Latino Politics in America, reaction

Garcia uses data from the 2000 elections and prior information to emphasize the rise the Latino voice in the political arena of the country. He shows both their percentage in the population as well as their growth rate to be increasing at great levels, suggesting that the "Latino vessel" that many spoke of in the 1990s has finally arrived or begun to arrive. He also charts that Latinos demographically tend to support Democratic candidates, although the results in 2002 showed that the once large gap between Republican and Democratic support was narrowing due to the rise of the Latino middle class. His example of the case in Dalton, Georgia shows the increasing influence and growth of the Latino population, as well as the negative and positive consequences of this expansion.

Overall Garcia simply emphasizes that Latino influence is on the rise, and although they have dispersed throughout the country, their cultural identity and desire to be heard in the political process is likewise increasing.

Blowback, reaction

Johnson argues in his essay for a sort of imperial and political karma, termed as blowback, that haunts every expansionist and self fulfilling policy it enacts. He believes that the majority of the obstacles in foreign policy and global conflicts have been created by former acts of America's Cold War self, seen at that time to be necessary for survival.

The most important fact that he presents in his essay is the duality of "terrorism" and terrorist-like acts. As he accurately points out, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," and the ability to see the oppostite side from our own in viewing America's military actions in retrospect allows for far greater perspective on the global situation, especially in regards to terriorism. Rather than pursue further attacks, he proposes that conflicts of the past could have been solved by simply removing our presence from certain parts of the world. The danger in such thinking, however, comes back to soft power. Soft power can exist between enemies as well as allies, and although some opposing rises to power may have been preventable, our perception in the minds of our enemies must also be taken into account when deciding strategy.

His most powerful point in the essay seemed to be his bit on the future and the unintended consequences that the innocent will face, most likely ones which they had no say in. Terrorism always lashes out on the innocent to punish the powerful, and in all likelihood those innocent will prove to be punished for sins that their generation did not commit, as history tells us. Johnson believes that if America does not rid itself of its Empirical nature and outlook on the world, this punishment will lash out furiously and more intensely than ever in the upcoming generation.

Response to Joseph Nye

Nye argues in this article that a country's "soft power," rather than its hard military might, can be the most effective in influencing on the global stage. He defines soft power as the ability to get other countries to desire the same end that you as a country desire. To accomplish this, one must feed on the attractions and inducement of other countries by tapping into its cultural and political values, and its foreign policies and using them like mataphorical weapons.

Nye also makes a case against the "neoconservative" approach, saying that enthusiasm for the spread of democracy may be in theory beneficial, it may also not necessarily be shared by the parties involved. Therefore the soft power is not actually gained as believed and this "unilateral" policy fails to deliver. He appears to take a rather skeptical view upon politicians and the political process, especially with regards to more conservative thought, saying that they shift the blame to inevitable conditions rather to themselves.

Ultimately, Nye traces our losses in soft power back to the recent events of the Iraq war (foreign policy) and the power of public image as portrayed to the masses. Our attraction worsened, and as result our soft power decreased, with many people viewing America as an imperialist type machine. He makes a very solid argument about multilateral policy making: if soft power is about attraction through shared values, the others must have a say in the policies as they should know their own values more than us. By achieving this level of coordination, American soft power would inevitably increase throughout the world.

Despite his skeptical demeanor, he ends the essay on a high note, believing in the ablility of the United States to regain its balance of soft and hard power in foreign policy just as we have done in the past.