Blog #16 - Descent into Fascism in the United States?

Could something like Japan, Germany and Italy's descent into fascism happen in America today?

If you remember the circumstances when these three countries fell under fascism's spell, the following was happening in these 3 countries:

1. A major economic depression put amazing stress upon these three countries' economic systems, causing massive unemployment, inflation, and extreme stress upon their banking systems;

2. Weak democracies were unable to meet the demands upon its organization;

3. Strong nationalist feelings helped make the people in their country ready for a leader (Hitler, Mussolini) who would exploit the country for his own personal sake;

4. In each country, a strong military presence - either with generals taking over the gov't. in Japan or the rebuilding of Germany's industry through an increase in military forces - allowed each country to channel their aggression and spread their imperialist demands;

(I may think of some more things between now and Thursday, but let's go with these four for now).

Your questions:
Could these things occur in America? Are these things already occuring in America right now? Why or why not?

150 words minimum. Due Thursday, March 4

Author Sinclair Lewis wrote about this exact scenario in his novel in It Can't Happen Here in 1935. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html Here's a link to the novel online.

Blog#15 - Morality of the Opium Wars

This blog has been one of the hardest to write b/c it seems that wherever I look to for info - books, online sources, etc. - they have pretty much the same stuff. Part of me wonders if this is because few Westerners have written extensively on this subject. Another reason might be that there may be few Chinese sources available to the West given the current nature of China's closed society. If that is the case, maybe what is happening is that when historians write about this subject, they repeat the same info over and over.

The basics of the Opium Wars (1839-42) seem to be that:

1. The British East India Company needed tea, silk, porcelain and other goods from China;


2. China wasn't very interested in Western goods - basically, "thanks, but no thanks."


3. This created an imbalance of trade (or trade deficit) with the British and the Chinese.


*The Chinese were used to being paid in silver from earlier dealings w/ the Spanish and the Portugeuse, but the British were on the gold standard and had to buy their silver from other European countries at an increased price.


4. In order to solve this trade deficit, Britain began importing opium from Indian traders in Calcutta. However, the Chinese emperor in 1729 banned the sale and smoking of opium, so the British had to resort to smuggling it.


5. In the 1760s, the British EIC gained a monopoly over the production and monopoly of opium, cutting out the trader in Calcutta (in essence, paying the Indian farmers to grow it, buying it from them, and then smuggling it into China when purchasing tea and silk).


6. When the Chinese struck back and destroyed EIC warehouses full of opium, the EIC cried foul to the British government who then attacked the Chinese for daring to protect their people from drugs (this last part is my own emphasis / sarcasm).

7. After the Chinese lost this series of battles, they were forced to sign unequal treaties and give up Hong Kong as well.



Here are some of my questions that kept popping up as I read through the material:


1. Why did the British sell opium to the Chinese? Was it just the Chinese or was it the Indians and other SE Asian peoples as well? Were some British addicted as well?


2. Why did the British government go to war with the Chinese when the Chinese were trying to stop this awful trade from addicting their people? Didn't this mean that the British gov't. approve of this trade, and by extension approve of addicting thousands of people to opium?


3. Why couldn't the Chinese stop the British from smuggling in the drug? What were the Chinese officials' roles in allowing or stopping the trade?


4. Was this opium war really a war over getting access to the Chinese markets so that the British (and other Western nations later) could sell their cheap goods? I ask this b/c of the terms of the Treaty of Nanking signed in 1842; the British didn't demand to sell more opium, they asked for access to more ports (including Hong Kong) and better trading rights.


So, when the whole thing is said and done, what can we learn from this? (Pick two of the following questions to answer)


1. Should a government support a company's actions even if it's actions are illegal? Why or why not?


2. Should the British government be responsible today for its actions 170 years ago? Why or why not? It gave Hong Kong back to China at the end of the "100 year lease" in 1997


3. If the British East India Company still existed today, should it be held responsible for its actions? Why or why not? What could be done to it?


4. Can you think of any examples in recent times when a country has gone to war for economic / business reasons? Explain.

200 words, due Tuesday, February 22, 2010.

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1750_opium.htm - Asia for Educators: Opium Wars and Foreign Encroachment

Blog #14 - Was Tsar Nicolas II the Wrong Man for the Time?

In our article about Tsar Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar, we discussed the article's title of whether he was the wrong man for the time (the original Newsweek article).

Some of the class thought that Nicholas was the wrong man for the time b/c:

1. He wasn't very assertive or a strong leader without the confidence or responsibility needed of a tsar - he knew he was going to be tsar eventually, so he should have been learning how to be one even if his father didn't want to teach him;

2. He wasn't active enough during his reign (1894-1917) to stop the swirling forces of modernism nor did he make any real lasting changes for the Russian people - the Duma wasn't a true assembly;

3. Nicholas thought that the bad stuff that happened to him - battle losses, bad advice, deaths in the family, etc. - was God's will, and that we saw in our video, "The Last of the Czars," that he compared himself to Job, God's true believer who endured great suffering.

Others felt that Nicholas wasn't the wrong man for the time (and wondered if anybody could have saved the Russian empire at that time):

1. When he took over the throne in 1894 after his father's untimely death, he was unprepared (mainly b/c his father, Alexander III, thought Nicholas was too soft 2);

2. He and his family were murdered in July 1918 and could not help prevent the Bolsheviks from winning the civil war (as preposterous as it sounds, biographer Robert Massie seems to blame Nicholas for Nazism and WW2, the Cold War and its hot wars like Korea and Vietnam in the last paragraph of his Newsweek essay - see below):

After their murder, the Russian Revolution continued its brutal course. Then
came the rise of Nazism in Germany, the second world war, the subsequent
expansion of communism over half of the globe, the cold war and all its little
hot wars. In the end, it was the destruction of Nicholas, a ruler unable to cope
with modern times, that led to some of the decisive political events--and worst
horrors--of a bloody century (Robert Massie, "The Wrong Man for the Time", Newsweek, July 20, 1998).

3. Nicholas inherited an angry, divided and backwards country from his father, and he wasn't a miracle worker;

4. The tsar's empire (and maybe all empires in general) were old fashioned, and the forces of history like nationalism were tearing it apart;

5. By 1917, the Russian people were at the breaking point w/ all of the food shortages, crushed revolts and failed war effort - it was just a matter of time before a revolution occurred.

Tell me your opinion in 150 words by Monday, February 8.

Sources:
1. A review of Robert Massie's book, Nicholas and Alexandra (2000).

2. Link to info on Nicholas II: http://www.physicsdaily.com/physics/Nicholas_II_of_Russia

3. Link to Alexander Palace: http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/index.html

4. Detailed timeline for 1917's Russian Revolution: http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/russianrev.html