Effect of WWII and Pearl Harbor on the US

Effect of WWII and Pearl Harbor on the US In David Halberstam’s book, The Powers that Be, he states the following quote about World War II and Edward R. Murrow: â€Å"WWII was special and he was special.† World War II was special because it established the United States of America as one of the world’s superpowers, while the events at Pearl Harbor provided an example of how isolationism and detachment can lead to ignorance and subsequently, vulnerability. Murrow was also special, as he united the nation by detailing his experiences in the war front and setting forth a shift towards public transparency and enlightenment. The significance of the World War II and Murrow was their inspiration to achieve a level of awareness of foreign affairs in order to avoid a repeat of the events at Pearl Harbor and the wars influence on the rise of the United States. The hope for the United States to not get involved with World War II was never a realistic option. The conflict between the Axis Powers (Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy) and the Allied Powers (Great Britain and France) were as much ideological as it was territorial. While the ultimate goals of each of the Axis Powers were different, they agreed on the desire to expand and to stop capitalism and democracy. When the United States signed the Lend-Lease bill in 1941, this brought more motivation for the Axis Powers to attack the United States. Later that year, Imperial Japan conducted a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, leading to the United States’ entry into World War II and ending American Isolationism. Not only was the idea of isolationism foolish, but it left the United States unprepared and unwary of an attack by Imperial Japan. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor highlighted the importance of maintaining a strong military whether or not the United States were in war. The significance of the attack on Pearl Harbor is not the attack itself but that it was such a shock and that we were unprepared for it. â€Å"The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor decisively shattered the illusion of invulnerability that Americans had enjoyed ever since the end of the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.† (Chafe et al, A History of our Time, page 9). Two lessons military strategists took from this experience was that â€Å"the nation’s military power must never again be allowed to atrophy† and that â€Å"technology and air power had so contracted the globe that America’s vaunted two-ocean barrier no longer afforded sufficient protection from external assault.† (Chafe et al, A History of our Time, pages 9-10). This episode of World War II not only drew the United States into the war but al so serves as a reminder of how past impartiality and ignorance left the United States vulnerable. While World War II left all the other participating countries devastated financially, territorially and militarily, the United States emerged relatively unscathed and actually stronger. â€Å"Of the major wartime combatants, only the United States emerged from the war stronger than when it began. The United States was the most powerful nation in the world.† (Chafe et al, A History of our Time, page 1). The total war nature of the war had brought together the people and citizens of the United States for the sole goal of victory. There was no separation between men, women, and children. Preparation of war helped boost the economy and eventually lead us out of the Great Depression. â€Å"The nation’s gross domestic product doubled between 1941 and 1945, bestowing the wonders of a highly productive, full-employment economy on a citizenry that had become accustomed to the deprivations imposed by a decade-long depression.† (Chafe et al, A History of our Time, page 8-9) . World War II had caused a breakdown of the European Empires and had established the United States as one of the new superpowers of the world. During World War II, a reporter by the name of Edward R. Murrow was broadcasting his first-hand experiences to the people of the United States. Unprecedented in broadcast journalism, Murrow put him and his team on the front line and in the action of the war. When Murrow caught wind that Adolf Hitler was going to Vienna to proclaim Anschluss with Austria, he flew to Vienna personally to cover the reaction of the people of Vienna in a March 13th 1938 broadcast. Murrow was also right there in the action during the dangerous times, such as the London Blitz. â€Å"I’m standing on a rooftop looking out over London For reason of national as well as personal security, I’m unable to tell you the exact location from which I’m speaking. Off to my left†¦ I can see just the faint red angry snap of antiaircraft bursts against the steel-blue sky†¦ Now you’ll hear two bursts a little nearer in a moment. There they are! That hard, stony sound.† (Murrow | M atusow, The Evening Stars, page 53). Murrow’s innovative broadcasts allowed the people of the United States to become aware of what was going on in the war, such as the London Blitz in the United Kingdoms, while America continued to exercise isolationism. Murrow’s ability to captivate the attention of and unify the American people stems from his mastery with words and his keen eye for talent. Murrow prepared his scripts by dictating them, as opposed to writing them, which made listeners feel like he was having a conversation and not just reading something. The details in his reports were stunning and provided listeners with strong visual images. â€Å"He had a flair for those small details that make a scene come alive; once he illustrated the eerie silence between air raids by putting his microphone next a pierced can of peaches, catching the sound of the syrup falling drop by drop.† (Matusow, The Evening Stars, page 52). Murrow connected to the American people by talking about the people they can relate to, the little people. â€Å"But I found that one bombed house looks pretty much like another bombed house. It’s about the people I’d like to talk, the little people who live in those little houses, who ha ve uniforms and get no decorations for bravery.† (Murrow, August 18th 1940). In addition to his prowess as a reporter, Murrow was also an excellent scout who surrounded himself with a strong staff. â€Å"Besides his gifts as a writer, reporter, and dramatist, Murrow was a superb judge of talent in others†¦ He looked for university graduates with a good, solid, print background. He didn’t care much what his recruits sounded like; they had to be able to think, and they had to be able to write.† (Matusow, The Evening Stars, page 53). Through his reporting, the people of America were able to become aware of the events of World War II despite the United States’ initial lack of participation. Murrow understood that the role of the press was to raise the level of awareness in the United States. He believed that news broadcasting was supposed to inform, not to just entertain. â€Å"This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise its nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.† (Murrow, RTNDA Speech, 1985). Murrow was special because he knew the importance of being well informed and he made sure to do that throughout his career as a reporter. World War II and Edward R. Murrow were significant because they helped contribute to the rise of the United States while highlighting the need for awareness of foreign affairs. While the United States ended up benefiting the most and losing the least from the war, the surprise attack by Imperial Japan on Pearl Harbor is still disturbing. American insistence on isolationism should not have left the United States so vulnerable to the surprise military strike. However, this event will go on to remind us never to allow ourselves be that ignorant again and to always be aware of foreign affairs. Murrow’s role in reporting also inspired America to be more aware of foreign affairs. His ability to captivate his American audience and articulate the details of the war front allowed the people of the United States to know what was going on in the war and how brutal it was. Had it not been for Murrow’s radio reporting, the United States may have not understood how important it was f or the United States to enter the war and put an end to Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and continue to exercise isolationism despite the attack on Pearl Harbor. Through World War II and Murrow, the United States not only established itself as a world’s superpower, but also provided the blueprint to maintaining this power.

Smooth Talk

â€Å"Smooth Talk† is a film adapted from the short story â€Å"Where are you going? Where have you been?† by the author Joyce Carol Oates. The short story was first published on 1966 while the film was released on 1985. The protagonist â€Å"Connie† in the short story was a fifteen year old young lady who has two sides of herself; one side if for her home and the other is for outside her home or anywhere else aside from home. Connie’s sister named June is the opposite of her. While June is being praised by her mother which is also different from Connie, Connie on the other hand was a young girl who enjoys the company of her girl friends. Together with her girl friends, they enjoy watching movie or have a walk to shopping plaza. In the short story written by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie’s character was described as a young girl who is concern with the way she looks. Her character was centered in her physical appearances and gestures and not so much of her attitude and feelings. It was evident in the short story when Joyce Oates describes Connie’s â€Å"quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right† (Joyce Carol Oates. 1966). The vulnerability of Connie’s character was very present in the story when Arnold Friend’s enters the picture and forces her to come with her. Arnold Friend is described as a â€Å"suspicious stranger† whom she saw once and suddenly knows almost everything about her and her family. Connie at a very young age was susceptible to Arnold Friend who wanted her to simply go out and have a ride with him. Her character in the short story define a weak young girl who faces a man she doesn’t even know and mocks her up until she get loose of everything on her mind. Joyce Oates was precise about Connie’s vulnerability when she describes how Connie helplessly tries to let go of Arnold Friend but vulnerably ends up with his arms. Indeed, the short story was in fact a manifestation of how powerless Connie was in terms of her handling Arnold Friend’s attitude towards her. Connie could have had done something but with her vulnerability as a young girl she gives up something of herself. On the other hand, â€Å"Smooth Talk† visually presented the short story to film. Connie’s character was evidently showed in the film as a young fifteen year old girl who flirts around with boys and loves to cruise the shopping malls with her friends. Connie’s character was expanded in the film, adding up some new things that were not mentioned in the short story. Nonetheless, Connie’s being vain and flirt was still evidently in the film. Her suspicious stranger was more powerful in the film seducing her with his smooth-talking way. In the film, Arnold Friend’s character involves sexual desire for Connie and his character was full of aggressiveness to seduce Connie. Connie on the other hand, is a young girl who is silly and flirtatious with other guys but come one Sunday morning when she was left alone at home and was confronted with the suspicious stranger, Connie’s vulnerability was evidently showed. Her character as a young girl who has two sides of herself was helplessly alone and afraid, trying to overcome Arnold Friend’s seduces. While she was trying to figure out what to do and how to let loose of the stranger, the smooth-talking man tries to seduce her and consistently tries to win her. Part of the film was entirely focused on the situation on which Connie was confronted by the stranger just like in the short story. Though there were some minimal  changes in the film that wasn’t mentioned in the short story, â€Å"Smooth Talk† by Tom Cole gave justice to Joyce Oates’s â€Å"Where are you? Where have you been?†. Connie’s character in the short story was more innocent than her character in the film. Although it was the same, her character in the film portrayed by Laura Dern was â€Å"lavishly and lovingly textured†. (Joyce Carol Oates. 2007) Basically, the mere fact that a short story is being read while the film was being watched evidently showed that Connie’s character of vulnerability was formulated both in the short story and in the film. It was clearly defined and translated in the sort story how Connie’s weak character gave her the risk of giving herself up for Arnold Friend. While in the film, both Connie and Arnold’s characters were emerged consistently as described in the short story. The vulnerability of Connie in the film is just somewhat the same in the short story. But Connie’s being naà ¯ve of the things that happens around her was clearly specified in the short story. Nevertheless, â€Å"Smooth Talk† and â€Å"Where are you? Where are you going?† is both a masterpiece in there own rights and abilities. The two is not only about the reality of a teenager growing up in a harsh world outside her home but also it imparted to us the idea of some issues that runs inside a family or inside home that most of us take for granted. The adaptation was visually presented well from the short story and just the same, both gave the justice on its own. Connie’s character provides us the imagination of how innocent and free spirited she was as a young girl that in the end lose herself to a man she doesn’t even know but who knows her very well. There lies the mystery or the story by Joyce Carol Oates. Works Cited Oates, Joyce Carol. â€Å"Where are you going? Where have you been?.† Celestial Timepiece A Joyce Carol Oates Home Page. Joyce Carol Oates. 12 July 2007. University of san Francisco. 24 July 2007. http://jco.usfca.edu/works/wgoing/text.html. Brussat, Frederic and Mary Ann. â€Å"Film Review.† Spirituality and Practices Resource for Spiritual Journals. Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. 2007. 24 July 2007. www.spiritualityandpractice.com.   

Slavery in the USA - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1321 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2019/05/15 Category Society Essay Level High school Topics: Slavery Essay Did you like this example? With the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the new opportunities were endless, and everyone wanted their share of the riches. Spain, England, Portugal all wanted pieces of the New World and were willing to pay the ultimate price in search of gold and glory. Across Europe, Africa, and most of the Old World, slavery has been used in almost every society dating back to before the ancient Greek and Roman empires. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Slavery in the USA" essay for you Create order The need for labor is ultimately what fuels the desire to own slaves to build what would eventually become the Americas that we know today. Just as in their homelands, the people who came to the Americas brought over their version of slavery. For years, Portugal and Spain were enslaving Africans and transporting them all over the world. This is the beginning of the slave trade that will ignite the expansion of agriculture economies in the Southern half of colonial America. In England, and also in the colonies, there was no English law on slavery. There were indentured servants that would serve for a specified amount of time and then would eventually gain their freedom but none were actual slaves as we know the word today. Even though to the south in Spanish colonies, the slave trade was exploding, the British Colonies did not adopt race based slavery right away. Instead it was a gradual transition from servitude to slavery that also encompassed a transition from slavery based off of individual circumstance to slavery based off of race. This occurred due to a multitude of reasons but two crucial factors were ease of acquiring African slaves and the need for massive amounts of labor. The discovery of the New World was not only about land, there was also the discovery of all new goods that were otherwise not known to anyone in Europe or Africa. Goods such as tobacco from Virginia or Sugar from the Caribbean were in high demand across Europe and thus resulted in the vast expansion of production in the Americas. Tobacco farms expanded immensely across Virginia due to the states excellent growing conditions. With many people flocking to the Chesapeake region to stake their claim in order to get rich, there was a major need for labor. In the beginning, the English farmers knew that in order to get rich off of tobacco, it would need to be produced in massive quantities. First, the English tried to enslave the Chesapeake tribes that were native to the region. This proved very difficult due to their numbers and knowledge of the region. At the time in Virginia, land was readily available to anyone who wanted some. This in turn created a huge problem for plantation owners because People who could make a living for themselves from the land had little reason to work for someone else (Clark, 68) which created a major labor shortage. In order to solve this problem, many land owners turned to indentured servants. In the early days of tobacco farming, most laborers were indentured servants (Clark, 64) rather than African slaves. Meanwhile, back in England, their own economic hardships made recruiting indentured servants very easy for land owners in Virginia. Men would sign contracts for periods of four to seven years with the promise of receiving their freedom and fifty acres of land after the completion of their term. For low skill agriculture workers, this was a great opportunity to get transportation to the colonies with the prospect of receiving a large amount of land in the future. When this did not meet the needs for labor, English authorities turned to the undesirable population of England itself. Orphans were shipped to the colonies to serve as indentured servants until the age of twenty-one when they would be freed. This did not become successful due to a large number of them dying after only a couple years of hard work in the fields. Another option that was tried was using convicts from England. This was not very popular amongst land owners because these people have already broken the law foreshadowing difficulty keeping them disciplined on the plantations. After exhausting these other forms of labor, the English colonies began to rely more and more on race based slavery just like the Spanish and Portuguese colonies to the south. After exhausting other means of labor and still failing to meet the requirements of plantation owners, people living in the English colonies in the southern half of the colonies turned to race based slavery of Africans. Although this clearly did not happen overnight, there was always an underlying tone of racism in the colonies towards Africans. Whether it was in judicial proceedings or in everyday life, the Africans always seemed to be on the receiving end of a harsher punishment. Starting in the middle of the seventeenth century, laws were written to codify the enslavement of Africans. In 1662, Act XXI states that negro womens children to serve according to the condition of the mother (Henning 42) which began the tradition of passing on the chains of slavery from parents to children. Following this, Africans were no longer protected by the law that stated that an Englishman could not enslave a fellow Christian. And if that did not make it easy enough to enslave Africans, it was enacted that all servants imported and brought to this country, by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country shall be accounted and be slaves (Henning 42). It was laws like these that laid the foundation for the Chesapeake region and the rest of the south to transform into slave society. Another factor that contributed to this massive change was the expansion of the colonies and the improvement of the English economy. Less and less indentured servants were coming over from England and the ones that did were headed to new colonies such as Pennsylvania in search of better op portunities. The creation of laws against Africans plus the underlying notion that whites were superior to blacks was just the beginning. When people moved south to form the colonies of North and South Carolina and then Georgia, they brought the tobacco agriculture with them. At first, these colonies relied on both indentured servants and on slaves. Georgia even had a law prohibited slavery. After a shortage of servants, the land owners turned to African Slaves and Georgia removed the law prohibiting slaves. This paved the way for the slave society of the south. The final nail in the coffin for potential African slaves was the English takeover of the slave trade. This monopolization of the slave trade made it easier and cheaper for English land owners in the colonies to buy and sell slaves. This drastically increased the number of slaves in the colonies as the plantation owners turned to an all slave workforce to cultivate their wealth. In addition to the English monopoly on the slave trade, African rulers also sold their own people into slavery. Seizing the opportunity to gain wealth and to be able to trade for goods otherwise unknown to Africans, leaders of tribes and kingdoms betrayed their own citizens to achieve personal power and wealth. This made is easier for Europeans to enter Africa and take people hostage to transport across the Atlantic. Throughout the history of the world, slavery has always been present and is not just an American invention. With the discovery of the new world, there was numerous opportunities for many men to get rich. The southern half of the American colonies were very well suited to grow cash crops whose demands soared in England and across Europe. Land owners needed one thing, cheap labor. After experimenting with servants and other types of labor, the colonies ultimately resorted to race slavery and it worked very well. This labor force was able to be harshly disciplined and worked hard all day without the need to care for them creating a relatively low-cost business.

A Rhetorical Analysis of “The Death of Honesty” by William...

In â€Å"The Death of Honesty,† William Damon raises the concern that current apathy towards increasing dishonesty threatens democracy. In this essay taken from the online volume â€Å"Endangered Virtues † published by the Hoover Institute in 2012, Damon initially concedes that there are situations where lying could be considered acceptable. However, with that being acknowledged, he transitions to his main premise that honesty is losing its importance in society and will lead to its downfall, and he cites examples in politics, law, journalism, and business in contemporary society where dishonesty is expected, and even, condoned. Damon finally directs his remarks pointedly at teachers and current students who accept cheating in schools. To persuade†¦show more content†¦14, 16). Throughout his essay, Damon parallels these arguments of logic along with emotion to gain a response from the audience. Damon uses descriptive words to carry the audience from acceptance, to tolerance, and then, outrage in order to convince them of the urgency to espouse to the virtue of honesty in a democratic society. Although he speaks of the need for compassion, diplomacy and protection from â€Å"unadulterated truth,† he claims that no one is naive or surprised their politicians are dishonest (par. 2, 3). Damon uses references to historical figures to invoke a spiritual and patriotic response from the audience (par. 6). He refers to Gordon Hinkley’s descriptive passage as â€Å"alarm sounding†¦a neglected virtue†¦and problematic status† to extract a response (par. 7). Damon presents a strong warning when he states that â€Å"we are reaching a dysfunctional tipping point† when honesty becomes the â€Å"losers way of operating,† and lying is tolerated (par. 8-9). He also advances that it is â€Å"most troubling† that there is current lack of honesty amongst young people due to the inconsistent implementation of standards within schools (par. 11). He goes on to use words like sympathize, excusable, motivate, encourage, vacillate, half-hearted to address the response to cheating in schools (par. 15,16,18, 20). He pulls on the heartstrings of his audience when warning of the implication of our current moral decline on children in their formativeShow MoreRelatedWilliam Damon s The Death Of Honesty1102 Words   |  5 Pages William Damon’s â€Å"The Death of Honesty† presents a solemn analysis of the decline of modern virtue due to a â€Å"dysfunctional tipping point† where honesty is no longer viewed as a moral characteristic worthy of pursuing. Dishonesty is presented as both a virtue and a vice that is shaping our contemporary society. The Hoover Institution of Stanford University published Mr. Damon’s article in 2012 under the Task Force on the Virtues of a Free Society, which would provide a target audience of students