Blog #17

I believe that the Pope's over the years have come up with some very radical ideas even though the church has been known to be conservative. The idea that not every completely owns property is against everything capitalism stands for. The idea that if a person has so much land that they should give some away to the needy is crazy. I believe that this is not a realistic expectation and that the Pope's are crazy to think that this would ever happen. To me, a lot of the things that are said in this are wishful thinking because realistically many of them would never actually happen.
I agree with many of the ideas that the Pope brings up about labor. I feel that every worker deserves to get enough pay to support themselves and if needed their families. I think that business owners have become too greedy and need to take a step back so that they can look into the eyes of their workers. I also feel that the hours should be good hours at good times of the day. Many of these things do not need to be worried about in the US because we have agencies that regulate these things. In the rest of the world the same thing can't always be said. What the pope has to say can be directed to places such as China where kids work in sweat shops and have incredibly long hours with very little pay.

Blog #19

It was interesting to read about how the middle east was attempting to copy the ideals of the West and how they failed miserably. I am curious as to why the countries of the middle east were not able to use the same ideals that have flourished in places like Britain and the US. I feel that the complete failure in installing the western ideals in these countries is why there is such a strong hatred towards the West in this area. If the countries would have been more successful they obviously would be a lot friendlier towards the west. The start of this hatred began in 1928 with the Muslim Brotherhood. This is where a lot of terrorist groups can originally be tied to.
I believe that after the failure of the Middle East to copy western ideals shows that not every country can use the same system as a template. Each country has to be able to find its own way to success. The Middle East attempted this with the islamic renewal and by re-adopting many of the islamic ideals that had disappeared during this time. I believe that the Middle East has lost its way as many countries have become hostile and radicalized.
I do not see the Middle East's hatred towards the US or the west ending anytime soon. I believe that the reason for this is that we fundamentally don't match. I am appalled that there are still some places in the Middle East that do not allow women to be educated, drive, or even wear normal clothing.

Blog #18

I found that the author made very good points when he pointed out how the fall of the European Empires was due to contradictions in their beliefs and actions. Once people realized that the European actions were a counter to their ideals of enlightenment and equality, they knew that they could revolt. This quickly led to the European Empire's crumbling because the countries could not keep suppressing revolutions. People in colonial states did not understand why the European states could be so democratic yet their colonies had a very dictatorship type government. Many countries under colonial rule also wanted to be able to show their national character and individualism. 

The main reason that so many countries were able to get their independence at this time was because the World Wars had wreaked havoc on many countries and severely weakened them. This left them vulnerable to revolutions in various areas of the world. 

In India, Britain made numerous mistakes with how it handled its colony in India. One of the major mistakes was the way that Britain didn't try to assimilate into Indian society. Britain's racism towards their colonies, and their lack of understanding of the Indian culture left a lot of bitter hatred towards Britain. This hatred led to the Indian community forming a national identity as they realized the many differences between British and Indian societies.

Post #16

I could not imagine the way that people felt during the cold war. People lived under constant threat from the Soviet Union. At any moment the US could be blown up by the nuclear weapons that the Soviet Union possessed. I also think that it is funny to look back at all of the drills that the schools and many offices practiced in case of a nuclear attack. One drill was to get under your desk because it would help protect you. We now know that this isn't going to do anything if a nuclear bomb is even remotely near you. It is also strange to me that the huge build up of military might between the Soviet Union and the US did not lead to war. There was so much division in the world between communist and non-communist that I felt a war would have been inevitable. There were also many reasons to go to war such as the Cuban Nuclear Crisis, or the B2 bomber incident.
We can still see the impact of the Cold War in the world today. A prime example is with NATO. This organization was formed as a counter to the Warsaw pact which was a group of communist countries forming an alliance. The thought behind NATO was that it would deter the Warsaw countries from attacking and could combat communism.
I find the two different revolutions between the Soviet Union and China to be very interesting. I believe that these two countries used the marxist beliefs to gain power for themselves. At first it seemed as if communism was better than capitalism as it had immediate success in a lot of countries. In the long run it was clearly not the best choice because it caused countries to collapse and millions of people to suffer. I like how in Russia the soviet revolution only took one year while in China the revolution was a struggle that lasted many years.
It is very interesting that it was communism that brought about many feminist reforms that were later adopted in the West. In Russia many women enjoyed full legal and political equality while women in the West still had a few years to go before they ever got any rights.

Blog #15

The world wars are the most interesting parts of history to me. I find it interesting the way that they started and how they were able to escalate so quickly. Looking back at the wars can help us today because we can try to prevent making the same mistakes that the countries made back then. One of the biggest mistakes made during this time was the treaty that was made after the first world war. The harsh reparations that were placed on Germany created a bitter hatred for the West that allowed Hitler to get into power. If the countries had done as they did after the second world war then maybe there would have only been one war in the first place. The Allies had turned Germany into nothing. They took away all the pride that the Germans had, made them poor, and took away all of its colonies. I think that the time period also gives us some interesting leaders. People such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt were all prominent leaders that were able to rally their countries to support their own causes. Hitler was the most interesting of all the leaders during this era. I am amazed at the way that he was able to revive his country and prepare for war in such a small time. Many of his writings, such as Mein Kampf give us a glimpse of his rhetoric and how he was able to sway many of the citizens of his country. 

Hopefully the world learned from many of the atrocities and mistakes that were made during this time. I believe that the reason nobody has used any nuclear bombs since this time is that the world has realized that nuclear warfare has no place in the world. Now that everyone has seen the immediate destruction along with the long term affects, nobody wants to have a repeat of that. Another lesson that has been learned is turning your enemies into your allies by helping them get back on their feet. In World War I, Germany was being kicked while it was already down, but after World War II, the allies had learned their lesson and helped Germany along with the other countries get back on its feet.

Post #14

The Taiping Revolution was very interesting to me in this reading. One of the things that stood out to me was that the revolution cost the lives of almost 30 million people, yet nobody really knows about it. I thought that the ideas of the Taiping were strangely revolutionary for this time period. It reminded me a little of Communism. The belief that there should be no private property and the redistribution of land are both pillars of communism. The rebels also had some ideas that the world would later see such as marriage based off of mutual attraction, and the idea of idea of health insurance. I was very surprised to see how long the revolution lasted considering the rebels did not actually change much.
I think that the Opium War was the major shift in world power away from Asia and towards Europe. The Europeans were able to defeat the Chinese in the Opium war with their mighty military power. This is something that had always been the other way around. Once the Europeans had won the war they were able to create favorable terms towards themselves, such as the opening of the major chinese ports to the Europeans. This helped European countries get their goods into the Chinese markets. By doing this they were able to get more Opium into the country and cause more addicts. All of this combined led to the downfall of chinese authority and power over many European countries. I believe that the Chinese lack of an industrial revolution at this time led to the country not being able to keep up with the Europeans.
After reading this I believe that European greed is one reason why their is so much distrust of Western Culture. If the Europeans had not taken advantage of China and many other Asian countries then the Chinese nationalism that hates Western Cultured would have never been born. The actions of the greedy Europeans during this time still has an affect on us today.

Call To Action

My lacrosse team and I decided to volunteer at the Catholic Social House. When we first arrived there we that a lot of people were just leaving. We later found out that the reason that all those people were there was that the Catholic Social House has a community breakfast every Wednesday and Thursday for those in need. At the breakfast they give out pancakes, eggs, toast, fresh orange juice and many other typical breakfast foods.
Our task for the day was to help with their garden. The garden was dormant during the winter but has become ready for planting now that the whether has warmed up. The only problem with that was the hundreds of weeds that covered the landscape. Our job was to pick all of those weeds and to help create planter beds to plant the new crops. The House was planning on planting some strawberries, carrots, onions, and many other types of vegetables.
My team is 27 people strong and we got to work quickly. We were able to quickly pull up all of the weeds with the help of shovels and hoes. One of the hardest parts of the the job was having to turn over the hard dirt so that it could be softened for planting. Usually a rototiller would have gotten the job done in a few minutes, but unfortunately for us the group did not own one. I was covered in all the dirt that was getting tossed around from turning over the dirt. This was not my first time having to work in a garden or deal with a lot of shoveling so I was used to all the manual labor, but many of my teammates have not spent much time in dirt or near gardens and did not appreciate how dirty they were getting. Often times some of my teammates had to be showed how to use a hoe or the proper way to shovel so that they did not break the tools.
It was a humbling experience and I also think that my team had some team bonding. It was humbling because many of the families that the organization works with relies on the produce that comes from  the crops we were helping to plant. We indirectly had a huge impact on their lives. It was also good for our team because we still had to communicate with each other so that we could make sure we were pulling the right plants or doing the right jobs. It felt good to give back to the community and it was nice how much work we had gotten done. One of the volunteers had taken a before picture to show how many weeds and how bad the garden looked and then took an after picture to show the nice, newly formed planter beds and the weedless pathways. Gardening has always been a favorite of mine which is why I enjoyed our Call to Action day. I also appreciated how we got it out of the way early in the day by starting at 9am and ending by noon. Our large numbers helped us to get the job done much faster than was expected.