In this video, from the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof argues that sweatshops are, despite their drawbacks, the best option for many people in many places… and that anti-sweatshop activists should keep that in mind.
activism/social movements
Sandra F. sent in a link to “Prop 8: The Musical,” a parody starring Jack Black, Margaret Cho, Andy Richter, John C. Reilly, Neil Patrick Harris, and other celebrities:
See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die
The clip, though a parody, brings up a reason some groups that might not care about the reasons gays and lesbians want to get married, or about gay rights more broadly, nonetheless supported gay marriage: money. The New York Times discussed this issue here. Weddings are big business, and the more people who are eligible to be married, the more money is potentially available to wedding-related businesses. In 2004, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the impact legalizing same-sex marriage would have on the budget (end result: an estimated $1 billion a year for the 10-year estimation period). That’s just the federal budgetary effect; it doesn’t include private-sector benefits.
This anti-Prop 8 video makes an explicitly economic argument for gay marriage:
You might compare these videos to the commercials in this post; in those ads, advocates of gay marriage try to rhetorically frame the issue as being about love–that is, gay marriages are equated with straight marriages by focusing on the idea that what is important in a marriage is love, regardless of the sex of the spouses. Clearly you could use them to discuss gay marriage, but they might also be good for illustrating the idea of framing of social issues.
Thanks, Sandra!
Telefono Donna, a rape crisis hotline in Italy, designed a poster to raise awareness of rape in honor of November 25, the International Day to for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Some conservative politicians in Milan object to the Christ-like pose taken by the bare-breasted model in the poster. From the UK Telegraph:
“We’re calling for the poster to be withdrawn because an important day like this should not be debased by such a sexual provocation,” said councillor Carlo Fidanza, a member of the right-wing National Alliance party.
But the president of the Telefono Donna rape helpline, Stefania Bartochetti, said she was surprised by the controversy because the poster had raised no objections in other Italian cities.
“As a Catholic I can’t see anything offensive or blasphemous. We chose a strong image to encourage more rape victims to break their silence,” she said.
The poster poses the question: ‘Who Pays For Man’s Sins?’ and a caption which reads “Only four per cent of women who suffer sexual violence report their assailants.”
Left-leaning politicians said their opponents’ concerns were out of step with contemporary Italian society.
“If you applied these standards to Italian television, you’d have to get rid of 70 per cent of what the main channels broadcast,” said Pierfrancesco Majorino, of the Democratic Party.
Small reproduction of the poster, showing bare-breasted woman [NSFW], below the cut. more...
Blanca M. sent in this clip by Penn and Teller, in which a woman gets people at a World Fest rally (which appears to be an environmental event of some sort) to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide…commonly known as water:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw[/youtube]
You might use it in a discussion of social psychology and the way that people tend to go along with what they see other people doing and to do what they are asked or instructed to do without asking many questions (that is, if someone asks you to sign a petition, very often you will, whether or not you really know what it’s about). You could also use it to talk about perceptions of environmental risk, and how bad we are at evaluating it: if something has a chemical-sounding name, we tend to assume it’s bad (but if it sounds “natural,” we think it must be safe).
I think it would be a good clip for talking about political participation and the limitations of passive forms of participation such as these: the require very little of people, so while they might be quick to sign, they’re unlikely to know much about the issue or to follow up. My guess is that politicians keep this in mind, too. Burk M. was a Senate campaign consultant for a while and says that though written petitions are generally taken seriously by elected officials (particularly if signed by constituents and delivered personally in the presence of a media outlet), email petitions are completely ignored (I knew it!) because there’s no real concern that the people who signed it will ever check back in to see what happened (assuming they’re real people to start with). Government agencies, such as the EPA, may not show as much concern for even printed petitions, since they are not made up of elected officials who fear their constituents might be watching what they do. Thus, these forms of minimal-involvement political participation may make people feel like they’re doing something about an issue, when in fact there is little impact (particularly in the case of email petitions).
Thanks, Blanca!
Adriana E. sent in this video made by The Human Rights Action Center, featuring Tila Tequila, designed to inspire opposition to human rights abuses in Burma. Like other organizations, such as PETA (see here and here), this PSA uses sex appeal to inspire activist outrage.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK8inPfHg_0[/youtube]
Ironically, as Adriana notes, Tila Tequila is famous for being bisexual, but really only interacts suggestively in this video with the boys. I guess hypersexualizing a woman is all fine and good, but bisexuality would be a real turn off.
Do any of you think that this is effective in inspiring concern for Burma?
As Mary K. says:
…I doubt if war is a bore for those who are fighting it, those being fought against, or those on either side who’s loved ones are concerned about their safety.
The bag is for sale at Forever 21.
Thanks to Mary for the submission and to her friend, Steph, for modeling!
Nevada is a battleground state, and the state elections have gotten nasty (on both sides); the mailers I get every day don’t even pretend to be about issues any more, they’re just attack ads. I got this one, against a Democratic candidate, a couple of days ago:
I thought the photo they chose to illustrate “radical groups” was interesting. There were no specifics about what type of “radical” groups, or what they are radical about. To me, this image seemed like it was supposed to bring up the threat of radical (angry) feminists, but I don’t know if that was the specific type of radical this was meant to evoke or if that’s just what it makes me think of.
Anyway, it might be useful for a discussion of political discourses (for instance, how groups selectively use words like “radical,” “progressive,” “traditional,” “regressive,” and so on to depict change as either good or threatening), as well as what types of political agendas even appearances have become associated with “radical” politics (for instance, a woman wearing multiple necklaces and dreadlocks symbolizes radicalism).
I’ve posted about the phenomenon of what I’ve called leftist balkanization or the way in which leftist causes tend to be narrowly focused such that they undermine other leftist causes (see here for my original post and here and here for two follow-ups). Perhaps the opposite of such balkanization is social movements that try to bring together issues that find themselves on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Below are two advertisements for the pro-environment anti-immigration movement. The argument is that restricting immigration is good for the environment.
This first commercial from the Californians for Population Stabilization makes exactly this point:
You might be asking yourself whether this pro-environment anti-immigration message is really just an anti-immigration message shrouded in leftist rhetoric. In this case, at least based on the commercial below from the same organization, the answer appears to be “yes.”
Of course, it’s not necessarily true that all anti-immigrant pro-environment messages are secretly simply xenophobic. For a great discussion of this troubled movement, see Leslie King’s great article that shows how challenging it is to mobilize a grass roots movement when one half of your message offends one half of the population and the other half of your message offends the other.
Via copyranter.
Sandra F. sent in a link to “Prop 8: The Musical,” a parody starring Jack Black, Margaret Cho, Andy Richter, John C. Reilly, Neil Patrick Harris, and other celebrities:
See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die
The clip, though a parody, brings up a reason some groups that might not care about the reasons gays and lesbians want to get married, or about gay rights more broadly, nonetheless supported gay marriage: money. The New York Times discussed this issue here. Weddings are big business, and the more people who are eligible to be married, the more money is potentially available to wedding-related businesses. In 2004, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the impact legalizing same-sex marriage would have on the budget (end result: an estimated $1 billion a year for the 10-year estimation period). That’s just the federal budgetary effect; it doesn’t include private-sector benefits.
This anti-Prop 8 video makes an explicitly economic argument for gay marriage:
You might compare these videos to the commercials in this post; in those ads, advocates of gay marriage try to rhetorically frame the issue as being about love–that is, gay marriages are equated with straight marriages by focusing on the idea that what is important in a marriage is love, regardless of the sex of the spouses. Clearly you could use them to discuss gay marriage, but they might also be good for illustrating the idea of framing of social issues.
Thanks, Sandra!
Telefono Donna, a rape crisis hotline in Italy, designed a poster to raise awareness of rape in honor of November 25, the International Day to for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Some conservative politicians in Milan object to the Christ-like pose taken by the bare-breasted model in the poster. From the UK Telegraph:
“We’re calling for the poster to be withdrawn because an important day like this should not be debased by such a sexual provocation,” said councillor Carlo Fidanza, a member of the right-wing National Alliance party.
But the president of the Telefono Donna rape helpline, Stefania Bartochetti, said she was surprised by the controversy because the poster had raised no objections in other Italian cities.
“As a Catholic I can’t see anything offensive or blasphemous. We chose a strong image to encourage more rape victims to break their silence,” she said.
The poster poses the question: ‘Who Pays For Man’s Sins?’ and a caption which reads “Only four per cent of women who suffer sexual violence report their assailants.”
Left-leaning politicians said their opponents’ concerns were out of step with contemporary Italian society.
“If you applied these standards to Italian television, you’d have to get rid of 70 per cent of what the main channels broadcast,” said Pierfrancesco Majorino, of the Democratic Party.
Small reproduction of the poster, showing bare-breasted woman [NSFW], below the cut. more...
Blanca M. sent in this clip by Penn and Teller, in which a woman gets people at a World Fest rally (which appears to be an environmental event of some sort) to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide…commonly known as water:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw[/youtube]
You might use it in a discussion of social psychology and the way that people tend to go along with what they see other people doing and to do what they are asked or instructed to do without asking many questions (that is, if someone asks you to sign a petition, very often you will, whether or not you really know what it’s about). You could also use it to talk about perceptions of environmental risk, and how bad we are at evaluating it: if something has a chemical-sounding name, we tend to assume it’s bad (but if it sounds “natural,” we think it must be safe).
I think it would be a good clip for talking about political participation and the limitations of passive forms of participation such as these: the require very little of people, so while they might be quick to sign, they’re unlikely to know much about the issue or to follow up. My guess is that politicians keep this in mind, too. Burk M. was a Senate campaign consultant for a while and says that though written petitions are generally taken seriously by elected officials (particularly if signed by constituents and delivered personally in the presence of a media outlet), email petitions are completely ignored (I knew it!) because there’s no real concern that the people who signed it will ever check back in to see what happened (assuming they’re real people to start with). Government agencies, such as the EPA, may not show as much concern for even printed petitions, since they are not made up of elected officials who fear their constituents might be watching what they do. Thus, these forms of minimal-involvement political participation may make people feel like they’re doing something about an issue, when in fact there is little impact (particularly in the case of email petitions).
Thanks, Blanca!
Adriana E. sent in this video made by The Human Rights Action Center, featuring Tila Tequila, designed to inspire opposition to human rights abuses in Burma. Like other organizations, such as PETA (see here and here), this PSA uses sex appeal to inspire activist outrage.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK8inPfHg_0[/youtube]
Ironically, as Adriana notes, Tila Tequila is famous for being bisexual, but really only interacts suggestively in this video with the boys. I guess hypersexualizing a woman is all fine and good, but bisexuality would be a real turn off.
Do any of you think that this is effective in inspiring concern for Burma?
As Mary K. says:
…I doubt if war is a bore for those who are fighting it, those being fought against, or those on either side who’s loved ones are concerned about their safety.
The bag is for sale at Forever 21.
Thanks to Mary for the submission and to her friend, Steph, for modeling!
Nevada is a battleground state, and the state elections have gotten nasty (on both sides); the mailers I get every day don’t even pretend to be about issues any more, they’re just attack ads. I got this one, against a Democratic candidate, a couple of days ago:
I thought the photo they chose to illustrate “radical groups” was interesting. There were no specifics about what type of “radical” groups, or what they are radical about. To me, this image seemed like it was supposed to bring up the threat of radical (angry) feminists, but I don’t know if that was the specific type of radical this was meant to evoke or if that’s just what it makes me think of.
Anyway, it might be useful for a discussion of political discourses (for instance, how groups selectively use words like “radical,” “progressive,” “traditional,” “regressive,” and so on to depict change as either good or threatening), as well as what types of political agendas even appearances have become associated with “radical” politics (for instance, a woman wearing multiple necklaces and dreadlocks symbolizes radicalism).
I’ve posted about the phenomenon of what I’ve called leftist balkanization or the way in which leftist causes tend to be narrowly focused such that they undermine other leftist causes (see here for my original post and here and here for two follow-ups). Perhaps the opposite of such balkanization is social movements that try to bring together issues that find themselves on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Below are two advertisements for the pro-environment anti-immigration movement. The argument is that restricting immigration is good for the environment.
This first commercial from the Californians for Population Stabilization makes exactly this point:
You might be asking yourself whether this pro-environment anti-immigration message is really just an anti-immigration message shrouded in leftist rhetoric. In this case, at least based on the commercial below from the same organization, the answer appears to be “yes.”
Of course, it’s not necessarily true that all anti-immigrant pro-environment messages are secretly simply xenophobic. For a great discussion of this troubled movement, see Leslie King’s great article that shows how challenging it is to mobilize a grass roots movement when one half of your message offends one half of the population and the other half of your message offends the other.
Via copyranter.