Political fear mongering

Have you ever been afraid of something, even though you had no Idea why? Or you have been afraid of something, even there was no reason to be afraid of it? That’s somehow what political fear mongering is about! Political fear mongering is the process of spreading fears among the voter to create political support for something or someone. Often it is used in election when, of course, both side want to win but instead of showing why everybody should vote for them, they show ‘reasons’ not to vote for the other side. So is President Obama opposed off willing letting in Ebola into the Country just because he is not shutting all the air travels from and to West Africa. This prediction is wrong in many parts because it is not in the power of the president alone to do this and also would a stop in airtravel probably even worsen the situation in Africa.

The idea of fear mongering became really big in 1950 when senator McCarthy used the strategy of fear mongering to get back popularity after he was becoming really unpopular with his drinking and his vast lobbyism for Pepsi. He chose the biggest issue of his time to gain back support from his voters. He accused over 200 people working for the government of being communists! In the 1950’s the fear of communism was already extremely big, partly with good reason. The US was just involved in the Korean War, which was not going too well against the communists. China had just converted to communism and therefore changed to political weights between capitalism and communism, so that the odd where now standing for communists. In addition to that the Soviet Union had just tested an atomic bomb a year before and had created an actual threat for the US.

Having all those fears already, McCarthy made it even worse with pushing everyone's fear that the Evil communist where infiltrating the Government and working on destroying the country from the inside out. After the speech in which he told the world that he had a list with names of communist got the support to make his own sub-committee in 1952 where he could just call out  people and then try to prove that they were communists. This process of investigating was most often enough to destroy a person's reputation and, or career because even though McCarthy hardly prove any cases to be right no one wanted to have anything to do with a communist. On the highpoint of popularity 69% percent in america would think that he was doing a good job with fighting communism.  This lasted for a few years until the threat wasn’t that recent anymore and McCarthy would lose political support really fast. Afterwards people would call this way of gaining political support McCarthyism. McCarthyism was the first huge political use of fear mongering that was also depicted as even this.

On the most famous advertisements that include fear mongering is the electoral ad from Lyndon B. Johnson. Daisy, a little girl is counting the leaves on a flower, when she reaches ten, a voice starts a countdown that ends with a nuclear explosion. This was one of the biggest threats the US had to during the 1960’s where this advertisement helped Johnson to become president what perfectly shows how effective fear mongering works. In this case of political fear mongering it was actually a real threat that was used and overhyped to scare the people to vote. And even though it was a real threat one needs to ask in what ways it was actually necessary to use a  little girl, the most innocent thing in the world, to gather political support for this candidate.

As briefly touched on, the Republicans are responsible for the Ebola crisis. This ad to vote against them is made around a long list of how the republicans cut many health fundings and due to that caused Ebola to spread faster and without real medical resistance. Just that this is the best example of how you can misread a statistic if you want. One example could be just to take a certain amount of years and leave out others. But there are many different ways of reading data wrong what apparently happened in this ad. As shown here, many of the numbers are just wrong. The article from the Washington Post gives the exact number published by the health organisations itself and even clears it from inflation to prove that numbers have not been cut by the republicans as dramatic as the ad is telling us.

But not just in the US fear mongering is a big topic. Many of the topics are spread across the world. So is Immigration also a really important topic in Great Britain, where now, just after the EU allowed every worker inside the EU to get job in another EU-country. This is used in Britain in a way that newspapers and politicians predict a new wave of immigrants, who will steal the jobs from normal people. The numbers that are presented to support the fact of an immigration wave are based on numbers from a decade ago. This Numbers are likely to have changed since then! Great Britain is not anymore so attractive for workers and now people can migrate to every EU country not just a few. So in this case too, it is just fear mongering to to build support against it, without having actual facts to prove anything.

In some of my research I was caught more than in others. With putting ‘political fear mongering’ as my search term in google I became less and less sure about whether it was giving articles about fear mongering or actual fear mongering articles. In one of them in the Huffington Post I found myself asking what the author meant. He was describing  how the Republicans wouldn’t understand the terror war in the middle east but always use it for their ad campaigns. Or in another one that Republicans would scare voters so that they would vote for them. Both of the articles are nicely written and good to read but with thinking about them I came to wonder about where the factual support is. Both of them are quantitativ big but give few support for their claim what leaves me with the opinion that both of them are written about fear mongering but are nevertheless fear mongering articles themselves.

Political fear mongering is a tool used by almost every political party in the world. It is a tool that plays with the fear of the people and scares them into something. Though we know that fear is one the strongest feeling we have as George Orwell would agree on, where he is used in many fear mongering topics as a reference for the worst. Political fear mongering is an extremely effective tool to use as we can see that many elections were won because of the better advertisement with the stronger fears. The Question of whether or not it is actually fear mongering is easy: as long someone is using fear as a way to build up support or to gain power it is fear mongering, in a political context: political fear mongering.

Atomic bombs where and still are one of the biggest issues to american people

Communism was a big topic in the past century and was the main reason for McCarthyism

The Ad 'Daisy' was a influencing ad in presidential election in '64

A Cartoon about political fear mongering

Joseph McCarthy with his 'list' of communists in the Government

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_mongering

Wikipedia is always a good start into topic because it gives you an overview over your topic so that you know what you are dealing with. Therefor I found helpful informations on here to get started into the research about Fear Mongering and some of its aspects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

Again it was just to catch an overview and to be able to understand what is going on. I found usefull information Joseph McCarthy and what he did in his life to become on of the more famous american politicians in america.

http://www.alternet.org/media/watch-10-most-fear-mongering-political-ads-recent-history

In my research I needed to find examples of fear mongering today and was happy to find this page where they have listed 10 videos about topics that are the most famous political fear mongering examples that are caught on film.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/03/how-american-politicians-are-fear-mongering-their-way-to-success-at-the-polls/

This was an article about the how. How american politicians use fear to change public opinion. Also in that source I found good examples that illustrated really good what the article was talking about and so enhanced my understanding of fear mongering.

https://ksj.mit.edu/tracker/2013/12/guest-post-anti-vaccine-fear-mongering-b/

This webpage was about how the fear of vaccines was overhyped and partly wrong. Also here I understood more about the concept of fear mongering.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/181891/right-wing-fear-mongering-far-more-contagious-ebola

This article was talking about how the fear of something can be actually more dangerous than the thing itself. Examples for that where Ebola and Immigrants. This Website helped me understand how to prove that something is fear mongering and also gave me an insight in two of the topics that I would later discuss in my post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-barber/can-republicans-scare-dem_b_5982880.html

This article was about the Republicans using fear mongering to gain political support. I found a good example of actual fear mongering just with reading it and this is the main use of this source: a first hand example of political fear mongering.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/republicans-cant-handle-t_b_1471412.html

This source is about republicans that can’t understand to war against terror but using in all of their ad. This source was as well as the source above used as a first hand example of political fear mongering.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/01/eu-and-immigration

This Article about the new fear of immigrants was my main source for the paragraph on european fear mongering. In the text was included both the fear mongering itself as well as a clear showing of facts why it is nothing more than fear mongering.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/peace-little-girl-daisy

This source was about on the most famous political fear mongering in US history. The TV ad “Daisy” is a first hand example of fear mongering. Also included in this source are a couple facts about the ad, that were helpful evaluating the ad.

http://www.amazon.com/American-History-Survey-Alan-Brinkley/dp/0073124923/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424812082&sr=1-10&keywords=american+history+textbooks+alan+brinkley

The history textbook was a really good source about the McCarthyism. How the McCarthyism emerged and what ways it went and finally went down. Also about what McCarthy did in his popular time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3D0DxjgPB0

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/10/15/the-absurd-claim-that-only-republicans-are-to-blame-for-cuts-to-ebola-research/

Those two sources are, first the Advertisement about how republicans caused ebola to spread faster and then the Washington Post fact check that proves it wrong. This sources are first a primary source as political fear mongering and then a source to prove that is actually fear mongering that is not based on real data.

Cinderella Man

The Movie Cinderella Man, published in 2005, is not just a really good piece of Art that accomplishes every mission to entertain its watchers but also shows a great deal of accuracy when it comes to the main topic off the great depression. The Movie begins with a heavyweight Box fight in 1929, that our hero of the movie, Jim Braddock, can win. But in his next fight, he, as many other Americans in this year too, is out of luck. He breaks his hand and loses his licence. In the same year the stock market crash happens and he as well as everybody else loses all their money: The great depression had begun.

The Movie blends over from ‘29 to ‘33. He, in his role of representing “the american” has lost his house and is going everyday to the docks to look for a day job. This is specially for the first part of the depression true because until 1933 more than 15 million Americans were unemployed - one quarter of the workforce - and needed to lock for temporal jobs. In this struggle to get money to, at least, get food on the table many Americans failed and so is the fear, that Braddock and his wife have, to give their children away because they can’t provide for them, real and something that happened all over the place.

Later in the movie Jim meets a new friend Mike. Mike is presenting in his role the other side of Americans: while Jim tries to work for what he needs, Mike wants the Government to pay him back what was his. As a former stockbroker Mike is not a typical american but his views and his actions are those of big part of people. He thinks that the worker should unionize and put pressure on the Government to act. He drinking a lot even though he has almost no money. But he not bad person as he later says he would never hit his wife even in a drunken state it seemed that Jim needed to keep him away from even that. Also when he hears that his friend in the Ring again boxing he calls for silence in the pub and cheers for Jim.

During the First years of the Great Depression the president of the US was Hoover who thought that a recession like that would be normal and pass by some time soon. With this way of thinking he never actually took action work against it. The only thing he did where on voluntary bases and he established the emergency relief where people that had absolutely nothing could go and get a minimal amount of money to survive. In the Movie that is depicted great when Jim needs to get money to turn the electricity back on to be able to keep his children warm in the winter. He does not want to go there but it is his last choice and while waiting in line there are dozens of people there that have for parts even less than he does.

In the Movie the true story of Braddock is actually at the same time in some kind the story of the depression itself! The Fall in 1929 and the beginning of the comeback around ‘35. In 34 Jim gets a fight that no one else wants to fight and he can earn some money for his family what he as many millions americans would do everything for. He can win this fight and is actually due his broken hand and the more work that he had to do with his left hand even in a better shape than before ‘29. Which we can also say for the economy in a general look, that started grow and winning trust in banks back. All those economic changes were part of the new president Roosevelt that started his presidency with 15 major laws in the first months. With the growing economy Jim can decide fight for fight for himself and finally gets a shoot for the heavyweight championship. And this fight also teaches about many aspects of the Depression: The sports arena is full up to the last place! People finally have the money again to see events live and also to see their hero in real life Jim Braddock who, with his comeback, was an idol for many Americans. Furthermore because television is not too popular yet everybody has a radio at home what is greatly accurately. The Radio shows where all free and almost all the big sport events like boxing where put on radio. And so is Braddock's whole family, acting for america, listening to the fight.

I believe that the movie even though it is a fairy tale anyway is a good movie to see the world around 1930. The problem is that you need to look for it and need to make reference because otherwise as with many other things too you wouldn't notice. Also it is just getting the small picture across because politics are almost not discussed at all besides some radical views from Mike and other events like the natural disasters that worsen the depression are not in the life of Jim Braddock and therefor not mentioned.

All in all a really good movie that can be very useful for learning about the 1930’s.

Jim Braddock

http://www.jamesjbraddock.com/movie/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_Man

http://www.history.com/topics/1930s

My trip to "Bombingham"

The field trip to Birmingham yesterday (wednesday, 3/11/15) was, and I’m not joking, extremely good. It was awesome to go there and be in the place that actually change the history of the United States. The place where Black people demonstrated peacefully and ended segregation. I think it was really impressing to hear about the history of how a church can be the center of a great movement like this.

Also I liked about the church part of our trip that the presentation wasn’t like dry fact spitted out to a not-listening-audiences but that it was more interactive and like the guide said: “you can google all the facts about the civil rights movement but i tell you what you really need to know.”

The Museum was cool with the screen that went up after the introduction video was done and behind the exhibition began. But even more I was impressed by the number of pictures and quotes they had. Because those are way more effective than just a lot of text. The place in there that I spent most of my time was the place where they had a lot of quotes that were projected onto the wall and at the same time also read. I thought that was the most interesting part of the museum because it really reviews how people at this time thought about civil rights and black people. But where it also showed the contrast between the colors when one time a white person was talking and a black person “answering” to that quote.

The difference that I see between having all that in your own classroom and experiencing it there is that when you are not there it is so far away that it is too far away. you can’t get a connection to it until were there. And no matter what anyone would like to say this Field trips are necessary to understand the history of your own country and this alone is enough reason to do those trips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church

Questions about World War I

1. When did World War I (The Great War) begin, and Why? (What was the immediate cause?) Between what two groups of allies was it fought? Give the name and member countries for each of the opposing sides.

• ·         World War I, which is also called the Great War because it was the second largest war in human history a,nd can be seen as the ultimate cause for WWII, began in July 1914 with the declaration of War from Austria-Hungary to Serbia. Following to that the supporter Countries of Germany (Austria-Hungary) and Russia (Serbia) declared war against each other and Germany also declared War against France. The immediate cause was the shooting of the Austrian Archduke from a Serbian Nationalist in his Car to which Austria-Hungary wanted to send police forces into Serbia to enlighten the deed or declare war. But because the conditions were unacceptable even for War Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on the 28^th of July.

• ·         The Main actors in the War were Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side and Britain, France and Russia including all their colonies on the other side.

·          

2. When and Why did the United States enter the War.

• ·        The US declared war on Germany on April, 6^th 1917, because of two main reasons. One was that Germany was using a total Submarine War in the Atlantic to stop deliveries to the UK coming from the US and therefore destroyed almost every ship in the Atlantic including US passenger ships. As a result to this killing of a neutral country the opinion from the Citizen shifted and went more and more against Germany. And the second reason was that Germany offered to Mexico, that Germany would finance a War to take back their old territory in New-Mexico and Texas. And therefore openly spoke against the US.

3. When and why did WWI come to an end?

• ·         World War I ended at 11.11 am on the 11.11.1918 with the surrender of Germany. The ended because of various reasons like the Germany Kaiser fleeing from Germany, the tiredness from War or just simply the fact that with the entering of the United States Germany was losing really badly. And one of the first parliamentary actions of the German Government without a Kaiser was to start negotiations about peace.

·          

4. What were the terms of the major agreement ending the War? Why did the United States not ratify this treaty, even though President Wilson had played such a major role in negotiating it?

• ·         The biggest and most important “agreement” was that Germany and his allies have the main only responsibility for the War. Further Germany has to lose 1/5 of his territory, all his colonies, 4/5 of its coal industry and 1/4 of the iron industry. Germany is not allowed to have a Fleet, artillery or War Planes. And the trade fleet is to reduce to 10%. Furthermore Germany has to pay reparations to almost all of the wining nations. Also the army is to reduce to 100.000 men defensive force (very, very small).
•            President Wilson was played a major role in negotiating the treaty in his role of trying to lower the payload for Germany because he directly saw that a humiliated Germany is also a dangerous Germany because the democracy was just arising. It is said that 1919 when the treaty of Versailles was signed one of the American delegation pointed on the map (on Poland) and said this peace is going to stay for 20 and here it will begin again. Also as a minor reason the US was always interest in new markets but a Germany that had to pay reparations would not be able to buy from other nations.

5. The Fact that me wonder most is that every War and every conflict in the 20th century had its roots in the first world war but yet no one really knows some thing about it. When I started my own journey through that huge topic I started with the fact, that the war started in 191, ended in 1918 and that it was a world war... not enough!!!

     My sources are Wikipedia for the exact day when things happend and the magazin: "Wissen von A-Z Der erste Weltkrieg"

http://wissen-az.jimdo.com/magazinverzeichnis/

The Great White Fleet

The Adventure of the Great White Fleet was one of the biggest events that ever happened in the US Navy. The Cruise of 16 Battleships – huge amounts of steel floating in water – that traveled around the world. They made port on almost every Continent except of the Antarctic and managed a distance of 43.000 miles. Which was more than most persons thought they could do because the American Fleet was never in combat or bigger training missions before. Actually after the end of the Spanish-American War that left the US with colonies all around world, most of the ships were produced and therefore relatively young in duty.

The Idea of moving such a big part – 16 Battleship, which was most of the larger ships in the Atlantic Ocean – arose after Japan was getting more and more provocative. The Japanese felt that President Roosevelt betrayed them after the Japanese-Russo War. The War was clearly won by the Japanese but from their perspective they didn´t got all they deserved and blamed Teddy Roosevelt for it. And also because in 1906 California made some laws against Japanese immigration the Japanese population was getting more and more angry against the US. Together with the fact that Japan had the Sea Power in the Pacific Ocean, it was not likely for the US to defend their new colonies in the Philippines in case of an attack. And so Roosevelt decided to show the world what role America wanted to play. In the Years 1904 to 1907 11 new Battleships were build what was after Great Britain the largest number of ships newly build.

With that new Fleet the US grow to an international sea power. The problem was that most of the ships were deployed in the Atlantic Ocean but Japan, the most likely enemy, would attack in the Pacific Ocean. So Roosevelt decided to show the world and especially Japan that the US could shift their fleet to another Ocean easily. And that´s what happened: on December 16/1907 a fleet of 16 Battleships painted in white left the east coast to travel around the south cap of America and return on to the west coast. What most people didn´t knew and what first got public on the day of the departure was that Roosevelt actually planned to send his fleet around the world.

The Journey around the world was a test and training mission now one of the most powerful fleets on earth. Roosevelt himself said that he wanted to “have failure reported”. But the fleet was constructed very well and besides that two of ships had to be replaced while making port on the west coast and two of the older ones were unable to go real combat all the ships made their way back to the east coast.

The actual need of fleet for the US was very high in this time. And this had different reasons. The most obvious one is that in the late 19^th century almost all the nations that wanted to contribute on the international stage were build ships like they were crazy. And with the UK as the best example what benefits a great Fleet had they did well with building ships. The Sun never sets in the British Empire and even today it is always anywhere Day in Great Britain and it is not likely to change. But this empire was build up of a big fleet and other nations like France lost most of their colonies because they couldn´t support them via sea. And even further back in history where the Greeks stop the invasion of the Persians simply because of controlling the sea.

All those thoughts about a healthy nation that needs a strong fleet where written down by Alfred Thayer Mahan in his book: “The influence of Sea Power upon History”. Where he describes all the aspects of a good and strong fleet that has big ships as the most important part of it. Many nations took his opinion to design their own fleets. Germany and Great Britain even pushed it so far to make an arms race in the pre-WWI time with constructing more ”big ships” than the opponents.

And Great Britain made a good start for that with the launching of the HMS Dreadnought in 1906 which was the model for the following class of Battleships. The Dreadnought class was heavier armed than the so called pre-dreadnought battleships and had a thicker wall. Also the Dreadnought class made all the pre-dreadnought battleships look old and worthless, what was the reason that it was the most often build type of ship in the days before WWI. Also it lead to the construction of even heavier class the super-dreadnought.

The problem with the launch of the HMS Dreadnought was that it started an age of battleships and even a year before the Great White Fleet left port it didn´t contain the newest technology. For example the USS Connecticut that was leading the First squadron of the Great White Fleet was 140 meters long and armed with four 12 inch heavy guns and lot of medium and light artillery. And was able to make remarkable 18.8 kn. The HMS Dreadnought which was now the most wanted tool of nations was 180 meter long and had 10 12 inch guns together with a lot of medium artillery and was design to make a total 22 kn.

But nevertheless: it must have been a great spectacle when the sixteen entirely white painted ships were leaving the east coast with a distance of 400 yards between each other and steaming southwards to make the first rounding of world by the US Navy. And it didn´t failed it purpose because after it was made public that the fleet was going around the world many countries invited them to their harbors to stay. And as we know Japan didn´t attacked the US until WWII so also in this sense the adventure was a full success.

The Book that had a huge influence on the History of Sea Power after it was published.

The Great White Fleet steaming in a Line southwards

Artistic showing of the Great White Fleet

The HMS Dreadnought

The Cruise of the Great White Fleet around the world

http://www.amazon.com/American-History-Survey-Alan-Brinkley/dp/0073124923/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424812082&sr=1-10&keywords=american+history+textbooks+alan+brinkley
The US History Book we use in class: Basic information about the Fleet and the conflict to Japan
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2004427201_whitefleet21.html

Quotes from Roosevelt, information about America playing with the “big kids” with a big fleet

http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/greatfleet.html

Newspaper articles about the Great White Fleet

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars1900s/p/greatwhitefleet.htm

New ships build, Japanese-Russo war, secure plan of going around the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Influence_of_Sea_Power_upon_History

Influence on the thinking from this book and the development of naval history

http://nation.time.com/2012/05/16/historys-lesson-sea-power-defines-a-nation/

Naval Power over time and importance of a functioning fleet

http://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/c/cruise-great-white-fleet-mckinley.html

information about the travel and different ports, and the impact of the Russo-Japanese War

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Fleet

basic information about the Great White Fleet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought

basic information about the next typ of battleship

http://www.amazon.de/What-w%C3%A4re-wenn-wissenschaftliche-hypothetische/dp/3813506525/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424736060&sr=8-1&keywords=what+if

http://wissen-az.jimdo.com/%C3%BCber-uns/

Political Cartoons

How to analyze a political cartoon?

Start with point out obvious marks like symbols for different things.

How is the picture “moving”?

Text helps to understand.

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/activities/political-cartoon/cag.html

The Website uses many things I thought might be useful but in the end it looking for more than just symbols and the text, that is meant to help, but also looking for Irony.

http://842673398711461099.weebly.com/5th-page-of-directions-editorial-cartoons-imperialism-and-social-justice.html

In this Cartoon Probably Spain is playing a card came against the US while the other nations are watching carefully. Whoever wins would get a few colonies all over the world and right now Uncle Sam has most of the money. The Heading of the cartoon is “A quiet little game” which it is just from the perspective of Uncle Sam.

The intention of the Cartoon is to show how easy and fast the US “stool” Spain all its colonies while the other colonial nations like Britain, Germany and Russia were just watching as so often in history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana

In that Cartoon Teddy is waiting with too many ambitions for the Spanish king to make a move to finally fire his long big gun that he pretends to have. On his gun is something written, so that the Spanish king can really understand him. But on the other hand with his large fleet in the back Teddy is not thinking about going once the Spanish did.

The Clothing of all the people makes it clear who is meant: The King looks still like a King from the medieval, the poor farmer who is crying in the middle needs help and the cool Texan guy on the right is lord over the World.

http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist111/empire.html

Here we have Uncle Sam sitting in nice restaurant with a lot of very good colonies served by President McKinley. Uncle Sam looks very skinny in this picture so he is likely to eat all of them but the question “Well, I Hardly know which to take first!” Shows that America is going to be a empire and President McKinley, Who has power over all of those, just waits for an opportunity to finally make it official. The Question that these are independent people on those Islands is not important at all, they are already ready to be served.

http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/civilization_and_barbarism/cb_essay05.html

 In this Cartoon a heavily armed American is shown, who stands right in front of a big field of dead Filipinos while he is not even harmed. This is part of the story what happened in the Philippine American War, where way more Filipinos died than American did and where the US used strategies and weapons that were not accessible by the Philippine people. But also the Pose of that guy in front of all the dead enemies could show, that America always needed to proof itself for the world.

http://bl8keshistoryblog.blogspot.com/

Americas Boot of conquest is coming down on the Philippines and is way bigger than the president of the Philippines Emilio Aguinaldo. The big boot stepping on that Island shows how little the sense in that is and Emilio Aguinaldo tries to get it away again but has literally no chance to do so.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:1900s_political_cartoons_of_the_United
_States#mediaviewer/File:McKinleyNationalExpansionUncleSamPulitzer.jpg

Uncle Sam needs new clothes. After annexing so many countries he went to a tailor to get better fitting pants which will be made out of “rational expansion” and enlightened foreign policy”.

And he is just looking down on the people who try to give him “Anti-expansion-policy” drugs. But there are already leaving so Uncle Sam will continue to grow in size. And McKinley will give him once again more and more space for expansion, where the expansion is made in national institutions like this tailor shop.

Semester I Speech

The history of the United States of America is not as long as some others but not less important. In this semester we learned about a time period including 60 years of fast developing history. Beginning with the mess, that was left after the civil war, which was consider as the first war that included strategies for a total war, and continuing through waves of immigrants, with highs to a couple millions every year, to the supremacy of the US economy in the world.

Very interesting to hear was the fact that this – one of the most powerful industry in the world – build up its success on corruption and other arguable ways. Like monopolization. And so it´s not very surprising that millions of people in that period of time starved and lived in most dangerous places in the fast growing cities of the late 18 hundreds. And also not very surprising, that the common knowledge, that six out of the ten richest people of all times are Americans of this time period.

A problem that the USA always had is for example a problem with races. Before the time we´re studied the tension was between black and white and Indians, soon afterwards it spread out to many different ethnic groups to hate. Mexicans, Chinese and Catholics – just to name a few more. And a lot of those problems still exist today. What we can see nearly every day when we take a look into the news.

And also the army! I mean first you have a civil war where the own people fight against each other. Followed by a time where its main task is to hunt natives down. And then after a while just used to break strikes. Strikes for a better live just ran over by soldiers – using the army against your own people. And right now? What country in the world spends more money for military forces that are just used to invade other countries? You may discuss that point but there are millions of people thinking this nation has an army that is way too big.

Naming a period of time is a risky undertaking because you need to support your idea in many different ways. In my research I often had the feeling that this time was characterized by industry, money and technology. And when we look back we see that all this evidence appeared before. In the time of 1750 an era took its beginning: the industrialization. And we can draw the connections between 1750 and 1900 were more and more machines are doing the jobs and social crises are getting more likely. But even when we can draw those pretty strong connections I would like to name this time the poly sided age. Money, post war society, growing industry, upturn                and poverty. Corruption and mistrust everywhere! Including deals like: we take our troops out of your territory if you give us another president. We have crime and disasters everywhere and in the same breath we need to name the rising standards for nearly everyone. We have more new patents then in any previous time and also the most unsafe workplaces in history. We have the two sides of the medal – good and bad – gold and nothing. We can see one of the biggest spectrums in human history happening in these 60 years!

And there is something we will remember in 10 years! Right now we got a couple of political issues in Europe with our parties and I’m not sure how we are going to handle them but then again… it can´t be worse than a hundred and fifty years ago right here with a government that was actually nonexistent. But in the same way it is likely that we will remember empathy and sympathy and the experiment were the Dutch engineer refused to hurt someone due to his own experience.

And also I don´t think it will be a problem to remember the strikes beginning in the “poly sided age” because in the same way they were bad… they are also very good memorable. And if you were interested in the history of Native Americans before like I was then you´re on a good way to remember the story of Sitting Bull or Geronimo for quite a while.

I don´t think that the age of the city was very interesting. Except of all the new invention for building them like steel or the elevator. A police showed up because the situation was so bad. Fire departments were build, after a few cities completely burned down. No I´m sure we won´t remember that.

One thing we really don´t need to remember is the fact that the confederation states were economically behind the north after the war. What actually still hasn´t change! And it’s not likely to change in the next ten years.

But whatever our result for this semester is I´m sure the second one will be even better.