My Life Be Like…

When I opened up my internet browser today the top story was about how eight marines were charged with murder of the Hathida Killings that occurred in Iraq. Since our assignment was to write about current issues, I thought that this would be fitting.

As I said above, eight marines were charged for the Hathida Killings. These killings occurred after a marine was killed by a bomb in Hathida, apparently causing those marines to massacre two dozen civilians there in response to the death of their friend. In their defense thier attorney’s said:

their clients were doing what they had been trained to do: responding to a perceived threat with legitimate force.

Now, I know that this looks like a horrible thing, that these marines killed all of those innocent civilians, but first of all, we don’t even know if the marines did indeed kill them or not, and there is also another big issue that we are forgetting here. It is nearly impossible to separate the friend from the enemy in Iraq. Because like in Vietnam, there is no set enemy, they are not wearing uniforms, carrying guns, and riding around in tanks. The enemy looks just like you and I, dressed in civilian clothes, going about thier business during the day, and killing our soldiers at night. So, in the defense of the soldiers, they were just doing their best to respond to that threat, which is so hard to do in this instancce because they did not know who they should have been responding to.

Here, take a look for yourself at this article. Included are some interesting pictures that go along with this story. It is definately worth looking at!

Ronald Reagan is called by some people, the greatest president of our time, so naturally our current president, George W. Bush would stive to be as good a president as Reagan was. This is why there are striking similarities between the policies of the two republican presidents. During reagan’s president he supported “trickle-down economics” dubbed by most people now as “reaganomics” where he would give income tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the nation, hoping that the extra money that they had would then cause them to invest in other things such as factories and manufacturing, giving the lowerclasses more job opertunities and other chances to earn money.

Both administrations seem to favor the wealthier classes. In fact, they don’t seem like they do, these administrations DO support the wealthier classes, making the wealth gap grow bigger and bigger each day. According to the Boston Globe:

About 1.7 million more people fell below the poverty line last year, bringing the total number of poor in the country to 34.6 million. The poverty rate edged higher than 12 percent for the first time in five years, rising to 12.1 percent from 11.7 percent. It was the first time in a decade that the number of poor people has increased for two straight years. More broadly, median household income dropped 1.1 percent between 2001 and 2002, to $42,409.

That is crazy! I thought that the whole point of trickledown economics was to benefit all of the classes, but obviously it is not working if 1.7 million people have just fallen below the poverty line!

Another similarity between the two administrations, is thier policies on defense. Both Reagan and Bush are very supportive of the war effort, and offering funding to help the armed forces. Bush is spending so much on the war in Iraq that it is almost impossible to immagine!

Since he is following in Reagan’s footsteps, Bush thinks that the economy has become much better as a direct effect of his tax cuts, but as a result of the tax cuts and the big government spending on the war money is being drained from the federal budget, therefore less revenue is coming in making teriffic deficits. The deficit has skyrocketed during the Bush administration, therefore making the economy worse on the grand scale. One example is that the housing market is slowing, which effects other things. Just yesterday I heard something on the radio that really intrigued me. Fed Ex expects great revenue losses due to this decline in the housing market, because less people will be shipping things to their new houses. It is amazing to think that all of these effects upon the economy are effected by George Bush’s tax cut program, which he infact modeled after Reagan’s economic policy.

Using Reagan’s policies as a model, Bush has added on to them. A modern example of this is Bush’s policy on the Inheritance Tax, which he is trying very hard to phase out. Some people call this tax, the “death tax” because they are forced to pay taxes on the ususally enormous sums of money that they inherit.  I can understand why Bush would think that people should not have to pay taxes for the money that they inherit, but I mean come on, again he is helping the wealthies classes in the United States, and leaving the other classes behind in their wake. Think about this for a second. Who ususally inherits money? THE WEALTHY CLASS! Many, not all, but much of the wealthy classes come from “old money” or money that is inherited from their ancestors. Now, I am not saying that Bush’s reasoning is wrong. But he should really stop for a second and think about what his new policies could mean. Becasue if he really wants to follow in the footsteps of his economic idol, reagan, the wealth gap should get ready to be rocked and rattled, and stretched beyond belief.

You want a domestic issue that will hit home with all American students, let’s talk about the No Child Gets Left Behind act, passed by George W. Bush. This act was passed in order to promote education for every child in the United States and to ensure that everyone is educated, but is it really working? Think about this for a second, have you ever sat down to take a standardized test, like the C.A.P.T. test for example, and wondered to yourself, “why am I taking this? Is this actually helping me achieve anything?” the answer is, no it is not helping you, and you are taking that test becuase No Child Gets Left Behind requires you to.

 This act is absurdly hypocritical in many different ways. For one thing, the act gives monetary support to those schools with students who score highly on those standardized tests. But where does that leave those other schools with students with lower schools? they are left behind in the dust! Why are we wasting our time with this act, which is supposed to be benefitting us, when it is actually harming those students in need of educational and financial aid? Also, No Child Gets Left behind, is taking valuable school time away from teachers and students, because it requires schools to teach seminars to ameliorate standardized test scores. For instance, here at the high school, there are C.A.P.T. seminars offered for students that have failed the C.A.P.T. testing the first time around. These seminars take time away from actual classroom learning time, therefore imposing upon our grades in school.

 People all around the United States do not support this act becuse the way Bush runs it is not efficient

A small but growing number of school systems around the country are beginning to resist the demands of President Bush’s signature education law, saying its efforts to raise student achievement are too costly and too cumbersome.” New York Times, 1/2/04

 If we really want to help our children, the act should be abolished! because right now, it is not helping anyone, it is hurting our children.

NEW YORK (Oct. 11) - Cory Lidle, a pitcher for the New York Yankees, was killed today when his small private plane crashed into a residential high-rise building on New York City’s Upper East Side, igniting several apartments before pieces of the aircraft crashed to the ground, a high-ranking city official confirmed late this afternoon. - AOL News

I know that this has absolutely NOTHING to do with civics, but it shocked me, so i’m putting it in here anyway.

I know when the Yankees lost their last game, putting them out of the running for the World Series, all us Yankee fans were secretly cursing them under our breath, but never in anyone’s wildest dreams did we see this coming. Hearing this news was shocking, along with the fact that the building that the plane crashed into was the right next to the building that my parents lived in before I was born and they moved here. This is truly a tragedy.

R.I.P. Cory Lidle

It is a known fact that in the preamble of the United States constitution it states that it is the government’s job to promote the general welfare of the people. Hurricane Katrina is an example of a situation where the government has to try its hardest to promote the general welfare of the people. The government, along with other agencies such as FEMA (federal emergency management agency) were harshly criticised after hurricane katrina for their poor response to the disaster, but I do believe that it tried and did a good job in a deadly and bad situation. First of all, the reigons that Katrina hit, such as New Orleans are below sea level, which is a catastrophic characteristic to have in a hurricane. So naturally there will be flooding just due to the topagraphy of the land. Secondly there are hundreds of thousands of people in that reigon, many who were reluctant to leave their flooding homes regardless of what the national guards men and relief workers advised. Should the government be penalized for stubborn citizens? In fact, relief agencies started to work on relief efforts even before the storm hit

Some disaster recovery response to Katrina began before the storm, with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) preparations that ranged from logistical supply deployments to a mortuary team with refrigerated trucks. A network of volunteers began rendering assistance to local residents and residents emerging from New Orleans and surrounding Parishes as soon as the storm made landfall, and has continued for more than six months after the storm. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina#Government_response)

So yes, there is still more work to be done down in the south to clean up from last years disaster, which has been deemed the costliest natural disaster in the United States to date. In response to my original question, however, i believe that while there is still work to be done, the government along with the relief agencies have tried their hardest, and continue to strive and help rebuild the reigon and offer aid to the hurricanes victims.