Comparative Politics Blog

  The 13th paints an overwhelmingly grim picture of the American justice system and the ways in which it operates to furnish American business interests with an exploitable underclass. The film roots the prison industrial complex firmly in the context of American history, and the inexorable ties it shares with white supremacy. The documentary begins with detailing the way institutional white supremacy transitioned after the abolition of slavery, to a more covert cultural force that obfuscated its motives behind the rule of law. The 13th amendment holds slavery to be illegal unless the person has been tried and duly convicted of a crime. This was subsequently used as a legal loophole by rich white business owners to get incredibly cheap labor from prisons. The documentary details how a cultural conception of black men as inherently violent and threatening gave the rich southern class a moral underpinning for incarcerating them en masse. Through this connection the documentary portra...

  My daily screen usage was around an hour and a half, the majority of which was devoted to entertainment. This was honestly surprising because I thought it would be more. It feels like I’m always looking at my phone for texting, entertainment and even school. It’s very normal for people my age to be constantly on or by their phone. In many ways day to day life has changed and morphed around cellphone use. Most students use the canvas app to get updates on their school work and grades. This app is also used in many cases to complete and submit work, all on the students smartphone. One can’t reasonably be expected to keep a job without access to a smartphone. Work updates and schedule changes are communicated exclusively via text, to not have a phone could severely harm a person's employability. Most of the ways in which we interact socially have moved online with social media and dating apps. It is virtually impossible to exist in the world today without a smartphone. There is no c...

   In an election year, faced with the choice between two candidates that seem equally out of touch, many American citizens feel that the government is no longer capable of representing the interests of the citizens. The situation is so dire that many have decided to opt out of the vote entirely and simply let the chips fall where they may. This is, in my opinion, the worst possible attitude to have toward the democratic process, but it is far from unrelatable. Years of ineffectual governance have left the voting population feeling disillusioned with the sanctity and efficacy of the vote. However, abstaining entirely is an ineffective strategy to effect any real change. Not voting is not the protest many think it is, it simply ensures things stay the way they are. Entrenched power will stay entrenched if the opposition is too disillusioned to vote for change. The participation of citizens is vital to the functioning of any liberal democracy.   In the United States, i...

The video we watched depicts a republican politician discussing the reduction of social safety nets in the United States. The video itself operates on two distinct levels as there is the original video intercut with a reaction to that video. The main point of the reactor is a part of the video in which the conservative admits that their policies would initially cause suffering if implemented. The video wishes to highlight the hypocrisy in conservative merit-based assessment of social inequality. Certainly the conservative movement in the United States operates on a fairly confused platform. Many of their fiscal policies run contradictory to what years of economic research has disproved. Clinging to the idea that de-valuing workers in favor of the corporations that employ them will somehow lead to a rise in wages. This has been proved untrue as even those corporations given massive tax breaks, like the massive US-based fast-food chains, still by and large stick to the federal minimum wa...