TOTALITARIANISM TODAY
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Love Work by Gardner McFall
My love, travel to me quickly for time
strikes like a ruler slapped on a pupil's hand.
Put work aside, worry, too, all the Midwest
Presbytarian principles I once loved you for
and still do. I have learned there's more
to our being here, so tenuous and brief,
than securing sums for retirement. After that, we'll be
past caring about all we own save each other,
hand to hand, and what we may have stored
from the grind, grit, from gratifying sweet
instances, compounded through desire and will.
Tick tick goes the time clock. I hear it
in the recent statements of our industry,
collected fast in a binder like a rebuke.
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Fine lines and other such dubious prospects.
Good article by Michael J. Glennon for The Wilson Quarterly, where he attempts to find the fine line between situations best approached by law and those best approached by power, or through use of power as a negotiating chip or a means of state-actor behavior modification.
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Children get left behind all the time-- it comes with the nasty grade-school institution called "standing in line".
The Maple River Education Coalition expresses concerns about Bush's No Child Left Behind, and the extent to which it might undercut the states' roles in education reform. Many conservatives are ambivalent about whether reform is best effected at the federal or state level.
NCLB, however, leaves little room for imagining that education authority will follow principles of subsidiarity under Bush. Talk of reform, thus, remains acceptance of centralization. Assistant Secretary of Education Michael Cohen, who was responsible for overseeing the 1994 Title I federal standards and assessment requirements, presented a talk,
"Implementing Title I Standards, Assessments and Accountability: Lessons From the Past, Challenges for the Future", which attempted to outline the shape of education reform over the next few years. The Maple River Coalition's analysis of NCLB states:
Michael Cohen leaves little doubt that governors and state legislators have been operating, and continue to operate, under an illusion that "they have a free hand in setting state education policy." He considers it the task of NCLB to finally educate states that the federal government is in charge.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
I love a man who can make me cry.
And cry I did while reading P.J. O'Rourke's "The Louse in in the House" in the print edition of The Atlantic Monthly January/February 2003 issue. In fact, I laughed so much that I felt compelled to call my grandparents in Romania recount O'Rourke's swing-dance with "bourgeois propriety"-- not to mention his brilliant plan for dealing with Islamic fundamentalism. By far, the funniest thing I have read this year. Forking out the $4.95 newsstand price bought me a break.
It also bought Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s somewhat strained defense of his cousin, Michael Skakel, convicted last year for the murder of Martha Moxley. This is as sordid as it gets.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Pace femi-nuisances, but fathers are not just furniture or ornamental cuisine.
In an editorial for The Wall Street Journal, James Q. Wilson points out that the tendency for modern family models to disregard the role of the father in the life of children turns out to carry huge price-tags. Unfortunately, rather than being distributed solely to those who make the choice to leave a father out a child's life, these social costs affect all of us. Yes, guys, these are Saturday afternoon thoughts worthy of a Mimosa, a hammock, and the free time to take it all in.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Are changes in "international norms" complicating international relations?
Coral Bell's article analyzing the supposed normative changes in international relations teases apart the difference between laws and social norms before sticking her hands in the dirt that is often temporal comparative norm analysis.
A social norm defines "expected and required" behavior in a particular society at a particular time. An international norm defines "expected and required" behavior in the society of states. The existence of a norm, at any level, thus does not imply permanence, still less divine edict, even though many norms are presumed to have that status.
Moreover, to get from a norm to a law is no simple matter. "Thou shalt not murder" is a moral norm, but the law is not identical to the norm: for one thing, laws always have escape clauses, allowing the state, for example, to engage in murderous behavior in war and sometimes in capital punishment--although the norm on that latter has changed recently in many countries. Understanding the difference between norms and laws is a prerequisite for grasping some recent international changes. Just as Prohibition was a law that never became a norm ("expected and required behavior") for most Americans, so too, on the international plane, have assorted idealists or liberals or "do-gooders" (according to one’s point of view) promoted numerous UN conventions that have been duly signed and ratified by enough governments for them to have acquired the status of international law. But they have not necessarily become international norms, because governments have not seriously "expected and required" themselves and each other to abide by most of them--at least not until very recently.
Bell decides that there are three main causes of the shift in norms, with the most important cause being technological change and the facilitation of global instant connection or communication.
So, norms change because the way we live changes, and in recent decades, if not the last few centuries, nothing has affected our lives as profoundly as scientific-technical innovation. Normative shift in international politics is not, however, a simple function of technology. The fuller sociological context of these innovations must be examined to make any sense of the matter. When we do, we see that three main factors have been driving normative change in international politics.
First of these in time, but not in importance, has been the institutionalization of diplomacy. That must be dated from 1945 (with 1919 as a "false dawn"), but it has only reached critical mass in the past decade or two. Second, and much more recent, is the end of the Cold War and the advent of the unipolar world, which dates from the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. I will return to these two factors in due course, but for now we dwell on the third and most fundamental factor: the information/communications revolution.
Her argument is a lenghty one, which tends to fall on the same side of the fence as cognitive scientist Steven Pinker in forseeing future norm shifts in the direction of "cosmopolitan" thinking. This is, and continues to be, a crucial hinge on which social constructionist solutions to problems like nationalism and racism rest. Surely the future could not be more interesting than the present.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Happy birthday to my big brother on the Hill, who keeps me sane and sardonic.
I'm sorry, Bro, but I think Frodo failed. It's your turn to take up the quest.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
A poignant little excerpt from Robert Hughes' Culture of Complaint.
As our 15th century forebears were obsessed with the creation of saints and our 19th-century ancestors with the production of heroes, from Christopher Columbus to George Washington, so are we with the recognition, praise and, when necessary, the manufacture of victims , whose one common feature is that they have been denied parity with that Blond Beast of the sentimental imagination, the heterosexual, middle-class white male.
The range of victims available ten years ago-- blacks, Chicanos, Indians, women, homosexuals-- has now expanded to include every permutation of the halt, the blind, the lame and the short, or, to put it correctly, the differently abled, the other-visioned and the vertically challenged. Never before in human history were so many acronyms pursuing identity. It's as though all human encounter were one big sport, inflamed with opportunities to unwittingly give, and truculently recieve, offence.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Will Castro join the dreaded "axis of evil"? Stay tuned to the next Austin Powers sequel for more...
Meanwhile, international relations between the US and Cuba, as facilitated by an increase in trade and cultural exchange, brings a flock of Cubanismo-loving Americans to Cuba this month. Tourism remains the main source of Cuban foreign revenue, with the United States as the number two source of foreign visitors to the island, second only to Canada. Cuba-watchers note a 400-percent increase in the number of non-Cuban-American U.S. visitors to Cuba since 1995. How's about them travel restrictions?
Friday, January 10, 2003
My concerns about bad reflexes.
After a long talk with a good friend last night about "anti-Americanism", he made a convincing argument that anti-Americanism abroad is more of an elite phenomenon than a popular one. Political regimes often mobilize the idea of America as "Other" when they feel resentment for or fear of American bargaining power-- upheld by our disproportionate military strength.
I do not want to wake up one morning and discover that I reflexively blame America, or the American government, for all that is wrong with the world. At that point, I will have lost my capacity to acquire new knowledge and conduct fair analyses of political conundrums.
So a quick exchange of cold, hard cash to
those wonderful people who commented on my concerns. I would thank you, but money seems less demeaning. Alas, it's a wonderful lie, but I still get by on those.
Friday, January 10, 2003
Ron Paul's introduction of the Identity Theft Prevention Act.
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) spoke about his introduction of the Identity Theft Prevention Act in House chambers today. The purpose of this Act is to prohibit the federal government from creating national ID cards or establishing any national identifiers for the purpose of investigating, monitoring, overseeing, or regulating private transactions between American citizens, as well as repealing those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform standard health identifier.
As a former physician himself, Congressman Paul warns of the multiplying threats to privacy rights and property rights associated with the Social Insecurity number.
In addition to forbidding the federal government from creating national identifiers, this
legislation forbids the federal government from blackmailing states into adopting uniform standard identifiers by withholding federal funds. One of the most onerous practices of Congress is the use of federal funds illegitimately taken from the American people to bribe states into
obeying federal dictates.
Mr. Speaker, of all the invasions of privacy proposed in the past decade, perhaps the most onerous is the attempt to assign every American a "unique health identifier''--an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient's ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctor will be placed in a government accessible database?
The trickery involved in legislation which forces parents to register their children for SSNs after birth dazzles even the dazed and confused. Most of the children born today will not collect Social Security payments within their lifetimes, especially since the Bush administration demonstrated its utter contempt for spending cuts.
One of the most disturbing abuses of the Social Security number is the congressionally-authorized rule forcing parents to get a Social Security number for their newborn children in order to claim them as dependents. Forcing parents to register their children with the state is more like something out of the nightmares of George Orwell than the dreams of a free republic which inspired this nation's founders.
This speech deserves to be read in its entirety.
Friday, January 10, 2003
A good link concerning the tax on dividends.
This is why we come back for more. In case there were any questions.
Friday, January 10, 2003
Tax cuts and sunny weather.
Lawrence B. Lindsey described Bush's tax plan as "prudent" in a recent article for The New York Times. Lindsey also approved of the end to the tax on dividends, which arguably stunted economic recovery for businesses in the current recession. Big companies tend to avoid paying taxes once the price of compliance reaches a certain threshold, wafter which hiring an attorney (or Arthur Andersen) to doctor the data is worth the risk and the money saved. Rather than pay exorbitant taxes, Lindsey argues that companies rely more on taking out loans and issuing bonds than on selling stock, which creates a more unstable base for the economy as companies' debt in relation to equity gets skewed.
Firms also choose to reward shareholders by driving up share prices rather than by paying dividends. This puts increased emphasis on reported earnings and less on cash payouts — and we know what sort of accounting tricks this can lead to. Some of us may remember the old saying, "Cash is a fact, earnings are an opinion." Sadly, the bursting of the bubble of the 90's taught that lesson to a new generation of shareholders.
The biggest complaint articulated by Congressional Democrats is that the tax cut disproportionately favors the wealthy. Perhaps what these Democrats mean to say is that the tax cuts don't disproportionately disfavor the wealthy as much as usual. Actually, the tax cut is proportional to the taxes paid. Under current law, families making more than $200,000, who pay 45 percent of the income tax under current law, will get 40 percent of the tax cut, while families making less than $100,000 will pay 28 percent of the income tax this year and will get 34 percent of the tax cut.
Friday, January 10, 2003
David Rees talks back.
In an interview for In These Times, Get Your War On creator David Rees explains his reasons for starting a comic strip that mocks the war on terrorism:
"One of the reasons I made the strip is because people like [Vanity Fair editor] Graydon Carter would come out and say things like, “This is the end of irony, we’re entering this new phase.” They were so eager to tell us not only what was and was not appropriate in terms of a response to September 11, but what was and was not even possible. And that I found just so appalling, condescending and, frankly, un-American. I was like, “You think we can’t make a joke about it or be ironic about it? Watch me..."
Friday, January 10, 2003
To believe or not to believe?
According to Grant Stoddard, Romania is suffering from serious military problems. I'll quote Stoddard to keep my own mouth clean.
While it's not uncommon for army sergeants to have trouble with their privates, one doesn't expect a private to have troubles with his privates. This week a twenty-one-year-old Romanian soldier named Adrian Busureanu collapsed and began convulsing uncontrollably at a barracks in Valcea, Romania. After carrying out exhaustive tests, doctors at a military hospital diagnosed Busureanu as suffering from an "acute case of sexual frustration." Said a befuddled army spokesman, "He became feverish, delusional and finally hysterical after being apart from his girlfriend for two months. Busureanu told doctors that being apart from his girlfriend for so long had been unbearable: "I haven't seen her since I came here two months ago. It is impossible.” Busureanu later admitted he had never head of this "wonderful jerking-off thing" the doctor mentioned.
Friday, January 10, 2003
The world is not enough.
After watching the new Bond flick, Die Another Day, Miss Frost just didn't impress me. I missed Sophie Marceau's sexy portrayal of a woman who knows what she wants (too bad that, in both cases, all the women wanted was to please the male villains). It's high time Mr. Bond faced a female bounty-hunter that he just couldn't catch. And, if he did finally net her, wouldn't it be erotic if she talked him out of working for the British government as she seduced him?
Why don't you start working for yourself, James? You can choose your missions, increase your wages, and lose the chains. For all your bravado, you are no more free than a well-trained Doberman-- even your license to kill is a permission slip. Live beyond the license, James. Taste freedom, and then try to tell me you won't spend the rest of your life seeking to taste it again. And again.
What could be sexier than the moment when principle meets praxis? Alas, Maxim-- and most of you who are males-- don't count this among the top-ten fantasies. So I guess it's back to the old French maid outfit. Blah. Give me variety or give me death.
Friday, January 10, 2003
Citizenship means you pay more taxes.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the US government's detainment of an American-born man captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan was legal and proper. According to the 54-page ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who is being held incognito at the Navy brig in Norfolk, can be classified as an enemy combatant and therefore lacks the right to an attorney.
On the Court's view, as an American citizen, Hamdi had the right to a judicial review of his detention and his status as an enemy combatant. However, because the Constitution grants the executive branch the responsibility to wage war, the courts are required to show greater deference to the military in making such determinations during such times. Alas, there goes the hope for the effective restraint indended by the Amerucan system of checks and balances. Thank your lucky rabbit's foot for Nat Hentoff's Other-wise opinion.
Friday, January 10, 2003
At the tax on dividends' funeral...
Some attendees looked more upset than others. For example,
The New Republic's Ryan Lizza was clearly distraught, summoning the ghosts of the "politics behind dividends".
On the other side of the fence, Grover Norquist of the Americans For Tax Reform, broke into a jig the moment the news was announced. While some might consider such behavior insouciant, it is instructive to remember that the tax on dividends, while it lived, was not quite a model of civility. In fact, Hindu businesses, among others, felt the sharp tongue of its discriminatory nature.
President Bush, looking rather presidential I might add, attempted to comfort the bereaved and bereft by noting that the death of the tax on dividends would benefit 35 million Americans, more than half of them seniors who depend on income from investments. Perhaps we should consider the tax on dividends as a martyr for the economic well-being of the American people. Now wouldn't it be dandy if all taxes aspired to martyrdom?
Thursday, January 9, 2003
Two very disparate facts about the University of Chicago (or my penchant to think of ten things at once).
One of the most memorable tidbits of information garnered from my Koch Summer Fellowship Program room-mate, Laurel Van Allen, concerned the life of economist Donald McCloskey, now known as Deirdre. If you aren't familiar with the story behind economist Deidre McCloskey's self-liberation, I encourage you to read this excerpt from her memoir, Crossing Over, courtesy of the University of Chicago Press.
As for Laurel, she is now engaged in the Herculean task of earning her PHD in economics from The University of Chicago. Odds are that Laurel will be the most graceful lady to ever honor UC with her graduation.
Thursday, January 9, 2003
Executive power during war, and the weakness of human conscience.
James Madison's defense of checks and balances is best summed in his statement that "ambition must be made to couteract ambition". Madison's view of human nature assumed, much like Michel Foucault, that humans lust power, and this craving will make leaders more inclined to favor war-- an assertion of physical power-- over other methods of conflict resultion. Interestingly enough, Madison did not attribute this human propensity to encourage war to a lust for blood (as some feminists might whine), but rather, to a lust for esteem. In other words, no matter how far we get from high school, locker-room cockadoodling still seems to be the norm. In Madison's words:
War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is created, and it is the executive will to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive privelege under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war finally that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and the most dangerous weakness of the human breast-- ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame-- are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."
The executive power of our government has clearly expanded since the "war on terrorism" began. Will checks and balances humble our President? On this matter, I fear history offers little reason for hope.
Thursday, January 9, 2003
How to tell if a Republican has had a little too mcuh "sensitivity-training": When they toss the Chomsky book at you.
In my response to a colleague's abhorrence of what he characterizes as "anti-Americanism", it seems that the use of certain words guarantees a sense of victimization on the part of certain grown men who lack more logical rebuttal.
I confess that this exchange resurrected that horrible, gnawing guilt which used to visit me in my Catholic school history class whenever I raised my hand to ask questions about the Crusades. This same guilt (or shame) made itself felt in conversations with politically-correct friends who chastised me for saying "hispanic" instead of "Latino" and then, in the same sentence, referring to Romanians as "gypsies".
In a world dominated by political-correctness and the tendency to take offense, serious discussions are best left to the fossils. Two small comforts, in this particular case, reminded me to relax, stop blaming myself (as Catherine Mackinnon might encourage me to do), and call my colleague's bluff. After self-righteously complaining that I called him a "fascist", he goes on to mock certain groups who dislike the term "Oriental":
Doesn't that just sum up the politically correct attitude so well? I don't care if you people aren't offended by this word, if you were smarter it would offend you so we're banning it anyway. It reminds me of when I lived in Mexico I was supposed to be offended by the word gringo, a corruption of griego, the Spanish word for Greek. I can't say that I ever was.
As it turns out, my colleague gets sensitive about terminology when he dicovers the logic behind his argument is unsustainable. He then resorts to redefining words and follows Derrida in a healthy bit of deconstruction.
I did my best to address both his feelings and his reason in this reply, but I'm not sure clarity or understanding is what my colleague really seeks. I have to thank J.R. for bringing me back to reality on this one, as I hovered between various states of dread and confusion. I also must agree with JR that this sort of conversation becomes uninteresting when dragged through the gutters of inauthenticity.
So I'll finish it now, and try to make myself clear to this otherwise brilliant colleague who should know me better than his posts suggest. Greg, dear, nothing excites me more than the knowledge that this country harbors millions of people who "disagree with me". And nothing comforts me more than the knowledge that if you disagree with me, you will not hesitate to say so. What suggests a totalitarian leaning in your views has nothing to do with their content and much more to do with your inability appreciate the beauty that is open discourse. You complain of the Leftist control of American schools, yet, when I read American school history books, I am awed by the extent to which they inculcate a certain amount of America-worship. This is effected mainly through methodology-- our kids are encouraged to memorize historical facts (which they forget two days later) instead of learning how to think about history, and analyze it. And education by rote memorization is a more conservative form of education than it is a Leftist one.
You are not a "fascist", Greg. And I never called you a "fascist". I justed wanted to bring the dangers of your views, if carried to extremes, to your attention. As Americans, we are fortunate to have a limited experience with totalitarianism (i.e. we see it in movies or read about it). Let's keep it that way, Greg. I know we both want that.
Thursday, January 9, 2003
Call me cynical.
Now we know why Bush chose the most drastic NATO enlargement scenario. No longer the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-- now NATO will represent the Nuke All Terrorists Organization.
Thursday, January 9, 2003
What is the real goal of education reform? And will school vouchers get us there?
A student at the University of Chicago Law School, J. H. Huebert forces us to think about why school vouchers might not free schools or curriculums from government control. Supporters of school vouchers often justify their views by stating that the ultimate goal should be "school choice", or educational freedom. But the freedom to choose a school for your child does not assure that schools, themselves, will improve. It is not equivalent to the freedom to choose an education untainted by government.
Vouchers do increase competition between private schools and public schools. Public schools are even facing competition from cyberschools now. Yet the goal of increased competition is a vague and open-ended one. In most markets, increased competition tends to drive up the quality of the product while driving down the cost of the product (for those providers that want to corner the Wal-Mart niche). So why do I still feel uneasy about the grand promise of vouchers?
Is it because schools and prisons are gaining common ground? Why isn't competition doing something about the devastating social engineering assumptions of many public schools, which have been clearly ineffective in places like L.A.? Unless, of course, the goal was to guide young Americans to a life of crime and moral relativism.
D.L. Brooks brings a sad factotum to my attention. The Los Angeles School District C announced a new policy the other day, promising to bridge the difference between schools and prisons, officially articulated as follows:
"The post-secondary commitment program is the story of thousands of student and family dreams, of goals realized, of college opportunities achieved and of careers begun. As a result, graduation in District C will be a special commencement for every graduate and family. Each senior will not only be receiving a diploma, but will also have a plan for their future. It is the result of a transformed counseling and school-to-career program in each District C high school, dedicated to the success and future of all students. It is the result of committed and dedicated counselors. It is the result of all staff seeing each student's potential and truly caring for them as individuals."
I commend Huebert for speaking the unspoken in these gleeful, post-Zelman days. Perhaps, however, the most important question to ask ourselves is if we want teachers to educate our children in the art of acquiring knowledge? Or do we really hope that teachers will turn our kids into perfect American citizens and experts at the art of rote memorization and regurgitation?
If the latter rings true, then we shouldn't be surprised that kids don't want to talk about what they learned in school. Memorizing raises no interesting questions in a child's mind, except, "Why do I have to do this? What's the point?"
Thursday, January 9, 2003
Everything is full of you by Miguel Hernandez.
Everything is full of you
and I am full of everything:
the cities are full,
and the cemeteries are full,
you, with all the houses,
me, with all the bodies.
Down the streets, I will leave
something that I will retake:
pieces of my life
come from far away.
I go, feathered by agony
against my will, to see myself
in the threshold, in the bottom
hidden since birth.
Everything is full of me:
of something that is yours and memory
lost, but found
once more, some day.
Days that linger behind
decidedly black,
indelibly red,
golden upon your body.
Cast from your hair,
everything is full of you:
of something that I haven't found
and look for among your bones.
Thursday, January 9, 2003
My favorite Christmas present-- a book I can't put down.
NYU Law professor Steven Holmes shows why the voluntary sharing of privelege and power in political systems, through measures like checks and balances, is a "shrewd political bargain negotiated in order to win useful and necessary cooperation". According to view promulgated in Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy, "constitutions are bargains".
Even absolute kings, usually considered the archenemies of constitutionalism, can see the advantage of striking a deal with potential troublemakers. The slyly manipulative strategy of the Venetian oligarchy included disarming the common citizenry and, more sunbtly, making them creditors to give them a personal stake in the state's stability. The freedoms and minor powers they devolved upon the commoners, in any case, were justified as serving in the interests of the sovereign.
Holmes believes this provides key insight into what he calls "the central paradox of Bodin's theory of sovereignty", specifically, that less power is more power. This follows because, as the king decreases his own power to command his subjects arbitrarily, he increases his capacity to achieve concrete goals by giving the citizens a "voice", however meager, in the system-- or by telling them that the sovereignty resides in them.
Wednesday, January 8, 2003
Cesare Pavese, defeatism, and fatalism: Wheretofore art thou, fine line?
There is nothing quite like a character who refuses to be written into a perpetual tragedy. Cesare Pavese, for all his flirtation with madness, lived precisely as such a man. He refused to allow events to dictate his feelings, or sop up his intellectual and emotional freedom. In his own words:
"To choose a hardship for ourselves is our only defense against that hardship....Those who by their very nature can suffer completely, utterly, have an advantage. This is how we can disarm the power of suffering, make it our own creation, our own choice; submit to it."
Unfortunately, however, the aftertaste leaves one unsated. Flavoured by fatalism, Pavese's words encourage us to trade the tweezer for an Iron Maiden-- and then learn how to love it. This would go under the rubric of masochism in some less-than-sovereign circles. Refusing to be destroyed or broken by painful events in life is one thing. But to beckon pain and agony, to welcome it, seems more like self-flagellation than strength of character. Not even the Stoics sought pain.
Wednesday, January 8, 2003
Eat, drink, and protest for a long life.
I love it when my Move On newsletter arrives in my box-- there's always something juicy in which to sink my teeth. The latest? As it turns out, protesting has health benefits. A new British study suggests that taking part in campaigns, demonstrations, strikes, or protests helps improve psychological and physical health.
According to researcher Dr. John Drury, "The take-home message from this research therefore might be that people should get more involved in campaigns, struggles and social movements, not only in the wider interest of social change but also for their own personal good." Just pass the placard.
