Racism and the White House

When thinking of American politics the majority of people will see the White House as the center of all decisions and everything the government does; in other words that the White house is held responsible for the entire federal government (and for the layperson overseas it may even be seen as responsible for the state governments actions too). While this is constitutionally inaccurate an argument can be made in light of recent events that the White House is bearing the brunt of the blame for the racial in equality in America, despite being the most racially diverse of all the federal branches. Although seldom mentioned it is probably a common wish that Obama would speak out, if not take action, on the recent race tensions that have been steadily rising over the past four months in particular. Yet nothing visible has been done. If Obama has made a speech or something similar the media didn't take a firm hold and publicity would have been minimal and so evidently attempts made were either inconsequential or non-existent. The reality is that although Obama is a PoC himself he has written in one of his books that he sees black disadvantages in America as a poverty issue rather than a race one. Here I am not accusing Obama as racist against his own, I don't intend that in the slightest because its ridiculous, my point is more that he is aware of any president's inability to stop racism in America, least of all one who has already come under countless attacks due to his race despite being elected twice and his 'lame duck' status would have influenced his appeared indifference.

To return to my main point; the issue with the White House in particular is that it can never be dissociated with racism. Even ignoring the fact its called the White House because frankly suggesting that's the main or even a somewhat significant reason for it being associated with racism is ludicrous, if anything its a coincidental colour with the history of the White House but I shall go into this later. 

Today and in history white houses in America are found mainly on plantations or ex-plantations where slavery was at its worst; A simple Google search confirms this fact with multiple sources. The reason is most likely the fact that in the south, where most plantations were, is a very warm place, especially in the summer; white is undeniably the best colour for keeping the house cool and so like I said, the fact the White House is white is not an intentionally racist feature. I am choosing here to focus on the fact that the American people at the point of building the White House decided to model it on the centre of plantations that oppressed and tortures thousands of lives for over 200 years. This they felt was appropriate I must assume because slave owners were considered among the highest standing within their own communities so the however the connotations of slavery and racism still carry on to today. Undoubtedly there are a few people of all races in America that believe this similarity is an indication of the government treating its people as slaves however looking at the constitution and studying the founding fathers intentions shows this couldn't be further from the truth.
It can also be almost taken for granted that slaves did also build the White House, again this is not unfounded in terms of evidence. 

For me it's hard to imagine slaves building a house that was to belong to the head of state who would rule over their masters who oppressed them in such a way that slavery does and not only this but for it to echo the appearance of their masters house.

Final post- America as a world influence

I think that the module covered a good range of topics, so it's quite difficult to say what could be added to further the study of the US. I would quite like to have looked more at the US growing as a global influence and superpower throughout the 20th Century. Since 1900, the influence of the US on the rest of the world has grown massively, along with their power. With the growth of consumerism especially after the Second World War many US imports have had a massive impact on much of the Western world, and have hugely influenced their way of life. 

Throughout the 20th the political power and influence United States also grew hugely, again especially during and after the Second World War, and throughout the Cold War. During this time, America took the stage as a global superpower as an opposition to the USSR, and their actions had a huge impact on what would happen next for the countries that were on their side against the Soviet Union. Still, to this day, the actions of the US impact the rest of the world, and as the saying goes, 'when America sneezes the world catches a cold'. 

End of Semester Post

Overall, the content of the module has been really interesting and it is hard to add something that I would think would add more to the examination of the US. The only topic that I could possibly think of that would add something, is by looking at the US in the context of the Cold War and how it handled its international relations. I think this would be interesting to study as it would show how America promotes itself around the world and what sort of attitude it had towards the rest of the world.

 

American Studies Blog 12

In my honest opinion, I believe that the module has given a brilliant introduction to American Studies and therefore I find it difficult to suggest any other topic. The only slight potential point I could make is a lecture more specific on politics. An analysis of some of the more known Presidents and their backgrounds and politics as it is today. Furthermore, there could have been something on America’s contribution to World War Two, especially Pearl Harbour and later the Cold War.

America's Energy Crisis and the Solution

In a world where fossil fuels are at its most finite, greater emphasis must be put on renewables and trying to shift this reliance on oil and gas and in doing so reduce the environmental implications. If one country springs to mind as being must culpable for this perilous position we find ourselves in, it is the USA. The Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997 was designed specifically to curb this, however the USA were not keen to oblige and to this day have not signed. The USA is the second largest consumer of energy in the world after China, due to its recent emergence one can understand China being top in this respect. The same can be said in terms of CO2 emmisions also, with the top 2 once again being the USA and China. This has only changed in the last decade however, throughout the 20th century the USA remained on top of these charts for largely the entire time.

It is quite startlingly to think that the country that have most likely caused this consumption in energy are not willing to curb supplying demand as they do in order to protect the world we live in.

America however has still continued its search for oil taking to the Artic and Canadian Tar Sands in particular in order to capture oil to supply demand not only in the states but worldwide. Although this is a positive as it reduces the need for the USA to enter conflict in other areas around the world, it is still not a real resolution to the problem
(Canadian Tar Sands)

However recently American's have realised their over consumption and the need to protect the environment, individuals along with non to profit orgs such as Greenpeace have contracted projects in order to tackle the issue. The state of Montana ranks ninth in the country in per capita energy consumption  but most of Montana's energy dollars are literally going up in smoke. As a result the state has recently turned to its renewable energy supply of solar energy, georthermal, wind and biomass. Such wide scale schemes are predicted to have a huge impact on the state on the whole for example it has been projected that in the next two decades totals 416 MW, enough to power more than 400,000 homes will be generated through geothermal energy alone, with many more sites planned to be built in the coming years.


 Similarly in terms of biomass, the wasted biomass each year of 2.5 million tons can be devoted to producing cellulose ethanol, the state could churn out more than 100 million gallons of bio fuels each year, equivalent to one-fifth of all the gasoline used in Montana. These statistics from the NRDC (Natural Resource Defence Council) highlight the effect the switch to renewable's could have in the USA. Bare in mind this is just from one of 50 states, nationwide application could have positive implications worldwide.

American Studies Blog 11

Critical opinion of National Security Surveillance

Critics of Government surveillance aren’t backing off despite recent developments Article 

The article I have chosen to analyse is by an American on the issue of National Security Surveillance. Walter Pincus reported the critique in The Washington Post, back in February 2014. He has numerous works published, suggesting he is a well-respected reporter. The issue of privacy is one that is globally questioned. The article focuses on Edward Snowden, an American computer professional who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA).  He was a former system administrator for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a counterintelligence trainer for the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). Pincus’ portrayal of this account is fairly neutral. Although his statistics imply that this is a bad thing that is on going, he doesn’t allow his opinion to come across irrationally and is composed.

Pincus begins his report with a powerful statistic, which suggests that only recently has information been slightly harder to reach is due to the “drop in use of land lines and NSA’s inability to collect metadata on the cell phone or Internet calls.” The reporter rights about other developments in which have occurred like Edward Snowden. Typing the question into Google of “How much privacy do we have?” There are 877,000,000 results available. This has implications that there is a worrying amount of people who are questioning their privacy.  It also shows that this isn’t just affecting people in America but globally also.

In the interview, regarding data that the NSA collects, Snowden said: “Every time you pick up the phone, dial a number, write an e-mail, make a purchase, travel on the bus carrying a cellphone, swipe a card somewhere, you leave a trace and the government has decided that it’s a good idea to collect it all, everything, even if you’ve never been suspected of any crime.”

Interestingly looking at this quote, it makes you realize how much privacy we do not have. Even in the everyday world phone hacking is constantly going on around us, people are downloading movies and music off the internet and unfortunately in this day and age it can be seen to be the normal. Looking at celebrities who have their privacy intervened with every day – some can’t even go food shopping without having their picture taken.

What we know now after this article was written is that Edward Snowden was charged with two counts of violating the Espionage Act and theft of Government property on June 14^th and eight days later had his passport revoked.

America Criticized: Costsofwar.org

costsofwar.org

this website looks at the statistics that wars that the US have created and partaken in in the name of war on terror have resulted in. the costs of war are shown here to be wide ranging and cruel.
On the website the Social, Economical and Political costs the US is experiencing under the name of war. Economically war is costing the US trillions in supporting their troops in various locations and socially war is leading to the slow but definite erosion of rights and freedoms through both immediate responses to attacks fueled by fear and racism and the cover up in the media of precisely what the wars are  doing to the USA. It is evident from the facts being presented that the Watson Institute for International Studies is not supportive of the wars or any political action that the federal government has taken recently in an attempt to control the possibly exaggerated terror threat that followed 9/11. Similarly the institute is critical of the amount that the US federal government is 'wasting' on these largely fruitless military efforts and how it is destroying political relations and rights around the world.

What this website also provides are alternatives of how to deal with the terror that the USA is so desperate to wage war on. The website states that evidently the military tactics aren't working as an offense or a defense as shown in this picture:

however it is evident that even though the military offence is the least effective it is the method that has the most force and effort put in to it. it is unsurprising that to find here that the methods of alternative action are stressed  away from military terror on US soil and closely monitoring and publishing the deaths and other losses that the US military makes over seas. This would lead to greater openness between the government and the people of the world which would inadvertently lead to a re establishment of rights and hopefully political relations in the far future.

Critical opinion of the United States- Rich vs Poor

Inequality gap between super rich and poor continues to widen

In the United States the minority rich own the majority of wealth, most often this divide is said to be the 1% versus the 99%. However, this article draws attention to the fact that the top even just the top 0.1% of the population earn more than 1000x what the average American earns. Since the 1980s, the United States' rich have been getting richer, and as a result the poor have been getting poorer. This is due to thousands of people being put out of work, whilst the top earners, whose jobs tend to be in the finance industry, are now earning even more than before the recession. These people also tend to live in major US cities, including New York, Washington D.C, San Fransisco, Los Angeles and Houston, as opposed to the poorest people who tend to live in places such as Detroit, Alaska, Wyoming and Texas and even Las Vegas showing that there is a correlation between household incomes and their place of residence. This can be seen to negate the idea of the American Dream in that the wealth distribution in the US seems to be what determines a persons success in life, based on their opportunities, or lack thereof, because of where they live. 

Is Wealth Inequality the Future of Capitalism?

As the title of the article suggests, and as the article goes on to explain, essentially if America wishes to remain firmly capitalist, the income gap is something that must be accepted. Research shows that it was only when top tax rates were highest, that the 99% bottom incomes began to grow faster, whilst the top 1% incomes grew significantly slower. From this it is evident that is the rich who are essentially in control of the country, in that those who live in poverty, and are homeless are the one's most in need of political support, but are the one's who do not have the means to vote for those who will help them out of the situation. Furthermore, those who have the money are the one's who are able to vote and do have a say as to the distribution of money, and through this they fight to ensure that they do not have to pay more taxes meaning that the income gap will continue to grow. 

Critical Opinion of the US - Wealth Inequality

In this video, the creator is trying to open the eyes of the average American about the startling facts about the wealth distribution in America. At the beginning, the voice over explains that he can't believe the information he had come across and that he felt that he had to view it in different graphs and charts to get his head around it. This shows that the way the wealth is shared in America and the reality of it shocks Americans, which therefore shows how extreme the numbers are.

The chart, the data of which was collected by a Harvard Business Professor, shows what the people of America think the ideal distribution of wealth is between the five different percentage groups, what they think is the actual distribution of wealth and then shows what the actual distribution of wealth is in the US. The first two graphs show a pretty reasonable distribution between the 5 percentages, which the voice over agreed with and thought that even the small, but not unreasonable, difference in the first two graphs shows that Americans already know that the distribution was already warped from what they though the ideal was. This shows that most of America are aware that something is wrong and even think what they assumed was the ideal was getting close to what they thought was unacceptable as it meant that the poor were getting poorer and the middle class was getting squeezed. When the voice over then reveals the reality of wealth distribution, he points out that the difference is as warped and skewed as the first two graphs are from each other, which shows how much of a difference the ideal is to reality. He also points out that the bottom 40% have hardly any wealth and the top 20% has over double the amount of wealth than what most Americans think that they did. This points out how poor the poor actually are and how such a big percentage of the US have pretty much no share in the countries wealth. The creator of the video expresses his astonishment of the fact of how different reality is to what Americans think is reality and even goes on to put the information in the context of America as a whole due to the fact that he still can't comprehend the data that he is studying.

The voice over firstly shows the wealth of America shared equally and points out that the system of Socialism, even though fair, wouldn't work as it doesn't encourage people to work hard or try to achieve anything. He then proceeds to put the numbers from the previous graph into a line graph to show the curves of the first two previous graphs and then explains that in fact this distribution would actually encourage people to work and have an incentive to go further in life as they would have the money and resources to achieve it. On the other hand, the graph showing reality, therefore shows how there is a lessening of incentive as people are unable to get anywhere due to the fact that the top 1% of the country take almost a quarter of America's income home and owns half of the countries stocks and shares, while the rest own 0.5%. The creator also puts into context what a CEO makes compared to an average worker. He points out that a CEO earns 380 times what an average worker earns and that they would have to work for a whole month to earn what a CEO does in an hour.

The creator voices the view that the country wouldn't have to go the extreme of socialism to find a system that would be fair for all five percentage of America. This show that he believes that they way America is today is an extreme of what it should be and that the top 10 and 1% are too rich and that the poor aren't living, but barely surviving. Astonishingly, this means that 40% of America are only surviving and have hardly any chance of living the American Dream.

Comparing images from the depression and recession

                                                                                   

   The Great Depression of 1930 was a result of international debt to Europe, increasing tariffs on imports and exports and most notably the Wall Street Crash. As a result huge amounts of people were made redundant whilst the bank systems failed and many were forced to close. This first image is a newspaper article from thanksgiving 1930. Nowadays the average price for Thangskiving will cost $49.50 for a Texas family of 10. In 1930, $5.50 was enough of a struggle for people in America to afford, equivalent to $71.20 according to the Bureau of inflation statistics. This highlights the perilous position people were in at the time, as although food is selling for its least amount since the war, it is still a real struggle for many to even afford this. 

This next image that I have chosen to use is describing the recent Great Depression that affected so many countries. The image above a caption saying "Its bigger than the election and Olympics put together:its our non-stop coverage of recession 2008. It talks about how everything from the dollar to your net worth to hope has all decreased. In contrast fear and anxiety have risen. The constant coverage of the recession would obviously help to create an increased sense of these emotions. It even says that "markets plunge on media reports that markets plunge" giving us the sense that everything is bad in this situation and that even the things that are not subject to market conjecture and faltering. It firms the point that their is not one sector left untouched my the recession.

In comparison, clearly one was worse than the other, in the world we live in today there are for more opportunities than there were in 1930, so a recession then is likely to have a much more destructive impact. Similarity companies did not have the finical muscle back then to survive such situation in the same way that they do now. Ford Motors was a company hugely threatened by the depression in 1930, in 2008 the recession really did not affect it at all in the same way. The one clear premise one can take from both images in relation to the "American Dream" is that it can be gone in a blink of an eye. You can work so hard to achieve wealth, happiness etc, however this can be taken away instantly, something that had happened all to often during 1930 and 2008. You can almost argue that these images are satirical of this concept. That Americans in the land where opportunity is rife can be struggling to pay $5.50 for thanksgiving is farcical. It stresses the issue that no matter your situation, the "American Dream" is as susceptible to destruction as we the people are.

American Studies Blog 10

My image portrays a demonstration by a group of unemployed men in the 1930s. From the picture you can see that there is a wide range of jobless men who can work various trades. This includes: Firemen, painters, labourers and cooks, which implicates that the great depression of the 1930’s did affect everyone. Most people were affected during this crisis, with many people becoming unemployed, homeless and some on the urge of starvation, especially those in less urban places. Focusing on the urban areas of the 1930s, the cities became a lot more populated with the idea that people living in more rural areas would be able to seek more employability by moving. This made the population denser and therefore there was a lot more competition. John Steinbeck, wrote in an 1936 article that “thousands… [were] destitute and hungry and homeless, ready to accept any pay so that they may eat and feed their children.” People were completely desperate.

My next image portrays the more recent recession of that in 2008.  It is a more comical picture in comparison to my first. It portrays the idea that some people did benefit from this Great Recession, however it is easy to see the contrast between those who were successful and those who were not. The Great Recession saw a huge economic decline and is noted to be the worst since the Great Depression. In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. labour market lost 8.4 million jobs, (6.1% of all pay roll employment).

Interestingly, when looking at these two images, it shows people being put into vulnerable positions due to a money shortage. America is known as the land of opportunity, where anyone with a dream can be seen to thrive. However, realistically, we know that this isn’t always the case. There are a lot of aspects of which are needed in order to achieve. To me, these images show America as weak, and contradict this idea of the “America Dream”. Despite these images nearly being eighty years apart, it indicates that there are still flaws in America.