Research Paper Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPH2TmdU4Oo&feature=youtu.be

7/9 blog

This week’s blog posting will be about a combination of material from the reading and from the lecture.  I have read and heard about communism before, but I could never really figure out what it was.  I tried to look up what the word meant in the dictionary, but I guess it didn’t register in my brain.  I always knew that it wasn’t a good thing, but I didn’t know how bad it could be.  The lecture and chapter opened my eyes and I finally get it now.  The idea of everyone getting something and making an attempt to create an equal world doesn’t sound too bad.  However that is not realistic, having a central planning system and trying to manage who gets what has to be stressful.  What if some people don’t like what they get and or need more? It actually creates a shortage and wide spread resentment of the entire process.  The people become deprived and the rich stay rich.  One of my old coworkers was from South Vietnam and he spoke of communism and how the North Vietnamese were bad people because they wanted to enforce these rules on them.  He fought in the war along side the US to preserve freedom for the south and not be forced into a communist society. 

South Africa was a country were the minority white British settlers controlled.  It’s interesting to know that no black Africans had any political rights.  South Africa was controlled by apartheid, which attempted to separate blacks for whites in every conceivable way.  “Pass laws” were placed to monitor the movements of Africans who entered the cities and enforced social segregation.  In the 1950’s Nelson Mandela organized non-violent civil disobedience.  They had boycotts, strikes and demonstrations.  Mandela was arrested because of this; Gandhi inspired these tactics and movements.  Africa acquired its political freedom as an intact and unified state. 

I couldn’t imagine dealing with these forms of hardships.  Throughout history people have had to survive, adapt, live and migrate to preserve life.  Many have died along the way, but their history is what we learn about today.  They are the ones who have paved this road that we walk.  

7/3 blog

This weeks blog topic was a combinations of thoughts based on the readings.  I remember asking my grandmother about the great depression a few years ago.  She mentioned that it was a very hard time and she was forced to work and help out her family.  That was a very trying time for Americans and as a result of the great depression some people committed suicide.  When the stock market crashed 11 Wall Street bankers killed themselves.  Banks closed and a lot of people lost their life savings.  Investments dried up and businesses were unable to sell their products.  The loss of work was very hard for most Americans.  Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was what was going to make the great depression end.  The New Deal was complex tangle of reforms intended to restore pre- Depression prosperity and to prevent future calamities.

Hitler was a very charismatic person who made people fall in love with him.  He was able to convince a nation that one race was superior to all others.  Eradicating the Jewish race the way he did was so foul and completely insane.  He had a way of making people believe that what he is doing was okay.  Some folks had no sense of what was going on even though they were living during that time.  I had a thought and I wondered if there could possibly be another Hitler type person in this world that could influence and rule a certain people on a global level.  With all the media and knowledge of the past I often wonder if we could experience a repeat.  I doubt that, but I am sure that this could happen on a small scale.  I don’t think that would last long because people would revolt and not become subject to such a thing.

I remember reading about Hiroshima and the atom bomb as a little kid.  I always thought that was crazy and the older I got I became really ashamed.  All things happen for a reason and I know that war is a terrible, but necessary thing so I sort of understand.  The atomic bomb was a result of an attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.  I think that it was important for the United States to send a message to the world, but interestingly enough japan sent their own message to pearl harbor.  This action by the United States showed the world to not mess with the US.  Now other nations make threats and try to gain an upper hand with nuclear power plants.  It seems that history has a way of repeating itself, so hopefully the most recent century doesn’t come back the way it happened then.