Monday- We finished up our presenting our government presentations. Class quiz tomorrow over Former Soviet Republics.
Government Presentations~
Anarchy & Oligarchy-
Anarchy: Student Friendly Definition- Free reign, being controlled by no higher authority. Leads to chaos. Is not a government; is an abscense of government. No one chooses it.
Examples of Anarchy (not full blown anarchy; has aspects of anarchy): Soviet Union (had), China (has/had), Africa (had), Greece (has), Great Britain (had), Somalia, Ferguson, Missouri last year after death of Michael Brown.
Oligarchy: Student Friendly- A country that is controlled by a small group of people.
Examples of Oligarchy- Russia (has), China (had/has), Saudi Arabia (has)
Theory of Communism-
Definition- all means of production and distribution are owned by the government, not the people. Theory created by Karl Marx. THEORY of Communism has never happened! Red is the color that is associated with Communism.
Communism and Socialism have some parallels- both want economy equality. Communism is more extreme than Socialism. Karl Marx saw how 90% of the countries people were living in poverty, while the top 10% had all the country's wealth. He decided to create a society where everyone would share and be equal and happy since everyone would have what they need, Wanted to create a Utopia (a perfect society). It has never happened, since eventually, people decide to go against the system since it doesn't matter how hard they work; they will be paid the same amount as everyone else, regardless if they have more potential. Communism usually leads to anarchy.
Current Events~
Pope is visiting Cuba and the Americas for the first time this week! GOP does not want Pope to give speech on Thursday when he comes to the U.S.. Pope is more liberal than most before him- supports economic equality and promotes climate change, which is not what Republicans really support. Pope has more democratic-like ideas than republican ideas. Some Republican politic ans are not going to go to the Pope's speech for this reason.
On most mass shootings, assault rifles are used. Hand guns do most damage at these shootings, but doesn't make the news as much.
Democratic Polls~ Hillary Clinton is still the front-runner. Nationally, Clinton is at 42%, Sanders at 24%, and 20% for Biden. If Biden doesn't run, poll numbers for Sanders and Clinton will rise.
Republican Polls~ Donald Trump went down 8 points since GOP debate. 24% Trump, Fiorina 15% (has grown since debate), Carson 14%, Bush 9%, rest of Republicans have really low numbers. Scott Walker is only going down and down; says tat CNN will talk well of Fiorina because she's a woman no matter what.
Thursday~
Scott Walker dropped out of Presidential Race. He used to be the front runner in Iowa many months ago; Trump took that away from him. Now he's under 1%. He says that he's dropping out so that a good strong, conservative candidate will get more votes and rise to the top and take on Trump. He's calling for other low-polling candidates to do the same. Now that he's dropped out, Walker's supporters are looking for another candidate to sponsor. Other candidates will be competing for those sponsors.
Ben Carson is getting a lot of ridicule about comments that no Muslim should be president. This morning, he back-pedaled his decision saying that he was only referring to radical Muslims or a Muslim that will try to push their faith on Americans. He says he'd have no problem with a Muslim president, as long as they abide by the constitution. Muslim groups have called him and urged Carson to leave the race. There are 3 million Islamic people in this country. Carson said they have to denounce Sharia Law. Muslims who go against it are often hunted down by radical Muslims. Sharia Law is a list of laws that ISIS and the Taliban want to impose on others. It rule's Muslims daily life, religious obligations, and financial dealings. It also sets certain punishments for different infractions. These teachings that extremists use comes from th 7 the and 8th century where slavery and restriction of woman's rights were at large. Separation of church and state does not exist and both groups are one- religion rules all. J.F. Kennedy was our only Catholic President. People were concerned that the Pope would be running our country through the President's faith and our separation of church and state would be violated.
Last government presentation: Communism (different from theory; how it's practiced in our actual world today)
Student Friendly definition: A political party that has total control of everything: land, businesses, people's daily lives; religion. The idea is if the government has control of everything, than everyone can be made equal and safe. In the process, though, people lose their freedom.
Weaknesses:
-All businesses are owned by the government- it takes away initiative
Karl Marx started the theory of Communism and wrote the 'communist manifesto';
Examples:
Cuba-leader Raul Castro (Fidel Castro started it)
North Korea- Kim John Un
Laos- Choummaly Saysone
Vietnam
China- Xi Jinping
Russia (was communist through the Soviet Union which was the first country to practice communism-not anymore)
Pope will come to America for the first time this week. Jeb Bush wrote a report on CNN about how the Catholic faith changed his life. Many people are suggesting that Bush is more liberal and shouldn't be saying he's a conservative.
Wednesday-
Pope is now talking to White House about politics and climate change. He also talked about our relations with Cuba. Our relations with Cuba (a communist country) have improved greatly over the years. We have begun to trade with them and there are ways to get into Cuba, just not for vacation. Republicans believe that Pope should not get involved in politics.
Apparently 1/4 (23%) women report sexual assault on college campuses. More than 157,000 students from 27 college campuses participated in the survey. It included everything forceful from kissing, touching, and rape. More needs to be done to reform campus culture, getting women to speak out, and controlling excessive alcohol drinking.
We took the political test to see which candidate we allign the most with on our positions on a variety of topics. My top candidate was Bernie Sanders at 93%. The rest of my results were:
Hillary Clinton; 90%
Joe Biden: 87%
Martin O'Malley: 84%
Jeb Bush; 58%
John Kasich; 53%
Bobby Jindal; 52%
Chris Christie; 51%
Mike Huckabee; 43%
Donald Trump; 39%
Rand Paul; 34%
Lindsey Graham; 28%
Ben Carson; 23%
Marco Rubio; 21%
Carly Fioriana; 21%
Ted Cruz; 13%
Rick Santorum; 12%
Thursday-
Pope is currently speaking to Congress and is the first Pope ever to address them. Republicans are not happy with Pope's liberal message of climate change and economic equality.
Donald Trump is still leading at 25%, Carson 17%, and Fiorina at 12% in one Quinnipac poll.
We divided into groups of two and each group got a presidential to research and make a presentation about them. My group of 4 got Bernie Sanders and Chris Christie. Our two political issues are abortion and climate change, and we have to research the republican and democratic stance on each issue. We are presenting these on Tuesday. Expectations and requirements for project are linked in the chat room.
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