The Yellow Wallpaper Essays (970 words) - Mental Illness In Fiction

The Yellow Wallpaper The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This story has a gothic presence that shows how a woman?s oppression, by her husband, drives her soul away, leaving her insane and in a world of delusion. The narrator of this story is a new mother, most likely suffering from post-partum depression; of course this was unheard of during the time era of this story. Her husband, John, is a physician who believes she is afflicted by nothing more than a self induced nervous condition. In hopes of her recovery he takes her to a country home where she is isolated and can rest and be quiet. At first, he comes across as a caring husband but soon it?s evident that his caring attitude is more of a condescending one. He patronizes and shrugs off every request or expression she makes, leaving her like a mindless robot. She spends most of her time isolated in a bedroom that she loathes because of the ugly yellow wallpaper that covers the walls and the bars on the windows. Alone in an unhealthy environment, her voice being unheard, along with the childish treatment from her husband and suffering from a mental illness all play a part in her breakdown and loss of reality. The narrator is passionate about writing but John clearly states to his wife that she is not to be writing, for it will only impede her recovery. However, the narrator tries to continue writing in secrecy resulting in feelings of great exasperation. Removing her passion of writing is more of a punishment than of a caring protection for her rehabilitation and sure to be an ingredient for her psychotic behavior. Her isolation and loneliness are evident when she says, ?It is so discouraging to not have any advice or companionship about my work?. Moreover, the limitations that John has placed upon his wife, such as allowing her no freedom to express her thoughts verbally or on paper and no human interaction are causing the narrator a great deal of anguish. These are large contributing forces in her definitive mental instability that are plummeting her to madness. Although the woman's insanity is being profoundly affected by John's confinement and restrictions, the surroundings he has placed in her only add to the woman further spiraling into insanity. The room that her husband has chosen for her to reside in has foul yellow wallpaper on the walls that the woman dreads. Being locked in the room day in and day out, with nothing to entertain her, the woman begins to use the ambiguous designs on the wallpaper and shadows cast from the moonlight to see another world. The wallpaper becomes a sort of panacea, during the day it is her solace and at night it becomes a dark insidious world but one that interacts with her. Her delusional mind begins to see a woman, then more women and eventually her sanity drifts to a place where she sees herself in the wallpaper. Additionally, the windows in the room are barred up, giving the illusion of an asylum. This makes the woman feel as if she or the mysterious woman within the wallpaper is imprisoned. When eve ning falls the shadows that are cast about the room give the presence of movement and of strange objects, in her eyes. She begins to identify with this unreal world because it interacts with her, unlike her husband, John. All human beings need interaction of some sort to identify with and as a means to communicate. The woman lacks this because of the controlled grip her husband has on her. The wallpaper becomes her escape from the reformatory she is trapped in. As the wallpaper is slowly being peeled away so is her connection and submission to John. She is feeling comfortable and in touch with her surroundings and less with John and world outside of the bedroom. The term ?creep? is used throughout the story for different contexts such as when she is describing the smell of the wallpaper and says, ?It creeps all over the house?. Additionally, when she describes her movement at night she states, ?John was asleep and I hated to

Concept essays

Concept essays Explaining a Concept: Concept of the Invisible Hand in a Laissez-faire economy By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of it. Adam Smith, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 1776. What business does a government have in commerce and trade? Why would a government want to interfere between two countries benefiting from each other by trade? What right does the government have in two individuals wanting each others products or services? According to some, commerce and trade should be permitted to operate free of controls of any kind; there should be no tariffs or other barriers. This is where the term laissez-faire is introduced. Its direct translation in French, leave alone to do, is self-explanatory. A strong believer in this type of economics is Adam Smith, both a philosopher and an economist. Born on 1723 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, he studied at Oxford, and became a professor of logic at Glasgow (1751), but took up the chair of moral philosophy the following year. In 1776, he moved to London, where he published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), the first major work of political economy. This examined in detail the consequences of economic freedom, such as division of labor, the function of markets, and the international implications of a laissez-faire economy. Adam Smith is most remembered today for his explanation of our market system. A majority of people saw confusion when they observed economic activity in England during the middle of the 18th century. They saw everyone doing whatever they pleased and deemed necessary. Busine ...

Anti-Islam Discourse of Medieval Europe Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Anti-Islam Discourse of Medieval Europe - Essay Example Anti-Islam Discourse of Medieval Europe This anti-Islam discourse had begun and has been propagated for centuries as the West has continued to link terrorism to Islam, launching a series of attacks in their backyards in their supposed attempts to avert and defeat terror. This rhetoric has grown stronger in recent years as most of the highly profiled enemies of peace and the war on terror have been defined as Muslims. All these have led to a generalized fear of Islam and Muslims, a situation that has been described by several intellectuals and activists as Islamophobia. This has been evidenced by acts such as vandalism of their places of worship, increasing hate crimes against people thought to be Muslim, and sensational coverage by the press of the threats posed by the Muslim community. Some of the selective policing and surveillance that is focused on the Muslim communities and a widespread assumption is that Islam is antithetical to values democratic have also been influenced. This common fear has led to even further for mulation of government policies that have posed a threat to the civil liberties of the Muslims living in such western countries. As a result, there has been hostile, and a suspicious relation experienced between these two worlds. This radicalization and Orientalism by the Western nations begun when these nations, regarding themselves as superior, felt the need to conquer and civilize the societies they regarded as uncivilized and exotic in their practices.

Pathophysiology of Sickel Cell disease Research Paper

Pathophysiology of Sickel Cell disease - Research Paper Example It results from homozygosity for a mutation in the beta globin gene and is transmitted by autosomal recessive inheritance (Passarge, 2007). A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) occurs in the beta globin chain, which results in the substitution of the amino acid residue glutamine at position 6 for valine. An individual may have one such abnormal gene and another normal gene and is said to be heterozygous. When a couple that is heterozygous for HbS give birth to children, there is a likelihood of one or more of the children inheriting these HbS genes from each of the parents. When this happens, the child has both HbS genes and is said to be homozygous for HbS. This is when a child suffers from sickle cell disease. This disorder has potentially serious complications and early medication (prior to the development of symptoms) can advance morbidity and mortality. It affects hemoglobin, a protein that is part of red blood cells, which is responsible for oxygen transport. It is characterized by the presence of sickle cells in the bloodstream, which is also known as erythrocyte sickling. This causes difficulties in circulating red blood cells as the blood vessels get clogged and cause symptoms such as pain in the extremities (Gordon, 2000). This disorder develops within the first 2 years, and the symptoms can be traced back to two main phenomena which are hemolysis and clots. Hemolysis causes chronic anemia, jaundice, lack of growth and sexual maturation. The vascular occlusions cause crisis musculoskeletal pain, increase susceptibility to bacterial infections (S. pneumonia, K. pneumonia, Homophiles influenza, etc.), cerebral infarction, and renal impairment. As a consequence of the mutation, when the hemoglobin is deoxygenated, it spontaneously undergoes polymerization to form a crystalline gel. Each polymer is composed of longitudinal beams 14 of deoxy-Hb which are arranged to form a tactoid body, insoluble and rigid

Consider the impact of the Vietnam War on American culture Essay

Consider the impact of the Vietnam War on American culture - Essay Example B. During this period TV was an important medium for information; news reports of the war telecasted the gory details which reinforced the feeling of redundancy of the war among the Americans, resulting in antiwar protests and demonstrations. III. Effects of advancement A. Cambodian invasion in 1970 resulted in antiwar demonstrations in college campuses all over American. In a few days time, deaths of students occurred in large number. B. The redundancy of the war added with thousands of American soldiers getting killed in war fueled the antiwar sentiments among the young Americans. Large number of young Americans left the war to burn their draft cards. This became a national sensation due to wide coverage by the television. IV. Evolution of the advancement A. In Vietnam, the increasing intensity of the war created psychological problems among the American troops which resulted in drug consumption among them. The hippie culture was reflected back home in American among the youth when they protesting against the war by blocking roads and government buildings for days, singing songs and consuming drugs. B. Music industry developed vastly during the Vietnam era with hundreds of songs getting recorded in single years. Music like rock ‘n’ roll albums that were conceived during that era are popular even after several decades have passed. V. Conclusion A. The hippie culture among the youth created antiheroes in the society who influenced the culture for a generation. B. Popular music of different genres during that era established both the antiwar views and the prowar statements. Music was adopted by the young antiwar protestors as a way of voicing their views. Introduction and Thesis Statement The Vietnam War was a long running combat between the nationalist forces and the United States with the alliance of South Vietnam. The war was more a strategic movement by America to curb communism, and the nation’s involvement was in all terms unofficial st atus. The American troops dispatched under the official purpose of military training to the South Vietnamese troops. The war had a huge impact on the music and culture of America. Events that Led to the Advancement The war, which apparently seemed redundant to the general Americans, had a great impact on them. It has divided the American people like no other war has done. The atrocities of the war were telecasted on the TV, the unspeakable violence induced people to distance themselves from the war. The costs incurred during the war affected the nation’s economy for decades after the war ended. During the mid twentieth century America got involved in the Vietnam as it felt threatened by the growing influence of communism. However, the young generation of that period did not see any concrete reason to feel threatened, and as such, the Vietnam War did not seem a necessity. Moreover, atrocities and millions of American soldiers getting killed and maimed were telecasted in TV whi ch was viewed in every American home. The war was often characterized as the living-room war or the television war. During the course of the war, the events in the battlefield were telecasted in a systematic manner. It was an era when televisions were rapidly becoming a forceful medium of news for the Americans. According to a survey in 1964, the American people had equal trust on newspapers and televisions for information. By 1972, another survey

The Three Major Enterprise Applications

The Three Major Enterprise Applications Enterprise systems, customer relationship management, and supply chain management are three enterprise applications. Enterprise systems are based on a suite of integrated software modules and a common central database. Enterprise systems utilize enterprise software to support financial and accounting, human resources, manufacturing and production, and sales and marketing processes. Enterprise systems provide many benefits including an enterprise-enabled organization, improved management reporting and decision making, a unified information systems technology platform, and more efficient operations and customer-driven business processes. Supply chain management systems help an organization better manage its supply chain, including planning, sourcing, making, delivering, and returning items. Supply chain management software can be categorized as a supply chain planning system or as a supply chain execution system. A supply chain planning system enables a firm to generate demand forecasts for a product and to develop sourcing and manufacturing plans for that product. A supply chain execution system manages the flow of products through distribution centers and warehouses to ensure that products are delivered to the right locations in the most efficient manner. Supply chain management benefits include improved customer service and responsiveness, cost reduction, and cash utilization. Customer relationship management systems help firms maximize the benefits of their customer assets. These systems capture and consolidate data from all over the organization and then distribute the results to various systems and customer touch points across the enterprise. Customer relationship management systems can be classified as operational or as analytical. Operational CRM refers to customer-facing applications, such as sales force automation, call center and customer service support, and marketing automation. Analytical CRM refers to customer relationship management applications dealing with the analysis of customer data to provide information for improving business performance. Benefits include increased customer satisfaction, reduced direct marketing costs, more effective marketing, and lower costs for customer acquisition and retention. Exercise 2 (2 points): What are the benefits of enterprise systems? What are the challenges of enterprise systems? Benefits include creating an enterprise-enabled organization, providing firmware knowledge-based management processes, providing a unified information system technology platform and environment, and enabling more efficient operations and customer-driven business processes. Challenges include a daunting implementation process, surviving a cost-benefit analysis, inflexibility, and realizing strategic value. Exercise 3 (2 points): Search, list and describe five open source ERP Software Systems. Apache OFBix/opentaps: The Apache Open for Business Project is an open source enterprise automation software project licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0. By open source enterprise automation we mean: Open Source ERP, Open Source CRM, Open Source E-Business / E-Commerce, Open Source SCM, Open Source MRP, Open Source CMMS/EAM, and so on. Apache OFBiz is a foundation and starting point for reliable, secure and scalable enterprise solutions. Use it out-of-the-box (OOTB) or customize to suit even your most challenging business needs. With OFBiz in place, you can get started right away and then grow your operations as your business grows, without the huge deployment and maintenance costs of traditional enterprise automation systems. Apache OFBiz offers a great deal of functionality, including: Advanced e-commerce Catalog management Promotion pricing management Order management (sales purchase) Customer management (part of general party management) Warehouse management Fulfillment (auto stock moves, batched pick, pack ship) Accounting (invoice, payment billing accounts, fixed assets) Manufacturing management General work effort management (events, tasks, projects, requests, etc) Content management (for product content, websites, general content, blogging, forum, etc) A maturing Point Of Sales (POS) module using XUI as rich client interface And much more all in an open source package Compiere : Compiere (pronounced KOM-pyeh-reh, to accomplish, complete, fulfill in Italian) is an open source ERP and CRM business solution for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) in distribution, retail, service and manufacturing. Compiere is distributed by Compiere, Inc. and through the Compiere Partner Network, a collection of trained and authorized business partners. Compiere was founded in 1999 by Jorg Janke and was a top 10 project in Sourceforge from 2002 for 4 years reaching one million downloads and 100 partners in 2006. The application and source code is provided on the basis of the GNU General Public License version 2; this comprises the Community Edition. Also available for a fee is a Professional Edition with more features, a commercial license, and documentation and support contracts. Compiere encompasses ERP functionality, but in order to avoid the duplication of information and the need for synchronization, its organized in a different way. Compiere modules are: Quote to Cash, Requisition-to-Pay, Customer relationship management, Partner Relations Management, Supply Chain Management, Performance Analysis, Warehouse, Double-entry Book-keeping, Work-flow-Management and Web Store. A manufacturing module is being developed within an independent project CMPCS ERP5 : ERP5 has been recognized, since the beginning as an innovative and outstanding ERP solution. Hence, the first deployment of ERP5 for Coramy, a European leader in the apparel industry, was awarded best ERP implementation project in the special edition of DÃ ©cision Informatique in June 2004. ERP5 is an Enterprise Resource Planning Solution published as Open Source which means transparency, flexibility and evolutivity for customers. It also means no risks of forced upgrades, guaranteed lifetime maintainability and of course no license fee and no requirement to stay with the same vendor or Service Company forever ERP5 covers accounting, customer relationship management, trade, warehouse management, shipping, invoicing, human resource management, product design, production and project management. All ERP5 business processes are implemented based on Zope transactional Workflows. Workflows directly describe the business process of the customer. ERP5 workflows can be customized through the Web and extended to fit each customer specific needs. All resources in ERP5 can be variated in any number of dimensions, providing built-in configuration for products and reduced design cost for bill of materials (BOM) and bill of operations (BOO) as well as structured rule-based approaches to complex pricing. ERP5 CRM provides an extensible solution to track customers, their career history, their relation to organizations and all related events. It includes a flexible workflow based ticket management system to support sales opportunities, support requests and non conformance reports. It can act as a consolidation solution for all contact information in an organization with full multidimensional classification and built-in LDAP interfacing. Open MFG : OpenMFG (usually abbreviated OMFG) is an open source based, fully-integrated accounting, ERP, and CRM enterprise software solution, from xTuple. Built with the open source PostgreSQL database, and the open source Qt framework from Trolltech for C++, it provides functionality for a range of businesses and industries. It includes the following modules: Accounting (multi-company, general ledger, accounts receivable and payable, bank reconciliation, financial reporting) Sales (quotes, order entry, sales reporting, shipping) CRM (universal address book, incident management, opportunity management, to-do lists, project management) Purchasing (purchase orders, receiving, vendor reporting) Product Definition (items, infinite-level bills of material, bills of operations, breeder bills of material, costing) Inventory (multiple facility, multiple locations, other advanced warehouse features) Manufacturing (work orders, support for make-to-order, make-to-stock, repetitive) Planning (Manufacturing Requirements Planning-MRP, Master Production Scheduling-MPS, Buffer Management-TOC) OpenRPT open source report writer OpenMFG runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac and is internationalized (multi-currency, support for multiple tax structures, and multilingual translation packs maintained by a global community). OpenMFG is licensed under the xTuple Commercial End User License. OpenMFG is a manufacturing-centric enterprise resource planning solution which includes functionality to cover business processes for multiple manufacturing segments, customer relationship management, and accounting. The company utilizes open source technologies, and an open source development philosophy to offer its customers a hybrid open source/proprietary solution. The OpenMFG Community (customers, VARs, development partners), all get the source code and have the ability to contribute back to the base application Open Pro : OpenPro offers business software solutions for every company looking for more value and more features from their ERP solutions. Since 1998 we have been delivering Web-based ERP software solutions to small and mid-sized companies, and international enterprises. OpenPro supports most industries with a complete ERP software solution. As a provider of manufacturing ERP software, OpenPro excels in providing a full suite of applications within six modules: distribution, financials, manufacturing, customer relation management, e-commerce and systems. With its modular design, customers can select the software capabilities that meet their needs, confident in the ability to expand in the future within the ERP software suite. The enterprise distribution software module provides features including sales order processing, warehouse management, inventory control, and purchasing, plus other features; The financial module includes General Ledger, job cost, AP and AR, check reconciliation, fixed assets, payroll HRS, and budgets; The manufacturing module includes MRP II, capacity requirement planning g, bill of materials, product routing, master production scheduling, shop floor control and bar coding; The Customer relationship management module provides CRM capabilities to support sales; The e-commerce module supports customer-to-business transactions, business-to-business transactions, and credit card processing. The system module provides a wide variety of capabilities to make the system as user-friendly and useful as possible, including workflow management; document imaging; communications; information management system; CMM; knowledge base; and report writer, with a multi-language and multi-currency capability. Exercise 4 (2 points): Describe the balanced scorecard model and its role in ESS? In 1992, Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton developed the Balanced Scorecard as a financial and non-financial performance measurement technique that combines several factors to give management a balanced view of their company. The Balanced Scorecard Institute defines a balanced scorecard as, a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals. Why balanced scorecard become necessary with many organisations? According to Kaplan and Norton, companies are using the balanced scorecard to drive strategy execution, clarify and identify strategic initiatives, and conduct strategy performance reviews to better understand their company. The decision to use a balanced scorecard should not be made lightly, and the addition of the balanced scorecard to a company is not just a one-time process, it is an evolution and continuous monitoring of company performance and should be considered a long-term investment. In particular, the Balanced Scorecard Institute includes a nine step process that has been developed for building and implementing a balanced scorecard. They are: Assessment Strategy Objectives Strategy Map Performance Measures Initiatives Automation Cascade Evaluation Nowadays, use of technology through automation is becoming a necessity for companys who want an effective scorecard process implemented. In step seven, automation, performance measurement software is applied so that managers and knowledge workers get the information they need when they need it. The addition of automation to the balance scorecard implementation assists in transferring information into knowledge and pushes the information through the system. It helps make better decisions more quickly. Meanwhile, executive support systems (ESS) can be built into many different specific software systems. The balanced scorecard is a specific ESS software program built to help organizations thrive in the economy. The balanced scorecard is an analysis tool to predict outcomes using current raw data. The balanced scorecard is a financial picture of the organization that can be analyzed and used to enhance the future. The balances scorecard also enables organizations to translate a companys vision and strategy into implementation working from perspectives: Financial perspective Customer perspective Business process perspective Learning and growth perspective A balanced scorecard is a framework that not only provides performance measurements, but also helps business planners identify what should be done and what should be measured. It also provides a clear vision as to what a business should measure in order to balance the organizations financial perspective. The balanced scorecard is an executive support management system that enables organizations to clarify their business or organizational visions and strategies and then translate them into an action plan. In addition, the balanced scorecard is known as a specific executive support system that is used to enable an organization to better manage its parts to make a more congruent and successful whole. Balanced scorecards use existing data assess performance, to predicts future trends and supplement future business decisions, much like ES Systems. The inventors of the balanced scorecard Kaplan Norton use this balanced scorecard system model to guide and evaluate businesses through the information age; Exercise 5 (2 point): What is a digital certificate? How does it work? A digital certificate is an electronic credit card that establishes your credentials when doing business or other transactions on the Web. It is issued by a certification authority( CA ). It contains your name, a serial number, expiration dates, a copy of the certificate holders public key (used for encrypting messages and digital signature s), and the digital signature of the certificate-issuing authority so that a recipient can verify that the certificate is real. Some digital certificates conform to a standard, X.509. Digital certificates can be kept in registries so that authenticating users can look up other users public keys. One widely-used tool for privacy protection is what cryptographers call symmetric or secret key encryption, called that way because one encryption key is used to both encrypt and to decrypt information. This key should obviously be kept secret from anyone not authorised to decrypt the information. Your log-on password, your cash card PIN, and the information you type in to enter your online bank accounts are all examples of secret keys. You share these secret keys only with the parties you want to communicate with, such as the bank or credit card company. Your private information is then encrypted with this secret key, and it can only be decrypted by one of the parties holding that same key. Despite its widespread use, this secret-key system has some serious limitations. As network communications proliferate, it becomes very cumbersome for users to create and remember different passwords for each situation. Moreover, the sharing of a secret key involves inherent risks. When you give your mothers maiden name over the telephone, how do you know you can trust the party on the other end of the line? Can you be sure it is really the credit card company you are talking to? Can you be sure nobody is maliciously listening in? If you give somebody your mothers maiden name and that person abuses it for their own gain, how can you prove you did not authorise their use? Digital Certificate technology addresses these issues because it does not rely on the sharing of secret keys. Rather than using the same key to both encrypt and decrypt data, a Digital Certificate uses a matched pair of keys which complement one another. In other words, what is done by one key can only be undone by the other key in the pair. In this type of key-pair system, a user holds onto a private key and never gives it to anyone, while widely disseminating a public key. Any information locked with the public key can only be unlocked by the corresponding private key, and vice versa. Since the public key alone does not provide access to communications, users do not need to worry about who gets hold of this key. For example, for the purposes of securing e-mail, key pairs can work in the following two ways. You can digitally sign your e-mail by enclosing an electronic stamp constructed by using your private key. When your recipient gets your message, their computer checks this stamp to see if it can be decrypted using your public key. If successful, the recipient knows that the message can only have come from the holder of the private key. Someone who wants to send you private e-mail can use your public key to encrypt the message. When you get the e-mail, your computer checks to see if the public key used to encrypt the e-mail is a valid match with your private key. If the match is successful, the message gets decrypted and you can read it. Anyone who receives your e-mail but does not hold your private key will be unable to decrypt and read the message. A Digital Certificate makes it possible to verify someones claim that they are the rightful owner of a given key, helping to prevent people from using counterfeit or stolen keys to impersonate other users. Used in conjunction with encryption, Digital Certificates provide a more complete security solution, assuring the identity of all parties involved in a transaction. Because a Digital Certificate uses and supplies us with the tools of cryptographic technology, it provides us with the ability to digitally sign documents or transactions, or to verify the signatures of others. It enables us to make documents or transactions only readable by those that we designate. Because Digital Certificates bind a public key to an individual or organisation, in a trusted manner, we can be sure of the identities behind these operations.

Liberty Cabbage: Culture and Propaganda Essay -- Media Government Pape

Liberty Cabbage: Culture and Propaganda I happened to live in two countries with opposite political regimes – socialism in the USSR and democracy in the USA. I was growing up in the USSR, usually finding myself obedient to the will of the ruling Communist Party, sincerely thinking (as well as many people of my age) that my country has the most humane regime in the whole world. When I got older and the Iron Curtain fell, the unadorned reality confronted me: the Soviet Union was not a peace-loving democratic country but a totalitarian regime with a explicit goal of replicating itself all over the world; in short, a monster in sheep’s clothing. What made me believe back then that my former country had such a perfect regime? A one-word answer is: propaganda. The Soviet government skillfully manipulated cultural values of the Russian people to create an illusion that we live in the country of our dreams. The bravest of us allowed ourselves to have another opinion. They listened to Radio Liberty and dreamed of livi ng in the United States (although nobody expected the Soviet regime to fall). What is it like, we wondered, to live in a country where the government does not feed deliberate lies to its own people distorting cultural traditions and history? I dreamed about living in the United States because it was our guiding light to a real democracy. However, as it seems now, the government of the United States, just like the Communist Party in the USSR, plays on cultural values of its people to make them agree to the agenda of the dominant political and social structures. The majority of American people would argue that they are absolutely independent in their opinions, that the United States is a leading democratic country in th... ...oam. Interview. Redeye Collective. By Chris Spannos. 24 May 2002. Filatov, S. â€Å"Thrown Out on the Street.† Pravda 10 Dec. 1979: 5. Grigoriev, Oleg. A Bird In a Cage. Saint Petersburg: Ivan Limbach, 1997 Hunt, Michael H. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy. Yale: Yale UP, 1987. Nunberg, Geoff. †The language wars.† Fresh Air. NPR. WHYY. Philadelphia. 23 Apr. 2003. Operation Iraqi Freedom. The White House. 21 Apr. 2003. Parenti, Michael. â€Å"Methods of Media Manipulation.† The Humanist 57 (1997): 5-7. ISU Expanded Academic ASAP. 22 Apr. 2003. Schabner, Dean. â€Å"Conservative Backlash.† ABCNews.com. 12 March 2003. 22 Apr. 2003. Liberty Cabbage: Culture and Propaganda Essay -- Media Government Pape Liberty Cabbage: Culture and Propaganda I happened to live in two countries with opposite political regimes – socialism in the USSR and democracy in the USA. I was growing up in the USSR, usually finding myself obedient to the will of the ruling Communist Party, sincerely thinking (as well as many people of my age) that my country has the most humane regime in the whole world. When I got older and the Iron Curtain fell, the unadorned reality confronted me: the Soviet Union was not a peace-loving democratic country but a totalitarian regime with a explicit goal of replicating itself all over the world; in short, a monster in sheep’s clothing. What made me believe back then that my former country had such a perfect regime? A one-word answer is: propaganda. The Soviet government skillfully manipulated cultural values of the Russian people to create an illusion that we live in the country of our dreams. The bravest of us allowed ourselves to have another opinion. They listened to Radio Liberty and dreamed of livi ng in the United States (although nobody expected the Soviet regime to fall). What is it like, we wondered, to live in a country where the government does not feed deliberate lies to its own people distorting cultural traditions and history? I dreamed about living in the United States because it was our guiding light to a real democracy. However, as it seems now, the government of the United States, just like the Communist Party in the USSR, plays on cultural values of its people to make them agree to the agenda of the dominant political and social structures. The majority of American people would argue that they are absolutely independent in their opinions, that the United States is a leading democratic country in th... ...oam. Interview. Redeye Collective. By Chris Spannos. 24 May 2002. Filatov, S. â€Å"Thrown Out on the Street.† Pravda 10 Dec. 1979: 5. Grigoriev, Oleg. A Bird In a Cage. Saint Petersburg: Ivan Limbach, 1997 Hunt, Michael H. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy. Yale: Yale UP, 1987. Nunberg, Geoff. †The language wars.† Fresh Air. NPR. WHYY. Philadelphia. 23 Apr. 2003. Operation Iraqi Freedom. The White House. 21 Apr. 2003. Parenti, Michael. â€Å"Methods of Media Manipulation.† The Humanist 57 (1997): 5-7. ISU Expanded Academic ASAP. 22 Apr. 2003. Schabner, Dean. â€Å"Conservative Backlash.† ABCNews.com. 12 March 2003. 22 Apr. 2003.