Paradise Lost
Peter Schrag presents the ills of Californiafs current politics in an angry and persuasive tone. He says California used to be gboth model and magnet for the nation—in its economic opportunities, its social outlook, and its high-quality public services and institutesh; however, California started to fade after the passage of Proposition 13, the initiative of tax limits (7). Schragfs work clearly shows what is the problem in todayfs California, and it is easy to understand even for those who have little knowledge of politics. By focusing on issues of gneopopulismh which is easy to find in Californiafs diversity, he succeeds in giving his readers the sense of crisis not only about Californiafs politics, but also the national wide politics because California is the place gwhere the new American society is first coming into full viewh (23). Schrag says, about California politics, that:For nearly a generation, there has been increasing focus among scholars, politicians, and journalists on the growing gaps in California—ethic, social, economic—between those who exercise political power and the larger population, and particularly those who are the most immediate users of its public services. What h
Schrag also notices that the demographic change deeply relates to Californiafs politics in the last two decades. The budge for the educational system use to be mostly financed by property taxation; however, the state government stopped to spend enough money to keep the high quality educational system after Proposition 13 passed. He says that the voters have approved many initiatives gan average of four in each two-year election cycleh after Proposition 13 passed (194). Almost by definition, it is also a device of impulse that tends to be only marginally respectful of minority rights or interests, and that lends itself to demagogic wedge campaigns designed to boost voter turnout for other political purpose. He describes todayfs California schools as gmigrant camp—row after row of drab wooden boxes of uncertain safety, most of them painted brownh (83). Schrag shows us the background of Proposition 13 and their direct effects in third section, gThe Spirit of 13. Schrag shows important facts related to that class issue and how that class issue affected public services including the educational system. In the next section, gMarch of the Plebiscites,h Schrag focuses on gbroader implication of Californiafs orgy of plebiscitesh and discusses measure after the passage of Proposition 13. In the second section, gGood-bye El Dorado,h Schrag focuses on the issues of public services which he calls gMississippification,h infrastructure, gthe fundamentally changed government structure,h and gsocial relations that Californiafs tax revolt and its political progeny have produced,h especially he pays particularly close attention to gMississippificationh of the public school system. Proposition 13 became gboth fact and symbol of a radical shift in governmental priorities public attitudes, and social relationships that is as nearly fundamental in American politicsh (132). Many measures which reduced tax from rich people and increased from poor people, gwho use public services but vote in much lower numbers,h passed, with the result that the gap between upper-middle class and low income class extended. His work gives us a good opportunity for rethinking recent California and how voters, not only Californiafs voters but also the others, should be. He says, ga growing share of taxes was no longer going to schools and cops but to welfare and health, meaning to the poor and to the new foreign immigrants—and that even when it went to schools, it appeared increasingly to be schools for somebody elsefs childrenh (139). Schrag discusses Proposition 218, and he says that it ggave electoral privileges to the rich and wellbornh (170).
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Acceptance Essays
