Benedict Arnold was a brave and cunning American general who became known as the greatest traitor in American history. Born on January 14, 1741 in Norwich CT, Arnold quickly developed an unsavory and violent personality, which lasted until the day he died on June 14, 1801. He started out his life in debt, but became a successful sea merchant and smuggler who served in the French and Indian War. By age 25, he was the leader of a rebel group, the Sons of Liberty, in New Haven, Connecticut, and later he went on to fight in the revolutionary war, and was appointed by General George Washington to be the military governor of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, after becoming Commander of the American installation at West Point, he used his position to attempt to betray the American forces by turning over West Point, and its 3000 American troops, to the British for a large sum of money. This act of treason is why his name is synonymous with the word “traitor.”…
Before watching the documentary I didn’t know much about the Koch brothers and how much a couple individuals can impact the rest of us within the United States in such a tremendous way. They are rich people that want to make sure that they are as happy as possible. Not worrying or caring about any other individual, but themselves and their own beliefs. So the Koch brothers will do anything and everything that they are capable of doing to make sure that what they want is the outcome of what we get. This movie gave me a different perspective on those with money and how they’re willing to affect everyone else for their own personal beliefs and profit. The documentary had many strengths from how they adjusted from idea to idea showing all the impacts of each belief the Koch brothers have and all the different impact their beliefs have on us due to the amount of money they process. The film, overall, made me pretty angry that someone with as much money as the Koch brothers have, would care so little about the rest of the population. Polluting other people’s neighborhoods, killing other people’s families, ruining cities, and numerous other aspects of life that have been destroyed by the Koch brothers are all characteristic that affect a tremendous amount of people. It proved to me how false someone could be about what is being said and exactly what they mean by what they are saying. After watching this documentary it forced me to feel like I need to get more involved and speak my beliefs more so the near future is not ran by bias opinions towards a group of people especially the working…
The set of documents I will be reviewing are documents 118, 1, 4, and 26 regarding The Snowden Affair. The Snowden Affair is about a national security controversy that had to do with the National Security Agency (NSA) and its undisclosed surveillance of communications of American citizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The information was leaked by Eduard Snowden, a former NSA agent and was published by a British newspaper, The Guardian. The Guardian revealed the NSA’s surveillance operations which included the archiving and tracking of vast amounts of data regarding use of electronic devices of U.S. citizens U.S. citizens and any foreign communications. The data revealed that Internet traffic and…
A tragic hero is a character of noble stature that commits an action or makes a mistake which eventually leads to his or her downfall. The idea of the tragic hero was created in ancient Greek tragedy and defined by Aristotle. Bernard Madoff, a former American businessman, stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier, fits the definition of a modern day tragic hero. Bernard Madoff grew up in New York City and studied law at Brooklyn Law School, but quit the first year to embark on his own investment firm. Using money he had saved from previous life guarding jobs, Madoff and his wife founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC. The company grew a reputation for its annual returns of 10 percent or more and, by the 1980s, his firm was one of the largest firms trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Madoff created an impressive client list including stars such as Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick. Madoff owned a yacht, several luxurious homes, and even had two private planes. He was completely living the wealthy and lavish lifestyle, which was soon to come to an abrupt end. In December of 2008, Madoff admitted that a branch of his firm was actually an elaborate Ponzi scheme. Madoff's sons reported their father to federal authorities and he was arrested and charged with securities fraud. He later admitted to losing $50 billion of investors' money, and pled guilty to 11 felony counts including securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and theft from an employee benefit plan. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison on June 29, 2009, the maximum possible prison sentence. Bernard Madoff destroyed the lives of many in his relentless drive to get rich. Two years to the day that Bernard Madoff was arrested, one of his sons, Mark Madoff, committed suicide. Bernard Madoff can be compared to…
George washington was one of our founding fathers. George Washington was the first leader. George Washington was a true patriot. Read on to learn about his early life, during the revolution, and the affect he made because he was in the war.…
I identified really well with the main character, Chris Kyle, as I watched the movie. What really hit home was how much he missed his family and the way of life back in the United States. After seeing the move it has made me appreciate the many sacrifices that our men and service women make to keep our country safe. This movie does a great job of putting that into perspective and sharing with us the hardships of true warfare. This movie was definitely a rewarding experience for me. It opened my eyes to how warfare really is. Plus it briefly touched on the death of Chris Kyle. It gave me more information on his murder and that his killer was struggling with a severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.…
The government should worry citizens, by hiring people to hack into their lives. The National Security Agency, NSA, is “inside” everything from phones to major websites like Google and Yahoo. The NSA is responsible for code breaking and getting information from phones and the internet. The NSA has headquarters in the United Kingdom as well. They try to focus overseas instead of domestically to prevent any serious crime and to defend the UK’s economic interest. Because the NSA doesn’t trust its own U.S. citizens, violates the fourth amendment, and made programs to “hack” us, the NSA invades the privacy of citizens and should be stopped.…
This book is a spy story, about bluffs between the British Secret Service and the German Democratic Republic. I found it very difficult to understand. The stroy occurs during the Cold War, in the 1950s and 1960s.…
Umberto Eco’s quote, “The real hero is always a hero by mistake…” means that genuine heroes are not those who anticipate specific deeds in order to become a hero, but rather those individuals who are confronted with unexpected situations, and develop into accidental or unintentional heroes. People that have these characteristics should have no reason to be called heroes. Those characteristics would make them the so-called “hero by mistake”.…
I’m glad that I was able to go watch the screening last week because the movie truly emphasized on the alarming situation in our country. I usually don’t like watching films that are relative to what happening to our nation but this movie really showed an impact to me.…
Over the past seven years the Bush administration, possibly longer the U.S government has been monitoring the internet and telephone activity of American citizens in secrecy. Many of the American citizens being monitored have not been convicted of any crime and have caused no suspicion of wrong doing. Despite these circumstances these private citizens are being unlawfully monitored by the U.S government without consent. This scandal has caused a split decision in the American society; whether the U.S. government is justified for their actions, when the secret surveillance began, why and how long it will last, also is government monitoring really a method to protect U.S. citizens and how do citizens feel about this scandal, lastly where is the line drawn and what can citizens do to ensure their voice is heard.…
Antiwar activists and pro-transparency activists declare Manning a hero for having the courage to expose government secrets as a whistleblower, however in contrast, U.S. government officials state the soldier’s actions placed national security at risk, making him a traitor to the country, hence a villain (Johnson, 2015).…
I can’t believe how comparable the movie Snowden is to the fiction-novel 1984 that was written almost seventy years ago. As terrible as George Orwell made the government seem to be, after watching Snowden, a movie based on true events, I realized our government is sadly not that much better as we share many similar concepts as 1984. For instance, Orwell uses telescreens in his novel and describes them as: “an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror” (Orwell 3). This can be compared to the rectangle TV’s that we all have now in our homes, and similar to our laptops and computers that have cameras and can receive and transmit simultaneously on video chat and instant message. This also made me think back to how the hackers, NSA, and CIA workers…
It would be pretty hard to imagine that a man who was considered an enemy to multiple national governments, still found himself considered a humanitarian and even a saint by some. A man responsible for orchestrating the deaths of many people who opposed him, including members of the Colombian police force and notable foreign politicians. Such is the case of Pablo Escobar.…
The definition of a hero is altered in each person. Heroes are portrayed as noble, courageous, powerful, or even a role model. Although the words used to describe a hero may not differ, what each person views as a hero can be. The illustration of a hero varies by person, but there was one man who was a hero in the eyes of many. Pablo Escobar was a hero to the poor. Escobar gave hope, money, and jobs to his people.…