...Occupy Nation by Todd Gitlin Book Review By: Ashley Smith The occupy movement sparked major concerns worldwide regarding economic inequality. New York City was the first city in the United States for this movement to evolve. Todd Gitlin, a social historian, captures the spirit of the occupy movement in New York in his book Occupy Nation. This ongoing movement started September 17, 2011 when a small group that called themselves occupy wall street, set up camp in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. This small group supported the idea that there was a huge gap between the rich and the poor in the economy. The term “99%” soon became widely used after ongoing discussion of the economic inequality. This term allowed people across the country to feel like they could become involved with this issue because of the general goal the movement had was relevant to so much of the population. As numbers grew in the group that settled and became semi-permanent at Zuccotti Park the media became more interested. As this movement spread through the media the numbers of people who support this sky rocketed. Many people gave up everything just to go to new york city and join to occupy wall street. In his book Gitlin seems contradicted in how OWS does not have any demands and no leadership. However he explains how the lack of demands and leadership intrigues and makes it more inclusive to wide range of people. The leadership that OWS had was based on a horizontal government, which allows everyones'...
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...while others contend that the optimum solution is to get spur trade. This essay will examine both sides of arguments and try to reach a conclusion. On the one hand, if the nations over the world accelerate a better relationship, this step will have far-reaching influences on poverty eradication and hunger alleviation. For example, the countries can carry out cultural exchanges, namely art exhibition or football friendlies matches. In terms of education, the rich nation should enable for young generation in the poor country, such as my homeland – Viet Nam, access to an advanced education and the new technologies in developed country. As a result, this help cultivate links among nations and strengthen mutual understanding and mutual interests. Futhermore, this will provide more job creation in not only the developing coutries but also the developed nations. On the other hand, international trade occupies a crucial role in cause of poverty reduction in the whole world only by reinforce international relationship and creat an equal position in bilateral trade and multilateral trade then trade can break up all barriers by enhance commercial works, different countries in the world can learn to build up mutual trust and win-win option, which causes abundant job. A typical instance for this is the rich nation can import agriculture products from Southest Asia such...
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...Occupy Wall Street no fue el primero que empezó la idea de “ocupar.” Entonces cómo empezó este movimiento y quiénes son los que desempeñaron un gran papel para su inicio? Muchas veces Adbusters es conocido como el grupo que impulsó Occupy Wall Street. Adbusters es una revista canadiense con el motivo de traer cambios en el mundo con su idea anti-consumista y anti-capitalista. Unos eventos que motivó esta revista fueron el boicot de Starbucks y del Huffington Post. Y todo fue porque estas compañías gigantes impedían el desarrollo de las que son pequeñas o locales. Entonces Adbusters, viendo que (la causa del movimiento), pidió que 90,000 manifestantes llenen la calle de Wall Street. Sin embargo, en verdad Adbusters no fue el inicio, sino fue un grupo de artistas, escritores, activistas, y estudiantes que se reunieron en el 16 Beaver Street para debatir sobre cambiar el mundo. Además de neoyorquinos, los miembros de estas reuniones incluían muchos de los que vinieron de todas partes diferentes como España, Egipto, y Japón, quienes ya antes habían participado en otras protestas en sus propios países. Ellos empezaron este tipo de reuniones en el verano del 2011, solamente para compartir sus ideas sobre las políticas y economía y los cambios que querían ver, no para empezar una protesta. Nadie de ahí sabía que ellos mismos iban a impeler un movimiento. Begonia y Luis, quienes vieron suceder el Movimiento 15-M en España (una protesta de “ocupar” donde 20,000 personas indignadas por...
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...Australian people and national culture. These embellishments were promoted by a relatively small coterie of elites, as Mark Lopez has painstakingly documented,1 and became standard formulations used in official accounts of Australian national identity and citizenship. While the sting has gone out of multiculturalism and the national debate has moved on to issues of citizenship and refugee policy, multicultural formulations still inform official documents. According to this view, Australia is now made up of people of diverse cultures that should be given equal status with the Australian mainstream. Australian citizenship is then invoked as the glue that binds these different groups into a national unity. The multicultural account of Australia as a nation of diverse cultural groups has been taken over by the Australian Citizenship Council in its prescriptions for Australian Citizenship for a New Century.2 The Citizenship Council eschews any notion of common national identity or shared culture in favour of 'public acceptance of diversity' and abstract civic values. Such values underpin citizenship, according to the Citizenship Council, and these together define and unite Australians. In the following paper we give a critical account of the evolution of multicultural policy and...
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...Sam Morris Why is the nation sometimes confused with the state? A nation is defined by a group of people who share a common cultural background, whether this be through shared traditions, a common language, history, religion, etc. They will consider themselves to be a community that has the ability to communicate on may level. A state is a sovereign power which is geographically defined and is governed by a certain set of laws and principles, which entitles it to be a self-determined entity. In today’s society some may view that because a state has these set of values, and that its citizens are by the very nature of fact that they abide by these values, are a nation. For example even though France is a state, the French people are also seen to form a nation. This combination of people sharing cultural values and having self-determination creates a nation-state. There is confusion caused because the state and the nation are linked heavily. Apart from the fact that most states are nations, the fact that the United Nations is actually a collection of states, recognised because of their political sovereignty. The two are also sometimes confused because nations which are not states will usually be struggling to gain statehood, which furthers the point that’s the two are intrinsically linked, such as Scotland who are seeking independence from the UK. Therefore they are currently part of the UK as a state, however they see their national identity as being Scottish. Despite...
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...Question: do you think of Canada just as your country, the place where you live, or do you think of Canada as a nation- people who share your values and beliefs? Is being Canadian part of your identity? Write a written response of 1 page double space. The concept of nationhood is a complex one. What makes a country a nation? What is a nation? In this essay, i will attempt to gain an understanding of what a nation is, and why Canada is in fact a nation, not merely because we meet certain criteria, but because we, as Canadians, believe it is so. To define the term “nation” is quite a challenging task. The Student’s Oxford Canadian Dictionary defines a nation as, “a community of people forming a state or inhabiting a territory”. Compared to other resources, this is fairly a simple one. The same dictionary defines a state as “an organized political community under one government” By these definitions, Canada clearly classifies as a nation. Canada is without a doubt, a nation because the country has satisfied the dictionary’s requirement. Still, not all definitions are so clear. One of the most commonly accepted definitions of a nation is one that is ripe with complex and challenging requirements. These definitions often involve a group of people who share a common culture, ethnic origin and language, and they must either possess or be actively seeking an independent government. Even at a quick glance, we can see that Canada does not meet all of these...
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...Language and ethnicity Language and ethnicity are known to be closely intertwined (Giles &ump; Coupland 1991). However, prior to analyzing interrelation between language and ethnicity I faced the problem of identifying the concept of ‘ethnicity’ itself. Thus, Fishman (1997: 327) points out that ‘ethnicity’ like other notions it is in a close association with, i.e. ‘race’, ‘people’, ‘nation’, ‘nationality’, is not “an exact scientific term”. Therefore it is not clearly defined and thus is open to interpretations (Ibid). In my search I came across a number of rather vogue explanations, and the most common aggregated dictionary definition of ‘ethnicity’ is ‘a belonging to a particular social group that has a common national or cultural tradition’ (MacMillan Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, etc.). Dictionary of Cultural Literacy does single out and include language into the ethnicity definition saying that it is an “identity with or membership in a particular racial, national, or cultural group and observance of that group's customs, beliefs, and language”. However, is language always an inevitable part of one’s ethnicity or the ethnicity of a group? Definitely, the most understandable case of interrelation between language and ethnicity is the one when a person is born and lives on a specific territory which historically had one dominant ethnos and one dominant language, so ethnicity is predetermined by close bound between language and territory (Fishman...
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...Javier Cepeda Harris SYD4700 Reaction Paper #1 1. According to Farley, the concept of race consists of two components: social and physical. Social recognition and identity as a distinct group is important for a group of people to be considered a race. Also, every race is considered to be somewhat distinct in appearance from others. However, the fact that physical appearances matter when defining race is what makes it a “socially constructed” concept. The different races that are known to us today each carry a physical characteristic in which it identifies with, but what is important to note is how these differences were chosen. Society as a whole is what chooses the physical component in race and because of this it varies from time to time and place to place. 2. To support the statement that race is a “socially constructed” concept one must consider that racial formation, which is the process in which race operates as a central axis of social relations (Gallagher 19), is said to be a result of diverse historical practices (Omni and Winant). It is clear that racial terms and identities are something that has been shaped by the general public over time. For someone to claim they are black or white is nothing out of the ordinary in our society today, but what is intriguing is the fact that as recent as the late 19th century such racial grouping would have been quickly challenged. The term “black” came about when the distinction of indentured servitude and racial slavery...
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...Ghosh centers around a young boy, the narrator, whose growth in age and maturity is traced slowly through his understanding of the memories that connect him and his family members. Through the book, we watch him move backwards and forwards in time as bits and pieces of stories, both half-remembered and imagined, come together in his mind until he arrives at an intricate, interconnected picture of the world where borders and boundaries mean nothing, mere shadow lines that we draw dividing people and nations. The title ‘The Shadow Lines’ is the author’s commentary on the artificial nature of cultural, ideological, geographical and psychological borders, which he asks us to disregard in favour of a broader humanism. The titular ‘shadow lines’ can refer to many different things, but I believe the fundamental allusion he makes is to the borders that separate nations from each other. Divisions between nations - shadow lines Amitav Ghosh asserts that the borders that separate nations are nothing more than artificial lines created by men. Thus, the ‘shadow lines’ of the title are the borders that divide people, and one of the main emphases of the novel is on the arbitrariness of such cartographic demarcations. Why are these lines ‘shadowy’ then? Because like shadows, they lack substance, they lack meaning. Ghosh believes that these ‘shadow lines’, these meaningless borders, can and should be crossed – if not physically, then at least mentally through our imagination and through...
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...Canada’s current peacemaking mission to Afghanistan is not achieving its stated goals of stabilizing the country. My solution to the problem is consistent with the Canadian national identity because we are still using multilateralism to compromise with other countries and diplomacy to end the armed conflict. I believe we should continue the peacemaking mission with a few different solutions to improve it. We could assemble an additional battle group of 1000 soldiers to be assigned to Kandahar by NATO and/ or other allies before February 2009. Another solution could be to get the government to secure new, medium lift helicopters and high performance unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance before that date. Lastly, we could address Afghanistan’s government and make it more effective. We also need to include the international community to assist in developing a peaceful, self-reliant Afghan country.Canada’s current peacemaking mission to Afghanistan is not achieving its stated goals of stabilizing the country. My solution to the problem is consistent with the Canadian national identity because we are still using multilateralism to compromise with other countries and diplomacy to end the armed conflict. I believe we should continue the peacemaking mission with a few different solutions to improve it. We could assemble an additional battle group of 1000 soldiers to be assigned to Kandahar by NATO and/ or other allies before February 2009. Another...
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...Obama Inaugural Address 20th January 2009 My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition. Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans. That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics...
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...Group Project 2/24/2014. Arguments FOR and AGAINST trade liberalization leading to a "race to the bottom" in environmental standard Many affiliates of congress fear that trade liberation has been leading the country to go on a “race to the bottom”, when it comes to environmental protection. And as a result, this has led many countries to place tough trade restrains due to the fear of what could happen to the country down the line. In my opinion, I do not agree with that statement. I don’t think that trade liberation could be the only thing that would lead to a “race to the bottom” in terms of environment safekeeping. I believe that free trade is important in dispensing the economy of a country with means that will allow it to embrace measures that will supplement the safety of the environment. That means that free trade is a compulsory element in stimulating economic growth. Without a country’s growth, it would be even harder for the country to provide the mandatory or necessary protection amongst its people. For them to be able to enhance environmental protection, they should first be able to enlarge the wealth of the country. The truth is, some of the poor countries cannot supply to provide environmental protection more than they can provide fundamental needs such as food and healthcare. Most of these environmental groups refuse to allow trade promotion authority because they are afraid that it will lead to environmental distractions. Therefore, they persuade that trade...
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...1) What is diversity? Why is diversity valued? Diversity is the variance of every culture, race, sex, religion, or group. Which it us leads to accept and respect of every individual. We come to understand that each individual is different and unique and to accept our own differences from others. This is because there are different ethnicity, genders, cultures, sex orientation, socio-economic status, and religion among everyone in this country. Diversity is valued because the multicultural education is a big asset to this country. It highlights the contributions of every culture, group, religion, sex, or race from around the world. Accepting the individually of a person also allows us to understand that we are all different and similar at the same time. All of these things is what make American today. 2) What is ethnocentrism? In what ways can ethnocentrism be detrimental to society? Ethnocentrism is when one judges another culture by the standard and values of our own culture. The language, customs, behavior, and religion are what show the distinctions of the multi cultures that exist. Ethnocentrism can be detrimental to society because it can lead to misunderstand cultures. Generalizations can be made and can turn into misjudging individuals intentionally. In my many occasions it can discontinue communication between human’s beings. In doing so this often leads to discrimination and racism. 3) Define emigration and immigration. Emigration is...
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...and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view. We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible...
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...trafficked through several indicates of coercion or techniques of hoaxing for plenty of aggressive and exploitation rifle scopes. It has been noticed that most the sufferers exchanged from Southern to Main and European European countries and also to Northern The united states and Japan, are females trafficked for pressured prostitution. Although due to the surreptitious personality of this criminal activity, any available figure or data does not signify the real condition of the things. The visitors in reasons other than prostitution, such as pressured weddings and pressured labor etc, does not entice enough attention of the law organs; therefore the potential of the sufferers to get help is restricted. The state policies and the rules of many nations have the propensity to decrease the chance of getting some complicated actions on the matter of the issue of visitors with purpose of pressured prostitution. Although, in the last several years, within the structure of worldwide controversy and especially in the material of UN records, has showed up a confidence that the reasons for which the individuals are trafficked and the methods in which it is done are different and completely modifying, the platform components of this kind of visitors stay the same. Thus, a common conform which regards the meaning of visitors, such as both the one with females and with men with whatever aggressive and required objective, was reached. The first worldwide meaning of the individual beings’ visitors...
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