South America is a land of different cultures and has a history
of as many different types of government, mostly dictatorships. Most
of South America won independence from Spain and Portugal between 1810
and 1824. In 1823, President James Monroe enunciated the first US
policy on Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine warned European nations
against interfering in the affairs of independent nations in the
Western Hemisphere. In 1904, Roosevelt's Corollary said the US would
act as a "policeman", intervening militarily when US interests were at
risk. After W.W.II, the independent countries of the Western
Hemisphere formed the Organization of American States, a military
alliance to prevent aggression against any American nation. South
America is the fourth largest continent. It ranks fifth in population.
The continent is divided into 12 independent countries and two
political units. The countries consist of Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Guyana,
Surinam, and French Guinea. In the 12 countries of South America,
democracy has slowly been on the rise since 1959. The rise started in
Venezuela and ended in Surinam last year. One by one South America's
countries have turned form dictatorships into democracies where the
voters control the elections.
Even with democracy taking control, the countries still have
many problems. The largest problem is the tradition of corruption of
the political leaders. The corruption has mainly been the use of
bribe-taking and bribe-giving. "By definition, democracy presumes
equal opportunity; bribery and corruption make the playing field
uneven and weakens democracy's foundations." Recently, corruption has
reached into high places in Venezuela and Brazil. President Carlos
Perez (1993) and Fernando Collor de Mello (1992) were forced to resign
when faced with corruption charges.
The large drug trade has also caused problems for the rise of
democracy in South America. Each year, hundreds of tons of Cocaine
feed an illegal US drug market. It is worth an estimated $38 billion a
year. This illegal money has found its way into the pockets of many
people in high places. In Columbia, a major source of illegal drugs
for the US, President Ernesto Samper was accused of taking a $6
million bribe to allow drug trafficking to continue as usual.
Laundered drug money has financed development in many South American
cities, but it has also brought bloodshed.
The large gap between rich and poor of South America has
presented another challenge for democracy. In South America, the rich
keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.
The play, “Death of a Salesman” written by Arthur Miller, presents Willy Loman, as a salesman, who fails to earn a living and slowly loses his mind. Willy continuously seeks the past to find out where he went wrong. During his years in life, Willy wanted his two sons, Biff and Happy to become someone they’re not; Willy wanted them to become a salesman like him. However, because of his obsession in the American Dream of easy success and wealth, he created a life full of lies for himself and his sons. In the end because of “his misconception of himself as someone capable of greatness” leads to his downfall and the end of his life (Death of a Salesman).”
In the 1850‘s the Latin America’s liberals that promoted modernization of transport and communication invited foreign export. Therefore the two countries about to be compared and analyzed are Argentina and Mexico. During the 1850’s and the 1920’s Argentina and Mexico were in a Liberal Democracy.
“The American dream is, in part, responsible for a great deal of crime and violence because people feel that the country owes them not only a living but a good living.” Said David Abrahansen. This is true and appropriate in the case of Willy Loman, and his son Biff Loman. Both are eager to obtain their American dream, even though both have completely different views of what that dream should be. The play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller shows the typical lives of typical Americans in the 1940’s. Miller’s choice of a salesman to be the main character in this play was not a coincidence, since it represents the typical middle-class working American, some of which have no technical skills what so ever. Miller’s play gives us insides on the daily lives of many Americans, this through the eyes of Willy and Biff Loman, he also shows what kind of personalities, what dreams they have, and their different points of view of what the American dream means.
The ideology behind American democracy can be defined by equal opportunity. More specifically it is ability for all citizens to have equal economic opportunity, such as education and also equal political opportunity, such as being able to vote and bail out of prison. The novels Our Kids and Just Mercy, by authors Robert Putnam and Brian Stevenson respectively, are both intellectual literacies following stories of inequalities in America. Focusing on two distinct types of inequality-socioeconomic and race- each book gives explicit insight to how it is affecting American democracy. Socioeconomic and racial inequalities are undermining the foundation of democracy. Citizens in poverty and racial minority groups are finding themselves to have unequal opportunities in education, incarceration, political efficacy.
When one thinks of Mexico the first thing that often comes to mind are all of the old Westerns where the bad guys would run to Mexico to escape and good guys were attacked by desperados and also government troops. This stereotype is not too far off from the actual political situation in Mexico. If one were to look at the history of this troubled nation one would find a universal lack of stable government and a tendency towards military run dictatorships. This comes from a turbulent history fraught with foreign influence and puppet governments. The most recent foreign intervention was in the 1850's when the French sent troops over to Mexico in order to establish a puppet government under Archduke Maxamillian of Austria. His reign was short-lived and revolutionaries executed him after his surrender in May of 1867. The revolutionary leader Benito Juarez then assumed the presidency. His reign only lasted five years until another revolution lead by Porfiro Diaz. Diaz was the leader in Mexican politics for 35 years until he was finally overthrown. This progression didn't end with Diaz, his successor, Francisco Madero, was overthrown and executed by General Victoriano Huerta, a brutal military dictator who was in power for a short time then overthrown in a new wave of revolutions. This flow of leaders coming to power then being overthrown has lead to a very unstable Mexican political structure. The trend of the losers in an election starting a revolution in response continued until General Lazaro Cardenas came to power in 1934 and became the first president in Mexican history to serve out a full term. The next president, Avila Camacho was the one to organize the PRI, the political party that continues to dominate...
The pursuit of the American dream can inspire ambition. It can transform a person and cause him to become motivated and hard-working, with high standards and morals. Or, it can tear a person down, to the point of near insanity that results from the wild, hopeless chase after the dream. This is what occurs to Biff, Happy, and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's book Death of a Salesman. In the play, Willy Loman is a traveling salesman whose main ambition in life is wealth and success, neither of which he achieves. Corrupted by their father, Biff and Happy also can not attain success. Biff fails to find a steady, high-paying job even though he's 30, and he hates the business world, preferring instead to live on a farm in California. Happy, on the other hand, has a fairly well-paying, steady job, but still suffers from emptiness and a sense of being lost, a void which he fills by sleeping around with many women, some of whom are even married or engaged. Thus, Miller uses motifs, such as deception, theft, and hallucination, to show the pathology that all three of these characters experience in the wake of the American dream.
Throughout the course of history, mankind has been recorded to corrupt itself. Men have grown tired of simply surviving; they have had to take and conquer others. Absolute monarchies control wealth, land, and even lives of men. The conditions of the people were solely dependent on the conditions of the one who was in power in that particular place and time. History has proven that most men rule unwisely in their kingdoms. To avoid tyrannical rule, some make an attempt to set up a government in which the people ruled themselves. This form of government is called a democracy, or “rule of the people.” History has also revealed through the Greeks and the French Revolution, that a democracy that gives complete power to the people, “absolute democracy”, is nothing more than a short prelude to tyranny.
Now days democracy has been establish in every Latin America country except Cuba, which is still a socialist state. It seemed that every other alternative form of government such as Marxism or Leninism has failed and been replaced by democracy. Furthermore it looks like people in Latin American really enjoy democracy and its’ benefits, as they also consider it to be the best form of government. After the failure of authoritarian leaders and the military intervene their lives, Latin American citizens wanted to change their system into a more fair and honest system, democracy. Democracy is usually defined as a system of honesty, equality, freedom of rights, though for Latin America countries it means gains, welfare and patronage. Latin American did not work the democratic system properly as it should be and different obstacles keep the system away from being consolidated. Democracy in Latin America still face serious problems in matters as grinding poverty, huge social gaps, corruption, drug dealing, inefficient governments and most importantly governments who promote and use military. The real question is why democracy actually failed even though democracy is what people want. Paraguay is a case of failure in transition democracy because of the corruption and other things that will be argued in this essay. Paraguay and Ecuador are considered to be the only countries that democratization did not achieve consolidation, in differ from Chilli and Central American.
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a tragic play about an aging and struggling salesman, Willy Loman, and his family’s misguided perception of success. In Willy’s mind, being well-liked is more important than anything else, and is the means to achieving success. He teaches this flawed idea to his sons, Biff and Happy, and is faithfully supported by his wife Linda. Linda sympathizes with Willy’s situation, knowing that his time as an important salesman has passed. Biff and Happy hold their father to impossibly high standards, and he tries his best to live up to them. This causes Willy to deny the painful reality that he has not achieved anything of real value. Willy’s obsession with a false dream results in his losing touch with reality and with himself.
An American dream is a dream that can only be achieved by passion and hard work towards your goals. People are chasing their dreams of better future for themselves and their children. The author Arthur Miller in Death of a Salesman has displayed a struggle of a common man to achieve the American dream. Willy Loman the protagonist of the play has spent his whole life in chasing the American dream. He was a successful salesman who has got old and unable to travel for his work, and no one at work gives him importance anymore. He is unhappy with his sons Happy and Biff because both of them are not successful in their lives. Moreover, Biff and Happy are also not happy with their father Willy because they don’t want to live a life that Willy wants them to live. The heated discussions of Willy and his older son Biff affect the family and the family starts to fall apart. However, Willy is unable to achieve the American dream and does not want to face the reality that his decisions for himself and his family have lead him to be a failure in the society. In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the protagonist Willy Loman spends his whole life to achieve the American Dream by his own perception and denies facing the reality, just like nowadays people are selling themselves and attempting to find success in life.
Throughout the play, Arthur Miller uses characters’ inner tension and also tension with each other in order to shed light on capitalism’s misleading promises and devastating consequences for believing its promises. For many of the characters, believing in an imperfect system leads to many undesirable consequences, like disillusionment and suicide. For those that don’t throw themselves willy-nilly into the promises of capitalism and the American Dream, there is the chance of living a successful and fulfilling life. In the play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is a great example of someone trying desperately, yet unsuccessfully, to pursue the false hope of the American Dream, directly resulting from capitalism’s misleading nature.
The American democracy is one of the most peaceful kinds of government in the world although it is a long way from utopia. The democracy in which we live has many strengths and weaknesses. Neither strengths or weaknesses out weigh one another, but it is necessary to have both due to the varying definitions. A democracy is a government that is run by the people. The politicians that we elect to run our government are human and they are susceptible to mistakes based on their own strengths and weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses they possess are reflected into our government but at least “we the people” elect them and they are not chosen for us.
In Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman’s warped view of the American Dream caused tragedy in his family because he stressed the importance of popularity over hard work and risk-taking over perserverence. *Willy grew up believing that being "well-liked" was important to becoming a success. He believed that being well-liked could help you charm teachers and open doors in business. *He is proud that the neighborhood boys flock around Biff and respond to Biff’s athletic abilities, and in the same breath scoffs at the nerdy Bernard, who is too focused on school and his studies to be popular. Even though Biff turns out to be a failure as an adult, Willy holds on to the hopes that a business man who Biff met years ago will offer him a terrific job if Biff can be his old likeable self and recapture the confidence and grace he had as a teenager.
In today’s society the term “American Dream” is perceived as being successful and usually that’s associated with being rich or financially sound. People follow this idea their entire life and usually never stop to think if they are happy on this road to success. Most will live through thick and thin with this idealization of the “American Dream” usually leading to unhappiness, depression and even suicide. The individual is confused by society’s portrayal of the individuals who have supposedly reached the nirvana of the “American Dream”. In the play “Death of a Salesman” Willy thinks that if a person has the right personality and he is well liked it’s easy to achieve success rather than hard work and innovation. This is seen when Willy is only concerned how Biff’s class mates reacted to his joke of the teachers lisp. Willy’s dream of success for his son Biff who was very well liked in High School never actually became anything. Biff turned into a drifter and a ranch worker. In the play “Seize the Day” Tommy who is financially unstable also pursues the idea of getting to the “American Dream” and becoming wealthy. He foolishly invests his last seven hundred dollars and eventually loses it leaving him broke and out of work. In both plays following the American Dream is followed in different characters and in both the characters are far away from it leaving them broke and forgotten by almost everyone.
Willy Loman is a firm believer in the "American Dream:" the notion that any man can rise from humble beginnings to greatness. His particular slant on this ideal is that a man succeeds by selling his charisma, that to be well liked is the most important asset a man can have. He made a living at this for 30 years, but as he enters the reclining years of his life, people have stopped smiling back and he can no longer sell the firm's goods to support himself. His ambition was one of greatness, to work hard and to be a member of the firm; and if he could not succeed in this respect, that he should at least be well-liked and be able to sell until the day of his death: When his friends would flock from all over the country to pay their respects.