It is not right for America to invade and police the world regardless of the problems that we have here at home. America is a powerful nation. I’ll admit to that, but what gives us the right to invade other countries, kill its civilians, and screw up living conditions for any country’s people for generations? Nothing gives us that right. America is so far the most destructive nation ever to exist in human history. And sadly, America has only been a nation for a little bit over two centuries. As I read other posts regarding this video I see a common statement which goes along the lines of: “We have to protect our people and our country from those who are out to get us…” Have you ever asked yourself why people are out to get us? Do you really think that their reason is jealousy? If so then I suppose you are too simple-minded to realize that people don’t simply start hating and wishing for the destruction of a country due to jealously. It takes a lot more than that. Let’s take Japan for an example. America is the first and only nation to ever use a nuclear bomb on a country. Thousands upon thousands of civilians were killed as a result of the two nukes we dropped on Japan during WWII. If you were Japanese soon after this incident, how would you feel towards America? What would you feel for a country that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of your people? Would you feel jealousy? …I think not. Now lets apply this to the Middle East. There are tons of countries I can pick from, but I guess we can use Iraq for example. It wasn’t too long after WWII when the western nations started getting interested with the oil in this region (the M.E.). So for several decades the US and other developed oil hungry nations sought to have as much control over the countries in this region as possible. That includes setting up puppet dictators, aiding in the development of some seriously undemocratic regimes, and making sure that we had a great deal of control without looking involved in any way (think of the invisible strings Sam talks about in class). We’ve screwed with counties in this region for decades, yet uninformed American citizens who chant such things as “we have to protect our people” wonder why the civilians and citizens of these countries we’ve been screwing try to retaliate? How are we protecting our people by becoming even more militaristically involved with these nations and causing more destruction? If anything we are creating more “terrorists” for every person our military kills. Stop being blindingly patriotic. Step outside of that safe imaginary world and take a whiff of reality. The United States is a bully nation that only involves itself in another nation to extract and consume resources of said nation. The only reason “our people” need protecting now is because we’ve screwed with the wrong nations for too long. And one more thing, the Iraqi War had absolutely nothing to do with the protection of US civilians or the US homeland in general (I hate when people use the bs statement). Arguments supporting the Iraq war probably go along the lines of the following: They had weapons of mass destruction, they were harboring Al Qaeda personnel/groups/ whatever, and Saddam Hussein was being a ruthless dictator. Ok. Feel free to do your own research, but I’ll just quickly shoot most of these reasons down. 1. There was not significant intelligence proving that Iraq was harboring or even making weapons of mass destruction. The weapons we found there were probably the same chemical weapon the US GAVE to Iraq back in the 80’s (yes we gave them chemical weapons…do your research). 2. Iraq was probably a safe haven for Al Qaeda members, I’ll give you that, but no more than Iran or Pakistan was. So in general Iraq was no different than several other Middle Eastern countries as far as being a safe haven for Al Qaeda is concerned. 3. The United Stated made Saddam Hussein. And by that I mean that we that we supported him during the Iraq-Iran war…we are basically the reason why he became as powerful as he did. And let’s not even talk about all the other “ruthless” dictators in the world today. There was nothing special about Saddam, nor did the US care to establish a democracy in Iraq. 4. The US invaded Iraq for oil and to establish military bases in the country.

I’d like to start off by saying that I was in no way a part of the riots which took place the night Joe Paterno was fired. I was not one of the many people who went there to simply watch or see what would happen, and I was not one of the few who decided to flip news vans and break light posts. I was in my apartment condemning all of those involved on my social networking sites. I still hold true to my belief that those involved in the riot in any way, even those who just went there to watch, should be ashamed of themselves. Rioting over the firing of an individual, no matter how much said individual has done for the university, was completely wrong especially under the circumstances to which he got fired. At the end of the day Joe Pa’s and Spanier’s firing does not matter. The only thing that holds importance to me is the victims of the scandal. And by that I mean the boys who were molested. Seeing that they get justice or any kind of peace of heart is what is most important at the end of the day. So the act of a small majority of students rioting over the firing of an individual who did not do everything in his power to see to it that whatever was happening was significant or stopped seems completely sick and twisted to both me and outsiders. How dare those students who rioted, or were a part of the riot by “watching”, victimize themselves like little children and cause a ruckus when a ruckus need not be caused. Watching is the same as being a part of the riot because it serves as fuel to the fire. By being there you are showing your support to the actions of the rioters as a group. By being there you increase the likelihood of worse behavior and civil disobedience. Would the individuals who tipped the news van really have done so had there not been so many people there to simply watch what would happen? Put aside your pride and blinding emotions and you’d understand that rioting firstly cannot solve a thing, make anything better, or make any kind of positive statements, and secondly, only serves to worsen the scandal and increase media coverage where it need not be focused. I feel as if the riot would have occurred regardless of social networking, but I will say that I have never been more ashamed to be a student from this University till the moment thousands of students decided to take part in a riot over the firing of a football coach (regardless of the fact that he’s such a strong symbol of the school). Instead of rioting over such trivial matters how about you find a way to show support for the real victims with the same fiery emotion?

I dab into politics from time to time because I rather not be ignorant to the constant political and governmental occurrences of our time. The main reason I no longer choose to inform myself on such matters every day is because it is complete BS. From the White House to the two houses under the Legislative Branch, all I see every time I turn to watch the news is the same old sleazy tactics. I see the blame game, I see republicans blaming democrats, democrats blaming republicans, and both parties blaming the Tea Party lol. It has become so foolish I can no longer watch the news on a daily without getting some kind of pissed off. Both parties are the same. And what I mean by that is as followed: Both parties are run by corporations with puppet figureheads we think we elect into office. I consider myself to be pretty politically knowledgeable, but feel free to correct me if I get this Tea Party thing wrong. The Tea Party, in my opinion, is nothing but an extremely conservative Republican. Same old games and tactics if you ask me. From what I know, the Tea Party wishes to cut government size and spending while not increasing government revenue. And that means that they don’t want to increase taxes….FOR ANYONE. See I may not be an economist, but how can a country seriously get out of such massive and pathetic debt and deficit problems without increasing taxes? I don’t care how many programs you cut, there is no way you can go in the positive within the next two decades with just cuts. With that being said, the Tea Party is now just a joke if you ask me. Nothing but conservative Republicans looking to keep big business thriving. Sam was dead wrong when he stated that the Occupy movements and the Tea Party movement is the same or similar. The Occupy movements are held by regular citizens fighting to make something out of the pathetic thing we now call government/ politics. Our country is being run by corporations. The disparity between the rich and the not rich is mind boggling. Occupy protesters are fighting to cut the chain big business has on the United States. Occupy protesters are not, for the most part, aligned with any mainstream political party because these are people who are aware of the fact that both the Republican and Democratic Party has been bought out a long time ago, and as a result, is just as corrupt as the other. The Occupy protesters I know are trying to get each and every one of us riled up and aware of what’s going on in this Country. Because once you become aware, you too will want change. So when Sam said the Tea Party is more so aligned with Republicans, he was right, but he was all kinds of wrong when he compared the Occupy movement to the Democratic Party. If anything, the Occupy Movement is fighting more so for democracy and a government run by the people, not corporations.

It irks my life at how much people claim The United States is the greatest nation on Earth. Have you been to every other nation to make such a claim? Chances are that you haven’t. It seems as if so many people are blinded by complete ignorance, and sadly, they still make bold prideful comments about a Country that was built on the despair and destruction of millions of lives. They make bold prideful comments about a country that was built by people who not only committed acts of large-scale genocide, but who also thought it was humane to enslave other humans as their own personal property. Is this land our land? No, it is not. No land is our land. Even though I may call this home it is not mine to own, and it will never be mine. No amount of money, contracts, or whatever you may have it will ever make land mine to own. The Earth is home to many millions of species. I have no right claiming something as general as land because it was all here before I was even born, and will be here long after I die. It’s as simple as that. The Native Americans were the first human inhabitants of the Americas. From what I’ve learned in history (speaking generally of course) they were a people with spiritual ties to the land. They saw the land as a provider of life essentials, not as something to own or lay claim to. The Europeans idea that land can be owned through purchasing was an entirely foreign concept (and backwards if you ask me) to the natives. The Europeans tricked the natives, slaughtered the natives, and pushed the natives from their homes for centuries. This land was home to the natives just as how the Europeans made it their home as well. But as history shows, the events which took place after the Europeans arrived were horrendous. Should we still feel bad about the slaughter and displacement of the natives? What would your answer be if I asked you if we should still feel bad about the events which took place during the Holocaust? Regardless of how or when it occurred, if you are a mature, open-minded and an empathetic human I think you should always feel badly or some kind of sorrow for what happened to these two groups regardless of your race or ethnicity. America is not land of the free and home of the brave if you ask me. It’s more like land of the oppressors, the oppressed, and home of the ignorant. This country is not all that some of you make it out to be. If only you knew the terrors committed by your beloved USA (and the terrors that are still being committed) in the last couple of centuries I bet your blind pride and passion would dwindle away in an instant.

um....the United States does invade countries for personal gain. (your speculation is in fact a fact lol). Plus the Europeans who came here were just as savage (if not more) than the natives.

After more than half a semester of being in this class, reading blogs, and having group discussions I must say that I've never heard or read such bologna. Thanks for lowering my beliefs of there being worldly intellectual people in this class.

I wouldn’t label people who hang with different ethnic or racial groups as posers. Where I come from hanging with people of different ethnic groups is sort of the norm. NYC is the most diverse city in this nation, and is one of the most diverse cities worldwide. I’ve hung out with people from a vast majority of ethnicities over the years, and I’ve noticed that a lot of other New Yorkers do such a thing partly to gain insight into different cultures. But with that being said, I’d continue on to state that you’re more likely to find people of the same ethnicity developing close friendships; that is how it turned out with me, as well as with many other of my friends who are of different ethnicities. This outcome makes sense to me since you would probably relate more to someone of your own ethnicity who shares a great deal of culture with you, as compared to someone of a different ethnicity who associates with a completely different culture. Here at PSU, ethnicity and culture are not “focus points”. Most of the majority population that I’ve come across here labeled themselves as white, as opposed to German, Italian, Russian, etc…like the Europeans I’ve befriended from NYC would say. So for the first time I came across “white people,” average American white people ….and many of them at that lol. Right off the bat I noticed a racial and cultural divide that has since prevented me from being the token black guy in a group of whites here at psu lol. The reason why I personally have little interest in trying to break down this divide stems from my lack of desire to explain myself , my culture, and my ethnicity to every “white person” I come across. And even if I decide to explain myself, I’ve still noticed a divide of some sort preventing us from really becoming friends (close friends). So where am I going with all of this? From personal experience I feel as if people, who seek out to surround themselves with groups of a race other than their own, and consider those people close friends, either lack an ethnic/cultural connection to individuals of their own group or are interested in learning more about that other group’s ethnicity/culture. No disrespect, but I will probably never have a close group of African-American friends or “White” friends because I feel as if those two groups have no, or very little ethnicity to identify with or culture to learn about. Aside from liking the personalities of each individual in the group, why else would I submerge myself into an entire group of them? I’m much more likely to submerge myself in a group of Caribbean individuals who share culture with me, and a group of an entirely different culture, rather than a group void of culture (for the most part).

Tax Dollars at War simply highlights something I feel most Americans should be aware of: How the US Government spends money. We get so caught up in information the media is constantly throwing our way that we tend not to look at the big picture. When you turn on the tv to some news station, or read a newspaper, I bet you’d be hard-pressed to not find some mentioning of the unyielding unemployment rate, the Job’s bill that recently failed to pass in the Senate, the election, Obama-care….and the list goes on. How often do you question where a bulk of government funds is spent? I find it ridiculous that this country’s civilians sit and bicker amongst one another over trivial issues that can be solved if we decrease our military influence in other nations. I read a post on here stating that we need so much spending on our military for security and protection. No offense, but that is silly. People in other nations don’t dislike the United States because of our “democracy” and freedoms. They dislike the United States because it is a nation of hypocrites, a nation that consistently finds a way to butt it’s head into the business of others, a nation run by people with ignorant beliefs. Terrorism is such an issue here because we make it an issue. Those who we label as terrorist don’t have a hatred for Americans for no reason. Based on all the crap we’ve pulled in the Middle East for so many decades, I’d be hell of pissed too (assuming that we are only referring to the extremist Islamic terrorists in the Middle East). Our military is responsible for the murdering of countless innocent civilians in these nations, economic disparity, blackouts, and a list of other hindrances. Our military has been like a cancer in the Middle East. Wouldn’t you want to remove said cancer with all of your might too? If we learn to leave other nations alone, lessen our dependence on oil, and stop being such hypocrites as far as our dealings with the outside world is concerned, I’m pretty sure we won’t have to depend on and fund such a large military. We’d be able to focus on real financial issues here that affect a vast majority of us. But asking Americans to push for such a thing is like asking a group of babies to start taking care of themselves. Things probably won’t change here until we hit rock bottom. Just look at the joke our political government has become. It’s no wonder nothing gets done. Hopefully when we do hit bottom this nation will finally look back on its past mistakes and actually try to learn from them.

In our society appearance has become way too much of a focus point for both males and females. We spend so much time worrying about what the opposite sex or plainly society will think of us first glance. As a man I’ve witnessed that females generally spend more time and money on fine tuning their appearance. I believe there is a large list of reasons why society is the way it is now. But only assumptions can really be made as to why females are subjected to care so much for their appearances now. Perhaps it’s due to the remnants of the ideology that females were second class as compared to males? Perhaps the reasons lie deeper than that, and are due to mere gender interactions with the each other? One could only make assumptions, but I will say that women nowadays in American society expose so much more than women did several generations ago. It seems as if showing skin, booty, and boobs in a tease like manner has become the new style for females (generally speaking of course) in America. Maybe Sam and his wife nailed the pin on the donkey when stating that the porn, film, and basically the entire media associated industries put a male’s spin on everything as to make us all see the world through a man’s point of view. With that being said, females who dress disrespectfully to themselves might be doing so just because they think it’s appropriate or expected of them. I’m pretty sure very few females who dress In such a manner actually do so wanting to look trashy, easy, or anything that would come off as a disrespect to their own bodies. So should we just blame society and call it a day? I don’t think so. I know females who dress like this on certain occasions, and almost nine times out of ten they receive undesired sexual attention from guys. Pretending that they always receive this kind of attention while dressing to show as much skin as possible, these females will eventually realize that their choice of wardrobe affects them negatively. And based on what I’ve heard in the past they eventually realize that their wardrobe choices are “trashy”, or at least a bit too revealing. What I’m trying to say is that while we can sit around and blame society for these problems, the choice to dress in such a manner is inevitably in the hands of the individual as well. Both parties are to blame. Both parties should act to fix the problem. We know that society won’t do a thing, so I guess it all falls in the hands of the individual who’s affected by this problem to attempt to fix it.

US aid to other countries, particularly aid to under-developed or impoverished countries, is a joke. Aside from aid to fund natural disaster relief efforts worldwide, I’d go as far as to say that it is disrespectful to even consider the money going elsewhere to impoverished nations as aid. I don’t necessarily believe that a nation should be funding/supporting other nations when it has a large list of internal issues that need to be tended to. But then again, the US is the only one to blame for its own financial issues, so why not help other nations in need? I have many thoughts on this matter.
Firstly, throwing money at a problem won’t always necessarily fix it. I’m generalizing right now, but a great many of these impoverished nations suffer from a corrupt and broken government. As a result, you’ll find a large lower class, or a large percentage of people in poverty/barely making it, and a small upper class in these nations for the most part. You’ll seldom find a middle class in the nations I’m referring to. With that being said, how do the rich get rich and how do they stay rich? The answer is that they make use of the corrupt government and they make sure to keep it corrupt. So I’d say that a large percentage of the “aid” that we supply these nations with makes it into the hands of those who are already well off. This occurs because the US has its own incentives for supplying these governments with money, and it just so turns out that said incentives usually involve those in power (i.e. those with a good deal of wealth). In essence, throwing money at these nations helps to keep their governments corrupt.
Secondly, ever wonder why these nations are so poor in the first place? While there is not one main answer, the US definitely plays a role in the amount of poverty found throughout a great many of these impoverished nations. Aside from supporting corrupt governments, our corporations out-compete locals in almost every way, shape, and form. Just as we saw in Haiti, once we export our goods, our subsidized goods, it ruins economical situations for locals. This is extremely prevalent in our Food & Agriculture corporations. Monsanto, a US corporation that sells genetically modified/enhanced seeds for various crops, is known for being a destroyer of lives for even farmers here in the US. They are singlehandedly becoming a major player in world agriculture, and as a result, are ruining the livings of many farmers and local farmers in the US and many impoverished nations.
So not only are we supporting corrupt governments, but we are also allowing our own corporations to further divide the socio-economic class structures in impoverished nations. We are sending more people into poverty.