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!!!