February 2008 Archives
As we all know, the terrorist
attacks on September 11, 2001 executed by Osama bin Laden and other members of
Al Qaeda had a great impact on this country. Our president at this time was
George W. Bush, our current president. He led the United States into a new
direction in order to take back and maintain our national security in the
twenty-first century. This new course opened with two military attacks on
Afghanistan and Iraq, taking over the governments in both nations. The point of
these invasions were to track down all known Al Qaeda participants, and to rid
of Saddam Hussein who was accused of concealing weapons of mass destruction and
plotting with terrorists. However, both of these accusations against Hussein
were not proven to be correct. Therefore, George Bush ordered to have a country
massacred, killing thousands of innocent people, in order to help "save" them
from their dictator who "could" be of harm to them. All of these actions that
have been taken by the United States government in response to the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001 make up the War on Terror. The Bush Doctrine is
the policy that the U.S. has created to guide our military actions in the War on
Terror and to achieve twenty-first-century national security. The Bush Doctrine
II is the U.S. policy for homeland security.
An excellent example of a student paper by Rayko Diaz.
Our world as we know it has been orbiting around the sun for over four billion years and has seen many changes. Mountains have formed from the shift of tectonic plates and America's fiftieth state appeared from the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Homo sapiens have only existed on Earth for around two hundred thousand years, a relatively young species in terms of four billion years of life. Yet, in this small amount of time we have been the most destructive force our planet has ever seen. I believe global warming in part is an adverse effect of the development of human civilization. Before us the world went through its cycle of changes, but now it seems the balance of the Earth is in our hands.
With the confronting crisis of running out of landfill space, the disposal of solid waste in America will be a major environmental problem.
A. Littering, a source of individual pollution, can be cut back or eliminated if new ways can be found to control it on a community level.
Grinding poverty in oil-rich Niger Delta - Nov 15 2007 (4:38)
Oil Fix - Columbia (22:00)
Chevron Texaco: Ecuador's Black Plague (5:17)
1. Civil / Constitutional Rights - the impact of the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and related legislation.
Something to look at: Ante On Private Data Increases Again
2. Corporate influence on political process and legislation.
Something to look at: Over 23,000 Business Leaders Working With FBI and Homeland Security
3. Contemporary U.S. foreign policy and intervention around the world. Includes implementing U.S. worldview and interests internationally.
Some places to start on this one:
Report: U.S. Funding Opposition Groups in Bolivia
US Embassy in Bolivia Tells Fulbright Scholar and Peace Corps Volunteers to Spy on Venezuelans and Cubans in Bolivia
Undermining Bolivia
If you do not already have one, I strongly recommend everyone get a google account and add "Documents" to it. You should then create a document and on the document listing page select "Share." In the email box, you may put my google email rowanwolf@gmail.com. I will then let you know that I received it.
For working with shared documents, you will put in the email address of everyone in your group. Then anyone in the group can access it add their comments or contributions etc. A revision history is automatically kept as part of the document.
De Kadt points to similarities in coercive ideologies: rejection of multiple identities, demands for exclusive territory, and feed on other coercive ideologies. If you look a Christian fundamentalism, in what ways is this true or not true?
There seems to be a link between coercive ideologies and fundamentalism. Which comes first? For example, if one looks at the United States, what relationship do you see between fascism (the elevation of corporations to political power) and fundamentalism, and general "conservatism?"
How might rapid social change and failed promises of prosperity be driving fundamentalism in the "developing" world as well as the U.S.?
De Kadt leaves out exploitation as an issue of rising fundamentalism, should it be included?
I believe that the greatest social problem we face currently is to be found not in the people of our society, not even in the people who seem to be the "puppet masters" of our society. Rather, the problem is in the structure of the system, a system that has called itself many names but has failed to evolve into anything that is greater than it is. It is a system based on servitude not service, competition not cooperation. It resides in; democratic nations, communist nations, and socialist, presidents, dictators, kings and queens, it is the culture of power.
The past couple of weeks the focus in class has been on social problems in relation to the environment, specifically global warming. I believe that there is no distinguishing from an environmental problem and a social one. The way societies are structured has a direct result on the environment of that society and the ecological and environmental systems of a region will have dramatic impact on the structure and issues of a given society.
