Questions and Facts/details learned from Frontline program

Questions:
1. Why were they so secretive after 9/11? Wouldn't people find out eventually and make it worse?
2. Why was it called Greystone?
3. Why did the CIA go overseas first?
4. Why did they decide to build an overseas prison?
5. How did they determine who were the Al Queda leaders?
6. How did the American public find out and react to the war?
7. What is meant by "unconventional war" with Iraq?
8. What made this man search for all the secret government buildings in the US?
9. How do Americans react to secret buildings? Are enough Americans aware of this?
10. Is it even beneficial to have these agencies?

Facts/Details:
1. Plan for war began immediately after 9/11 occurred
2. Greystone- code name for Al Queda mission
3. War started within a week, CIA went before military
4. Worked with locals to minimize American footprint
5. Used enhanced integration techniques to get information
6. John Rizzo created prison system overseas which was a secret international building
7. NSA mission: prevent a future terrorist attack
8. War required information not tanks and guns
9. Secret world has grown after 9/11 (not revealed to public and scattered around US)
10. Billions of dollars going into these secret agencies

Interview

I interviewed an 18 year old student about the themes and big ideas of this chapter. I first started off about the overall idea of voting and our government. I asked about whether getting reelected is more important to politicians than making real decisions. He doesn't think so because he believes in order to get reelected it is necessary to make real decisions. You need to make the people happy with your decisions to get reelected. He said he would vote strictly for his party. I don't understand how people know who to vote for or how to get to know all the candidates. Do many people just vote on other people’s opinions and follow them or do they vote on your party. I'd like to know how to vote since I will be voting in the near futures.

I then started discussing the Constitution with him. He started off saying that the Constitution should be revised periodically since a lot of things have changed and it needs to benefit the people of that time. However many people have different views on this specific topic of updating the Constitution. He also believed the Constitution was written as a set of guidelines since guidelines are more flexible and easily changed. But he believes it has now began to become strictly adhered too since people constantly turn to the Constitution for support of their cause. There are many opinions on this also. He said that we must have the Constitution rather than going by our own humanity. He brought up the fact that there are many beliefs and morals with the different people that we must have a set of guidelines that we can all base on.

Overall I agree with these answers. I wonder what older adults would feel on these issues and themes of this chapter. I would like to compare my findings with other students who have interviewed adults such as parents.

"A People's History"

In this reading, the idea of the Founding Fathers of the Constitution being relatively wealthy is discussed. Beard argues that these men had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government. He notes that four groups (slaves, indentured servants, women, and men without property) were not represented in the Constitution. What do you think this could mean? Beard also explained that he didn’t think the Founding Fathers didn’t base the Constitution on benefitting themselves, but rather to benefit the groups they belonged to. What is your personal view on this?

Before I read this Chapter assigned, I didn’t quite think about this side of the Constitution. I honestly just thought it was just a “framework for democracy and equality” as George Bancroft did. But as I read this reading, I thought about it more. With these ideas presented to me about the Constitution dividing the society into rich and poor, my opinion of the Constitution has changed.

The Constitution does allow the people to influence but only the richer have to resources to reach out. The ones with land, money, newspapers, and education have the resources to reach out and have a say. So what do you think? Do you think the government has an interest in the distribution of power and wealth? Do you think that the Constitution is a document that establishes a society or a document that certain groups are trying to maintain their privileges, while giving just enough rights to enough of the people to ensure popular support? There are many questions and different opinions about the Constitution

Politcal Cartoon

1. What is the artist trying to convey?

2. Do you agree with this artists views of the Constitution?

3. What political party would this artist most likely be from?

Chapter 1 Questions

1. How do you decide who to vote for if there are many candidates? How do you get to know them all?
2. What makes Americans members of one community?
3. Why did John Jay try to ratify the Constitution in 1789? Do you think this was a legit reason?
4. What is the proper role of government in a system of constitutionally restricted powers?
5. What is the difference between government and politics?
6. Why are Americans more inclined to agree with Gore Vidals cynical view of politics saying "who collects what money from whom in order to spend on what is all there to politics."?
7. How do all these different types of people come together as one? It blows my mind how ethnically, economically, and religiously divers we are and yet we still work together to form the "American System."
8. How do you feel about the immigration policies? Are they too strict or not strict enough?
9. Was it the governments fault that some of the attackers had entered legally on tourist and student visas and had overstayed? How can they regulate this?
10. Should the government have a right to limit immigration?
11. What are the main reasons for opening and closing the door to immigration?
12. What did the US not do about immigration after 9/11?
13. What wouldn't Americans want to shut down immigration or return to the era of restricting immigration after 9/11?
14. What makes economic diversity so important?
15. Why are regional and residental differences important?
16. How do leaders reconcile differences?
17. What is a polical culture and its significance?
18. What caused identitiy politics to rise?
19. Why is American society referred to as the melting pot?
20. Why were/are census options changed so often? Did it cause controversy? Why?

What are some political issues I care about and why?

To be honest when I found out I was required to take this government course I was not too happy. Government doesn't quite interest me. Actually, no history related class interests me. However, after starting this class I began to realize government is always history. It is actually the present and tends affects my life everyday.

When I first thought of this question I had no idea what I was going to write about. I actually decided to start reading other students responses to this question. After reading one response, it made me realize that most students or really anyone seem to care about the issues that other people care about. People tend to care about issues that family or friends care about. Or most people care about issues that media cares about. This is completely true.

Media addresses issues which make people worry. But it really doesn't worry me because I do not seem to be affected by it directly. Media continues to stress our unemployment levels. This worries many especially those without jobs. At first it didn't seem to phase me cause I'm only a kid or a student not really looking for a job yet. Yet is the keyword. Soon I'll be deciding my future. Which consists of college, majors, and jobs. Since the unemployment rate is so high, I must chose my major wisely in order to be almost guaranteed a job.

I know there are many other political issues in the world. With this being said, I now realize how government affects my life. I know this class will help me be aware of government issues that affect me and will inspire me to keep up-to-date with these issues. Government will decide my future.