Political Imagination

Here is my pre-flect on political imagination. First of all, political imagination is reimaging our futures according to our values. I guess it means our future are based on our values. Global warming is a political imagination. We didn't care about the enviroment as much as we should. We polluted the air, the earth and everything because money is the most important. As long as we make more money, nothing else should matter. Hundred of years ago, there was no such thing as the greenhouse effect. No one would have imagine the melting of ice in North and South Pole. But things have changed. Because we didn't value what we have, the result is global warming. It is time to fight the global warming before it is too late. There are many famous individuals who have been working on educating the public about the existence of global warming . For example, Al Gore is one of the famous people who wrote a book as well as making a movie about global warming called "The Inconvienient Truth".It includes very graphical and personally, horrific images about the potential danger of global warming and what it has already done to our beautiful planet. Al Gore used political imagination in the process in order to raise awareness and hopefully, stop the United States and other countries' contribution to global warming.http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/state/15770659.htm?source=rss&channel=montereyherald_state. The article is about how the state of California will work with the northeast states to fight global warming. For example, the industrial corporations and utility companies must cut their greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 25 percent by 2020. We can also experienced political imagination in everyday life. If you value honesty, then you think everyone else would be honest to you. That is my understanding of political imagination but I can be wrong.

Here is my reflection on political imagination. We started our class of democracy by playing a little guess-who game. It started with "challenge". This person's challenge was getting Americans to face an international problem and getting them to make changes. It took him eight years in the administration, an internationally recognized treaty and reversed policies to "change the world"... He recognized that entertainment values have transformed what we called news. A creative moment came with a New York bestseller book and a movie called "The inconvienent truth". The man is Al Gore and he has been using political imagination to raise awareness about global warming. Using Al Gore as our example, we can define political imagination as pursuit creative actions to get things done. It is making what is real more ideal or the other way around, making what is real more ideal. Basically, political imagination is about changing things in a better way.Characterizations of political imagination are:- creativity (let your mind explore all the possibilities and even think of impossibilities and ways to make it possible)- action (put your creativity into work)- Positive energy- Goal SettingOther characterizations of political imagination include shifting paradigms which is your viewpoints. In other words, open up to new possibilities.To achieve success in political imagination, you have to contrast the world as it is with the world as you wish it to be and then, work for it. Make the ideal real. Make the real ideal.


Application: We put our lesson of political imagination into action last week. We each get into a group and develop a plan. A plan must be about something that can be done to improve our PSEC community. For example, our group plan was about recycling glass. PSEC is about being environmentally friendly and yet , we don't recycle glass. My group's goal is to change all that and start recycling glass. Here is the outline1. Define the problem: lack of recycling bins for glass2. Justify this is a problem: glass doesn't decompose and thus, can be potential pollutant to environment. Many PSEC want to recycle their glass bottles3. Define solution: our group will buy glass-recycle bins and bring the glass to recycling center and start recycling glass at PSEC4. Propose a solution: Each group member will done 50 cents . One group member is assigned to go buy the glass-recycle bins. We put one bin in Rm. 103, one on the second floor (potential area: outside Diana and Terry's office) and one in the Lunch Box. At the end of each week, each member will take turn taking the glass to recycling center and recycling them!!!

Public Judgement
Here is my pre-flect on public judgement. First of all, let's define public judgement. Public judgement is a public decision making that allows citizens to make choices that they are willing to help implement or carry out. Looking at the definition, I personally would assume the role to be somewhat passive. However, through experience, I have learned that public judgement requires more effort than one would have expected. It requires time and extensive knowledge about the subject in order for the judgement to be accurate. Like I said before, I had experience with public judgement and so do most people. From midterm elections to daily basis, there are so many opportunities for public judgement. For example, we as a PSEC community have been discussing the constitution. It was not the most exciting thing ever but I did try to pay close attention to it. There were parts that I don't necessarily agree with. For instance, in article II,section 1, paragraph 2, it said "Every member of the student Community must be in a Committee; thereby anyone who is found not in their Committee’s meeting without a valid excuse will be in conduct violation. " I disagree with it. I found most committees don't operate effectively and productively so therefore, why should we take it so seriously that if we miss a meeting, we will be in "conduct violation". However, I agree with many subjects mentioned on the constitution like "Faculty are not to take a lead in any Parliamentary Procedure, and are not permitted to establish order, speak out of turn, or provide advice to what is to be done next..." It's a democratic community meeting and thus, nobody should hold more power than the one next to him or her. Based on those agreement/ disagreement, I'll vote on whether or not I want to adopt this constitution as the Constitution of PSEC, using the art of public judgement.
Here is my article for the week. http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061114/ap/d8ld2v500.html
It mainly focuses on the public opinions, based on polls, on the midterm results. To be a part of the midterm election(ex: by voting), it already requires public judgement. However, this article focus even more on public judgement by asking questions like whether or not voters feel confident about the fairness of the election and what is the top priorities for the government now that it controls by the Democrats...I think this article also relate to the art of evaluation.

Here is my reflection on public judgement. First of all, public judgement is not knee jerk reactions or private thoughts. It is also not polarized views or opinions . It is not about being judgemental. What public judgement is that thinking through the clash of values engaging respectfully and creatively hearing and accomodating others . To summerize all the ideas represented above, we can say that public judgement is when the public accepts the consequences of its views or opinions.
Public Judgement is divided into Seven Stages of Public Opinion:
Stage 1: AWARENESS: People become aware of the issues
Stage 2: URGENCY: People start to care about the issues
Stage 3: SEEK ANSWER: This is a process of understanding
Stage 4: OBSTACLES STALL DISCUSSION: trade offs start to become evident
Stage 5: CHOICEWORK: rational weighing of pros and cons about the issues
Stage 6: ACCEPT CHANGE INTELLECTUALLY: people's attitude often change before the behaviors changed
Stage 7: JUDGEMENT: people accept the consequences and started to change their behaviors
The stages of public opinion are not fixed and can happen out of order and still can be successful.

Application: I believe it is safe to say that we all experience the seven stages of public opinion. I personally did. For me, it was about homosexual marriage right or the right for gay couples to get married. First, I experienced awareness with seeing the news and how the state of Massachusset allowed gay marriage as the country opposed it. After that, I went through the stage of urgency as I started to care about the issue as something that going to effect the country's future and its democracy and justice. I started to discuss it with people and form discussing with others, I experience the third stage, which is seek answer. I started to understand more about the issue like being homosexual is not a choice, it is something you are born with. Also, it is the issue of seperating state and church. After that, I started to evaluate the information I collected and weighing the pros and cons of gay marriage. I realize it is not as offensive and wrong as people think when they think about gay marriage and I started to believe that as people, they deserve to the human right of getting married to the one you love. I ended the process with stage seven as I accepted the consequence of the future America where gay marriage is accepted and everywhere and when I can vote, I will vote yes to it because I have friends who are gay and they are just like us, who love, care and give so much to life so why should they be discriminated against just because they have different sexuality ???

Here is my pre-flection on public dialogue. First of all, let's define the term public dialogue. Public dialogue is public talk on matters that concern us all. We are experiencing public dialogue everyday but many of us are not aware of that. As we approach the mid-term election day, I see more and more examples of public dialogue. From raising minimum wages to the war in Iraq, people are dicussing and expressing their thoughts to one another on all the matters that concern the American people. That, to my understanding, is public dialogue. Even though we use public dialogue everyday, it still doesn't mean we are all experts on it. Public dialogue requires skills such as
- Active listening (Is it possible to have a dialogue if no one listen?)
- Identifying important matters that truly concerning to the majority (It doesn't matter what color I should wear to class tomorrow!)
- Respect (part of civilization)
- Constructive and positive participation (I feel that to be successful when it comes to communication, this part is truly need)
Here is my article of the week on the topic of public dialogue...
http://www.theolympian.com/101/story/49149.html
The article is about the mid-term election this Tuesday. From I-933 to balancing out the control of the Congress, the article collects opinions of different people from the state of Washington and discuss it openly and publicly. I might be wrong but I felt that the article reflect the art of public dialogue very clearly. I feel that getting the Congress back under Democratic control is very important because the Democrate should have their say on important issues surrounded our nation like war on Iraq... Democratic control of Congress is matter that concerned us all and the article desmonstrate different opinions of different people as they discuss these issues/matters.

Here is my reflection on the art of public dialogue.
-Public talk on matters that affect us all
-Talks in which differences are valued

PLUSES about public dialogue:
-Reveals interests
-Expands and deepens knowledge
-Generates alternatives

How to achieve public dialogue:
-Face to face conversation
-Neutral facilitator
-Resource materials
-Explore values beneath positions
-Start small to build trust

Application: As the Irag war goes on without visible success, there are more public dialogues surrounding the issues of bringing our troops home, and letting the Iraqi goverment lead their own country. People, like the senators from both Democrats and Republic parties started to have conversations where they can express their thoughts and opinions and ideas to solve the issues. I also experienced public dialogue at PSEC. Every Monday, we come to community meeting. At community meeting, we would discuss publicly topics likes limited parking space, interaction between cohorts and so on. These topics are concerned matters to us all at PSEC and that's public dialogue in action. We truly generate more alternatives through the art of public dialogue.