Propaganda in Politics
Arnold Schwarzeneggar's '05 State of the State address:
Here Schwarzeneggar begins by thanking everyone, and then moves on to the accomplisments of the administration under his leadership. He then goes on with his ideas on how to improve California's financial crisis. California doesn't have a problem with making money, it has a problem with spending money. Arnold plans on alleviating this by managing the way we spend our money in hopes that it will stop our ongoing problems. Arnold also wants to redo the pension system. We spend more and more money on school every year, yet more and more people fail high school. He wants to grant better teachers more money based on merit, and not just on tenure anymore. This will encourage more teachers to work harder instead of just sitting there and expect to gain more money than the striving new teachers.
Arnold tackles the political system as well. He believes that the system is not democratic enough because gerrymandering and other types of corruptions still exists. He proposes that neutral judges decide where the voting lines should go in order to avoid gerrymandering. Arnold wants to streamline many processes as well, in hopes of speeding up production. He also intends on stopping several legislative boards because they make so much money just for meeting twice a month.
Arnold is also trying to create more jobs for people. For example, he has been discussing plans with Indian gaming companies to try and build more roads, yielding an excess of 16000 new jobs. And he finishes with ideas on how to make medicine affordable.
However, I find that there are too many contradictions and faults within his proposals. If he plans on controlling the way we spend our money, that would be kind of restricting. His proposed plan on granting money to teachers with merit is flawed because what if the bad teachers decides to start giving away good but false grades to kids in order to increase their credits? And this might even lead to more employment as some teachers might not like the idea. We are already beginning to see strikes, though it may not be related to these changes. I also don't see where he is going when he says California should be preserved through conservation, when it is he who proposed to create more jobs by building more and more roads. This will kill the land and exhaust what little we have left of the earth's oil supply.
On a different note, I am interested in the way he (tries to) put himself in our shoes and show his love for California. Two things I still remember are the stories about him learning gerrymandering while studying for the citizen exam, and how he enjoys riding his motorcycle through California's coastline.
Here Schwarzeneggar begins by thanking everyone, and then moves on to the accomplisments of the administration under his leadership. He then goes on with his ideas on how to improve California's financial crisis. California doesn't have a problem with making money, it has a problem with spending money. Arnold plans on alleviating this by managing the way we spend our money in hopes that it will stop our ongoing problems. Arnold also wants to redo the pension system. We spend more and more money on school every year, yet more and more people fail high school. He wants to grant better teachers more money based on merit, and not just on tenure anymore. This will encourage more teachers to work harder instead of just sitting there and expect to gain more money than the striving new teachers.
Arnold tackles the political system as well. He believes that the system is not democratic enough because gerrymandering and other types of corruptions still exists. He proposes that neutral judges decide where the voting lines should go in order to avoid gerrymandering. Arnold wants to streamline many processes as well, in hopes of speeding up production. He also intends on stopping several legislative boards because they make so much money just for meeting twice a month.
Arnold is also trying to create more jobs for people. For example, he has been discussing plans with Indian gaming companies to try and build more roads, yielding an excess of 16000 new jobs. And he finishes with ideas on how to make medicine affordable.
However, I find that there are too many contradictions and faults within his proposals. If he plans on controlling the way we spend our money, that would be kind of restricting. His proposed plan on granting money to teachers with merit is flawed because what if the bad teachers decides to start giving away good but false grades to kids in order to increase their credits? And this might even lead to more employment as some teachers might not like the idea. We are already beginning to see strikes, though it may not be related to these changes. I also don't see where he is going when he says California should be preserved through conservation, when it is he who proposed to create more jobs by building more and more roads. This will kill the land and exhaust what little we have left of the earth's oil supply.
On a different note, I am interested in the way he (tries to) put himself in our shoes and show his love for California. Two things I still remember are the stories about him learning gerrymandering while studying for the citizen exam, and how he enjoys riding his motorcycle through California's coastline.
posted by Andrew at 5:34 PM
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