It's A Small World Afterall

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          The world is getting smaller every day. Much like a vacuum tube that transformed into a microchip, I can now order a product on Amazon, that was made in Taiwan, from parts that were created in Mexico, Ethiopia and China. As the world grows ever smaller one has to begin to contemplate the implications of globalization and macroeconomics. Globalization is defined by the International Monetary Fund as the international integration of goods and goods, labor, technology and capital (Slaughter). It is also defined as a dynamic and ongoing integration of markets, nation states and technology enabling everyone to reach the whole world faster, deeper and cheaper (Friedman). This hyperspeed of change in the human condition has positive and negative effects. Here I will look at several different factors that are results of the great inclusion that is globalization.

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          One positive aspect to come out of the globalization of world markets is the increase of quality of living for developing countries of the new world order. In both China and India life spans have increased, their infant mortality rates have decreased and the amount of people who can read has skyrocketed (Masson). Due to these numbers you can see that peoples of the developing world are becoming modernized and thus are able to achieve better standards of living. With better standards of living and higher wages people are able to change the way they spend their lives. India in particular is a great example. In 1990 the average yearly income in India was less than 1000 dollars. It has tripled since since that time period (Tabarrok). Because of this local businesses have adapted to provide services such as travel assistance for the weary IT worker (Schifferes). With more travel and more cash flow the India people are able to afford luxuries that they used to not be able to have, like owning a car or just owning a home (Schifferes).

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          Another positive impact in the race of integration of money markets is that, as the money markets grow, and the quality of life improves for other people, we now become able to bring more minds to the table to solve our problems. The fact is that right now only 1/10th of 1% of the population of the world are scientists or engineers (Tabarrok). We can see what they have accomplished, many of the world's countries have begun to move out of poverty and to a more rounded prosperity. This has been accomplished by the globalization of technology and communication. As the internet has brought information to the fingertips of students from Hong Kong to Vietnam, their education levels have increased dramatically due to their need to modernize production (Castells). Thus, if we continue in this path, more people will be educated. As more people are educated, and other countries raise themselves to the wealth level of the United States, there could be 5 times the amount of people working on scientific problems rather than working in the fields (Tabarrok). Also with the ability to outsource lower skilled jobs, the United states is able to focus on fields of advancement where we have a comparative advantage such as aviation, financial services, higher education and intellectual properties (Uchitelle). Thus we all benefit when other countries get rich. 

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          However, not everything smells like roses as the anxiety levels of regular people have increased. One source of this anxiety is the feeling of regular workers who feel marginalized in an economy that is gearing more to comparative advantage (Collier 146). Collier goes on to say that this can be mitigated by the state institutions providing the additional education to be successful in the new world order. However given the ongoing debate in the United States about education and the government, that has not materialized. In fact, according to the American Council on Education, if the current trends continue then state funding for higher education will reach zero by 2056 (Mortenson). Another source of anxiety is the fact that globalization is leading to homogenization of cultures (Collier x). Individuals see their traditions as part of their personal identities. As globalization continues cultures and customs are mixed and result in a loss of those cultures and indigenous peoples. In fact, the homogenization is really the export of the American way of life to other cultures (Friedman). Yet there are still more sources of anxiety, as Friedman points out, which is one of the defining factors of globalization: fear of the rapid change that you can’t see, touch or feel. People are in a continual state of flux. They have no support system because their jobs, community and workplace can be changed at any moment. Andy Grove, a CEO for intel stated this time period is characterized by innovations that are taking place at a faster and faster rate. He continues to say that only the paranoid will survive by staying on foot in front of their competitors (Friedman). Society has become so driven that even nations who try to curb the need for constant work get push back from their businesses when they try legislate decreased the working hours for employees. Employers understand that to do so will put them at a disadvantage to their competitors and thus they will lose business (Friedman). Maslow considered in his groundbreaking work in 1954 what a person needs to reach self actualization, and thus self happiness. He called it the Human Hierarchy of Needs. He argued that some of the base needs of humans are a home, cloths and food (Maslow). If one has constant anxiety over the possibility of losing your job, then one is not able to reach the self actualization. Maintaining a stable job is crucial for stable food, clothing and housing. Thus while the quality of life has gone up in many places financially, people’s enjoyment of life has decreased significantly in this hustle and bustle world where you are constantly at your boss’s call.

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          The second point that I will bring up is the “Wal-Martization” (The New York Times) of the world. While it is true what Tabarrok says about bringing other societies up does not diminish Americans or their abilities, the lack of educational opportunities does. He does not take into account the fact that income inequality from the plethora of low cost labor has driven down wages in developed countries (Schifferes). Due to this, low skilled workers are not able to pay for the skyrocketing costs of higher education (Mortenson). Thus they are unable to contribute to those industries where America has a comparable advantage. We changed the rules on them mid way through their lives! In fact, recent data shows that the middle class is on the decline. In 2015, the government released data clearly stating that middle income families are the minority (Geewax). The Pew Research Center determined that due to factories closing, outsourcing, and other economic factors the middle class has decreased consistently over the past 4 decades. This is the same time frame that Tabarrok proclaims has been the boon for India and China. The fact is that globalization has crippled the unions who are now under threat of outsourcing. The collective bargaining process is no longer applicable because the business can simply move shop easier than lifting wages. A study done in Great Britain found that, while Unions are attempting to argue from different fronts, their general strategy at this point is to get job securities applied by the government rather than the employers (Hicks). Unfortunately in today’s hotly contested American politics, the likelihood of getting such job security passed into law is as likely as surviving a thousand foot fall from an airplane without a parachute. Thus lowered incomes for American families prohibit the type of comparative advantage because the families can no longer afford to educate themselves to fulfill these highly skilled jobs.

          Thus you see that globalization, with its boons for some and detriments to others is something that we are dealing with on an unprecedented scale. Globalization by definition is the integration of the world and bringing it into an interconnectedness not witness in human history in the past. In this paper I have reviewed the pros and the cons of the argument for it. I also provided valuable, current information and research to help inform the reader about the predicament we are in. Hopefully, humankind finds a way to increase everyone’s quality of life without subtracting from others, as the current model does.

Bibliography

Castells, Manuel. "Information Technology, Globalization and Social Development." United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. United Nations, Sept. 1999. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/document.nsf/70870613ae33162380256b5a004d932e/f270e0c066f3de7780256b67005b728c/$FILE/dp114.pdf>

Collier, Paul, and David Dollar. Globalization, Growth, and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002. Google Books. Oxford University Press, 2002. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=p3D_BYtXXQcC&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=Increase anxiety as world globalizes&ots=GIZtMY7fcr&sig=teP9wpw3TYvOsOzbHkookP2vpvI#v=onepage&q=anxiety&f=false>.

Friedman, Thomas L. "Tourist with an Attitude." The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, May 1999. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-lexus-and-the-olive-tree/excerpt-chapter-1>.

Geewax, Marilyn. "The Tipping Point: Most Americans Are No Longer Middle Class." Living Wage Calculator. MIT, 10 Dec. 2015. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <http://livingwage.mit.edu/articles/13-the-tipping-point-most-americans-no-longer-are-middle-class>.

Hicks, Alexander, and Thomas F. Remington. "Organized Labor in a Globalized World: The Impact of Increasing International Economic Integration on the Strategies of Trade Unions." Electronic Theses And Dissertations. Emory University, 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <https://etd.library.emory.edu/view/record/pid/emory:d7bpp>.

Lechner, Frank. "The Globalization Debates." The Globalization Website. Emory University, 2001. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://sociology.emory.edu/faculty/globalization/debates.html#meaning>.

Maslow, Abraham H. A Theory of Human Motivation. Start LLC. Google Books. Oct. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <https://books.google.com/books?id=nvnsAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=psychological+repercussions+of+not+meeting+maslow%27s+hierarchy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2mNmCwfHKAhXGeSYKHRXVCbAQ6AEIMDAD#v=onepage&q&f=false>.

Masson, Paul. "Globalization: The Story Behind the Numbers." Finance & Development, March 2002. International Monetary Fund, Mar. 2002. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2002/03/picture.htm>.

Mortenson, Thomas. "State Funding: A Race to the Bottom." American Council on Education. Winter 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <http://www.acenet.edu/the-presidency/columns-and-features/Pages/state-funding-a-race-to-the-bottom.aspx>.

Schifferes, Steve. "Globalisation Shakes The World." BBC News. BBC, 21 Jan. 2007. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6279679.stm>.

Slaughter, Matthew J., and Phillip Swagel. "Economic Issues 11--Does Globalization Lower Wages and Export Jobs?" International Monetary Fund. IMF, Sept. 1997. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues11/>.

Tabarrok, Alex. "How Ideas Trump Crises." TED. TED Talks, Feb. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <https://www.ted.com/talks/alex_tabarrok_foresees_economic_growth?language=en>.

Uchitelle, Louis. "To Mend the Flaws in Trade." The New York Times. 30 Jan. 2007. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04EFD9143FF933A05752C0A9619C8B63>.

"The Wal-Martization of America." Opinion Page. The New York Times, 13 Nov. 2003. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/opinion/the-wal-martization-of-america.html>.

Critique from Taking Sides: Should Juvenile Courts Be Abolished?

Sean P Wise.............................................................LSCJ 3133-301

Should Juvenile Courts Be Abolished is an interesting debate about a complex issue.  Both positions have very solid reasons for believing in their argument.  In this paper we will look at the two authors and their varying viewpoints.

The first presenter is Barry C. Feld is the author of Readings in Juvenile Justice Administration.  He advocates for the dissolution of the juvenile justice system.  He states there are inherent flaws in the system because the juvenile justice system cannot act as both a social welfare and criminal social control.  The two are not on the same continuum, hence they end up acting as either one or the other.  

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Feld advocates getting rid of the juvenile justice system and only deal in punishment with his sliding juvenile discount on punishment terms.  His approach is a social responsibility approach to the issue which will not cure the problem but only increase the propensity for crime.  The reason is that prisons become schools for crime (Schmalleger 19).  He uses the platitude “Do the Crime, do the time” (Hickey 98), however he fails to remember, “Go to jail to learn how to be a criminal.”  

Feld does bring up a good point about the possibility for abuse by the judicial system without having a checks and balances system in place.  One only needs to look at the Judge who sentenced juveniles to prison because he was getting kickbacks to do so.  However another adage comes to mind, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Can there be reforms?  Yes, but as Feld states, it will take financial investment by society to do so.  That should be our goal, not following an approach of ‘just lock em up’.

Unfortunately Feld writes this piece without backing up any of his claims with qualitative data.  His pronouncements about the efficacy of the juvenile justice system are not referenced to any research or data.  The only thing he uses as a reference point is a court case for Oklahoma.  Thus his opinion piece loses credibility.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

The second article by authors Vincent Schiraldi and Jason Ziedenberg.  They are both employed by the Justice Policy Institute which is a think tank that analyzes crime policy.  They reviewed the Florida waiver program, which allows juveniles to be tried as adults.  Florida is one of 15 states that allow the prosecutor to waiver the child into the adult criminal system.  The authors throw out some very disturbing facts. 40% of juveniles sent to adult prison were learning new ways to commit crimes (Hickey 103).  Youths transferred to adult court were 33% more likely to reoffend than those who were sent to juvenile court (Hickey 103).  Youths who had been tried in adult court committed serious crimes at double the rate of those sent to juvenile court (Hickey 103).   In regards to Feld’s argument about judges abuses in sentencing in the juvenile system: youths held in an adult facility for any period of time, regardless of whether they are guilty or not, are 5 times more likely to be raped, twice as likely to be beaten by staff, 50% more likely to be attacked with a weapon and 7.7% more likely to commit suicide than their counterparts in juvenile justice system (Hickey 104).  The mountain of factual evidence that Schiraldi and Ziendenberg provide completely outweighs any resting fear that Feld has about the fairness of the system.

In Norman, I worked for Crossroads Youth and Family Services as an attendant in the Juvenile Intervention Center (JIC). The JIC worked as a way station between Police officers and parents of the juvenile.  At our lock down facility we fingerprinted and entered their information into the Juvenile OnLine Tracking Service (JOLTS).  As a JIC attendant I administered psychological tests and set up counselling sessions with the parents and juveniles.  Thus Feld’s claim that the social aspect of the juvenile justice system cannot work hand in hand with the criminal aspect of the juvenile justice system to attempt to cure the propensity for criminal activity in young people is a fallacy.  Carol W Kohfeld and John Sprague determined in their research experiment that under certain demographic conditions, arrest can reduce the incidence of criminal behavior (Schmalleger 19).  I found the same result working in the center.  On average, the reports we ran from the JOLTS system found that approximately 70% of the juveniles that came through our facility were first time offenders and did not commit another crime.

Image Courtesy of Flickr

From these two views and from my own experience I take away the fact that, while there may be flaws with the juvenile justice system, ultimately it is there to change the lives of even one person.  I remember working at the JIC and intaking a young woman.  She had run away from her family in Boston.  The reason she had run away way because of her mother’s abusive boyfriend. She was trying to save herself from getting abused again.  This is not a person that needs to be placed in an adult facility, this is someone that needs help.  Thankfully, we were able to provide that because of the great relationship the Youth And Family Services organizations in Oklahoma have with law enforcement.

Bibliography

"Kids For Cash Scandal." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.

Hickey, Thomas J. Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Crime and Criminology. 11th ed. McGraw Hill Education, 2013. Print.

Schmalleger, Frank. Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction. 7th ed. Pearson, 2015. Print.

Cover Image courtesy of YouTube

Gay Is The New...

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If you think the massacre in Orlando was about Muslim, Islam or anything else, You miss EVERYTHING. Yes you! Who has been trying to hijack the LGBT community struggle and create your own narrative of there were 50 people killed by an Islamic terrorist. The facts aren't supporting your narrative. Stop inciting hate to another religion when it is your own that perpetuates it!

These are pretty radical statement. This has all drug up bits and pieces of the past for me in the last 24 hours. Some of you have seen my previous personal posts. If you haven't, please take the time to look at them.

Early in my high school career I had wanted to get Details Magazine in a subscription. I was told it wasn't the "right" type of magazine by my parents and was given a subscription to GQ. In the GQ I found an article about a study done at Harvard in 1990. The study focused on people who identified as seriously homophobic individuals. They took those individuals and placed them in a setting where they showed both straight porn and gay porn and measured the engorgement of the penis to see arousal. They found that 90% of seriously homophobic individuals were closeted homosexuals.

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In high school I lost myself in the church. I prayed folks. I was a bible thumper to the point I remember my sister declaring I'd lost it with religion. I prayed the gay away. I did so because CHRISTIANS told me I was going to hell. That I was evil. That I had the devil in me. That I was better off DEAD. I asked for it to be gone. I was at youth group all the time. I was kneeling in front of the cross till the youth pastor said enough was enough. And they were taken from me too. I knew what I was, and I knew everyone would hate me for it.

In 1995, a high school friend came over to the house because he was a computer nerd. My mother's computer, where I had secretly been looking at gay porn and chatting on gay sites, slowly learning that maybe I wasn't the only person out there with these troubles. Well the computer had become, shall we say, a Drag to work with?. Jeremy found the cookie files and started seeing all the gay porn and asked me about it. I flew into a rage. I went and told my mother she should watch her laptop better because she obviously wasn't protecting it enough. I said it was disgusting and filthy and that it should never have been accessed. I remember seething and hating myself and most of all, hating that I had been caught.

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I did all this railing against in fear. I was in fear someone would know my truth. Someone would find out I was gay in a small ass town of Clinton, Oklahoma. I tried to blame Jeremy. I blamed my mom. I blamed her coworkers and her clients and vehemently denounced them.

I tell this because I have felt that rage. I have felt that sickness and fear that motivates these type of acts. I realize I was denouncing myself. I was playing into every fear and loathing that was taught to me by such a small town.

I was able to get past it. But most straight people will NEVER know the fire and purgatory it is to grow up in absolute disdain of yourself.

This man was sick. This man never was able to come to terms with his sexuality. This man came to hate himself and choose to destroy that of what he saw in himself in the outside world. This man committed a HATE CRIME. He hated himself enough to take it out on the rest of the world. It happens all to often. Please see the article below.

Quit trying to co op our tragedy. This is an unfortunate response gay people have from the societal pressure to be straight. This is a direct result of YOUR OWN PREJUDICE. Just STOP with the fucking Muslim or Islam shit. That isn't the problem. The hatred gays feel about themselves because of how they perceive themselves in society is the problem. Own it. Move on. Be the change you want to be. Let's make tomorrow better.


God I need a drink.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/…/orlando-shooter-omar-…/nrfwW/

http://www.shrink-friendly.co.il/tau/article/homophobia.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/homophobic-maybe-youre-gay.html?ref=opinion

Previous Facebook post:

Someone close to me recently said that I could have graduated college back in my early twenties. I said I couldn't because I wasn't in a good mental place. Learning to cope with constant fear is not an easy task. And dealing with realizing you are hated simply for who you love is a life altering revelation. There is a reason why, in a study done in 2000 they found that 90% of gay men reported having done drugs at some point in their life. It's to escape.

Many people don't realize this but I learned in high school not to be a victim. I wasn't really bullied because people thought of me as the type that could react. I did react when it happen, explosively. Needless to say even living in the constant anxiety and stress of coming out I knew the dangers. There is a reason that 50% of all teenage suicides are due to repression of homosexual desires, and 90% of those attempts are fatal. Not cries for help; these gun shot to the head or strangulation; they want to end it to end the crucible that is coming to terms with a life where most of general society thinks you should be dead.

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My friend (ex boyfriend Ed) got beat so badly he had to have his jaw wired shut for months. I carried a short sword with me in the car. Always. I was scared shitless but I was going to give myself a chance at defending myself. When another friend got beaten and put I the hospital by his neighbors, I gave him that sword. And then I kept a bat in the car.

The long and short of it is, we all have demons that we are chasing. Some of us are more effective at demolishing them than others. Please stop assuming that all gay people magically find a fairy wand and are suddenly fabulous. None of us do. It is a tumultuous crucible of self loathing and doubt that we come out the other side with a fire born of extinguished hate replaced with a fire to bring justice to our community. That is why we become activists. That is why we are effective at it. We've already beat ourselves to shreds and come out the other side.