1. Ruth Gilmore says that capitalism will stop being racial capitalism, when all the white people disappear from the story. What’s the connection between “whiteness” and racism, do you think? The connection between “whiteness” and racism that is implied via Ruth Gilmore is that “whiteness” involves people trying to subjugate and use others as a means of obtaining wealth. The way that “whiteness” justifies why those that are subjugated are treated as “lesser beings” to further their goal is through racism, by stating the race that they are apart of (People of African American descent) are lesser than those who are white, and are therefore only tools that should be used to perpetuate the wealth of the white people. This connection is very much stemmed from how white Europeans enslaved many black people from both Africa and the Americas to further their wealth via capitalism and justified it through racism.

2. Gilmore makes the point that criminals are actually being created by the criminal justice and prison system (she says “the category of ‘criminal person’ can be perpetuated”). According to Gilmore, how does that happen, how does the prison system create new “criminals“? Do you agree with her view? According to Gilmore, criminals are created by the criminal justice and prison system, by people who haven’t been apart of society (due to already being in prison) being out of the loop of any new laws that have been added to society overtime, accidentally breaking them via not knowing what has changed and then being reincarcerated over and over again. Essentially, the existing criminals, once they serve their sentence and leave the prison, end up breaking a new law that they didn’t know existed and end up going back to prison. On top of that, criminals who leave prison end up not having a home to go to, meaning that they don’t have a reliable way to learn about these new laws that were made during the time that they served their sentence. I can see Ruth Gilmore’s idea having some truth to it since a lot of changes can occur within the law within the law after a couple of years, and people who are incarcerated typically don’t have family that they can rely on to help them recuperate or learn these things. Not to mention that a good chunk of people also don’t like to associate with people who have been to prison before, since they typically viewed as dangerous people, meaning that the previously incarcerated person is left to fend for themselves once they’ve served their sentence.

3. Describe how your understand what Prof. Gilmore – in the last part of her video – calls “liberation struggle”? Liberation Struggle is the struggle of a group of people or community to fight against a form of government that is limiting their freedom to be who they want to be and live how they want to live. In the case of the example that Ruth Gilmore studied and learned about, the municipality of Cova Da Moura decided that many of the people who lived in Cova Da Moura lived in self-built houses that weren’t up-to code and that they would be relocated to houses that they would make via housing projects. However, the people who live in those self-made houses have been living there for a while and these people have essentially made entire communities through their size, meaning that these changes that the municipality want to enforce would destroy entire communities that have learned to call Cova Da Moura their home. This caused a good chunk of people within their community to organize themselves to understand why they were under threat of losing their homes, to fight against those that were threatening their freedom. This is what I understood Liberation Struggle to be.

1. What did the Supreme Court decide in the Wal-Mart case? And more importantly, how did it justify its decision? (HINT: the key word here is “commonality” (and how it related to “class-action lawsuit”). Try to understand what this legal terms means, as it is key to the court’s decision). The initial basis between the Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc case is that 1.5 million female workers joined Betty Dukes in a class-action lawsuit through the commonality of feeling that Wal-Mart treats their femal employees worse than their male employees. The basis for this through multiple reasons, such as women being paid less than men across 41 different retail region, the wage gap between women and men increasing every year (where women would continue to earn less and less as the years went on despite, women typically making up more of the hourly workforce and women sticking around the job longer than men) and having those reasons justified by the men working within the stores (such as telling them to “doll up” if they ever wanted to advance in the company). From all of this, Betty Dukes and the 1.5 Million female workers within the class-action lawsuit demanded back-pay for the female workers due to this discrimination. What the supreme court ended up deciding from this case was to rule in favor of Wal-mart and to turn down the lawsuit that was filed against them. The reason why they did this is because two major reasons: the way that the supreme court classified the type of relief that the 1.5 million female workers were looking for and how much their “commonality” overlapped. Due the fact that the 1.5 female workers were asking for back pay (even though the major point of this case being the discrimination between males and female workers in wal-mart), the supreme court treated this as a b3 claim, which ended up compromising the class status of the women who joined in the lawsuit and prevented the case as being treated as a discriminatory issue. The other reason why the lawsuit was denied was because of the fact that the 1.5 million female workers that joined in the class-action lawsuit weren’t dealing with a problem that would require the same solution, which led to the supreme court decided that the women that were part of the lawsuit didn’t share any commonality with one another. These two reasons were what ultimately led to the supreme court ruling in favor of Wal-Mart.

1. In what ways is the court system better suited to protect the individual, than are the elected branches of government (such as Congress and the President; or the Mayor of NYC and the NYC City Assembly)? Give an example to illustrate your argument. One area in which the court system is better suited to protect the individual than the elected branches of the government are through the protection of individual rights through multiple court systems. This example can be shown through the Miranda v. Arizona Case, where Miranda was a man who was convicted of criminal activity he had done to another person. He was initially convicted and sentenced to prison when his own signed confession was used as a piece of evidence at a trial in the Arizona Court. However, Miranda made an appeal to the Arizona and U.S Supreme Court to exclude that piece of evidence since it had violated Miranda’s Fifth Amendment right to be protected against self-incrimination. Since Miranda did not waive his fifth-Amendment rights when putting in this confession and he wasn’t given the right to an attorney (which violates his sixth amendment rights), Miranda’s conviction was overturned (though he did still have to face charges for the crimes that he committed later down the line). Another way that the court system is better suited to protect the individual is through allowing the voices of minorities to be heard and potentially have their issues be solved if they have the proper claim and evidence for that issue. Minorities are typically drowned out it when it comes to dealing with a lot of issues and the other elected branches of the government tend to ignore them in order to continue pursuing things that would allow continue to help the wealthy, so actually having an area where they can have their problems solved (should the proper circumstances be met) speaks volumes as to how significant it is to have a court system available to them. 

2. Think about how federal judges get to become judges – unlike Presidents, Mayors and members of Congress (and other legislatures), they are not elected, but rather appointed. Many Americans have thus called the federal courts system, and especially the Supreme Court, anti-democratic places in our government. Do you agree that the Supreme Court, for example, is an anti-democratic part of our government? What could be the reason for this way of choosing judges in federal courts? (HINT: think about our discussion of “Federalist #10”, and which social class plays a leading role in our government system.) I do agree that the Supreme Court is an anti-democratic part of our government, though not fully. The reason why I say its not fully anti-democratic is because of the fact that the Supreme Court judges do take into consideration the feelings of interest groups and the public when it comes to their judgment on their cases. However, a good chunk of the things that surround the Supreme Court are very anti-democratic, such as how solicitor generals are the ones who decide which cases are appealed from the lower courts and is the one who has to approve the cases that are presented, them being the ones who determine that the government will take on a case and can recommend that the Supreme Court justices decline to hear a case if desired. Even though solicitor generals don’t have unlimited power and the Supreme Court justices can ignore their recommendations, they more often than not follow them even when they aren’t expected to. On top of this, the Supreme Court Justices themselves are appointed to their positions by the federal government themselves (nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate) and not the public, meaning that the Supreme Court justices who were appointed are most likely going to be of a similar social class to those that appointed them, that being the wealthy social class. As seen the federalist #10 papers, since the government believes that the wealthy are the ones who deserve to have their wealth and rights protected due to earning it through their intelligence and that poor people are not capable of earning that wealth since they aren’t intelligent, the government will continue to focus on protecting the rights and desires of those who matter and deserve it in their eyes, which are the wealthy social class. Since the Supreme Court justices, are a group of people that can only be chosen by the federal government themselves with no influence from the public whatsoever, that means that the federal government can use the Supreme Court as another method of protecting and supporting the wealthy, since the Supreme Court Justices will be composed of people that are also apart of the wealthy social class and not the poor, working class.

1. Describe how you understand the “Establishment Clause” and the related “Lemon Test”. The way that I understand the establishment clause is that it is the idea that Congress is not allowed to create or promote a religion, in order to prevent the United States from having an official government supported religion. The reason this is done is because Americans come from many different backgrounds and support many different religions, so this allows every American to support whatever religion they deserve without feeling ostracized from supporting a religion that’s different from the one that the government supports. Since there‘s no government religion, everyone feels free to believe in whatever they want to believe in. On top of this, this also made sure that states couldn’t establish a religion as the religion of that state. For example, there couldn’t be an official religion for New York or an official religion of Texas. The lemon test were a set of criteria that was established in order to decide if a law or government action that has the potential to promote a particular religious practice should stand. If the criteria were met, then the law or action would be constitutional and would remain and vice versa if the criteria were not met. These criteria essentially stated that the action or law can’t limit or advance religious practice, it must have a reason to be done outside of religion and it shouldn’t cause the government to have excessive involvement with any form of religion. The lemon test was done in order to continue to ensure that everyone had the freedom to believe in whatever religion that they believed in without being forced or limited by laws or actions that would prevent them from doing so.

2. Is burning the US flag protected by the First Amendment? Explain by referring to the relevant court case discussed in the reading. I would say that the First Amendment does protect the burning of the U.S flag. The reason why I say this is because of the Texas v. Johnson case that occurred in the Supreme Court. In 1984, a man named Gregory Lee Johnson ended up setting fire to a U.S flag as part of a protest that occurred near the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas. This caused him to get arrested and charged with “desecration of a venerated object”. This led to the Texas v. Johnson case’s decision in 1989, in which the Supreme Court ruled that flag burning is protected by the First Amendment due to it being a form of symbolic speech. Despite Congress’s attempts on trying to make flag desecration a crime, they have not succeeded in doing such a thing and burning the U.S flag is still protected by the First Amendment as a form of symbolic speech.

3. What does it mean when someone says “I’m taking the Fifth”? When someone says that they are taking the fifth, what they mean is that they are taking the right to remain silent, which is essentially the right to not give evidence to any form of law enforcement (whether it be police officers or the court) that would incriminate oneself. For example, if an officer asks a car driver to got into a car crash to tell them what happened, the car driver, who got into the accident due to texting on their phone and keeping their eyes of the road, choses to take the fifth and doesn’t tell the officer anything since they don’t want to incriminate themselves to the police officer.

1. P. Williams writes in her essay, that the war on terror is a new type of a war. What’s new about it, how is it different from traditional wars? The war on terror is a new type of war in the fact that it is a war against a civilian enemy (terrorists) rather than a military enemy (the military of other countries). Since this war is against a civilian enemy, this means that it is hard to determine who exactly the enemy is, since they look and act like every day civilians. On top of this, most acts that are done by the government in order to try to catch terrorists by surprise tends to violate the rights of the civilians who aren’t terrorists, which makes things difficult for both the government to deal with this and for regular people to live with their liberties without some sort of compromise going on. In the case of traditional wars, this is something that is not done. Last but not least, since the amount of terrorists is always unknown due to them blending with everyday civilians, this is a war that can last forever, which is different from traditional wars since the enemy country can be captured or surrender. Stopping one terrorist or one terrorist organization doesn’t stop others from doing what they want to do. It’s a battle of the mind rather than a direct battle of might. It’s also potentially possible for the government to abuse this idea in order to do what they want to the civilians that live within their country. 

2. In what ways does the “Roving Wiretaps” of the Patriot Act seem to violate the Bill of Rights? Which amendment(s) does it seem to violate and why? The ways in which Roving Wiretaps of the Patriot Act violate the Bill of Rights is through violating the Fourth Amendment, which states that government officials require receiving a warrant in order to search or seize property. A wiretap, the ability for a government official to listen to a civilian’s calls made through some form of communication device, is also something that requires a warrant to do. The reason why the Roving Wiretap violates the Fourth Amendment is because Roving Wiretaps make it so that a government official only needs one warrant in order listen into a civilian’s conversations across multiple communication devices. This basically makes it so that the government official is bypassing the warrant requirement that is necessary in order to wiretap a communication device in the first place. This can also cause anyone who interacts with a suspect in a casual manner to have their privacy be violated. 

3. What about “Sneek and Peek” Warrants? The ways in which “Sneak and Peek” Warrants of the Patriot Act violate the Bill of Rights is through violating the Fourth Amendment, which states that government officials require the person whose house they wish to search or someone whom the house owner trusts to be within the house when the search is conducted. The reason why “Sneak and Peak” Warrants violate the fourth amendment is because it essentially allows government officials to search a suspect’s house in secret. (meaning that the house owner nor somebody they trust is currently within the house and it is empty). This also means that potential abuses by the government are allowed to occur, like the potential planting of evidence within the house by the cops while no one is there, which could allow the cops to convict someone due to faulty evidence that can’t be proven as faulty. 

1. Describe the primary differences in the role of citizens in government, among the federal, confederation, and unitary systems. The primary differences in the role of citizens in government between these three systems were that in federal systems, citizens were the ones that had the authority of the land and it was the responsibility of both the states and the national government to follow the will of the people. This meant that citizens interacted with both their state government and the national government. In confederation systems, citizens could only affect the government by influencing the government of the state that they live in, therefore they only really interacted with their state government and not the national government. In unitary systems, citizens could only affect the government by influencing the national government, therefore they only interacted with the national government rather than the government of the state that they lived in. 

2. Briefly explain how you understand the system of division of power. The way that I understand the division of power is that the power of the federal government (or national government) is divided into three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. This was done alongside a system of checks and balances in order to ensure that no one branch would ever become too powerful, since the branches can always check the power of each other. These branches all work together so that America is ran well and to set guidelines for all citizens to live by. The legislative branch is the branch that is responsible for making the federal laws. The executive branch is the branch that is responsible for enforcing the laws and the government. The judicial branch is the branch that is responsible for applying the U.S laws within local and supreme courts through the cases that are brought to them. 

3. How does the federal government shape the actions of state and local governments? Write your answer based on doing a bit of research on how the federal government has influenced the actions of NY state and local governments, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The federal government shapes the actions of the state and local governments via the laws and orders that they give regarding different situations. Whatever the federal government decides, the state and local governments have to follow suit with that order. On top of that, the federal government are the ones that usually provide the state and local governments with the necessary resources in order to follow suit with the policies that the federal government has put in place or with policies that the state and local governments have put in place in order to serve the people. This can be seen through how the federal government influenced the actions of NY state and local governments, in that the federal government directed aid to the local governments of New York in order to mitigate some of the worst fiscal impacts from the pandemic (through things such as the CARES act and the ARP). There’s also the moment when Trump ended up thinking about imposing a quarantine on New York and Cuomo wanted to push back on that, but ultimately, the federal government had the final say on that since they wanted to make sure that the constitutional rights of Americans were protected within this dangerous time. 

1. Based on the arguments presented in Readings 6.1 and 6.2, which social class wrote the Constitution, and which class was excluded and not allowed to participate in this process? In your comment, make sure you clearly specify the difference between the two classes by giving examples from the readings. The social class that ended up writing the Constitution was the wealthy, property-owning class (or the “gentlemen”), which consisted of the founding fathers. The social class that was excluded and not allowed to participate in this process were the non-wealthy, poor, propertyless and working social class. What made these two classes radically different was that the wealthy social class had forms of property that marked their wealth and power, which therefore gave them the ability to affect the law. The working class had little to no form of property that they actually owned, which in turn made them have no form of power and gave them no ability to affect the law. 

2. Would say that the social class structure of early United States society, was the same as ours today, or different? Explain. I would say that the social class structure of early United States society is very similar to how it is today because just like in the past, the current era makes it so that the wealthy who own different forms of property that generate income for them have the ability to affect and change the law (since their money, power and influence grants them the ability to either run for positions of power or get the people that they desire to be elected into positions of power). While on the other hand, the working class, who have little to no property and no wealth don’t have the ability to affect the law due to their lack of power.  

3. Why were the people who wrote the Constitution so afraid of democracy? Hint: think about how to answer this question by discussing it in terms of social classes. The people who wrote the Constitution were so afraid of democracy because they felt that democracy would be the main catalyst of the wealthy losing their income and the social order that they have worked so hard to established being destroyed. Democracy is what would give the working class a way to get power and make change, which would hamper the interests of the wealthy and would allow the working class to be the ones affecting the laws since they are the majority. Essentially, the whole power dynamic between the two social classes (wealthy and working class) would be flipped on its head, which is something that the wealthy class would not want in any regard.

1. What concept that we have already discussed does “faction” remind you of? The concept that factions remind me of is political parties. Since a faction is a group of people that all share a belief or opinion that is different from people who are not part of the group, it reminds me of how both Democrats and Republicans are groups of people who share beliefs that are different from those who aren’t within their party.  

2. According to Federalist #10 (written by James Madison), what is the source of wealth (private property)? What factor explains why some people get to possess wealth by owning private property, and others don’t (thus remaining poor)? This is a key question, because it shows how the authors of the Constitution thought about the difference between different classes of Americans! HINT: focus on the passage that begins: “The diversity in the faculties (WHAT DOES FACULTIES mean or refer to?) of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not les….” According to James Madison, the source of wealth is its inequality. What this means is that the wealthy only own so much private property because they are given the property that exists within the nation and the property that they get is protected by the government from being taken by the working class. The protection of faculties (privileges that the wealthy get from owning property) is what is being protected by the government. It is also what prevents the working class from getting any form of property, since property is what gives people wealth and power, which is what the government doesn’t protect. Essentially, wealthy people are wealthy because they were privileged enough to be born wealthy and therefore will have those privileges protected, while the working class will not privileged enough to be born with wealth and therefore don’t have any privileges to protect. 

3. Do you agree with this explanation of wealth and poverty? I do not agree with this explanation of wealth and poverty that James Madison explained because it is possible for someone to start off without much wealth to end up gaining wealth later in their life through hard work. Wealth shouldn’t be dependent on the family that a person is born into and what connections/properties their family had before they were born. 

4. What is the core mission (“first object”) of the US government? Does this surprise you, does it sound different from what our society today seems to suggest the core mission of the government is? Explain. The core mission of the U.S government is to protect the privileges of men, which specifically refers to the idea that you are allowed to have power if you have property and wealth. This essentially means that they are trying to protect the wealthy from the working class and also prevent the working class from acquiring property (and therefore, gain power). I would say that after what the class has taught me so far, that it doesn’t surprise me too much, since there’s been so much wealth distribution imbalance in America. It does sound different from what our society today suggests the core mission of the government is, since they say that the purpose of the government is to protect the people (meaning everyone) and provide liberty for all. 

5. Given the discussion in questions 1-4, are you surprised that Federalist #10 is not in favor of democracy, and supports a Republican (representative) form of government? Why would the author dislike a (pure) democratic form of government? Hint: think about how this question connects with the social classes. After going through the first 4 questions of this discussion board, I am not surprised that Federalist #10 is not in favor of democracy and supports a Republican form of government. James Madison would dislike a pure democratic form of government because that would cause the working class, those who were born without property would be able to gain privileges and power that they were not born with and therefore do not deserve. A republic would make it so that the course of law and power within the country would be determined by the few that have property and power (like himself) rather than the majority that don’t have either of those things, which is why he views a republic much more favorably than a pure democracy. 

1. As we learned thus far, the capitalist class consists of people who own wealth, as well as the means of production in American society. An important question in understanding how this class works is to ask: how does a capitalist remain wealthy? The answer to this question depends largely on understanding the diagram M-C-M’. So, let’s practice by explaining what happens in this diagram in our own words (but basing our ideas on Reading 5.1). Respond to the following question: Explain M-C-M’ to show how capitalists maintain and increase their wealth. (hint: your answer should weave a summary that includes what you reviewed in the self-assessment exercise question 1-7). M-C-M’ stands for Money-Commodity-Money (The third money, which is denoted by M’, specifically refers to the money at the end of this transaction). What this means is that capitalists end up using the money that they have accumulated in order to buy commodities that they will then resell at a higher price in order to gain a profit. This explains how capitalists end up making and maintaining their wealth, since they end up using their money in order buy both the labor power of workers and the means of production to enable their labor power to function (which in turn transforms their money into productive capital since they ended up starting a business for-profit) and through this they end up making new commodities which they can sell back at a higher value than the materials that they used to make that commodity. On top of this, since they ended up only buying the labor power of their workers, anything that is earned through selling the commodities all goes to the capitalist. Further more, capitalists typically end up earning a surplus value from the labor power that they have to maintain, since there’s more money earned from amount of commodities that are being created from the labor of their workers than there is money being lost from having to maintain the worker’s labor power (through paying their wages).