Capitalism

    There are two types of socioeconomic systems: capitalism and socialism. Capitalism means free-market competition, private or corporate ownership of production and distribution, and personal responsibility. Capitalism produces innovation and variety in the marketplace with high-quality goods and services at reasonable prices.

     Socialism means that a few people, those with political and economic power, are in control of production and distribution. Socialism results in stagnation, limited goods and services, low quality, fixed prices, and dependence on the government.

     The establishment of capitalism was a time of upheaval and bitter struggles between new and old power-brokers. At the same time, the mass of the population were dragged unwillingly into an increasingly violent conditioning process. The new capitalists needed to be able to exert ever more pressure on their producers to produce more for less, so that the capitalists could maintain trading prices and increase profits. They looked to the state to ensure pressure was brought to bear on workers who, for the first time, were being forced to sell their labor in an increasingly competitive work environment, which was itself aggravated by the swollen ranks of the new landless and unemployed.

     A look at the history of the economic and social conditions that pre-dates the industrial revolution shows that capitalism arose from the systematic breakdown of feudalism as a social and economic system and the imposition of a wage labor system in its place. Capitalism soon spread to Europe, and to the rest of the world.

     The coming of capitalism has also brought with it the potential for workers to organize for change. Though capitalism brought with it untold misery, ordinary people were far from passive victims in the face of exploitation. Instead, they sought to resist capitalism, giving birth to the idea of an alternative world, free from exploitation and misery.

     Capitalism helps the economy to grow, rewards people on their successes, and incentivizes individuals to work hard. The free market competition allows only superior produce to exist in the market and for this, everybody has to work hard for survival which ultimately leads to better performance. On the other hand in socialism you get.

John Adams has been always remembered not only as the second president of America but also as a great philosopher. One of his quotes about Democracy states that democracy never lasts long. Adams claims that democracy soon wasters, exhausts and murder itself. He largely believes that there was never a democracy that did not commit coincide. Adams was very smart politician and his experience and knowledge about other countries caused these words. He knew about other countries which had tried this system of democracy and most of the time it failed. Many countries had turned to other government systems.

     John Adams says that democracy is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. And I agree with this idea. Democracy isn’t given just for free. People needed to fight for it and as every fight it took thousands of lives.

      Democracy is a great system of government and I think that no matter what it is better that monarchy, when only one person governs the country and other people don’t have right to make decisions. But democracy makes everything harder, because different people have different views about specific issues, which sometimes can cause arguments.

     US is one of the countries that has democracy system for many years, but personally I think that it’s not the real democracy.    A real democracy is a direct and participatory democracy, in which all citizens have the possibility and the right to participate in the decisions that affect their lives and their communities.

     Today, democracy is equated with representative government based on free elections of political elites that rule on the citizens’ behalf. In old democracies of Europe the streets were full of people protesting against brutal policies that were forced to them. In real democracy the all power is given to citizens. In US and in many “Democratic” countries decisions are made by a few leaders. But, according to real democracy political decisions should be made by all citizens living in that country. Government took control of everything. All that people do is to vote and elect representatives, and representatives not always make decisions that people wanted to.

 John Adams had a great political experience that’s how he foresaw the future of America. His words were real and the same tells us the world history. The same thing has happened to other democratic countries.

I would say that United States is so lucky to still have this system, but it still doesn't work how it supposes to work.

 The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand ignited World War I. However, it wasn’t the main reason of World War I. There were other causes such as imperialism, militarism, nationalism, and a tangled system of alliances. Two kinds of nationalism contributed to World War I. The first was the tendency for country such as the great power to act in their own national interest. The second kind of nationalism occurred in countries with diverse ethnic populations those in central and eastern Europe.

Militarism involved aggressively building up a nation’s armed forces in preparation for war and giving the military more authority over the government and foreign policy. The great powers of Europe spent large sums of money on new weapons and warship for expending their armed forces. Their planning for war made war much more likely.

A system of alliances developed among the nations of Europe during the late nineteenth century. Germany and Austria-Hungary were linked by treaty, as were Russia and France. Great Britain and France shared a looser alliance called Entente. One week after the war started, all the great power of Europe had been drawn into it. The conflict divided them into two sides. Germany and Austria made up the Central Powers. Russia, France, Serbia, and Great Britain were called the Allies.

     The American government protested  the actions of both sides and tried to act as peacemaker.  American business leaders welcomed the proclamation of neutrality, but those who had strong commercial ties with Great Britain urged that United States get ready for war. They wanted their country to help Great Britain if necessary.  So United States had no other choice than to be prepared to go to war.

The Constitution immediately establishes a bicameral legislature- that is, one made up of two houses. It had historical, practical, and theoretical reasons. One of the historical reasons was the fact the British Parliament had consisted of two houses since the 1300s and the Farmers knew the British system of bicameralism quite well. The other reason is practical. Bicameralism is a reflection of federalism. Each of the States is equally represented in Senate. The third reason of bicameral legislature was theoretical. The farmers favored a bicameral Congress in order that one house might act as a check on the other. In my opinion the bicameral legislature was very important. It was a way to diffuse the power of Congress and so prevent it from overwhelming the other two branches of government. It also has a huge impact on politics today.

            Does anybody have right to torture?

 

Lately the whole media is covered of news about torture of suspected terrorist at CIA's 'Salt Pit' prison. As I read in this article the first detainee interrogated in the old abandoned brick factory north of Kabul became the model for what would later unfold in the cave-like halls of a CIA interrogation facility known as the "Salt Pit." Suspected terrorists, often were left alone in the shadows, under a barrage of shrieking music, cold, shackled and hooded. Some senior leaders in the factory did not have the linguistic or analytical experience to conduct effective questioning of CIA detainees and the result was diminished intelligence.

After reading this article I thought that nothing else can surprise me about this. But then I read another article which tells about that The United States government paid two military psychologists $80 million to develop torture tactics that were used against suspected terrorists. Even if one could get past the repulsive idea of paying someone to come up with new ways to torture people, the huge amount of taxpayer dollars spent on two individuals is simply unacceptable, especially when they didn’t seem to “invent” anything. So, basically US government paid millions of dollars for nothing. Couldn’t they spend that money for making better living conditions for US citizens instead of paying non-professional people to develop torture tactics. 

Here is one more article that I read about torturing.

This torturing is being done to know more information about Al Qaeda. I think that this torturing can’t have any excuse and the torturers should be convicted. Some people think that “they are terrorists, and they deserve it”, but I’ll say NO. No one deserves being tortured. In my opinion these people who torture terrorists are not better than they. If they require terrorists not to terrorize and torture, do they have right to do the same thing with them? I think that they can use better and more civilized methods to know the information they need. 

    

                             MUCKRAKING

          Muckraking is the action of searching out and publicizing scandalous information about famous people in an underhanded way. Muckraking is considered an early form of investigative journalism. In the early 1900’s before World War I, muckrakers reported on topics concerning crime, politics and corruption in society and were often considered watchdogs. Muckraking is considered an early form of investigative journalism. In the early 1900’s before World War I, muckrakers reported on topics concerning crime, politics and corruption in society and were often considered watchdogs. They revealed scandal among the government and important issues that led to reform. The news today is constantly filled with stories of scandal in the government in politics. Journalists and reporters indulge in different types of reporting, especially investigative journalism and have turned into modern day muckrakers.

    After long research, I’ve found a muckraking article, written by one of “McClure’s” magazine’s journalists. It has been written on February 10^th, 2014. This article attracted my attention from first words. The article’s title is “The Real Story of Slavery”. The author start his article talking about that mentioning the word ‘slavery’ most people think of the American South from the 1600s to 1800s but according to black historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., of the nearly 12 million Africans shipped across the Atlantic, only 388,000 were bound for the United States. Yet as history is told, and widely believed, the United States was the demon of the world, and is held in contempt alone for this shameful period of history.
           In author’s conviction slavery was not an American problem. It was a worldwide epidemic. Throughout history, people have been enslaved because they were vulnerable, not because of the way they looked. For most of history Europeans enslaved other Europeans, Asians enslaved other Asians, Africans enslaved other Africans.
     The author insists that it’s forgiven for student of American history to believe that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves because American education system provides wrong ideas. The worldwide evil of slavery did not come to the end because one man made a speech. Instead there were longer processes at work. It was Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans, selling some to Europeans, some to Arabs, and keeping the majority for themselves. West Africa was a slave-trading region before, during, and after Europeans arrived.  It was primarily the British, who became the destroyers of slavery not only in Europe, but in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and everywhere else. The people who began this movement were conservative religious activists—people who today would be called the “religious right.”
     The author has also mentioned that blaming Western Culture, or America, or even racism, for slavery can only be done in complete ignorance of history. Unlike the African slaves who were at least released onto dry land, these ‘white slaves,’ were often chained to their ships or the rest of their lives.

The reason that this article has been written is to destroy people’s wrong ideas about slavery and its history. Some people still think that the slavery was America’s problem but the author assures with his facts that the slavery was a worldwide epidemic.

   

                                                       Taking Chance

  Recently in our history class we watched the movie “Taking Chance”   that grabbed
my heart in the first few minutes like no other film I’ve seen recently.  This movie quickly became one of my favorites, it truly brought me to tears.

     “Taking Chance” is a movie based on real-life events. This movie has no plot, no outward dramatic conflict.  The movie is about Lt Michael Strobl, a volunteer military escort officer, who accompanies the body of 19-year-old Marine Chance Phelps , back to his hometown. Chance was killed in Iraq while protecting his friends from enemy fire. Michael Strobl says goodbye to his wife and children and embarks on the journey.

     The filmmakers show us in striking detail many of the little rituals that are part of the larger procedure, from the gentle cleansing of the dead man’s fingers to the fastening of a bar-code tag to the black body bag.

     Rendering honor is one of the film's themes, and also one of its singular accomplishments. 

     Along the way, we saw the respect, the dignity, and the honor rightly given to fallen heroes. One of the good points of the movie is that not only people from military showed respect to killed hero but also all citizens not matter their age, sex or race.

     The movie teaches us enormous respect for the military uniform. It teaches us to love and honor those young men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us. They give their lives to make us live in peaceful and safe environment. The only thing that we can give them back is the love and enormous respect.

     The movie shows the incredible gift that goes back to those who serve others without  recompense. The way Michael Strobl showed such honor and the enormous respect showed by ordinary Americans for his service and the dead soldier he was escorting was deeply touching.

     19-year-old Chance who was killed on the war is only example from thousands of victims. I think that all of us have stories of people who didn’t come back from war. They are going to war not even thinking about their own lives.

     How many of us would leave their families at the age of 19 and would join the army? I’m sure that not all of us would be brave and patriot enough to endanger our own lives to serve and make other people, living in our country, live under peaceful sky. But now we live in peace and we have to respect and honor them who make that peace for us. We should not honor only those who died in war but also those who now serve on army and put their life in danger to protect us.

     I think that one of the reasons that this movie touched me deeply is dangerous situation in my country’s border. 18-year-old boys are joining the army knowing about the forthcoming danger. Not only killed solders’ families mourn for their lost but the whole nation. Every soldier means so much for us and we respect and honor them all.

     Seeing people with military uniform make fill enormous respect. They expose themselves to inconceivable dangers under conditions of enormous hardship and fight because they want to keep the country safe. We owe them respect and gratitude - even if we think the wars they’re asked to fight are sometimes wrong.

     When his own mission is over, Michael Strobl says "I didn't know Chance Phelps before he died, but today, I miss him." Just like that we don’t know all of the soldiers who died for us be it shouldn’t prevent us to respect and miss them. 
Click here to read the essay that inspired the movie.