The Cafe d'Ed

For my topic in the Ed Cafe we did was Benito Mussolini. Against popular belief he wasn't completely bad, before becoming the dictator of Italy. He was born in a little town in Italy and grew up in that little town. His father was a blacksmith and his mom was a catholic teacher. He didn't get baptized at birth, so when the time came to send Benito Mussolini to school his parents decided to send him to boarding school that was run by monks. He got expelled for his behavior, he threw rocks at children leaving services. He also stabbed a kid in the hand. He left that elementary school and went to a different one where he received top grades.

He worked in his father smithy on occasion. His father talked about politics and his political views, which was a mixture of anarchism, militarism and nationalism. Around the time he would have to enter the military, Mussolini fled to Switzerland to avoid having to serve. There he was incredibly active with an Italian Socialist group. He also learned about George Sorel who had the belief that Capitalism and Liberal Democracy were both bad. He also thought that the best way to deal with issues was through violence, general strikes and direct action.

After returning to Italy much later in his life, he started a newspaper called "The Class Struggle" and wrote a book. He was incredibly good at editing newspaper and he increased his popularity greatly with it. He joined the PSI or the Italian Socialists Party and he edited their newspaper Avanti!. He grew the popularity of the newspaper from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand and continue to make himself well known throughout Italy. He was part of a socialist riot that got him put in jail for 5 months and got him severely demoted in the Socialists Party. He started using the pen name "Vero Eretico" which translates to Sincere Misbeliever.

Around WWI Benito struggled with the inner turmoil of the war. The PSI wanted to stay out of it, so he did at first too. Writing a newspaper article with the title "Down with War. We stay Neutral". Although he soon saw that the war was an opening for his ambitions and it was also an opportunity for the country. It was also a chance for the Italians living in Germany-Hungary to be freed from the Hapsburg. He tried to convince the PSI to overthrow the German-Hungarian monarchs and join the war. He said that the Germany-Hungarian monarchs had repressed socialism consistently. He gave many reasons for why joining the war would be beneficial to them, but in the end the PSI expelled Benito Mussolini from the party.

Around this time he denounced Socialism and started the National Fascist Party. He started gaining power by telling the flaws of traditional Socialism. He started giving speeches, and he started addressing Italy as one class instead of distinct social and economic classes. This was one of the smartest things he could have done. Italy was going through social oppression. The working class didn't have many rights and the rich were living well. When Benito Mussolini addressed Italy as one social class it united the people and created nationalistic views in peoples eyes.

From this point he quickly rose to power by wiping out his competition. He got to power and he formed the government into a one party dictatorship, in which he was in charge. He started raising money to go into war. He got money from the French (the idea being that Italy would join the French's Side) in WWII. When Hitler/Germany invaded Poland the first time in September of 1939, it took a short 8 months but Italy joined the side of Germany and WWII was in full bloom.

The rest of Benito Mussolini's story is better known. He wasn't completely bad the whole time during his life. He was a socialist for more than half of his life. When he was expelled from the PSI and socialism was taken out of his life he turned and created Fascism. I am not saying that I am proud of what he did during the time he was dictator. I hope that you realize that people change and in this particular example it wasn't for the best.

Believe Me

Propaganda was a tool that has been used throughout history to gain control and to mislead a large group of people. In a video that I recently watched in history class that showed propaganda in its true form. In this video it showed Adolf Hitler as the chancellor of Germany. When the movie started it showed him landing in Germany and the airport was surrounded by people. Almost like the famous video of The Beatles arriving in America. As he was driving through the towns people were cheering and saluting. It was almost like a parade. I witness the German people praise and love Hitler for the entire video.

This raises a serious question to me. What exactly did the German people think was going on at the time? I know in this period in particular the German people were incredibly nationalistic but there is a point where you have to wonder if Hitler wasn't telling the truth. He was telling the German people what they wanted to hear. Hitler was a master at propaganda. He told the people of Germany in another video we watched, that he didn't care what happened to himself, but the children of Germany would be the future, his legacy. This makes me wonder even more, if Hitler was using propaganda or if the German people were just looking for someone to tell them they were the best nation. It is true that some of the ads made people believe in Hitler even more. The way I see it though, no matter what people tell you, you have the choice to believe in it.

This brings up the question: Did Germany want to go to war? To me, I would say yes. It isn't hard to be told your country is the best, I understand that. However there is a point where you have to say to yourself, "Why are we better?" or "Why are they inferior?" I am in no way blaming the German people for WWII, however people don't get into power without being loved and accepted by the people of the nation. Except when there is a king, but in this era in Germany there wasn't.

I think that propaganda did play a role in people loving Hitler, but I think it was more that the German people really wanted someone to believe in and to make them a power. Which did happen, so I guess it was a success for Germany.

Could It Happen Again?

The Great Depression was the worse economic crisis in American History. After coming out of World War I, America prospered from approximately a decade of booming economy. The roaring 20's as it is referred to looked as though nothing could go wrong. People were buying stocks and making money and then the stocks were going up due to the fact people were spending more money on goods. Everything was good until people started loosing faith in the stock due to the fact the stock dropped slightly about 4 days before the major crash in October of 1929. Since people were buying on margin, which simply means paying for things with money loaned from the bank, when the market crashed they were hung out to dry.

After Hoover tried to help banks by giving money and trying to keep them opened and his plan failed, many Americans grew angry and tired of Hoover so at the next election FDR was elected. FDR didn't have the same idea as Hoover. He realized that just trying to spend money to bail out big companies as Hoover tried wasn't going to work. He implemented multiple policies that helped the economic situation. He saw that the major problems were poverty and unemployment. He used his New Deal program to help these problems. His New Deal Program was a series of economic measures to help relieve the worst economic problems of the depression.

Since then, there is the FDIC or the Federal Deposit Insurance Company which insures that if a bank fails and your money is lost, the FDIC will refund your money up to $100,000. There is also Social Security, which gives money to people who do not have adequate income. There was also the Glass Steagall Act which separated investment banks and private banks. The difference is that investment banks do not take deposits.

Unless a nuclear war happens which causes a huge nuclear fallout and in turn causes another probably bigger economic crisis, than it is extremely unlikely to have a economic fallout as the same magnitude as the Great Depression. Due to all of the different acts and policies set in place it would be extremely hard for something like this to happen again. Besides aren't we supposed to learn from the past, so it won't be repeated?

A Nation of Immigrants

              There are two ideas of the American Dream. After studying about immigration I have found another American Dream. For many immigrants coming to America isn't easy, typically they are leaving everything they have no matter how much or how little and they are coming to America for what they hope to be a better life. When thinking about the dream they have, the main thing that they want is to make money and send for people that are close to them typically. They could also come to America to get away from persecution. This country is built off of not only freedom but it is built by immigrants. Everyone in America has a ancestor that immigrated, unless you are a native America and chances are you still have someone in your family that immigrated. So after studying immigration my new idea of the American Dream is this; go to  America or already be in America, get enough money to support your family or bring your family to America and then live out your days in a country that you have freedom and you are safe. Although many immigrants coming to America didn't reach this goal... and possibly never will, its the thought of the American Dream that drives them to live in America and do the best they can to get money and have their family close to them. The American Dream is hard to achieve but people like Carnegie and Rockefeller show that it can be done.

The Illusion of the American Dream

When I think of the American Dream, I think of a big happy family. They have money and a house with a back yard, that the whole family can relax. In the title I described it as an illusion for the reason that it is really hard to achieve. I think that a quote from a Miley Cyrus song fits here "it's the climb". I really feel that the whole idea behind the American Dream is the journey from whatever life you once had. If you came from Russia let's say, which my great-grandfather did, I feel the whole idea of the American Dream is getting to the comfort of the money and the house. Even though almost nobody achieved the American Dream that they thought of when coming to America. I feel that the American Dream was more for foreigners than people that lived in America previously. While the American Dream is a great thought, it is exactly what the name says a dream.

Religion: Good or Bad

As I started in High School 3 years ago I was fully Jewish. As I started to think about different religions in history class and just on my own I found that there are a lot of things in Judaism that I disagree with. For example the big thing is a God, obviously to be Jewish you have to believe in God, but through different events in my life I have not only stopped believing in God but also in Judaism. Some might say that I have lost my way but in my mind I have found it. When I was born I was given my name Josh, yet a week later I was given a Hebrew or a Jewish name. Why do I need 2 names? I found that when I was younger I was Jewish but not because me as a person was Jewish but because my parents told me I was. That being said I probably, if you asked me back then, would have said I am Jewish but that is because I hadn't become my own person yet. When I think about what religion has done to the world it makes me think, What would the world be like without religion?

Religion was originally formed to explain the unexplained. When things like the creation of the Earth or how humans were formed came up in conversation  people didn't know how to respond so people created ways to explain these events. However when you have 2 people that think a like there is typically friction and conflict, kind of like in science when you try to put 2 positive magnets together. In my personal opinion I find that when religion comes into things there is almost always a heated argument or an, agree to disagree either way it doesn't end well. Sometimes it turns into more than a heated discussion and causes war or persecution. For example, the Crusades or the "Holy War" (which really isn't that holy), in the Crusades the Christians basically forced religion on people and took land under "The Church". In the Holy War the Muslims did basically the same exact things, forced their religion and took land. I don't think that this was the exact purpose of religion. 

I am not saying that religion is completely bad though. I find that there are absolute benefits to being religious. You get to associate with people that you wouldn't necessarily know and you do get a enhanced education, plus some of the stories are pretty cool. Religion is a big part of any person but I feel like it is not exactly needed. If you didn't have religion than, what? If there was no religion there is not big side effect. I think that it is overly needed and not essential to life.  

I think that religion is overall bad and I think that it is overly used. Without religion I think that the world would be a better place and possibly less tense. I  think that I wouldn't have the inner turmoil of being agnostic if religion wasn't as big a part of me. I found that God hasn't really given me a reason to believe in him/her (whatever you believe) and I think that it is important for me to realize the fact that I am not religious. I understand that some people might have a problem with some of the things that I said, however you are just proving my point more. 

I am sorry if this offends anyone. 

The Role of Religion in America

Religious America



                The role of religion in America is quite a significant one. I think that religion can be good in some instances but when in gets to your government you have to be completley unbiased. When you run a country you cannot treat any religions differently, which in this country they do. For example on the holiest day of the entire jewish religion the government overlooks this and people still have to work, as opposed to one of Christianity's holiest days, Christmas. The government calls it a national holiday and everyone gets off work, school or anything else. I think that Christianity all but almost runs our country, even though we say there is religious freedom, you can't walk by a church without someone trying to get you to join, not to mention all of the annoying phone calls. The government made the rule that public schools can't teach anything about religion, which is a step in the right direction but they still do so many other things that doesn't neccassarily talks about religion but puts the idea in the heads of kids. Even our pledge of alligience  is religion based with the phrase "under god", this phrase strongly takes away religious freedom, and in public schools the kids have to say the pledge of alligience every day in school, that is hardly religious freedom and absolutely not seperation of church and state. I think that a country based on religious freedom as one of the bases of this country would be much less suggestive of Christianity or even religion in general. I am not saying that religion is bad, all I am saying is that until the kids are old enough to make there own choices the parents should decide whether to make the kid religious or not, it shouldn't be our government or our schools.