A lot of people have different aspects of what the American Way of Life is. There are also the dominant frameworks, which is capitalism, and the government that influences the American way of Life positively and negatively. We all live in a different American way of life, which affects us differently with each aspects that America, has created for us as well as how the dominant frameworks control our life. Majority speaks how great America is and how much opportunities it has given to them but has it really? Given behind the scenes of the positively statements, it is false that everybody have these ideals of America. Everybody has been deluded into thinking the greatness of America, which also leads to the evilness of the capitalists.
Many people that I have interviewed think that the American Way of Life is about freedom and success. A middle class white female teacher said that the American Way of Life is “freedom of speech” and the freedom of being “able to live how we wanted”. A middle class Asian male said that we come here to become “independent, get our own job, own things and to be able to live by ourselves”. This connects to what the teacher said about how the freedom works in the American Way of Life. The pattern that I see is that the people think of freedom as being able to work and living the way they wanted. In general the people are not being told of how to live but they find their own way to live how they want. They also have their own choice and rights to choose from to become independent and work hard. By saying that the American Way of Life has a lot of “freedom” (said by others) shows how we have more opportunities than other countries (in a way).
However another middle class white male said that we have “false” freedom and we do not come to America to “work, to get rich”. Sometimes when people want to get rich, or become successful, they would use “varies means” to get the success they want and become rich. Another pattern in the American way of Life is it seems that the more work they do, the richer they can get and achieving more success to get the freedom they want. Many of the people I had interviewed are mostly middle class people; this made me think that they are working hard to get money and success. Also the people who are in the middle or low class does not have as much freedom as the rich people so they have to do much more work to get what they want. So their perspectives on the American Way of Life are different than the other classes in the society.
With the aspect of being successful, age difference matters as well. Since some adults can find work, they can have money to live by themselves and support themselves. However, children and teenagers (ones that seem to have a hard time finding jobs) are the ones who need support from the adults (parents, relatives, foster parents or responsible adults). The children and the non-working teenagers would have a lot of time on their hands so they would do much more activities or maybe none. One of my classmates named Maggie said in terms of her soul connecting to the American Way of Life, she does “not live in a meaningful life” because she has no job and is unproductive. However she compared how when people get a job, they would feel tired and desperately wants a break. This shows how when people have a job, they have a lot of free time but when people do have a job, they would get busy and would not get a lot of freedom so are unable to do what they want to do in their personal lives. So noticing about the age difference, the “success” of the American Way of Life for the children and non-working teens are different than the “success” of the American Way of Life for the adults.
We all describe the American way of life differently because we all do not live the same way. We might all have the same ideas of how American is such as "freedom" but besides the good things, there are also the negative aspects of the American way of life. We do not truly see what these negative aspects are because individuals are being manipulated by them and are covered with it, the good aspects. This leads us to the dominant frameworks of the American way of life where people are blocked from the negative things and receiving the positive.
The Dominant Frameworks of the American Way of Life is a mix of capitalism and the government working together, which networks how people live and decisions. To understanding, we need to know what the basics of some definition of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system that consists of private ownership of wealth, profit motive (making money), and producing products/goods and sells those goods in the free market. The "invisible hand" (the way in which how market competitions and self-interests would create situation that organizes and benefit society) sort of helps controls the market so that everything would somehow work and everything would flow. Free market is where people go get profit and putting investments and having their own companies with selling, buying, and trading (Globalization). Three aspects that we use to show how capitalism works are Land (is the raw materials that we use to make the products), Labor (is all the work necessarily to sell, distribute and produce) and Capital (is the factory, machinery, companies who get the profit) we can see how capitalism work in a way that makes everything united in a way.
We are all in the same boat, but working in different levels but in the end everybody's knowledge of "things" (also combing with their own interests or "greed" to make money) would benefit everybody to make the whole boat working. The people also get a chance or chances to go from "rags to riches" or upward mobility, making them able to become monopolies, natural monopolies, monopsonies or getting a company of their own and getting profit for themselves. In capitalism, there is also economics involve in the free markets = lots of commodities (something that can be bought and sold in the market place or perfectly substitutable) and competition. The good aspect about the competitions are that if a lot of people are competing in one thing then prices would go down which means people can afford the price better than before. However the bad aspect about the competitions are if the results gets worse, many would lose their job, causing the economy to be unstable.
Capitalists get their money by having people buy their products. How? One way that they earn huge profits are the holidays.
On Black Friday, this year, in Wal-mart, one of the workers gets trampled over by the customers. In the article, "Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede", and as the title suggested, one of the wal-mart workers got trampled to death along with "four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured" (above article). This year's Black Friday in Long Island Wal-mart had an "'out-of-control' mob of frenzied shoppers". There was "roughly 2,000 people gathered outside the Wal-Mart's doors in the predawn darkness" and the workers have to take "the doors off the hinges". This incident connects to the American way of life in a lot of ways. Generally it shows that people are selfish, ignorant (Massiel), "don't have their priorities straight" (Andy Lu), and they "rather save money" (Andy Lu). Because of this out break of people, workers have to fight and get out of the way to "live". At the end of the article, one of the employee says, "How could you take a man's life to save $20 on a TV?" This shows how we care for the "$20 on a TV" rather than the "man's life" and how we put our desires first. Why not the other way? Since there is about 2,000 people, I think about 3/4 of the people don't even know what had happen when the man fell down and gotten trample because they were in the back, pushing to get in. I think the people are rather desperate to get their things or they are just going to the store to get things "upgrade" instead of really needing it. This connects to the economics because as price goes down, demand goes up and like this wal-mart example, the people becomes "savages" (Witness Kimberly Cribbs said). This shows how we go way extreme than we should which causes us to become like "savages" and injuries occured.
On Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day, I stay home because there was not much things I needed to buy. Hearing from some of the classmates (today), there was alot of people that went crazy with the shopping malls and other places that was holding the Black Friday Sale. Also a person got trample to death... Which is also a reason why because I do not feel like getting trample by people. An observation that I noticed is that after having the Thanksgiving feast and giving thanks out, the next day is the Black Friday and Buy Nothing Day. I feel it's more of a compeitition after a relaxing day of stuffing yourselves with yummy food. It seems that at one day they are thankful and then the next day they turn all competitive to try to get as much they need or just want to buy it because its pretty or cute. Guessing from this, I think that our American way of life style is that we do things extremely and that we tend to raise competition more. *We have more competitive power hahaha~* Maybe because the economic is falling quite down, people are trying to get the cheap stuff to save themselves but it also shows our greediness in things.
Thanksgiving is also a big part of the American way of life and like Christmas and the New Years, we buy a lot, and our greed builds up to meet the capitalists profit. Since I do not celebrate Thanksgiving because it is not in the Chinese tradition, so I am not sure how "warm" Thanksgiving is to others. For others who are celebrating Thanksgiving, in this period of time, it does not seem to have much meaning of giving thanks because as I see it in the supermarkets and elsewhere, the people are just buying food and hurrying home to finish making the preparation. In psychology class, when Thanksgiving was mentioned, a lot of people was mentioning all the food they would eat but for the meaning of Thanksgiving, there was not much of discussion for that. It shows how the meaning of Thanksgiving is slowing disappearing and the only thing we know about the meaning of Thanksgiving is giving thanks, which does not show much of appreciation? The history of Thanksgiving, when I heard it was there was a lot of versions, which also shows how the people, I don't think they mean it but they are kind of twisting the history of the Thanksgiving holiday. We are not really learning the true meaning of Thanksgiving but taking bits of pieces we hear from others and not the whole, which makes us just wanting to celebrate the Thanksgiving because it is a holiday and not celebrating because of the meaning behind the word, "Thanksgiving".
Christmas gives the capitalism a lot of profit because everybody is buying materials and ingredients for their family gatherings and decorating their whole house plus the tree. Shopping is always hectic and crowded, which is good news to the sellers because they make money. Santa Claus, a figure representing Christmas, "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas" is what the Santa always say and if you are "good" or a "bad" girl/boy this year. Little kids believe in it very much that the capitalist use it to capture and using the little kids for profit. Many little kids get want a lot of things and because it is Christmas time, the parents does not refuse too much to buy what the little kids. For Christmas, besides giving gifts, the Christmas tree is a big aspect because in the class discussion before the vacation, we talked about Christmas. Then we go to the tree and because we chose the pine tree because the leaves do not fall off symbolizing how it does not die easily (even though it is when its cut down). It also connects to Jesus and being immortal and giving new life. I feel that the Christmas carols and the "merry" songs that the people play also connects to more of the religious aspect because a lot of songs have "angels", and "joy". Americans have added many other topics into Christmas like gifts exchange but it only means more money to the capitalists because they can produce a higher productivity. And by having a higher productivity, it raises the wealth for the capitalists.
New Year is also one of the biggest events of every year. There will be lots of celebration and everybody is all hyped for the New Year to come. The ball drop is always shown on television and the feeling of waiting for the New Year and the ball to drop; the people's excitement would flow in their chest. By the next second or so that the ball had drop, everybody would be exploding with partying and jumping up and down. It shows how the American way of life likes to "party" and celebrate a lot, which makes a lot of money for the capitalist. In a way, I think the people of America likes to shout a lot because like sports and especially the big celebration/events, they would be shouting very loud to show their support for their team. This shows our extreme excitement and our support for the sports and events/celebrations. Having a new year brings new creations but it can bring bad news too. When having a holiday, Americans would go huge and celebrate with positive feelings. However, they are blinded, and kept away from the negative feelings because it’s bad to bring negativity to a happy holiday.
In January 21, 2009, Barack Obama’s inauguration day has come and he has become the 44th president of the United States. Millions of people have taken a day off or went off to see his speech. Huge majority of my school has gone to watch him on the televisions in the classroom. Obama's speech has given hope to the majority of the Americans. His speech gives courage and makes us gives our full respect to him. Since he is a person that have cross the journey from being a low class person to now, the president of the United States. Americans can now believe more in the American Dream because many citizens of America are trying to work as much as possible for survival and if they became like Obama is now (not saying becoming President), the gap between the riches and poor would decrease. When he was talking about the risk-takers, I think he seems to be talking about himself as well. "Greatness is never a given. It must be earned...it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things...who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom." Obama was a hard-working man and now he has become a risk-taker, because he is the president, he will be making a lot of the big decisions. And by his decisions, it will affect the Americans and their way of life. Also because of the "risk-takers", we have America today and I think he is trying to make the others understand that they have to work hard too. Since there are many challenges that America is facing such as the recession and the war, the people cannot be "faint-hearted" or "prefer leisure over work". They have to start to giving more to America, and by negative means, I think giving more labor power to the capitalists and for the positive mean, I think to get back how America was before the recession, and becoming even greater.
But by having hard-working people, it is not always going to come out with them as rich people in the future. Everyone is different and capitalists do have evil-minds to calculate which to destroy and which to increase their wealth and also the invisible hand that change how everything goes. Capitalists are greedy and want wealth and in Obama's speech, he talks of greed that has bought down so many things but greed is needed for capitalism to live. Because there's greed, booms and crashes occur because if the greed bought good services, of course the economy would go well, but greed can bring down the economy as well.
In his speech, Obama says, "we will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense" which connects to how McCain says how American Way of Life is non-negotiable. Obama doesn't plan to change the way of life but in his speech, which contradicts the "change" that Obama has in his slogan. Majority of the people do not seem to notice his contradiction and I think it connects to the American way of life because we do not look at things carefully and does a lot of things by feelings, not really thinking before we act. But, I am not sure if he means what Bush means. Maybe to change the life better but after saying that, how "our spirits can't be broken" and "we will defeat you" cause change in what he said in the beginning. It's different from Bush, just giving a sharp statement. But Obama gives much more sincerity, I think, towards what he was trying to say. Everybody feels strongly at listening at Obama because the words he gives and the hopes of the future he speaks of with the respect of the past people has covered basically everything that needs to be said. Needs to be said to give everybody a secure feeling. We all wish for secure feelings and by having such a leader as Obama, and seeing in the video, with millions of people, especially African Americans, it has created a new union team.
In learning about Marx’s analysis and critique of Capitalism with his famous book, “Das Capital”, it has given new insights on how capitalism can bring more evil than good. Karl Marx has a dialectic (analyze over-time) vision that capitalism would lead to communism. He said that all economic system always consists of unpaid surplus value and "the relationship of rulers and ruled" (Why does capitalism go through cycles of booms and slumps?). The base and superstructure of the economy society is where the basic structure of the economy determines how everything in the society/culture works. Because of that relationship, classes are split in capitalism between the rich and the middle and poor. The workers are the oppressed and the rich people, capitalist are the oppressor (Communist Manifesto chapter 1). The workers all have to work for the capitalists to get money to survive like many of the people in the world. The workers are always fighting against the capitalists to get what they deserved but it is always hard because they do not have as much power as they do so they would always be the one struggling. They are the ones that are doing all the work, in the labor theory of life, the workers are the source of all wealth, meaning the workers are the "direct producers" -the ones who do all the labor work for the capitalists to get their wealth. However, in return for the capitalists wealth, the workers gets tiny amount and possibly, if worse, the capitalists would get more evil and lessen the pay/wage on the workers. Leading the workers in struggles for help but unlike the really long past, we have created the union to help benefit the workers. Then the capitalists have restricted their right to lessen on the wage but they are still in power. Similarly, like vampires, or Marx's calling - vampirization, capitalists are like vampires who suck labor out of the poor workers and spread the capitalism around fast. With each worker, they would use them fully to get as much capital from them and then throw them away. The capitalists has "the need of a constantly expanding market for its products", they must expand to continue living and then finally, covering "the entire surface of the globe" and "nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere". Capitalists has already surrounded all of America, making connections with all the workers, and just relaxing since they don't have to do much work, unlike the workers. They only have to wait for the money to come.
"Free Trade...exploitation, veil by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation" (Communist Manifesto). (Not sure about the religious aspect) but for "shameless, direct, brutal exploitation", my meaning of that phrase are how the capitalists steals the profit from the workers and use it for themselves to earn big and become rich/wealthy. The three words in the phrase, shameless, direct and brutal shows Marx or the translation from the German original shows how capitalism is rather evil system and by shameless, I think whatever means to get rich and using others for that. The "bourgeoisie" cannot exists without production which connects to the relations of society because they need labor to get their businesses working. Since the workers, who we also called proleterians (one who sells their labor power) are being used and the capitalists expropriating our labor and money, "man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind". Capitalism is not "holy" and we cannot all think that by working hard, we would get to where we want (maybe some do, like rags to riches) but we all have to face the real conditions of life, and the connections that we have between each other’s.
"The modern working class - the proletarians". The more hard we work and more work is piled up, the wages decrease. Because capitalists threaten us in a way, saying how if you don't want to work, I can go outside and find anybody to substitute for you and which makes it hard for all the workers. It is hard to find jobs and the workers have competition within each other as well as with the capitalists. The better one would get the job but doesn't mean their pay would be as much. The competition makes the workers become "stronger, firmer," and "mightier". This helps the workers to slowly overthrow the capitalists since their demands are getting higher and higher. They are not dumb and they are able to help each other to make a "revolutionary party" to free everyone from the capitalists. I think in the end, the victory would go the proletarians, becoming communists because after reading what Marx's wrote, it changes my mind about what America is becoming. With all these booms and crashes that are happening over the history, someday, all the workers would get fed up and aufhebung capitalism and start changing.
Another major aspect that affects the American way of Life is the government, the "Constitution" - Supreme Law of the Land. In the blue print of the textbook that translates section 2 of article six, no one can make any laws that would be in conflict with “the constitution, acts of Congress, diplomatic treaties, or orders issued by the executive branch” shows the “supremacy” and the grand powers of how the federal laws work and have. In the “no religious test” clause, in my opinion, the significance is to not have any doubts between each members of the house. Because of the religious beliefs that each person has, they would have different opinion in different matters, making the whole house judgment to sway a bit and members would start to exclude the others. Having the “no religious test”, it gives the members chances to become more united rather than separated and if they are not united with the same mind, the whole Congress would be unstable, making the people they have to protect start to waver about the members strength/power.
The preamble states that : "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justic, insure domestic transquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosterity, do ordain and established this constitution for the United States of America." In the preamble, "we the people of the United States" would indicate you, me and each of the people living in the United States. Then they list all the things that would make the United Sates better and to protect the people of the United States. "We the people of the United States" is the most important phrase in the preamble, and where the government derives its power from the people to creat an "orderly, stable and just society" (taken from the textbook). However, looking at the preamble from the view of the present people, when stated, "we the people of the United States", where does the "we" come from? Does it truly mean us, the ones living in America right now? I don't think so, but rather it says "we" to include the future generation in one view. The other view is how when the Constitution is created, the white people are the ones who had signed it. We, meaning you, I and the others who have not signed it did not. Additionally, by listing out their goals in the preamble, and connecting to the present world, those goals are getting better than the past since more rights have been passed and "freedom" has been more "free" on people than before. It has given a hope to us by saying those words. But if it is not fulfill, the people would have feelings of rejections and the great ideals they said about America would be change, which the government does not want, so they would change to cover the badness of what they are doing.
When a person asked you the question, "If you have the influence/power, which amendment would you change?" It's quite hard to decide which one because there is a lot of you could change but only a tiny bit of it can be changed. Seeing how the society is, if changing one side too much, the other side will become unbalanced. In the Amendments, one of the group that gives out the most importance is Amendment 13: Slavery is eliminated, Amendment 14: People born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens even if they are different skin color, and Amendment 15: All citizens can vote, does not matter on the race, or color. These three amendments are very important to the coloured people because now that the slavery is abolished, I think especially for African Americans; they would feel more freedom than ever. Additionally, they are now identified as "U.S. citizens", not "slaves" and they can vote like other people (white people) can. These amendments are able to make America more equal and more just like the preamble wants it to be. It had made at least half the people of the population of that time period to receive equal rights like others. (Source taken fromhttp://firebolt.com/constitution/amendments.html#AM11) Also having the 14th amendment combine with the "no religiuos test" claus can give a vision of a diverse and equitable society with no government discrimination because in a way, everybody has to follow it. And their goal was to create the society to be equal and diverse. In the 14th amendment, everybody is counted equally in the census meaning all the races are counted fairly. In the "no religious test" clause, the Congress members cannot be discriminating each other because they are on the top and protecting people, if the members do not work together, it will be chaos for the people below. If they do work together and having the 14th amendment protecting the rights of the coloured people, the society would become more balance, equal and having more people to be joined into the society. It would also affect the change the white people had on the coloured people and maybe the coloured people on the white people. It will take a long time to get that vision to become successful but I think because of the 14th amendment and the "no religious test" clause, it gives a chance to renew and refresh many (maybe) of the conflicts and change it in a way to give everyone the right to say something for themselves.
From amendments 16-27, I find amendment 19 where all the gender can vote important because since I am a girl and at that time, before 19 came the women were not able to vote. But because the 19th amendment let all gender to vote, it makes a huge different to the women and gave them another right to sound out their voices just like how the coloured people are able to vote and give their opinion on who they want as their leader.
Learning from the Constitution, I think the general tendency of the Constitution and Amendments in my view of steady expansion of human freedom and decency is how a lot of rules in the Constitution and Amendments are still approving and a lot of them, in the amendments have given a huge step in the society. There are a lot of reverses and contradictions in no particular direction because it depends on the history, what had happen in that era that affects the direction. I think there are always betrayals of democratic ideals by corrupt officials although I do not know much about them but there are always increase and decrease of those betrayals and the corrupt officials. Additionally, I believe that there are always eternal battles between the evil and good sides of humanity because that is how we are able to live through, experience what humanity should experience by whoever created us.
In the Constitution, I think the most important ones are the preamble to start with...."in order to form a perfect union, establish justice, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings to ourselves and our prosterity". America is still improving to fulfill these goals that the author's had. America may have these goals come true, and throughout the America history it has improve a lot for many eyes to see, especially mine. In the Judicial section, it is a good thing for the U.S. to not execute anyone and I think that gives people a good chance to refresh their lives if they do make a renew of themselves. A big part of the amendment that has improve a lot and has given America to become a more diverse and equal society is the 13th Amendment, Abolition of Slavery and a part of the 14th Amendment where everybody are all counted equally. Because of the abolition of slavery, many coloured people are not the same as today, racism has lessened and everybody is able to communicate with each other. Additionally, because as everybody is counted equally, we are able to feel equal as time went on. As history goes on, the constitution and the amendments are always changing differently and so whether it is evil and good side, it always changes because of time. Since the constitution and the amendments have been created long ago, many things have improved and many things have changed.
The constitution, as amended has created a lot of opportunities for the others, such as the right for the other races to vote and no more slavery. They were able to live equally with the white people. It helped shape the American way of life today and it connect to all the deeper in the constitution part where today is more of a diverse and equitable society than before. There are alot of rights such as the right to vote plus all the gender to vote, abolition of slavery and more of the big rights. The Bill of Rights gave the people the right to practice their religion, freedom of speech, press, assembly and petition. Students lives in the school and how the school system are, the congress can not change which I think help us, the teachers to teach the way they would to pass on their knowledge to us. However there are also the constraints of what the school board wants and how the teachers have to teach at the grade level. Also, the constitution creates hope and change for us, which affects our American way of life. The constitution also constrains the people to behave. If the Congress and the supreme law do not control the people, it will create havoc. So that's why a lot of the rules in the constitution is to have people to become a more in a way "nicer", and less discrimination between people. The constitution is trying to create a "justice" and equal society. Even though the American way of life is listed as "freedom", we always have an invisible rule that guides us, half of us to have control and half the others to become the opposite. Then the society is build upon to have the good versus evil to control each other. I think the constitution shape a lot of the ways in our American way of life. We have a capitalism economic system in America and because the constitution didn't forbid us. We are able to have a bigger welfare than other countries. Generally the constitution and the rules on the Congress and the president are to become faithful to the people and the supreme law protecting the citizens of America. The people are able to choose more and have been living better than in the past but does not mean the capitalism world has given choices of success to the people. Finally, I think after the constitution and the amendments were made that we were able to live far differently from the past and our American way of life has changed throughout the period and still has been improving greater.
