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?

In her essay, P. Williams describes the war on terror as a “war of the mind,” separating it from traditional conflicts that target specific bodies, land, or resources. This new war defines the enemy as anyone who causes fear.

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 “Roving Wiretaps” clause of the Patriot Act permits law enforcement to spy on someone suspected without identifying any specific equipment or location. This means that surveillance can go on without a new warrant even if a suspect switches phones or computers. The Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable searches and seizures, is broken by this.Law enforcement can spy on a large number of people without a specific suspicion or clear probable cause because of roving wiretaps. That is harassment.

What about “Sneek and Peek” Warrants?

“Sneak and peek” warrants, also known as delayed notice search warrants, give the FBI permission to search a residence or place of business without promptly alerting the person in question of the investigation.

1. Describe how you understand the “Establishment Clause” and the related “Lemon Test”.

The Establishment Clause blocks Congress from creating or promoting a state-sponsored religion, which now includes the states. It also stops the government from favoring one set of religious beliefs over another, or religion over non-religion. The Lemon v. Kurtzman Supreme Court case (1971) created the Lemon Test, which chooses whether a law or government action that promotes a specific religious practice should be allowed.
To be constitutional, a law must meet three requirements:
It must not result in excessive government involvement with religion. It should be neutral and neither prevent nor promote religious practice. The action or law must have a secular or non-religious justification.

2. Is burning the US flag protected by the First Amendment? Explain by referring to the relevant court case discussed in the reading.

Yes, burning the United States flag is a type of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment. Gregory Lee Johnson burned a flag in protest at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Texas. He was taken into custody for the crime of “desecration of a venerated object,” but the Supreme Court overturned his verdict. The Court determined that flag burning is a form of expression which is protected by the First Amendment.

3.What does it mean when someone says “I’m taking the Fifth”?

When someone says, “I’m taking the Fifth,” they mean their right under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment protects people from being forced to incriminate themselves.

1. Describe the primary differences in the role of citizens in government, among the federal, confederation, and unitary systems.

Voting for representatives at the federal, state, and local levels is one way that citizens get involved with the government. Because state and local governments have the authority to decide on matters like transportation and education, this structure gives more local influence. In a confederation, like the early US, power is mostly controlled by individual states or regions, meaning citizens just interact with their local governments, while the central authority remains weak and has a limited impact over people. People in a unitary system mostly deal with a powerful central government that controls all of the power. Even though there are local governments, their powers have limits to the people in charge, the federal government. So, unitary systems control decision making, confederations prefer local control, and federal systems give dual participation.

2. Briefly explain how you understand the system of division of power. 

The system of division of power describes how responsibility and authority are divided between different levels of government. The three branches are legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislative branch is Congress, and they create and pass laws, control government spending, and tax. The Judicial branch is the courts, they handle legal issues and interpret the laws. The executive is the president, vice president, and the cabinet, they handle the military and foreign policy.

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

Through a mixture of funding, rules, mandates, and incentives, the federal government influences the activities of state and local governments. Federal grants is one important method.  During Covid, they used emergency funding, the cares act, fema, New York got help from federal agencies to boost its testing abilities and contact tracing activities. I believe you weren’t able to get evicted because of the state of the country.

1. What concept that we have already discussed does “faction” remind you of?

The concept of ‘faction’ reminds me of the social class conflict, Groups with conflicting interests are known as factions, and they may be founded on political, social, or economic differences. Marxists use the term “class struggle” to describe the conflict between different economic classes with conflicting interests, like the bourgeoisie capitalist class and the proletariate working class.

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)? 

According to Madison, a person’s abilities such as their labor, skills, and effort are important factors that determine their financial success. He also links wealth to personal characteristics. He states that a person’s ability to gain wealth depends mostly on their level of intellectual and practical skill; as a result, those who have these essential traits are more likely to be wealthy, while those who do not are caught in poverty cycles.

3. Do you agree with this explanation of wealth and poverty?

I disagree with Madison’s explanation of wealth and poverty. While a person’s abilities, such as labor, skills, and effort, can definitely shape financial success, this viewpoint overlooks the broader structural factors that influence wealth distribution. Social, economic, and political systems all have an impact on an individual’s chances and outcomes, often in ways that are separate from of individual effort or skill.

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 US government means that the government’s main goal is to protect private property and wealth. I’m not surprised at this, it’s something that is put right in our faces all the time, I don’t expect much from a government that never cared about people.

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 d the author dislike a (pure) democratic form of government? Hint: think about how this question connects with the social classes…

I’m not surprised that Madison isn’t in favor of democracy, why would people want to give up wealth to people they believe are below them? They fear the minority taking power and doing to them what they do to us. No one ever wants to be the underdog. 

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 wealthy “elite gentlemen” were the ones who wrote the constitution, they represented affluent merchants, banks, and the landowning class. They were part of a minority that controlled most shipping, banking, mining, and manufacturing on the east. The “working class” was excluded from the constitutional convention because they couldn’t afford to take time off. Working people are poor farmers, free African Americans, women, slaves.

• Would say that the social class structure of early United States society, was the same as ours today, or different? Explain.

Economic inequality and class divisions are common to both early American society and modern society, but their exact processes and structures have changed. The strict, legally enforced racial and class hierarchies of earlier times made space for more systemic and economic forms of inequality in today’s society. The wealthy landowning elites, in the South (plantation owners) and North (industrialists and merchants), held the majority of wealth and political influence. Today, economic inequality continues to exist, with the top 1% of earners controlling an unfair proportion of wealth.

• Why were the people who wrote the Constitution so afraid of democracy?

The Constitutional framers were afraid of democracy because they saw it as a threat to their money and possessions.  Wealthy property owners were concerned about two major threats: the debtor class uprising and the potential power of the masses. They had witnessed debtor rebellions like the Shays Rebellion.The wealthy elite were concerned that true democracy would enable the non-wealthy majority to vote against their economic interests.

1. Which statistic on wealth inequality in the US (discussed on p. 29) made the biggest impression on you? Explain why?

90% of American families have little or no assets. Most people die in the. Class to which they are born. This made the biggest impression on me because in the social media age we live in, where everything is done for likes or views, people don’t believe they’re really poor if they have materialistic items that cost too much in their possession. Or they lack the knowledge or education to understand where they fall on the food chain.

• What could be some of the implications of living in a society that has such huge wealth inequalities? Do you see this dynamic getting played out in everyday life in our society? How so? Example?

Some implications of living in a society that has huge wealth inequalities are social stratification, huge wealth gaps mean the wealthy get better access to health care, education, and housing, while working and poor people struggle to stay alive. Also, when a small number of people or corporations own the majority of the wealth, they can use that power to sway political decisions. One last thing is that wealth can cause social conflicts between men, women, race, gender, etc.

I do see these dynamics playing out in everyday life, one of the main ones being health care. It’s hard for people to get regular dental check-ups, physicals, and emergency rooms are overcrowded, understaffed, but if you’re part of the wealthy, then you’re able to go to a private hospital with top doctors with top education. Education is another big example private school and public school educations are two completely different things when you’re wealthy there’s such thing as legacy admissions, or if your parents know someone that knows someone, they can get you into an Ivy League college for free or way less than what someone who was working class or poor would have to pay. It’s almost like when you’re poor, you work twice as hard and pay twice as much and get less than what you’re worth or nothing at all.

1. Explain M-C-M’ to show how capitalists maintain and increase their wealth. 

The formula M-C-M stands for Money, Commodity – More Money

The M is the beginning where the capitalist already starts out with money, they have then the C is commodity. The capitalist uses the money to purchase commodities, labor, materials whatever they need for the service that they’re going to sell,  I believe the commodity is the stage where the capitalist puts money into things to make the product and then the M for more money that comes after production the commodities are sold for a price that’s way higher than what the capitalist paid for it originally.

When this happens, since the capitalist already had money to invest, they keep doing it, and it’s a cycle of accumulation since they already have the money, they can maintain a continuous operation of labor, materials, and commodities. The profit they make comes from the surplus value created by labor, which means workers produce more value than they are paid for.

Myeesha Henry

1. Two key concepts in this video are the means of production and labor. In your comment, explain how you understand the means of production and labor. Give an example of each.

The means of production are tangible items or raw materials needed to produce items and services, like factories, machines, and tools, for example, at a construction site you need steel, bricks, an earth drill, etc. Labor is the work that a person puts into the work physically and mentally, like when construction workers are building a building or an architect is drawing up a design.        

2. Another important concept in understanding social class is value. Based on the ideas presented in Video 5.1, what is value?  What gives “value” to value, what makes something valuable?

The amount of labor time needed to produce something under normal conditions is what basically defines value, according to Marx’s Labor Theory of Value. What makes something valuable is the labor, time, special skills, and training, all of which make something valuable. When the process becomes automated, products become cheaper because less labor is put in.

3. How are labor and value related? What’s the relationship/connection between the two?

Value and labor are directly and fundamentally related. The only thing that can make your possessions more valuable is labor. They connect because raw materials gain value when labor turns them into something someone would buy.

4. How do you understand the difference between labor and labor power? Hint: this is a key difference, give it your best shot based on what the video says about it, and your own ideas. We’ll clarify and. develop it in our discussions, and in my video comments.

The difference between labor power and labor is that labor is the actual physical work you put in, the time, and labor power is when workers rent out their labor power for the day.

5. Surplus Value: what is it? Why is it important to know about, in our study of social classes? Think about an example of surplus value?

Surplus value is the extra value or profit generated by workers beyond what they’re paid for their labor power. It’s important to know about surplus value because it explains the class struggle and how capitalists exploit workers by paying them less than the value of their labor. An example of surplus value is if you make 80 dollars a day making shirts with a sewing machine for 8 hours a day, and you make $600  worth of shirts, you’re only paid 80 dollars, but the shirts made are 600, the surplus value is 520, kept by the company. You create more value than you’re compensated for.

Myeesha Henry

1. What is the distinction that Reading 4.3 makes between owners and employees? Give an example of each.

The distinction that the reading makes between owners and employees is that owners live off investments, stocks, property income, they make money from the hard work of other people rather than themselves. While employees survive off their paychecks and fees, employees have to work extra hard to make money and get a tiny fraction of their hard work.

An example is an owner is like a person who owns the construction company and never goes out in the field building or putting up sheet rock, and an employee is the construction worker, who’s waking up at 5 AM and does backbreaking work for 9 hours.

• How do you understand the quote by Adam Smith on pg. 28? What is it saying about labor?

I think the quote is basically saying the real value of something comes from the work people put into making it, not just the price it sells for. When he used the tree being a piece of paper or furniture for someone and its shaped into something special for that person, that’s the value. Though the actual worth of objects comes from the work required to produce them, money is only a means of measurement of cost. It says labor is the foundation of economic value basically instead of money.  

• What are your thoughts on the main argument of reading 4.4 that class is not an identity?

I think class is an identity for some people, and then it stops once you don’t think about the class you’re in anymore because you changed classes. Working people could view class as an identity because they work hard for what they have and where they come from even if its not a lot. But class is something that can change despite change being hard for black and brown people; you can move up in class, but you can’t change your race. I think class being an identity is something that depends on something before it could be fully answered. I also think I’m thinking this way because of class.

• How do you understand the argument Reading 4.4. makes when stating that “class structures are built around a close form of dependency”? What is this close form of dependency, and can you think of an example?

The close form of dependency is the interdependence between capitalists and workers. Working people rely on capitalist for money and basic needs to live and survive while capitalist needs that worker to continue working and making them rich. One example is a tech start up worker, the owner has the idea and the money and maybe the space to do it but the worker is the one who is writing the code, designing the system and doing all the hard work behind scenes. They are paid a wage but don’t own a part of the company of the profits that come from it.

1. Althusser describes a repressive state apparatus as any organization that uses the threat of violence to control behavior, such as the police or the courts. It is called repressive because it restricts people’s physical freedom. When other forms of social control are ineffective at keeping people “in their place,” the repressive apparatus takes over as a backup. Martial Law could be an example of how the state may use repressive measures to maintain authority.

• Ideological State Apparatuses are institutions like schools, politics, and mass media that work to keep social control by preventing changes to the status quo. Places like schools are a good example, you are taught to obey a strictly set schedule in school, which includes seven or eight hours of instruction with an hour of free time. You learn to respect authority, obey, share your pencils, clean up after yourself, not speak out of turn, and raise your hand if you want to speak.

• Isa influences people through ideas, whereas RSA uses force to control them. To enforce the law and stop opposing views, RSAs like the military and law enforcement use repression and force. They operate in a physical and open manner. ISAs, on the other hand, such as media outlets and educational institutions, have power by influencing ideologies, values, and beliefs. They use deeper strategies, focused on influencing consent and guaranteeing compliance instead of force

• The pledge of allegiance is an example of ideology “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Its an ISA, it shapes opinions on freedom, unity, and the legitimacy of the state, quietly growing nationalism as the present ideology. It promotes loyalty and consent, it uses repetition and persuasion. Every morning, it is recited in the majority of schools, encouraging in children to have a sense of patriotism and national loyalty.