Fascism Podcast Draft

Fascism is the political idea that, the average person should support their country rather than pursue individual freedoms. Fascists are people that are nationalistic, militaristic, anti-communist, totalitarianism, and corporatism as some of the idea's of a Fascist. The word fascism derives from the Latin word fasces, which means " Bundle" or the Italian word, fascismo which means "Bundle" or "Union". They believe that corporations should be able to become monopolies, to make great economic progress in the country. They believe that freedom of speech and press should not be allowed, however, they usually try to make the people convert into one religion, one ethnic background, one cultural and racist background. Fascism really started to progress in the years prior to World War two.

This was when two famous Fascist Dictators came to power. One of the reasons why they came to power was because World War one had left them economically and socially in disarray. The Two Dictators were Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Hitler was dictator of Germany and Mussolini was dictator of Italy. They would also use threats and fear to control the population. These dictatorships used the fact that the League of Nations and the treaty of Versailles was depriving them of there true power. The people believed that they were the right people to do the job. Once Hitler and Mussolini were in power, they bascically started WW II because they were so militarily aggresive. In other words-they were bullies.
The extremely poor and middle class favored Fascism because it was supposed to aid the poor and middle class rather then the wealthy. Other people who support this idea were, nationalist, people not affected by World War one, Big Corporations, landowners ( because they got there own land) Small business owners and extreme conservatives. After world War two, the number of fascist have decreased tremendously.

The Opium Wars

The Opium wars was about how the British wanted to get tea for very low prices. This resulted in the English selling a drug called opium. The people got addicted and then the British sold the drugs to the people for lots of tea. The Chinese tried to complain about it but the English would not listen. As a result, a war brewed between the Chinese and British. The British, however, had technology that was far superior to the technology of thew Chinese. The Chinese were humiliated as a result because the British technology. The British ended up winning the war without much competition. Then China was forced to trade with other countries.

" The White Man's Burden"

The "white man's burden" is making the savages in Africa more civilized. The reason why is because they wanted to completely own Africa. He was really racist, so his ideas were blinded by his misconceptions of their race. I agree with the analysis because he was influenced by the Englishman's idea of a civilized colony. I think that America is still Imperialistic today because they are trying to take control of Iraq for peace. We are living "The White Man's Burden" because we are trying to make other people act, by forcing them to take on our own government and way of life.

"The Scramble for Africa"

Africa divided into many sections after the Europeans started to conquer all the land in the area. Africa was conquered by Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. They were looking to expand there land and to obtain the resources that the Africans had. These materials were diamond, gold, silver, rubber, tin, copper, salt, wood, ivory, iron, and other valuables. They invented the machine gun and a cure for Malaria. This made it easier to conquer and move through Africa. Since they made weird borders, this gave allied tribes separation, and the enemy tribes closer together. This made disputes and wars against the other tribes, but the Europeans did not care about the Africans, but a way to get better resources for very little money.

Film lesson "Mountains of the Moon"

Europeans faced many hardships as they went to the middle of Africa. Tribes of the native African people would ambush and kill Europeans. Malaria would also kill the people. The journey was so long, that many people died of heat and exuation. The reason why the lake that is the center of the Nile river is named after a British queen is because an Englishman found it and then named it after the queen of England. The Europeans had guns, while the Africans had spears. The Europeans would eventually get machine guns and a cure for Malaria. This would allow easy penetration through the heart of Africa.