Stratification

Stratification has become a serious issue in the United States when “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer” (CNBC, “US income inequality continues to grow” ). “Animal Farm” by George Orwell is a perfect example for stratification and social class issue. It has become a popular cartoon movie since 1945 by director John Stephenson. It is a terrible picture of which personal freedom is nonexistent.

Orwell draws a picture of the animals’ lives as our society at that time, where personal freedom is something impossible. When Mr. Pilkington tells Napoleon, “If you have your lower animals to contend with,(...) we have our lower classes!”, it shows clearly the picture of Orwell is drawing of our society being just like the animal society. The animals are divided into different levels, which are based on their knowledge. While the pigs become the governors, the horses and some other animals who are not able to read and write have to work harder and harder. “None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A. It was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart.”

Additionally, the persuasion of the pigs to all the other animals is also surprising and interesting. The biggest example of this is the seventh commandment of the Animal Farm. In the beginning, the pigs wrote “ All animals are equal” on the wall of the main house. However, when the pigs completely take control of the farm, they change the laws a little bit in secret to get more benefits for themselves to be “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Even though some animals recognized it, by the persuasive voice, the high class of the farm easily skips the queries.

According to Jonathan Russo, “[t]he leaders of Animal Farm maintained thought control by obscuring the facts with smokescreens. In this way, the allegory to the Trump administration is dead on”(‘Animal Farm’ Perfectly Describes Life in the Era of Donald Trump). The pigs in the “Animal Farm”, who were afraid they would lose control of the farm, created imaginary threats as a tactic to bind their subjects. In the same way, Trump alerts us to the threat of Mexican rapists. Yet, he has “offered unprecedented access to some of the largest corporations in America in exchange for their millions of dollars of donations” (‘Animal Farm’ Perfectly Describes Life in the Era of Donald Trump). It likes the way the governance in the “ Animal Farm” do to placate the horses, sheep, and chickens with feel-good slogans and false agendas. Even Trump’s deleted tweet about how it was an “honor to host [Palestinian] President Mahmoud Abbas” at the White House was foreseen in Animal Farm, as writing on the barn wall was changed and erased as politically necessary. The animals could not recall the original writings or how they were altered.

The “Animal Farm” by Orwell has a lot of similarities with our society’s stratification and social class issue. Orwell’s view is not a rosy picture, where everyone can live in peace, and where the war is not the only main reason for the poor life. It is a lucky thing when the animals recognized the problems in the old organization, where they just worked as slaves so they rebelled. However, unluckily the new major, which has a good idea for rebuilding the society, has the bad governance who does everything to get more and more benefits for themselves.

Report "Government Issue"

More than 10,000 immigrants from Central America attempted to cross the Mexican border wall into the United States with aggression, recklessness, and agitation( Partlow and Kinosian, “At the U.S. border, migthe rant caravan will slow to a crawl”). Moreover, no one can be sure that some terrorists are extremely dangerous to America infiltrating the immigrant group. This is the most powerful example to prove that the Mexican border wall can make the “increasing on taxes” to be acceptable.

The aggressive aggression of the immigrant shows that it is an extremely serious matter. In this case, the border wall is the house’s door, and strangers try to intrude the door without any permissions. Some of them are very aggressive to induce you feeding them by your money. Will you keep silent and ignore it, or pay any prices to push them out of the house? Obviously, “the reason for the wall is to prevent criminals from entering the country” (Cardenas, “Government Issue”), so it is reasonable to intrude over 10,000 immigrants who are considering as the illegal territories.

As Cardenas said, “the wall could be a waste of money”, when “they will find another method to get access to the country”. However, at least, it is legal. They must comply with America’s laws, they must reach the requirements, and they must get under government’s control. It is totally different to compare those cases with those immigrants who are illegal to intrude the territory.

The author are totally right when saying: “America is constantly growing, and it needs more workers to do minimum wage jobs”; and “having more employment helps the country’s economy”( Cardenas). However, there are many types of the legal immigrants: who have well educated, who own the businesses, and who do the job with the lowest wage. Donald Trump does not say “no” to immigrants, he just prevents and reduces illegal immigrants. Therefore, the wall is the method to solve the problem.

English Should Be America’s Official Language

The English language is common in many places on the world. It is divided into three periods, which were called Old English, Middle English and Modern English. According to some research about history of languages, the earliest of the periods, the Old English, took form from the Viking invaders that was Old Norse and the Anglo-Norman French of the dominant class. In 1066, the vocabulary and the grammar of English were impacted tremendously. The twelfth century through the fifteenth was the period of Middle English. (“What Are The Origins Of The English Language?”) During this time, the influence of French and Latin had changed the phonological and grammatical systems of the English language. The last period of English is Modern English. It extends from sixteenth century to today. In earlier of this period, Modern English had completed a revolution in the phonology that organized the vowels to be similar to the present pattern. Thus, because of inclusion the abundant vocabulary, which was from Latin and a little bit of Greek, and the contact and development of English, English should be America’s official language admittedly.  Some people believe that language is uncontrollable, and it is impossible to make a language such as English to be an official language. However, there are three reasons that English should be America’s official language: English is a versatile language, it is the language of several of the world’s most powerful countries, and it is the unofficial language of the internet.

            The versatility of English is one of the reason why English should become official language. Some people claim that the first amendment should prevent America from having an official language. America is one of the countries is multinational country where people from many different countries on the world come, live and work. In 1997, following to some statistics show that the historical linguist Robert D King noted that 94 percent of people in the United States speak English willingly. Following the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’. Because of that, in a freedom of speech country, it is no reason to have an official language. It is unnecessary to make English to be an official language. On the other hand, English should be adjusted to be America’s official language because it is a combination of the world’s languages as French, Latin and Greek. The change about phonology and grammar of English has combined the other languages to be English. Maybe because of that, English has versatility and sophistication. In English, we can say the same thing in many different ways. It depends on the vocabularies, which are slang, formal or informal words, and conversational English. For example, the word “nebulous”, “He gave a nebulous answer that made the asker felt uncomfortable.” we can also say: “His answer was unclear that made the asker felt uncomfortable.”, or “the answer is indefinite that made the asker felt uncomfortable.” Thus, English should become the official language because of its worldliness and versatility.

            English is the language of the most powerful countries on the world is the second reason why English should be America’s official language. There are approximately more than fifty English speaking countries on the world. English is spoken in North America and Europe. Among them, there are a lot of powerful countries, which are the balance of the economy of the world such as United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, etc. Therefore, English today is the Business and Finance language of the world. Businessmen use English as the national language of communication. According Kenneth Blackwell, who is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a Christian pro-family group, and at the Buckeye Institute, a free-market policy organization, Blackwell asserted that English is a language of business and government, so people who want to participate in either that is necessary to know English well and very well.

            The last reason why English should be America’s official language is that it is the language of the Internet. According the Internet World Starts Website, English is 29.5 percent of the ten most popular languages on the Internet, which are English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Portuguese, Korean, Italian, and Arabic (“1st Century” 392). It’s estimated that more than half of the entire online material is published in English. If people want to have opportunities of good jobs in international area, it is necessary to be able to speak English well and very well because of the abundant knowledge and information by English. Blackwell also declared: “If you care about a child in America today, then you want that child to be able to speak English.” because English is the Internet’s language- the information language.

            Even though language is difficult to control, having an official language is necessary for America. When people speak one language, people communicate and understand each other better. They also have more opportunities of international jobs because America is seemed as a balance economy of the world because of having many powerful international companies such as Boeing, Dell, Apple, etc. On the other hand, being able to speak English is especially necessary for people’s opportunities of works because English is versatile, the speaking of many powerful countries which hold the business area, and the information language of the world.

A Social Democrat

On July 25, 2018, The America Blog published a blog by John Aravosis which titled “Would Americans Vote For A Socialist?”. In the blog, Aravosis shares an ironical message that people keep giving the same opinions:“ They wouldn’t vote for a candidate who was socialist”( 2018), but when those people were asked about a specific socialist candidate as Bernie Sanders, they support strongly for him: “Quinnipiac found in May that Sanders would beat Trump by 10 points”( 2018). For Aravosis, “socialism” is a marketing problem, which is a “dirty” word to the majority of Americans, and even a majority of Democrats. Yet, he also uses Obamacare as his evidence about the effect of marketing on the society. When asked about Obama’s health-care reform plan without being given any details about what the legislation includes, 49 percent opposed it and 40 percent were in favor. But after hearing key features of the legislation described, 48 percent supported the plan and 43 percent remained opposed (2018). At this point, Aravosis believes that in politics, marketing can matter more than substance.

However, I disagree with the author. From some other reports which has the same topic, some unknown name authors affirm reliably that Sanders is not socialists. He is a Social Democrats. He wants a more humane version of capitalism where business interests aren’t above democracy and the rights of individuals. He advocate for an economy-wide seizure of the means of production, which in political theory is the defining feature of socialism (2018).

In my opinion, Aravosis’ s blog is similar to to the summary of the news. He does not give credit for the sources that he uses. Yet, the author does not have a clear understanding of the person he wants to mention, so he provides incorrect information that made him lose points to the reader.

Make Immigration Great Again

On September 24, 2018, the New York Time published an article by Tung Nguyen and Sherry Hirota titled “Trump’s Next Target: Legal Immigrants”. In the article, Dr. Nguyen,who is a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. and Ms. Hirota, who is a chief executive of Asian Health Services in Oakland, California disagree strongly on the Trump’s administration. President Trump proposed potentially “denying green cards to immigrants who have used any of a much wider range of non-cash public benefits”( September 24,2018). Dr. Nguyen convinces the audiences by using an example of a Chinese child, who came over the active tuberculosis by the community health center’s support.

In my opinion, I agree with the author. The president Trump proposed the rule because he thinks that we are spending too much money taxes on the immigrants who abuse the government’s supports.In fact, they are just using their rights to take care of their health. Who do not want to have a healthy life? Therefore, narrowing the medicaid on the immigrants or denying green cards to immigrants who have used any of a much public benefits is unfair for those people. The rule steps another step to use the fear and cruelty to drive out legal, as well as illegal, immigrants.

Obviously, even though the immigrants are legal or illegal, the administration is a public effort to crack down on the immigrants. It will motivate the political base in time for the middle election. This is a real debate. The country is speaking up for those immigrants and maybe for themselves. If they lose on the debate, they may lost the chances to meet and live with their family. The country was built on hard work, strong families, respect and kindness. Those values dictates that we care for one another, that we know that we are only as strong as the most vulnerable among us.

On September 5, 2018, the New York Time published an article by an anonymous author titled “I Am Part of The Resistance Inside The Trump Administration”. It reports that the President Trump’s advisers are trying to remove Mr.Trump from the presidency by invoking section 4 of the 25th Amendment. Even though there are a lot of opinions favor it, the discussions did not move forward because “no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis”( September 5, 2018).The cause of the problem is the president’s amorality. The president does not value the idea of freedom which was expounded for a long time, but he also attacks it.

For the people who are interested in politic, the article,“ I Am Part of The Resistance Inside The Trump Administration”, helps readers understand more the conflict between the commanders.

www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html.

Introduction

Hi all. I will update my political journal here.