Tyranny, Injustice, and Self-determination

Tyranny is an unfair rule or dictatorship and one group or person has absolute power, usually by means of violence. Injustice is when someone is being treated unfairly or unequally. Self-determination is the want to rule oneself without any outside interference or influence.
In the book "Animal Farm" these three things are shown many times. The farmer Jones is a tyrant to the animals because they never get to do what they want. He treats them cruelly, makes them work till they have to energy, and forgets to give them food.
It shows injustice because the animals are treated unfairly with no time to rest, no food, lots of work, and for payment, they get killed for food.
Self-determination is shown because the animals are tired of the way they are being treated. They want freedom to do things they normally couldn't under the rule of the humans. When the farmer forgets to feed the animals one day, and the cow tries to get food from the house, the farmer gets really mad. The animals are fed up with the farmer and his workers and revolt against them. Once the farmer goes away, the animals are free to live the way they want. This is how the book shows examples of these terms.

World War One Poem

The Great War

He stands in the trench
Motionless, he will wait
For the whistle to be blown
And decide his fate

The screaming, the blood
The sounds of the gun
The misery, the horrors
Part of World War One


He listens and looks
Hears the agonizing shouts
This is not what he signed up for
But it’s what war’s about


A nauseating smell fills his nose
Harsh shouts, a dreadful cry
Quickly, he puts on his mask
While near him, so many die

Bullets fly everywhere

Their throats are dry, bodies sore

They can't stop, they have to fight

Because the guns never cease to roar

He came to war, exuberant

Excited like never before

Now he leaves, wounded

Lucky to live, one day more

Sources:

www.army.mil/asianpacificsoldiers/Images/wwi.jpg

z.about.com/d/history1900s/1/0/O/3/wwi16.gif

z.about.com/d/history1900s/1/0/M/3/wwi15.gif

www.chemical-corps.org/history/images/GasAtta

schools.4j.lane.edu/churchill/library/classes

Military in Your Future?

It is not compulsory for a citizen of the United States to join the army. So, this means that I don't have to join the army when I grow up, but I do have the choice to. I wouldn't want to join the army, though. Even if it is for defending the country, I don't believe in violence and I could never stand to be a part of a war or know that I am responsible for killing or injuring a person. As for military training, I could do that. I just wouldn't want to be part of the actual fighting. I want to be a doctor when I grow up, so if I could be a doctor for any wounded soldiers, I would do that. I think that would be just as important as being out on the battle field because I would be helping in saving peoples lives. Also, there are many people joining the army, so it wouldn't really make a difference to me or the country if I didn't join. I'm not really brave and if it means risking my life, I would rather do something else to help my country.

Reflection

The main visual elements of this cartoon include a British man handing out treaties. There are other people next to him receiving the treaties and passing out more treaties. It might also be shaking hands. There is a woman crying on the side and a man who hasn't received anything. All of the people represent different countries. The point is that everyone is making alliances. The issue is that these alliances can't be kept because everyone except the woman and one man have made alliances with each other. It's too complicated because if 2 countries get in a fight, the others don't know what to do because they all have alliances. This also shows that some people have more hands reaching out to them than other countries. The cartoonist is trying to show that only richer countries get alliances. The cartoonist doesn't think this is a good idea because these alliances aren't going to always be kept. Even though countries that don't like each other may not have made alliances, they're still tied together by the other countries who've made alliances with both of them. I also think he's trying to show that the wealthier countries such as the UK have more allies because they have more to trade. The man on the outside is Turkey and doesn't have much to trade so he has no alliances. The woman crying is probably a poor country because she has no allies. This relates to the great powers game because just like them, most of us made alliances with most countries. When there was a war, the countries wouldn't know what to do because they were friends with both sides. In the end, the alliances had almost no effect because they were almost all broken. Also, the wealthier countries got the most allies. The cartoonist could have made his point more clear.

Great Powers Game Debrief

In the Great Powers game, I was Germany. We were one of the luckier countries at the beginning because we had a spending power of 3 . The countries with the most advantages were the ones with a spending power of 4 though. Another advantage for some countries were the allies the already had. For example, the U.S. had a lot of allies at the beginning along with the fact that it was a strong country so a lot of people wanted to make allies. Germany, on the other hand, didn't have many allies so before the game even started, we had countries that hated us. In the long run, it wasn't important to buy navies and soon everyone figured that out and didn't spend much money on that. I think it was important to buy industries and colonies first so that we had money to buy armies. In the beginning of the game, France declared war against us and took all we had except for one colony. After that, we were the one country behind everyone else and we had to build our way up from there. I think we did well in gaining our spending power again so we weren't the lowest country. Next time, I would spend more money on army. Even though it was important to buy industry, there's no point if we don't have any army to defend it.
In the long run, alliances didn't make much of a difference for us. We had most countries sign our paper, but in the end, half those countries declared war against us, or were on the opposing side. I learned that the way you spend money is very important, alliances often don't mean much, and sometimes you'll start with a disadvantage. That doesn't mean you can't work your way around it.

End of Quarter 2 Feedback

Out of the three goals I made last quarter, two were met and the other partially met. I wanted to learn about Africa and imperialism, get better at Socratic seminars, and study more for tests and quizzes. The first goal was met because we spend a lot of time learning about Africa. I had never learned about Africa before, so I was glad to learn about it. For the second goal, I wanted to be better at Socratic seminars which we didn't do this quarter, so that goal wasn't met. Although we didn't have Socratic seminars, we had debates which are like those. I prepared for those and so I think my goal was partially met. Lastly, I wanted to study harder for tests and quizzes and I met that because I studied harder for the tests and quizzes we had this quarter and it showed because I got better results.
One of my goals for the third quarter is to participate more in class. I usually don't talk much in class on my own account, so I want to improve on that.
I also want to learn about other parts of the world that don't always do with North America. I want to learn about places like Central America which I haven't spend much time learning about.
Lastly, I want to do some work with grammar because I like writing but grammar and punctuation are some of my weak points.
These are my three goals for quarter 3.