Democracy Now Response

Occupy Wall Street

After watching the Democracy Now video shown in class, I was really shocked by all the important issues that aren’t being shown in class. The majority of the issues in this video covered pressing international topics including armed conflicts in Africa, Alabama immigration law, rioting caused by bank and corporate greed, the dedication of the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, and continued problems in the Middle east. These topics seemed to all share a common interest: global populations uniting and speaking out against the minority that holds most of the power. Global populations believe that the top 1% of their countries are risking the well being of the lower 99% with their corporate greed.

         The majority of this video discusses protests due to this issue. Though I’d heard about the Occupy Wall Street movements, I hardly knew anything about them until watching this. I learned why so many were protesting and about the different occupies going on across the world. Occupy spread quickly across the globe. Each country has their own personal reasons for protesting and are uniting with the people of New York for a global call to action. Over 1,500 cities and 8 countries have been involved.

Occupy Wall Street has gained popularity citizens everywhere, including celebrities. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in London, Danny Glover in Oakland, Michael Moore in New York and Princeton professor Cornell West in D.C. are among the thousands involved in this movement. While occupiers were well aware of the unrest their protests would cause, I don’t think many were prepared for extreme measures police forces would take to diffuse protests. This video sheds a light on the arrests made in the past month. One woman in New York was forced against her will into a bank and quickly arrested by an undercover cop for doing nothing wrong…she was only there to withdraw money. Princeton professor Cornell West was protesting with his students on the supreme court steps and was arrested by guards in the area. Though it was under poor circumstances, West risked his job by standing up for something he was truly passionate about, and I think this is admirable.

Many people have spoken out against the Occupy movement saying that it is a useless cause and that protesters are wasting the governments time and money. Republican candidate Herman Cain is quoted in a shocking statement by saying “The protesters shouldn’t blame Wall Street, it is their own fault if they don’t have jobs and they’re not rich.” While a select few in the 1% may side with Cain, I’m pretty sure the 99% disagrees. Even Obama gave a speech in support of the protests during the Martin Luther King memorial in Washington, D.C.

10 Topics

1. Environmental awareness

2. Importance placed on higher education

3. Communication

4. Gang violence

5. Government reform

6. Military corruption

7. Education reformation in the public school system

8. Animal rights

9. Music industry

10. Healthcare

Response 4

                        Changing Education Paradigms

I attended private school for the majority of my life. It wasn’t just any private school, however, it was a Montessori school. The Montessori method is all about giving children a hands on experience and allowing them to learn at their own pace. There was never a dull moment in the classroom because we were surrounded by enthusiastic teachers, and were always going on fun fieldtrips. I feel like growing up with Montessori teaching helped me in many ways and I love person it has made me become, but it didn’t do a good job of bracing me for public school.  I am a slow learner, and have always learned best with one on one attention…when I got to high school this wasn’t even an option. In Montessori school we weren’t given letter grades…in public school I was constantly given tests and if I didn’t do well or wasn’t fully prepared, I felt like an incompetent fool. In the RSA animate, “Changing Education Paradigms”, Sir Ken Robinson brought up some really great questions on education reformation. He opened my eyes to a new way of viewing education today. I agree with many of the arguments he made, including the over medication in America today, and the negative ways that our economy is affecting education.

             As Sir Robinson pointed out, it used to be that if you went to school, did fairly

well and graduated, a job was set in stone. In today’s economy, that is far from the case. There are highly educated individuals spending their life savings on higher education at prestigious schools that end up without a career and working at Walmart. It’s sad but true. This leaves many today wondering if higher education is even worth the money spent if they have no guarantee of a job.

          

         Today’s society is filled with distractions. We are technologically advanced and with this advancement comes hundreds of different ways for us to be distracted from our priorities. Many children today own computers, iphones, gaming systems, laptops, ipads, etc. It’s not surprising that when they are expected to do their homework, they play with these items instead.  When parents notice that their grades have dropped they automatically think it’s because of an attention deficit disorder. I have first hand experience in being overly medicated for ADHD, and it is miserable. In high school my grades were decent, but had room for improvement. One of my friends had gotten prescribed to adderall and was ranting and raving about how wonderful it was and how it made her want to learn. I convinced my parents that I needed to go see a psychiatrist immediately and that I had to get help for my attention problems. They don’t believe in medication like that so it took a lot of convincing, but they eventually let me go. When talking to my psychiatrist, I expected to have to explain my situation in detail…instead, we had a 60 second conversation and then he sent me away with my prescription. I doubt he even stopped to learn my name. On my first day back at school with this magic drug, I felt like a zombie. I didn’t want to talk to my friends, I didn’t want interact with anyone, really. All I wanted to do was focus. It was terrible. I felt like I had been stripped of my personality.  I’m sure I am one of millions with similar experiences with drugs for ADHD,  and am probably one of the few that hated what it was doing to me. It’s sad to know that we are medicating young children like this, turning them into zombies rather than focusing on the real issue at hand.

Response 3

Someplace like America.

            This article sparked my interest from the beginning paragraph. I grew up listening to Bruce Springstein. My parents are big fans of his and even took me to a concert years ago. Though I’m not a super fan of his music, he is a very respectable artist. He has made a name for himself and is a very likeable guy. Bruce Springstein is a good voice for America. The fact that this article includes a forward by him makes it that much more interesting to me.

            This piece opens with a gripping start: the death of a homeless person in Santa Barbara. Warnings were posted around the area of his death threatening other homeless individuals in hopes that they wouldn’t return. This is heartbreaking to me. These people are already faced with so many hardships. They struggle just to make it day to day, don’t they at least deserve to be left alone? Though the person who posted these fliers was unrelated the homeless person’s murder, it’s really sad to see the extent some people will go to just to express their beliefs.

            A homeless person was quoted in saying, “Where do you think you are, someplace like America?” This simple question in itself really opened my eyes and made me think about how terrible things have gotten. America is thought of as the land of the free, a place with economic stability and a place where we are given every opportunity to grow and achieve. It seems more to me that America is a debt -ridden place where the cost of living is set too high, and our people are left to struggle by living paycheck to paycheck.

            I like to think that most of our population is aware of the economic crisis we are facing, but I don’t think very many understand how bad things really are. This article really brought me terms with the seriousness of this crisis. Our government has been really misleading in the terms of our economic struggles. The people we have put our trust into have been lying to us; they have lead us to believe that the economic crisis isn’t a crisis at all.

The government has kept so much from us, and now the people of my generation are left to be hit the hardest by this economic failure. I think Sprinstein said it best in saying “trillions for the titan. Crumbs for the rest”, meaning that every effort to rebuild our economy has been directed towards the wealthy. The ones that needed help the least, in fact, have gained. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It seems to me that this process is completely twisted. Shouldn’t we be working towards a hapy medium rather than expanding these extremes? Many have taken pride in the fact that even with our low economy, we haven’t hit another Great Depression. This pride seems irrelevant when nothing is being done to assist the low- income Americans that were hit the hardest by our economic problems. 

Response 2

Make-up and Hot Pink Toe Nails- Not Just a Girl Thing

“When a 17-month-old boy is beaten to death for being too “girly,” a 5-year-old is accused of being gay for choosing to dress up like Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween, a boy who likes pink dresses causes headline news, and a high-school football player is kicked off the field for wearing pink cleats during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I think it’s more than obvious that social expectations regarding femininity and masculinity continue to be incredibly rigid, stifling, and too often dangerous.”  Before finishing the article by Melanie Klein, I went through and read each attached article in this statement. I’m horrified by how judgmental and discriminative our society has become. While trying to keep up with the social “norm” we have gotten out of control.

A quote by Melanie Klein in this article states, “The values and norms of a society are framed by the branded images and lifestyles consciously and carefully constructed by advertisers seeking to maximize profit.” While we don’t like to believe it, this statement is so true. The media plays a huge role in portraying what is and isn’t acceptable in our society. For instance, young boys are expected to play with trucks, leggos, action figures, and it is assumed that they love all things blue. Little girls are expected to play with barbies, dress up clothes, and all things pink. These norms are presented to us at an early age and are carried on into adulthood. But what happens when a child chooses to play with a toy that doesn’t fit into the norm? Should we keep them from doing something that makes them happy just to keep them from being different? Everyone wants their child to grow up to be accepted in society, so we imbed beliefs at a young age that they need to fit in. The majority would agree that it isn’t acceptable for boys to play with dolls, or wear make-up, or to wear pink. Why is this though? Is it an unspoken fear that they may grow up to be gay? At a young age, children are still innocent and naïve to these norms…I don’t understand why we can’t just let them choose their own path and do what makes them happy rather than worrying what our society has labeled normal.

In this article, Klein responds to a recent J. Crew advertisement. This advertisement shows a young boy and his mother painting eachother’s toenails. She refers to this ad as a “breath of fresh air”. Showing that the two of them are just having pure, innocent fun proves that pink doesn’t have to be just for girls. No one wants their child to grow up as an outcast in school, or to be picked on for being too different, but we shouldn’t live our lives according to the media. I understand, to a certain extent, why we have set certain standards for gender roles, but taking it to this extreme is ridiculous.