New Deal

Overall, even though the new deal didn’t benefit all types of people, it still proved to be a great response to the great depression. When FDF came out with the new deal, he focused on relief for the poor and unemployed people in the country. He was able to get people to work by setting up programs that would benefit society as a whole. Some of the greatest benefits occurred with programs that were going on in New York. One project was able to construct a series of bridges that connected The Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens. Also, money from new deal programs was able to help construct a tunnel that allowed people to travel from Manhattan to New Jersey. While at the time these projects had the main goal of getting people back to work, but now, the entire country can reap the benefits of the new deal programs. The bridges that connect Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx still exist today and are still used. And the Tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan, which only had 1.8 million vehicles pass through it in its first year of existence, now is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world! Over 45 million vehicles pass through every year. So, clearly, there is a lasting legacy of the new deal that impacts the lives of 45 million people per year. On another note, at the time, it was true that not everyone was able to benefit from new deal programs. For example, African Americans and women were both discriminated against throughout the entire time when new deal programs were in action. African Americans living in the south could not gain anything from programs if the leaders of their communities were racist, and women ended up losing their jobs due to some specificities of the new deal programs. But overall, the programs still were able to do their job. They got millions of unemployed Americans back to work, and even 90 years later, Americans are still able to benefit from the projects that were started with new deal programs.

Vine Deloria

Vine Deloria made a comment regarding our country's safety and our county's future. She said, "Nobody's ever gonna conquer this country, by God. If we're destroyed, it will be self-destruction." I completely agree with this comment, and overall, it has held true throughout the our country's history. Since we declared our independence from Great Britain over 200 years ago, there have only been 2 major attacks on the United States. The first was the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the second obviously the attacks of 9/11/2001. While both of these attacks took about a combined 5000 lives, and obviously had a huge impact on the country, there was never the slightest bit of suspicion that anyone would conquer us! While lives and property were destroyed, the country was able to recuperate and unite. It says a lot about our country's power, safety, and security that there have only been these two attacks in such a long period of time, and confirms the first half of the quote, saying that no one will ever conquer this country. In my opinion, this country has been negatively affected much more by issues within the country as opposed to an outside attack. Issues like slavery and civil rights have torn this country apart literally by leading by leading to a civil war. Other specific events like the McCarthy communism witch hunt as well as industrialization issues with trusts and monopolies have had a greater negative affect on our country than any physical attack has. I completely agree with the quote by Vine Deloria. If this country is ever going to go down, it will be due to an internal issue, and the united states will self-destruct as opposed to being conquered by another nation.

C.P. Ellis

When reading about C.P. Ellis, I thought the most important piece of information he shared with us was the reason why he and other people join hate groups in the first place. He talked about how bad his life was, how poor he was, and even how he had a kid who was blind and mentally disabled. All of these things made his life so tough that he claimed, "I didn't know who to blame. I tried to find somebody. I began to blame it on black people. I had to hate somebody." It seemed like he forced himself to hate black people just because he needed a community of people to associate with. I really don't think he actually deep down hated black people, Jews, or anyone else. It was just that the only time he felt like he was part of a group and part of society was when he joined the Klan. If this happened to C.P. Ellis, I wonder how many other people this happened to as well. People like Ellis originally believed that hard work and dedication would get them somewhere in life. Ellis claimed, "All my life, I had work, never a day without work, worked all the overtime I could get and still could not survive financially. I began to say there's something wrong with this country. I worked my butt off and just never seemed to break even." At this point, its important to try and see imagine the situation that C.P. Ellis was in. No matter what he did in life and no matter how hard he worked, he never was even able to pay off his bills or live even remotely happily with his family. So, when Klan members started to associate with him, it seems like it would be normal, human nature for him to join that group of people. He had felt secluded from the rest of American society his entire life because of his low income and the fact that he realized that people with money were the ones with all the power. So, when a society of people actually did want to accept him, it makes sense to me that he would join it. At the same time as offering him somewhere to go, it gave him an opportunity to let off some steam and anger because of the tough life he was living. This story was really interesting to me because whenever we think of the Klan, we think of lynchings, killings, and extreme racism. But, we never really think too much about why Klan members are so racist and what drove them to join the Klan in the first place. We just assume that they are terrible, racist people. This story interests me because it shows a different side of the Ku Klux Klan. Out of the thousands of people in the Klan, we have no idea how many people were in situations similar to the one of C.P. Ellis, but its interesting to know that not all people who join the Klan join it because they are extreme racists. Sometimes they just want to be apart of a society. C.P. Ellis shows how hes not the nasty racist he pretended to be when he ends up working with a black woman on the school board in order to promote integration. He claimed, "Here's a chance for a low-income white man to be something". When Ellis was given the opportunity to join a society other than the Klan, and he was accepted by that society, he was able to do good with his life and eventually get support from a majority of local African Americans. This just shows how if more people like Ellis were to be given a better opportunity and better chance to be successful in their lives, it would lead to less racism, less hatred, and a more successful country.