crime rings.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose office has received nationwide attention for its investigation of a sect in Texas, was among those backing legislation sponsored by Reid, D-Nev. The bill would establish a task force in the U.S. Department of Justice and assist victims of polygamist groups.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Christian Chavagneux and Ronen Palan's Les Paradis Fiscaux is a great (and mercifully short) introduction to tax heavens, banking secrecy and the offshore financial world. And it's in French. For my non-French readers, not to worry, hopefully, my review will give enough substantial information... or, y'all could learn French! However, I have preserved what I think are the best quotes in the original language so as to preserve their value.

The book's central thesis is that the development of offshore financial centers since the 1960s is an integral part of the dynamics of contemporary globalization, both in the financial and productive sectors. Tax heavens are now a pillar without which contemporary economic globalization could not function.

And surprisingly, they have not been studied to the extent that they should have been. For orthodox economic literature, tax heavens are a product of overtaxation in industrialized countries or a simple manifestation of informal economies. Both views are faulty according to Chavagneux and Palan.

  Read more…