Tag Archives: politics

Critiquing Ms. Brockovich

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As a part of a recent assignment in my M.A. in Leadership program, I critiqued the film, Erin Brockovich through the lens of gendered and generational differences. I’m just about finished with this special topics elective course looking at Leadership & Film through these two specific lenses and have really enjoyed considering leadership issues today through a new perspective. One can look at this specific film and see numerous female stereotypes played out and other issues represented with working women and the struggles that still exist for them to be as successful in the workplace. In the end, after critiquing the film in my assignment and applying it to leadership theory, I realized that there truly is much in terms of “modern day application” to our national and global contexts right now.

In these days of protests and revolutions worldwide and national discord taking place in America with claims of class warfare and cries for economic equality, one can’t help but think about the relevant true-life story of Ms. Erin Brockovich, as she helped bring one of the largest lawsuits in the 20th century to court and bring justice to more than 600 plaintiffs. Earlier today, one of the candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, who’s mantra as of late referred to a “trust deficit” in American institutions of power, suspended his campaign. I found him to raise good questions about the current state of American government and our national discord.

As leaders, we need to be challenged to raise questions and ask why things are they way they are. With the approval ratings of Congress at historic and record lows and continued protests against Wall Street, does leadership still exist? Or, instead, will we open our eyes like Ms. Brockovich did, and address issues of unethical behavior, corporate malfeasance and economic injustice without any positional power at our disposal?

Our systems of power, whether they be Congress, our local school board or even our church are living organisms that need questions asked of them regularly so the blood and breath of these organizations can flow and not die from a lack of trust, ethics or even change for the better.

Missing the Millennials?

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We’re officially one week out from Election Day (and gladly, the end of local TV/radio/web/everything other medium of ads) and much can happen as the nation goes to the polls to elect governors, Senators and House members as well as some very interesting ballot propositions across the country. Regardless of a “shift in power”, a significant outcome will be had as pollsters analyze the turnout and “enthusiasm gap” that many of talked about within the young voters of the Millennial generation who were key to the elections in 2008.

The Center for American Progress recently released a fascinating study of political identities in the Millennial generation. Among their findings, regardless of the economic downturn, a majority of Millennials identify themselves as progressives. The jump comes when the study polled 4 year college students as compared to 18-29 year olds. One of the most significant parts of this study comes at the conclusion:

Conservatives may win the next election, but they are losing an entire generation. They would be wise to temper their current giddy mood by considering the serious implications of this trend.

In a world where we are stricken by short attention spans and our politicians are  likely to be representing us through the lens of the next campaign cycle–this study’s findings raise questions of the long term ramifications of today’s “young voters” identifying themselves predominately as progressives and should be paid attention by conservative leaders. All of this leaves me with a closing question: how can Millennials engage society and politics advancing causes that they believe in, even if potentially a majority of those who represent them are not of the same political identity?

From this Millennial’s perspective–it looks like 2010 won’t be the end of the world as many have predicted, but 2012 is just going to be messy. Regardless of your political identity, don’t forget to do your civic duty and cast your vote a week from today!

Staying Right Here

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It’s been a rare occurrence for me to actually sit down and read through the entire newspaper each week when I receive the Sunday edition of the L.A. Times. When I started subscribing several months ago, my main prerogative was to get the grocery store ads and coupons–but Sunday was one of those “read through the whole paper” kind of days. For a $1 a week–it’s been well worth the expense.

Sunday’s Op-Ed highlighted the disturbingly growing number of Millennials who have rejected organized religion in America. The authors, Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell present evidence showing twentysomethings seeing organized religion as “too politically conservative.”

As I fall into several of the categories mentioned in the piece, I thought I’d reflect on the trends that I’ve seen and my thoughts as well. Absent any discussion of my personal political ideology–as first a Christian, and then a voting citizen, I have been concerned for quite some time and can resonate with much of this column. Putnam and Campbell don’t mention “the Religious Right” directly, but do speak to the growing popularity of figures like Falwell and Reed back in the 1980′s with the issues of abortion and homosexuality becoming the “prominent issues on the national political agenda.”

Since then, we’ve seen quite the narrow focus on the issues of “family values voters” such as the two mentioned previously; not to discount the importance of such issues–this is not my point. The point is that overtime these issues have become the issues of a large number of church going Americans. Divisive statements on such issues have been made by church leaders such as Falwell, Reed, Robertson and several others with the media oftentimes portraying these as the view of “the Evangelical church.”

Clearly, from this piece the stats are showing that a record number of twentysomethings see the Church as not just “too conservative” but too connected with politics. As a churchgoer myself, I would have to agree. In my case, I have grown increasingly frustrated with the narrow views of so many divisive figures being cast as the view for Christian voters like myself. I don’t want to argue that you can’t have your religious views dictate your politics; however I do think that it is quite dangerous to narrowly define one’s religious experience as just or right, solely based on the views on a couple of hot button topics.

In this case, my Christian faith has led be to believe that the God I serve calls me to feed the hungry and take care of His creation among countless other mandates. When I go to church each week, I don’t want to be told how to vote, but I want to learn and grow more in how God calls me to live. While I’ve been frustrated with the division and narrow focus cast by figures of the “Religious Right,” I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the good work of my own church. While no church is perfect, I am blessed to be a part of a faith community that is invested in needy lives across town and across the world. We have much work to do in being a church that is truly a “big tent” for folks to come to from all walks of life and socioeconomic backgrounds. All this being said, I write this as a twentysomething Millennial concerned about narrow and divisive worldviews who isn’t rejecting religion and all the while is staying right here.

Will Millennials “Rock the Vote?”

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The answer to this question, judged by the opinions of most analysts and pundits, is probably a clear and resounding “no.” Despite a record voter turnout of Millennials in the 2008 election, the results remain to be seen for 2010.  However, history has shown that presidential elections almost always produce a greater voter turnout than congressional midterms which likely be the case just 3 weeks from today.

Two weeks ago, President Obama made his “get out the vote” agenda clear to a large audience of millennials on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Denver Post recounted Obama’s stump speech the following day…

“Two years ago you defied the conventional wisdom of Washington,” Obama said, reminding them that people said no one would ever “elect a skinny guy with a funny name, Barack Hussein Obama.” But, he said: “You proved that the power of everyday people, going door to door, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, was stronger than the status quo. You tapped into something that this country hadn’t seen in a very long time. You did that. Every single one of you is a shareholder in that mission of rebuilding our country.”

I savored the opportunity to vote in my first presidential election in 2008. After a childhood full of campaigns and other civic activities, I served again as a campaign volunteer and to this day, relish the memory of casting my first vote for President of the United States. The pinnacle of my experience in the election of 2008 came when I ventured across the country to our nation’s capital with tickets to the presidential inauguration.

President Obama delivering his Inaugural Address

I too am one of those shareholders that the President spoke about in Wisconsin. I believe that our country is facing enormous challenges but is slowly making progress as significant change takes significant time. Despite my active participation in the 2008 presidential election as a volunteer and as a first-time voter, this Millennial is less than enthusiastic about voting in this year’s midterm election. I’ll leave out my opinions about each of the candidates in the California races, but can understand why most are predicting Millennials to stay home and uninspired to vote in 2010.

This leaves me with one final question to consider…

Should Millennials wait for extrinsic inspiration to bring them to the polls and vote in the 2010 election or should they capitalize on the significant progress that was made in 2008 and show that Gen Y-ers are aware and engaged in actively seeking solutions to the problems that face our country?

Despite finding myself as an unenthusiastic Millennial who is clearly not your average Gen Y-er when it comes to generational norms with politics (I’ll be an Election Day poll worker–3 weeks from today), I wholeheartedly say the latter.