g20 summit

Alex Etienne                                              g20 Summit

                The g20 Summit is defined as, “A group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 major economies: 19 countries plus the European Union, which is represented by the President of the European Council and by the European Central Bank.”  Considering that the countries involved in the summit provide over 80% of the world’s GDP, it is an extremely prestigious honor to be involved in the group.  After reading the essay(s) by Michael Benton (    http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24673), various portions of the text struck me as particularly interesting.  First, when involving the way in which the town the meeting is being held in secures the perimeter, many obstacles seem to be overcome not only by the protestors but also by the everyday citizens of these streets.  The essay exclaims, “As we walked around the concrete barricades, razor wires and riot police into a street full of pubs and restaurants, we noticed a crowd forming and people laughing. A group of Japanese tourists with G20 Summit badges around their necks had approached two young riot police officers patrolling the business area. The tourists asked the riot police if some of their young women could pose with them. The women were attractive and the officers quickly accepted.”  This really stood out to me as a reader based on the idea that yes, the riot police are there to serve and protect.  But, it seems to be very contradictory.  When a protestor is marching through the streets or simply holding a sign/speaking their minds, there have been many instances when a police or group of police men have, in my opinion, crossed the line and gone overboard with the way they react, whether it be a tear gas canister or becoming physically violent.  But, since there are young, attractive females in the area and they ask for a picture, all of a sudden the police are all about fun and games?  They should not be able to pick and choose their relationships with specific people, they are there for business purposes and therefore should be required to act professionally with no matter who they are dealing with, young people or old, men or women, etc.  Also, another portion of the text that I found interesting was, “Even worse, I received numerous comments after the march suggesting that it is ridiculous to protest the G20. Every person that said this to me later admitted they had no understanding of what the G20 is, or what it does. They simply believed what they were told by the media and the state (including our president): it is ridiculous for citizens to protest these larger global regulatory groups.”  Is it important to know what the g20 is?  Of course, it is a room full of the most powerful leaders in the world having a meeting about money, what is more important than that?      

Occupy Jobs

Occupy Jobs

Alex Etienne       

For beginners, what is Occupy Jobs and why is it such a controversial topic in the current events of the United States of America and also throughout the world?  Although there may not be one clear, strong definition, occupy jobs can be described as, “A leaderless movement without an official set of demands.  There are no projected outcomes, certainly no dotted-lines, and essentially, everyone is a leader in this movement.  According to the Washington Post, “In the United States, anarchist-inspired spokescouncils convened hundreds of these groups to organize protest actions, conferences and community work. At the meetings, each group would position a single member upfront, in the inner circle, while the rest sat behind, like a human wheel with spokes. There were no leaders with long-standing assignments because every participant was, in essence, a leader. In lieu of a party line, this amalgamation of movements operated according to sets of core, procedural principles—called Principles of Unity—that reflected their anti-authoritarian, anti-discriminatory orientation.”  The next question then becomes: When does this all come to an end?  Or does it not?

When you have two sides that both want something different, it causes multiple problems and eventually leads to people taking things into their own hands.  This, in the case of Occupy Jobs on Wall Street, is exactly what occurred.  The general population that is out of a job is tired of not being provided with one while in many situations the government has promised to fix that.  Not only has the government not fully addressed this issue, in some instances finding a job now, in 2011, is even harder than it was in the worst point of our economy in 2009.  This is why the people of America and all over the world at that matter are up in arms.  Didn’t the government learn when they were twelve years old that you should never make a promise that you should not keep?

Bibliography

Bibliography

Alex Etienne

2 Books:

Hutzley, Jonathan D. Unmasking Terror: a Global Review of Terrorist Activities. Washington,   D.C.: Jamestown Foundation, 2007.

Burke, Jason. Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. London: I.B. Tauris, 2003.

2 Websites:

"Bin Laden's Real-life Big Love Troubles." Theweek.com. The Week Magazine.

Schabner, Dean, and Karen Travers (@karentravers). "Osama Bin Laden Killed by U.S. Forces in Pakistan - ABC News." ABCNews.com: Daily News, Breaking News and Video Broadcasts - ABC News. Web. 11 Sept. 2011.

Osama Bin Laden

Bin Laden: Osama Style

Alex Etienne

           

Obviously, in the past 5-10 years, a man by the name of Osama Bin Laden has been an enemy and simply a scare for the American people as a whole.  Whether it was the attacks on 9/11 or the various threats produced from the Middle East via a group referred to as “Al Qaeda”, we as American citizens have had to remain on our toes and have total awareness of this man and his actions.  But, who is he?  Why would he want to attack the United States of America?  I am going to take an in-depth look at how it all began, years ago, and then how it dramatically all came to an end.

            I chose to write about Osama Bin Laden for multiple reasons.  First, I myself have always been extremely curious as to how the whole situation began.  Osama Bin Laden was the founder of Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets.  He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.  Essentially, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that U.S. foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East, condensed in the phrase "They hate us for what we do, not who we are." 

            Personally, I feel that this subject is extremely important considering the amount of lives taken by this man and his people.  On September 11, 2001, a series of four coordinated suicide attacks upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. areas occurred, killing nearly 3,000 people.  Suspicion quickly fell on al-Qaeda, and in 2004, the group's leader Osama bin Laden, who had initially denied involvement, claimed responsibility for the attacks.  In my opinion, a man who seeks out to kill a mass quantity of people all at one time is a cold blooded killer who does not deserve to live.  Obviously, the United States felt the same way as he was recently executed.  But, those facts aside, the sole reason that the typical American citizen had to sleep with one eye open for ten years after these attacks because nobody knew what could possibly be coming next from this man is reason enough to be fully aware of him and his antics. 

            Finally, who will I be writing this for?  What audience/group of people would find the most interest in this?  I am writing this for whoever was mentally destructed on the day of September 11, 2001.  Which, if you were an average American who was aware of what was happening, then you can fully remember and relate to the way I felt.  Now that Osama is deceased, we can comfortably talk about who he was and his motives.  But, this could also possibly assist you in knowing more about his group of murderers and what they could potentially attempt to do in the future, and how we can be prepared for it.

           

9-3-11

RSA Animation Vs. The Oppressor Vs. Capitalism

Alex Etienne

               

At first, I thought that collaborating three separate articles into one would be extremely difficult.  But, I was fooled.  Turns out all of these articles about our current public education in the United States seem to correlate well when involving one specific issue:  our education system in the United States seems to be flawed and we are not taking the right steps to improve it at this time.  The question once again becomes what do we need to do as a nation to change this and how can we better our educational system for years to come, right now?

            First, the simple fact of the matter is that there are too many minor problems in the public schools that eventually build into much bigger problems.  These are things such as a poor student-to-teacher ratio, lack of funding, staff cut-backs, and in some cases even lack of teacher effort.  But, according to RSA animation, ADHD is also a problem.  If a student has been diagnosed with ADHD, should he be taking his medication on a daily basis, or should he be learning at a young age how to function without it?  Also, why is ADHD and medicated children so much more prevalent on the eastern side of the United States as opposed to the western side?  Are the numbers truly that different or are the doctors in the East quicker to give a child ADHD prescriptions that one in the West?  These are all questions brought upon us by RSA animation and the next step is making a positive change for the future.

            Next is the issue of discrimination in public schooling.  Yes, it is that bad, worse than you could ever have imagined.  But, at the same time, the public is aware and has been doing their best to keep it out of our school systems for good.  According to the article Toward a Pedagogy of the Oppressor, “To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitous and invisible? You're everywhere you look, you're the standard against which everyone else is measured. You're like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a "woman doctor," or they will say they went to see "the doctor."  This quotation really strikes me hard considering today in America, the white male is getting closer and closer to becoming the minority but yet everyone still uses him as the standard?  Fascinating.

            Finally, according to Education and The Structural Crisis of Capital, “Today’s conservative movement for the reform of public education in the United States, and in much of the world, is based on the prevailing view that public education is in a state of emergency and in need of restructuring due to its own internal failures. In contrast, I shall argue that the decay of public education is mainly a product of externally imposed contradictions that are inherent to schooling in capitalist society, heightened in our time by conditions of economic stagnation in the mature capitalist economies, and by the effects of the conservative reform movement itself.”  In a nut-shell, what are some economic steps we can take to improve our education systems?  Better yet, instead of these “internally imposed contradictions”, can we eventually all be on the same page and remember that it is our countries future at stake with these children and maybe we should all make that our main focal point?

RSA Animation Vs. the oppressor

RSA Animation Vs. the oppressor

Alex Etienne                                                                                                                               8-30-11

                After reviewing both the RSA animation video on education and also the article known as “ Toward a pedagogy of the oppressor”, I was left with mixed feelings and various different questions; not only involving how I felt about the issues, but also where we, as a country, take our education system from this point moving forward.  Is it fair to say that everyone deserves an equal education, regardless of where you live or how much money you have?  Even better, is it a normal American civilian’s right to be able to say whatever they feel about a specific subject?  These are all questions that are currently being discussed in our nation and until a solution is found, these problems will continue to occur.

            For starters, in regards to the animation video made by RSA animations, I feel the author did an outstanding job representing where, we as a country currently stand in our education systems.  The video stated, “Education is modeled in the interest of industrialism.”  Obviously, this would first come over as a concern to most people, considering we model our education system as if we are building toys.  But, in the grand scheme of things, this is probably the best method in which we can teach children.  Start them out small, from the beginning.  Then, build upon that, year by year, grade by grade.

            Although you may feel that the previous issue is most important, there is also the issue of ADHD in our children today.  The question remains, how do we treat this?  Should children be medicated or should they simply have to focus naturally, even if they have hyper-active disorders?  According to the animation, children receiving medication for ADHD in today’s society is as easy a process as getting your tonsils taken out. 

            In regards to the article “Toward a pedagogy of the oppressor”, you can take it even farther than the idea of ADHD medication in our schools.  This article discussed issues including discrimination and how impactful it is in society today.  To be completely honest, I thought I was aware of how this was an issue, but I would never have guessed how bad it truly was until I read this piece.  Did you know that, “   To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitous and invisible? You're everywhere you look, you're the standard against which everyone else is measured. You're like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a "woman doctor," or they will say they went to see "the doctor." 

            Believe it or not, you can find a simple correlation or relevance between the animation and the article discussed by looking at the idea of a day in the life of a public school system student.  They are constantly surrounded by children medicated for ADHD, they are subject to the “industrialism” idea, and they also probably have seen or even experienced discrimination themselves.  The remaining question is this: How do we adjust our educational system for future students to the point where everyone is happy?  Or, better yet, is this even an eventual possibility? 

Response to Someplace like America (Bruce Springsteen)

A Response to Bruce Springsteen’s Some Place like America

Alex Etienne

           

After reading the introduction to “Some place like America”, I was extremely interested in what it was discussing and quite frankly would have continued to read if it was all provided.  It really takes an in depth look at what America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, is truly about and what it is currently like seen through the eyes of the “workin’ man”.  Also, the story looks at economical aspects as well.  What the economy has and is still currently doing to your typical United States citizen.  As a result of a fluctuating economy here in America, many people are left with hardly any materials at all and talk about what it is like to live in poverty.

            As I read, I could not help but notice the section in which Springsteen wrote, “As Michael and I traveled over the years, we didn’t seek out individuals who offered polemics or who were absorbed in politics.  We simply listened to Americans who were in trouble because of the economy.  In our interviews with workers, some people appeared to be liberal, others conservative, but most were apparently in that amorphous middle.”  This portion of the text in my opinion was crucial to the study performed.  You need to involve people from all walks of life when conducting an “experiment” if you will, just so you can really get a true, beneficial idea of how everyone feels about a specific matter.  When it comes to politics, people everywhere tend to feel different about specific issues considering our country and its policies.  But, the fact of the matter is, we are all living together and honestly, we should all be working toward a common goal: preparing our nation for the road ahead;  and trust me, it will be an extremely bumpy one at best. 

            Discussing what we want our nation to turn into in the future and how we will get there is something that is and should be highlighted on a frequent basis.  Why is this an important issue?  Because the decisions we make now will reflect the decisions we are making ten, twenty, thirty, even one hundred years from now.