American Views on People of the World

This week in class, we discussed views that America had on people before and after the events of 9/11. In this blog, I plan to discuss specifically who the people were and why the were stereotyped as such. In this day and age, there are many stereotypes about many people. Things like Indians only study all day, to all Mexicans are illegal immigrants. Obviously that cannot be true, because it would cause every person of the same race to be exactly the same. So why is it that there was a stereotype formed after 9/11 that highlighted Muslims as terrorists? That cannot be true at all... The Islamic way of life does not condone violence against other people. I think that it is ignorance. There is a famous phrase that says, "ignorance is bliss", but it really isn't. Not when s causes an entire religion to be ostrasized based on the act of a single outlier, an outlier that is not common. One of the root of the word Islam is Salam, which means peace or well being. Is it really possible for people of a religion that means peace, to be made of terrorists? After 9/11 fears of terrorism rocketed, and fear became irrational. The irrational fears of Americans right after 9/11 caused diputes, riots, and etc. So there is a large problem in America, one that this generation can fix. I believe that we can stop ignorant stereotypes. What do you think?

The Candy Bombers

Over this past week, we have started to watch our Cold War videos. Mine was on the Berlin Airlift and it's part in the beginning of the war. In this entry, I'm specifically going to talk about the Candy Bombers and their part of the Berling Airlift. The most interesting thing (in my opinion) is that the Candy Bombers actually dropped candy along with the supplies needed during the Berlin Blockade. It started with 1st Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen who saw children outside of the airport gates watching the Airlift planes take off. He gave them two pieces of gum and told them if they didn't fight over it, then he would bring candy for the next lift, and drop it to them from the plane. True to his word, he brought bags of candy anf using a handkerchief, he parachuted it down from his plane to their waithing hands. Near the end of the Berlin Airlift, multiple pilots had joined in to this. The last Airlift had 3 tons of candy dropped into both Western and USSR Berlin. Most of these children grew up to be pilots themselves later in their lives. From this story, we can glean that one small act of kindness can start a fire of many acts, and can change/influence the lives of the people around us. My question is, why do you think that the Candy Bombers are remembered today? 1st Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen went on to win the 1948 Cheney award due to his act of kindness, and is the most recognised pilot of the Berlin Airlift. So why do you think that acts of kindness are remembered so well in history... even the smallest ones?

The Marshall Plan (Quarter 4, blog # 1)

This week we started to talk about the cold war. During this war specifically, anticommunism was a big topic. The U.S even created a containent policy to help combat it. A plan they created was called the Marshall plan. It was made to help aid European countries tht had not fallen under communism. The Marshall Plan provided a promise of economic and finacial stability and the U,S spent aproximately 13 billion dollars financing this plan. Do you think there could have been a more effective plan? and if so... what would it entail?  By providing the monetary provisions for Europe, the U.S was also brinign money back to itself. When money went to Europe, then they bought American goods and used American workers which help build up the U.S. economy as well. The Marshall plan also allocated the idea that the U.S would protect these countries with the army and would not hesitate to use force on any communist like actions. The main points of the Marshall plan were created to help support the containment policy and help combat communism. What do you believe was the main point of the Marshall Plan? Why did America create so many different plans to bolster the Containment policy?

Prohibition of alcohol

Prohibition is the act of imposing ones ideals on another person. In the 1920's alcohol was one of the items that was prohibited. It started with ex-alcoholics creating a pact to not drink anymore and ended with the government completely banning it. However, like all laws and rules, people can't help but try to break them. Just like the moonshiners, people started to create secret bars that hid the alcohol whenver law enforcement came to check on places. Shelves, and tables would turn over dropping the bottles into secret cellers under the shops in the sewers. Why do you think people went through such lengths to be able to drink? From this ordeal, women sufferage movements increased and equality between genders became more apparent. Another major thing that came from the prohibition of alcohol was the realization of domestic violence. The group of people who made a pact against alcohol realized this and this was a start of new ideals. The prohibition of alcohol obviously didn't work considering the fact that today, people drink alcohol freely. Even though there is moderate prohibition, meaning minors and drivers can't drink, the use of alcohol still exsists today.

American Colonies?

This week, we focused on trade and International business. What do you suppose that Americans thought about the idea of making colonies in the Philippines? Do you think that any were against the idea due to being British colonies before the Revolutionary war? I feel that many people would have been against the idea of colonizing the Philippines because of that event. We read about the argument that Mr. Beveridge shared with the President. He mostly claimed that the Philippines could not govern themselves and I quote, "They are not capable of self-government" (2) in the section, The Filipinos Are Children. I think that he was being very racist in this comment to get the President to agree with him. I believe that most of his argument was geared towards things that would benefit him the most. Although he did include many things that would benefit the country as a whole. He used things like trading and military bases to convince the President that he should choose to colonize the Philippines. I think that after helping free the Philippines it was very odd to try to control them. I personally think that an alliance by choice would have been better. Just literally ask to form a treaty, and perhaps they would have agreed considering that America helped them. Although I do suppose that since their was a chance that they could have disagreed, they went for total control... 

NINA Loan

This week and the past week, we talked about the speculations bubbles and housing prices. I specifically want to talk about the NINA loan. From what I learned, the NINA stood for no income no asset. It was a degraded version of the original type of loan that only people with enough money could get. The original loan was made so that the people who could actually pay it off and get the bank more money along the way would get it. Over time however, The original loan was decreased in value until it became easy for anyone to get a loan. My question was, why would you need to decrease the value that much? Wouldn't they know that the people who but the NINA can't actually afford it and will fault? If you think that they do know, why do you think that there would even be a speculation bubble? Wouldn't it pop before it even started? My thoughts on this are that if they stuck with the original amount of money with the original loan, the NINA crisis in 2007 wouldn't have happened. The crisis could have definately been averted. It just needed to be stopped by not having greed. The no income no asset loan, was a child of greed from the Speculation bubble. The Morgages went up without a need and suddenly crashed in 2007. When the bubble popped, a lot of people lost their jobs and some of the houses being built were never completed. NINA Loans were the downfall in economy, hopefully they won't show up again in the future.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Do you believe in the dark faeries? Percy Bysshe Shelley was a well known poet who wrote in the romantic style. In American Lit for the past few weeks, we have been researching romantic poets. Something I found interesting about Shelley, was that his first important poem, had been about Queen Mab. In general, she is a well known dark being. The use of her name as the title,made me wonder: Why her? When I analyzed the poem more closly, I found some connections to his life. Shelley had two wives. The first one committed suicide, after he traveled to France with another woman. In his poem, he personifies Death and Sleep as if they were actually people. I found that you could easily replace the two names with his wives names because the characteristics describes them each induvidually. One of the questions that I had was: Do you think that he wrote the poem Queen Mab with inspiration of his own life, mainly his wives? When I looked up Queen Mab, the most common pop-up said that she was commonly defined as a depiction of the plague or even herpes. This was because she was mainly drawn over a body, whose lips were covered in boils. Do you think that had anything to do with Shelley's choice to use her as his title?