Politics Political Articles

In recent political campaigns, we’ve seen the net used quite effectively as a campaign tool. Politicians now know they can reach millions of people easily by using Internet marketing techniques that have worked so well for the business sector in selling their products and services to Americans. Now politicians are using those same techniques to sell their candidacy and their points of view on the issues of the day.

It started with email campaigns. Obtaining lists from various sources, savvy politicians send unsolicited emails to as many email users as they can, introducing themselves, their issues and positions, while also providing an option for the reader to join the politician’s mailing list. If you happened to join Al Gore’s mailing list when he was running against George W. Bush, you received email after email from him, written by him, as if you and he were old Harvard buds keeping in touch. While it didn’t help him win the election, it did initiate a new way of conducting political campaigns. Other politicians, such as President Obama, have followed Al Gore’s example with greater success. Email changed the way political campaigns are conducted, but more was yet to come.

In the recent national election, politicians discovered the power of Internet video, and specifically, YouTube. This site allows anyone to upload video and anyone who has net access to view them. It’s like getting on television without the hazard of having a reporter like Katie Couric asking you embarrassing questions, questions that don’t let you communicate your positions, that challenge your veracity (that’s for your opponent’s video to do), questions from the devil’s advocate, or the devil himself. With Internet video you stage the event yourself. There’s no pretense at being unbiased. That’s a mass media technique.

Take note of Michele Bachman and Alan Grayson. Last year they came out of obscurity and onto the world stage of YouTube to become ‘viral sensations’, as Time magazine called them in an article announcing YouTube’s entry into the toolkit of political campaigns. The two were at opposite ends of the health care issue that has since been resolved, but now anyone following politics knows them by sight, and also knows their social and political views. No longer dependent on traditional media to get their messages out, politicians can depend on YouTube to make them and their views available to millions of voters, who can watch and listen to them as often as they like. No reporter is leading you to a conclusion about the candidates and their views. You get to lead yourself.

You only need to consider how our current president was able to fund his campaign through Internet appeals for contributions to recognize the tremendous power the net now plays in political campaigns. This is a radical change to the ‘old’ way in which Americans have been presented political debate. Up to now, both politicians and voters have relied on the mass media to present the political issues and choices. Their decisions determined which political campaigns would receive attention, when and how often they would be heard, and, to a large extent, what we, the voters, would hear. This amounted to a few people defining reality for the rest of us, a sort of dictatorship of the media.

Their ownership of the means of communication was their power over us. Now, the net has wrested that power from them and placed it in our own hands! Shocking indeed. Now, we can choose for ourselves what, when, and how often we will hear and watch politicians express their views. Thanks to the net, we are freed from having to trust a few media ‘elites’ to shape our social and political reality. We only need to give both sides a fair hearing to get that balanced view mass media tells us they give us because they say they do. With the net in the hands of the people and freely available to all politicians, we are enabled to set our own destiny. The dictatorship of the mass media has been overthrown. The prospect of free and responsible political campaigns is born. Shine on, Internet, shine on.

The author has been writing articles online for 4 years now. Come visit his latest site CPA Instruments by Ritoban C that discusses CPA Instruments review.

Until recently, March 23, 2010 precisely, when the Health Reform Law of 2010 was signed into law by President Obama, most health insurance plans provided by employers covered your children until they were 18 or 21. The logic was simple enough: your child is under your care until they become adults, at which time they are old enough to enter the work force and obtain health insurance for themselves. Until then, health insurance for children was covered under most employer-provided health insurance plans. This approach seemed fair enough, but recent events have left thousands of our children without health care coverage.

While this arrangement previously seemed just enough, its deficiencies became clear in the recent economic collapses we’ve endured since 2008. Children reaching the age of maturity, 18 to 21, depending on the state, are normally no longer covered by the health insurance for children portion of the insurance plan their parents have from their employers. If jobs were available for our children – they are always our children, no matter what their age – then they could simply find a job in which the employer offers health insurance coverage, and get their own. The fact is that today we are experiencing the highest level of unemployment among teens and first time job seekers in the history of our economy. Even adults are having trouble finding work. Without a job, there is no insurance for these children, and waiting until they find work is not always a viable alternative. Some of these children have ongoing diseases, such as diabetes 1, which doesn’t go away just because you’ve turned 18. The inability of the economy to provide jobs for these fledgling adults is causing pain, debilitation, and death for many of our children, dropped from their parents health care plan, that had provided health insurance for children of the employee.

The framers of the Health Reform Law were well aware of this crisis when they wrote the legislation. In a stroke of utter brilliance, they stipulated in the law that children with pre-existing conditions cannot be automatically dropped from their parent’s coverage when they turn 18 or 21. Its urgency won the stipulation first place among what portions of the law must be implemented immediately. In 2010, insurers may no longer drop a child from a policy that includes health insurance for children, not until they turn a whopping 26 years old. Countless children are being saved from misery and death by this act. If the child is 18, that child is being given 8 more years of coverage. Perhaps eight years from now, that child, then an adult, might be able to find a job and ease into an employer provided health care plan without any problem.

By the enactment of the Health Reform Law of 2010, health insurance for children has gotten the boost it needs for our times. Some believe this is still not enough. The urgent problem seems taken care of, but what of the millions of children who do not have some sort of health insurance for children because their parents cannot afford it? What is the law doing to assure they are not excluded?

The Health Reform Law is remarkable in that it has provisions for making insurance available even to the poor. Even families making up to $88 thousand a year will be able to receive help from the federal government, in the form of subsidies. The poor may select their own plan, which may include insurance coverage for children, and the feds will pay the insurer what the family cannot pay. 24 million Americans are expected to benefit by this provision, at a cost of about $350 billion a year. Remarkably, this provision, along with the others it contains, is expected to reduce the federal deficit by $124 billion over the next ten years.

This law is a powerful expression of America’s love for their children. Changes are inevitable, so pay attention to what is going on with the law. We must never let the love of wealth replace the love of our children. If movement begins to go against any benefits to our children, oppose it. It’s human nature to defend and die for their children if necessary. Let nature be your guide. Keep health insurance for children a top priority by urging your congressperson to stand for children first. It’s only human.

The author has been writing articles online for 4 years now. Come visit his latest site Quick Cash Concept by Eric Rockfeller that discusses Quick Cash Concept.

During President Obama’s campaign, as he went throughout the country extolling the virtues of health care reform, a plumber stood up and declared he could not possibly do business if he were forced to buy one of the packaged health insurance for small businesses then available. The plumber, who was actually an unlicensed plumber (in my state, if you’re not licensed, you’re not a plumber), said he had obtained funding to start his own plumbing business, but if he were required to buy health insurance for his employees, he couldn’t afford to go into business after all. The Republicans latched on to this character’s story to argue against Obama’s proposals for universal health care coverage, but the argument went nowhere, Obama won, and by 2010, a health care reform bill was signed. As it turned out, unless Joe the plumber intended to have 50 or more employees, he would not have to provide health insurance for his employees.

Joe the plumber wasn’t trying to deny the responsibility of business to supply health insurance plans to the employee. It’s been an acceptable practice for decades and embraced by conservatives and liberals alike. Business itself has met their responsibility with exuberance and dignity all these decades, taking lesser profits in order to do it. Currently, 98 percent of companies with 200 or more employees provide health care insurance plans for their employees. About 150 million Americans are employer insured, and that number is expected to grow to 159 million by 2019. The new Health Reform Law continues to rely on business to provide working Americans with the health insurance they need.

Health insurance for small businesses is not as inexpensive as health insurance for businesses with 200 or more employees. This is because insurers give discounts based on the number of people to be insured. Naturally, a larger organization will be able to obtain those hefty discounts while smaller businesses can’t. This gives something of a competitive advantage to larger business: because they can offer prospective employees health insurance as a benefit and the small businesses can’t, the best talent goes to the bigger guys. The small business, unable to offer health insurance, also suffers a greater turnover of employees as they tend to leave the business for larger ones able to provide health insurance. Lacking what other workers of equal caliber get, small business employees are more demoralized. Being unable to afford health insurance for small businesses makes doing business as a small business a hard proposition indeed.

Now, small business is in luck. The Health Reform Law is enabling small businesses, with as few as 25 employees, to get health insurance for small businesses this year (2010) by providing taxes credits for those who do. In addition, the law provides for the building of medical insurance exchanges throughout the country. These exchanges will represent hundreds, thousands, or millions of individuals and small businesses as a group to insurers. It’s the large numbers that have given large corporations leverage to get those lower premiums for their employees. Now, individuals and small business owners with their employees will be counted as a group under the exchange and be eligible for those nicely affordable group rates.

The exchanges are still in the initial stage of development – not ready yet. Expect to see them functioning by 2014. Then, small businesses with 50 or more employees will be required to provide insurance to their employees. Hopefully, these exchanges will make health insurance for small businesses as cheap as it is for the big guys, and give the small businesses an opportunity to attract those valuable, highly skilled employees. There’s an answer for most social issues, Joe the Plumber. All you have to do is seek and you’ll find.

The author has been writing articles online for 4 years now. Come visit his latest site Never Fail List Building System review that discusses Never Fail List Building System by Bill McRea & Mike Williams.

Before, during and after the colonial period, American women were mostly socialised within the domestic sphere. American women history before the 20th Century depicts them in subversive roles most of which are within the home or immediate community. In these roles, women are simply care givers for their husbands and children. The colonial tradition held women in the Christian perspective, as subversive to men and charged with the sole responsibility of managing their homes and raring God-fearing children.

It is therefore understandable why the American women history lacks any spectacular accounts of women shaping the political events of the time. Indeed, women’s participation and inclusion in national politics remained very low for years after they gained the right to vote in 1920. By 1994 (only two and a half decades ago), only two women had served in the United States Senate. Less than 12 had been Congressional Representatives prior to 1955. Today, we have 16 Senators and 67 Congress representatives, which translate to around 15% of the total United States Congress.

As yet, no woman has entered the annals of American women history as a presidential nominee for any of the major parties. At least four, however, have run either as Vice President Nominee or gone as far as seeking their party’s. Among the most notable women in the American women history as regards holding leadership positions in the nation include Belva Lockwood, who in 1879 became the very first woman to ever practice law in the US Supreme Court. Over a century later in 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor attained the honour of the first ever female member of the US Supreme Court. Sandra was to be joined later by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor as the second and third Supreme Court serving member respectively.

On 4th January 2007, another first in the American women history was achieved, with Nancy Pelosi becoming the first ever female Speaker of the US House of representatives. This was closely followed by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first, during the 2008 presidential campaign. Clinton’s achievement is in itself among the most significant in the American women history, having won over 1,896 delegate votes against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential Nomination. In the same year, Sarah Palin, an Alaskan Governor of repute became the first ever female Vice Presidential Nominee from the Republican Party.

A surface look at these statistics cannot capture in full the complex nature of women integration in national politics. The American women history constitutes of a tale in which women have had to overcome overwhelming challenges, override great opposition, satisfy awesome expectations and bear delimiting social responsibilities.

The last two generations of American women have triggered a remarkable social shift in the integration of women politicians within mainstream national politics. The American public has stated its willingness to support and vote for an American woman as their leader. Consequently many opportunities are opening up for the female gender to join the decision making tables around the nation and make an impact in forging an American future.

The author has been writing articles online for 4 years now. Come visit his latest site Info Prodigy by Tim Godfrey & Steven Clayton that discusses Info Prodigy.