Not Just Privilege for the Privileged

During these tragic economic times in America, colleges and universities have stopped spending money. Building projects are being canceled, faculty is being let go, and these institutions are doing whatever else they can in order to survive. Many people, including myself, believe that these institutions will decrease the amount of financial aid given out to students, but these colleges and universities are doing just the opposite. I read an article from the New York Times titled, "To Keep Students, Colleges Cut Anything but Aid." The name says it all, as it has been discovered that colleges will not cut financial aid during these times and may even expand the aid at some points.

Many students cannot afford to pay for college due to the economic crisis, and if financial aid spending was cut by the colleges, the number of students able to attend these colleges would drop significantly. These colleges understand that these students are the future and to prevent them from having even a shot at attending college would be taking away their privilege to acquire a formal education. Speaking of privilege, the word brings up an entirely new side to this discussion. There is no doubt that if colleges did cut financial aid spending, only those who are truly privileged would be able to attend the institutions. Hope would be diminished for millions of Americans, separating the country into two cultures: Those who can go to college, and those who never will; the privileged and the unprivileged.

Colleges have made the correct decision, however, and prevented this separation of cultures from occurring. College always will be a privilege for people, for there will never be a time when every person can attend college. However, by not cutting financial aid spending, colleges have shown that they still believe all Americans can at least obtain this privilege. Those who cannot afford college still have a hope to during these hard times, and this decision by colleges in America was the best possible one. When it comes down to black and white, these potential college students are our future, and if we are to deny them the chance to gain a college education, problems like the ones we face today may very well reoccur. Colleges, therefore, by not cutting financial aid during this economic crisis, are ensuring that the privilege of education is not just for the privileged, but for everyone who represents the future of America.

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/education/28college.html?pagewanted=2&em

Metropolis

After looking at excerpts from The Jungle and watching two films portraying the systematic lifelessness American workers experienced during the early 1900s, I thought back to a movie I had watched freshman year in my English class. The movie is titled Metropolis and was filmed in 1927. The film takes place in the year 2000 and is about how machines have come to rule over man in the workplace and to show the class differences between the rich and poor. This movie conveys the same ideas as the other sources we have looked at regarding workers during the early 1900s, especially because it was filmed during the 1920s and was trying to show what will happen in the future if society's "machine" is not destroyed.

One important aspect of this movie that is made quite clear is the difference between the elites' and workers' lives. The elites are wealthy, control everything, and live in heavenly gardens. The workers are very poor and live under the ground. All day, these workers work in terrible conditions pulling levers, controlling conveyor belts, flipping switches, and so on. Their jobs require no skill, just nonstop labor. The workers do not understand the big picture of it all, however; they do not even know what the world looks like above the ground. The movie worked hard to show how workers during the early 1900s are all part of a machine and have no understanding of the larger picture. The movie also shows how the elites who run the city have everything they want, yet they could never prosper without the workers. There is, therefore, a balance created between the two classes: they need each other.

The main character, Freder, is the son of an elite who travels down below ground to see what life is like for the workers; he discovers a world he never imagined could exist. He sees the awful labor these people must do everyday, and witnesses the death of a worker due to exhaustion. Freder rushes up to his father and tells him about what he saw; his father does not care about the worker at all, causing Freder to rebel and join the workers below ground.

Freder's father and a scientist invent a robot who can now replace the workers below ground, as it will not tire from exhaustion. If these robots were to take over the working class' jobs, an entire class of people would practically be wiped out from society. The robot is a significant part of this film because it shows how Man will be ruled by machine and to prove how the workers are themselves like machines.

This film really grinds the idea into the viewers minds how different these two classes of people are during the 1900s. The workers are not seen as people anymore, but simply as parts of a large machine they do not understand. The director of this film created this visionary masterpiece most likely to let the world know that if this societal system continues in the workplace, the future is going to be a very frightening place.

Ahhh oui, how romantic...Americans and zeir vegetables

The United States is one of the unhealthiest nations in the world due to the type of food we eat; these foods include junk food, like candy and ice cream, or fast food, like McDonald's or Burger King. Sure, it doesn't help Americans to eat this stuff, but the food we eat is surely not the cause of most of our everyday problems. But HOLD ON AMERICA! ORGANIC FOOD HAS COME TO THE RESCUE!! Now our lives will improve ten fold!!!! True statement???.... Not at all. Ever since the introduction of organic food in America, Americans have truly romanticized it.

Organic food is food grown without the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. The food no doubt holds true to its original intention, which was to produce all-natural products that are healthy and environmentally safe. Americans have taken this intention, and made it into something much larger and simply untrue over time.

I read an article written about organic food on the website www.organicfoodinfo.net, an online informational source about organic food. This article reminds me of Romeo and Juliet; it has "romance" and is a tragedy (Ohhhhh diss).

The article basically glorified organic food by describing how it will change all aspects of one's life:

-You will find that you are much happier and easy going. You will also notice a great change in your mood, since your body is healthy, making you happy.
-These basic improvements in your health will reinforce your diet, pushing you to eat healthier, lose more weight, and even tighten up your diet further.
-Healthy foods will also ensure that you are bustling with energy; and once you have loads of energy you will have to find a way to use it.
-That will mean that you will find yourself going to the gym or taking up some new hobby, since your energy has to be used up some how.
-You will be amazed to see how easy it is to actually maintain a natural health lifestyle.
-All your friends will notice as you become more energetic and productive.
-Natural health also encourages positive thinking and is a gradual process.

The writer of this article describes organic food as if it can completely improve one's life. Apparently, if you eat this food you will be motivated to go to the gym, take up new hobbies, lose more weight, and my personal favorite, your friends will notice how much more "energetic and productive" you are.

Organic food is a cool idea, but Americans have romanticized the meaning, causes, and effects of it in order to make them believe they can change their lives by eating it.

Link to article: http://www.organicfoodinfo.net/organic_products_usa.html

"Racially Traitorous?" Give Me A Break

Agency and oppression is something that will remain prevalent in society most likely forever. In our nations history, the dominant white society often follows a pattern of oppressing non-whites in order to lift itself up and force others down. Early colonists exercised this practice by acting as agents over the Native Americans, Americans later would oppress blacks by enslaving them, and the cycle continues even today. As we have developed into a much more free and equal nation, these agents act with more subtlety, but the effect they can have on the oppressed today remains equally terrible. In the editorial section of the New York Times, a columnist points a bold finger towards Republicans describing their campaign against immigrants as oppressive as it embodies a, "hidden a streak of racialist extremism." Racism is still a prevalent issue in America today, as well as immigration; but the Republican party and the way it chooses to deal with these topics will not allow for any easy solution. As the Republican party looks back wondering why it lost the congressional race, they see that the large number of foreigners in America were the issue. The party still stubbornly does not recognize that its anti-immigration policy is the issue it must reconsider, but instead believes it has not, "been too hard on foreigners, but too soft."

The Republican party believes it needs to work harder to seal the border and revisit the idea of deporting illegal immigrants. We already learned, however, that deportation is not going to solve immigration issues any time soon.

This editorial describes recent evidence of how this party truly shows racism towards immigrants and foreigners. Republican mailings of songs titled "“Barack the Magic Negro” or “The Star Spanglish Banner” were all parodies blatantly expressing racism. Also, Peter Brimelow, a former editor for Forbes created a website by the name of Vdare.com, a site of extreme anti-immigration. Bill O'reilly and Fox news also referred to the views of pro-immigration "left wingers" as, "racially traitorous."

The actions, ideas, and reasoning the Republican party often takes towards the issue of immigration truly set us back in the strides we've made to become a country where all people are created equal. It makes no difference to slowly over time give blacks rights, let women vote, and so on if we are going to suddenly call our country "racially traitorous."

Hopefully, Republicans will see that their policy towards immigration can lead to racist acts. One week ago, in Long Island, new evidence was brought to attention regarding a few teenagers and a murderous attack they committed against an Ecuadorean immigrant. That crime was committed a year ago, but ever since then, more reports of racial attacks towards immigrants in the area have been brought to the police's attention. The editorial says these police, "have made a habit of ignoring a long and escalating trail of attacks against immigrant men, until the hatred rose up and spilled over one night, fatally."

I'm sure the Republican party never had any intention of creating violence towards immigrants, but hatred is formed nevertheless through their use of politics. I hope the party will soon realize the consequences of its actions and the racism it can potentially create in this country. Agency and oppression is still very real today as the American "tradition" lives on.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/opinion/01sun1.html

War of False Romanticism

As we discussed romanticism in American Studies, I immediately thought back to my junior theme. For my junior theme paper, I read Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier, and The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. These stories are both novels about the American Civil War. I knew I had to figure out the connection these two stories make in order to produce a thesis for my paper. I noticed both were told through the eyes of individual characters (both fictional and nonfictional) and there seemed to be a common theme of negativity towards the terrible causes and effects of the war. I could not think of the deeper connection these two novels possess, but finally had my epiphany while doing some research. I came across a website that brought me to President Dwight Eisenhower's speech about the Civil War on its 100th year anniversary in 1963. In his speech, as I realized most contemporary speeches do, solely speak of the pride, inspiration, honor, and even beauty of the American Civil War:

"Both sections of our now magnificently reunited country sent into their armies men who became soldiers as good as any who ever fought under any flag. Military history records nothing finer than the courage and spirit displayed at such battles as Chickamauga, Antietam, Kennesaw Mountain, and Gettysburg. That America could produce men so valiant and so enduring is a matter for deep and abiding pride" (Eisenhower).

In the past, I never would have thought twice about President Eisenhower's words and what this war means to our country. After reading my two junior theme books, however, this war cannot be glorified as a "romantic war" for America today, but as a tragic experience for the individual citizens/soldiers back then. I now made a distinct connection between the two novels; both describe the war through the eyes of the individual, and we are able to uncover the truth behind the "glory." We discover the fictional pride and concoction of a war of false romanticism. Eisenhower represents Americans' modern day views of the war very well, as he mentions how proud and glorious some of the major battles were.

In The Killer Angels, however, we are able to see the "pride" firsthand of the fighting itself. Shaara uses evidence of real soldiers during the Battle of Gettysburgh to show how destructive and traumatic the scene was. Friends and foe dying everywhere, blood filling the battlefield, and total fear filling the air.
In Cold Mountain, Frazier describes a different part of the war as we are able to understand the feelings of a soldier who is away from the battlefield and traveling home, as well as the experience of his lover who is a female back on a farm. During this soldier's voyage home, he constantly describes how horrific and pointless the war is and he must face the challenges of the world falling apart around him due to the war.
Through the eyes of the individual, a whole new idea of the American Civil War is recognized through these novels, and this war of pride suddenly becomes a war of false romanticism.

The war definitely changed our country in many ways and allowed us to become the great nation we are today, but one cannot look back at the Civil War and call it romantic, honorable, nor glorious; it was a war, nevertheless, where more Americans were killed than in any other war, and it would be unjust to the people of that time to describe their experience as romantic. Through the individual, we see truth.

Eisenhower Speech:

True Meaning of Civil War
September 5, 1963

I would urge in all our commemorations of the Civil War centennial, that we look on this great struggle not merely as a set of military operations, but as a period in our history in which the times called for extra-ordinary degrees of patriotism and heroism on the part of the men and women of both the north and the south. In this context we may derive inspiration from their deeds to renew our dedication to the task which yet confronts us - the furtherance, together with other free nations of the world, of the freedom and dignity of man and the building of a just and lasting peace.

The years 1961 to 1965 will mark the one-hundredth anniversary of the American Civil War. That war was America's most tragic experience. But like most truly great tragedies, it carries with it an enduring lesson and a profound inspiration. It was a demonstration of heroism and sacrifice by men and women of both sides who valued principle above life itself and whose devotion to duty is a part of our nation's noblest tradition.

Both sections of our now magnificently reunited country sent into their armies men who became soldiers as good as any who ever fought under any flag. Military history records nothing finer than the courage and spirit displayed at such battles as Chickamauga, Antietam, Kennesaw Mountain, and Gettysburg. That America could produce men so valiant and so enduring is a matter for deep and abiding pride.

The same spirit on the part of the people at home supported and strengthened those soldiers through four years of great trial. That a nation which contained hardly more than thirty million people, north and south together, could sustain six hundred thousand deaths without faltering is a lasting testimonial to something unconquerable in the American spirit. And that a transcending sense of unity and larger common purpose could, in the end, cause the men and women who had suffered so greatly to close ranks once the contest ended and to go on together to build a greater, freer, and happier America must be a source of inspiration as long as our country may last.

source: http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19630905%20True%20Meaning%20of%20Civil%20War.htm