The Descision to Use Atomic Weapons

 The Descision to Use Atomic Weapons
from

A People's War?
Howard Zinn

         Still, the vast bulk of the American population was mobilized, in the army, and in civilian life, to fight the war, and the atmosphere of war enveloped more and more Americans. Public opinion polls show large majorities of soldiers favoring the draft for the postwar period. Hatred against the enemy, against the Japanese particularly, became widespread. Racism was clearly at work. Time magazine, reporting the battle of Iwo Jima, said: "The ordinary unreasoning Jap is ignorant. Perhaps he is human. Nothing .. . indicates it." ....   

    
        The bombing of Japanese cities continued the strategy of saturation bombing to destroy civilian morale; one nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives. And then, on August 6, 1945, came the lone American plane in the sky over Hiroshima, dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 Japanese dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning. Twelve U.S. navy fliers in the Hiroshima city jail were killed in the bombing, a fact that the U.S. government has never officially acknowledged, according to historian Martin Sherwin (A World Destroyed). Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, with perhaps 50,000 killed. 

       The justification for these atrocities was that this would end the war quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of Japan. Such an invasion would cost a huge number of lives, the government said-a million, according to Secretary of State Byrnes; half a million, Truman claimed was the figure given him by General George Marshall. (When the papers of the Manhattan Project-the project to build the atom bomb- were released years later, they showed that Marshall urged a warning to the Japanese about the bomb, so people could be removed and only military targets hit.) These estimates of invasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of the air to justify bombings which, as their effects became known, horrified more and more people. Japan, by August 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender. New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote, shortly after the war:

The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26.
       Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
       Need we have done it? No one can, of course, be positive, but the answer is almost certainly negative.

       The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and reported just after the war:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

       But could American leaders have known this in August 1945? The answer is, clearly, yes.   You don't know that.  -Brittney 4/3/09 12:58 PMThe Japanese code had been broken, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered. On July 13, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired his ambassador in Moscow: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace.. .." Martin Sherwin, after an exhaustive study of the relevant historical documents, concludes: "Having broken the Japanese code before the war, American Intelligence was able to-and did-relay this message to the President, but it had no effect whatever on efforts to bring the war to a conclusion." 

       If only the Americans had not insisted on unconditional surrender- that is, if they were willing to accept one condition to the surrender, that the Emperor, a holy figure to the Japanese, remain in place-the Japanese would have agreed to stop the war. -Brittney 4/3/09 1:00 PM

       Why did the United States not take that small step to save both American and Japanese lives? Was it because too much money and effort had been invested in the atomic bomb not to drop it? General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, described Truman as a man on a toboggan, the momentum too great to stop it. Or was it, as British scientist P. M. S. Blackett suggested (Fear, War, and the Bomb), that the United States was anxious to drop the bomb before the Russians entered the war against Japan? 

       The Russians had secretly agreed (they were officially not at war with Japan) they would come into the war ninety days after the end of the European war. That turned out to be May 8, and so, on August 8, the Russians were due to declare war on Japan, But by then the big bomb had been dropped, and the next day a second one would be dropped on Nagasaki; the Japanese would surrender to the United States, not the Russians, and the United States would be the occupier of postwar Japan. In other words, Blackett says, the dropping of the bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia.. .." Blackett is supported by American historian Gar Alperovitz (Atomic Diplomacy), who notes a diary entry for July 28, 1945, by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, describing Secretary of State James F. Byrnes as "most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in That makes sence... -Brittney 4/3/09 1:07 PM." 

       Truman had said, "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." It was a preposterous statement. Those 100,000 killed in Hiroshima were almost all civilians. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official report: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population as with 9/11 -Brittney 4/3/09 1:09 PM." 

       The dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment? Martin Shenvin says that among the Nagasaki dead were probably American prisoners of war. He notes a message of July 31 from Headquarters, U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces, Guam, to the War Department:

Reports prisoner of war sources, not verified by photos, give location of Allied prisoner of war camp one mile north of center of city of Nagasaki. Does this influence the choice of this target for initial Centerboard operation? Request immediate reply.

The reply: "Targets previously assigned for Centerboard remain unchanged."  Wow, thats kind of harsh -Brittney 4/3/09 1:15 PM
       True, the war then ended quickly. Italy had been defeated a year earlier. Germany had recently surrendered, crushed primarily by the armies of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, aided by the Allied armies on the West. Now Japan surrendered.

Brittney Black and Brandon Philbrook- American Empire

 Brittney highlighted in blue

Brandon highlighted in red

American Empire

Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend in the year 1897: "In strict confidence . . . I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one."....

There was heated argument in the United States about whether or not to take the Philippines. As one story has it, President McKinley told a group of ministers visiting the White House how he came to his decision:

Before you go I would like to say just a word about the Philippine business. . . . The truth is I didn't want the Philippines, and when they came to us as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them. . . . I sought counsel from all sides -- Democrats as well as Republicans -- but got little help.
       I thought first we would only take Manila; then Luzon, then other islands, perhaps, also.
       I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way -- I don't know how it was, but it came:
       1) That we could not give them back to Spain -- that would be cowardly and dishonorable.
       2) That we could not turn them over to France or Germany, our commercial rivals in the Orient -- that would be bad business and discreditable.  
       3) That we could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for self-government -- and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and Why couldn't we just help them? -Brittney 4/15/09 1:52 PM  That would have been a way they could have saved them-John Fred 4/15/09 11:10 AM   

      4) That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly.

       The Filipinos did not get the same message from God. In February 1899, they rose in revolt against American rule, as they had rebelled several times against the Spanish. Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino leader, who had earlier been brought back from China by U.S. warships to lead soldiers against Spain, now became leader of the insurrectos fighting the United States. He proposed Filipino independence within a U.S. protectorate, but this was rejected.
       It took the United States three years why so long? -Brittney 4/15/09 1:58 PM They should have stopped it sooner -John Fred 4/15/09 11:12 AM to crush the rebellion, using seventy thousand troops -- four times as many as were landed in Cuba -- and thousands of battle casualties, many times more than in Cuba. It was a harsh war. For the Filipinos the death rate was enormous from battle casualties and from disease.
       The taste of empire was on the lips of politicians and business interests throughout the country now. Racism, paternalism, and talk of money mingled with talk of destiny and civilization. In the Senate, Albert Beveridge spoke, January 9, 1900, for the dominant economic and political interests of the country:  Um, drastic much? -Brittney 4/15/09 1:59 PM It was a little much -John Fred 4/15/09 11:13 AM

Mr. President, the times call for candor. The Philippines are ours forever. . . . And just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. . . . We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world. . . .
       The Pacific is our ocean. . . . Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. China is our natural customer. . . . The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East. . . .
       No land in America surpasses in fertility the plains and valleys of Luzon. Rice and coffee, sugar and cocoanuts, hemp and tobacco. . . . The wood of the Philippines can supply the furniture of the world for a century to come. At Cebu the best informed man on the island told me that 40 miles of Cebu's mountain chain are practically mountains of coal. . . .
       I have a nugget of pure gold picked up in its present form on the banks of a Philippine creek. . . .
       My own belief is that there are not 100 men among them who comprehend what Anglo-Saxon self-government even means, and there are over 5,000,000 people to be governed.
       It has been charged that our conduct of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse. . . . Senators must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals.

       The fighting with the rebels began, McKinley said, when the insurgents attacked American forces. But later, American soldiers testified that the United States had fired the first shot. After the war, an army officer speaking in Boston's Faneuil Hall said his colonel had given him orders to provoke a conflict with the insurgents.
       In February 1899, a banquet took place in Boston to celebrate the Senate's ratification of the peace treaty with Spain. President McKinley himself had been invited by the wealthy textile manufacturer W. B. Plunkett to speak. It was the biggest banquet in the nation's history: two thousand diners, four hundred waiters. McKinley said that "no imperial designs lurk in the American mind, What does he mean by that? -Brittney 4/15/09 1:54 PM" and at the same banquet, to the same diners, his Postmaster General, Charles Emory Smith, said that "what we want is a market for our surplus."
       William James, the Harvard philosopher, wrote a letter to the Boston Transcript about "the cold pot grease of McKinley's cant at the recent Boston banquet" and said the Philippine operation "reeked of the infernal adroitness of the great department store, which has reached perfect expertness in the art of killing silently, and with no public squalling or commotion, the neighboring small concerns."
       James was part of a movement of prominent American businessmen, politicians, and intellectuals who formed the Anti-Imperialist League in 1898 and carried on a long campaign to educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism. It was an odd group (Andrew Carnegie belonged), including antilabor aristocrats and scholars, united in a common moral outrage at what was being done to the Filipinos in the name of freedom. Whatever their differences on other matters, they would all agree with William James's angry statement: "God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles."
       The Anti-Imperialist League published the letters of soldiers doing duty in the Philippines. A captain from Kansas wrote: "Caloocan was supposed to contain 17,000 inhabitants. The Twentieth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native." A private from the same outfit said he had "with my own hand set fire to over fifty houses of Filipinos after the victory at Caloocan. Women and children were wounded by our fire."
       A volunteer from the state of Washington wrote: "Our fighting blood was up, and we all wanted to kill 'niggers.' . . . This shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces."
       It was a time of intense racism in the United States. In the years between 1889 and 1903, on the average, every week, two Negroes were lynched by mobs -- hanged, burned, mutilated. The Filipinos were brown-skinned, physically identifiable, strange-speaking and strange-looking to Americans.  Why do people judge poeple on what they look like so much-John Fred 4/15/09 11:05 AM To the usual indiscriminate brutality of war was thus added the factor of racial hostility.
       In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:

The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog. . . . Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to make them talk, and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.  Isn't that basically killing just because they were Filipino -John Fred 4/15/09 10:58 AM

       Early in 1901 an American general returning to the United States from southern Luzon, said:

One-sixth of the natives of Luzon have either been killed or have died of the dengue fever in the last few years. The loss of life by killing alone has been very great, but I think not one man has been slain except where his death has served the legitimate purposes of war. It has been necessary to adopt what in other countries would probably be thought harsh measures.

       Secretary of War Elihu Root responded to the charges of brutality: "The war in the Philippines has been conducted by the American army with scrupulous regard for the rules of civilized warfare. . . . with self-restraint and with humanity never surpassed."
       In Manila, a Marine named Littletown Waller, a major, was accused of shooting eleven defenseless Filipinos, without trial, on the island of Samar. Other marine officers described his testimony:

The major said that General Smith instructed him to kill and burn, and said that the more he killed and burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners, and that he was to make Samar a howling wilderness. Major Waller asked General Smith to define the age limit for killing, and he replied "Everything over ten."   That takes the whole no prisoners saying to a new meaning-John Fred 4/15/09 11:07 AM

In the province of Batangas, the secretary of the province estimated that of the population of 300,000, one-third had been killed by combat, famine, or disease.
       Mark Twain commented on the Philippine war:

We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag.
       And so, by these Providences of God -- and the phrase is the government's, not mine -- we are a World Power.

       American firepower was overwhelmingly superior to anything the Filipino rebels could put together. In the very first battle, Admiral Dewey steamed up the Pasig River and fired 500-pound shells into the Filipino trenches. Dead Filipinos were piled so high that the Americans used their bodies for breastworks. A British witness said: "This is not war; it is simply massacre and murderous butchery." He was wrong; it was war.
       For the rebels to hold out against such odds for years meant that they had the support of the population. General Arthur MacArthur, commander of the Filipino war, said: " . . . I believed that Aguinaldo's troops represented only a faction. I did not like to believe that the whole population of Luzon -- the native population, that is -- was opposed to us." But he said he was "reluctantly compelled" to believe this because the guerrilla tactics of the Filipino army "depended upon almost complete unity of action of the entire native population."

Roosevelt

Soldier Story- Brandons

DEAN WINTERS, 2nd Raider Battalion


Shortly after the departure of the 1st Raider Battalion, the 2nd Raider Battalion disembarked at Aola Bay. Its task was pursuing three thousand hungry and exhausted Japanese soldiers retreating from the eastern side of the island to rejoin elements of the Japanese 17th Army on the western side of the Matanikau. The Raiders spent a month pursuing the Japanese on what was called the Long Patrol. [How did this mission end up?-John Fred 4/7/09 1:25 PM]

It seemed like it was raining all the time. We also had to cross many rivers. We had to climb a steep ridgeline dividing the Lunga and Tenaru valleys using ropes that we each carried and then linked together. We found an artillery piece that had been shelling Henderson Field. It was nicknamed "Pistol Pete." Several men took it apart and threw it over a cliff. [That could have been used in a museum -John Fred 4/7/09 1:15 PM] [True, it could have.... -Brittney 4/7/09 8:31 PM]
We came upon a Japanese field hospital and bivouac area. We killed a lot of Japs. We bayoneted and shot anything that was still moving. It was a series of grass huts. They were on the ground wounded. Several had broken legs. It didn't look like they had proper medical attention, because some were bent on a 45-degree angle. They weren't sticking straight out. We were back in Japanese territory and didn't want to make noise, so we used bayonets. I was pretty angry. We had a patrol, and they captured one of our men and tied him over a log and used him as a woman. They rammed a bayonet up his butt and he bled to death. That made me angry! So whenever I'd get into action, I'd get angry. I wasn't afraid when I was angry. We all felt that way after what we had seen.

After we left the area, we went up around Mount Austen. They ambushed us on the top. We had one man wounded. We carried him out; it was a long way down the mountain. We had jungle rot on our crotch and down our legs so bad that we had to stop every once in a while to empty the blood out of our shoes. It was painful. When you're in the field like that, you go, and you can't worry about pain.

The Raiders were a very special group. They're all volunteers. They were very select. We were interviewed by Evans Carlson or Jimmy Roosevelt. Roosevelt interviewed me and asked me if I was afraid to die. I said, "Anybody not afraid to die is a fool. But I would if it came to that.


[I would be scared too -John Fred] 4/7/09 1:33 PM I wouldn't hesitate. [I might hesitate a bit... -Brittney 4/7/09 8:32 PM]" He passed me.

Soldier Story- Brittney

Ira Gilliand recalls his night on the ridge.


It's tough to talk about this stuff. It's been fifty-eight years. It gives me the chills thinking about it.

They kept charging, but that's where the grenades came in. We threw grenades all night long. [It would be too long for me.-Brittney 4/7/09 5:52 AM] I remember rolling the grenades down. We were up on the hill and they were below us. They kept feeding us boxes of grenades. [I wouldn't be able to deal with that-John Fred 4/7/09 11:12 AM] I remember the sound of Plante's BAR. He kept it going all night long. A lot of guys spent a terrible night out there. [I couldn't do it all night. -Brittney 4/7/09 5:52 AM]

The 1st Parachute Battalion was with us. I remember one of the paratroopers got shot. The corpsman came over because of his cry for help, and he [the corpsman] got shot right through the heart. [That has to be traumatizing to the slodiers -John Fred 4/7/09 11:15 AM] His name was Smith, so when I saw Smith go down, I grabbed him and carried him down the hill. [I don't know if I'd do that where he just got shot. -Brittney 4/7/09 5:54 AM] I didn't think he was going to die. When I got him down to the first aid station, I saw one of our doctors cry. [chokes up] Old Smitty was my friend, a real nice guy, and I broke down also. [I would end up crying -John Fred 4/7/09 11:17 AM]

Book Portfolio #4

Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley and Ron Powers was a World War II book about 6 Marines, 3 of which never made it home. they endure terrible things but all the while learn that just because somethings tough, doesn't mean you should give up on it. If you give up on difficult tasks, how would you ever feel a sense of accomplishment?

You can't stop trying just because somethings difficult. John Bradley shot a Marine by mistake, but took responsibility for what he did, and carried him to safety. For his nobility, he earned the Navy Cross. 26,000 Americans were shot down defending land from the Japanese, even though they only lost 22,000 men. Then when John Bradley made it home, he told story's about how the true heroes didn't make it home. things were not easy and these people kept working and trying.

When your at war, you cant stop fighting because its tough, its war. Rome wasn't built in a day, and nothing can be done over night. You have to keep trying. If things just came to everyone, then no one would ever be satisfied.

If somethings tough, you've just got to keep trying. You can't give up, ever for anything. the World War II guys didnt give up, and you can't give up. Rome wasnt built in a day, nor will anything else ever be. No matter how many people, no matter how hard you try.

Regan questions;

1. What are the problems America faces?
- inflation and tax collecting.

2. What are Reagan's solutions?
- tax cuts and government needs to be reduced.

3. What makes Regan effective here?
- that he's funny.

4. What does this reveal about Regan? (Consider the saying: "Wit has truth in it.")
- It shows that he can be funny, even when getting criticized.

5. What policy decisions might Reagan make according to this?
- He's a strong leader.

6. How did this event effect Reagan's role with the American public?
_ He became a type of hero.

7. Who is the audience for this speech?


8. What is the argument Reagan makes here?
- Communisum is evil.

9. What do you think Reagan's agenda is in this speech?
- To get them to support him.

10. What is the message here?


11. How does the ad use Carter?


12. What does the ad suggest about the character/morals of the country?


13. What is the criticism of Communism being offered here?


14. Do you think this was an effective speech?
- Yes.

Book Portfolio #3

Fashion: From Concepts to Consumer by Gini Stephens Frings, was about how fashion has changed over the years. This book was copywriten in 1982 at Prentice-Hall Inc. in New Jersey. In the 1920's pants became popular to women and they started wearing them. Coco Chanel was the inspiration because of her boyish figure. Over time a lot of things change, even what people wear.

Over time everything changes, even what people wear. The book talked about how during World War II, most of the fashion shops were closed. How Coco Chanel helped promote women wearing pants beucase of her boyish figure. Another thing was Coco Chanel hepled design the 'Flapper Girls' costumes.

Given time, clothing styles change. Women use to not be able to wear pants, or short's, or a skirt that didn't come all the way down. Coco Chanel helped promote women and short atire, or women with pants.

Everyone has to wear clothes. Gini Stephens Frings wrote this book becuase she loves fashion. She loves clothing and how they make people feel, and she always wanted to be a fashion designer.

Fashion: From Concept to Consumer was good and very informational. Coco Chanel was a huge part of fashion and has made a very big impact on. Women can now dress themself, and we look pretty great doing it.

class 3/18/09

Today's class wen't pretty good. We talked about World war 2 and Pearl Harbor. I liked the map that was done, shoing where things went and how. I didnt like that we didnt have questions to make us follow along though.

Malaise

~What the real threat to America is, according to Carter, and is that threat still with us today?~

-Carter thinks that the threat to America is, America losing confidence and faith in the nation.

-Yes I still think that this conflict is in our nation. Maybe it's not as bad because we now have a new president and we don't know what's to come but then again that could make us not confident because we don't know what's going to happen with our new president. Maybe we'll have more confidence to talk to a new president then to a president that we'd had for a long time.

-Jimmy carter was saying that America had become a place were your charcacter didn't matter all that much and people only cared about what you had. He said that peoples morals have changed and people dont think the way they use to. In today's society it is in a way kind of they same thing. There is people that still have morals from along time ago but there is a lot of people who only like someone for what they have or what there name is. American people havent really changed much it has only been the economy and other things but the people have only slightly.

3/10/09 Class questions

1. How does a person make money on an investment?
-Buy low, sell high, buy it cheaper than you sell it for.

2. What makes 'cheap credit' mean?
-Means the economy is going well, and it’s easy to get a loan.

3. What is 'buying on margin' mean?
-Investors only have to play 10% of the stock’s actual value.

4. How is 'speculation' different from 'investment'?
- Speculation is people selling stocks to make money.
- Investment is when someone likes what there getting.

5. How does 'panic selling' start?
-When everyone tries to sell at once and then the market bottoms out.

6. How can high unemployment start a negative economic cycle?
- Because people aren’t making money and people aren’t spending money. When they don’t spend the money the other factories can’t make money of the stuff people bought.

7. How did increases in technology contribute to overproduction in the 1920's?
- If a company makes 3 cars a day and then turns to technology the company can then turn out 6 cars in a day. The problem with this was, then they had no one to sell the other 3 cars too.

8. What is meant by 'uneven distribution of wealth? Is it a bad thing?
- Some people are wealthy, but more are poor. This was bad because most people were poor.

9. What is a tariff, and why don't they seem to work in the modern economy (post-WWI)?
- A tariff was an extra tax you have to pay for imported goods, beucase everyone started putting taxes on our stuff.

10. What is 'rugged individualism? Is it real?
-

11. What is a Hooverville, and why is it called that?
- Places where massive amounts of homeless people

Class (3/6/09)

I think class went okay. My favorite part was the humor brought into it. But it wasn't something memorable, because I've already forgot what class was about. When i go back and re-read the notes I do remember parts, but without the notes online, I don't remember anything about the class.

Nixon Post

What's that big deal with the Watergate scandal?

Well, this wasn't just a break-in to the opposing convention. That started the investigation finding the crimes and abuse, campaign fraud, political sabotage, illegal break-ins and so much more. There were many things behind this scandal than just a break in.

70's TV SHOW

This show show's the social changes from the 70's, as opposed to now, in many different ways. In the begining it shows records playing, and they way they use to dress. Also, this showed the way people use to hang out in restruants and how they danced. And also, there is a difference in the way they use to talk, compared to howwe do now.

Space Race

We engaged in the space race because we were trying ot prove we were better than the Soviet Union to see who could make it to space first. The race began on October 4, 1957 with Sputnik 1. I think it was a good idea because it helped build confidence in the United States after the Cold War.
If we climb a mountain because 'it' is there, and went to the moon because 'it' was there, what is the next 'it' we should focus on? There really isn’t much of a ‘next’ thing we should focus on, but maybe more of diseases and things like that. Or the cure for cancer.

Book Portfolio Qtr. 2

Twenty and Ten is written by Claire Huchet Bishop, published in 1952. In this book Sister Gabriel learns that bravery isn’t just about being physically tough, it’s about having your heart set in the right spot. In this book, all the students, who were French, had to help hiding the 10 Jewish students.


Bravery isn’t about being tough, your heart needs to be set in the right place. Sister Gabriel takes the Jewish children in, even though she knows what would happen if the Nazis found out she was hiding Jewish kids. The twenty French students realize that there is more to a person than simple religion, and they start sharing food with them and things like that. When the Nazi’s come, Sister Gabriel hides the kids in a cave under ground so they won’t be found. You can be brave, but if your hearts not set in the right spot, no one will remember you.


Life is about more than just being brave; your heart needs to be in the right place. Like with Hitler, he thought he was doing some great thing for everyone and getting rid of the people who didn’t believe what he did. He killed everyone who wasn’t a Nazi and didn’t share the same beliefs as them Hitler and the Nazi’s would put the Jewish people in concentration camps. This is so important because what Hitler di was wrong, and it was frowned upon. He ended up committing suicide and taking cyanide capsules.


Claire Huchet Bishop was anti-semitism, which means you’re against the hostility towards Jewish people, weather or not she was actually Jewish, no one knows. If she hadn’t been, the book would have probably been different. She was biased because she was leaning towards the Jews. Had she been a Nazi, the story would have swung more towards the pro-Nazi side than the pro-Jew side. Claire Huchet Bishop was brave because she stood up for what the Jewish people thought and she didn’t think they should have been treated how they were.


Bravery is about more than simply being tough, you need to know right from wrong, and your hearts got to be in the right place. In Twenty and Ten, sister Gabriel that’s the Jewish children in even though she knows she could be killed if the Nazi’s found out. She knew the kids didn’t deserve to die because of something as simple as religion, so she helped them and kept them safe.