The arrest of the Spanish rapper known as Pablo Hasel in February sparked violent protests in his native Catalonia, but also across Spain. Judging from international news coverage, Spain’s young people had erupted in anger over a lack of free speech in the country, 46 years after its post-dictatorship transition to democracy. A closer look, however, reveals a more complex story about how the Catalan independence movement drove these protests, as well as a more nuanced debate about European versus American concepts of free speech, even as Spain forges ahead with an already-promised reform to its free speech law.
Read the full article on my last piece for World Politics Review.
Last month’s election in Catalonia underlined the deep and longstanding divisions in the region over whether to seek independence from the rest of Spain. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party may have won the most votes, but separatist parties together won the most seats in the regional Parliament and are poised to form a government. However, the record-low voter turnout of just over 53 percent raises questions about how much of a mandate the new Catalan government will have.
Read the full article on my last piece for World Politics Review.
An angry mob breaking into a government building and halting an election processes isn’t an out of the ordinary scene. We’ve seen it on the evening news many times. Just not in America, not the “shining city on a hill.” No, this sort of thing doesn’t happen in America. Until it did.
Picking winners and losers from Joe Biden’s presidential victory is decidedly Trumpian. This false dichotomy of friends and enemies, you’re either with us or against us, has dominated US politics for the past four years. But politics is about power and power is not a zero-sum game. It is messy and diffuse, and the coming Biden administration understands this. We’ll need to get familiar again with a less head-splitting news cycle, one that instead of struggling to explain how mendacious the president is, actually wades into the weeds of policy.
This is part of my special collaboration for IE University, where I look at the potential winners and losers of a Biden presidency after four years of chaotic domestic and international policies. With the United States’ international reputation damaged, how is Biden likely to try to rebuild it and who will benefit?
¡Estoy muy emocionada de agregar "guionista" a mi currículum con este video! Este fue un proyecto fantástico para trabajar antes de la Asamblea General de la ONU que está en pleno apogeo.
“I know a predator when I see one,” Kamala Harris assured viewers during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention this week. This thinly veiled reference to Trump gained even more relevance when Steve Bannon was arrested on Thursday. You know, the architect of Trump’s 2016 campaign, especially the central theme of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Or perhaps you remember his more recent exploits here in Europe advising right-wing populist campaigns and even trying to create a Europe-wide populist ‘supergroup’. Yeah, that guy was arrested for defrauding donors to a foundation that promised to build, well, the wall.
This brings it to total of seven Trump advisors who have been criminally charged in one way or another, a testament to the breathtaking corruption of Trump and his minions. It took place the same day that Joe Biden accepted the Democratic nomination and just four days before the Republican Party kicks off its own convention. Most importantly, it puts into stark relief that Bannon’s big idea of building a wall across the Southern border of the U.S. with Mexico that he gifted to Trump was nothing more than a con.
MADRID—Tens of thousands of households in Spain began receiving checks last Friday under a new guaranteed minimum income program that was passed by parliament in early June. Plans to provide a guaranteed income had been part of the coalition agreement reached in January between the ruling Socialists and their junior coalition partner, the far-left Podemos party, but they were fast-tracked due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Spain is one of the hardest-hit countries from COVID-19, with nearly 300,000 confirmed infections and more than 28,000 deaths. Its GDP is expected to contract by more than 9 percent this year, with unemployment slated to rise from 14.4 percent to 19 percent. Long lines are forming at food banks across the country, as charities struggle to meet the spike in demand for their services. All of this has raised the stakes for Spain’s new policy, which, if implemented effectively, could provide a necessary layer of protection for the most disadvantaged Spaniards. (read article)
MADRID—In late March, about 100 Moroccan migrants living in Spain paid smugglers 5,400 euros each—roughly $6,100—to make the treacherous journey home in inflatable rafts. In a curious case of reverse migration, they desperately fled a wealthy country that had been crippled by the coronavirus and could not offer them work for the foreseeable future. Yet when they finally reached the beaches of Larache, on Morocco’s western coast, they were hunted by the Moroccan authorities, who were concerned that the migrants would spread the coronavirus. Police conducted a door-to-door search, and at least one migrant was found hiding in a clay oven to avoid detection, according to a report in the Spanish newspaper El Pais. (read article)
Trump’s preferred lying platform, Twitter, can fact check him all it wants, it can label his tweets for violating rules against glorifying violence but none of this will stop him ever. Still, Twitter made an attempt to signal the mendacity of his tweets to the Twitterverse by including a small link below that tweet that led to more reliable information about the topic. Trump was railing against mail-in-ballots. Then he railed against Twitter for fact-checking him. But what came next was much uglier.
As the protests over the senseless killing of George Floyd spread from Minneapolis around the country, Trump tweeted: “….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” (read article / leer en Español)
Depending on how you see it, either Joe Biden, the Democratic Party or both were lucky in that the coronavirus lockdowns started kicking in just as he had cinched the nomination. Everyone, probably even most Republicans, knows that Biden can do the job. That wasn’t at issue in this primary where Democratic voters were hellbent on determining which candidate had the best chance at beating Trump. Both voters and other candidates coalesced behind Biden, who seemed to have the best chance at winning over moderate voters and perhaps even moderate Republicans in swing states. Much of this calculation has to do with a perceived comfort level with white man. Afterall, with the exception of one, all U.S. presidents have been white men.
Therefore, Biden is a comfort-zone candidate, but that comfort could also serve as a liability considering that Democrats love to fall in love with transformational candidates like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. They later fall out of love, but that is another story for another article. Biden lacks excitement and he promises little more than a third Obama term. (After these past two months, voters might just be hankering for a safe and boring president.) But, in the March Democratic debate, Biden committed to doing something that might add some freshness and vigor to his campaign: he committed to choosing a female vice-presidential running mate. Since then speculation has run high. The prospect of a female vice president is still a novelty for Americans, this will only be the third time that a woman has been chosen as the vice-presidential candidate for a major party.
In a recent interview with Reuters Trump said that “China will do anything they can to have me lose this race.” The “race,” meaning, the race to be re-elected as president this November. It’s been 48 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon made his famous visit to China to meet with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, opening up relations between the two countries. Since then, there have been some tough times for this relationship, most notably, Tiananmen Square, but this moment brings this relationship to an even lower point. Not just because the two countries are led by men with mega-sized egos (even by world-leader standards), but because this animosity has extended into public opinion, in no small part driven by the nationalism that these leaders have stoked.
Both Trump and Xi have engaged in a childish blame game over the coronavirus disinformation as they both have tried to shape the narrative over the origins of the pandemic. Both have their reasons for wanting to shift the blame, but it doesn’t excuse this behavior. Trump’s sluggish reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic has been widely criticized at home and as he came on board with it being an actual problem—even trying to defy reality by saying that he knew about it before everyone else—he fell on his favored tactic of blaming others. He’s repeatedly called it the “Chinese” virus, attacked the World Health Organization for purportedly helping China cover up the outbreak at its onset and most recently accused China of hoping that he’ll lose his reelection bid. This didn’t come out of the blue, bad blood has been building over time, particularly over ongoing trade tension, and is just reaching the boiling point now.
The coronavirus is changing everything and that includes the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. Much of the U.S. and its president woke up to the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic in the weeks after Super Tuesday, just as former Vice President Joe Biden was consolidating his victory in the Democratic Presidential Primary. He and Senator Bernie Sanders held the first and last 2-candidate debate on March 15th before cameras but without a live audience and at a safe distance from each other. They had already stopped holding live campaign events five days earlier.
The coronavirus has certainly stolen the Democratic Primary’s and Biden’s rightful spotlight at this point in the 2020 election. U.S. presidential elections are the Super Bowl of elections, a spectacle that the whole world watches. Iowa, Super Tuesday, the capturing of the nomination, the conventions, the debates, rallies and visits to quaint diners, pressing the flesh—it’s a battle between two candidates with every moment captured by the constant presence of cameras. It’s the ultimate reality-TV but with much higher stakes.
MADRID—On the first Friday in March, Spain was deep into the rigorous hand-washing phase of its response to the coronavirus pandemic, but still about a week away from a lockdown. That night, I met a friend at a quiet tapas bar close to home. Afterward, we went to another bar in the Arguelles neighborhood, a popular late-night haunt for students at several nearby universities. It was the typical Friday pandemonium of people yelling orders, drinks and plates being passed around, and used napkins covering the floor. As I washed down my Spanish omelet with a glass of Verdejo, I looked around and remarked, “This is the perfect place to pass around the virus.”
It would be my last night out for the foreseeable future, yet even at that point, it was pretty stupid to head into any bar, let alone one that crowded. Since then, Spain has become one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with a confirmed death toll of more than 15,000 people. No one can say whether that number might now be lower if authorities had acted more quickly or if people had taken the virus more seriously. But there are still some broad lessons to take from countries like Spain. (read article)
As Spanish schools and universities went online, my students made a mad dash for their home countries and towns and while it might be comforting to be with family at a time like this, I realized that I would be a fool to leave Spain for the my home country, the U.S. This is in part because I am covered by Spain’s world-class public health system and currently have no health insurance in the U.S. But it is also because Spain is in a much better position to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. While Americans are doing voluntary self-isolation, still freaking out over buying toilet paper and apparently purchasing guns (only in America), the people of Spain are doing the only thing that can stop the spread of this deadly virus, staying at home.
Why is Trump’s newly great-again America doing such a terrible job against the coronavirus? To be fair, he inherited this system, if you can even call it one, but he has also done things to make it worse. We’ll start with healthcare in the U.S., which is a fragmented, for-profit mess that doesn’t cover everyone, which is the first and most important point.
The Democratic Primary was really over after former Vice President Joe Biden won nearly all of the Super Tuesday states. But if that wasn’t clear enough to Senator Bernie Sanders, then the results on March 10thshould have been. Yet here we are, with another primary Tuesday in Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Arizona, all states that are leaning strongly towards Biden in the polls. If this plays out as predicted, then it should be really put the crown firmly on Biden’s head. But it could also be the moment that Sanders declares an all-out war against the Democratic Party.
There is plenty of evidence the shows that Sanders has no intention of backing down. He certainly didn’t do so in his race for the nomination against Hillary Clinton in 2016. In fact, while there is a slight variation in states, at this same point in 2016 Clinton had 24% more pledged delegates (those that are chosen by voters) than Sanders. Right now, Biden has about 17% more pledged delegates than Sanders.
MADRID—After a series of gut-wrenching incidents of rape sparked a massive public outcry in Spain in recent years, the country’s new leftist coalition government has quickly focused on overhauling its sexual assault laws. It has public opinion on its side, as several high-profile trials, including the conviction last summer of five men calling themselves the “Wolf Pack” who gang-raped an 18-year-old woman during the annual bull-running festival in Pamplona in 2016, have galvanized support for tackling this issue. According to the Madrid-based Sociological Research Center, 93 percent of Spaniards find sexual assault to be a worrying problem and 71 percent believe that current legislation isn’t enough to address it.
But while Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Cabinet approved a sweeping reform bill earlier this month, which it is calling the “sexual freedom law,” new divisions have emerged between Sanchez’s Socialists and the junior coalition partner, the far-left Podemos party. They lead a minority government, so the bill will need support from other parties in parliament to become law. And even if it does, many Spanish feminists say the bill in its current form does not go far enough. (read article in the World Politics Review)
Democrats are terrified of another four years of Trump. It’s a dangerous kind of fear. It’s the kind of fear that leads to bad decisions based on making what appears to be the safe and rational choice. After months of flirting with a large field of candidates that represented the diversity that the party gives so much lip service to, voters decided to play it safe. They chose an establishment old white man to take on socialist old white man so that he can go on to do battle with the Republican old white man this fall.
In other words, both Klobuchar and Buttigieg were coaxed into ending their campaigns by party leaders in order to consolidate the moderate vote behind Biden and counter the excitement of those that feel the Bern. It worked. Moderate voters lined up behind Biden, turning the Democratic Primary into a two-way race with Sanders. Now, I’ll tell you why this “safe” choice is a bad one.
Democrats generally care deeply about climate change, but in choosing a candidate for the coming battle with President Trump there is one issue that reins above all others: electability. Democrats across the country are tying themselves in knots trying to decide who might be able to take down this toxic presidency. This is an unfortunate way to pick a presidential candidate. Instead of listening to the candidates and their policy positions, then deciding who convinces and, more importantly, excites them the most, voters are trying to make an impossible prediction. Democrats have a need to fall in love with their candidates—whoever makes enough of their hearts go pitter patter will be the right one to take on Trump.
That said, beating Trump is the most important way to fight the climate crisis, no matter which Democrat replaces him. The man openly doubts scientific consensus on climate and has shamelessly rolled back environmental protections across the United States and most notably, pulled the U.S. out of the Paris agreement. I’ll stop here because the list is endless. And don’t just take my word for it, take a look at the ongoing list that National Geographic has kept up or another shorter, more organized one that is just as devastating.
The first-in-country Iowa caucus was—to use Trumpian language—a total disaster. However, this are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the unruly, imperfect and, frankly, absurd U.S. system of choosing presidential candidates that has existed in its current form since 1972. It is not enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, and in fact, the framers of the constitution didn’t even believe in political parties. Instead, this system has evolved haphazardly within the national and state party institutions and is an anomaly compared to other democracies in the world. Yet, it is far from certain that the Iowa fiasco will be enough even to bring about change in the system the elects the so-called “leader of the free world.”
If you are from the state of Iowa, you have the privilege of meeting every presidential candidate you wish to meet, and your vote is more powerful than any other primary vote in the country. Why? Because since 1972 your state has gone first in the primaries, giving the people of Iowa a profound impact on who becomes the nominees for each party. There is no reason whatsoever for this, yet the tradition persists and I’m going to explain why this tradition is damaging to American democracy.
As soon as Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States, impeachment became a very fashionable topic. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time explaining impeachment with the most important point being that it is a political rather than legal process and decision. While the treason and bribery part in the U.S. Constitution is straightforward, the exact meaning of “high crimes and misdemeanors” isn’t. Despite that, there is consensus among impeachment scholars that it is an institutional mechanism that exists to remove officials who abuse their power from office.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell certainly knows this because he actually told reporters that “This is a political process. I’m not impartial about this at all.” Yet, Trump’s all-star team of lawyers have concluded their impeachment defense, making a legal argument that amounts to “no crime, no impeachment.” They reject the House impeachment not because Trump didn’t abuse the power of the presidency but because he did not commit an ordinary crime. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if Trump abused his powers by attempting to bully Ukraine into interfering in the 2020 presidential campaign for his own benefit. It doesn’t matter if Republicans allow John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor to testify and corroborate this. What does is whether or not there was a violation of established law.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s new Cabinet was sworn in last week, marking the official start of Spain’s first coalition government since its democratic transition in the 1970s. Sanchez’s Socialist Party won a general election in November but failed to secure an outright majority in the legislature. After weeks of negotiations, the lower house of Spain’s parliament earlier this month narrowly approved Sanchez’s proposal for a coalition with the far-left Podemos party, by 167 votes to 165, with 18 abstentions. (read my article for the World Politics Review)
Since the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald J. Trump in December, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been caught in a quandary that’s been in the making for several months. If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statements are to be taken at face value, then there will be no impartiality in Trump’s Senate trial. Despite the oath to be impartial that Senators will take before the trial begins, McConnell has boasted that he is “not an impartial juror.” There’s more: he’s said that “there will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.”
In response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held off on formally presenting the two articles of impeachment to the Senate until this week. This appears to be classic Pelosi: strategic and shrewd. Firstly, because, in the face of a Senate trial favoring Trump, it makes sense to delay its occurrence. Why? Because more evidence is coming out which might influence public opinion which could pressure the Senate into upholding their oath to run an impartial trial. This isn’t restricted to the Ukraine question that the impeachment articles center around, it can be any ongoing issue that affects public opinion. A big “for example” is Trump’s the recent decision to kill Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani that has resulted in fears of what would be devastating war in the Middle East. This has won Trump not only criticism from Congressional Democrats but also Republicans, who have struggled to defend this reckless action.
You have to give them credit, the Democrats are showing that they can almost walk and chew gum at the same time. They have spent two months running an investigation and finally voted to impeach Trump in December and at the same time have been running a primary to choose the candidate who will face Trump in 2020.
Both activities share the same goal of cutting short Trump's days in the White House yet the success of either is highly uncertain. The Republican-controlled Senate will almost certainly acquit Trump. And despite a talented and historically diverse field of candidates, the primary race seems to be settling on four candidates: two older white men, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders and younger white man, Southbend, Indiana Mayor, Pete Buttigieg and one white woman, Senator Elizabeth Warren. This group hardly represents the promise of the Democratic Party to be the party of diversity in the face of the Republican Party of old white men.
When the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, he joined an exclusive club that includes only two other presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. We’ve been talking about a Trump impeachment since before he was even elected. This moment has been so anticipated, and this president has taken impropriety to such new heights, that this vote to impeach feels anti-climactic. It is indeed historic, but it is a beginning not an end. The next stop in this process will be the U.S. Senate which is expected to hold a two-week trial next year to decide whether or not to remove Trump from office. While this decision is up to the Senators who will eventually have to cast a vote, this vote will be highly influenced by public opinion.
In an Oval Office meeting with President Trump, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan whipped out an iPad to play a propaganda video that depicted the leader of the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces as a terrorist. Erdoğan did this unabashedly in a meeting that included five Republican senators who have been the most vocal critics of Turkey’s invasion of Syria and attacks on Kurdish allies. Somehow, he thought he could lure them into changing their minds, but as the video ended, Senator Lindsey Graham reportedly asked: "Well, do you want me to go get the Kurds to make one about what you've done?"
We might be using more innocuous words for it these days, like fake news or disinformation, but attempts to manipulate our emotions, attitudes and beliefs are nothing new. We used to call it propaganda or just plain old lies. It would be jaw dropping that the president of Turkey would take a crude and clearly propagandistic video with him to the White House if it were not for the man currently occupying it.
Un repaso de cómo ha cambiado el paisaje mediático estadounidense en los últimos años y cómo el país se dirige hacia unas elecciones con un presidente que parece disfrutar del caos.
Durante una reunión en el despacho oval entre los presidentes de EE UU, Donald Trump, y de Turquía, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, este último, sacó un iPad para reproducir un vídeo que mostraba al líder de las Fuerzas Democráticas Sirias, de mayoría kurda, y lo calificaba de terrorista. Lo hizo sin ningún reparo en una reunión a la que asistían cinco senadores republicanos que han sido las voces más críticas de la invasión turca de Siria y los ataques contra los aliados kurdos. Por alguna razón, pensó que podía hacerles cambiar de opinión, pero al acabar el vídeo, al parecer, el senador Lindsey Graham preguntó: “¿Quiere que vaya a decirles a los kurdos que hagan un vídeo sobre las cosas que ha hecho usted?”. (leer articulo / read in English)
MADRID—Spain returned to the polls Sunday for the fourth time in four years, and just six months since its last election. After giving the center-left Socialist Party, the leftist Podemos party and center-right party Ciudadanos, or Citizens, the opportunity to form a government in April, voters punished them this time around for failing to do so. The Socialists lost three seats in parliament, again falling short of a majority despite winning the most seats. Podemos lost seven seats and Ciudadanos a jaw-dropping 47, the biggest setback yet for the centrist upstarts. While voter turnout was about 5 percent less than in April, those that did vote gave the biggest boosts to the traditionally conservative Popular Party, which gained 22 more parliamentary seats, and the far-right Vox party, which more than doubled its seats from 24 to 52, making it the third-largest party in parliament. (read article)
One thing I learned early on as a foreigner who sometimes appears in the press here in Spain was to never, ever, under any circumstances make a public statement about Catalonian independence. Never! You may remember the former U.S. Ambassador James Costos, who made a seemingly innocuous statement about how if Catalonia separated from Spain, American companies would “make adjustments accordingly.” This kicked up quite a frenzy of speculations about whether this represented an official departure from longstanding U.S. policy until he walked his comments back later that same day on Twitter stating that it is “an internal matter for Spain.”
So, while I have spent years carefully sidestepping the issue, I find it curious that these days, both Catalonian pro-independence leaders and the Spanish government have taken this internal dispute global. Why does Spain care so much about the world's opinion on this?
To be fair, the Catalonian leaders went on the international offensive first in the fall of 2017, bashing Spain's government as undemocratic wherever they could get an interview or op-ed published. It was frustrating to see this well-planned strategy play out in the international press as Rajoy's government mostly sat on their hands. These op-eds and interviews gave the impression that the international media was biased towards Catalonia—a consistent complaint among my friends and students and something I've been hard-pressed to find any real evidence of.
Alana Moceri ha impartido conferencias, seminarios y talleres a gobiernos, partidos políticos, grupos cívicos, asociaciones profesionales, universidades y empresas. Sus temas principales incluyen:
- Poder: tienes más que piensas
- Como pensar de forma global
- La política estadounidense: instituciones, campañas, comunicación política
- La Unión Europea y comunicación
—
Alana Moceri has given conferences, seminars and workshops to local governments, political parties, civic groups, professional associations, universities and businesses. Topics include:
- Power: you have more than you think
- How to think globally
- S. Politics: institutions, campaigns, political communication
- The European Union and communication
It was a breathtaking moment when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives is opening a formal impeachment investigation against President Trump Tuesday evening. Given the gravity of an impeachment, its announcement is always going to be a historic moment. What made it breathtaking, however, wasn’t that Trump would be investigated. He is already being investigated by the House Judiciary Committee, not to mention that there are several lawsuits filed against him. Trump has amassed three year’s worth of flouting the U.S. constitution and his oath of office. The moment was breathtaking because since Pelosi was sworn in as speaker last January, she has been diligently reigning in the urges of many in her party to rush into an impeachment. To every new scandal, Pelosi has warned, no, we’re not there yet.
There’s a reason why Republicans have disparaged Pelosi so much throughout the years: she’s easily among the most effective, if not the most effective House Speaker the country has ever had. This is sometimes easy to miss since she does it with a smile while wearing 4-inch heels. But this woman who raised five children before entering politics has shown us time and time again the mettle she is made of. And if there’s anything to know about Nancy Pelosi is that she is strategic. If she’s decided that now is the time, then we can be assure the she has a plan behind that decision.
Spaniards are not happy that their country is headed for its fourth election in four years. According to a recent poll in El Pais, more than 90 percent of respondents said they felt either disappointment, anger or worry at the prospect of another vote. But the parliament that was chosen in April still dissolved Monday at midnight after the leaders of its main parties were unable or unwilling to come to an arrangement that would allow one of them to form a government, triggering an election on Nov. 10.
While Sept. 23 was the final deadline for any sort of Hail Mary, it was clear the negotiations had already failed a week earlier, when King Felipe VI announced that he couldn’t put forward any candidate for an investiture vote in parliament, since the parties were deadlocked. Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the center-left Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party put the blame squarely on the three other main parties—the old-guard, conservative Popular Party and two recent upstarts, leftist Podemos and centrist Ciudadanos—for failing to support his candidacy. “I have tried by all means,” he said, “but they have made it impossible for us.” (read article)
My friend's 11-year-old daughter made a very mature attempt to reset a toxic relationship with a friend of hers at the beginning of the school year. She asked if they could leave the drama behind and start anew. Does it surprise you that the drama started up again about a week later? Probably not.
Attempts at simplifying international relations are typically fool's errands, but personal relationships are not a bad analogy and in fact, can be a pretty decent way to introduce IR theory to undergraduates. Yet, despite the hard lessons we've all learned about difficult, even toxic relationships, politicians go back time and time again to the idea of some sort of new beginning when it comes to international relationships. Lie with my friend's daughter, the intention might be a sincere and mature attempt at change. Yet, we all know that this rarely works for personal relationships, let alone, the relations between countries that are fraught with ideological, cultural and historical differences.
Studying
- Why you should take notes by hand — not on a laptop
- 10 things not enough kids know before going to college
- Re-reading is inefficient. Here are 8 tips for studying smarter
- Cal Newport’s TED talk on deep work and why you should quit social media
- If you want to remember something, try drawing it or practicing visual note taking.
- My tips for preparing for essay exams (not to brag, but I’m really, really good at them)
Research and writing
- My writing advice.
- The Journalist’s Resource has a wonderful page–Know Your Research–with tips sheets and explainers about how to understand academic research.
Mental health
- How We Misunderstand Anxiety and Miss Out on Its Benefits
- Hidden Brain podcast where psychologist Alia Crum explains a new mindset about the nature of stress (hint: rather than being debilitating, stress is a sign that you’re doing something hard, something that you care about and is worthwhile and embracing that can make all the difference)
- David Brooks on Making Modern Toughness, he writes “We live in an age when it’s considered sophisticated to be disenchanted. But people who are enchanted are the real tough cookies.”
During the first night of the second round of Democratic debates, the presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren mused “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.” A new version of the million dollar question we've all been askingfor months—who is better positioned to beat Trump, someone from the progressive left of the party or a moderate?—emerged from these debates. It morphed into an argument over whether big, bold ideas and whether they run the risk of scaring away the general electorate needed to win a presidential election.
Sure, many pundits continued to see this as a left-right fight, especially after Tuesday night's match up where progressive Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders more than held their own against moderate critics such as Representative John Delany and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. The newer, fresher faces like South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas Representative Beto O'Rourke, mostly stayed out of the fight, but the too favored the bold and the big. Going into night two, many wondered if former Vice President Joe Biden was the type of moderate candidate that could to hold up his end of the argument. In the end, the second night was a nine on one fight, with all the candidates, especially California Senator Kamala Harris, going after Biden, who enjoys the benefits of being tied to the Obama administration but also the liability of being tied to the kind of pragmatic incrementalism it represented.
Monthly debates kicked off in June among Democratic presidential hopefuls and American voters are beginning to pay attention to who's who and who stands for what. The issues that got the most attention inJune's debate were immigration, healthcare, the economy, climate change and gun control. Foreign policy only occupied about 15 minutes out of a total of four debate hours. Yet, these 15 minutes were enough to see that the Democrats have a foreign policy problem on their hands.
Specifically, the cohort of candidates and, by default the party, are not presenting anything that approaches a big picture alternative vision to Trump's horror-film style of foreign policy. This is underpinned by a blurry array of visions and positions, some of which are ill-informed while others are at odds with Obama administration policy. At the same time, there is a general failure to recognize the international nature of many of the biggest issues they are debating.
It's pretty rare that I do an interview in English but it does happen from time to time! I spoke with PressTV last week about the failure to form a government in Spain.
Political campaigns are about winning. It's about winning in order have the power to impose your policy preferences. We believe in the righteousness of our policy preferences. We believe that our societies will be better off if things are run our way, regardless of our political leanings. We all think we are right. This is even more true for the people who work on political campaigns, which makes it tempting to believe that the ends justify the means.
Too many of us have experienced “gaslighting” from a romantic partner where the constant lies and manipulation end up making us question our own sanity. Truth is an elusive concept subject to perception which makes it manipulable. This is what gaslighters do in order to gain power and control over their partners. The only way a victim can deal with a gaslighter's game is first to recognize it, something that is much easier said than done. But most often the only tenable solution is to cut them out of your life for the sake of your own sanity and well-being.
“Deepfakes” is the new-ish name for doctored or manipulated videos, many of which are quite easy to spot but are becoming better and better. They are part and parcel of the fake news and fake facts that slosh around the social media and spill into the news media. This all amounts to political gaslighting intended to make you feel overwhelmed and helpless. You know that sinking in quicksand feeling that washes over you each time you see a new story about the issue, probably including this one. You wonder how you can possibly begin to figure out what is true and what isn't. You vow to quit Facebook but then don't.
I spoke with HispanTV about the European Parliament election the the block of eurosceptic parties.
Both Spain and the U.S. are playing key international roles in the drama the continues to unfold over the future of Venezuela despite a divide between the left and the far left in both countries that is driven by ideology, oversimplification of the issue and President Donald Trump's support for interim president Juan Guaidó. The left should be leading on this important human rights issue but instead they are squabbling among themselves. The people of Venezuela deserve better.
I can mostly guess someone's political leanings in Spain by how they react when I tell them that I am American. Those that gush about how much they admire the U.S. tend to lean conservative and those who reveal their skepticism tend to lean left. This isn't absolute, of course, people who have spent time in the U.S. tend to have pretty positive views of my country, something I take heart in. And since Trump took office, I've found that people of Spain have been charitable about separating their feelings toward the American people and country vs. the current president.
MADRID—Spain’s left breathed a collective sigh of relief Sunday night as right-wing parties failed to win enough seats in parliament to put them within striking distance of forming a government that would have included the ultranationalist and far-right Vox party. Instead, voters gave a clear win to the ruling Socialist Party, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who is now the only party leader in a position to form a government. (read article)
I discussed Spain's general election with China's CGTN.
MADRID—Europeans will elect a new European Parliament in May, but how many of them really know what it does? The continued lack of common knowledge across Europe about the European Union and how its byzantine governance institutions actually function is a challenge for political parties and their candidates. It is why these races have typically revolved around domestic issues. This time, however, populist and euroskeptic parties are bringing some EU issues into the debate, such as migration, but as a way to criticize the EU, not constructively engage with it. They have a receptive audience, as they are poised to win more than a third of European Parliament seats.
(read article in the World Politics Review)
When I studied political science at UCLA at the end of the 1980s, a question that sparked hot debate was about the growing the Latino vote: Which party would they eventually settle on? Of course, the question itself is an enormous error, since Latinos are a large and diverse group, but still we argued over which party was better positioned to woo them overall and many of our professors leaned towards the Republicans, because, the argument went, Latino voters were mostly Catholic and therefore socially conservative.
Flash forward 30 years to a Trump presidency fixated on constructing wall to keep out, among others, the 'rapists' that Mexicans are sending across the border and it defies common sense to imagine Latino Americans wanting to have anything to do with this Republican Party, let alone vote for them. Yet, these people aren't universally repulsed by Trump, in fact, many–perhaps even enough for a 2020 win—are even embracing him.
When I studied political science at UCLA at the end of the 1980s, a question that sparked hot debate was about the growing the Latino vote: Which party would they eventually settle on? Of course, the question itself is an enormous error, since Latinos are a large and diverse group, but still we argued over which party was better positioned to woo them overall and many of our professors leaned towards the Republicans, because, the argument went, Latino voters were mostly Catholic and therefore socially conservative.
Flash forward 30 years to a Trump presidency fixated on constructing wall to keep out, among others, the 'rapists' that Mexicans are sending across the border and it defies common sense to imagine Latino Americans wanting to have anything to do with this Republican Party, let alone vote for them. Yet, these people aren't universally repulsed by Trump, in fact, many–perhaps even enough for a 2020 win—are even embracing him.
Can fire only be fought with fire? Or, hate with hate? Or, outrage with yet more outrage? This is at the million dollar question that Democrats are facing this primary season, which has been well underway since the midterm election in November and will likely go on until May or June of next year. Will they be better positioned beat Trump in 2020 with left-wing populist or someone more moderate?
The number of candidates is quickly growing and by the time the first debate rolls around this June, there could be as many as thirty of them vying for a chance to participate. A similar fight was won by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the midterm elections against those who wanted to run them more aggressively. Former attorney general Eric Holder quipped “when they go low, we kick them” and Michael Avenatti, famous for being porn star Stormy Daniel's lawyer, said that you have to fight Trump with a slingshot. Yet Pelosi's wisdom won the day and the House of Representatives. She coached her caucus to shut down Trump's flame throwing by simply not reacting (remember your mother's advice to ignore that bully?) and therefore not letting him set their agenda. It worked: Democrats talked about healthcare and taxes and Republicans winced while Trump refused to talk about the good economy (too boring!) and instead, whipped up an imaginary crises along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Hablé con Detrás de las Noticias en RT sobre el sistema del colegio electoral en las elecciones presidenciales en EEUU y los que quieren cambiarlo. Se puede ver toda la entrevista aquí a partir del 13:00.
I'm so honored to be chosen by my alma mater, UCLA, to be featured in the interview series 'Excellence in Action', which recognizes and honors UCLA alumni who have had breakthrough achievements in their careers since graduating from UCLA. (Read interview here)
Me siento muy honrado de ser elegido por mi alma mater, UCLA, para participar en la serie de entrevistas 'Excellence in Action', que reconoce y honra a los exalumnos de UCLA que han tenido logros innovadores en sus carreras desde que se graduaron de UCLA. (leer entrevista aquí)
MADRID—Catalan pro-independence leaders and the Spanish government have intensified their efforts to take their family feud global as 12 Catalan leaders are being tried before the Supreme Court in Madrid. This fight now goes beyond the October 2017 referendum on Catalonia seceding from Spain, which was declared illegal by the Spanish government, and the subsequent declaration of independence from Catalonia’s regional parliament. In what has become a pitched battle between dueling messaging campaigns, Catalan separatists have upped their rhetoric, casting Spain as a “low-cost democracy” and the trial in Madrid as “an alarming act of state repression.” The Spanish government, trying to protect its democratic reputation, is countering by pointing to Spain’s consistently high rankings in various democracy indexes.
Why does the world’s opinion suddenly matter so much in this internal feud? (read article in World Politics Review)
'The U.S. doesn't have a real left' is something I am commonly told here in Spain. Aside from the joy of having people explain my own country's politics to me, it's just not true. To begin with, left vs. right is a woefully inadequate way to describe political ideology, but more importantly, it is just not comparable because left and right can mean vastly different things in every country. Its meaning is framed by history and culture, as well as the political system and the only way to make any sort of meaningful comparison is to look at the policy proposals themselves. That said, some of the new Democrats who entered Congress, in January, might just have the right stuff to make the hearts of Spanish lefties go pitter-patter.
There are plenty of things that President Donald Trump isn't good at: deep thinking, strategy, understanding the workings of U.S. government that he leads. While coming up short in these areas somehow didn't keep him out of the White House, what had a lot to do with getting him in was his 6th sense for setting the media agenda, a talent he's been honing since the 1980s. From taking out full-page ads in the New York Times to spinning a conspiracy birther theory about a sitting president; from raucous political rallies to rambling, off the cuff press conferences; then, of course, there are the tweets, relentless tweets that turn CNN into a stuttering, head-exploding mess; he is catnip for the press because most of the world is utterly incapable of looking away.
This article was written for and published in Spanish in esglobal.
We can argue all we want about the nature of Donald Trump's presidency, but one thing that's clear is his dogged pursuit of his campaign promises. When he was first elected, many analysts mused over whether his campaign rhetoric was nothing more than theater and that he'd tack towards a more conventional foreign policy once in office. Not a chance.
So, before he was elected, we actually knew quite a lot about Trump's worldview, even if we didn't dare to accept it as something that would turn into presidential policy. In a prescient piece published in Politico in January of 2016, Brookings Institution scholar Thomas Wright argued that Trump's views were consistent, despite their confusing appearance. He based this argument on an analysis of Trump's statements made about foreign policy going back to the 1980s. Not only did they center around some steady themes but we can now see that his words and deeds in office have been in line with these themes. While most U.S. presidents have learned from office and evolved their views, Trump has doubled down on his campaign pledges as he governs for the people who elected him. He means what he says and we've got more then 3 decades worth of his words.
LEGAL
En cumplimiento de la Ley 34/2002 de 11 de julio, de servicios de la sociedad de la información y comercio electrónico le informamos que los datos del responsable del sitio web son:
Alana Moceri
Teléfono: 666225881
Email: alana@alanamoceri.com
Conforme a la Ley 34/2002, de 11 de julio, Servicios de la Sociedad de la Información y de Comercio Electrónico, y a la vigente Ley Orgánica 15/1999 de Diciembre, de Protección de Datos Española, le informamos que su dirección está incluida en una base de datos, cuyo titular es Alana Moceri, al facilitar voluntariamente sus datos de carácter personal a través de los distintos formularios de entrada dispuestos a tal efecto en la Web, da su consentimiento para que sus datos puedan ser utilizados por Alana Moceri, con el fin de responder a cualquier consulta que nos formule, ofrecerle información, productos y servicios de interés para usted y facilitar la comunicación mutua en operaciones comerciales. Son incluidos en ficheros informatizados, estos ficheros se encuentran inscritos ante la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos y que (Alana Moceri) será la única destinataria de dichos datos. Le garantizamos que sus datos nunca van a ser cedidos a terceros. Alana Moceri se compromete al cumplimiento de su obligación de secreto de los datos de carácter personal y de su deber de guardarlos y adoptará todas las medidas de índole técnica y organizativa para garantizar la seguridad de los datos de carácter Personal y evitar su alteración, pérdida, tratamiento o acceso no autorizado, habida cuenta del estado de la tecnología, la naturaleza de los datos almacenados y los riesgos a que estén expuestos, todo ello en conformidad con lo establecido en el Real Decreto 1720/2007.
Con carácter general las relaciones entre Alana Moceri con los Usuarios de sus servicios telemáticos, presentes en el sitio web, se encuentran sometidas a la Legislación y Jurisdicción Españolas.
El Usuario queda informado, y acepta, que el acceso al sitio Web no supone, en modo alguno, el inicio de una relación comercial con Alana Moceri.
Alana Moceri se reserva el derecho de efectuar sin previo aviso las modificaciones que considere oportunas en su sitio Web, pudiendo cambiar, suprimir o añadir tanto los contenidos y servicios que se presten a través de la misma como la forma en la que éstos aparezcan presentados o localizados en sus servidores.
En caso de que el usuario tenga cualquier duda sobre protección de datos o su derecho a intimidad o en cada recepción de correo electrónico el usuario podrá ejercitar su derecho de acceso, rectificación, cancelación y oposición al tratamiento de sus datos mediante una comunicación por escrito a la siguiente dirección:
Alana Moceri
Teléfono: 666225881
Email: alana@alanamoceri.com
PRIVACY
POLÍTICA DE PRIVACIDAD
Toda comunicación con Alana Moceri, por cualquier medio o a través de su dirección de correo electrónico, o de los formularios presentes en este ‘web site’ o a su ‘e-mail’, supone el consentimiento expreso para que sus datos personales sean incorporados a ficheros titularidad de Alana Moceri, cuya dirección es C/ General Oraá 72, 5 – 28006 Madrid
Estos datos de carácter personal serán tratados conforme a lo dispuesto en la Ley Orgánica 15/1999, de 13 de diciembre, de Protección de Datos de Carácter Personal.
Por tanto, el interesado podrá ejercer derecho de acceso, rectificación, cancelación y oposición con respecto a los datos personales que consten en los expresados ficheros, pudiendo revocar su consentimiento por escrito en cualquier momento.
Para ello lo podrán hacer mediante comunicación escrita dirigida a:
Alana Moceri
Teléfono: 666225881
Email: alana@alanamoceri.com
"¿Cómo habría sido su discurso del Estado de la Unión si Donald Trump se hubiera conducido igual que lo hace en Twitter en vez de limitarse a leer la pantalla? ¿Y si solo le hubieran dejado utilizar datos contrastados? En ese último caso “habría empezado reconociendo que jamás un Estado de la Unión había estado marcado por tanta división”, reflexionaba el mordaz comentarista del New Yorker John Cassidy: “Más de la mitad de vosotros cree que no soy apto para gobernar, habría dicho; aproximadamente cuatro de cada 10 de entre vosotros me apoyáis. Aquí en esta cámara muchos lo que más querrían sería provocar un impeachment y echarme. Otros están ocupados intentando evitarlo”." (leer en Foro de foros)
My interview with Sky News the latest about the independence referendum in Catalonia and its consequences for Spain.
My interview with Sky News the latest about the independence referendum in Catalonia and its consequences for Spain.
My interview with Sky News about the fall out from the independence referendum in Catalonia and its consequences for Spain.
My interview with Global News Canada talking about what is happening in Catalonia, its independence and the consequences for Spain.
I was on RTE Radio 1 Ireland discussing the referendum in Catalonia and its consequences for Spain. You can listen to it here (01:39:45).
My interview with Sky News about the fall out from the independence referendum in Catalonia and its consequences for Spain.
My interview on Sky News about the Spanish Royal visit to UK this summer / Mi intervención en la cadena británica Sky News, una de las principales del país, para hablar sobre la visita de los reyes de España a Reino Unido este verano.
It’s been described as a ring-kissing ceremony, the opening scene from King Lear and the type of standard fare from dictators like Kim Jong Un. Glen Thrush described it as “one of the most exquisitely awkward public events I’ve ever seen.” This may all be quite true and amusing, but I think there’s a better explanation for what went down in the White House Cabinet Room on Monday. (read the article in The Huffington Post)
Trump’s trip left a big impression on our European allies. So much, that German Chancellor Angela Merkel turned around and announced at a campaign rally that “the times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over.” (read the article in The Huffington Post)
"The shit show that is the Trump presidency came to a head on Monday with the Washington Post revelation that his couldn’t keep his mouth shut in front of two top Russian officials. He actually bragged to these guys, telling them “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day.” (read the article in The Huffington Post)
"A friend I tend to agree with shared an article on Facebook from the (conservative) National Review, commenting that the magazine’s readers didn’t appreciate it. I had been mulling over the left wing freak out over the New York Times’ new columnist Bret Stephens’ first piece and relished finding a similar example on the right. So, I clicked through and gave “Inequality and the Fracturing of American Democracy” a read and I was glad I did. Then I took a look through the comments on their Facebook feed and found that the top ones were actually appreciative of the article’s intellectual challenge to both right and left wing thinking." (read the article in The Huffington Post)
"For Republicans, it does matter how much money you make.
It’s not surprising that Jimmy Kimmel’s touching monologue about his son’s congenital heart disease went viral on the social networks. It was heartfelt and touched upon a touchy and timely subject, healthcare. He also included a noble call for left-right unity and understanding, but he made one wrong assumption." (read the article in The Huffington Post)
"She might be worshiped by Chinese women for her beauty and style but the European women who attended the W20 Summit on Tuesday were having none of it and promptly booed Ivanka Trump when she had the audacity to say that her father is a champion of women." (read the article in The Huffington Post)
"I picked a fight with some male co-workers a couple weeks ago. They had put together a day of conferences about the international relations of the Trump presidency and out of 10 panelists, only 3 were women, including me and the first panel had no women at all. This happens all the time in Spain, but the U.S. isn’t all that different. Only 24% of foreign affairs and security guests booked during weekday cable and Sunday programming are women, 76% are men. This is so common that I’ve made a hobby out of retweeting photos of all-bro panels and with the hashtag #wherearethewomen?" (read the article in The Huffington Post)
My interview with Expat.com / Me realizaron una entrevista en Expat.com.
"There I was, an American, Skyped in to the very British Sky News to talk about the showdown between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar. Gibraltar, you ask, as in ‘the rock’? Yes, the very one! I decided in advance that it was my job to smack everyone upside the head so I prepped some name calling and went after a British leader as a hysterical warmonger and accused Spanish leaders of being moral relativists. I righteously asked, who’s thinking about the best interests of the people of Gibraltar?" (read the article in The Huffington Post)
My interview with Sky News about tensions between the UK and Spain over Gibraltar due to Brexit. / Intervine en un programa de Sky News, uno de los principales medios de comunicación e información en Reino Unido, para hablar sobre las tensiones actuales entre España y Reino Unido sobre la situación de Gibraltar tras el Brexit.
"Trump’s abominable behavior during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to the White House caused outrage on my Facebook feed. But Merkel doesn’t need your outrage. She’s taken on plenty of outsized egos with her signature steely patience, from Nicolas Sarkozy to Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Vladimir Putin. What she needs you to to do is understand the importance of the world order, whose fate seems to rest on her shoulders." (read the article in The Huffington Post)
"Well, I’m here to tell you that if you think you can ride off into the sunset and just give the next four years of Trump a miss, you are sorely mistaken. Not only is living abroad a lot harder than you might imagine, even if you get there, there’s no escaping Trump. No matter where you go, he will dog you." (read the article in The Huffington Post)
"And so starts my day, with an inpouring of wishes for a Happy International Women’s Day! Since I’m an American living in Madrid, Spain, the wishes come in both English, mostly from female friends and oddly, the ones in Spanish tend to come from male friends, who send “felicitaciones.” It’s hard work trying not to bite their heads off. (read the article in The Huffington Post)
"In his farewell speech, President Obama reminded us that “democracy needs you.” This is not hyperbole, at its best, democracy is about the people. Democracy’s roots are in highly participatory forms of government and the representative systems of today’s nation states distance us from our governments, so we depend on the press to keep us informed." (read the article in The Huffington Post).
Whichever definition you prefer for democracy, at the base of it are the people and the vote. In his 1956 book A Preface to The Democratic Theory, political scientist Robert Dahl provided a handy and widely cited 8-point list of conditions to measure majority rule, which, unlike pregnancy or your love or hatred for cilantro, has varying levels of strength and weakness. After establishing voting in the first four conditions, Dahl’s 5th condition is that “all individuals possess identical information about the alternatives.” (read the article in The Huffington Post).
This intellectual journey and revolution that I had at UCLA is what we expect of any engaged university student and is certainly not restricted to any one ideological destination. To question everything, think independently of the influence of one's parents and be open to changing our minds is the idealized university experience. But this attitude of openness shouldn't be left behind with our books and class schedules, it should continue throughout our lives and this is where we often fail. (read article)
Spaniards are angry. Their anger was evident in the European election results in which voters embraced new political parties and gave a slap in the face to the two established ones. The ensuing revolt inside the socialist party (PSOE) over the selection process for its next leader was quickly eclipsed by the antimonarchy protests in reaction to the king's abdication announcement. The economic crisis and continuing corruption play on in the background, making it easy to see why Spanish citizens are getting whiplash from directing and redirecting their outrage. (read article)
It might surprise you that 36% of Spain's members of Parliament are women, placing it 20th in the world by the Inter- parliamentary Union1 while American women make up just 18.5% of the U.S. Congress for a dismal ranking of 79th.
Yes, Spain, the country where the term “machismo” comes from (which has long been adopted into the English lexicon). But if that last figure didn't surprise you, this one just might do the trick: in 1977, the first elected Parliament of Spain after 36 years of dictatorship had slightly more women (5.8%) than the U.S. Congress at the time (3.74%) and from there it has comfortably outpaced women in the U.S. for the past 39 years. (read article)
Some elections sexier than others. The entire 2008 U.S. campaign — from primaries to the general election — left us breathless. On the other hand, Bush vs. Gore in 2000, and Spain's Rajoy vs. Rubalcaba in 2011 could have been marketed as insomnia remedies. However, presidential campaigns, where two candidates battle it out to become the leader of the country (or in the case of the U.S., the leader of the free world) are generally a lot more interesting than congressional or parliamentary elections with no presidency at stake. Voter turnout figures back this up. (read article)
I took some time out last week to talk to Liam Aldous with the Urbanist on Monocle24 about the "Eurovegas" that never got built outside Madrid, Spain. Casino tycoon and Republican activist Sheldon Adelson was behind this project but ended up walking away from it when he couldn't get all the government concessions he demended. It's an interesting story and begins around minute 16:00.
Text in English / texto en Español
Tens of thousands of protesters hit the streets of Madrid on Saturday to defend this right and show their opposition to the recent anti-choice bill introduced by Spain's right-of-center ruling Popular Party. The "purple tide" of protesters was in high spirits shouting "¡Sí se puede!" (Yes we can!) and "¡Vamos, escucha, esto es nuestra lucha! (Let's go, listen up, this is our fight!) (read entire article…)
This article was published in the Spanish foreign policy magazine, esglobal. Keep in mind that this was written for Spanish readers, therefore there may be more context about American politics than you would find in an article written for American readers.
In 2009, I wrote in my blog that President Obama wasn't a socialist. This post was gleefully linked to and commented on in Spain's right wing press who took it as a rebuke to the PSOE, who had featured images of both Obama and former President Bush in their European Union parliament campaign. Some of my friends in the PSOE were not happy with this post, but perhaps now, after completing 5 years as president, it's even more clear why it's problematic to characterize Obama as one of them.
It's always scary to find a lump. I found one about the width and length of my thumb on my abdomen on a Friday morning in late June and booked an appointment with my general practitioner for the following Tuesday. She thought it might be a hernia (which I found incredible given that I'm a fit, 45-year-old woman), but I obsessively read everything about hernias until my appointment with a surgeon a few days later. He basically said, not so fast, and sent me off for an ultrasound.
Their story is so strange it dominated Spanish headlines for several news cycles while it destroyed their reputations as well as the credibility of the young think tank they defrauded. They can't show their faces in Spain, yet she runs her production company out of New York and he's in…(read)
From the outside, politics and corruption seem to go hand in hand but when you work on the inside, the day to day is much more mundane. You hardly expect to find yourself unwittingly entangled in the type of sordid affair that makes big headlines. But I did. (read)
January 17, 1994 4:31am
I was asleep, so I can’t remember how or when it began. All I know is that suddenly we were clinging to each other under the bedroom doorway, terrified and convinced that these were our last moments. Our bedroom, which was otherwise lit by L.A. city lights, was pitch black and was violently lurching in every direction. A lifetime of preparation did not come close to preparing either of us for the sheer panic and utter conviction that the world was indeed coming to an end.
An eternity passed. We screamed unintelligible revelations and obscenities. Strange, unrelated memories and images flooded my mind.
I only became aware of the loud rumbling as it started to slow. Electrified streetlamps–bursting one by one like a string of fireworks passing by our window–signalled its end. A pause of silence, then every car alarm in the city that loves cars, dutifully alerted their owners of the disaster. We loosened our grip on each other and, trying to contain our nerves, moved across the still wobbly floor towards shoes and flashlights. Then Jeff called from the other room, “I hate to say it, but the windows are still intact so that probably wasn’t ‘the big one.”
This article was published in Spanish in Foreign Policy en Español. Keep in mind that this was written for Spanish readers who need more context about the American political system than American readers would.
Outside the US, the 1992 election might be best remembered for Bill Clinton's victory, but it's an election year also remembered as the “Year of the Woman”. Many women were galvanized by Anita Hill's testimony about Clarence Thomas in front of an all-male Senate Judiciary committee. The results were an additional four women in the Senate, bringing the total to an unprecedented six. My home state of California became the first to be represented in the Senate by two women—Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein—as a young feminist and recent UCLA political science graduate, I was ecstatic.
Leyendo el último post de Judith Warner: “Pobre Sarah” en su blog en el New York Times me ha recordado de una conversación esta semana con la Diputada Lourdes Muñoz sobre su blog post que trato de Palin y feminismo. Ha sido unas semanas de emociones como una montaña rusa para las feministas (yo me identifico como una)…empezando con el shock del anuncio del Palin candidatura y seguido por enfado y indignación por el hecho de que McCain y los Republicanos pensaba atraer los votantes de Hillary Clinton con ella. Nos asusto en su primera entrevista importante con Charlie Gibson por sus declaraciones sobre Rusia y Georgia. Y después de ver su entrevista esta semana con Katy Couric, estoy de acuerdo con Judith Warner—me da algo de pena. Esta mujer no esta nada preparada para ser el vicepresidente de los EEUU—ni esta preparado para ser el candidata.
The week of June 3rd was one of those insane weeks that happen when you are working on a campaign. The primaries ended with Barack Obama claiming his victory and Hillary Clinton graciously conceding. I got so busy with interviews here in Madrid that I neglected my blog. Although I was and am thrilled with Obama as our candidate, I have to admit I was disappointed to let go of Hillary.
For a very long time I've dreamed of seeing a woman president and for the past several years believed that Hillary Clinton would be our first. I have to admit that this had something to do with becoming an activist and leader with Democrats Abroad. This would be my way to contributing to the realization of this dream.
I found it surprising how many women in my life didn't support her candidacy. I respect everyone's choice–but a little voice inside of me begs: Come on! We're women! We deserve this. We deserve an equal voice in politics. For the record, absolutely don't have one and won't until we work together to support female candidates from the bottom up.
That said, I'm going to back-post the interviews I have on video since the beginning of June. Here's June 6th:
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/K6ZTXbzinBQ&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/K6ZTXbzinBQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
and part 2:
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/M8y2z8Wcd2I&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M8y2z8Wcd2I&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
It was a nice surprise to be back on with Valentin today! Really, it's not been a good week for the Republicans and I think that the Scott McClellan book does a lot of damage, not only to the Bush legacy but to McCain's campaign to be the third Bush term. You can watch an excellent interview with Scott McClellan on Keith Olberman's Countdown.
Also, per my comment regarding Hillary's Bobby Kennedy "blunder"–I really think you have to watch the video and make up your mind for yourself as to whether or not she meant to say something malicious.