MINE

post #13 where were you?

The day the towers were hit as well as the pentagon and a field in pennsylvania I was, like most kids, in school.  I had made it through home room and had moved on to my first class of the day which was English. Although i dont really remember the teachers name I can remember his face and I also remember that he was a pretty down to earth guy.  With about 15-20 minutes left in the class another teacher came to the door and pulled him outside. I thought this to be a little bit strange but allowed my mind to dismiss any thoughts of it.  When returned his normal cheery self had a blank look on his face.  He told us that something terrible had happened and that he was not supposed to allow us to see the news on the tv but he decided that we had a right to know what was going on. When the tc came on the first image was the first tower with smoke billowing out of it. Immediately I was confused by what was going on. Initially people thought that it was an accident and were trying to fill in the blanks of information that were layed out by the pictures we were all viewing. Then the second plane hit...  With each class came more and more news about what was going on.  Information about the towers falling, the pentagon, and the foiled attempt that crashed in pennsylvania.  For most of the day we were not allowed to watch the tv because they thought it would upset us too much. But the damage had been done. Kids were crying and calling their parents to find out if they were alright and for the day the halls of the school were complete pandimonium.

My initial feelings were anger. Why would someone want to do this to us? What did we do to deserve this?  And would there be anything else?  These questions were not so easily answered because of the biased opinions of the majority of the population of America. Most were thinking we should bomb their whole country with no second thoughts whatsoever.  To be honest I was among those people at first.  That is until I began to hear the real story that the media and the united states government wasnt telling us.  The real history behind the whole circumstance and my point of view changed from why us to how could we have prevented this. No offense but people dont just go out and bomb people and slam planes into buildings for the hell of it.  There has to be some sort of motivation towards this circumstance. And there was, and that answer was that in a sense we are the object of our own demise.  We drove a country to hate us so tremendously that they would attack us like that.  When you think about it 9/11 is not that bad comparing what the United States has done to some other countries.  Do I think what happened on 9/11 was right? no but I do feel that we brought it on ourselves

post #11 Wall Street "Greed is Good"

In 1980 Reagan was sworn in as president and brought a message to the United States, “It is time to reawaken the industrial giant, to get government back within its means, and to lighten our punitive tax burden,” he announced this on inauguration day. [1] The 80’s were a turning point economically in the country, but to reawaken the industrial giant there would be losses to the poor and lower middle class because of policy changes and the tax cuts. [2] As displayed in the movie Wall Street, greed can be a nasty thing and if one wants too much then they must take from someone else.

The movie Wall Street is about a life of a young investment banker during the mid 80’s named Bud Fox (played by Charlie Sheen). Bud is willing to do whatever it takes to become rich and successful even if it means riding on the coattails of a notorious stock market shark, Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas). Smooth talking Gekko for lack of better wording could sell a lifetime supply of candy to a diabetic. He gets Bud hook, line, and sinker doing illegal things to help him (Gekko) make money until Gekko’s geed and lust for money catches up to him and turns Bud against him.

The scene shown above is in our eyes the turning point of the corruption of Bud Fox. Gekko, as seen above, is dressed in a black suit and black tie with wet slicked back hair can be easily seen as the evil yet he uses his lies to persuade the stockholders to put faith in him while in actuality he does not care about the stockholders at all. Up until this part of the movie Bud has been seen with somewhat sub par suits and plainly combed hair. Although Bud is seen like this in this scene, it should be noted that for the rest of the movie until the very end he becomes somewhat of a Gordon Gekko protégé with fancy suits and slicked back hair. Gekko’s greed for money was passed on to Bud where the lust for more and more ultimately found its limits.

This scene alone is a perfect summary of the economic conditions during this period of time. The rich got richer and the poor sank lower and lower into poverty. By the end of Regan’s second term more jobs were created, but the jobs were used for the wealthy people rather than the poor. [3] Gekko’s theory of geed is good is somewhat true but only for those greedy enough to do what it took at all costs to make money while honest people lost money hand over fist. Greed is like a plague that swallows everyone around it. If greedy people get rich, then people see that and become greedy as well trying to be as rich as them and the cycle just repeats itself. More than likely there will never be an end to greed in the world. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi “The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”[4]

Wall Street 20th Century Fox Pictures

Video source:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwallstreet.html

[1] Nation of Nations pg. 947
[2] Nation of Nations pg. 950
[3] Nation of Nations pg. 950
[4] http://thinkexist.com/quotation/earth_provides_enough_to_satisfy_every_man-s_need/181709.html