HW 30: Citizenship Symposium

The first session I went to was, Iraq Body Count: Real People, Fake Numbers by Stephen J. Clark, Ph.D. He is an associate professor of psychology at Keene State College. The talk was about statistics and numbers and questioning what we read, see, and hear. He went through a few recent statistics going around in the media and pointed out certain questions we should ask about all statistics. For example, “Who created this statistic, why was this statistic created, and how was this statistic created?” What this meant for me was when I look at a given number I should always ask myself what their agenda is, and what is at stake. One of his points was made by a recent comment made by a politician supporting the war and he said that Iraq was nor more dangerous than our nations capital Washington D.C. What we realized after looking at the numbers more closely was that he was using the total deaths in a month in Iraq and the total numbers of deaths in a year from D.C. This only confirmed his theory that we all need to be active participants in our country and in doing so it is so important to be properly informed and to question everything.

The other session I went to was, Citizenship and Responsibility by Tom Lantos, U.S. representative and Holocaust survivor. He is the only Holocaust to ever serve in Congress and the only one who ever will. He came to America after WW II from Hungary with literally nothing. His theme for the talk was based on a quote from the new president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, “America did not teach men the idea of freedom she taught them how to practice it”. He spoke about freedom and democracy being a goal that we are continually trying to close the, “hypocrisy gap” on. In other words we have ideals and in the two or three hundred years of practicing these in America we are slowly getting there. His examples of our achievements included all the things we have done for Germany, France, and other foreign countries. We as a country are more attuned than any other country to accepting global responsibility and as such we have a responsibility. We also as citizens have a responsibility to deal with the issues in our country and while it might be tempting to hide from that, especially in these critical times we must be informed and active citizens of our country.

HW 27: Annotated Bib for Baghdad Burning

Riverbend. Baghdad Burning. New York, NY. The Feminist Press, 2005

This is a book comprised of blogs written by a young woman living in Iraq. She writes as frequently as she can and has a very smart and understanding view on the politics surrounding her. The book goes into her life and she takes you with her throughout her experiences with this war going on between America and Iraq. This book fits into our course perfectly because she is a woman who is blogging to make a difference not just for herself but for others as well. It is also very eye-opening to the politics of our country and how other people see our country. I’m sure there will be some in our course reading this who will take offense, but I will not be one of them. What I hope to get out of it is a clearer understanding of a first hand account of this war. It puts a face to a faceless bunch of people who are being victimized by this war.

HW 25: Overview of the Overview

The forward to, Baghdad Burning by Riverbend is written by Ahdaf Soueif. The introduction is written by James Ridgeway. The forward is a brief overview if you will on the book. She talks about what is important in the book, like saying that it has a lot of politics in it but that it is interesting because it isn’t ideological but different because it is a first hand account of someone experiencing those politics. She talks about what this book should do for people which is basically to open their eyes to this war which isn’t happening to all of us like it is to Riverbend. The introduction goes more into depth about specifics to the book like who Riverbed is and where she lives. It also gives short narratives on the Gulf War and the 2003 war. It also gives Iraq’s history very briefly. My own views on this war are probably very similar to Riverbend’s. Soueif’s and Ridgeway’s. I am very much against it and the Bush administration in general. We have witnessed extreme and horrible atrocities in the past six or seven years and I feel like all of it is for the wrong reasons. Of course what Soueif and Ridgeway have laid out is a very different account than what most people learn in their history classes, but I have been fortunate enough to be in college for most of this and have seen and heard the real story.