So, when I first started this class, back in January, I didn't know much about global politics. To be Honest, I got my news from the E channel. Pathetic yes, but true. I was more concerned about how fat Kim Kardashian was getting with her unexpected pregnancy than what is going on in the rest of the world. OK, so I have a BBC app on my phone (which i rarely use)....but that is about as connected to the news as I get. I always used the excuse of "It's so gruesome and depressing, why would I want to watch the news? and even if I did, its totally biased". Well as truthful as that is, it is always important to be informed as to what is going on in the world.
The premises of political geography is to shed light on human interaction of spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. This includes the inter-relationship between a nation state and its citizens, local and national elections, war and conflict, terrorism, historical and religious regions, religion, colonialism, hegemonic global roles and border impacts. The god father of Political Geography is Halford Mackinder. Mackinder developed his theory of the geographical pivot of history, which states that the world will be divided into a heartland consisting of eastern Europe, a world island made up of Eurasia and Africa, peripheral islands and the new world. His theory said that whoever controlled the heartland, controlled the world. Territorial arrangement and its correlating political forces, along with its interaction with other groups or countries is what defines their socioeconomic status. Mackinder believed this was eastern Europe, the global hegemon. little did Mackinder know that the big bad wolf, America, was about to dominate.
All in all, I learned alooooot in this class and this is probably the best and most interesting class I have ever taken at Florida State. Seriously. I not only learned alot about global politics and how geography affects countries, but as well as how I personally view America versus the rest of the world, along with my political positioning and how i incorporate my moral values. I now watch the news as well.....which shocks my mom haha.
Monday, April 15, 2013
War and Conflict
Most people don't want to go to war. War is messy, devastating and expensive. War exists due to built up tensions between feuding nations, and eventually an event will happen that pushes the envelope too far. this is known as "the flashpoint". This event is what shifts the public's opinion and justifies the regime to respond with violence against the group responsible for their actions. Flashpoints change global perspectives. Neo-conservatives argue that the "enemy is out there, and as the global hegemon, it is our duty to identify them and surpress any other violent acts that may ensue". This means foreign wars, NEVER in our homeland, preemptive actions before attacks ensue, especially on American soil and war is inevitable....unless we, the hegemon, do something first. American are not one to "react", we carefully calculate our actions with force, scare tactics and out smarting the enemy before they even have time to blink.
The typical, and realistic side of war is that it encourages violence, which produces mass amounts of deaths on both fighting sides. However, not all is bad in times of war. Many believe that war stimulates the economy, builds national pride, decreases over population, gaining of territory or ending oppression in dictatorial states.
It is much easier to make a con's list of coarse. this includes but is not limited to: seperation of loved ones, death, destabalizing a country, destruction of cities/farms/property/etc, economic struggle, genocide, cultural cleansing, colonization, terrorism, expensive, nuclear weapons, disease, etc. The list can go on and on.
I believe, as much as I hate to say this, that war is not only inevitable but a way for a nation state to gain or regain independence, democracy and or over throw its government. NO ONE likes death (unless your a sick F***) but it is apart of every day life, as sad and tragic as that is.
Now something that was mentioned in class that caught my attention was the picture that the group "Annonymous" posted of Kim Jung Un that went viral in North Korea. Oh man, where do I start? First off....WTF. Yes...we get it. Its funny...but that was insanely inappropriate and childish. As an American, I truly felt embarrassed looking at that picture. Why are we poking at a country that already hates us and is clearly insane/starving/helpless? WHY?! This group "Annonymous" is acting like an American bully who sits behind a computer gorging on sticky buns and redbulls (who probably has never even traveled outside the U.S.), toying around with pictures all day long, with nothing better to do, instead of working, while I am working and probably paying taxes out the butt so they can sit there on the computer all day and fool around. must be nice....assholes. Don't you have anything better to do? I mean seriously. Damn liberals are always complaining how we should be "helping the weak, feeding the needy, medicare and food stamps for everyone, etc", well then how about actually helping the most poverish, oppressed and starving nation in the world?!?! Your poking fun at a "Oh grande, amazing, superb, chosen one, elite, awesome leader" and a small group of elites, while the rest of the country is extremely oppressed and people are dying every second.
I just think it was incredibly in appropriate and alarming that American citizens would go so far as to make a ridiculous photo like that. Shame on you, who ever you are. What message were you trying to send? Because all you did was light a fire under Un's ass to act upon terrorizing the U.S. (well...I mean I don't know if he will get very far, his attempts have been pathetic thus far...but still).
YOU DON'T TOY WITH A TODDLER WHO JUST GOT A SHINY NEW GUN.
The typical, and realistic side of war is that it encourages violence, which produces mass amounts of deaths on both fighting sides. However, not all is bad in times of war. Many believe that war stimulates the economy, builds national pride, decreases over population, gaining of territory or ending oppression in dictatorial states.
It is much easier to make a con's list of coarse. this includes but is not limited to: seperation of loved ones, death, destabalizing a country, destruction of cities/farms/property/etc, economic struggle, genocide, cultural cleansing, colonization, terrorism, expensive, nuclear weapons, disease, etc. The list can go on and on.
I believe, as much as I hate to say this, that war is not only inevitable but a way for a nation state to gain or regain independence, democracy and or over throw its government. NO ONE likes death (unless your a sick F***) but it is apart of every day life, as sad and tragic as that is.
Now something that was mentioned in class that caught my attention was the picture that the group "Annonymous" posted of Kim Jung Un that went viral in North Korea. Oh man, where do I start? First off....WTF. Yes...we get it. Its funny...but that was insanely inappropriate and childish. As an American, I truly felt embarrassed looking at that picture. Why are we poking at a country that already hates us and is clearly insane/starving/helpless? WHY?! This group "Annonymous" is acting like an American bully who sits behind a computer gorging on sticky buns and redbulls (who probably has never even traveled outside the U.S.), toying around with pictures all day long, with nothing better to do, instead of working, while I am working and probably paying taxes out the butt so they can sit there on the computer all day and fool around. must be nice....assholes. Don't you have anything better to do? I mean seriously. Damn liberals are always complaining how we should be "helping the weak, feeding the needy, medicare and food stamps for everyone, etc", well then how about actually helping the most poverish, oppressed and starving nation in the world?!?! Your poking fun at a "Oh grande, amazing, superb, chosen one, elite, awesome leader" and a small group of elites, while the rest of the country is extremely oppressed and people are dying every second.
I just think it was incredibly in appropriate and alarming that American citizens would go so far as to make a ridiculous photo like that. Shame on you, who ever you are. What message were you trying to send? Because all you did was light a fire under Un's ass to act upon terrorizing the U.S. (well...I mean I don't know if he will get very far, his attempts have been pathetic thus far...but still).
YOU DON'T TOY WITH A TODDLER WHO JUST GOT A SHINY NEW GUN.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
terrorism
I was sitting in my 6th grade natural science class, in Coral Springs FL, when 3 soliders walked in and took the teacher aside. My classmates and I were all curious what was going on as the look of shock and fear spread across our teachers face. My teacher walked over to the television and turned it on to the news, something that was very out of the ordinary. Usually turning the on T.V. meant a lazy movie day when our teacher didn't feel like preaching to a roudy class of 11-12 year old kids. Something was different today; We were all uneasy. As our teacher turned to the news, thick clouds of smoke, screaming people, soliders and firefighters filled the T.V. It looked like a battle scene from a movie. We sat quietly, but none of us understood what was going on. I slowly raised my hand to break the silence. "Whats going on Ms. Dover?", she slowly and carefully replied that the Untied States was under attack. Fear and terror quickly crept in all of our young minds. I began to think what "under attack meant" and why were there soliders? Am I in danger? Where are my parents? What about my little brother? Am I safe here at school?
Thousands of questions ran through my head, yet I still was unsure how to comprehend everything that was going on. About an hour after the attack, a solider escorted me to the front of the school, where my mom, and several other panicked parents were picking up their kids.
The car ride home was silent. Even my 8 year old brother, who is normally irritating and always doing something buggy was quiet. Once upon arrival at our house, my dad was already sitting in front of the television, motioning us to sit down with him. We all, as a family, sat there in silence and watched as they replayed the twin towers crumble to shambles, while millions of New York civilians ran around like chicken with their heads cut off. Some people were on cell phones with their loved ones, other helping firefighters, but most in just shear panic, staggering to any safe place they could find. The worst of the scenes was watching people jump from the twin towers. Complete and utter hopelessness ran through their lifeless bodies as they pummeled down to the ground to meet their fate.
I will never forget September 11th 2001. It was a day when I learned the meaning of fear. This type of fear is not what I was accustom to; Like when my dad would jump out of the closet and scare me, or a spider on the floor, or a scary movie, or halloween tricks, or fear of jumping from a high tree or even fear of punishment when I did something bad. No this fear was different. This fear was something even my parents couldn't hide.
Instilling fear within a population or group is the premise of what terrorism is. Terrorism is a systematic and tactical organized group or individual which use violence through criminal acts as a means of coercion. These violent acts are usually politically, religiously or ideologically driven to deliberately target and victimize non-combatant civilians, oftening leading to many deaths and eventually war. Terrorists provoke fear in hopes of establishing symbolic terrorism to oppress a nation or group to gain media attention in order to influence a short or long term goal for maximum economic damage and psycological affect.
Basically, they are radical assholes.
Whether you believe it or not, terrorism works. there have been many many forms of terrorism; bus bombings, ruining villages, sending threats of nuclear weapons, military force such as kent university or killing a global leader. The point of 9/11 was to send a message of hatred. Welllll.....we got it and then did something about it. It worked because it provoked a war. Besides the war, we still feel the effects of it today; Such as the airport, with its intense and tight security, phone tapping, american flags are EVERYWHERE!, cultural impacts, economic devastation, fear, racism against anyone who even looks middle eastern (racial profiling), islamic awareness, radicals are acknowledged and known, military dependency, strengthened border protections, the global hegemon is challenged and the world was nervous, I mean the list can go on and on. The point is... we have all tightened our belts and acknowledged terrorism. AND THATS THE POINT OF TERRORISM, TO MAKE A STATEMENT. However, the U.S. as the global hegemony, shut that shit down real quick. Our resilience was quick and our efforts to terminate terrorism was a success (kinda).
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