Who has the power?

I agree with C. Wright Mills that there is Power Elite that runs this country through running our economy. The everyday person still has the right to vote and voice their opinion, but is their opinion really heard? There are three major realms that run the country, the political, the business, and the military. These all come together to form the power elite. They decide how the country is run and make all other decisions that affect everyone's daily life. But, is it in our country's best interest to have this type of government system running us? I personally do not think so.

The Power Elite only thinks about what will help them in the end, that is why the original political system was not set up this way, the business man will not want to support unions because it could topple his empire and the military do not want to the public to know all of their plans because no one would want to join. Finally the politicians don't want the average person to know that most of their "promises" about how they will make the country better is purely to gain their vote than to actually put in the effort to make the change because then they would not be in office.

I am not very big on talking about politics because I feel that no matter what I believe in, there is someone else that wants me to believe the opposite. I want to live in a country where the "Power Elite" make decisions that are better for the whole community and economy rather than to just fulfill their own dreams. We have many problems within our country that need fixing but they will never be fixed just hidden. America has become selfish and if we want to further ourselves in the global society that we are in today is to listen to the needs of the people and stop allowing the Power Elite to make all the decisions for the rest of us, so we can come out of this economic and political rut we have found ourselves in.

Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

Although the idea that Wal-Mart started out with was a good economic plan to improve the nation and our economy, the formula that they follow today where they shut down American factories an drive others out of business in order to get cheaply made products from other countries has been a big factor in the decline of the US economy in my opinion. Since we are now focusing more on buying cheaply made goods from other countries, we are draining our own economy by eliminating millions of jobs throughout the Midwest where generations of people have worked the same jobs. Even though the movie was filmed in 2004, I believe that Wal-Mart has only made our economy worse by killing jobs and forcing those people that lost their jobs to work at Wal-Mart for much lower prices and barely any benefits. How can an American based company do that to its own people? Many were forced out of jobs that their family have been in for generations, what are they supposed to do when that job is no longer available? How are they supposed to feed their families and live a comfortable life when their entire life's earnings suddenly disappear?

I also feel that Wal-Mart may be creating a monopoly that were outlawed back when big industries started. A monopoly is when a company controls all the goods and all the raw materials and products used to make the goods. Although the Wal-Mart name is not on all the goods they buy, the manufacturers are obviously dependent on what Wal-Mart is doing which in a way, in my opinion, makes it a monopoly. Honestly, I do not really shop at Wal-Mart very often. In fact I would say that I shop there maybe 2 or 3 times a year. I much prefer Target mainly because the type of people that shop at Wal-Mart are usually low income families and the goods they sell are not as high quality as they advertise and claim. Especially after the reception hit, the quality of Wal-Mart's goods went way down.



In my opinion, Wal-Mart is not good for America because it not only takes good jobs from Americans and gives it to other countries, but it gives the jobs back at half the amount of pay that the workers originally got at the factories that Wal-Mart closed down so they could increase their wealth. Wal-Mart has been in the middle of many controversies and I hope that eventually karma will catch up with it and cause it to close like it made all those factoris

The Inequality of Chores

When my parents were growing up, Chores were split by the women do the cooking and cleaning while the men did the yard work and heavy lifting. Now a days, there is no way to say for certain this is true in every household. For instance, what about gay/lesbian households? Who does what if you are both the same gender? And what about single income families with the wife being the bread winner instead of the man?

Stay at home dads are way more common than you would originally expect. For example, in my house, my dad does the majority of the chores while all my mother does is clean. And what about families that are divorced or a single parent? There are just way too many factors today that there is no longer the set women do these chores while men do the others. I believe that in the future there will be a completely different view of who should do what chores.

Times are a changin'.

"No room in the manger"

I believe that the world is semi-secularizing. Although there are somethings that are becoming more secular each year, like Christmas as the cartoon above depicts. "No room in the manger" is a perfect way to show that commercialism is beating out the old christian views that used to be so common and prevalent in the past. Atheism and Theism is ruling the youth of today with a far less remaining religious than earlier years. Now that society is more open to the rest of the world and the rest of the world's religions, Christianity may have some tough competition. With the access we have to the internet and all the information provided about all the religions of the world, we may just renounce all of them and create a new one that better fits our times. Many of the rules and regulations of many religions are outdated and can no longer fulfill their purpose. It is truly amazing how long most of these religions have been a part of our lives and maybe not in my life time, but within the next couple I see the toppling of most of the major religions and the rise of some new religion that better fits our time frame. I mean with our new understandings of science and molecules and how things work has definitely made it hard for most to believe that Jesus was a man that could turn water into wine and walk on it too. Of course there still are and will always be the majorly devoted people who will never stop believing and more power to them, I just believe that religion needs to catch up with the times. I mean there are still people that believe in Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic faith and the religion that the ancient kings of Persia used to follow, that is true dedication. Secularization will most likely never be completely accepted by everyone, but at some point the major religions of today will be the ruins of tomorrow and a new better fitted religion will take hold among the masses and work as the opiate.

Won't you be my neighbor?

 I recently wrote a research paper about Race vs. Socioeconomic Status. I feel that my section on residential segregation is very similar to "The Tale of Two Families." Here is what I wrote:

Residential Segregation has been a problem in the United States for hundreds of years. Professional researchers like William Clark, author of Changing Residential Preferences Across Income, Education and Age: Findings from a Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, examined where people choose to live, and why they choose to live there. He found that “preferences are fundamental in creating the patterns of separation in the residential fabric, but those preferences are modified substantially by education and income.” (Clark) When examining racial makeup of neighborhoods, one has to take into account the factors that lead the decision of where to live. Clark conducted his study by showing residents in several neighborhoods across the United States a series of cards displaying different combinations of homes in neighborhoods ranging from all white to all black, and he asked the residents to put the cards in order from most preferable to least preferable neighborhood they would rather live in. He found “that Blacks rarely prefer settings in which they are less than 50% is a fundamental factor in continuing separation. [He found that] this finding provides additional evidence to support other research that has also drawn attention to the fact that residential separation is not just an outcome of White choices.” (Clark) This shows that residential segregation is not caused by the dominant race, Whites, forcing other races into low-income neighborhoods but is actually caused by socioeconomic status and what type of people that other people feel comfortable living near. But how do we define socioeconomic status? “Assuming that education and income are relatively close surrogates for socioeconomic status, we can compare the shifts in the distribution for those measures versus the measure for race effects. Clearly, socioeconomic status is important.” (Clark) With the 2010 Census, funding distribution is calculated by how many of each race lives in a certain area. Residential segregation is prevalent in this document because there are no questions that ask how much money the family makes but instead there are two, out of ten, questions based on race. (Department of Commerce) This data will be used to see how many of each race lives in the area and with that information they will be able to tell whether or not the area needs more money. Although there are tendencies of minorities living in the same impoverished neighborhoods, this does not automatically mean that prominently white neighborhoods are nearly always wealthy or middle class neighborhoods. Also, Where we choose to live determines where our children will go to school and where we go to work. If the neighborhood a resident chooses to live in is an impoverished one, then they will not receive an adequate education which will lead to lower scores on standardized tests and ultimately rejection from college admissions.

Why are women so threatening?

What bothered me the most about all the readings on gender inequality was the focus on how women are put down. I feel that the majority of gender inequality is focused on women and relinquishing their rights and power. My main question is WHY? Why are women the subject of this inequality? Why have men MADE themselves the power holders? Although in some cultures, like Hindu cultures, women are celebrated as powerful and wonderful beings. Not to say that all men view women as something lesser than themselves, but the majority appear to feel that way and will only give women enough power to make the women happier but not enough to surpass themselves.

It is true that women and men both have their strengths but honestly, why make the women stay at home? What made men want women to be powerless?  I would have to do a lot of research in order to find out the reason behind the suppression of woman's power but if I was to make a hypothesis, I would say that there were religious reasons behind it. I know that most ancient cultures prized women over men, especially in pagan religions, and to combat the "inferior" religions monotheistic faiths suppressed the power of women in order to get more men followers and to get men to over power the women and convince them to relinquish the power they held.

BUT that is just a hypothesis.

Why should I care?

As pointed out in the podcast, global inequality is a big deal in everyday life. Americans tend to enjoy their cushy ethnocentric view of the world that they are on top but that might not always be the case. In fact, the US dollar used to be the strongest currency in the world and now it is beaten out by the Euro and the pound making the US no longer the top dog, at least economy wise. No one can say what tomorrow will bring and honestly the US has made a lot of enemies by promoting that we are WAY better than everyone else. We all live on this planet and we all need to stop out doing the other, but that would only happen in a perfect society.

REGARDLESS, the thing that struck me the most about this podcast was the focus on "who is on top and why are they there." Personally I don't agree with many of the reasons why the US is one of the most powerful nations but I do agree with the base reason, everyone is free. Although life in America offers more opportunities to more people, it is definitely not an easy road. Yet, I feel that the US is one of the world powers because we are the leader of the free world and we give people the option to better their lives by bettering themselves and there is really no where else in the world, other than a few countries in Europe, that gives the same opportunity.