"Failures are finger posts on the road of achievement."-C.S. Lewis

Overall, America has had many "failures." We've made several mistakes. For instance, Vietnam War, Pentagon Papers, Watergates, building up nations that only betray us... many mistakes. However, I think that as a country we grew together through all these mistakes. Whether it be that we all united to fight against those nations, or we all united during 9/11... There are many good things that came from it. The Pentagon papers allowed us to learn how we can't put all our faith in our Army... Now, some may think that it's bad that we had to learn this, but I think that it's never good to put so much faith in one thing, because it's only gonna let you down. Through all the mistakes we've learned that there will be mess ups. There will be times when you fall. But falling isn't failure... It's staying down that's failure.
That's a famous quote but it's so true. The US has fallen countless times, but one thing remains true, we haven't stayed down. We get back up and fight for what's ours.

Ka-Ching!

Yesterday I learned about treasury bonds. I learned how China continues to buy tresaury bonds while we arent paying them back. It makes me wonder why China keeps on buying them. Essentially they are loaning their money to the United States and I can't understand why they do this... If I were to loan out money to someone, I wouldn't give them more money until the last debt was paid. I don't think it's so realistic for someone to pay a debt of millions of dollars. I don't know that much about the country and their money but from what I can see, it's not an ideal approach.

This morning I was thinking...

As I sit up this morning, cramming for these blogs, I look back on the knowledge I had at the beginning of this course vesus the knowledge I have now. It really surprises me how much I have learned. To be honest, I thought that I was just going to get through the class and not really learn anything. The opposite occured. I learned about the ending of WWII, with the baby boomers, the jump in the stock market, and the pride that eveyone  had about their country. Then I learned about the Crisis of Confidence. The time when somehow everyone lost their faith in the government... People shifted more towards conservatism. The Watergate, the time when Nixon completely betrayed the trust that people had in the president and the government itself. I find it interesting that our country has had so many ups and downs. I would say that we've made it, but time has not stopped. History is still to be made. We can't see the future and what is going to happen. We can only avoid repeating history.

Irony.

I find it interesting that somehow our country doesn't seem to learn from our mistakes. Honestly, I think we need to focus on the debt were in before forking out more money. Also, I find it kinda funny that what once was our allie is now our enemy. "The enemy of our enemy is our friend." What if the enemy of your enemy is your enemy? That seems to be how everything is happening. What happens if all the nations we build up join together to defeat the US... Just a thought. I just find it hard to believe that in a world like that, we can all be happy little friends. I don't know how it's achieveable. So I don't think that we should be giving our millions of dollars to other countries when we need it.

I find it interesting that so many presidents, in a way, change what they believe. For instance, Clinton shifts more conservative, and Bush shifts to being more liberal. I find it ironic. However, I can understand why Bush did shift. Under that much pressure, I can't see how one wouldn't want to take control and protect. It's hard to not have regulations and a large government when something tragic happens. It's almost like if you didn't have regulations it'd be hard to take control in situations like 9/11.

The War on Terror

I've always wondered what brought our country into Iraq in the first place. I always thought it was right after 9/11. I thought that Iraq was the reason for 9/11. Now, after learning everything, I find it hard to belive that our invading Iraq was justified. We say that everybody is innocent until proven guilty. Yes, one may be suspected, but it does not make them guilty. It's weird to think that Bush was so convinced that Iraq had WMD's that he was willing to begin a war. This war has lasted over 8 years. The war that was started because of the suspision of WMD's has stayed to build Iraq as a nation. I disagree with the fact that we stayed after we figured out that they don't have WMD's. I mean, I'm all for helping other people, God calls us to do so. However, our economy is in the gutter right now, and were still spending millions on a war that isn't even really a war. Were bulding a nation, and helping their economy when were in extreme debt. I don't understand how we managed to do this. You'd think we'd get tired of borrowing money from China and other nations. I don't even want to know how much money we owe China. Probably over a billion. I don't even know how we will repay that.

9/11

So often I seem to forget about this event. September 11, 2001. It started out a normal day. The sun was out, men and women were headed off to work, children getting on the bus to head to school. Just an average day in New York City. The day that started out normal, ended in tragedy for our nation. On this day, over 2,600 were taken from us. Mothers were taken from little children and men and women lost the love of their life. It's hard to imagine the loss that so many people faced. The fact that just 19 people could shake the very foundation that so many people stood on. 19 people could take thousands of lives. 19 people could change one's life forever. Those 19 people gave up their own lives to fulfill this evil deed. It makes me wonder what their justification was. Were they thinking that it was for their better? Was it that God was calling them to deminish our government? What was God's plan for all this? I find it rather ironic that this one event that was meant to damage our nation ultimately united our nation in a way never before. I think it helped everyone realize that we needed eachother and we needed to support one another. I was only in first grade when this event occured, yet I remember coming home and watching it on the television. My whole family sat in front of the tv that day. Just staring, in shock of what had just happened. It made me think, if we, elementary school kids, were feeling this much remorse, imagine how many lives are being torn apart. Imagine how many families were watching their loved ones burn, or jumping off the top of a 1300 foot building. How many people had to watch the building, which their mother, father, husband, wife was in, collapse, All the while they could do nothing about it. I can't even get a glimpse of the pain that so many experienced on that day. What started out as a completely normal September morning, ended as a day nobody could have ever foresaw.

Today's thoughts...

So today we talked about Ronald Reagen. And honestly at first I thought, man, he's old. And not religious. I didn't expect him to be that good of a guy. Reading his inaugural speech and the first part of chapter 30 showed me that he actually is a good guy. I really liked that he is looking at the programs and all of the government policies and seeing that something had to give. I like how he's open and blunt about how government is the problem. I also think he was a very successful in his presidency. I looked up Reagen's achievements and I was shocked to hear all that happened while he was President. I think it's funny that all these achievements happened after Carter's presidency ended with a bang. I always wondered why and when Soviet Union was broken apart and I'm excited to learn more about it.

Something I've been pondering...

Somehow, every time I go to history, something seems to strike me as strange. The other day, when talking about the "Water Gate" incident, it shocked me to hear about Nixon's denial. I don't understand why people think they can lie and deceive and somehow it will all just go away. We all grew up hearing "Honesty is the best policy" and "the truth will set you free" but it baffles me how pretty much nobody follows the basic principles of what we've been told. Then again, not everybody has been raised the same and with the same moral and foundations. However, with that said, It makes me wonder if we can ever truly trust the president or even the government. They are professionals at hiding things and covering things up. Heck, they have a whole staff to help them cover things up or even make things disappear. The actions of the government and Nixon makes me thankful for Kennedy. Kennedy had integrity and he was honest when he made the mistake with Cuba. We need more men like that in the White House. Grant it, being the president would be extremely difficult work, I can't imagine having all that pressure on me. It can make people do weird things. However, the pressure is not an excuse to lie and pretend that you didn't do illegal activity while in the White House. Running for President, you know the pressure it will with hold. You choose to do it with or even for that reason. It's interesting and saddening to see the failure of our country in the past. Yet also exciting to see our achievements. I hope that someday we will gain another president like Kennedy. One with honesty and who is transparent. Our nation needs it.

Compare & Contrast American. Then and Now

Compare and Contrast

America: Then and Now

            America, through out the hundreds of years, has changed exponentially. It went from being colonies from Great Britain to now being one of the most developed countries in the world. There are so many people who have changed and developed our country into the wonderful country it is today. There are many similarities in America in the 1940's and America now. But there is also so many differences.

            In the 1940's-1960's, The United States was very segregated. People of color were often not allowed to work and they were looked down upon. "Red lining," the act of not allowing people of color to live in certain neighborhoods, made sure that our society was very segregated. Now in America, there is no racism or segregation. We are one nation and have equal rights. Right now, the United States is going through a war with Iraq and Afganistan. In the 1940's WW2 was going on. Though WW2 was a much larger war then our wars right now, it still is proof that not everything has changed between then and now. There were presidents in both the 1940's and now. There was JFK and LBJ, and now we have President Obama. In the 1940's, America would never have predicted a black president to be in the white house! But many things have changed.

            Back in time, America had a Democracy ran society. This remains today. Though now president candidates want to make government smaller and keep government from running too much of our lives. But earlier in history, we were eager to gain government support. Still today we have medicare, medicaid, and Job Corps, this was developed in the 1960's. We still have run elections by "Popular Sovereignty" This has not changed in society. On the other-side, religion doesn't have very much to do with Presidential candidacy. When John F. Kennedy ran for presidency, he was the first president candidate to ever be from a different religion other then protestant christianity. Kennedy was catholic. Now we have a man, Mitt Romney, running for president. He is LDS and this is indeed a change in american history.

            America has changed in numerous ways. But many things remain. America will continually change and one can never predict what will remain. We can simply only learn from our past in order to prevent it happening again. As they say, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." 

videos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/megnphotography/5426699714/in/pool-697752@N20/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjmccardle/5241952935/in/pool-697752@N20/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/esperanza-h/5426097192/in/pool-stopmotionvideo/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meperdienmiuniverso/5421561628/in/pool-stopmotionvideo/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbailey/5421287792/in/pool-stopmotionvideo/