American in Spain

To travel to the United States this June, we packed our bags and got our passports in order. We were concerned with how well our two year old, Nora, would do on our long journey (it ended up being 23 hours from door to door). In all the hubbub of travel organization and packing, we totally forgot about another two-year-old: the ridiculous Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) law enacted by the terrorist paranoid (paranoia = terrorist win?) United States that requires non-residents to fill out an application over the internet and pay a small fee of $14 to be allowed to enter the United States. It’s hard enough to find cheap holidays abroad without your destination country trying to extort money from you. Our first flight was from Bilbao to Lisbon, our second flight was from Lisbon to Philadelphia, and our third flight was from Philadelphia to Charlotte.
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Theories about information flow are particularly fun when they arrive to your brain through the very mechanisms they are explaining. Recently several of my Facebook friends, a couple people I follow on Twitter, and two of my favorite podcasts started reporting on a new concept from Eli Pariser called The Filter Bubble. The general idea goes like this: as search engines and social media sites use smarter and smarter algorithms to better serve what they determine our needs to be, the less and less we are exposed to opposing viewpoints.
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For a long time, I have been unable to understand the point of political and social demonstrations and parades and such. I have at least two posts to this effect. What does Congress care if a bunch of rainbow-flag-waving hippies are out on the National Mall? That’s not going to change anyone’s mind!

With the combination of a number of successful political demonstrations – the most successful being that of Egypt – in the first quarter of 2011 and a video lecture I saw on YouTube, I finally had an epiphany about why demonstrations matter, and how they can be effective.
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I woke up this morning to the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by US troops in Pakistan. I turned on the news and found a bunch of non-journalism time-filling fluff with a pretty Spanish woman with a microphone going around Madrid asking passersby for their opinion on the news. I turned to the internet and learned that there were parties in front of the White House and Ground Zero with mobs of Americans shouting “USA! USA!” and waving flags. My Facebook feed was full of comments like “From now on, May 1st will be known as Vengeance Day!! Booyaah!” Later, when I went to the local grocery store, where I am known for my nationality, I was greeted with salutations of “Congratulations!”
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As I’ve approached and entered my thirties, I’ve become increasingly interested in politics. Not that I would ever, ever participate beyond the ballot box or a donation, but as a spectator, I’m fascinated. Another of my interests in recent years is the psychology of decision making, belief, and logical fallacies. Of particular curiosity is the growing ideological gulf between the political left and right in the United States brought on by increased access to information.
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One of my most profound epiphanies about politics occurred almost five years ago, when this blog was in its infancy. I realized that, merely by definition of the two political parties’ values, the only way for the Conservative party to gain power is to make a lot of noise and reduce voter turnout. This is because the vast majority of people are, by definition, going to support more socialist wealth-distributing economic policies. This is an absolute political truth that has always been true and will forever continue to be true. The way the Republican party in the US circumvents this is to side with Religion and the issues like abortion and gay marriage that fall out of strong Biblical religious conviction. These issues, of course, fall along the Authoritarian-Libertarian political spectrum, which is orthogonal to the Conservative-Liberal economic political spectrum. (more…)

I live in a country where the two dominant parties are The Socialist Workers’ Party and The People’s Party, both of which would be regarded as immorally Communist by half of my countrymen (the third place is The United Left!). With decent unemployment benefits and almost free healthcare to all, even the far right Spanish politicians are to the left of most Democrats in the United States.

By becoming a parent, I have been introduced to a lot of Spain’s socialist help-the-poor policies. Simply by procreating, my wife and I were eligible for 2,500€ “baby check” in government funds, a measure introduced in 2007 (and scrapped in 2011) to try to raise Spain’s birthrate. My region of Cantabria provides additional subsidies for child-bearers.
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Just some food for thought to my American brethren as you head to the polls on Tuesday. Not that it should discourage you from voting. Please vote! It’s important.

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Today the entire country, in theory, was on strike, the General Strike of September 29, 2010. The news in the morning showed police trying to push demonstrators out of the way so that the “minimal services” buses could leave the station in Madrid. The government and the organization managing the strike agreed last week to provide minimal transport and health services across Spain. They interviewed one of the protestors who said, “Requiring minimal services is denying our right to strike!” That’s both true and stupid.

The main factor that influenced life in the small town where I live was: Bread.
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On September 29, 2010, there will be a general strike in Spain. This means that most workers in most industries will not go into work that day, and many will be picketing. Perhaps I’m too ignorant in the intricacies of labor economics, but this strike seems to me like a really, really stupid idea.

Strikes by workers in mines or factories make perfect sense to me. The workers are demonstrating how necessary they are, as the foundation of the organization, for the employer to make any money. Typically the workers have some grievances and some demands of their employer. Negotiation takes place, some demands are met, some are compromised, and the employees get back to work. I totally get that. I’m way more lefty than the average American when it comes to workers’ rights.

But what about an entire country going on strike?
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