Effects of the Platt Amendment

Of the reading that I just did, one part really stood out to me as being important, but also strange and ironic.  The section was titled "What were the early years of Cuban independence like and how did the Platt Amendment impact Cuba's political culture?" so it basically explained what the Platt Amendment did to the country of Cuba.

From this and previous readings, I know that the Platt Amendment was initially instated to place limits on Cuba's sovereignty, but also to help guide Cuba in its first steps as its own independent country.  The effect was not the same as the intention.  A few years after gaining their independence, Cuba had turned into a giant political war between the Liberals and the Moderates.  And people IN Cuba were so set on their opinion that they would do anything to get it across.  In fact, both sides asked for American intervention on the other side.  America was basically running the whole country of Cuba, with the political parties as puppets.

The Platt Amendment also gave America the right to control ALL of Cuba's economic things.  Cuba couldn't export or import from another country without the US's approval.

The Platt Amendment REALLY limited Cuba's independence, making their "independence from spain" not quite so exciting.

In addition, it seems that the United States was being kind of hypocritical.  In the US, in order to be president, you have to be BORN in the country.  This is to protect the interests of the people of the country and so that other people from other countries can't tell us what we think.  We then proceed to go into Cuba and completely control their government by appointing somebody that shares the interests of OUR country instead of that of the Cuban People.

Occupy Cuba

Today in class, we talked a lot about how to ask good questions to prompt more interesting blog posts.  After the reading that I just did, I can think of a few questions that I could write a lot about.  The reading was a brief history of the United State's involvement in Cuba over the past 100 years or so.  And my #1 question is... Based on our past interactions with Cuba, what would happen if we dropped all travel restrictions and bad feelings about the country and its people?

First, I want to talk about a few things from the reading.  I didn't realize how quickly our relationship with Cuba changed from really good to really bad.  We first went into Cuba to HELP them fight against the Spanish.  Then, when we beat the Spanish, we were like

"Oh by the way, we're staying here."

And we MADE them put the Platt amendment in their constitution which basically said that we could have three military bases and a few ports IN Cuba and they couldn't do anything about it.  In fact, we still have one of them left called Guantanamo Bay.  In fact, I'd love to spend a whole class period talking about Guantanamo Bay, why we have it, what we do there, and things like that.  It's a really interesting topic.  Anyway, from a little extra research that I did, I found out the Las Vegas was basically created because Americans couldn't go to Cuba anymore to do their gambling and partying.  So I've brainstormed a few things that might happen if we WERE to open Cuba back up the the United States.

• HUGE development all over the country by wealthy Americans
• Minor decrease in visitors to Las Vegas
• Major decrease in visitors to other surrounding caribbean countries and islands
• Lots of job opportunities for the people of Cuba in the field of tourism and hospitality
• Big update in Cuban supplies (like cars and other materials)

These are just a few things.  I think it'd be really fun to have this as a class activity, and we could put all of our lists together and discuss which ones really belong and why.

P.A.P.E.R

Throughout this semester, we've been using a system called PAPER to analyse all of the primary sources that we find for the class.  PAPER is an acronym that stands for

Purpose of the author writing it
Argument or strategy of the paper
Presuppositions (in the text and our own)
Epistemology (evaluating the truth)
Relate to other papers

I really like this way of analyzing a primary source because it causes you to look at it in multiple ways, sometimes in ways that you wouldn't think of normally.  I thought it was really interesting to try to think of the biases or presuppositions that both the author and I would have had in reading this.  Normally I think of just the writers bias (the point of view that they have, what information they included, etc.) but i've never thought about my own bias - what presuppositions I have when going into reading this piece.  For example, our values may be different today than they were when the piece was written.  This is especially pertinent when dealing with things like slavery that have gone from completely acceptable to completely unacceptable in a very short amount of time.

Also, looking at the author's purpose is really interesting.  Why did this person write this?  Usually, people don't just write things down because.  They write things down that are interesting or important, and it can be really fun to try to find what exactly that important thing is.

Lastly, the epistemology of the source.  How truthful does this person's writing sound?  This can be really hard to judge, especially with pieces from a long time ago, but it can be really interesting.  So far, all of the pieces have sounded very truthful.  I think it'd be really fun to have a reading that was completely false and see if my classmates and I catch onto it.  It'd have to sound really legitimate, though.

The Cuba Reader 1 - Autobiography of a Slave

Today, we were assigned to read the "Autobiography of a Slave" which was one of the only kept pieces of writing from a slave in Cuba.  It was written from the point of view of a slave named Juan Francisco Manzano and told the story of his experience on a sugar plantation in Cuba.  It was a very personal story that focused on many detailes of his life that a person wouldn't normally know just my meeting someone.  Honestly, the names were really hard to follow so I don't really know who is who, but I got the gist of the story and what happened to the main character.

I haven't read too many autobiographies of slaves in my years of school, but of the ones that i have read, this is by far the worst.  (Not worst as in most boring or something, but the slave was treated the worst).  In fact, the writer often skipped parts of the story because they were too violent or unpleasant.  

Now I know that I'm supposed to read this with the mind of a person reading this a long time ago, but the more personal a story is, the harder that is to do.  When I read this, I make a connection with the writer that you don't get in most readings, especially in history class.  It is almost impossible for me to comprehend what it is like to be kept against my will, purposefully hurt, and forced to do things like the things that this man had to.  Part of that, im sure, is attributed to my sheltered life in Lincoln Park and Francis Parker; but also to living in a country where things like this are no longer acceptable.  The writer may tell about how he was hurt, but those things don't mean anything to me because I have nothing to compare it to.  The concept of being beaten for what are truly petty things is so... so inconceivable.  I wanted to talk about that too.  Why are they punished for things like picking a leaf or letting a lantern go out?  What is the significance of this lantern that he keep talking about?  I mean, it's obviously a real lantern and not a metaphor, but why is so much importance placed in it?  I hope we can talk about some of these in class tomorrow.  I'll try to bring them up.

All the Shah's Men Reading/Questions 2

So far, I've really enjoyed reading All the Shah's Men.  I've found it to be more readable than most other books that we read for history class.  It actually reads like a story rather than like a textbook and it isn't crammed to the brim with facts.  It allows the reader to go more than a page without having to stop to think about what happened in what he/she just read.  I just read the fourth chapter titled "A Wave of Oil" and was amazed by some of the things that I learned from it.  For instance, APOC (now BP) owned MOST of the country of Iran for a significant period of time (that time being not too long ago).  BP was basically its own country with a different name slapped on the front.

As a side note, it's always weird studying things that happened really recently for me.  Because it makes me realize how much has changed in not a lot of time.  It also makes me wonder if things like that can happen again or ARE happening and I just don't know about it.  It's a scary thing to think about as a kid.

Anyway, back to the reading.  I found it interesting that England basically forced Reza Shah into selling them iranian land by helping him when he was in trouble so that he would have to repay them somehow.  It's like something right out of the Godfather.  I hope we talk about this more in class...

Obama's View on Cuba

On my desktop, CNN.com is my homepage for my web browser.  This gives me the opportunity to learn about things that are happening RIGHT NOW in the world as they are developing.  It also expands my knowledge of total global functionality and the ways that different people and countries interact with each other.  I can usually spend hours just clicking on the stories on the side of the story that I'm currently looking at and seeing where it takes me.  Usually, I end up in a dead end but sometimes it takes me somewhere relevant to what we are talking about in history class.  Recently, I found an article about a conversation between Fidel Castro and Barack Obama.  Well, it wasn't really a conversation so much as it was public announcements about the other person.  Childish public announcements.  Basically, Obama suggested that Cuba make changes in order to "improve bilateral relations" and Fidel responded by calling him stupid.  Just, stupid.  Obama responded by saying that they would be willing to make changes once cuba started actually caring about foreign issues and about its people.  Castro then responded with a quote in a Cuban news paper "How nice!  How intelligent!  So much generosity has failed to let him understand that after 50 years of blockade and crimes against our country, they haven't been able to bow our people."  Which basically means that Fidel thinks that even though America is attacking and secluding Cuba, the people are completely fine.  Neither part of that statement is true.  America has not been attacking Cuba and the Cuban people are NOT fine.  Something needs to happen soon or that whole country is going to fall into an even worse economic depression.  One that they can't get themselves out of.

This argument sounds like something that two ten-year-olds would be fighting about.  It sounds like something that "mom" would have to get in the middle of.  But in reality, there is no "mom" to settle arguments between countries, especially two countries as mature as the USA and Cuba.  And to be honest, I've never seen a political leader make a publicly sarcastic statement about another politician, especially the President of the United States.  I think that, as long as we are on the topic of Cuba, this should definitely be something to be raised in our future conversations.

Historical Interventions of Iran

Today in class, we did a fun activity revolving around a reading that we did in Iran:  Through the Looking Glass.  The activity was to write as many "overtakings" of Iran as we could using only the reading from the previous night.  We had to have the date of the new rule, the foreign powers involved, the type of intervention (military, religious, etc.), the incentive for the foreign power to overtake Iran, the role of the Iranian government in the overtaking, and the reactions of the Iranian people for each one.  Zoë and I found six different instances in which this happened.  We then discussed in class some of the major ones that we all should have had.  As a homework question / blog prompt, Mr. Moran asked us this question.

What is the cumulative effect of all of these events and how does it affect the people of Iran.  Why does this lead to a constitutional revolt?

Which got me thinking for the rest of the day about what the right answer should be.  What I've finally worked it down to is that because the people of Iran have had so many leaders with so many different cultural inputs and separate rules, nobody really knows what to think anymore.  So they revolt.  This is natural human nature even within a single person.  If the brain receives conflicting messages from different parts of the body, it doesn't know what to do so it reverts to PAIN.  If you dunk one hand in ice water and one hand in hot water, your hands both HURT REALLY BADLY.  Same thing is happening with the people of Iran.  If their constitution is so messed up from so many different people's inputs, then nobody can know what is OK and not OK.  It'd be like if every year growing up, children got a new set of parents with different rules and punishments.  The child would eventually flip out. 

     Those examples may seem a bit extreme, but in reality the people who controlled Iran were such a wide range of rulers from Native Tribes to the British and the Russians at the same time.  That'd just be crazy to try to deal with.  Hopefully, we'll continue on this subject tomorrow (today, technically)

Today in our History class, we had a long discussion about why the country of Iran is so different from the other countries surrounding it.  I made a list of ways that it was different along with my other notes, all of which are at school - unusable.  So I'll do my best to recall things from memory.  (I understand why you wanted us to use paper and pencils instead of computers, but I'm not very good at holding onto papers - especially when I don't have a binder for that class.  Anyway, I found some of the differences very interesting - things that I never knew or at least didn't remember.  Iranians are NOT ARAB.  Iran is NOT AN ARAB COUNTRY.  This is a really important fact, since there seems to be a certain negative connotation with the word Arab, at least in our part of the world.  Arabs came from Arabia, now known as Saudi Arabia (Arabia run by the Sauds).  We talked a lot about the differences in religion and how 90% of the country is Shia Muslim as opposed to Sunni Muslim (90% everywhere else in the world).  I don't know if we discussed this or not, but I really wonder WHY this country's religion is so skewed from the rest of the Middle East.  Also, we're not supposed to group the "Middle East" into one clump because it is comprised of so many different religions and countries and beliefs.  I understand that, I guess.  It'd be like if people said "The Americas" as a generalization since there are so many different cultures represented even within North America, let alone South America.  We also talked about the difference in who they think should follow up as the next Khalif - somebody chosen from a specific group of people or somebody related to the current Khalif.  Again, I don't know WHY these opinions differ, but they do. There was one more thing that I would like to look farther into the history of, and that is the origin of the word "Aryan".  Because apparently, before World War II, Aryan meant something completely different.  Maybe I'll bring it up in class again this week.