President Obama's accomplishments/issues as President
Accomplishments:
- Ended war in Iraq
- Obama Care (which basically gives health care even to people who can’t afford it
- Killed Osama Bin Laden
- Made it illegal to use torture techniques (like water boarding)
- passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which saved or created 3.6 million job
Issues:
- Economy (it raised from twelve to 16 trillion dollars in debt)
- Obama Care (could go both ways)
- SOPA
Describe the main political and economic systems in the world
- Direct Democracy – a from of government where people having complete power (of everything)
- No country has this
- Wouldn’t work very efficient
- Representative Democracy- people elect representatives to make laws for them
- US has this (like many countries)
- Very important that people vote
- Communism- Theory- the poor people rise up, throw over the rich people, to eventually create a class-less society.
- This attracted many poor people
- Most people don’t have motivation
- Eventually people would get so lazy the everything would develop into chaos, which gives the opportunity for a Dictator to take charge.
- Defined as a political economic social system (the government control everything)
- People generally don’t have very many rights
- Dictatorship- a government where one person has complete or total power
- Constitutional monarchy- a form of government that has a queen or king, but their power is completely limited by a constitution.
- Many European countries have this
- More there as kind of a tradition or figure
- Absolute monarchy- a king or queen would have complete power (basically a dictator)
- One of the oldest types of government
- Socialism (economic an political system)- where the government controls some of the businesses.
- Weaker type of communism
- The US is even somewhat socialists
- Capitalism (economic system) where people run and own businesses (private ownership)
- Strives on hard work
- One of the negatives of socialism
- Opposite of socialism
- Very small percentage controlling most of the money (one of the negatives)
- Mixed economy- Some businesses are owned an controlled by the government and others are controlled by the people.
- US is a great example of this
- Many countries have this
the major divisions between Democrats and Republicans in the US
Democrats:
- favor change in society
- more willing to increase taxes
- anti-discrimination programs
- support civil unions (and rights)
- pro choice
- Favor gun control
- More enviremently friendly (willing to spend more money
- More supportive of increasing minimum wage
- Want universal health care
- Against death penalty
Republicans:
- More conservative
- Want lower taxes
- Favor lawsey fair approach
- Government having a Limited role in society
- More traditional (with marriage)
- Some more religious
- Against abortion
- Oppose gun control (2nd amendment)
- More willing to spend money on military
- Favor death penalty
What happened on 9-11-2001 and what impact did it have on the US
al-Qaeda, a terrorist group hi-jacked four of our planes. The planes hit the Twin towers, the Pentagon, and the other one went down in a field in Pennsylvania. One of the most tragic unforgettable events in American history, nearly 3,000 people died. It had a huge impact on our country. People became scared to fly and were constantly living in fear that another attack was going to happen. Security was heightened as well. Many people in the US became extremely more patriotic, and in a way, it brought everyone together.
Why did the US go to war in Iraq and what impact did that war have on the US
We went to war because we thought there were weapons of mass destruction and we wanted to take those away. Even though we didn’t find any weapons, we still stayed and trained the Iraqi soldiers to defend themselves. Also we wanted to catch Sadam Husain because he supported terrorism and was not a good dictator. This war lasted 21 days of major combat operations. This had quite an impact on the US because it was very expensive and very controversial.
Describe the problems the following African countries(and Middle East) have had or are currently having as discussed in class: Rwanda, Darfur in Sudan, South Sudan vs Sudan, Somalia, Lords Resistance Army(Joseph Kony) in Uganda/Central African Republic, Syria
Somalia: multiple ethnic groups were put together and of course, they didn’t get along. Chaos broke out and US soldiers were sent over to try to stop all the fighting, but the killing continued, so we pulled our troops out and now they still don’t have an efficient government.
Uganda/Central African Republic (Kony): Kony, who considers himself a prophet of God (and thinks he’s doing nothing wrong), created ‘the Lord’s resistance army, and kidnaps young boys to fight, and young girls to be sex slaves. If they tried to escape or refused to do what he said he would kill them or torture them. A man made a video about it in 2012 (to stop him) which made this issue very popular and more and more people tried to find him. Kony has still not been found, but less children are getting abducted.
South Sudan vs. Sudan: Two civil wars occurred in these countries (because of religion and oil), with 2.5 million deaths. After the second civil war the south separated from Sudan and now it is mostly populated with black Christian Africans, while the north part is populated with mostly Arabs. Oil is a major problem because that is their only export. South has more oil rich land so they agreed to share until Sudan started stealing from the south. No one has sided with either of them, just tried to end the mutiny.
Syria: The government attacked protestors (people speaking against it) and they are in a civil war.
Darfur in Sudan: The Janjaweed and the Sudanese government attacked the black African people and put them in refugee camp. Women and children and men were raped and killed when they tried to escape.
Rwanda: Hutus and the Tutsis are the two kinds of people involved in this conflict. They have always hated each other. The Hutus didn’t resemble the Europeans at all while the Tutsis did. So the Europeans came and assisted the Tutsis. When the Europeans left the Hutus attacked and there was a genocide of the Tutsis. The Tutsis rebels eventually overthrew them and the Hutus were forced to leave.
some of the major problems the world is facing, what are the causes of these problems and what is being done to help solve these problems
End poverty and hunger: Goal: poverty to be cut in half (which is living under 1.25$ a day) the goal was met but there are still many people (mostly in Africa and far east Asia) who are in poverty. They also wanted everyone to have an opportunity for education.
Universal education: Goal: making sure everyone can get an education
Gender equality: to get equal learning opportunities for girls across the world (in some parts of the world girls aren’t offered education). We are slowly making progress, even though in some parts of the world girls are still considered second class citizens
Child health: They haven’t reached the goal yet but it was to reduce child mortality
Maternal health: Many women (in poor countries) die giving birth because not enough doctors and/or prenatal care. They also want to offer birth control.
Combat HIV/AIDS: Getting medicine to stop and help people with HIV and Aids.
Environmental sustainability: Saving the rainforest and animals that live there, also giving people safe drinking water.
Global partnership: Bigger countries are trying to help the poorer ones to get resources an help them, because of the economy the money became too tight.
Comments