1. Adenauer's greatest achievements;
-he reestablished German democracy following the Nazis, (Verdict A)
-he oversaw the beginning of an economic miracle, secured a place for West Germany in the international community, brought economic prosperity, material wealth, political stability, and relative security. (Verdict B)
-brought Germany out of the abyss Hitler caused, tied West Germany into Western Europe and brought them closer (Verdict C)
2. Criticisms of Adenauer are not justified because although some said that he completely neglected the concerns of East Germany, it seems to me that he just did not want to do anything risky such as reunite the country so long as the Soviet Union was so closely tied in with East Germany, as there was no predicting what might have happened otherwise. However, it is true that he did not keep his promise of focusing on German reunification.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
IRL - European Union. 1/25/10.
URL; https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ee.html
The European Union today, according to the CIA fact book, has done a lot in Europe, including the abolishment of trade barriers (which is consistent with the idea of European economic cooperation that began in the 1950s and 1960s), has adopted a common currency (the Euro), and is striving toward convergence of living standards. The only limitation to this is that due to differences in average income in various countries as well as the standard of living which varies, it will be difficult to standardize the quality of living and work toward one common European economy.
This is significant to what we have learned in class because it demonstrates that the countries of Europe are cooperating in order to level out their standards of living and make opportunities greater for all European countries who are part of the European Union. This is definitely a continuation of the past attempts to unite Europe economically and move past the divisions due to wars which created rivalries and significant economic gaps from one country to another. Also, statistics demonstrate that this is working, as the unemployment rate of the EU is only 9% compared to the rest of the world which is slightly higher, and that the EU is very technologically advanced compared to most of the world and home to a number of industries (metal, coal, cement, electronics and communication, etc.).
What I find most significant is that the European Union covers a wide range of European regions that were once previously separated culturally and economically, for instance all of Western Europe minus Switzerland, but also Eastern European countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, etc . are also members, and they were on the other side of the "Iron Curtain", but now seem to be showing interest in cooperating with the rest of Europe, which shows definite progress. There are currently 27 member states of the European Union, which is more than half of all Europe.
The European Union today, according to the CIA fact book, has done a lot in Europe, including the abolishment of trade barriers (which is consistent with the idea of European economic cooperation that began in the 1950s and 1960s), has adopted a common currency (the Euro), and is striving toward convergence of living standards. The only limitation to this is that due to differences in average income in various countries as well as the standard of living which varies, it will be difficult to standardize the quality of living and work toward one common European economy.
This is significant to what we have learned in class because it demonstrates that the countries of Europe are cooperating in order to level out their standards of living and make opportunities greater for all European countries who are part of the European Union. This is definitely a continuation of the past attempts to unite Europe economically and move past the divisions due to wars which created rivalries and significant economic gaps from one country to another. Also, statistics demonstrate that this is working, as the unemployment rate of the EU is only 9% compared to the rest of the world which is slightly higher, and that the EU is very technologically advanced compared to most of the world and home to a number of industries (metal, coal, cement, electronics and communication, etc.).
What I find most significant is that the European Union covers a wide range of European regions that were once previously separated culturally and economically, for instance all of Western Europe minus Switzerland, but also Eastern European countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, etc . are also members, and they were on the other side of the "Iron Curtain", but now seem to be showing interest in cooperating with the rest of Europe, which shows definite progress. There are currently 27 member states of the European Union, which is more than half of all Europe.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Spain Chapter 5.5 Questions, January 6, 2011
1. Successes Spain experienced in international relations in the 1950s included the $62 million dollar loan from the US as part of the European Co-Operation Adminstration, the 1952 decision to allow Spain membership of UNESCO, and in 1955 full membership of the United Nations.
2. Economic troubles Spain faced included the per capita meat consumption that was in 1950 only half of what it was in 1926, bread consumption being only half of what it was in 1936, and shortages and corruption that forced people to buy goods at black market prices double those in the shops.
3. A technocrat is a technical expert put in a position of power or control. Opus Dei was an organization within the Catholic Church that believed that economic development lead to the spread of liberal ideas and therefore, anti-Catholic thought.
4. Desarrollo means Spanish Miracle. The Stabilization Plan of 1957 was made up of cutting public spending, wages were frozen, credit restricted, and the peseta (the Spanish currency) was devalued. The goal of this was to tackle inflation and the balance of payments deficit and in the longer term to break with the Falangist policy of autarky, which had restricted the possibility of economic growth.
5. The Spanish economy was boosted in the 1960s because foreign investment was attracted by the low cost of labour and the lack of civil rights the authoritarian regime guaranteed, and Northern Europe's expanding middle class started to take holidays on the rapidly developing Spanish costas. Spanish people working in the service sector abroad sent home one third of their earnings to family left behind, and by 1973 there were 750,000 Spanish working in Germany and France.
6. Three examples of the economic improvement experienced by the Spaniards during the 1960s include the fact that they ceased to be on the list of UN-designated "Developing Nations", and when the Desarrollo ended with the world oil crisis of 1973, Spain was the world's ninth biggest industrial power. Additionally, average incomes nearly tripled during the 1960s.
7. Types of media that came to dominate Spanish culture during the 1960s were television, and Television Espanola (TVE) was established as a state monopoly in 1956. By 1970, 90% of the Spanish owned a television. Also, the cinema was another media, as it had more seats per capita than in any other European country. Football also offered a similar means of escape and was fully exploited by the nation.
8. Three ways that economic growth in Spain undermined the social structure that helped create Franco's regime were the fact that Falangists had glorified the peasant farmer and traditional class structure of southern Spain, but the urbanization of the Desarrollo did much to destroy this. Also Falangist propaganda denigrated the moral turpitude of the liberal democracies but Spain's economic revival depended on the remittances of Spaniards living in these democracies. Also, the Spanish brought home with them liberal ideas when they returned.
9. The "anti-democratic" legacy of the Franco regime is the fact that the state and laws were fundamentally unchanged from the system established at the end of the civil war, and in 1975 when Franco died, Spain stood alone in Western Europe as the only remaining authoritarian regime that owed its origins to pre-war fascism. Also, Spain was still overwhelmingly focused on the Cortes representing not political parties but interest groups drawn from the monarchists, army, church, and Falange.
10. The "institutionalized discrimination against married women" in Spain in the 1970s because women were in Franco's Spain considered second class citizens, the basis of the relationship between men and women was the idea of permiso marital (permission of marriage), where without the husband's permission, a wife could not take job, open a bank account or even travel any significant distance. Married women didn't have rights to property and had to pass everything to their husbands, and although adultery was a crime punishable 6 years in prison, it was only a crime for men if the affair became public knowledge, and there was no divorce and contraception was illegal. Basically, women had no choices.
11. Nationalist minority groups in Spain during the 1960s and 1970s such as the Catalans and Basques protested the suppression of regionalism. In Catalonia the protests were expressed peacefully through cultural means but in the Basque country, the protest became associated with the terrorist group ETA which became caught up in a spiral of retaliatory violence which continues today.
2. Economic troubles Spain faced included the per capita meat consumption that was in 1950 only half of what it was in 1926, bread consumption being only half of what it was in 1936, and shortages and corruption that forced people to buy goods at black market prices double those in the shops.
3. A technocrat is a technical expert put in a position of power or control. Opus Dei was an organization within the Catholic Church that believed that economic development lead to the spread of liberal ideas and therefore, anti-Catholic thought.
4. Desarrollo means Spanish Miracle. The Stabilization Plan of 1957 was made up of cutting public spending, wages were frozen, credit restricted, and the peseta (the Spanish currency) was devalued. The goal of this was to tackle inflation and the balance of payments deficit and in the longer term to break with the Falangist policy of autarky, which had restricted the possibility of economic growth.
5. The Spanish economy was boosted in the 1960s because foreign investment was attracted by the low cost of labour and the lack of civil rights the authoritarian regime guaranteed, and Northern Europe's expanding middle class started to take holidays on the rapidly developing Spanish costas. Spanish people working in the service sector abroad sent home one third of their earnings to family left behind, and by 1973 there were 750,000 Spanish working in Germany and France.
6. Three examples of the economic improvement experienced by the Spaniards during the 1960s include the fact that they ceased to be on the list of UN-designated "Developing Nations", and when the Desarrollo ended with the world oil crisis of 1973, Spain was the world's ninth biggest industrial power. Additionally, average incomes nearly tripled during the 1960s.
7. Types of media that came to dominate Spanish culture during the 1960s were television, and Television Espanola (TVE) was established as a state monopoly in 1956. By 1970, 90% of the Spanish owned a television. Also, the cinema was another media, as it had more seats per capita than in any other European country. Football also offered a similar means of escape and was fully exploited by the nation.
8. Three ways that economic growth in Spain undermined the social structure that helped create Franco's regime were the fact that Falangists had glorified the peasant farmer and traditional class structure of southern Spain, but the urbanization of the Desarrollo did much to destroy this. Also Falangist propaganda denigrated the moral turpitude of the liberal democracies but Spain's economic revival depended on the remittances of Spaniards living in these democracies. Also, the Spanish brought home with them liberal ideas when they returned.
9. The "anti-democratic" legacy of the Franco regime is the fact that the state and laws were fundamentally unchanged from the system established at the end of the civil war, and in 1975 when Franco died, Spain stood alone in Western Europe as the only remaining authoritarian regime that owed its origins to pre-war fascism. Also, Spain was still overwhelmingly focused on the Cortes representing not political parties but interest groups drawn from the monarchists, army, church, and Falange.
10. The "institutionalized discrimination against married women" in Spain in the 1970s because women were in Franco's Spain considered second class citizens, the basis of the relationship between men and women was the idea of permiso marital (permission of marriage), where without the husband's permission, a wife could not take job, open a bank account or even travel any significant distance. Married women didn't have rights to property and had to pass everything to their husbands, and although adultery was a crime punishable 6 years in prison, it was only a crime for men if the affair became public knowledge, and there was no divorce and contraception was illegal. Basically, women had no choices.
11. Nationalist minority groups in Spain during the 1960s and 1970s such as the Catalans and Basques protested the suppression of regionalism. In Catalonia the protests were expressed peacefully through cultural means but in the Basque country, the protest became associated with the terrorist group ETA which became caught up in a spiral of retaliatory violence which continues today.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Franco questions, January 4, 2010
1. Compare and contrast the views of Paul Preston and Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses on Franco. To what extent do they disagree with one another?
To a significant extent they disagree with each other, because the underlying thought behind what they have stated is contrasting - de Meneses believes that Franco was not a fascist because fascists want to provoke a change in society, but he says that Franco tried to preserve Spain from change, which is contrary to what fascism is - while on the other hand, Preston states that the only way it can be justified to state that Franco was not a fascist is if fascism is made synonymous with Nazism, since Mussolini's Italy is in many ways comparable to Spain under Franco.
2. Franco ruled Spain for nearly 40 years. Why does this make it more difficult to conclude whether he was a fascist or not?
Due to the different circumstances that Franco would have had to face and the influence of several leaders of other countries and the sharing of ideas between them (Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, etc.) and the fact that Spain under Franco, according to Source G on this paper, had "Fascist trimmings in the early years" but later on was rather modified over time and never became a totalitarian state, it is difficult to determine if Franco is fascist or not since the nature of his regime might have shifted focus for one reason or another.
3. In 1944 the English writer George Orwell wrote that the word fascism was "entirely meaningless". Does the word have any meaning or use in today's world?
From my experience I have only heard it used in reference to leaders who have existed in the past, mainly Hitler and Mussolini, but in today's world it is taught that fascism is the 'extreme right' on the political spectrum, thus it seems that someone with extreme right-wing views, if going all the way to the extreme with them, could be considered a fascist if they put these views into practice and ruled their country similarly to how established fascist leaders (Hitler, Mussolini, etc.) did. I have not heard any modern leaders referred to as fascist although this might be due to my limited experience.
4. List the characteristics of a fascist state. How does Franco's rule conform to these definitions?
- Right-wing views
- Brutality and a desire for war
- One political party exists
- Totalitarian
- Desire to create change in the society
Franco's rule conforms to the definitions of right-wing, brutal/war desiring, but not totalitarian or the existence of only one political party (since the Falangists only existed for a period of time before Franco diminished their importance and eventually they ceased to exist or be significant). The main difference is that Franco was said to have tried to preserve Spain from change, which is seen as un-fascist, as opposed to trying to create radical change the way someone like Hitler and Mussolini did.
To a significant extent they disagree with each other, because the underlying thought behind what they have stated is contrasting - de Meneses believes that Franco was not a fascist because fascists want to provoke a change in society, but he says that Franco tried to preserve Spain from change, which is contrary to what fascism is - while on the other hand, Preston states that the only way it can be justified to state that Franco was not a fascist is if fascism is made synonymous with Nazism, since Mussolini's Italy is in many ways comparable to Spain under Franco.
2. Franco ruled Spain for nearly 40 years. Why does this make it more difficult to conclude whether he was a fascist or not?
Due to the different circumstances that Franco would have had to face and the influence of several leaders of other countries and the sharing of ideas between them (Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, etc.) and the fact that Spain under Franco, according to Source G on this paper, had "Fascist trimmings in the early years" but later on was rather modified over time and never became a totalitarian state, it is difficult to determine if Franco is fascist or not since the nature of his regime might have shifted focus for one reason or another.
3. In 1944 the English writer George Orwell wrote that the word fascism was "entirely meaningless". Does the word have any meaning or use in today's world?
From my experience I have only heard it used in reference to leaders who have existed in the past, mainly Hitler and Mussolini, but in today's world it is taught that fascism is the 'extreme right' on the political spectrum, thus it seems that someone with extreme right-wing views, if going all the way to the extreme with them, could be considered a fascist if they put these views into practice and ruled their country similarly to how established fascist leaders (Hitler, Mussolini, etc.) did. I have not heard any modern leaders referred to as fascist although this might be due to my limited experience.
4. List the characteristics of a fascist state. How does Franco's rule conform to these definitions?
- Right-wing views
- Brutality and a desire for war
- One political party exists
- Totalitarian
- Desire to create change in the society
Franco's rule conforms to the definitions of right-wing, brutal/war desiring, but not totalitarian or the existence of only one political party (since the Falangists only existed for a period of time before Franco diminished their importance and eventually they ceased to exist or be significant). The main difference is that Franco was said to have tried to preserve Spain from change, which is seen as un-fascist, as opposed to trying to create radical change the way someone like Hitler and Mussolini did.
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