Tomas' Global Blog

Joseph Stalin and Totalitarianism

2008-01-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

Totalitarianism is when the government is considered the rulers of people aspects and daily routine. In other words, the government will tell the people what they can/can't do, just like a dictator. Stalin used totalitarianism to rule the Soviet Union (Russia) in order to produce as much goods as possible to keep his country stable mostly related to his"Five Year Plans". The "Five Year Plans" was Stalin's way to increase the economy of Russia and most importantly their national defense. Not only that, it also reduces the number of "traitors of the country" that were alive in Russia by the rule of Stalin. By using terror as a weapon to keep the traitors eliminated at all cost mostly describes Stalin's "The Great Purge". That is why I consider Stalin as a bad leader. He kills innocent people that had talked bad about him, the totalitarian country or Russia considering is freedom of speech and is OK to keep that thought alive in people's mind.

Film Lesson: Doctor Zhivago

2008-01-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

The film "Doctor Zhivago" was depicting the Russian Revolution by showing how the Russian troops came back to Russia to revolt their government. Not only that, they were celebrating the defeat of the Czar, and the power of the communist party who the people think will bring freedom to Russia. With the communist in power, this movie also showed how bad the communist rule Russia. In one scene, Doctor Zhivago came back home and found that his house was full of people indicating that people had equal housing in communist Russia. Another scene showed Doctor Zhivago talking to his brother, who was a communist leader and explained that he was not safe where Doctor Zhivago and his family lived. Then the communist leader told him that we will meet each other someday, telling me that when they meet, Doctor Zhivago might die.

Causes of WW I

2008-01-04T07:45:00.000-08:00

There were many causes that would have started The Great War or WWI. The most important ones include: Nationalism, Militarism, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the alliances that existed before WWI. Nationalism was a big part of the start of WWI. Countries such as Italy and Germany united each other for their own nationalistic ideas and culture. With that came hatred among countries who think are better than other nations. Militarism played another big role in starting WWI. Countries in Europe were building lots of powerful weapons that allowed army's to kill over 1,000 enemies. The reason they build so much weapons is so that they can be prepared for any war possible by their enemies. The third major cause of WWI consist of the alliance system. There were a few alliance system before WWI that protected a country from another country form that alliance. If any tragedy happened in one country of an alliance, then the other countries inside the alliance go and fight the enemies that attacked their own friend. Unfortunately some countries backstabbed their alliance by attacking them and supporting who were once their enemy.

The Opium Wars

2007-12-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

The opium wars were disputed wars between Great Britain and China because of the trade of a drug called Opium. Opium was used as a ingredient of pain killers (ex:morphine, heroin) in China. The Opium drug was later used inside tobacco to smoke it. This was causing lots of health issues to Chinese people due to the smoking of Opium. Due to that response, China wanted to stop the trading of Opium from the British by sending them a letter to the queen. The queen bothered not to respond to the letter leaving China no choice but to keep the British ships from shipping any Opium into their country. This has initiated one of the two Opium Wars; the war to get rid of the opium trade from the British. The second of the Opium Wars had to do with the unfair trading occurring with china from the British. Both Opium wars had to do with the disputed trading that was going on between Britain and China. Unfortunately Britain won both wars because the British had technological advantages the Chinese did not had. Some examples of these technological advantages that the British had, but the Chinese didn't was the big steam powered ships the British had along with their advance weapons such as their machine guns.

"The White Man's Burden"

2007-12-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

"The White Man's Burden" means that the the white man has certain duties to do in life. Relating to the poem, the white man's duty is to convert the Philippines into a civilized democratic place to live which was a difficult task for the white man. I do agree with some of the analysis of "The White Man's Burden", especially the point where the analysis explains white men being racist to people from the Philippines. An example of this racism from the white men has to do with the Philippines culture which was considered as uncivilized to the white men. Considering the the poem was written in 1899 about US imperialism in the Philippines, the United States is still imperialistic today, this time is in Iraq. But it is not the same imperialism that was described in "The White Man's Burden". The US wanted Iraq to become a democratic government, so they went to war to stop the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Now since the US is staying at Iraq, they will not leave until the Iraqi people can handle their new democratic government. This has nothing to do with the U.S. changing the Iraqi culture at any time, and it will never occur unless the U.S. government wants power.

"The Scramble for Africa"

2007-12-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

The term "The Scramble for Africa" talks about European powers going to Africa and conquer any land that they find useful for their country back in Europe. The main European nations that went to colonize parts of Africa were: England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium. The main reason why they even went to Africa, was for the natural resources crawling all over Africa such as gold, ivory, etc. the need for labor, and the emerge of new markets. The Europeans had technological advantages that allowed them to conquer Africa. This effected the African people in a way that lead them to take revenge on the Europeans and take back their old land back to African control like it should be.

Film Lesson: Mountains of the Moon

2007-12-03T07:44:00.000-08:00

In the film "Mountains of the Moon", it showed scences of how hard europeans experienced when exploring Africa. They had to face the roaring sun of deserts, the hard paasage way of rocks. Even bugs crawling around their camp site. Not only that, europeans also faced attacking tribes that intruded their territory and attacked to scare them away.

In another scence, John Speek told Richard Berton that he finally found the source of the Nile River even though he did not believe him. That source was later called Lake Victoria. The thing that is strange about the name of the source of the Nile River is that is named by a British Queen. I think that the source shoud have the African name of it because they were the first people to discover that source. It is either that, or it should be named by the european explorers that founded it. The point is that the Queen is taking most of the credit of the source by naming it after herself and that is just not fair.

In most of the scenes, Speek and Berton were seen defending themselves with guns. An technology that Africans never saw before and was fasinated of how it used. They could defeat a tribe by a trigger of a bullet. That tells me that the Europeans had enough power to conquer parts of Africa just by using guns as a primary weapon.

The Meiji Restoration of Japan

2007-11-27T07:43:00.000-08:00

The restoration of Japan all started when U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry landed at Japanese soils "bullying" them. By "bullying" Japan, it means that the United States were showing off how good their military was to them. Once the saw all the technological advances and the size of the ships the Americans had when they set sail at Japan, the Japanese became impressed and signed a treaty in which the Japanese opened two ports for the U.S. to trade with them. Japan was in need of reformation since their economy was in a threshold due to their lack of technology from the industrial revolution the West had when they came to trade with Japan. Also during that time the Japanese shogun government collapsed in which lead to the emperor(at that time the emperor was Meiji) to take full control of Japan leading to the Meiji era. With the economy in jeopardy, the Japanese take a look at every industrial aspect the West had, and mimic some of that for Japan's use. This mimic has raised the trend of Japan's economy back to the positive side of the graph. Japan is an archipelago which is a group of small islands close to each other.

Karl Marx and Communism

2007-11-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

Karl Marx ideas of communism was the direct result of the hatred he feel for capitalism. It was all about the idea of every person being entitled to economic equality. For example, in communism, people have an equal salary of money no matter what job they work at in their society. Another example of Marx's communism ideas is the government entitling equality to houses and business spots to people in that society. Marx wanted his communist ideas to take over the world since most of the world has converted to industrialization and capitalism. But the important reason is to bring economic equality so that peace is fulfilled in every society without all the violence of protests for injustice working conditions that capitalists give people for little money. That is why he see capitalists as the bad guy in society and people that supports and acknowledges his ideas(communists) as the good guys in society. In other words capitalists are selfish, rich, and careless to other people, while communists care for people especially for their economic issues.

Karl Marx and the Industrial Revolution

2007-11-15T07:46:00.000-08:00

Karl Marx was not a big fan of the Industrial Revolution. He hated it so much of some of the aspects of the Industrial Revolution that has changed human society. He disliked the working conditions in industrial factories which were very dangerous. Most of all, he disliked the fact that capitalists are gaining lots of money and political power while their workers are treated like garbage. Therefore Marx wanted to see changes to occur in the economic world. These changes include people getting enough money for their necessity in which was shared equally to everyone. There would be no private ownership of property; people have equal ownership of housing and business. There would be no capitalists becoming monopolies and give little money to workers. These economic ideas of equality are known as the ideas of Communism.

Nationalism and the Creation of Italy

2007-10-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

Nationalism is when people have the freedom to stand up for what they believe in without the authority of Kings and Queens. In other words, nationalism is when people have their own culture and history and no government can prevent that culture/history to be vanished. When someone says how an I nationalistic, that means that I have a certain something that symbolizes my history/culture of my family's ancestors along with the territory that I live in. I talk to my friends and other people in one language, and I talk to my family in another language which shows how nationalistic am I.

The whole meaning of nationalism is what influenced the creation of Italy. It gave Italian people the idea of freedom in which their foreign rulers will never give them. Before Italy was created, it was made by kingdoms and small islands. Each piece of Italy was precisely rulers by foreign countries in Europe . Apparently Italians hated the part that their land was controlled by many foreign rulers from foreign countries. They wanted one country in which will have liberty of their own culture unlike the culture's of other countries in Europe. With this in mind two leaders came to unify Italy. these people were Giuseppe Mazzini which liberated land from all the foreign rulers and Camillo di Cavour which united the liberated land into one country named Italy.

Simon Bolivar and Latin American Revolutions

2007-10-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

Simon Bolivar was a Spanish liberator that has liberated most of South America from the Spanish Empire. His influence that lead to the liberation of countries of South America came from countries like United Staes and Haiti which were already liberated from Europe. Everyone in South America knows how famous he was when it came for freedom in that continent. Bolivar's first accomplishment started in 1811 where he joined forces with Francisco De Miranda to take control of the capital of Venezuela Caracas from the Spanish. This has lead to the independence of Venezuela in 1819. Later on in 1815, Bolivar went on to fight for the independence of New Granada (Colombia) and achieved it with the help of English and Irish men by walking to the Andes Mountain, Surprise the Spanish and capture Bogotá (the capital of Colombia). These two liberated Countries became known at that time as the Republic of Colombia. Next in May 1822, Bolivar with the help of Gen. Antonio Jose De Sucre liberated Ecuador from the rulings of the Spanish and headed to Peru their next target. Successfully Bolivar and Sucre managed to liberate Peru and Bolivia (created from Peru's provinces) from the Spanish in 1825 and got rid of the Spanish Empire from South America. The country name Bolivia was a acknowledgment of Simon Bolivar for his hard strength and courage in liberating most of South America.

Robespierre and The Reign of Terror

2007-09-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

Before democracy came officially to France, the French people suffered a time of hardcore horror known as the Reign of Terror. The reign of terror had to do with the cruel ruling of a dictator named Maximilien Robespierre. Robespierre during that time took control of France when the country was at a struggle of power. He tried to erase everything that reminded his people about the old monarchy.

The thing that gave the reign of terror it's name was Robespierre sending people to be executed using a contraption called the guillotine. The guillotine was a machine that cuts people's heads off, used before Robespierre took control. It has contributed to the death of King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette by a powerful group called the Jacobins. The reason he executed many people with this device was the fact that these people might be a dangerous threat to the so called free government. It ended when the French got tired of Robespierre's government cutting people's heads off with the influence that they might be next. They took Robespierre to the guillotine and paid the price of killing millions of innocent people with his head chopped off.

The French Revolution: Social Causes

2007-09-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

It all started with the structure of the French social groups or estates. It was mostly the trigger that started the French Revolution. The first two estates(consisting of the clergy and the nobles) having the least number of people, but it has the most power when it comes to decision making for France. The opposite can be said for the third estate which has most of the population than the other estates. The third estate had very little power to make decisions for the country. When taxes are involved in the cause of the french revolution, the first two estates were to pay little or were forgiven of taxes while the third estate payed taxes extremely high. The people of the third estate felt that the government is using them to get what they want. An example of this is the goods the third estate produce for the other two estates, the king and queen.

The hope of the third estate getting the government to be reformed was an idea they saw at the time of the Enlightenment especially the thinkers Rousseau and Voltaire but most importantly Comte d’Antraigues. According to a quote from D'Antraigues writing Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, it says that "People is everything". In other words relating to the French revolution, people of the third estate has every right to get privileges from the government because they were the people that has supported the government every single day with their hard work. It should be the least thing the government should do to reward the hard work made by the third estate.

The government made another role to the French Revolution. During the late 1700's, France was suffering with a bad economy level. They were owing lots of money leading the country to a state of bankruptcy and the king especially King Louis XVI didn't do anything to stop the debt. The third estate got so mad about the unfairness of the Estates-General meeting that they created a new assembly for the third estate only which is called the National Assembly. Louis XVI wanted to make peace with the third estate making the clergy and nobles to join the national assembly. At the sense of trouble, the king order Swiss guards into Paris for his protection. With the rumor of foreign troops coming into Paris to kill French citizens, people gathered weapons to protect themselves from that foreign troops. An example of this was on July 14, 1789 when people gained control of a Paris prison called Bastille from the king's soldiers for gunpowder representing a "symbolic act of revolution" for France.

Copernicus and the Trial of Galileo

2007-09-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

Geocentric vs. Heliocentric

There are two theories that around the time of the scientific revolution, it has created a outstanding controversy. Those theories are the heliocentric derived from Copernicus and the geocentric derived from Aristole. Both theories are about the world outside Earth known as the Universe precisely about the object that is in the center of the solar system. The geocentric talks about the earth being the center of the universe and the planets, stars, the sun, etc. revolving around it. The heliocentric which is the successor of the geocentric is about the sun being the center of the solar system and probably the center of the universe, and every other object revolving around it. The church and people before the scientific revolution believed in the geocentric but thanks to the scientific method during the 16th century, the geocentric was proven wrong. Then it was modified into the heliocentric during the scientific revolution in which people now believe that this is the correct theory.

The Trail of Galileo

The trail of Galileo was about him spreading the ideas of Copernicus when the Roman Catholic Church told them not to. Galileo believed in Copernicus' ideas about the heliocentric theory. He proved this theory right thanks to his newly invented telescope proving that the earth never was in the center of the solar system. He has spread this theory to everyone in the 16th century ignoring the church's order of not spreading this idea. The church thought that the heliocentric was false and believed in the geocentric. What they did to stop the spreading of the heliocentric theory was that they sent Galileo to prison and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Then the church took his writing about the heliocentric theory and put it in a place called the "Index of Prohibited Books" where a guy named Kepler and Copernicus' writing was located.

Scientific Revolution: Scientific Method

2007-09-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

The scientific method is used to distinguish if any theory is right or wrong. This is the best method to use to gain accurate information about any topic. It consists of the some steps in which is shown on this flow chart to the left. If the experiment proves the hypothesis correct, then the hypothesis can now be considered as a theory. If it doesn't, then the hypothesis is not considered as a theory and must be modified or rejected.

Here is an example of how the scientific method works. There was a theory made by Aristole about males and females having different amounts of teeth. If you test this theory with the scientific method by observing the number of teeth of males and females, you get the result as males and females having the same amount of teeth. That means that Aristole's theory is proven wrong, and a new accurate theory has emerged.

Evolution vs Creation

2007-09-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

Evolution

Evolution is a theory created by Charles Darwin explaining how different species came from a common ancestor and how are those species formed. That means that the most complex creatures that people know today evolved from simplest ancestor. This evolution has been caused by a genetic mutation that changes the genetic code of particular specie. The result is Natural selection, or the specie having a characteristic in which can be used to survive a typical environment some other organisms can't and producing offspring's that was crossed over with that specific characteristic. A specie is formed by an organism made of systems of organs, that is part of many systems of tissues, and which is made from millions of systems of cells. The only catch is if anything is missing on a particular system, then that system will deteriorate causing damages to that specie.

Creationism

Creationism is what many people believe in talking about a god or goddesses creating humanism, life in earth, earth itself, and the whole universe. The number of gods depends on the religion people might believe in (some examples are Christianity, Islam, etc.). Information realating to creationism can be found in a section called genesis. Genesis can be found in the first part of the old testament of the bible. Controversey still continues with evolutionists and creationists so that they can figure out which side has the truth between the creation of species, earth and the universe.