Whose War? A series of posts on John Reed's Speach.

    This is the first of many posts about John Reed's speech "Whose War?" If you don't know what I am talking about than go to this link. http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1917/masses02.htm. That is where you can find a copy of the speech.

Here is how the series will work out:

1. Main pointes and ideas of the speech
2. Two Words
3. How to teach it to a semi- bright fourth grader
4. Pieces of music that reflect the source
5. What the source says about America today

Image from: http://www.vladimir-vysotsky.de/bilder/reed1.jpg

Yellow Journalism

Yellow journalism is either writing a story that is based on fact but is not necessarily true; or writing sensational headlines in order to get readers; or both. It was started by a man named Joseph Pulitzer. who remarkably now has a prize named after him. Pulitzer wrote scandalous, thrilling stories. His rival was William Randolph Hearst. Hearst wrote for the New York Journal. He often tried to top Pulitzers headlines and stories. The two reporters often focused on  Cuba. Going on about the practices with the  prisoners  and about how there was blood everywhere. In fact they even made a comic about the practice of yellow journalism. It was called the yellow kid.
   The theme that yellow journalism represents is "Economics drove the expansion." Once again I don't know what they where expanding to but economics drove it. They wanted people to buy their newspaper. Buying things is drives the economy. Economy sounds kinda like Economics. Therefore, yellow journalism represents this theme.
 


Picture from:https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/vbitters/www/001YellowKid.jpeg

Fox News- History often repeats itself

   I have never in my life seen Fox News. My parents do not allow me to watch it. From what I have gathered though. Fox News is a modern day version of yellow journalism. Their reports, though based on what I have understood through their website and my parents, are real but told one sided. The stories are based on fact but only tell the side that makes Republicans look sweet and innocent. Fox News doesn't hold prestige. In fact now it is just a branch of the Republican Party.
    The theme that Fox News represents is "Economics drove the expansion." Expansion to where I am not quite sure, but economics completely drove it. They make sensational stories to get viewers, therefore money.
 

   from: http://www.zahipedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/zahipedia_fox_news.jpg

Isolationism- Where we don't get invovled.

    Isolation is when we do not get involved with other countries. Because we are a country of following orders.  President Washington told us not to get involved because things could get ugly. So we Americans stood silently. Watching from the sidelines. God, I feel like I am in advisory, talking about STAND and stuff like that. I heart advisory.
   Isolation goes against the theme "Foreign version of Manifest Destiny." This is due to the fact that we did not go off and expand our so called "greatness" on the rest of the world. Instead, we just stood on the sidelines watching wars, won and lost. Of course after all that happened we took over.

Imperalism-

Imperalism is when a nation builds an empire by taking over political and economical control of people. An example of this is Napoleon, a fellow short person. But, that is besides the point. What I am getting to is that America stood as a bystander. We didn't do anything as France, England, and other countries made an empire for themselves. No, we took the advice of our president George Washington, who warned us not to get involved with foreign affairs.  Later in  time though, we looked back at the advice as more of... guidelines per say. We began to take on more of a foreign manifest destiny. This was after conquering the Manifest Destiny. We began to look at expansion into foreign nations.
    This is an example of the theme "Foreign version of Manifest Destiny." This is because the Western Frontier was  conquered.  We then spread to  foreign  nations  in order to look  like  we were expanding America's views. We had a duty to expand our greatness.

Alaska- Another place I will not go

   Alaska was the 49th state to join the union. We purchased it from Russia for 2 cents an acre. Even so it was still 7.2 million dollars. Which is quite a lot of money even though it might not seem it. Yeah, so if Alaska cost 2 cents an acre now, many rich people could buy Alaska. The man behind buying Alaska was Secretary of State William Seward. He was a strong advacate of US expansion. When he bought Alaska, some people thought it was a big mistake. Just a big, frozen wasteland. But, those people were wrong. Alaska turned out to be full of gold and oil. Silly Americans.

     Alaska represents the theme "Economic intrest drove the expansion." It represents this theme because Seward bought it beacause he thought it would be a jump in trade between Russia and America. As stated a lot in the past few posts trade = economics. So economics drove the expansion of the US into Alaska.

Open Door Policy- where the door is ajar

The Open Door policy was issued first in a message from the US Secretary of State. At the time that was Mr. John Hay. He wanted China to leave an "open door." Hay meant that he wanted to have equal trading rights between nations. Most nations responded by neither saying yes or no. Being neutral like Alex is in most things. In the end Hay declared that the "open door policy" had been accepted.

   The theme that this represents is "Economic interests drove expansion." This all Mr. Hay wanted was to secure trading rights for the US. As shown in a previous post trade = money. Money is economics therefore Mr. Hay is showing economic intrest in China. Therefore economic intrests are driving the policy of the government.


JUST IN CASE: I think I forgot to metion this before China is an amazing country


Picture taken from:http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/Images-ChinaLinks1-07/china-map.jpg