one more time

Encaustic Presentation: Quick TIme

Final Post: Farewell and Thank You

If we are to create a global even playing field then American needs to help create policies and systems which reduce the discrepancy between the wealthy and the poor around the world. If the gap between the rich and poor is only becoming vaster, how can America think they are doing their job as the self imposed caretaker of the world?  Also, have we not learned that foreign direct investment has hurt this country and is making it harder for us to recover from this economic crisis. It is interesting that Strayer mentions that we ship low cost items abroad, and then import high priced items in. I am pretty sure I read this fact a while back, that we actually ship our garbage to China and then they make goods that we then import again. Really, we send our garbage out just to buy it back as repackaged garbage? You can not put all of the blame on the government though, we as a population we promote this activity too. We are the consumers and we can choose not to play along with the absurdity. But most of the county just goes along with this form of economic abomination.

I remember a time when I was a child and my parents did not have a credit card yet. We just bought what we could afford. I don't know how that would work anymore. I am borrowing money to get this education, so I am no better really. Maybe I tell myself that it is for a good reason, but I still will be financially worse off after I graduate and I doubt that within a year the job market will be that much better off than it is now. Also, colleges keep pumping out graduate, so it is not as if the competition will be any less steep. hmmm. Ya, soothing thoughts to mend the wounds of the world.

I found the reading on the differences in feminism interesting, too. The varying degrees of belief in oppression. When the one woman said that we live so intimately with our oppressors, it is hard for us to see our personal suffering. That is a pretty bold and broad brushed comment. I liked how the African American women feel the need to work with the men, not against them. I feel similarly with them. We can not separate ourselves anymore as a species, we have been doing that for a too long and it has not seemed to work. I think we need to join together and build upon our individual strengths and perspectives. I do not think that competing against each other sexually will accomplish our deepest desires. That is short sighted and I liken it to cooking your food in a microwave, yes it is cooked, but it sucks.

The Most Recent Century: In All My Ignorance #2

Once again, In all my ignorance, and I am embarrassed to writing this too, but not as embarrassed as the last post, I did not know the the Great Depression was a world wide experience. What a jerk. I kinda thought that maybe we were special, albeit unfortunately, this time around that our economic crisis was felt globally. I really was blind that the Great Depression played a part in Hitler coming into power. I know there are parallels between our contemporary situation and the Great depression, like the statements booming economy, market frenzy, and bursting bubbles– I just did not realize global world economy was in the mix too. Wow, and I used to actually have a bit of confidence when I opened my mouth. Now I know.

(wc 129)

The Most Recent Century: In All My Ignorance #1

In all of my ignorance, and I am pretty embarrassed to be writing this, I really did not realize that the Vietnam War was fought over the American struggle with communism. I really feel like an asshole right now. I guess in school, when I was younger, we were all so concerned with the Cold War with the USSR that I was unaware of all of the hot wars going on that were about communism. I knew about the Korean War, I watched MASH for Pete's sake– even though that was typically though to be about the Vietnam War. I obviously, well maybe not so obvious after you read this post, I knew about the vietnam War, it was everywhere as a child, that and the gas shortages. Well, thankfully now I no longer live in ignorance about this topic. (wc 156)

The Most Recent Century: A New Era

One of the points Strayer makes against considering the Twentieth Century and beyond a new era is the brevity of time lapsed. He states that compared to other eras, which have lasted 500 years and longer, this "era" would have only been a bit over one hundred years. I disagree that long length in years is a requirement for defining an era. I think it has more to do with the rate of change of ideas, technology, progress and the like. I feel that the rate of change of these components of humanity have sped up to where one hundred contemporary years could very well be relevant to 500 ancient years. So, I think that we can consider the 20th century and beyond a new era. If the modern era was defined by reclaiming humanist ideas, expanding the understanding of science and believing in its capabilities to bring humans closer to their potential for good and help us continually improve, outright colonial takeover, and revolutions that were founded on the ideas of equality, democracy, religious tolerance, and popular sovereignty. Then the post Modern Era, if you will, is founded on humanist beliefs gone crazy, where humans have now put our own importance above everything else, the understanding that science can lead to horrors as well as enlightenment, and an era of wars which from where no one learns from. I do believe we are in a new era. (wc 239)

European Moment: No Noble Time

There has been no noble time for us as humans. I once thought that we must have had a more noble time than this; we must have had a time where we were concerned with the other as a common human, but I cease to believe that anymore. There is no proof. There is no record of such a mass consciousness which regards one another with common respect and consideration. If a time could have occurred, which could be but is not now either, it must have been during the Enlightenment. During that time of understanding where people yearned to be considered humanly and fought to be respected could have been such a time, but it was not. So much change occurred during that time period that it was a possibility, if only slight. After witnessing so much death and suffering during the plague, one would hope that it would profoundly change the dynamics of our human relationships as a whole, but it does not. I liken it to the experience I have every month: I bleed and it is uncomfortable, messy, and alters the way I live my life, but when it ends, as it always does, I completely forget that it happens. I don't think about it at all. It is not until it comes again and I go through it all another time that I think about dealing with it. It must be some sort of psychological switch that women have, that they can go through this roughly twelve time a year and remain sane. I think history has this kind of magic too. People can be so terribly mistreated, but when it ends they can turn around and terribly mistreat someone else. Or maybe it is like the conservation of energy, a child of the scientific revolution. Energy is never lost it just changes forms. If we take the actions of France during their revolution: the people take hold of the Enlightenment's ideals of Humanism and human equality and they become more Democratic. But if we take power as energy, where does that dominating power go, it does not disappear it only transfers, so it transfers to the colonies which belong to the French. I am only using the French as an example, all of the European powers do this, even Belgium; you know it's ramped if Belgium playing along. How do you play fair if you are trying to win such a game? I don't think you can. If you could, that moment might have proven a good time to try: population was lower due to the plague, humanism was making humanity important, science was opening minds, and industrialism had the ability to de-dehumanize people in the workplace. Maybe I'm an unrealistic idealist. Whatever I am, I am ready for humans to evolve into a new species that is concerned and values our potential for love.

(wc 480)