HW4.2

"Who is to blame for America's trend toward high divorce rates, starting in the 1970s?"

The trend toward high divorce rates can be attributed to the actions of wealthy middle-aged men as well as the feminists who fought for no-fault divorce.

Middle-aged men who had the typical "Me" attitude of the 70s contributed to high divorce rates. They often left their current wives for younger, more attractive women, leaving their ex-wives to fend for themselves. This irresponsible and reckless behavior ("Jennifer Fever") resulted in the high divorce rate.

Also, men's inability to understand the 'problem that has no name' contributed to higher divorce rates. Women were delegated to the role of housewife, or stereotypically female jobs, and were expected to remain content. Naturally, women were dissatisfied with their restricted lives, and therefore this lead to higher divorce rates.

Feminists who fought for no-fault divorce are partially responsible for the high divorce rate. The passage of this law meant that men and women who were dissatisfied with their marriage now had an easy way out. Because of this, divorce rates rose greatly.

HW4.1

1. “Mr. Dash” is Sam Dash, an attorney for the Senate Watergate Committee. What does he hope to discover, overall from his questions of Mr. Kalmbach?

He is trying to see if the Watergate defendants received bribes from Nixon's people, in exchange for keeping quiet about this and past criminal activities.

2. Why do you suppose Mr. Dash makes Mr. Kalmbach recount his trip from the West Coast to Washington, DC?

Possibly to keep Kalmbach honest, and later his statements can be checked to make sure that all the times and dates are accurate and true.

3. What is the message of Doc C?

The intended audience of doc c was the senate, the message Dash was trying to convey to themwas that Nixon's people were undoubtedly paying off the burglars involved in Watergate in order for them to keep quiet about it.

4. What is the significance of the “$50,000 - $100,000”?

It is significant because $100000 is an extremely large amount of money and this could mean that it definitely could not have just been money for 'legal fees' and others but rather to bribe people with.

5. What is one value of this document for the historian investigating whether men working for President Nixon broke the law or not?

One value is that since it is an actual transcript of a hearing where the man who supplied the money could have his say on the matter, and he was under oath, so one could assume that he is telling the truth, or at least not blatantly lying about it.

6. Is that value based on origin or purpose?

Origin.

HW8

“Non-violent resistance to injustice was a good strategy for southern civil rights leaders.”

Non-violent resistance was a good strategy, evidenced by sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee in 1960. Businesses lost money, and they eventually gave in to integration. Nashville eventually became the first major southern city to integrate its public systems on May 10, 1960. This shows that non-violent resistance was effective.

Non-violent resistance was an ineffective strategy, as demonstrated during Freedom Summer in 1964. It was an attempt to help black voters in Mississippi, but instead there were widespread beatings, shootings, and bombings, most of which went largely unpunished. Therefore, non-violent resistance was not a good strategy.

HW7

To what extent can the members of the Hitler Youth be blamed for their actions during WWII?

The amount of blame and responsibility that HJ members have should be determined on an individual basis: it largely depends on their age, their hierarchal position in the organization, and also the total amount of criminal activity they engaged in and the extent of these activities.

Kater, Michael. Hitler Youth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.

The members of the Hitler Youth should not be blamed for their actions. The guilt lies with the higher commands, specifically the SS, who exploited their enthusiasm and indoctrinated them with Nazi ideals. Remper calls them "a generation of misguided idealists."

Gerhard Rempel, Hitler's Children The Hitler Youth and the SS (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989) 262, Questia, Web, 2 Mar. 2010.

Sem2.HW6

"America's poor, in the mid 20th century, were mostly responsible for their own problems."

An argument against this would be congress passing the Housing Act of 1949 which was intended to solve the housing problems in inner-city slums. Instead, the homes of hundreds of thousands were bulldozed and not enough new apartments were built. This law caused problems for America's poor.

An argument against this would be the growth of agribusiness, or where agricultural products were produced by large corporations. Small farmers could not compete, and as a result, thousands of poor rural whites and blacks lost their jobs and sank into deeper poverty.

An argument for this statement is that the American Indians didn't take the opportunities given to them from the Voluntary Relocation Program in the 50s and 60s. They were provided with help for finding jobs and housing, but many could not adapt to city life, resulting in further poverty.

Sem2.HW5

"How real was the threat of Communist spies within the USA?"

The threat of Communist spies was not very real; most of the fear was generated by McCarthyism. Claiming that he had a list of communists working in the government was just one of his unproved accusations. His actions lead the public to perceive the threat as real, but it was not.

However, despite the fact that many of the accusations were false, some instances like the Alger Hiss case and the Rosenberg Trials confirmed that there were spies operating in the US at that time, so therefore the threat of communist espionage was present.

"Is it fair to say that the anxiety caused in the US due to Nuclear threat, was useful and 'healthy?' (security of the nation . . . = its health)"

It is fair to say that the anxiety caused by the nuclear threat was useful during the Atomic age, because money could be made off that fear. Items that became popular included the 'atomic cocktail' and bikinis, and places like Nevada profited off tourism due to the atomic testing there.

The drills created by the the FCDA, who were responsible for planning civil defense, were not useful or healthy because they were ineffective. An example was Operation Alert, a large scale drill that showed that millions of people would have died had the attack been real.

Sem2.HW4

"How does the CIA's activities in Iran show that the US behaves undemocratically in its foreign policy?"

The CIA's use of bribery in Iran shows its undemocratic behavior in it's foreign policy. One example of this was when the CIA gave Iranian agents $50,000 to produce a crowd posing as communist agitators. This covert action was blatantly used to sabotage the democratically elected government, and is therefore undemocratic.

The CIA trained and equipped SAVAK, which served as the shah's personal secret police. This action taken by the CIA was undemocratic because instead of promoting freedom and fairness in the new government, they supported SAVAK, and by extension also supported the dictatorship-like conditions there.

The CIA's use of propaganda shows that they behaved undemocratically. They used $150,000 to create pamphlets and posters containing slanderous messages about the democratically elected leader, Mossadeq. The spreading of misinformation is evidently very undemocratic.