12/17 Obama

For this final assignment I have chosen Obama's inauguration speech. I found the whole speech to be very interesting, educated and precise on the point he wanted to make. My part for discussion is the following: "But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.  For the American people can no more meet the demands of today's world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.  No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.  Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.
This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience.  A decade of war is now ending.  An economic recovery has begun.  America's possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands:  youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention.   My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it - so long as we seize it together." In his address to the nation President Obama seem to be focus on American union. In bringing together all the nation to create a better future. He refers to the past making sure that everyone understands that we the nation was created with the ideas of the founding fathers, but should adapt to the current necessities. These necessities are the current economic need and poverty. In my opinion, Obama is sending a message to those who have power to let them now that is not time to keep getting rich and allowing the economy sink. He seems to be sending a message of "lets get united" and try to come out of this problem before it is too late.

The Progressive Era

Woodrow Wilson

     The name Progressive Era caught my attention a lot this week. Reading the passages I found not one, but two passages from Wilson that caught my attention a lot. The first one because it shows how Wilson believe it in a government of action and the second one because it talks about a reality we still live today. 

      In this first passage, Wilson speaks about the importance of having a government that exercise its power in terms over the market place. The president is to create a market place were of cooperation. I believe the main focus of Wilson's ideas was to eliminate monopolies from the market. There was a time in which America was not as big and powerful and allowing to be a passive president was normal since it did not have to defend its supremacy. Given the fact that America grew in size and power it was time for the president to step up and create an stronger government. 

"You know that it was Jefferson who said that the best government is that which does as little governing as possible, which exercises its power as little as possible. That was said in a day when the opportunities of America were so obvious to every man, when every individual was so free to use his powers without let or hindrance, that all that was necessary was that the government should withhold its hand and see to it that every man got an opportunity to act if he would. But that time is past. America is not now, and cannot in the future be, a place for unrestricted individual enterprise. It is true that we have come upon an age of great cooperative industry. It is true that we must act absolutely upon this principle (p. 439)."

      In the second passage he speaks about the workforce. He discusses how most of the people work for employers that they do not know and will never meet face to face. He mentions a private relationship. I believe Wilson was referring to the fact that after employees go over a certain number and the employer is never in a direct relationship with the employee the enterprise is no longer a private matter, but a public one. The fact that the enterprise has become so large and public creates a necessity for the government to stop acting the Jefferson's way and to start acting in the Wilson's progressive way. 

Who in this great audience knows his employer? I mean among those who go down into the mines or go into the mills and factories. You never see, you practically never deal with, the president of the corporation. You probably don't know the directors of the corporation by sight. The only thing you know is that by score, by the hundred, by the thousand, you are employed with your fellow workmen by some agent of an invisible employer. Therefore, whenever bodies of men employ bodies of men, it ceases to be a private relationship" (p. 440)

 About The Dust Bowl

  The Dust Bowl is a major event of the 1930s. It was about eight years long and caused multiple difficulties in the South. It was a period of drought that affected women, children and men in their daily lives. It cause it an agricultural destruction and affected the already bad economical depression. The dust bowl is important because it affected the economy of the country as well as the world's economy which was already very related to the US.The Dust bowl started as a simple drought and continued to growth in size conformed the years past. During the first year 14 dust storms happened, the following the number grew to 38. The dust bowl time was difficult and got to be overcome with the authorities effort. Roosevelt created a committee in which re-ploting and planting trees helped to partially end the dust bowl in 1939 after more than eight years of drought. 

Lincoln Part 1

I chose the following quote from Lincoln:

"How differently the respective courses of the Democratic and Republican parties incidentally bear on the question of forming a will- a public sentiment- for colonization, is easy to see. The Republican inculcate, with whatever ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage: so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union- savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bond age "a sacred right of self- government."...

This quote called my attention a lot because it shows how Lincoln saw the ideals of the Republican and Democratic parties. It also expresses what each party was trying to achieve in terms of sentiments towards negroes. Lincoln does not seem to agree with any of these parties, but shows the way they see and think about negroes. He talks about negroes being seen by Republicans as men and by Democrats as less than men kind. I think the main point of portraying the different views is to move people from one side to another.Â

In the African American Odyssey, Civil War section I found two interesting sections "Contraband of War" African American Fugitives to Union Lines and "Contrabands" at the Nation's Capitol. In the first section "Contraband of War" African American Fugitives to Union Lines, African American slaves caught fleeing from their masters were returned to their masters by the Union Army. On the other hand some otheres were allowed to work for the Army without being returned. In the second section, Union Lines and "Contrabands" this section is ery related to the first. African Americans who flew away and remained close to the Union troops. As is said in the description they proved themselves as very useful and later on were able to enroll as part of the troop.

Lincoln Part 1

I chose the following quote from Lincoln:

"How differently the respective courses of the Democratic and Republican parties incidentally bear on the question of forming a will- a public sentiment- for colonization, is easy to see. The Republican inculcate, with whatever ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage: so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union- savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bond age "a sacred right of self- government."...

This quote called my attention a lot because it shows how Lincoln saw the ideals of the Republican and Democratic parties. It also expresses what each party was trying to achieve in terms of sentiments towards negroes. Lincoln does not seem to agree with any of these parties, but shows the way they see and think about negroes. He talks about negroes being seen by Republicans as men and by Democrats as less than men kind. I think the main point of portraying the different views is to move people from one side to another.

In the African American Odyssey, Civil War section I found two interesting sections "Contraband of War" African American Fugitives to Union Lines and "Contrabands" at the Nation's Capitol. In the first section "Contraband of War" African American Fugitives to Union Lines, African American slaves caught fleeing from their masters were returned to their masters by the Union Army. On the other hand some otheres were allowed to work for the Army without being returned. In the second section, Union Lines and "Contrabands" this section is ery related to the first. African Americans who flew away and remained close to the Union troops. As is said in the description they proved themselves as very useful and later on were able to enroll as part of the troop.Â

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Rights

This week I found a very interesting reading from Frederick Douglas. It caugh my attention from beggining to end. It says "All men desire liberty. They desire to possess this inalienable birthright themselves, if they are not concerned about others being the recipients of its countless blessings. They instictively shrink from the idea of having their intellectual, their Moral, and their Physical organism, subjugated to the entire control of Tyranny, clothed in the vesture of assumed superiority. This love of their own identity is inseparably connected with their desire and hope of immorality. And even those who attack the citadel of man's personality, and seek to reduce him to a thing, are jealous of any invasion of their own Rights, and will resist to the death any encroachment upon the sacred domain of their own personal liberty. They are Abolitionists, as they seek to abolish the system of Oppression which has them for victims, even though they trample their own principles in the dust, when the Rights of other are invaded. This is neither just nor generous." (P. 239)

This quote which is very long caugh my attention from beggining to end. First, it says a reality "All men desire liberty". We all want to be free, even at this time when we are seem to be free there is always something that we want to be freed of. Although the freedom that Douglas was referring to another type of freedom he also refers to the freedom of the mind and the body from whatever makes it a slave. Second, this quote has multiple words which are marked with a beggining capital letter which I am not sure if is part of the grammatical use or a choice of the writer. Moral, Rights, Physical, Abolitionists, Oppression, Tyranny all show the main idea of what this quote is about. Moral, because the actions of the slave holders were not considered right. Rights, because is what Douglas was fighting for. Tyranny, because slaves suffer under the tyranny of the slaveholders. Abolitionist, because they were looking for a change. If these capitalized words were use with a purpose I guess still hundreds of years after we read them and find some kind of meaning. The main reason why I chose this passage is because it made me think about how much still this days we fight for some kind of freedom.

For Susan B Anthony I chose the following quote, "Yes, your honor, but by forms of law all madr by men, interpreted by men, in favor of men, and against women; and hence, your honor's ordered veredict of guilty, against a United States citizen for the exercise of "that citizen's right to vote," simply because that citizen was a woman and not a man." In this quote Susan B Anthony shows how brave she was. Also, she shows her determination to make of herself an example. She was clearly trying to show evidence of how being a women can get you in troubles that men do not get. I would have chosen any quote from her simply because I admire her work, but I chose this because of my own unability to vote. I am a legal resident. In fact I have been for the last six and a half years. For this mayoral elections I wished from the bottom of my heart that I could vote. I feel that after five years paying taxes in NY city without receiving anything from the government I was entitled to do so. Unfortunately, voting is just for citizens. If you do not have the amount of money to do your citizenship paperwork and you do not qualify for a waiver than you cannot vote. I felt like my right was taken away from being poor. After a certain number of years in a State we should be at least be able to vote for a major.

Civil Disobedience

      If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth––certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank,  exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say break the law. Let you life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn (p. 226).

     I chose this passage since it makes more clear the idea of civil disobedience which we are looking at this week. First, Thoreau refers to injustice and looks at it from two points of view. The one that sees injustice as a necessary evil and the one who would stand against it. Thoreau is very specific saying that if a person is to create injustice for others it should not allow itself to do the wrong thing.

      "The Conflict Between Christianity and Slavery" and "Christian  Against Slavery" would be the most appealing to this week's assignment. It talks about how Christians should oppose slavery because humans have been given rights that go beyond the human law. By having slaves Christians would be taking away those rights that the divinity gave in the first place. This has a lot to do with Thoreau's passage in which he says that if you are to create injustice for others you should not allow yourself to take certain actions.

      If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth––certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank,  exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say break the law. Let you life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn (p. 226).

     I chose this passage since it makes more clear the idea of civil disobedience which we are looking at this week. First, Thoreau refers to injustice and looks at it from two points of view. The one that sees injustice as a necessary evil and the one who would stand against it. Thoreau is very specific saying that if a person is to create injustice for others it should not allow itself to do the wrong thing.

      "The Conflict Between Christianity and Slavery" and "Christian  Against Slavery" would be the most appealing to this week's assignment. It talks about how Christians should oppose slavery because humans have been given rights that go beyond the human law. By having slaves Christians would be taking away those rights that the divinity gave in the first place. This has a lot to do with Thoreau's passage in which he says that if you are to create injustice for others you should not allow yourself to take certain actions.