There Was A Time...

When Americans built things. We manufactured products that were the envy of the World. They were for the most part produced within our borders. Than in the 1980s Reagan took office and deregulated business which started an avalanche of sorts. American companies started to close down factories and move there manufacturing centers to 3rd world countries. And since then the income of the wealthiest 1% in this country has gone up 271% compared to the middle class worker income which has only rose 25%.(Income chart here) Adjust that for inflation and that is almost stagnant. We can't get back to where we were in this country if only 1% of the population is making money and the other 99% is just trying to stay afloat. What we need are stricter regulations on American Business, I would even go as far as to outlaw American companies from out sourcing there jobs. We need this because this country has developed a consumerist mentality. We do not produce near as much as we consume. This is no doubt having a huge effect on the deficit and until we correct this problem we cannot hope to pay off our debt. The only thing stopping this from happening is the corporations themselves. It works for them to pay  11 year old Vietnamese girls 25 cents an hour  in a sweatshop and work them 16 hour days. How else could there incomes have risen 271% since 1980. But what it's going to take to get us going again is shared sacrifice. That's what we had before 1980, we were all in this together. That's changed now.

If the plight of women working for nominal pay in sweatshops doesn't concern you, and there are those out there that don't care about it as long as they get there shoes. Here's another way of looking at it. During WWII we had a manufacturing base in this country. We had plenty of factories we could convert for the benefit of the war effort. Who is our biggest military threat today? China. Who do we owe the most money to? China. Who has the manufacturing base now? China. We've outsourced our liberty people. If China were to cash in the debt we owe they would bankrupt us and it still wouldn't pay everything we owe. If they declared war(and relations between us 2 have never been that warm since the Cold War) they would cut off trade. With them being the country we get the majority of our goods from, this could be disastrous. And we don't have the manufacturing base that we had in the 40s so where are we going to produce arms for the war effort? This concerns me and it should you also. This is another reason we have got to get our act together. If we don't the America we know today might not be here in 50 years.

2012 Outlook

Last Thursday in class we talked about ways to help motivate us to get our blog posts done on time. One of the ways we decided we were going to do this is open up what we could write about. So that's what I'm going to do with this post so bear with me.

The Presidential election is 8 months away and things are still murky to right of the spectrum. The Republican field has 4 candidates left, but to be honest only 2 serious contenders. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are set to be the prime candidates going into the summer. With Newt Gingrech doing what he has always done and Ron Paul just trying to stay relevant these 2 have separated themselves. Meanwhile in Washington, President Obama has already raised 150 million dollars in campaign contributions. Romney and Santorum have raised only a combined 71 million (Compare Fundraising Totals Here). With this information we have to wonder, do the Republicans have a chance come November at all? With the Obama Political Machine raking in the donations and the Republicans recent hard turn to the right on social issues, one has to wonder. The candidate making the most noise most recently is Santorum. He is the most socially conservative of the bunch. With rhetoric like, America is under attack by Satan and advocating for the removal of ultrasound for a pregnant woman from coverage under Medicaid; because, as he put it, "they increase the risk of abortion." If he wins the primary, are undecided voters that aren't participating in primary season going to vote for this guy? Romney to me is the one that the Republicans should put up against Obama. But, as they do in every election, the Republican base is flocking to the candidate that falls the closest in line with their values. And since Romney is a Mormon there are plenty of people in the “anyone but Romney" camp on the right to sabotage their own chances in November. Mitt Romney is the only one of them that has a chance. The right needs to get their act together before they lose the election in March. Personally, I'm enjoying it, there's nothing I'd want more than to see Santorum nominated. It's pretty much just giving us the election. But I tried to keep this post as neutral as possible. If the Republicans are smart, they will get over the fact that Romney is a Mormon and nominate him. However, they have proven in the past that they do not always use best judgment. 

Blog Post 6

One thing about this class and all college classes is paying attention to detail. It's very important to read all the directions on an assignment before turning it in. I have had difficulties with this, sometimes I just do the basic parts of an assignment and don't do the smaller, more detailed part of an assignment. This affects my grades. It sucks to do the majority of the work and do it well and not get as much credit that is deserved simply because of not doing the smaller parts of an assignment. Keeping up with due dates and getting everything in on time can be difficult as well. Assignments can snowball if they are not turned in on time. It can throw everything out of whack and mess up your schooling. I'm trying to get better at keeping up with assignments and turning them in on time. I think the biggest difference in college to high school is that you don’t have someone breathing down your neck every day about getting your work turned in and done. College is a lot more independent. I definitely think that for college to be mastered you have to take control of your courses from the start to keep your work from snowballing on you.

Observations

As we continue on through this course many things have caught my attention, some good some not so much. While I appreciate this course and it's content I do have a few hang ups. One of them is about the wiki page. Not complaining about the assignment don't assume that I am. But how is it that our pages are considered "garbage" when the majority of the groups did there parts of the page pretty decently. I understand that 1 group did nothing, and another didn't follow directions, but you don't say the whole Alabama football team is garbage just because the kicker can't make a kick. Also, it was a rough draft, no one in writing hardly ever does something right the first time(I covered that in one of my previous posts) What I'm trying to say is that the page itself was solid, some faults were in it yes, but a solid rough draft of something none of us have ever done before nonetheless. And I hope i'm not being construed as being critical of the teacher because I'm not. Mrs. Sasser is one of the better english teachers I've had, these are just some observations. Another thing I am struggling to understand is why is everything all or nothing? Like the online course work. Last week,  In the middle of doing all of these assignments I mistakenly overlooked the quiz. With all the work that was due that day it is understandable how it could get overlooked. But because of not completing this quiz, me and my group have a recorded unexcused absence. Even though we did the majority of the work that was due to be counted present. I personally do not think this policy is fair for the students that do make an effort to do the work and do it well. Also with the English departments rather punitive freshman attendance policies, it seems maybe the teachers could cut us a little bit of slack considering this is a freshman class.  I think a 75% would be a good cutoff to determine our online attendance.  That way we can afford to overlook somethings sometimes without having to worry about getting an unexcused absences.
*Disclaimer- This post was not meant to be critical, it was only to express my opinion on this course through my assignment.

Blog Post 4

I never realized how important writing would be to advance through college. I have been in college for 2 semesters and I think I have done more writing in those two sememsters then 4 years in high school. This has suprised me, I didn't expect the writing to be so intensive here. It has been difficult for me to do these writing assignments every week. It can be difficult to pull new information and formulate that into a blog post every week. Making sure that you don't repeat points you've made in previous posts can be aggravating as well. As the semester goes on hopefully it will become less of a problem for me.
One of the things that everyone told me about college is that you would have to write alot and write well to make it through. I didn't think it would be as true as everyone made it out to be. But it ended up being that way. Hopefully through this semester I can better grasp writing while doing these blog posts. Blog posts can be difficult sometimes, especially if you can't think of anything to write about. I struggle with writers block as i'm sure many of my classmates do as well. But what I have learned so far in this class, is that for me the most difficult part of writing is starting. Once started, words just seem to kind of flow. But once the thought is put down and it's time to start on a new topic. It's back to square one and the block returns.

Blog Post 3

Reflection is a big part of writing. You always have to go back and re-read and edit things before your final draft is ready. That is something that makes writing very tedious. Especially if your like me and don't like to go back and do the extra editing neccessary. I always feel like my writing is perfect when it goes on the page. Even though this is never the case for anyone. Nobody ever writes something down perfect the 1st time unless your name is Amadeus Mozart. Patience is something we all struggle with when writing. It's also something we must overcome to become better writers.

How Can Writing Help Me Be The Change I Want To See In The World?

I've always been a worldly child. Even in my younger years I would notice plights that people in other parts of the World were suffering from. Other kids at my age cared little for worldly problems. Which led to me being somewhat of an outcast in social circles. Whenever we would have writing assignments, I would always write about wars, social disputes, and other issues(as much as an elementary school kid could know about such things). Some teachers would often tell me my work was years ahead of schedule. Others would demeen my writing, telling me it was to dark for a child. But I always had a point to get across with my papers, I've always wanted to change the world. Now that I'm in college, I'm hoping I can learn how to better get points across. I know that if I do become a lawyer like I want, I'm going to have to write lots of legal documents and such. And I will have to do a good job at getting points across. There's always been a love-hate relationship between me and writing. I always hated doing it in High School, mostly because of draconian topics assigned by teachers and there strict adherence to some format called MLA that I never fully grasped in my 4 years there. But on the off chance we got to choose our topics I ran with it. Mostly doing what I did in elementary school and writing on social issues and trying to express the way I want things to be. I loved writing when I could use it as an outlet in that way. Even though my teachers didn't always appreciate my opinions. I hope that I can become more fond of writing in college so that I can maybe change the world through writing.