Economic Terrorism Essay Example for Free

Economic Terrorism Essay This refers to the act by any group of people or state to destroy a society for military, social, political and religious purposes. This is done for the sole and illegal purpose of creating chaos and collapse of the target (Small Wars journal. July 2005). Economic terrorism based on environmental issue, can be viewed as illegal actions that can be taken against individuals, corporations or states that are accused of undermining proper environment of a given society in conscious pursuit of profit . The main purpose of such actions is directly aimed at the protection and preservation of the environment to prevent further environmental degradation. Environmental degradation has been increasing, resulting to potential crises that need collective action coupled with the motivation for the good of the world community. The challenges that have led to the crises include; global warming, damaged ozone layer, water contamination, nuclear weapon proliferation and increased income inequalities within and among nations. Economic terrorism though illegal can be justified in several ways. There is a classical principle implying that, when markets are functioning properly, there are uncoordinated actions of self-interested groups or agents. This consequently result to an efficient outcome, where those who earn huge profits do so by making others lose severely . In circumstances where huge companies either privately owned or state-owned are involved in polluting the environment (for instance through emissions, chemical released into the water bodies) in the process of optimising their production, the societies that live around the degraded environment are the great losers. Illegal actions against such companies reduce efficient outcome. The companies cannot benefit hugely while the society loses through environmental degradation. Economic terrorism prevents â€Å"unhealthy† development. Many nations make efforts to become more developed, in an effort to improve the living standards of its people or citizens. Unfortunately, this may result to reduced living standards when the environmental consequences of this development outweigh the economic gains. Where legal channels of addressing this problem may fail, illegal actions may be the best option. Terrorism may be considered an effective way of preventing environmental degradation in countries where options are more limited for improving environmental quality. Expanding populations demand economic growth to support them. This may pressure such countries to undertake development activities that severely affect the environment. Limited options to prevent this type of development in such circumstances may result to economic terrorism against the country. Proliferation of nuclear weapons may give particular nations a sense of security and autonomy to pursue their own interests even when these interests affect the world community. This makes the countries so rigid, such that they cannot follow the set global guidelines to curb environment depletion as required. Some may therefore view economic terrorism against such nations as the only solution to stop them from further environmental devastation. In most cases, environmental degradation affects the weak in a society. Those who are not well equipped to take legal actions against the state for causing degradation, are usually convinced that they can still do the same through terrorism For instance, terrorism more often provides an advantage to the weak, especially when they are confronting the state The advantage is as a result of the terrorists’ use of secrecy and minimal resources needed for the attack. The market for the produced commodities is very crucial to the growth of any company. Lack of market for the commodities will mean huge losses for the producer. Where the producer fails to follow an environmental code, as required, legal action should be undertaken against them. Sometimes, this may fail. Environmental activists may have no other option other than sabotaging the market of the goods . For example, an activist minority group resulted to attacking anything and everyone associated with the entire production and distribution of Salmon fish that was found to have potential dangerous levels of cancer causing PCBs in the fish. Consumers were also targeted, which affected the market of the fish adversely (Key. W. 2004). Terrorist actions cause great costs for the industries that cause pollution or environmental degradation, compared to the costs they would incur if legal actions were taken against them. Result of illegal actions on their property will be taken very seriously, hence they will be more obliged to curb pollution to prevent future losses from such actions. Industries, companies or factories work very efficiently to protect against activities that may jeopardise their profits. Damage to property or commodities through terrorism are unacceptable to them. Legal actions that may be undertaken against them may be counteracted very easily. Environmental activists are very aware of this possibility. It will be very easy for them to undertake an action that is difficult for the institution to protect against- and that is economic terrorism. Economic terrorism enjoys more attention as compared to legal channels. â€Å"When a terrorist attack in one country involves victims, targets, institutions, governments, or citizens in another country terrorism assume a transnational character†(Sandler, T. 1997). It means a solution is likely to be sought, which will work towards curbing further environmental depletion. Finally, the fear of the developed countries that environmental degradation in the poorer countries may spill over to them may encourage trade war. This is whereby, these nations may impose ever more restrictive trade practices on the developing countries. This may be looked at as economic terrorism. Developed nations may reject commodities from developing nations that encourage environmental degradation, affecting the economy of that particular nation. References Key. W. (2004). Washington Fish Growers Association. The Farmed Salmon Debate. Accessed on 2008-04-14 from; http://www. growfish. com. au/content. asp? contentid=1263 Sandler, T. 1997. Global Challenges; An Approach to Environmental, and Economic problems. Books. google. com Small Wars journal. July 2005,volume of the SWJ magazine. Accessed on 2008-04-14 from; www. smallwarsjournal. com

Teaching Methods and Attitudes in Willie Russells Our Day Out Essay

Willie Russell the author of the play â€Å"Our Day out† had a very similar life to the children in the play. Russell comes from a working class background. Russell left school at the age of fifteen with no formal qualifications. When he left school he became a ladies hairdresser for five years, then a labourer for a further year. After this he enrolled on a one year ‘A’ level course this enabled him to go to ST. Katherine’s college of higher education in order to train as a teacher. Soon after this Russell decided that he would like to become a playwright after he attended a play at the Liverpool’s ‘everyman theatre’. He attended night classes specialising in drama. This is when he began writing plays. â€Å"Our Day Out† is based around a school trip from the inner cities of Liverpool to Conway Castle in Wales. This play focuses on the Progress class and their first outing on a trip with two teachers called Mr. Briggs and Mrs. Kay. They are special needs children with learning difficulties, and are taught by Mrs. Kay who is in charge of the trip. The teachers, Mr. Briggs and Mrs. Kay are best suited for the needs of the children in the Progress class. The main pupil in whom this play focuses on is a girl named Carol. Carol is a poor young girl who is eager to attend the trip, she rushes to school with enthusiasm. The deeper issues that you draw your attention are different teaching methods, attitudes towards the children, special needs education and the possibility of escaping a poor a background for both the teachers and the children. An example of the different teaching methods is Mrs. Kay is a very calm, kind, soft and gentle character and lets the children ‘get away with murder’ whereas Mr. Briggs is very abrupt, loud and shouts a lo... ...nk we should be inside, looking after them.† I think Mr. Briggs was right as the children could have been doing anything in the shop. ‘Scene twenty-one’ shows us Mr. Briggs’s views on teaching the children. Mr. Briggs wants the children to have a planned teaching method, he doesn’t like Mrs. Kay’s way of teaching as he thinks it is unorganised. I think this tells us about his character, that he knows that is the children are taught properly they can succeed. On the top of the cliff when Carol says that Briggs is just scared he’ll get into trouble if she jumps, I don’t think this is true as I really think that Mr. Briggs was caring about Carol and didn’t want her to hurt herself. I think Mr. Briggs took the kids to the fair as he was feeling very sorry for them also he had let out some deep feelings throughout the day, it just shows that every one has a nice side.

Function of E-Book

The functions of E-book in teaching and learning. Books are no doubt the main element in teaching and learning activities. As we all know printed books have already been used for a very long time. However in this modern era, books in electronic forms (eBooks) are taking place. EBooks had already been introduced not only for adults but children too. Finally, eBooks are already evolving slowly to take place in teaching and learning. A powerful stimulus for the production of a range of electronic instrument for education has been provided by the latest technology inventions.Numerous ideas and educational materials are invented and extensively published electronically to support the field of teaching and learning, however it is still unclear how far all of this is of use among the students and teachers when it comes to the virtual teaching and learning. Suggestions on how to improve the quality of the products and materials that are already available are still in great demand as the exis ting electronic books have not completely replaced the physical counterpart.The gap between utilitarian and usefulness is quite wide to prove the lack of effectiveness of the first generation of e-books, and the progress of e-books has been led majorly by technology instead of the user’s demand. In the education field, E-books can be found in various type of media instrument like CD-Rom, the internet and in any portable reading materials. Variety types of element are implemented in e-books, for example fiction and non-fiction. A textbook is a source of information on a particular subject.An electronic textbook on the other hand is almost the same but it is more special as e-textbook is an e-book that has a content of educational material for teaching and learning process. E-textbooks are now officially known as educational source that have already published electronically to help in both teaching and learning methods. They are ready to be used within a computer environment, t hrough media such as internet or CD-ROM. In the early 1990s, the spread of educational multimedia was surprisingly very fast and it was proven by the people that it is more beneficial when converting printed publication into electronic form.Apart from that, it has been discussed that e-book is basically implemented to improve the process of studying outside the classroom, and as time goes by, a technological instrument was made where a powerful incentive is created to invent such electronic material for the students. It is better for the people to be updated to any information to learn by using e-book as printed books are always out-of-date and are only replaced with an average of eight years. Limitless and faster access to any latest news and information can be experienced via electronic learning (Hamilton et al. 2001). It was said that electronic education will benefit a lot of people because of its capability to enhance the co-operation and among the students and the teachers (Ha mbrecht, 2000). Apart from that, higher success rate can be seen. However more effort should be contributed towards promoting e-book among the new generations as financial support plays an important role in this matte (Wilson, 2003). Similar to the ordinary printed books, e-book helps the readers to understand and focus on important messages by underlining them and writing simple notes.In addition, e-books are user-friendly too as it is installed with portable dictionary program which made it easier to look up for unfamiliar words. E-book has definitely made the teaching and learning process to be more interesting than ever because the user get to watch clips and interact with a variety of specialities. It has been proven that the youngsters can gain a lot from the added applications (Maynard and McKnight, 2001). At schools, e-textbooks on the other hand will reduce the number of printed textbooks that not only burden both the teachers and students carrying them to-and-fro around th e school compound.This enables the teacher to easily bring the notes including the exercises to be given to the student which thus increases the effectiveness of teaching. With the presence if the electronic book, space can be saved which particularly helps a lot in places mainly the libraries. Decades ago, e-books were not preferred because the prices were too high. In the year 2000, the production of e-books have became larger and the cost of each e-book is lowered (Mayfield, 2000). This indicates that a major procedure in promoting the usage of e-textbooks in school had been done.Another form of e-book, CD-ROM also known as the copy of the encyclopedia is also famous among the students nowadays. They can easily get copies of the syllabus of their subjects in order for them to study back at home and easily bring the topics for discussion among their peers. Another branch of e-book, Hypertextbooks is a famous instrument of interactive studying on the internet in the western country . This electronic file containing the learning materials enables the user to study at their own rhythm and the students will send their assignment to the respective person through email.This concludes that with the upgrading of the process of studying, the students will no longer have the reason not to send their assignments on time. Top of the information, at schools teachers will have no problem to control the class because the students will be more focused and enthusiastic to carry on with their assignments compared to the printed pages. Even though e-textbooks can contribute towards the improvement in assisting the process of teaching and learning, there are still factors that resist their acceptance such as the insufficient number of computers and labs and the low number of publishers.This signifies that e-book can help in the education field but the chance to make it a reality might prove problematic. According to Hambrecht’s theory, it is believed that e-education is p otential in bringing the students and teachers to come together as one in order to enhance the class session’s activities (Hambrecht, 2000). The research about CD-ROM clarified that users will be more interested to learn and use their resources. The children especially, find that learning is more fun with the presence of beautiful graphics and sound effects.This thus motivates them to continue to learn more which in return will boost their thinking skills. Teachers on the other hand love this way of teaching as it is both entertaining and educational. The e-book users prefer to use this modern way of learning because of the more presentable format which brings a brand new perspective towards the people to experience a more lively way of reading especially the story book lovers. Children once exposed to the usage of e-book they will be used to electronic devices and in future, they will no longer rely on the old traditional method which is the printed book.Electronic texts are no doubt a passage for the generation to get an easy access in education for further study and analysis. The fertile ground for the improvement of teaching and learning, e-book, can benefit the generations greatly in terms of the enjoyment of interesting studying method. As a conclusion, the educators should look into this matter more clearly and make an effort to add electronic texts in their teachings if they haven’t start doing so. Cooperation among the parents and the educators are the key to success to make a change to the younger generations. This foundation will for sure end the upcoming obstacle in generating intellectual students.Reference Hambrecht, W. (2000), Exploring a New Frontier, Corporate E-Learning. Hamilton, R. , Richards, C. and Sharp, C. (2001), â€Å"An examination of e-learning and e-books†, available at: www. dcs. napier. ac. uk/ , mm/socbytes/jun2001/Jun2001_9. htm (accessed 20 November 2010) Mayfield, K. (2000), â€Å" Read a g ood e-textboo k lately? †, Wired News, available at: www. wired. com/news/culture/0,1284,38059,00. html (accessed 12 November 2010). Maynard, S. and McKnight, C. 2001a), â€Å"Children’s comprehension of electronic books: an empirical study†, The New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, Vol. 7, pp. 29-53. Maynard, S. and McKnight, C. (2001b), â€Å"Electronic books for children in UK public libraries†, The Electronic Library, Vol. 19 No. 6, pp. 405-23. Sally Maynard, Emily Cheyne, (2005) â€Å"Can electronic textbooks help children to learn? â€Å", Electronic Library, The, Vol. 23 Iss: 1, pp. 103 – 115. November,25, 2010 http://www. emeraldinsight. com/journals. htm? articleid=1464898 Wilson, R. (2003), â€Å"E-education in the UK†, Journal of Digital Information, Vol. 3 No. 4.

Who Were the Anti-Federalists

Not all Americans liked the new U.S. Constitution offered to them in 1787. Some, particularly the Anti-Federalists, downright hated it. The Anti-Federalists were a group of Americans who objected to the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and opposed final ratification of the U.S. Constitution as approved by the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The Anti-Federalists generally preferred a government as formed in 1781 by the Articles of Confederation, which had granted the predominance of power to the state governments. Led by Patrick Henry of Virginia – an influential colonial advocate for American independence from England – the Anti-Federalists feared, among other things, that the powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution could enable the President of the United States to function as a king, turning the government into a monarchy. This fear can to some degree be explained by the fact that in 1789, most of the world’s governments were still monarchies and the function of a â€Å"president† was largely an unknown quantity. Quick History of the Term ‘Anti-Federalists’ Arising during the American Revolution, the term â€Å"federal† referred simply to any citizen who favored of the formation of a union of the 13 British-ruled American colonies and the government as formed under the Articles of Confederation. After the Revolution, a group of citizens who specifically felt that the federal government under the Articles of Confederation should be made stronger labeled themselves the â€Å"Federalists.†Ã‚  Ã‚   When the Federalists attempted to amend the Articles of Confederation to give the central government greater power, they began to refer to those who opposed them as â€Å"Anti-Federalists.† What Drove the Anti-Federalists? Closely akin to people who advocate the more modern political concept of â€Å"states’ rights,† many of the Anti-Federalists feared that the strong central government created by the Constitution would threaten the independence of the states. Other Anti-Federalists argued that the new strong government would be little more than a â€Å"monarchy in disguise† that would simply replace British despotism with American despotism. Still other Anti-Federalists simply feared the new government would become too involved in their daily lives and threaten their personal liberties. The Impacts of the Anti-Federalists As the individual states debated ratification of the Constitution, a wider national debate between the Federalists—who favored the Constitution—and the Anti-Federalists—who opposed it—raged in speeches and extensive collections of published articles. Best known of these articles were the Federalist Papers, written variously by John Jay, James Madison and/or Alexander Hamilton, both explained and supported the new Constitution; and the Anti-Federalist Papers, published under several pseudonyms such as â€Å"Brutus† (Robert Yates), and â€Å"Federal Farmer† (Richard Henry Lee), opposed the Constitution. At the height of the debate, famed revolutionary patriot Patrick Henry declared his opposition to the Constitution, thus becoming the figurehead of the Anti-Federalist faction. The arguments of the Anti-Federalists had more impact in some states than in others. While the states of Delaware, Georgia, and New Jersey voted to ratify the Constitution almost immediately, North Carolina and Rhode Island refused to go along until it became obvious that final ratification was inevitable. In Rhode Island, opposition to the Constitution almost reached the point of violence when more than 1,000 armed Anti-Federalists marched on Providence. Concerned that a strong federal government might reduce the peoples’ individual freedoms, several states demanded the inclusion of a specific bill of rights in the Constitution. Massachusetts, for example, agreed to ratify the Constitution only on the condition that it would be amended with a bill of rights.   The states of New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York also made their ratification conditional pending the inclusion of a bill of rights in the Constitution. As soon as the Constitution had been ratified in 1789, Congress submitted a list of 12 bill of rights amendments to the states for their ratification. The states quickly ratified 10 of the amendments; the ten known today as the Bill of Rights. One of the 2 amendments not ratified in 1789 eventually became the 27th Amendment ratified in 1992. After final adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, Some former Anti-Federalists went on to join the Anti-Administration Party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in opposition to the banking and financial programs of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The Anti-Administration Party would soon become the Democratic-Republican Party, with Jefferson and Madison going on to be elected the third and fourth Presidents of the United States. Summary of Differences Between Federalists and Anti-Federalists In general, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists disagreed on the scope of the powers granted to the central U.S. government by the proposed Constitution. Federalists tended to be businessmen, merchants, or wealthy plantation owners. They favored a strong central government that would have more control over the people than the individual state governments.Anti-Federalists worked mainly as farmers. They wanted a weaker central government that would mainly assist the state governments by providing basic functions like defense, international diplomacy, and setting foreign policy.   There were other specific differences. Federal Court System Federalists wanted a strong federal court system with the U.S. Supreme Court having original jurisdiction over lawsuits between the states and suits between a state and a citizen of another state.Anti-Federalists favored a more limited federal court system and believed that lawsuits involving state laws should be heard by the courts of the states involved, rather than the U.S. Supreme Court. Taxation Federalists wanted the central government to have the power to levy and collect taxes directly from the people. They believed the power to tax was necessary to provide national defense and to repay debts to other nations.Anti-Federalists opposed the power, fearing it could allow the central government to rule the people and the states by imposing unfair and repressive taxes, rather than through representative government. Regulation of Commerce Federalists wanted the central government to have sole power to create and implement U.S. commercial policy.Anti-Federalists favored commercial policies and regulations designed based on the needs of the individual states. They worried that a strong central government might use unlimited power over commerce to unfairly benefit or punish individual states or to make one region of the nation subservient to another. Anti-Federalist George Mason argued that any commercial regulation laws passed by the U.S. Congress should require a three-fourth, supermajority vote in both the House and Senate. He subsequently refused to sign the Constitution, because it did not include the provision. State Militias Federalists wanted the central government to have the power to federalize the militias of the individual states when needed to protect the nation.Anti-Federalists opposed the power, saying the states should have total control over their militias.   Legacy of the Anti-Federalists Despite their best efforts, the Anti-Federalists failed to prevent the U.S. Constitution from being ratified in 1789. Unlike, for example, Federalist James Madison’s Federalist No. 10, defending the Constitution’s republican form of government, few of the essays of the Anti-Federalists papers are taught today in college curricula or cited in court rulings. However, the influence of the Anti-Federalists remains in the form of the United States Bill of Rights. Though influential Federalists, including Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 84, argued vigorously argued against its passage, the Anti-Federalists prevailed in the end. Today, the underlying beliefs of the Anti-Federalists can be seen in the strong mistrust of a strong centralized government expressed by many Americans.    Sources Main, Jackson Turner. â€Å"The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788.† University of North Carolina Press, 1961. https://books.google.com/books?idn0tf43-IUWcCprintsecfrontcoverdqTheAntiFederalists. â€Å"Lesson 1: Anti-federalist Arguments Against ‘A Complete Consolidation.’† The National Endowment for the Humanities, updated 2019. https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plans/lesson-1-anti-federalist-arguments-against-complete-consolidation.