w. 37

w. 37

This week I haven’t had as much time to work on the blog. Here’s a quick rundown of what we did this week.

Friday

You started with reading the beginning of chapter 33 (pp. 965–967). If you didn’t finish reading and/or you didn’t understand some of the material, you want to ask for help. When you are working in groups you want to take advantage of having classmates who can help you. Often, hearing how a classmate interprets the material can be very beneficial. It can help you find new words, phrases, and explanations for understanding the issues we’re discussing.

You also want to think about being active in looking up words that are new to you. Writing down these words can help you remember them. And this training will not only help you in this class, but it can help you in your English class (duh!), högskoleprovet (both the English parts as well as the Swedish parts, which has REALLY HARD WORDS), and it will definitely  help you when get to college too. (Did you know that A LOT of your college material is going to be in English? ’Fraid so.)

We looked at eastern Europe (I asked about capitals. I wanted you to focus on what countries are in eastern Europe), talked about the Iron Curtain, and then I briefly introduced the Truman Doctrine. We’ll talk more about this on w. 38. I gave you a small excerpt from the speech Truman made, which talked about two “worlds” or societies. And then I gave you the following list.

1.	-  a judicial system (courts/domstolar) that is independent from the government or any single political party
2.	- an independent news media (not controlled by the government or a single political party)
3.	- a TV channel that delivers propaganda for the government
4.	- independent publishers (förlag), where the publishing of books is not subject to government approval
5.	- the ability to move freely within the country
6.	- a secret police that has the right to take you into custody in secret
7.	- elections where the winning candidate has won by 99%
8.	- the ability to check out books from the library without fear that the government will know what you’re reading
9.	- the ability to exhibit art or perform music or drama of all kinds without getting approval first from the government
10.	- the ability to send material to others without fear that the government will intercept it
11.	- the threat of imprisonment or other punishment (e.g., being sent to labor camps) as a consequence of criticizing the government or ruling party
12.	- the threat of not getting a job, a promotion, entrance into school — for yourself or your family — as a consequence of criticizing the government or ruling party
13.	- a school curriculum (läroplan) independent from political parties
14.	- the opportunity to run for political office without fear of intimidation (hotelser)
15.	- the right to import literature, films, and music from other countries
16.	- the right to practice a religion, including attending church and participating in religious ceremonies
17.	- an educational system where entrance to programs and determination of grades are based on performance (how well you perform on tests and in courses) rather than on connections (knowing the right people) or bribery
18.	- forced-labor camps where people can be sent — and likely tortured — as a way to encourage people to not cross the government

You were to think about the issues in the list in connection with the two worlds, but you were also supposed to think about them in connection with society today.

Tuesday

We focused on issues connected to the U.S. and the Soviet Union coming out of the war. Below I’ve written some of these points in brief, but they aren’t going to mean anything without your notes. But if you are uncertain what we discussed or why it’s important, that’s something you want to ask about:

-       the need to re-build Europe after WWII

-       the geographical importance of Germany. (It’s in the middle of Europe!)

-       lessons learned from WWI

-       the division of Germany between the U.S., GB, France and the Soviet Union

-       why the Soviet Union didn’t want help from the U.S. in rebuilding (see additional capitalism & communism points below)

-       the introduction of a new currency into the American, British, and French sectors of Germany

-       the Berlin Blockade & Airlift (see YouTube clip below)

LIBERAL CAPITALISM	COMMUNISM
- embraces free trade (that is, it is easy to trade because there are few tariff barriers) - few obstacles to the free flow of capital and goods - embraces civil liberties - embraces individual freedom	- hostility toward world capitalist system and international economics - wants to abolish market economies - interests of the Soviet Union go ahead of interests of the individual - working class is heroized (treated as heroes)