Semester Two: Blog 12

Dear Mr. President,

Its now finally the end of the war with Afghanistan, and I want to definitely address having a Marshall Plan with the country. I think we should always have Marshall Plans with countries, I know that would cost a lot of money but it would also be a step closer to world peace through our alliances. A prime example of why we should almost always do the Marshall Plan is when American chose to fight through the Afghani rebels to bring down the USSR. We trained them, gave them supplies and weapons until they finally held them off long enough to have the USSR think they were defeated. This was a great victory for Afghanistan, but once the war was over we just stopped giving them money and support. But because of the war all of the houses and building were in ruin and instead of helping and using the Marshall Plan we left them there alone. This later led to the 9/11 World Trade Center attack and the war we are in now. So please consider having a Marshall Plan with Afghanistan.

Sincerely,

Maira Vierheller

http://www.cacianalyst.org/?q=node/5132

http://www.matrixmasters.com/world/america/afghanistan/warafghanistan%20home.html

http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2010/06/the-marshall-plan-for-afghanistan-.html

Semester Two: Blog Eleven

If I were President Obama and I had to deal with the Geneva Conventions I would first sit down and discuss as many peoples opinions on the matter as possible. I would then weight out the pros and cons of each decision and make a logical decision. But overall I think I would chose to have the prisoners back over here, in the United States, to live in different jails. Because I agree with what John Stewart on the Daily Show says in this video( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8RybipyTFI, the video is down at the bottom). I feel that they should be treated fairly and like human beings, just like they were in World War Two. This would probably be the final decision I would make.

Semester Two: Honors Blog

Dear Old Friend,

The times have really changed. Over here in New York all of our lives have been flipped upside down. With all of the men have gone in war, its leaving a lot of jobs open for women to take. We finally have the chance to prove that we can hold our own and support ourselves. Are you planning on getting a job? I just recently went down to the factory and finally got a job creating bullets and ammunition for the war, I’m honestly a little scared. Having this job is new for me, I’m used to only helping out at home but now I’m supporting myself and I feel like I’m really helping our country in this war. Now that I’m making the ammunition I feel needed and like I’m helping for once. There are many things I’ve been thinking about like how things will change when this war is over. Will there now be too many jobs? Or will the women be forced out of the ones we have now? Because I know that some of the other girls and I don’t want to stop helping and want to finally stop that feeling of being useless. Plus I keep seeing these posters around town with a picture of a woman on it that says, “We can do it.” This is great for us; it gives me some hope that we will finally be recognized. I hope so, and despite all of these new changes I still constantly worry and pray for my brother and husband over fighting in Germany. I also hope your husband will come home safely and unharmed.

Much Love,

Maira Vierheller

1914

Semester Two: Blog Nine

1.)

The first piece of propaganda I chose was Disney's anti-war propaganda. This was a video made during World War Two and was shown before movies in movie theaters in America. This video surprised me a lot because I had never known that Disney had created a video like this and showed it to people. It also surprised me that there were little subtle things in the video that caught my attention and made me see how strongly the Americans were pushing propaganda.

2.)

This was a World War Two propaganda film that was also created during World War Two. It was made to show Americans how horrible Hitler was and what we should be doing. The first thing that surprised me was at the very beginning and how it started out saying exactly what it was meant to do and how it was related to Hitler. There were also little things that caught my attention like on the little pigs door it said no "japs" allowed.

3.)

This is another video made by the Americans to prove how bad the opposing side was in World War Two. This was made to make people hate the opposite side of us in the war. There were many things that surprised me when I first saw this video. One the title is "Tokio Jokio", second everything in it is against Japan and is making fun of the Japanese people and briefly all the other countries against us, it was just a very racist video.

Semester Two: Blog 8

I Chose to Write About Symbolism:

When I read the book Maus for Humanities class many things stood out to me, one main thing was the symbolism within the book. Maus is a book about World War Two and the Holocaust. It’s a personal account and told through an old war victims experiences. The entire story is filled with symbolism, just like how the author made all of the Jewish people mice and all of the German Nazi’s cats. I feel that the author did this to make the story less graphic and difficult to read. I know personally it made looking at and reading about all of the horrific things the Nazi’s did less difficult. But overall this story was very interesting to me, because of how it was written and told. I liked how they made it like telling a story and gave you little breaks by bringing it back into the present. This gave all of the characters more personality and you see how they turned out in the end. By doing this it helped me get a full understanding about World War two and its after affects. It was also interesting to watch the fathers story unfold in the war and how he escaped, it kept me wanted to read more and more to find out what happened. But overall this story was filled with symbolism and was very interesting and enlightening to read.