For and Against Heathcare reform

http://www.prohealthcare.org/wellness/health-news/general-wellness/health-care-reform.aspx

This is an obvious choice for a pro website backing Obamas new helthcare plan. even the link to the website is called pro healthcare this website shows the positive side of the healthcare reform and presents it as a very good thing to happen in America on the webpage it self it shows an ideal imaage of Obama wish the whitehouse in the background to give off this ideal presidentual image of him in a sort of light which is meant to say what he is doing is what is best for America to state the obvious this is a pretty one sided web page does not show the arguements of reforming healthcare gives off alot of statics regarding surveys to gain people opinion on healthcare. and these high figures indicate that healthcare reform is what everyone wants. "While economic recovery is far-and-away their top concern (73 percent), 43 percent said reforming health care reform should be a top priority, after fighting terrorism (48 percent)."

"There really is an historic wind of opportunity for health reform,"


http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/08/05/peterson-health-care/

This webpage is more from a against political view rather than just the stright forward no answer which then leads to slagging off their oppent. this website shows the negitive side of the reform and even shows democrates against their presidents new bill. the group known as the blue dogs stand against the new bill because they view it as problamatic. this shows how the democratic party is divided and the lack of faith they have in their leader.

Healthcare.

http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/health-reform/10-reasons-to-support-reform.pdf

I chose this as my pro-healthcare reforms website. Firstly it states what the healthcare reforms aim to provide for the people of America. It then goes onto explain in more detail about each of the 10 points. It explains what is in the bill, and why exactly that change is needed. I think the way that this page is set out is an easy and simple way to get the message across to people who may not exactly know what the healthcare reforms put forward by Obama include.

http://www.obamacaretruth.org

I chose this website for my anti-healthcare reforms. The website attacks the “liberal” media for not telling the complete “truth” about the reforms. It then goes on to make a list of statements, each with links that discuss the issue further. Further down the page, the points are put into sections such as “cost to taxpayers” and “threats to patients/healthcare consumers.” I found that this website played on the worries of Americans, especially as the page ends with a “fighting back” category. As well as this the website claims that the Democrats are lying about the number of uninsured Americans. Surely, no matter how many million, all these Americans deserve some sort of healthcare, and not to be refused coverage from insurers. This is not something the Republicans seem to believe in.

The Obama Administration - For or Against

http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/health-care-reform-impact/

I have chosen this site because it is for the Obama Administration by explaining to people what the reform is there for, it can be suggested that people may not know what the reform is about or what it could do for them, by explaining it through this people may be convinced to accept the Obama Administration. In a way it can be seen as propaganda because even I began to feel quite influenced for the Obama Administration.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/chuck_grassley_fundraises_agai.html

I have used this one as my against because Chuck Grassley fundraises against the reforms of Health care, it does not really say why he is against this, the quite that is given is "the simple truth is that I am and always have been opposed to the Obama administration's plan to nationalize health care. Period."
it is said that he will have a difficult challenge ahead of him and I find this to be true because there are many Americans with out health care right now that the reform could benefit.

it will be interesting to find out which two emerge as the successor of this fight for or against the reform because there will be a high number of views coming from both sides of this.

Jon Stewart

I chose to look at clips of Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. I feel that while interviewing political figures on top political talking points, he brings a humorous side to serious topics in the way he reacts to the people he is interviewing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa69puS7J0Q

First, I chose his interview with Bill Kristol, a political analyst and a conservative. Jon Stewart plays on the fact that Kristol admits that the government run a good health care system for soldiers, which is better than private health care. Kristol says that he soldiers, which is better than private health care. Kristol says that the soldiers deserve the better health care. Stewart puts this into a blunt term of "the government can provide the best health care service for Americans, but it is too costly, so they should have private health care."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEkOanOj8GM

In the second video, Jon Stewart interviews Governor Betsy McCaughey about health care in my second link. I found this interesting as he talks of the "mis-information" produced and spread around about the health care reforms. He makes a joke of the Governor who refuses to see his points and simply dismisses him as wrong.

Popular Political Pundits

This was a really interesting blog task and highly amusing in some places. The person that I finally decided to watch more videos for was Rachel Maddow, the reason why I have chosen this is because even though she is a professional and is telling the news of the tea baggers protest even she can not help but laugh at that connations that tea baggers has gained.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLsKt4O4Yw8

It is mentioned in this video that people sent tea bags to the White House and then invited people to tea bag Obama. However even though there is humour in there, she still manages to get the point across, she mentions about the tea parties and that Chairman Steele requested to go to one, this was permitted but he is not allowed to talk as it will give people a chance to say what they want and that he will listen to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19jfGsvk40A&feature=related

In this video it is also mentioned about Chairman Steele appearing but not speaking, however when told to the press Chairman Steele denies even asking to speak. Also a dozen other republican members of public have also asked to attend to the tea parties. Throughout this video she also mentions about previous tea bagging events and mentioned that other themes have emerged such as down with Obama.

I feel that Rachel Maddow thinks that the situation is a bit silly otherwise she would not be so humourous with the situation of the tea baggers.

Gun Control

Anti-Gun

http://www.csgv.org/site/c.pmL5JnO7KzE/b.3509297/k.7F98/Guns_Democracy_and_Freedom.htm

I found a website for the CSGV – The Coalition to stop gun violence. Using methods such as “research, strategic engagement, and effective policy advocacy”, they hope to be free from guns.

I found their page on issues and campaigns particularly interesting. Their article on “Guns, Democracy, and Freedom”, talks of the National Rifle Associations view on gun control, saying their theory comes from “insurrection”, which means they oppose having a strong, activist government.
It explains how this notion has resulted in more gun crime throughout the US.

Pro-Gun

http://dataservices.nranews.com/svc/nra_classic

I looked up the NRA to contrast it with my anti-gun website. The home page states that people are “more concerned about pushing for gun control than they are about reducing violence”. Here I feel they are trying to ignore the fact that the relaxed gun control laws in America play a part in the amount of gun violence there is throughout the country.

A link on the website labelled “ring of freedom” opens up to a page about securing freedoms for Americans. This conflicts with the previous website who believes that a country with more gun control would provide more freedom for its citizens.

Pro gun and Anti gun

I found the same site that was mentioned within another blog and decided to take a look, most of them do not describe their purpose for wanting to keep guns within America. However I did come across an article that was talking about the US Supreme Court thinking about restricting gun laws even further

http://www.examiner.com/x-5103-Wisconsin-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m10d6-America-does-not-want-stricter-gun-control-laws

As you can see from the title of the article that America does not want stricter gun rules and looking at the data 50% of people say that they do not need even stricter gun rules and those that do believe that they need stricter rules have decreased from 43% to 39%. But what strikes me as interesting is that 11% of the people are not sure, this makes it seem that people within their own country do not know whether or not they need guns or the stricter rules.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/about/

I chose this as my anti gun control because when I was looking at the "about" page I noticed that at the end they ask you to join their campaign to get stronger gun rules
Thousands upon thousands of people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year without stronger, sensible gun laws.
For me this highlighted the urgency for stonger gun laws because when it is mention that thousands upon thousands would die it made me think about how many of this would be within a year or a couple of months and I can understand where the Brady Campaign are coming from and why they want people to join

pro and anti gun websites

http://www.saf.org/

this website is obviously pro gun website saf stands for second amendment foundation. the point in this website is show reasons why guns are okay in American society. This website has loads of information on it and is presented very well this shows how much this means to people out there, the web page it self contains lot of information, for example recent issues regarding guns, sponsors they website has, related links down the left hand side. the main feed seems to be regarding political issues regarding anti gun and pro gun and people 'standing in the way of the right to bear arms' as some people may see it. there is a clear line in the sand about this on going issue in America. Some people want guns others do not. there are of course positive and negatives with guns. and this gun focus on the positive things guns provide such as protection from attackers etc. i choice this website because it is a window into the minds of the people who support the second amendment and protect what it stands for daily without a second thought on the matter.


http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Economist_Articles/home-on-the-range.html

i was unable to being a page like i did for pro gun because anti gun groups don't seem to create web pages showing their hatred for the gun but i did find this page listing details on gun control in the united states of America in a biased way. portraying it in a negative light just saying how easy it is for any man and or woman in any mental state OR age to get there hands on a fire arm. which is a major problem in America with all its shootings that have happened in recent years. Gun control was meant to change under Clinton but while some of the laws did change enough change has not happened and still anyone can still get a gun the only difference is they may have to wait a day or two before they can play god.

Hispanic Americans.

http://www.neta.com/~1stbooks/content.htm

I chose this first website as my historical choice as it has many pages about the Hispanic community’s active role in the making of America. Approximately 300,000 Spaniards emigrated to the “New World” and went on to discover different parts of America.
What I found most interesting on this site was its comment on the revolutionary war of 1775-1783. It states that Spain was a crucial ally of America, which few realise as Americas most famous ally in the war was France. It also mentions the financial funding provided by the women in Havana, Cuba.
As well as this, the website reveals the statistic of the number of Hispanic casualties during the Vietnam War. Hispanics accounted for 25% of casualties during the war.


http://www.hispaniconline.com/HispanicMag/2008_08/Feature-Cities.html

For my contemporary website, I chose a page from Hispanics magazine. It has an article on the top 10 cities for Hispanics to live in, considering the current economic climate. It talks of what Hispanics look for in a place to live.

It states,
“It should come as no surprise that Hispanics look for the same things that most Americans do.”

I feel here, that they are considering themselves as Americans who are a part of America, instead of just considering themselves as a separate group of Americans.

Although, it goes on to say,
“But to add to those things factors that are a little less quantifiable, such as a culture of inclusion where Hispanics are highly represented.”

To me, this shows that Hispanics do separate themselves, and feel like others compared to Americans. However it shows that they don’t like to be on their own in this sense and would rather live in a Hispanic community so they are surrounded by people of their culture.

The American Others

http://www.josephsmith.com/

I have chosen this site as my historical site becuase Joseph Smith was the founder of the Mormon Church and was considered to be a true prophet, he was murdered by both his religious and political foes. He was murdered along with his brother Hyrum while they were spending time in jail after giving themselves up to the governer Thomas Ford's accusations that they were dangerous men. I thought that this was a good website becuase when I looked at other websites Joseph Smith was baptising different people throughout Illinois and this would have been considered in that time to be against the work of God and therefore creating both his religious and political foes. His religious foes becuase he was turning people towards a new religion and his political foes becuase he was turning more people to support and trust him that the political party could have seen this as a threat that they could be overrun. He would have gained many foes very quickly becuase what Jospeh believed in was against the normalilty of what people knew and believed.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/billyjack/

I have chosen this for my contempory website becuase this website is about the death of Billy Jack Gaither, he was a thirty-year-old gay man who was brutally beaten to death for talking about "queer stuff". This goes to show that America still has not got over the idea of there being gay communities living amoung them, however some more accepting than others the people who murdered Billy Jack knew what they were doing and then owned up to the murder. It is as if they wanted people to know about what they did as a statement that being gay was outside the normality of the life they knew. There was also the question raised about what was the signifcance in this killing. as I was reading the report I could see that the signficance behind the killing was a hate crime. If they were just murderers then they could have targeted anyone that they chose, however the killers confessed to killing this man with a small sense of pride.

Whereas some people have become more accepting of the fact that there are Mormons living amoung them the idea of being gay still aggravates people to take action against them becuase of them being homophobic and the fact that it is still out of the norm.

Outside the American norm

http://americanrevwar.homestead.com/files/civwar/slavery.html - i used this website because i couldn't really find a group and African Americans and i thought i would show where it began.

Since they first got kidnapped and brought over to America and even in some parts of current America. The Africans have been seen as below white people of the ladder of social order, The first Africans became slaves and were sold and passed between wealthy white Americans like they were more like objects then people. this way of life went on for a very long time. They were seen outside the normal for various reasons. first would be because they came from a far less developed country then the first Americans so the Americans saw this as they were better than them and thought gave them the right to take them from there and brand them and sell them on to the highest bidder. and once slavery ended there was still more racism in America. The black people were kept away from white people like they had an infection or something. African Americans were forced to sit at the back of the bus, they were not allowed in restaurants these are just few examples of how they were treated.

They were seen so far out of the circle of norm America That violent racist groups were created who wanted to 'remove the black problem'.

http://users.rowan.edu/~lindman/hippieintro.html

A more recent group of people outside the American norm was the hippie generation in the 1960s - 1970s. this group of people were seen so out of the American norm with their lifestyle. the clothing, there attitude. while the American attitude at this time was the sort of 2.4 kids working dad and house-wife. and this image of American was inbeded in the minds of all. and when the hippie movement began and sort of rebelled against this way of life it was seen as such a culture shock. What was ironic about this generation was that often is hippies often came from middle-class homes. so this showed insted of starting off outside the norm they were in the norm and wanted to break away. there attitudes were completely different from the American traditional way of life. flegrent drug use. lack of a steady job, having sex with more than just one person. constant revolt against 'the man' (American government mainly) and the peace attitude which rivaled the government because during the love generation the Vietnam war was going on.

Hence the famous image of the riffle with the flower in it.