I loved reading about United States History and Politics, even as a young child. In 1982, I began studying Political Science as a student at West Valley College. I was excited to take my first college course in Political Science.
My professor was Bill Whitney. He was very excitable and interesting, lecturing about elections during the depression, political parties and spy satellites. I told him that he had very interesting ideas but I thought he would be more effective if he cited more research.
Professor Whitney then accused me of being a spy for Dr. Karamitsos who was a Marxist. I was surprised. I knew about Communism, but I was only taking World History with Dr. Karamitsos. I barely knew her. I was a political moderate, sensible. Communism in Russia and China seems extreme to me. I was shocked and did not know how to respond to him.
Professor Whitney assigned a project analyzing the news media. I recorded on my Video Tape Machine, the national news for ABC, NBC, and CBS. It was during the presidential election of 1984 between President Ronald Reagan and Vice President Walter Mondale. Due to my analysis, I began to see how the news media covered certain stories and yet ignored others.
Moreover, I learned how much fear and anger often gets stirred up when we discuss politics. Political discourse is designed to evoke powerful affect and certain behavior.
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