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Aw, I'm sorry about that. I guess SMF should have a provision for that kind of thing. Per request I am going to recombine the threads.
With the election a month away and all the debates still ahead of us, I think that Romney could possibly be positioned well. He is the underdog at this point, but if he can build momentum through the debates he could peak around the time of the vote.
I'm locking this thread as it is too long. I have started a new thread for continued discussions, which will nicely encapsulate what is going on in the month until election day.
Yes, I think that the line about people being appeased by “bread and circuses” (see my new signature line) can be replaced by “cell phones and talk shows”. That's what Obama gives the people, and they like it.
Donnie, my take is that any historical scholarship which has one hand in historical analysis and another in contemporary socio-political issues is an approach which is inferior to more traditional, objective approaches. Unfortunately, the former is a type of approach which is growing in popularity and is given more weight by contemporary academics. This does not make sense to me. If a person wants to “change the world” by advocating a particular social/political concern, that person cannot be considered reliable. Even if the person's scholarship is sound, there are lingering questions about balance and proper context. There is also the question about quid pro quo – in other words, the historian is getting something based on his findings, rather than letting his findings go where they may.This leads me back to the original post and that lecture I went to. What did the lecturer gain by demeaning early Christians? I think the answer is obvious; by attacking the historical origins of the Christian Church, the contemporary Christian Church can be de-legitimized. I am not claiming that this is exactly what the lecturer's motive was, but by showing his biases he raises such questions in my mind.
Along with that, I think that Romney needs to get something clear – he has to go for the low-hanging fruit and point out the obvious. He needs to hammer the narrative down so there is no mistake about it. Obama promised big four years ago and has failed in turning our economy around. For Obama, the “prosperity” is always around the corner. Romney needs to point out that Obama's promises are hollow.Meanwhile, when Obama tries to paint Romney as wealthy/out of touch, Romney needs to say “yeah, I am wealthy, and I got this way because I am a smart businessman. Who would you rather have lead the economy – someone who know the business world in and out, or someone who has no business experience and has proven himself to be a failure in trying to fix the economy?” To me, this seems like one of the most obvious strengths of Romney: you don't get rich by accident. Even people who don't like Romney have to agree that business people are good at business issues. However, I have not heard Romney take this route in explaining his superiority over Obama.
“Queer theory as applied to Middle Colonial life, 1730-1760”. Would you want to include that as an example of scholarship? It may have been a “serious effort”. I think the bottom line is that not all scholarly approaches are equal.
There are several things alarming to me about it. First, the woman is identifying Obama as the “giver” of phones. No, he didn't really “give” it; it was the American taxpayer who gave it to you. Second, like many good things, this is a program which sounds good in its low stages and then balloons later on:”In 2008, the program was expanded to support cell phones which quickly escalated the cost of the program. In 2008 the program cost $772 million, but by 2011 it cost $1.6 billion.”http://washingtonexaminer.com/where-do-obama-phones-come-from/article/2509203#.UGW-E1H5Py8How in the world does a program more than double in cost in less than three years? Most people would not be bothered by the prospect of a government program which provided phone lines to poor people's houses, since phone communication is a basic necessity in the modern world. So the plan probably came into effect that way (in the 1980s according to the article). Then, as technology changes, it's no longer basic communication which is essential, but now a cell phone, at a much higher cost. The problem is that while phone communication is essential today, cell phones are not. They are a convenience. Most Americans would not be able to recognize the difference, though, which is why taxpayers have to pay for it.
I try to represent all sides but I am not going to include works which I feel have no academic value solely for the sake of balance. That is idiocy and taking the notion of fairness too far in my opinion. The point of the paper was to provide students a bibliography of the most significant works about Frederick the Great. A book that spends two chapters discussing his supposed sexuality and psycho-analyzing his achievements based on sexual repression has no academic value for me. Also another book that condemns him throughout for being a violent war monger serves no purpose, Frederick was a creature of his time and aggressive war was an accepted thing in 18th Century Europe to condemn him because the author finds war immoral is also a false position.There is fair and then there is stupid, I strive for the former and try to avoid the latter.
In my previous comment I did not mean to say that flaky books should be included in a bibliography just for the sake of variety. If a book is bad, it should be kept out. A bibliography should be concerned with good scholarship and legitimate topics. With that said, I can understand a desire to include sources which may cover aspects of a topic which have not been traditionally covered. I agree that Freudian analyses of historical figures is rather suspect to begin with, and in my experience I sometimes look at that kind of research as “wishful thinking”. On the other hand, topics dealing with social history can be pretty interesting in a field which is traditionally dominated by political history. As far as the reviewers of your bibliography, I think that the person who suggested the inclusion of sources you didn't want to add may have been a grad student for all we know. I think that sometimes reviewers only feel their worth if they can add criticism to a topic, even if this criticism is unwarranted or need not be heeded.
I watched that video above and thought that it was just begging to be remixed. Sure enough, I already found 3-4 remixes of the Obama phone lady on Youtube.
I actually agree with much of what Donnie is saying. I think we may have crossed the point of no return, or are getting really close to it with our debt. Sooner of later we will go into default. I am guessing this would give Obama an opportunity to transform our nation into even more of a socialist country so his vision can nearer completion. On one hand, the future looks extremely bleak. On the other hand, the American people reap what they sow. If they are not bright enough to see the damage Obama is doing we have larger problems on hand than our current political administration.
Still you have to include a cross section of all scholarship views. You needed to eliminate some redundant ones in favor of the liberal ones just to show you are accounting for all views. Especially in a bibliography piece you should do this every time.
I think that might depend, though. If you had to write a list of the top ten books on the Civil War, would you include flake-o books just to include “variety”? Probably not. However, if you are trying to write a list of ten recent books on the Civil War as a means of showing the different directions that Civil War scholarship is going, you might have more flake-o books on that list. It all depends on the type of bibliography that Scout was writing. I do agree that if the bibliography is supposed to give an overview of the scholarship in general and is wide in scope, some more important works will have to be left out in favor of the flaky works. If the bibliography is primarily supposed to cover the most important works across the board, the flaky books will be left off.
I saw Karl Rove analyze those poll results which put Romney ahead by a lot in swing states, and he showed how they are not reliable. They are inconsistent with the kind of support Republicans and Democrats received in previous elections, which suggests they were not reflective of the way people will actually vote. I thought it was a compelling argument, so I don't accept those kinds of polling numbers which put Obama on top by that much in those states.
