Chapter 24 (pg. 747-755)

In 2000, global warming was a big concern due to a lot of the burning of fossil oils and loss of trees. The earths population has quadrupled in the 20th century. I could definitely agree with that with all the babies popping out now a days. Asia's population was the biggest part of that increase. Global environmental issues have overshadowed a lot of things. Germany, environmentalists entered politics as the Green Party. In the 1970's-1980's the environmental concerns in developing countries involved the lower class, focusing on saving threatened people, rather than plants and animals and concerned with food security, health, and survival. I believe in the developing countries those are things to be focused on. Going "green" is a positive thing for the environment. I see numerous hybrid cars, trucks and buses around the area. The whole "no more plastic bags" measure that passed in san jose and starting next week will be in san mateo county is positive thing for the environment. Global environmentalism focuses on sustainability and restraint. As the years pass, I do see more people going green and caring more about the environment. Especially if bills are passed to get us to break out of our habits that negatively effect the environment.

Globalization

Globalization is the international economic transactions and increased after world war 2.  The Bretton Woods system promoted relatively free trade, stable currencies linked to the U.S. dollar, high levels of capital investment. It also established the world bank and international monetary fund. There are easier ways to communicate with other people around the world. The use of technology which definitely has helped globalization because you can do pretty much anything on the internet or on a smart phone. From depositing and transferring money to bank accounts to applying to employment and education. Unfortunately, globalization does not have benefits to everyone. In other countries, it has only deepened the poor and wealthy class gap. 

Putin's Challenge

I can't help but sympathize for the circassians and be extremely upset with Putin for how he displayed no remorse when he placed his bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. The circassians are trying to save what is left of their culture and Russia is just wrong for ignoring the history of these individuals. Not only did millions of them die fighting for their land, others were ran completely out of it. Sochi should not host the Olympics there and should show respect to the buried individuals and allow those circassians who are still in other areas to come back and live there without any issues. Why didn't the US jump into this issue and stop Putin from placing his bid? Why is it acceptable to act like circassians never existed at all. Turkey has acted as if they never existed when a lot of them fled there for help. Putin has been in office for years and has a vision for a better russia but he's not acting upon what his vision for russia is by hosting the olympics. I agree with those individuals who are protesting the Olympics. The SND hallmarks are:

• We proclaim by our lives and even more by our words that God is good. 
• We honor the dignity and sacredness of each person
• We educate for and act on behalf of justice and peace in the world
• We commit ourselves to community service
• We embrace the gift of diversity
• We create a community among those with whom we work and with those whom we service. 
• Develop hollistic learning communities which educate for life

Feminism

The feminist movement may have caused a lot of attention in the 1960's but I believe the same issues that a lot of women around the world fought for are still existent today. Women still do not get equal pay as men in the work force, men still believe a woman's role is in the house, even the right to have a choice to have an abortion or not. While woman have been granted the right to vote and to receive the same education as men. In other parts of the world, the feminist movement wasn't solely about gender. People believed that feminism undermined the family life. The "women's rights are human rights" slogan was very true.

Dolores Huerta

It was a pleasure to go see Dolores Huerta last month when she came to visit campus. It was surprising to see so many people fill the theater. Prior to attending the event, I did not know who Dolores was and how much of an impact she made on civil rights. While I did not enjoy having to stand up the whole event, it was very cute to see the children who came to dance for Dolores and the speech given prior to her speech. Dolores worked very closely with Cesar Chavez and co-founded the National Farm Workers Association which was later named the United Farm Workers. In her speech, she talked about the struggles Cesar and she went through and how they used non violent ways to achieve justice. She pointed out how many prisons are being built verses universities and the constant struggle for equality  between men and women. She has been honored by so many associations and powerful people that it was truly an honor to hear her speak.

Chapter 22

The berlin wall was built in 1961 to separate East Berlin and West Berlin. During the time, Communism was a promise of liberation. Communist regimes had transformed their societies

The communism period provided a major political/ideological threat to the Western world like the cold war, scrambling for influence in the third world between the United States and the USSR then it collapsed. Communism was inspired by Karl Marx, who believed Communism was the final stage of historical development, with full development of social equality and collective living. The peak of the communism era was in the 1970's with 1/3 of the world's population governed by it. Communist revolutions drew on the mystique of the French Revolution by getting rid of landed aristocracies and the old ruling classes,  involving peasant upheavals in the countryside; educated leadership in the cities. The French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions all looked to a modernizing future. Communist revolutions were made by highly organized parties guided by a Marxist ideology and the middle classes were among the victims of communist upheavals, where the middle classes were chief beneficiaries of French Revolution. The revolution of Russia occurred in 1917. In October of 1917, Bolsheviks seized power and began a three year civil war. During the war, the Bolsheviks strengthened their tendency toward authoritarianism and regulated the economy. In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was founded and grew immensely and transformed its strategy under Mao Zedong. The Chinese Communist Party's People’s Liberation Army waged vigorous war against Japanese invaders using guerrilla warfare tactics. Joseph Stalin built a socialist society in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s. Mao Zedong did the same in China in the 1950s and 1960s by using modernization and industrialization and attacked gender and social inequalities. The USSR declared full legal and political equality for women where divorce, abortion, pregnancy leave, women’s work were all enabled or encouraged. In 1919, the USSR’s Communist Party set up Zhenotdel which pushed a feminist agenda, which of course male communist officials and ordinary people often opposed it and Stalin abolished it in 1930. In China, the Marriage Law of 1950 ordered free choice in marriage, easier divorce, the end of concubinage and child marriage, and equal property rights for women. The Great Purges in the USSR resulted in a million people were executed between 1936 and 1941. The Cultural Revolution occurred from 1966–1969 and escaped control of communist leadership. Western Europe was  considered the american sphere was voluntary and the Eastern Europe was imposed to the creation of rival military alliances of the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The spread of communism in China caused North Korea to invade South Korea in 1950. The communist era ended rapidly and peacefully between the late 1970s and 1991, In China when Mao died in 1979, in Europe when movements overthrew it in 1989. Both showed the economic and moral failure of communism. China grew into a “strange and troubled hybrid” that combines nationalism, consumerism, and new respect for ancient traditions while the Soviet Union broke up. 

Chapter 21

With Europeans in control of most parts of the world, the balance of power in Europe was split between two rival alliances: Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria, Italy) and Triple Entente (Russia, France, Britain) when a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a heir to the Austrian throne. Austria was determined to destroy the nationalism movement and Serbia had Russia along with Russia’s allies behind it. A war broke out by August of 1914. Causes of the war were industrialized militarism, Europe’s colonial empires, popular nationalism which resulted in over ten million deaths and twenty million people wounded. Germany was defeated in 1918. The women began working in factories to replace the men, labor unions were sacrificed, questioning of Enlightenment values and the superiority of the West and its science. The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 resulted in Germany losing its colonial empire and 15 percent of its European territory, required to pay heavy reparations, suffered restriction of its military forces, accept sole responsibility for the outbreak of the war and resented the treaty immensely. During this time, Woodrow Wilson’s ideas Fourteen Points and League of Nations became popular by the Europeans. Wilson's vision largely failed, and the U.S. Senate refused to join the league. In 1929, the great depression happened. The great depression when contracting stock prices wiped out paper fortunes, and many lost their life’s savings. The world trade dropped 62 percent within a few years businesses contracted and unemployment soared; reached 30 percent in Germany and the United States in 1932. The causes of the the great depression were factories and farms produced more goods than could be sold, Europe was impoverished by WWI and didn’t purchase many American products and started producing more of its own goods. Capitalist governments had thought that the economy would regulate itself, some states turned to “democratic socialism,” with greater regulation of the economy and more equal distribution of wealth. President Franklin Roosevelt came up with the New Deal. The New Deal idea of public spending programs permanently changed the relationship between government, the private economy, and individual citizens which efforts to “prime the pump” of the economy, Social Security, minimum wage, and welfare as an economic safety net for the poor, creation of permanent agribusiness through farm subsidies and a vast array of new government agencies to supervise the economy. As far as democracy goes, fascism was big in Europe, the Nazi power ruled Germany and Authoritarianism was important in Japan. In 1931, Japanese military units seized control of Manchuria. In 1937, an attack started WWII and the Japanese felt threated. The United States imposed an oil embargo on Japan and the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred in December 1941. The results of WWII were 60 million people died in WWII, 40% of those deaths were from the USSR, the holocaust where Nazi's killed millions and left the United States the only country not impacted by WWII.