Immigration Reform Ping Pong

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:25:18 GMT

It's a question I hear almost every day.

"Do you think," ask clients, "we'll have immigration reform this year?"

It's a tough question.

Immigration reform resembles a ping pong match.

Ping.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the President met yesterday with two senators, Democrat Charles Schumer and Republican Lindsey Graham, whose support are crucial to immigration reform. Presumably, the purpose was to ask them to hasten a blueprint.

Pong.

Just a month ago, immigration reform seemed dead. After Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election, Newsweek reported the chances of having an immigration reform bill had become dramatically slimmer.

Obama's State of the Union Speech also contributed to the pessismistic outlook of pro-reform leaders. Many observers felt his reluctance to address immigration reform was tantamount to abandonment.

Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, head of the largest U.S. Hispanic Christian organization, labeled Obama's 38-word commentary "a crumb" to satisfy the hunger of immigrant communities. He added it marked 'the death knell of immigration reform in 2010.

Ping.

The disillusionment articulated by Rodriguez was a stark contrast to sentiments last fall.

In November, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano stated the Obama Administration would push for immigration reform in 2010.

Shortly afterwards, Congressman Louis Gutierrez introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009.

Pro-immigrant leaders expressed optimism about the prospects of immigration reform.

Pong.

Prior to these gestures, despite Obama's bold campaign promises, immigration reform languished for several months after his victory.

At a populist pit stop in my neck of the woods last spring, the president was taken aback when posed a question about immigration reform. The question was not surprising for a Southern California audience. Yet, Obama's response resembled a rookie batter swinging at one of Josh Beckett's curveballs.

And The Winner Is . . .

The president understands the volatility of reform. He has tried to appease both sides of the immigration equation. However, with midterm elections around the corner, the issue is reaching a boiling point.

Very soon, the administration will have to fish or cut bait.

The Democratic Solution: Counting Votes

Before joining the bar, I spent several years working in political offices.

I learned the art of counting votes. Before diving in too deeply.

Given the uncertain political climate in a midterm election year, my guess is the president will take a middle-of-the-road approach.

He cannot go too far in promoting pro-immigration legislation or he'll lose the support of many moderates.

On the other hand, as Politico's Ben Smith points out, Obama must push some of his campaign promises to maintain the enthusiasm of immigrant communities which strongly voted for his party two years ago.

My hunch is that one or two "safer" pieces of the pro-immigrant agenda will be taken up in the spring or early summer.

But like I tell my clients, don't bet the house on it.

And All The Stonies Were Dancing To The Radio

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:53:24 GMT

My wife and I were watching the news last week when this tidbit came to our attention:

As Indiana Democratic leaders scramble to replace Evan Bayh in the US Senate race, one name is emerging from left field: rock musician John Mellencamp.

I told my wife that any man that once wrote the lyrics, “I need a lover who won’t drive me crazy/some girl to thrill me, and then go away,” could not be elected to the U.S. Senate.

She responded with three words: Bedtime For Bonzo. Point well taken.

So I did what any respectable middle aged man would do; I got on iTunes and purchased a load of John Cougar songs. Which then prompted me to indulge in an off topic nostalgic post, when I swear I initially meant to write this off topic one instead.

Marc Scheff Image

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:59:45 GMT

Science Daily summarized an intriguing (and, no doubt, soon-to-be-very-controversial study) finding that “Intelligent People Have Values Novel in Human Evolutionary History,” (such as liberalism and atheisim). Here are some excerpts from that summary. * * * More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to [...]

Science Daily summarized an intriguing (and, no doubt, soon-to-be-very-controversial study) finding that “Intelligent People Have Values Novel in Human Evolutionary History,” (such as liberalism and atheisim). Here are some excerpts from that summary.

* * *

More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

The study, published in the March 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Social Psychology Quarterly, advances a new theory to explain why people form particular preferences and values. The theory suggests that more intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values, but intelligence does not correlate with preferences and values that are old enough to have been shaped by evolution over millions of years.”

“Evolutionarily novel” preferences and values are those that humans are not biologically designed to have and our ancestors probably did not possess. In contrast, those that our ancestors had for millions of years are “evolutionarily familiar.”

“General intelligence, the ability to think and reason, endowed our ancestors with advantages in solving evolutionarily novel problems for which they did not have innate solutions,” says Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science. “As a result, more intelligent people are more likely to recognize and understand such novel entities and situations than less intelligent people, and some of these entities and situations are preferences, values, and lifestyles.”

An earlier study by Kanazawa found that more intelligent individuals were more nocturnal, waking up and staying up later than less intelligent individuals. Because our ancestors lacked artificial light, they tended to wake up shortly before dawn and go to sleep shortly after dusk. Being nocturnal is evolutionarily novel.

In the current study, Kanazawa argues that humans are evolutionarily designed to be conservative, caring mostly about their family and friends, and being liberal, caring about an indefinite number of genetically unrelated strangers they never meet or interact with, is evolutionarily novel. So more intelligent children may be more likely to grow up to be liberals.

Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) support Kanazawa’s hypothesis. Young adults who subjectively identify themselves as “very liberal” have an average IQ of 106 during adolescence while those who identify themselves as “very conservative” have an average IQ of 95 during adolescence.

Similarly, religion is a byproduct of humans’ tendency to perceive agency and intention as causes of events, to see “the hands of God” at work behind otherwise natural phenomena. “Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid,” says Kanazawa. This innate bias toward paranoia served humans well when self-preservation and protection of their families and clans depended on extreme vigilance to all potential dangers. “So, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to go against their natural evolutionary tendency to believe in God, and they become atheists.”

Young adults who identify themselves as “not at all religious” have an average IQ of 103 during adolescence, while those who identify themselves as “very religious” have an average IQ of 97 during adolescence.

In addition, humans have always been mildly polygynous in evolutionary history. Men in polygynous marriages were not expected to be sexually exclusive to one mate, whereas men in monogamous marriages were. In sharp contrast, whether they are in a monogamous or polygynous marriage, women were always expected to be sexually exclusive to one mate. So being sexually exclusive is evolutionarily novel for men, but not for women. And the theory predicts that more intelligent men are more likely to value sexual exclusivity than less intelligent men, but general intelligence makes no difference for women’s value on sexual exclusivity. Kanazawa’s analysis of Add Health data supports these sex-specific predictions as well.

One intriguing but theoretically predicted finding of the study is that more intelligent people are no more or no less likely to value such evolutionarily familiar entities as marriage, family, children, and friends.

* * *

For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “The Stone-Age Mind in an Information-Age Situation,” “Seeing Faces,” “The Situation of Hair Color,” “The Situation of Reason,” “The Situation of Ideology – Part I,” “The Magnetism of Beautiful People,” “The Situation of Revenge,” and “The Situation of Kissing.”

(The illustration above is by Situationist artist Marc Scheff.)

Al Gore Climate Change

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:01:47 GMT

On NPR’s All Things Considered, Situationist Contributor Dan Kahan and Donald Braman were interviewed this week by Christopher Joyce regarding their important work on cultural cognition. Here is an excerpt. * * * Over the past few months, polls show that fewer Americans say they believe humans are making the planet dangerously warmer, and that is despite a [...]

On NPR’s All Things Considered, Situationist Contributor Dan Kahan and Donald Braman were interviewed this week by Christopher Joyce regarding their important work on cultural cognition. Here is an excerpt.

* * *

Over the past few months, polls show that fewer Americans say they believe humans are making the planet dangerously warmer, and that is despite a raft of scientific reports that say otherwise. And that puzzles many climate scientists, but not social scientists.

As NPR’s Christopher Joyce reports, some of their research suggests that when people encounter new information, facts may not be as important as beliefs.

CHRISTOPHER JOYCE: The divide between climate believers and disbelievers can be as wide as a West Virginia valley, and that’s where two of them squared off recently at a public debate on West Virginia Public Radio.

Coal company president Don Blankenship is a doubter.

Mr. DON BLANKENSHIP (CEO, Massey Energy Company): It’s a hoax because clearly anyone that says that they know what the temperature of the earth is going to be in 2020 or 2030 needs to be put in an asylum because they don’t.

JOYCE: On the other side, environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr.

Mr. ROBERT KENNEDY JR. (Environmentalist): Ninety-eight percent of the research, climatologists in the world say that global warming is real, that its impacts are going to be catastrophic. There are 2 percent who disagree with that. I have a choice of believing the 98 percent or the 2 percent.

JOYCE: For social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, it’s not surprising that two people can disagree so strongly over science. Braman is on the faculty at George Washington University and a part of a research group called Cultural Cognition.

Professor DON BRAMAN (George Washington University Law School/The Cultural Cognition Project): People tend to conform their factual beliefs to ones that are consistent with their cultural outlook, their worldview.

JOYCE: Braman’s group has conducted several experiments to back that up. First, they ask people to describe their cultural beliefs. Some embrace new technology, authority and free enterprise – the so-called individualistic group. Others are suspicious of authority, or of commerce and industry. Braman calls them communitarians.

In one experiment, Braman then queried his subjects about something unfamiliar: nanotechnology, new research into tiny, molecule-sized objects that could lead to novel products.

Prof. BRAMAN: These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms.

JOYCE: The individualists tended to like nanotechnology; the communitarians generally viewed it as dangerous – all based on the same information.

Prof. BRAMAN: It doesn’t matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom on to the positive information.

JOYCE: So what’s going on here?

Professor DAN KAHAN (Yale University Law School/The Cultural Cognition Project): Basically, the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values.

JOYCE: That’s Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of Cultural Cognition. He says people test new information against their preexisting view of how the world should work.

Prof. KAHAN: If the implication, the outcome, can affirm your values, you think about it in a much more open-minded way.

JOYCE: And if the information doesn’t, you tend to reject it.

In another experiment, people read a United Nations’ study about the dangers of global warming. Then the researchers said, okay, the solution is to regulate pollution from industry. Many in the individualistic group then rejected the climate science. But when more nuclear power was offered as the solution…

Prof. BRAMAN: They said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem.

JOYCE: And for the communitarians, climate danger seemed less serious if the only solution was more nuclear power.

Then there’s the Messenger Effect. In an experiment dealing with the dangers versus benefits of a vaccine, the scientific information came from several people. They ranged from a rumpled and bearded expert to a crisply business-like one. And people tended to believe the message that came from the person they considered to be more like them – which brings us back to climate.

Prof. BRAMAN: If you have people who are skeptical of the data on climate change, you can bet that Al Gore is not going to convince them at this point.

* * *

You can listen to, or read the rest of, the interview here. For a sample of related Situationist posts related to cultural cognition, see “The Situation of Scientific Consensus,” “Dan Kahan on the Situation of Risk Perceptions,” “Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk.” For still more Situationist posts discussing cultural cognition, click here.

For more Situationst posts on perceptions of climate change, see “Global Climate Change and The Situation of Denial,” “Al Gore – The Situationist,” “The Situation of Climate Change,” “Getting a Grip on Climate Change,” “Juliet Schor, ‘Colossal Failure: The Output Bias of Market Economies’,” “Denial,” “The Need for a Situationist Morality,” “The Heat is On,” and “Captured Science.”

Clarence Darrow 2

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:43:14 GMT

“Crime and Criminals: Address to the Prisoners in the Chicago Jail” (1902) Preface This address is a stenographic report of a talk made to the prisoners in the Chicago jail. Some of my good friends have insisted that while my theories are true, I should not have given them to the inmates of a jail. Realizing the force [...]

“Crime and Criminals: Address to the Prisoners in the Chicago Jail” (1902)

Preface

This address is a stenographic report of a talk made to the prisoners in the Chicago jail. Some of my good friends have insisted that while my theories are true, I should not have given them to the inmates of a jail.

Realizing the force of the suggestion that the truth should not be spoken to all people, I have caused these remarks to be printed on rather good paper and in a somewhat expensive form. In this way the truth does not become cheap and vulgar, and is only placed before those whose intelligence and affluence will prevent their being influenced by it.
—Clarence Darrow

Crime and Criminals

If I looked at jails and crimes and prisoners in the way the ordinary person does, I should not speak on this subject to you. The reason I talk to you on the question of crime, its cause and cure, is because I really do not in the least believe in crime. There is no such thing as a crime as the word is generally understood. I do not believe there is any sort of distinction between the real moral condition of the people in and out of jail. One is just as good as the other. The people here can no more help being here than the people outside can avoid being outside. I do not believe that people are in jail because they deserve to be. They are in jail simply because they cannot avoid it on account of circumstances which are entirely beyond their control and for which they are in no way responsible.

I suppose a great many people on the outside would say I was doing you harm if they should hear what I say to you this afternoon, but you cannot be hurt a great deal anyway, so it will not matter. Good people outside would say that I was really teaching you things that were calculated to injure society, but it’s worth while now and then to hear something different from what you ordinarily get from preachers and the like. These will tell you that you should be good and then you will get rich and be happy. Of course we know that people do not get rich by being good, and that is the reason why so many of you people try to get rich some other way, only you do not understand how to do it quite as well as the fellow outside.

There are people who think that everything in this world is an accident. But really there is no such thing as an accident. A great many folks admit that many of the people in jail ought not to be there, and many who are outside ought to be in. I think none of them ought to be here. There ought to be no jails, and if it were not for the fact that the people on the outside are so grasping and heartless in their dealings with the people on the inside, there would be no such institution as jails.

I do not want you to believe that I think all you people here are angels. I do not think that. You are people of all kinds, all of you doing the best you can, and that is evidently not very well — you are people of all kinds and conditions and under all circumstances. In one sense everybody is equally good and equally bad. We all do the best we can under the circumstances. But as to the exact things for which you are sent here, some of you are guilty and did the particular act because you needed the money. Some of you did it because you are in the habit of doing it, and some of you because you are born to it, and it comes to be as natural as it does, for instance, for me to be good.

Most of you probably have nothing against me, and most of you would treat me the same as any other person would; probably better than some of the people on the outside would treat me, because you think I believe in you and they know I do not believe in them. While you would not have the least thing against me in the world you might pick my pockets. I do not think all of you would, but I think some of you would. You would not have anything against me, but that’s your profession, a few of you. Some of the rest of you, if my doors were unlocked, might come in if you saw anything you wanted — not out of malice to me, but because that is your trade. There is no doubt there are quite a number of people in this jail who would pick my pockets. And still I know this, that when I get outside pretty nearly everybody picks my pocket. There may be some of you who would hold up a man on the street, if you did not happen to have something else to do, and needed the money; but when I want to light my house or my office the gas company holds me up. They charge me one dollar for something that is worth twenty-five cents, and still all these people are good people; they are pillars of society and support the churches, and they are respectable.

When I ride on the street cars, I am held up — I pay five cents for a ride that is worth two and a half cents, simply because a body of men have bribed the city council and the legislature, so that all the rest of us have to pay tribute to them. If I do not wish to fall into the clutches of the gas trust and choose to burn oil instead of gas, then good Mr. Rockefeller holds me up, and he uses a certain portion of his money to build universities and support churches which are engaged in telling us how to be good. Some of you are here for obtaining property under false pretenses — yet I pick up a great Sunday paper and read the advertisements of a merchant prince — “Shirt waists for 39 cents, marked down from $3.00.”

When I read the advertisements in the paper I see they are all lies. When I want to get out and find a place to stand anywhere on the face of the earth, I find that it has all been taken up long ago before I came here, and before you came here, and somebody says, “Get off, swim into the lake, fly into the air; go anywhere, but get off.” That is because these people have the police and they have the jails and judges and the lawyers and the soldiers and all the rest of them to take care of the earth and drive everybody off that comes in their way. A great many people will tell you that all this is true, but that it does not excuse you. These facts do not excuse some fellow who reaches into my pocket and takes out a five dollar bill; the fact that the gas company bribes the members of the legislature from year to year, and fixes the law, so that all you people are compelled to be “fleeced” whenever you deal with them; the fact that the street car companies and the gas companies have control of the streets and the fact that the landlords own all the earth, they say, has nothing to do with you.

Let us see whether there is any connection between the crimes of the respectable classes and your presence in the jail. Many of you people are in jail because you have really committed burglary. Many of you, because you have stolen something; in the meaning of the law, you have taken some other person’s property. Some of you have entered a store and carried off a pair of shoes because you did not have the price. Possibly some of you have committed murder. I cannot tell what all of you did. There are a great many people here who have done some of these things who really do not know themselves why they did them. I think I know why you did them — every one of you; you did these things because you were bound to do them. It looked to you at the time as if you had a chance to do them or not, as you saw fit, but still after all you had no choice. There may be people here who had some money in their pockets and who still went out and got some more money in a way society forbids. Now you may not yourselves see exactly why it was you did this thing, but if you look at the question deeply enough and carefully enough you would see that there were circumstances that drove you to do exactly the thing which you did. You could not help it any more than we outside can help taking the positions that we take. The reformers who tell you to be good and you will be happy, and the people on the outside who have property to protect — they think that the only way to do it is by building jails and locking you up in cells on week days and praying for you Sundays.

I think that all of this has nothing whatever to do with right conduct. I think it is very easily seen what has to do with right conduct. Some so-called criminals — and I will use this word because it is handy, it means nothing to me — I speak of the criminals who get caught as distinguished from the criminals who catch them — some of these so-called criminals are in jail for the first offenses, but nine-tenths of you are in jail because you did not have a good lawyer and of course you did not have a good lawyer because you did not have enough money to pay a good lawyer. There is no very great danger of a rich man going to jail. Some of you may be here for the first time. If we would open the doors and let you out, and leave the laws as they are today, some of you would be back tomorrow. This is about as good a place as you can get anyway. There are many people here who are so in the habit of coming that they would not know where else to go. There are people who are born with the tendency to break into jail every chance they get, and they cannot avoid it. You cannot figure out your life and see why it was, but still there is a reason for it, and if we were all wise and knew all the facts we could figure it out.

In the first place, there are a good many more people who go to jail in the winter time than in summer. Why is this? Is it because people are more wicked in winter? No, it is because the coal trust begins to get in its grip in the winter. A few gentlemen take possession of the coal, and unless the people will pay $7 or $8 a ton for something that is worth $3, they will have to freeze. Then there is nothing to do but break into jail, and so there are many more in jail in the winter than in summer. It costs more for gas in the winter because the nights are longer, and people go to jail to save gas bills. The jails are electric lighted. You may not know it, but these economic laws are working all the time, whether we know it or do not know it.

There are more people go to jail in hard times than in good times — few people comparatively go to jail except when they are hard up. They go to jail because they have no other place to go. They may not know why, but it is true all the same. People are not more wicked in hard times. That is not the reason. The fact is true all over the world that in hard times more people go to jail than in good times, and in winter more people go to jail than in summer. Of course it is pretty hard times for people who go to jail at any time. The people who go to jail are almost always poor people — people who have no other place to live first and last. When times are hard then you find large numbers of people who go to jail who would not otherwise be in jail.

Long ago Mr. Buckle, who was a great philosopher and historian, collected facts and he showed that the number of people who are arrested increased just as the price of food increased. When they put up the price of gas ten cents a thousand I do not know who will go to jail, but I do know that a certain number of people will go. When the meat combine raises the price of beef I do not know who is going to jail, but I know that a large number of people are bound to go. Whenever the Standard Oil Company raises the price of oil, I know that a certain number of girls who are seamstresses, and who work after night long hours for somebody else, will be compelled to go out on the streets and ply another trade, and I know that Mr. Rockefeller and his associates are responsible and not the poor girls in the jails.

First and last, people are sent to jail because they are poor. Sometimes, as I say, you may not need money at the particular time, but you wish to have thrifty forehanded habits, and do not always wait until you are in absolute want. Some of you people are perhaps plying the trade, the profession, which is called burglary. No man in his right senses will go into a strange house in the dead of night and prowl around with a dark lantern through unfamiliar rooms and take chances of his life if he has plenty of the good things of the world in his own home. You would not take any such chances as that. If a man had clothes in his clothes-press and beefsteak in his pantry, and money in the bank, he would not navigate around nights in houses where he knows nothing about the premises whatever. It always requires experience and education for this profession, and people who fit themselves for it are no more to blame than I am for being a lawyer. A man would not hold up another man on the street if he had plenty of money in his own pocket. He might do it if he had one dollar or two dollars, but he wouldn’t if he had as much money as Mr. Rockefeller has. Mr. Rockefeller has a great deal better hold-up game than that.

The more that is taken from the poor by the rich, who have the chance to take it, the more poor people there are who are compelled to resort to these means for a livelihood. They may not understand it, they may not think so at once, but after all they are driven into that line of employment. There is a bill before the legislature of this State to punish kidnapping of children with death. We have wise members of the legislature. They know the gas trust when they see it and they always see it — they can furnish light enough to be seen, and this legislature thinks it is going to stop kidnapping of children by making a law punishing kidnapers of children with death. I don’t believe in kidnapping children, but the legislature is all wrong. Kidnapping children is not a crime, it is a profession. It has been developed with the times. It has been developed with our modern industrial conditions. There are many ways of making money — many new ways that our ancestors knew nothing about. Our ancestors knew nothing about a billion dollar trust; and here comes some poor fellow who has no other trade and he discovers the profession of kidnapping children.

This crime is born, not because people are bad; people don’t kidnap other people’s children because they want the children or because they are devilish, but because they see a chance to get some money out of it. You cannot cure this crime by passing a law punishing by death kidnapers of children. There is one way to cure it. There is one way to cure all these offenses, and that is to give the people a chance to live. There is no other way, and there never was any other way since the world began, and the world is so blind and stupid that it will not see. If every man and woman and child in the world had a chance to make a decent, fair, honest living, there would be no jails, and no lawyers and no courts. There might be some persons here or there with some peculiar formation of their brain, like Rockefeller, who would do these things simply to be doing them; but they would be very, very few, and those should be sent to a hospital and treated, and not sent to jail, and they would entirely disappear in the second generation, or at least in the third generation.

I am not talking pure theory. I will just give you two or three illustrations. The English people once punished criminals by sending them away. They would load them on a ship and export them to Australia. England was owned by lords and nobles and rich people. They owned the whole earth over there, and the other people had to stay in the streets. They could not get a decent living. They used to take their criminals and send them to Australia — I mean the class of criminals who got caught. When these criminals got over there, and nobody else had come, they had the whole continent to run over, and so they could raise sheep and furnish their own meat, which is easier than stealing it; these criminals then became decent, respectable people because they had a chance to live. They did not commit any crimes. They were just like the English people who sent them there, only better. And in the second generation the descendants of those criminals were as good and respectable a class of people as there were on the face of the earth, and then they began building churches and jails themselves.

A portion of this country was settled in the same way, landing prisoners down on the southern coast; but when they got here and had a whole continent to run over and plenty of chances to make a living, they became respectable citizens, making their own living just like any other citizen in the world; but finally these descendants of the English aristocracy, who sent the people over to Australia, found out they were getting rich, and so they went over to get possession of the earth as they always do, and they organized land syndicates and got control of the land and ores, and then they had just as many criminals in Australia as they did in England. It was not because the world had grown bad; it was because the earth had been taken away from the people.

Some of you people have lived in the country. It’s prettier than it is here. And if you have ever lived on a farm you understand that if you put a lot of cattle in a field, when the pasture is short they will jump over the fence; but put them in a good field where there is plenty of pasture, and they will be law-abiding cattle to the end of time. The human animal is just like the rest of the animals, only a little more so. The same thing that governs in the one governs in the other.

Everybody makes his living along the lines of least resistance. A wise man who comes into a country early sees a great undeveloped land. For instance, our rich men twenty-five years ago saw that Chicago was small and knew a lot of people would come here and settle, and they readily saw that if they had all the land around here it would be worth a good deal, so they grabbed the land. You cannot be a landlord because somebody has got it all. You must find some other calling. In England and Ireland and Scotland less than five percent own all the land there is, and the people are bound to stay there on any kind of terms the landlords give. They must live the best they can, so they develop all these various professions — burglary, picking pockets and the like.

Again, people find all sorts of ways of getting rich. These are diseases like everything else. You look at people getting rich, organizing trusts, and making a million dollars, and somebody gets the disease and he starts out. He catches it just as a man catches the mumps or the measles; he is not to blame, it is in the air. You will find men speculating beyond their means, because the mania of money-getting is taking possession of them. It is simply a disease; nothing more, nothing less. You cannot avoid catching it; but the fellows who have control of the earth have the advantage of you. See what the law is; when these men get control of things, they make the laws. They do not make the laws to protect anybody; courts are not instruments of justice; when your case gets into court it will make little difference whether you are guilty or innocent; but it’s better if you have a smart lawyer. And you cannot have a smart lawyer unless you have money. First and last it’s a question of money. Those men who own the earth make the laws to protect what they have. They fix up a sort of fence or pen around what they have, and they fix the law so the fellow on the outside cannot get in. The laws are really organized for the protection of the men who rule the world. They were never organized or enforced to do justice. We have no system for doing justice, not the slightest in the world.

Let me illustrate: Take the poorest person in this room. If the community had provided a system of doing justice the poorest person in this room would have as good a lawyer as the richest, would he not? When you went into court you would have just as long a trial, and just as fair a trial as the richest person in Chicago. Your case would not be tried in fifteen or twenty minutes, whereas it would take fifteen days to get through with a rich man’s case.

Then if you were rich and were beaten your case would be taken to the Appellate Court. A poor man cannot take his case to the Appellate Court; he has not the price; and then to the Supreme Court, and if he were beaten there he might perhaps go to the United States Supreme Court. And he might die of old age before he got into jail. If you are poor, it’s a quick job. You are almost known to be guilty, else you would not be there. Why should anyone be in the criminal court if he were not guilty? He would not be there if he could be anywhere else. The officials have no time to look after these cases. The people who are on the outside, who are running banks and building churches and making jails, they have no time to examine 600 or 700 prisoners each year to see whether they are guilty or innocent. If the courts were organized to promote justice the people would elect somebody to defend all these criminals, somebody as smart as the prosecutor — and give him as many detectives and as many assistants to help, and pay as much money to defend you as to prosecute you. We have a very able man for State’s Attorney, and he has many assistants, detectives and policemen without end, and judges to hear the cases — everything handy.

Most of our criminal code consists in offenses against property. People are sent to jail because they have committed a crime against property. It is of very little consequence whether one hundred people more or less go to jail who ought not to go — you must protect property, because in this world property is of more importance than anything else. How is it done? These people who have property fix it so they can protect what they have. When somebody commits a crime it does not follow that he has done something that is morally wrong. The man on the outside who has committed no crime may have done something. For instance: to take all the coal in the United States and raise the price two dollars or three dollars when there is no need of it, and thus kills thousands of babies and send thousands of people to the poorhouse and tens of thousands to jail, as is done every year in the United States — this is a greater crime than all the people in our jails ever committed, but the law does not punish it. Why? Because the fellows who control the earth make the laws. If you and I had the making of the laws, the first thing we would do would be to punish the fellow who gets control of the earth. Nature put this coal in the ground for me as well as for them and nature made the prairies up here to raise wheat for me as well as for them, and then the great railroad companies came along and fenced it up.

Most all of the crimes for which we are punished are property crimes. There are a few personal crimes, like murder — but they are very few. The crimes committed are mostly against property. If this punishment is right the criminals must have a lot of property. How much money is there in this crowd? And yet you are all here for crimes against property. The people up and down the Lake Shore have not committed crime, still they have so much property they don’t know what to do with it. It is perfectly plain why these people have not committed crimes against property; they make the laws and therefore do not need to break them. And in order for you to get some property you are obliged to break the rules of the game. I don’t know but what some of you may have had a very nice chance to get rich by carrying the hod for one dollar a day, twelve hours. Instead of taking that nice, easy profession, you are a burglar. If you had been given a chance to be a banker you would rather follow that. Some of you may have had a chance to work as a switchman on a railroad where you know, according to statistics, that you cannot live and keep all your limbs more than seven years, and you get fifty dollars a month for taking your lives in your hands, and instead of taking that lucrative position you choose to be a sneak thief, or something like that. Some of you made that sort of chance. I don’t know which I would take if I was reduced to this choice. I have an easier choice.

I will guarantee to take from this jail, or any jail in the world, five hundred men who have been the worst criminals and law breakers who ever got into jail, and I will go down to our lowest streets and take five hundred of the most hardened prostitutes, and go out somewhere where there is plenty of land, and will give them a chance to make a living, and they will be as good people as the average in the community. There is a remedy for the sort of condition we see here. The world never finds it out, or when it does find it out it does not enforce it. You may pass a law punishing every person with death for burglary, and it will make no difference. Men will commit it just the same. In England there was a time when one hundred different offenses were punishable with death, and it made no difference. The English people strangely found out that so fast as they repealed the severe penalties and so fast as they did away with punishing men by death, crime decreased instead of increased; that the smaller the penalty the fewer the crimes.

Hanging men in our county jails does not prevent murder. It makes murderers. And this has been the history of the world. It’s easy to see how to do away with what we call crime. It is not so easy to do it. I will tell you how to do it. It can be done by giving the people a chance to live — by destroying special privileges. So long as big criminals can get the coal fields, so long as the big criminals have control of the city council and get the public streets for street cars and gas rights, this is bound to send thousands of poor people to jail. So long as men are allowed to monopolize all the earth, and compel others to live on such terms as these men see fit to make, then you are bound to get into jail.

The only way in the world to abolish crime and criminals is to abolish the big ones and the little ones together. Make fair conditions of life. Give men a chance to live. Abolish the right of private ownership of land, abolish monopoly, make the world partners in production, partners in the good things of life. Nobody would steal if he could get something of his own some easier way. Nobody will commit burglary when he has a house full. No girl will go out on the streets when she has a comfortable place at home. The man who owns a sweatshop or a department store may not be to blame himself for the condition of his girls, but when he pays them five dollars, three dollars, and two dollars a week, I wonder where he thinks they will get the rest of their money to live. The only way to cure these conditions is by equality. There should be no jails. They do not accomplish what they pretend to accomplish. If you would wipe them out, there would be no more criminals than now. They terrorize nobody. They are a blot upon civilization, and a jail is an evidence of the lack of charity of the people on the outside who make the jails and fill them with the victims of their greed.
—————————————————————————- —-
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) is most well known for his role in the Scopes and Leopold-Loeb trials, but he also defended Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood and many other labor, antiwar and civil rights cases. More extensive discussion of his views on crime and punishment can be found in his books Resist Not Evil (1903) and Crime: Its Cause and Treatment (1922).

* * *

To read a sample or related Situationist posts, see “The Situation of False Confessions,” “The Legal Situation of the Underclass,” “The Situation of Criminality – Abstract,” “A Situationist View of Criminal Prosecutors,” “Jennifer Eberhardt’s “Policing Racial Bias” – Video,” “The Justice Department, Milgram, & Torture,” “Why Torture? Because It Feels Good (at least to “Us”),” “The Situation of Solitary Confinement,” “The Situation of Punishment (and Forgiveness),” “The Situation of Punishment,” “Why We Punish,” and “The Situation of Death Row.”

Obama + Google: A Love Story

info@usefularts.us (Dave Wieneke) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:53:50 GMT

Presidents Day and Valentines Day seemed to come together in Fortune Magazine’s feature story. This cover seemed an inspired visual melding of the brands, and the title promises some ‘juicy’ along with tech policy. The article chronicles Google’s shift from, like much of Silicon Valley, being blind to government policy, to building a lobbying arm to [...]

The article chronicles Google’s shift from, like much of Silicon Valley, being blind to government policy, to building a lobbying arm to participate in politics on both sides of the aisle. It also runs through a familiar list of Google’s current policy themes: antitrust, net neutrality, privacy, and copyright.

Happy Presidents Day!

Earth Limb

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:01:09 GMT

Situationist Contributor Dan Kahan, Hank Jenkins-Smith, and Donald Braman, have just posted another fascinating paper, “Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus” on SSRN. Here’s the abstract. * * * Why do members of the public disagree – sharply and persistently – about facts on which expert scientists largely agree? We designed a study to test a distinctive [...]

Situationist Contributor Dan Kahan, Hank Jenkins-Smith, and Donald Braman, have just posted another fascinating paper, “Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus” on SSRN. Here’s the abstract.

* * *

Why do members of the public disagree – sharply and persistently – about facts on which expert scientists largely agree? We designed a study to test a distinctive explanation: the cultural cognition of scientific consensus. The “cultural cognition of risk” refers to the tendency of individuals to form risk perceptions that are congenial to their values. The study presents both correlational and experimental evidence confirming that cultural cognition shapes individuals’ beliefs about the existence of scientific consensus, and the process by which they form such beliefs, relating to climate change, the disposal of nuclear wastes, and the effect of permitting concealed possession of handguns. The implications of this dynamic for science communication and public policy-making are discussed.

* * *

You can download the paper for free here. For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “The Broader Situation: A Case Study of Cop Car Cameras,” “Whose Eyes are You Going to Believe?,” “Dan Kahan on the Situation of Risk Perceptions,” “Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk,” To still more Situationist posts discussing cultural cognition, click here.

Edward Bernays

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:34:05 GMT

From Wikipedia: Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed the perception of the human mind and its workings. His influence on the twentieth century is generally considered profound. The series describes the ways public relations and politicians have utilized Freud’s theories during the last 100 years for the “engineering of consent.” * * * Freud himself and his [...]

From Wikipedia:

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed the perception of the human mind and its workings. His influence on the twentieth century is generally considered profound. The series describes the ways public relations and politicians have utilized Freud’s theories during the last 100 years for the “engineering of consent.”

* * *

Freud himself and his nephew Edward Bernays, who was the first to use psychological techniques in public relations, are discussed. Freud’s daughter Anna Freud, a pioneer of child psychology, is mentioned in the second part, as is one of the main opponents of Freud’s theories, Wilhelm Reich, in the third part.

* * *

Along these general themes, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy and its implications. It also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitude to fashion and superficiality.

* * *

The business and, increasingly, the political world uses psychological techniques to read and fulfill our desires, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to us. Curtis raises the question of the intentions and roots of this fact. Where once the political process was about engaging people’s rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians appeal to irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population. He cites Paul Mazer, a Wall Street banker working for Lehman Brothers in the 1930s: “We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. [...] Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

* * *

The videos from Episode One, “Happiness Machines,” are below. Here is the BBC’s overview:

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.
* * *

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

* * *

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

* * *

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today’s world.

* * *

For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Hey Dove! Talk to YOUR parent!,” “Deep Capture – Part IX,” “McDonalds tastes better than McDonalds, if it’s packaged right,” “Industry-Funded Research,” “Captured Science.”

Back To Haiti - Judge Says Let The Americans Go

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:52:33 GMT

In court and waiting for hearing but I just read the great news! Now it is up to the prosecutor to take the advice of the investigative judge. And to all of our countrymen who were so quick to judge their guilt or innocence without the benefit of any evidence, I remind you of the presumption of innocence. Now let's bring our people home and get back to the business of helping the Haitian people.

Devos Ma Image

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:01:10 GMT

In case you missed it, here is a worthwhile CNN International interview of Thierry Devos and Debbie Ma about their study, titled “Is Barack Obama American Enough to Be the Next President?: The Role of Ethnicity and National Identity in American Politics” (pdf here). The study’s introduction is as follows. * * * Recent research has demonstrated [...]

In case you missed it, here is a worthwhile CNN International interview of Thierry Devos and Debbie Ma about their study, titled “Is Barack Obama American Enough to Be the Next President?: The Role of Ethnicity and National Identity in American Politics” (pdf here). The study’s introduction is as follows.

* * *

Recent research has demonstrated a tenacious propensity to more readily ascribe the American identity to Whites than to ethnic minorities . . . . Interest in this American = White effect is timely given that a front runner in the 2008 presidential election is African American. The aim of the present research was to determine the role of ethnicity and national identity in the perception of political candidates, as well as identify correlates (behavioral, attitudinal, individual differences) of the American = White effect.

* * *

Roughly, the study found, among other things, that a black candidate may be implicitly conceived of as less American than a white candidate and that the more American a candidate is construed as being the more support that candidate receives. Here’s the video.

* * *

* * *

To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Racial Attitudes in the Presidential Race,” “The Situation of Being ‘(un)American’,” “The Racial Situation of Voting,” “Why Race May Influence Us Even When We “Know” It Doesn’t,”“On Being a Mindful Voter,” “Your Brain on Politics,” “Implicit Associations in the 2008 Presidential Election,” “The Situation of Political Animals,” “Political Psychology in 2008,” “Perceptions of Racial Divide,The Psychology of Barack Obama as the Antichrist,” and “The Interior Situation of Undecided Voters.”

Take our Policy IAT here.

In Haiti There Is No Presumption of Innocence

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:13:53 GMT

I was struck by the irony of it all - abandoned and orphaned children being delivered to another orphanage by apparently well meaning Americans - while the government of Haiti cannot deliver even the most basic essentials to its people. They cannot take so much as water to their own but they presume American missionaries are trafficking in children. Sick. That is the single word to describe their miserable failure. And these missionaries who have traveled from thousands of miles away and were simply taking helpless children to another orphanage are - by the government of Haiti - presumed to be criminals. Here is how it was reported:

"But the prime minister said some legal system needs to determine whether the Americans were acting in good faith - as they claim - or are child traffickers in a nation that has struggled to fight exploitation of children."

I will not presume the guilt of Americans who spent their own money to go to the aid of children, and neither would our judicial system. Not in our country. Not in America. And that is just one of the important differences between the greatest justice system in the world and every other. We do not presume guilt, we require proof. And no criminal defendant in this country has to prove innocence. We presume you are innocent unless proven otherwise in a court of law. Yes - people are arrested and held before trial, but they are not used by the government to shift focus away from their own failings.

America. Filled with people who would give up their money for others and travel to tragedy to try and save children. We do not have to apologize here. And maybe the government of Haiti should spend a little more time trying to save its own children.

Liberal Face

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:01:08 GMT

Susan Perry has a terrific article in yesterday’s Minneapolis Post, titled “How we use stereotypes to identify people’s political affiliations.” Here are some excerpts. * * * . . . . According to a study published this month in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, people can identify with remarkable accuracy (more than by chance guessing) whether another [...]

Susan Perry has a terrific article in yesterday’s Minneapolis Post, titled “How we use stereotypes to identify people’s political affiliations.” Here are some excerpts.

* * *

. . . . According to a study published this month in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, people can identify with remarkable accuracy (more than by chance guessing) whether another person is a Republican or a Democrat by simply looking at that person’s headshot.

How do we do it? By relying on stereotypes, the study found. Republicans, apparently, look “powerful” in our minds, and Democrats appear “warm.”

Of course, these kinds of stereotypes can lead to perceptual errors. “Not all Democrats appear warm and not all Republicans appear powerful,” wrote the study’s authors. “However, the linearity of these effects is noteworthy: appearing warmer led to a greater chance that a target would be perceived as a Democrat and appearing more powerful led to a greater chance that a target would be perceived as a Republican.”

Experiment #1
The study, which was conducted by Nalini Ambady, Ph.D., a social psychologist at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., and Tufts doctoral candidate Nicholas Rule, involved three separate experiments.

In the first experiment, 29 undergraduates were asked to categorize the faces of 118 unnamed professional politicians (2004 and 2006 U.S. Senate candidates).The photos (cropped to be of identical size and converted to grayscale) included women candidates, but minority candidates were excluded to avoid race-based stereotypes.

After the data was analyzed, the study found that participants had categorized the photos correctly at a rate that was significantly better than chance guessing. Those results held even when the responses of 10 participants who said they recognized at least one of the candidates were excluded from the calculations.

Experiment #2
To see if the results of the first experiment could be extended to other groups of people, the researchers conducted a second experiment. . . . [involving] the political affiliation of photos take from the senior yearbooks of a private U.S. university. . . .

Again, the participants’ categorization of the political affiliations of the students in the photos was significantly greater than chance guessing.

Experiment #3
Intrigued by these findings, the researchers decided to determine what, exactly, people were using to determine if someone were a Democrat or a Republican. . . .

* * *

Faces perceived to be that of Republican scored higher on the “Power” scale and those perceived to be that of a Democrat scored high on the “Warmth” scale.

* * *
Other research has pointed out that we’re quick to make snap judgments about the people we meet based on their appearance — and often, of course, unfairly. “People are known to form impression of others from their faces instantaneously and automatically,” write Rule and Ambady. “Moreover, these perceptions can have highly consequential outcomes, such as affecting the jobs that individuals are offered, their outcomes in court, and their financial success.”

* * *

To read the entire article, including the conclusion, which summarizes “some truly provocative research about how election results can be predicted by the candidates’ facial traits,” click here.

To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Social Tuning and Ideology – Part 1 and Part 2,” “The Situation of Ideology – Part I,” “The Situation of Ideology – Part II,” “Ideology is Back!,” “A System-Justification Primer,” “Barbara Ehrenreich on the Sources of and Problems with Dispositionism,” ““Yuck!” “EWW!” and Other Conservative Expressions,” “Unclean Hands” and “The Situation of Political Disposition,” “Ideology is Back!,” “The Situation of Confabulation,”

State of the Union

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:37:46 GMT

Would it be too cynical to call it State of the (dis)Union? I’ll be taking notes. I’m looking forward to Governor McDonnell’s response and the post-game analysis by my fellow esteemed SA bloggers who are all a lot smarter than me. Live blog here if you wish. I’ll bring the popcorn.

yojoe

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 03:35:05 GMT

New professional basketball league for whites only.

Corporate America

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:01:30 GMT

Situationist Contributor David Yosifon published a thoughtful and timely op-ed, in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Here are some excerpts. * * * Corporations are crucial institutions in our society. Consumers rely on them for everything from the basic provisions of food and clothing to the more dispensable delights of computers and cell phones. Workers rely on them [...]

Situationist Contributor David Yosifon published a thoughtful and timely op-ed, in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Here are some excerpts.

* * *

Corporations are crucial institutions in our society. Consumers rely on them for everything from the basic provisions of food and clothing to the more dispensable delights of computers and cell phones. Workers rely on them for jobs. Communities need them for a tax base. Shareholders rely on them for profits that fund retirement, or entrepreneurial activity.

We all have a stake in effective corporate operations. Yet corporate directors are not required, indeed are not allowed, to put the interests of any party above shareholders in their decision making.

Now the Supreme Court has declared that the First Amendment forbids us from restricting corporate spending on political campaigns. If we cannot restrain corporations from influencing our democracy, then we must have more democracy in the management of our corporations. Directors of publicly traded corporations should be required to become informed about and to deliberate on the interests of all corporate stakeholders, not just shareholders.

The idea that we all have a stake in corporate behavior might seem at odds with the current “shareholder primacy” rule in corporate governance. But it could make sense. Most shareholders are highly diversified, with small investments in a large number of funds or corporations spread across the country and the world. The profit-maximization rule provides shareholders sufficient repose to invest their money at such a distance and with so little say in corporate decisions. Workers, on the other hand, can negotiate and monitor their wages and working conditions directly, or through unions. Consumers can manage their corporate interests at the cash register – they can buy at the offered price or walk away.

But corporations are often more powerful than workers or consumers. Firms can skimp on safety, for example, in ways that are difficult to observe – think asbestos in the factory or trans fats in the fries. Sure, sometimes the socially responsible corporate policy is also the most profitable – as when safer products attract more consumers. But it is naive to think that shareholder interests are always aligned with the rest of society. For a long time policymakers have argued that even where society is vulnerable to corporate overreaching, corporate boards should still focus on shareholder interests. We should rely, the story goes, on external government regulation – such as workplace safety, consumer protection or antipollution statutes – to safeguard social interests.

This approach assumes that government will be capable of developing regulations sufficient to constrain corporate misconduct. But corporations have the incentive and power to stunt such efforts. Firms accomplish this in part through lobbying, donations and direct spending in support of candidates. Because of their wealth, corporations can routinely best other constituencies in the competition for regulatory favor. This problem will only intensify with the new Supreme Court ruling.

* * *

You can read the op-ed in its entirety here.

For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Taking the Situation of Consumers Seriously,” “Against Freedom of Commercial Expression – Abstract,” “Merchants of Discontent – Abstract,” “The Changing Face of Marketing?,” “Reclaiming Corporate Law in a New Gilded Age – Abstract,” “The Situation of Illusion,” “Hey Dove! Talk to YOUR parent!,” “The Situation of Our Food – Part II,” “The Situation of Our Food – Part III,” “The Changing Face of Marketing?,” “The Illusion of Wall Street Reform,” “Reclaiming Corporate Law in a New Gilded Age – Abstract,” “Deep Capture – Part VI,” and “Deep Capture – Part VII.”

Greed is Good (Not)

rsbrown@ualberta.ca (Russell Brown) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:52:30 GMT

This post, after the break, is long. It deals with the just posted (on the ONCA website) result in Chippewas of Mnjikaning First Nation v. Chiefs of Ontario, 2010 ONCA 47 . If you click on the case, it will...

http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2010/january/2010ONCA0047.htm
http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2010/january/2010ONCA0047.pdf

In summary, the MFN claimed that they are entitled to 35% of the net revenues from Casino Rama - the casino and night club located on their reserve in Ontario - in perpetuity or until they agree otherwise. The MFN lost at trial. The MFN lost again on appeal. The decision was unanimous. I suspect that, given the amounts involved, this one is headed for the SCC.

I've excerpted paragraphs that might explain, for some, the title I've chosen. I suggest the excerpts "speak for themselves".

Chippewas of Mnjikaning First Nation v. Chiefs of Ontario, 2010 ONCA 47

Court of Appeal For Ontario (O’Connor A.C.J.O., Blair and Juriansz JJ.A.)

[1] Casino Rama is the only commercial casino located on a First Nation reserve in Ontario. It was established as a pilot project to benefit all Ontario First Nations economically, the intention being that one First Nation would be selected as the host site but that the revenues would be shared among all First Nations in the province. How that revenue sharing was to be effected is the underlying theme in these proceedings.

[2] Since opening to the public on July 31, 1996, Casino Rama has generated gross revenues in excess of $5.2 billion and net profits in excess of $1.2 billion.[1] The Chippewas of Mnjikaning First Nation (“MFN”)[2] – the casino’s host with a population of approximately 1,500 people – claims to be entitled to 35% of the net profits, in perpetuity, as well as to a portion of the gross revenues representing its share of operating compensation. It claims that the Site Selection Process in which it was chosen as the host site gave rise to a binding contract with the Government of Ontario that it would receive 35% of the net profits, as set out in its proposal submitted to the Selection Panel in November 1994.[3]

fn [1] These totals represent audited financial information through the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007, the latest financial information available on the record.

fn [2] At the time of trial, the proper name of the plaintiff/appellant was the Chippewas of Mnjikaning First Nation, and it was referred to at trial as “Mnjikaning” or “MFN”. Its name was subsequently changed to the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, the name it held from 1993 to 1996, when the events leading up to the establishment of the casino took place. We shall refer to the appellant as “MFN” or, sometimes, as “the First Nation”, in these Reasons.

fn [3] While the issue is whether there was a contract with the Province, Ontario does not assert a claim to any of the monies at issue in this proceeding. It accepts that the monies do not belong to the Crown, but belong to the collective First Nations.

[3] MFN is one of 134 First Nations in Ontario. The remaining 133 First Nations, represented by the Chiefs of Ontario and the Ontario First Nations Limited Partnership, oppose MFN’s claim. They argue that the Site Selection Process was just that – a site selection process – and that revenue sharing as between all of Ontario’s First Nations, including the host’s share, was to be negotiated in a separate round of negotiations following site selection that would embrace a broader and more representative group of First Nation interests.

[4] After a 47-day trial, Justice Gans dismissed MFN’s action. He found in essence that the Site Selection Process did not result in a binding agreement between MFN and Ontario entitling MFN to a 35% share of net revenues from Casino Rama. In that regard, he found that a reasonable person, viewing the evidence objectively, would not have concluded that a binding agreement on revenue sharing was to, or did, result from the Site Selection Process. In addition, he found that MFN’s representatives never subjectively believed they had such a contract. He also rejected MFN’s fiduciary duty argument.

[5] In an all-out onslaught, MFN attacks virtually every factual finding the trial judge made and argues that the trial judge created a perception of bias and that he intervened in the conduct of the trial in such a way that the trial process itself was irreparably tainted with unfairness. MFN also asserts numerous legal errors, including those relating to the law of fiduciary obligations and the application of contractual and tender law jurisprudence, the trial judge’s alleged failure to consider and appreciate the cultural background and unique Aboriginal perspective of MFN’s witnesses, and the insufficiency of his reasons.

[6] After careful consideration, we are satisfied that there is no merit in any of the grounds of appeal advanced and, for the reasons that follow, we dismiss the appeal.

[70] Against this background, we are asked to resolve the following issues. Did the trial judge err:

a) By failing to give sufficient reasons to explain his findings and conclusions?

b) By making palpable and overriding factual errors in almost every finding he made?

c) By misapprehending and misapplying the law of tender and RFPs?

d) By misapprehending the legal context of the dispute and, in particular, by

(i) failing to consider the fiduciary duty of the Province to First Nations;

(ii) misapprehending the legal status and relationship of First Nations; or

(iii) misapprehending the Aboriginal cultural context? or

e) By engaging in excessive and improper intervention in the presentation of evidence and during closing argument?

[71] We would answer each of these questions in the negative.

[72] On appeal, MFN launched what can fairly be described as a scorched-earth attack on the trial judge’s findings of fact, his legal conclusions, the sufficiency of his reasons and his conduct of the trial. We shall deal with the trial judge’s legal conclusions and his comportment during the trial later in these Reasons. First, we turn to the attack on his reasons and findings of fact.

A. Sufficiency of Reasons

[74] This argument is without merit. ...

B. Alleged Fact-Finding Errors

[79] We say at the outset that in our view the record amply confirms the findings of fact and credibility made by the trial judge. ...

[80] None of the documentary evidence relied upon by MFN reflects the existence of an agreement with Ontario on revenue sharing. ...

[almost 100 paras later, after the court reviews MFN's specific complaints]

[175] This concludes our examination of the alleged fact-finding errors raised on behalf of the appellant. To repeat, the record amply confirms the findings of fact and of credibility made by the trial judge. We find no basis for holding that he made any significant findings that conflicted with accepted evidence, improperly weighed or assessed the evidence, or misapplied the hearsay rule. The appellant’s essential complaint is the trial judge’s failure to accept MFN’s interpretation of the evidence and the documentation.

[176] While the appellant is able to point to some isolated instances where the trial judge failed to refer to certain bits of evidence that might have supported the testimony of its witnesses, the trial judge was not obliged to make reference to every stitch of evidence before him. He gave thorough and careful reasons, and it is not apparent to us that he failed to consider any material aspects of the record before him. It was open to him to make the findings he did.

C. Contract: Did the Site Selection Process Constitute a Binding Tender/RFP Process?

[178] The trial judge concluded – correctly, in our view – that the Site Selection Process did not fall within the legal paradigm of a tender contract. ...

[194] Nor is there any merit in the appellant’s argument that, even if tender/RFP law does not apply, a contract was nonetheless formed by subsequent ratification on Ontario’s part. Even if there exists a concept of “contract formation by ratification” – about which we make no comment – the facts as found by the trial judge preclude any such conclusion here. At most, Ontario might be said to have “ratified” – i.e., accepted – the First Nations’ collective decision, made at the AOCCs in 1996 and 1997, to allocate a 35% share of net revenues to MFN for a five-year period.

D. The Legal Context of the Dispute: Fiduciary Duty, the Aboriginal Context and the Relationship between the Parties

[195] MFN contends that the trial judge completely misapprehended the legal context and the legal relationships among the parties in his analysis of the dispute. This affected both his substantive conclusions and his assessment of the evidence. ...

[196] We would not give effect to any of these submissions.

E. Interventions by the Trial Judge

[225] Finally, MFN submits that the trial judge’s conduct of the trial created a reasonable apprehension that he was biased in favour of the respondents’ case. It argues that the trial judge intervened in the trial on an extraordinary number of occasions and that the cumulative effect of those interventions created the impression that he was receptive to the respondents’ case and dismissive of the appellant’s.

[228] The core of MFN’s complaint is that the trial judge’s interventions throughout the trial and during closing argument created an appearance of unfairness. From the outset, he seemed antagonistic to MFN’s case and on occasion to its counsel, it says. MFN argues that the cumulative effect of the trial judge’s interventions and comments were such that an objective observer would reasonably conclude that the trial judge had made up his mind before the trial had been completed.

[249] After the first witness, the trial judge’s practice of intervening continued. There is no question that the trial judge was “an active judge”. He intervened more often than many other judges might have.

[250] That said, this was a trial that needed a firm hand. While there was an enormous amount of money at stake, that by itself does not necessarily translate into a more extensive trial. As can be seen from the issues raised on this appeal, the core of this case turned on whether MFN was able to establish that there was an agreement that it would receive 35% of the net revenues of the casino operation at the time it was selected as the site for the casino. There was a discrete and limited body of evidence that bore on this critical issue.

[251] This turned out to be a lengthy trial – 47 days long. The trial judge was understandably concerned that the trial proceed efficiently and effectively. He knew the issues, followed the evidence carefully and was having difficulty making sense of some of MFN’s evidence and, in some instances, with MFN’s theory of its case. A fair reading of his interventions shows that he was concerned appropriately that he fully understand the evidence and MFN’s positions on the factual and legal issues.

[252] As we point out above, when assessing allegations that a trial judge has unduly intervened in the conduct of a trial, it is essential to look at the trial as a whole and the effect of the interventions on the entire proceeding. We have done that. We are satisfied that to a large extent, the trial judge’s interventions in this case were properly directed at managing the trial and controlling the process. As it was, even with the trial judge’s interventions, this trial took a long time. Had he not played such an active role, it could have taken longer. That would have been unfortunate.

[253] In addition, there are several factors in this case that tend to reduce any concern that the trial judge’s interventions created perceptions of unfairness.

[254] First, it is worth noting that throughout the trial, experienced counsel who acted for MFN did not object that the trial judge was being too interventionist. On the contrary, counsel invited the trial judge to intervene and ask questions as he saw fit. While the failure of a party to object to what it later alleges were undue interventions is not fatal to succeeding on such an argument, it is certainly relevant. Here, over the course of a 47-day trial, one might reasonably expect that counsel for MFN would have raised some objection if the trial judge’s interventions were creating the perception of unfairness that it now alleges. Objections of this sort can be made in a measured and respectful way and need not result in confrontation between counsel and a trial judge.

[255] Secondly, in assessing the impact of the trial judge’s interventions, it is also important to bear in mind that throughout he demonstrated sensitivity to, and was solicitous of, the witnesses. The trial judge explained the nature of the process to many of the witnesses and showed patience with the witnesses when there was confusion or when additional time was required to lead the evidence. As an example, he permitted one of MFN’s witnesses to speak with her counsel during cross-examination to better enable the witness to understand the line of questioning. As mentioned above, the complaints raised on this appeal with respect to improper interventions are largely directed at interventions or comments made to MFN’s counsel and not to the witnesses.

[264] In the result, we see no basis to interfere with the result at trial based on the allegation that the trial judge’s interventions throughout the trial and during the closing created an appearance of unfairness such that an objective observer would reasonably conclude that the trial judge had made up his mind before the trial had been completed.

[267] We conclude our reasons by thanking counsel for their thorough and helpful submissions.

Some people might also wonder about the applicability of the "honor amongst ..." adage.

A Good Day for Virginia

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:03:38 GMT

Yesterday I had the good fortune to attend the inauguration of Virginia’s 71st governor, Bob McDonnell. All the guests were full of energy and enthusiasm as we watched him take the oath of office, along with his Lieutenant-Governor Bob Bolling and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. It really felt like being at a concert of my favorite rockstar – the excitement goes beyond description. I couldn’t do it justice if I tried. There was a little something for everyone, from the flyover after the oath to the Redskins cheerleaders to the history in which Richmond is steeped. The next four years should be good for Virginia and I pray for the Governor and his family.

Below is the full text of his Inaugural Address, courtesy of #bobmcdonnell:

Prepared text of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s inaugural address given Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010 at the state Capitol:

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker.

Lt. Governor Bolling.

Attorney General Cuccinelli.

Members of the General Assembly.

Distinguished guests from around the world and across the country, family and friends, my fellow Virginians.

Good afternoon!

We gather today on the steps of our magnificent and newly renovated State Capitol.

From this hill the land rolls gently down to the James River, the waterway of the Settlers in 1607.

From this place, the sweep of history has moved us forward to today.

This is the cradle of democracy for Virginia and America.

Governor Thomas Jefferson designed this Capitol building.

Governor Patrick Henry came here for the laying of its cornerstone.

I am humbled today to follow in their historic footsteps.

The General Assembly first convened in this new building during the first term of America’s first President, Virginia’s George Washington.

Behind me, in the Rotunda, are the busts of the eight Virginians who became President.

It was here that Robert E. Lee, the son of a Virginia Governor, was commissioned as Commander of the Commonwealth’s military forces as a young nation split into war.

It was here, just four years later, that President Abraham Lincoln came to begin the process of reuniting our war-torn nation, walking the streets of still smoldering Richmond.

And it was here, 125 years after Lincoln’s visit that a grandson of slaves, L. Douglas Wilder, took the Oath of Office as the nation’s first African-American Governor.

And it is here, today, that an average middle class kid from Fairfax County, a grandson of Irish immigrants, is given the enormous honor of becoming the 71st Governor of Virginia.

As it turns out, I succeed another descendent of Irish immigrants, Governor Timothy Kaine.

On behalf of the grateful people of Virginia, I thank Governor Kaine for his leadership and service to our Commonwealth.

Today’s Virginia is a thriving and diverse home of nearly 8 million people, with one in ten born outside the United States.

A state of rich history and strong people, we do face many challenges together.

We do not face the challenges of forming a new government or securing a young nation, as did Washington, Jefferson and Henry.

We do not encounter the devastation and destruction of Civil War, as did Lincoln and Lee.

We do not struggle with the injustice of slavery and its legacy of segregation as did Governor Wilder as a young man.

We do not march into bullets and artillery shells, as did the Greatest Generation on the beaches of Normandy and the islands of the Pacific. Two members of that generation, who served in World War II, my father Jack McDonnell and my father-in-law Frank Gardner, join us here today.

On behalf of a grateful Commonwealth I thank them, and all military members and veterans, for their incredible sacrifice and service to our nation that continues today.

The actions of those patriots that came before us had a common purpose to create and expand freedom and opportunity for the generations that came behind them.

The creation of, and desire for, new opportunity has shaped Virginia from its foundation.

It was in seeking the Opportunity of a New World that Captain John Smith and 104 settlers braved the perilous Atlantic to step onto the sands of Cape Henry in April 1607.

It was in securing the Opportunity of a New Nation that Virginia patriots joined together with their fellow colonists in the first fight for freedom and independence, and thus was born a country of ordered liberty that, 234 years later, is the beacon of hope for the world.

It was in seizing the Opportunity of equality and education that a courageous 16 year-old girl named Barbara Johns, memorialized behind this majestic Capitol at the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial, stood up and walked out of Moton High School in Farmville 59 years ago this spring.

New opportunity helped them meet the challenges of their time.

Greater opportunity will help us meet the challenges of ours.

Together we must create jobs and economic opportunities.

Provide new educational opportunities for all Virginians.

And enhance family and community opportunities by easing government burdens on free people.

As Virginians, we believe that government must help foster a society in which all our people can use their God-given talents in liberty to pursue the American Dream.

Where opportunity is absent, we must create it. Where opportunity is limited, we must expand it. Where opportunity is unequal, we must make it open to everyone.

Our Administration will be dedicated to building “A Commonwealth of Opportunity” for all Virginians.

It starts with restoring economic opportunity to Virginians in every corner of our Commonwealth.

Tens of thousands of our family members, friends and neighbors have lost their jobs.

Thousands more worry they could be next.

As we confront the worst economy in generations, the creation of new job opportunities for all our citizens is the obligation of our time, so all Virginians who seek a good job can find meaningful work and the dignity that comes with it.

Virginia has received high rankings over the years for being a business-friendly state.

Those rankings speak well of our past. They do not determine our future.

Competition for jobs is intense among the states, and between nations. States are aggressively positioning themselves to best appeal to job creators and entrepreneurs.

We must make this the best state in which to start and grow a small business.

It is why we will reduce burdensome taxation and regulation that impede job-creation.

And, it is why, even in these tough times, we will have the foresight to invest today in ideas and policies that increase economic prosperity tomorrow.

This economic crisis has touched every Virginian.

Declining home values and diminished retirement accounts have wiped away in just a few months the accumulated savings of many years.

As jobs are lost and consumer confidence remains low, state revenues have declined, and an historic budget shortfall has stretched into the billions. Thus, like so many households and businesses across the Commonwealth, state government needs to devise new ways to operate and find savings.

This austerity won’t be easy, but it is necessary. The circumstances of our time demand that we reconsider and restore the proper role of government. Without reform the continued growth of government threatens our very prosperity.

We must properly fund the core priorities of government, but — equally important — we must utilize innovation, privatization, and consolidations to deliver government services more effectively.

And as we enact these reforms we must remember this: that government cannot guarantee individual outcomes, but equality of opportunity must be guaranteed for all.

All Virginians must have the same fundamental opportunities to work hard, live free and succeed.

Access to a quality education is the foundation of future opportunity. My Dad stressed to me as a child that to get a good job, you need a good education. It was true then and even more true today.

Virginians are blessed with many great schools with dedicated, professional teachers like my sister Nancy in Amherst, who work tirelessly to mold the minds and character of the next generation.

To compete in this global economy every young Virginian must have the opportunity of a world-class education from pre-school to college.

A child’s future prospects should be as unlimited as his intelligence, integrity and work ethic can take him. No child in Virginia should have her future determined by her place of birth or zip code.

We will work with President Obama to expand high-quality charter schools and institute performance pay to our great teachers.

More money must go to the classroom and less into administration, and new opportunities in science, technology, engineering, math and healthcare must be created through our schools and colleges.

And let us recognize that a high school degree is no longer the finish line in a global economy. We must create affordable new pathways to earning a college degree and make a commitment to confer 100,000 additional degrees over the next 15 years. We must make our community colleges national leaders in workforce development and career training.

These are investments that will pay individual and societal dividends for many years to come.

Barbara Johns was willing to risk everything for the simple opportunity of a good education. Surely, sixty years later, we can work together to provide that opportunity to all Virginia children.

Our Administration will demand excellence, reward performance, provide choices and celebrate achievement.

God has bestowed upon our Commonwealth an amazing wealth of natural resources. Virginians have the intellectual capital to use these resources to create new jobs, reduce our energy bills, and make our nation more energy independent.

We will make Virginia the “Energy Capital of the East Coast.” By growing the natural gas and coal industries, expanding the use of nuclear power, and promoting new energy technologies like wind, solar and biomass.

And we will champion environmentally-safe offshore energy exploration and production, bringing with it thousands of new jobs, hundreds of millions in new state revenue and billions in new investment.

We must also seize the opportunity to improve our transportation system by getting long overdue projects under way, and utilizing innovative ideas to build the roads, bridges, rail and ports we need.

A better transportation system will create new opportunities for Virginians across the state.

These are policies focused on addressing the real problems our people face, and delivering results.

I’ve had people tell me they fear that America may no longer be the land of opportunity it has always been, and that Virginia’s history in playing a leading role in the life of our nation may be just thathistory. I say: They are wrong.

Working together — Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike — Virginia will continue to blaze the trail of opportunity and prosperity.

And like the mechanic looking to the owner’s manual to troubleshoot the automobile, we should look to the Founders and their writings for wisdom.

The Founders capstone on the Constitution is the Bill of Rights. No federal mandate nor program crafted by either political party should undermine the central principle of federalism, enshrined in the birth certificate of America by those who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.

The Founders recognized that the government closest to the people governs best. More often than not, Richmond knows better about the hopes and dreams of the people than Washington. And Galax and Fairfax and Virginia Beach know far better than Richmond.

As we enthusiastically pursue the vision of “A Commonwealth of Opportunity”, I ask all Virginians to continue to seek your own opportunities to get involved in the life of our Commonwealth.

Half a century ago President Kennedy challenged the American people to “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Today, I ask all Virginians to rise up to meet this timeless challenge.

We live in the most generous nation on Earth. So many Virginians give sacrificially of their time, talents and treasure, and rightly so. The Scriptures say, “To whom much is given, much will be required.”

Right now, much is required in the nation of Haiti. And I urge all Virginians to donate to the relief efforts under way.

Here in our Commonwealth, I urge business owners to look for opportunities to sponsor a little league team, help a charity, and promote corporate responsibility in the communities in which you live and work.

I urge all the leaders of our faith communities to expand your selfless work of helping the homeless, feeding the poor, and comforting the broken hearted.

I urge the young people of Virginia to use your talents and energy to fully engage in the future of this Commonwealth.

I urge Virginians who came here from other lands to contribute your culture, your history and your traditions to our rich tapestry of life.

I urge every Virginian to take every opportunity to thank a man or woman in a law enforcement or military uniform for the preservation of our freedoms.

There is so much each one of us can do to leave this Commonwealth a better place than we found it.

No government program can substitute for the incredible good done through voluntary actions performed freely by caring individuals every day.

And while government can help provide opportunities, it is every person’s responsibility to take advantage of them.

In recent weeks I’ve seen people exercising that responsibility, and changing lives at:

The Healing Place in Richmond.

The Carpenter’s Shelter in Alexandria.

Food Banks in Abingdon, Norfolk and Richmond.

The Boys and Girls Club in Virginia Beach.

The USO in Norfolk.

As a Commonwealth, we must do the same … and we will.

Standing here today, on the steps of our State Capitol, in the inspiring shadows of the shared history behind us, we embrace the limitless future opportunities stretching out far before us.

And now it is here, in this place, that we pledge to work together to create “A Commonwealth of Opportunity” … for all Virginians, and to add our steps to Virginia’s journey.

It was George Washington who noted, in his first Inaugural Address, “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected to remain on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”

It is right to help one another.

It is right to work together to get results and solve problems.

It is right to provide opportunities for all.

Let us heed the words of the Father of our Country, employ these eternal rules of order and right, and get to work for the good of the people of Virginia.

Thank you and God Bless the Commonwealth of Virginia.

yojoe

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:34:07 GMT

PETA protests the waterboarding of chickens at GTMO.

Reid Obama

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:55:08 GMT

Imagine a scenario. An African American lawyer, we can even call him “Barry,” has applied for a job at a prestigious firm—one that has never before hired a Black person. You eavesdrop on a couple of partners talking about the candidate. Question: Which, if either, of the these overheard comments is the more racist? “I don’t [...]

“I don’t know… Barry’s facing an uphill climb at an all-White firm like this. However, he just might have a shot given the fact that he’s fairly light-complected and doesn’t speak using African American Vernacular English.”

* * *

“This firm’s going to hell if it hires a Black guy. I wish Strom Thurmond were the head of the hiring committee.”

The analogy may be a bit crude. But those paying attention to recent political news will recognize the partners as stand-ins for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Senator (and Majority Leader) Trent Lott, respectively. Senator Reid has found himself in hot water for comments he made in 2008 assessing Barack Obama’s chances of winning the presidency. Republicans, in particular, have decried Reid’s “racist” comments, demanding that he apologize to the American people and relinquish his leadership position in the Senate. They insist that this is exactly what happened to their own Trent Lott in 2002. Let’s take a look at what Reid and Lott said:

Reid told the authors of a new book about the 2008 campaign that “the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama—a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’”

* * *

Lott toasted the late Strom Thurmond by saying, “When [Thurmond] ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.”

Interestingly, I haven’t read or heard a single commentator dispute the accuracy of what Reid said. I’ve heard many say—and I agree—that his comments were indelicate and his use of the term “Negro” anachronistic. Politically stupid, yes. But also true. Anti-Black racism is alive and well in our country, and there is good evidence that it affected voting patterns in the 2008 election and continues to shape attitudes toward President Obama’s policies. It is entirely plausible that the ways in which Obama doesn’t fit most Americans’ stereotype of “Black person” (itself a media-perpetuated caricature) mitigated the high electoral hurdles he faced. More to the point, the social-psychological literature on “colorism”—the tendency of lighter-skinned Blacks to be viewed and treated more positively than those with darker skin—corroborates Reid’s prediction that Obama would have a relatively good shot at the presidency. There is no incompatibility between the content of Reid’s observation and having perfectly progressive racial views.

What about Lott’s comments? In waxing nostalgic over Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential run, Lott is endorsing the politics of a segregationist firebrand who, as Senator, filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for a record 24 hours and 18 minutes. One can’t read Lott’s comments without suspecting that the “problems” he believes President Thurmond would have prevented include things like racial integration and equality under the law. Now that strikes me as racist, and for Republicans to liken Reid’s comment to Lott’s—and to imply that they should suffer similar fates—is silly.

This episode says a great deal about how Americans talk (or fail to talk) about race. Most illustrative were comments made by Liz Cheney on ABC’s This Week. Ms. Cheney found herself sparring with, of all people, conservative commentator George Will over the Reid affair. Cheney contended that Reid’s comments were “outrageous” and “racist.” When Will countered that Reid’s comments contained “not a scintilla of racism,” Cheney responded—and this is telling—”George, give me a break. I mean, talking about the color of the president’s skin…” For Cheney, the mere mention of race is tantamount to racism. It’s worth pausing to appreciate how pernicious this extreme form of color-blindness is. If we can’t talk about race, we can’t talk about racial inequality—and if we can’t talk about racial inequality, we’re guaranteed not to do anything about it. Perhaps this is exactly what some people want.

* * *

This post first appeared on Seeing in Color.

For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Wages Are Only Skin Deep – Abstract,” “Colorblinded Wages - Abstract,” “Shades of Fairness and the Marketing of Prejudice,” “The Situation of the Obama Presidency and Race Perceptions,” “The Cognitive Costs of Interracial Interactions,” “Perceptions of Racial Divide,” “Racial Attitudes in the Presidential Race,” “Black History is Now,” “The Racial Situation of Voting,” “Why Are They So Biased?,” and “I’m Objective, You’re Biased,”

thesituationist

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 04:10:43 GMT

Situationist Contributor Linda Hamilton Krieger is the French-American Foundation’s scholar-in-residence at Sciences Po. She recently appeared on a France24 debate to discuss French and American strategies for fighting discrimination in hiring and education. You can watch the roughly six-minute video of the interview below. * * * * * * To review a sample of related Situationist posts, [...]

Situationist Contributor Linda Hamilton Krieger is the French-American Foundation’s scholar-in-residence at Sciences Po. She recently appeared on a France24 debate to discuss French and American strategies for fighting discrimination in hiring and education. You can watch the roughly six-minute video of the interview below.

* * *

To review a sample of related Situationist posts, see see “Implicit Associations on Oprah,” “Afraid of Knowing Ourselves,” “Why Race May Influence Us Even When We “Know” It Doesn’t,” “Geoffrey Cohen on “Identity, Belief, and Bias”,” “Colorblinded Wages – Abstract,” “The Cognitive Costs of Interracial Interactions,” “Measuring Implicit Attitudes,” “Firefighters and the Situation of “Merit”,” “The Situation of Situation in Employment Discrimination Law – Abstract.”

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