Tuesday, January 13, 2009

AWOL - Supplement Sessions on Marx's Critique of Capitalism [OPTIONAL]

Karl Marx, a philosopher and analyst of Capitalism, is known for his book The Communist Manifesto, with Friedrich Engle, a radical capitalist. During the mid 1800s, Marx tried to understand capitalism and how it developed; a process known as the Dialectic. The dialectic is the method of looking at different situations that could have led to an event/phenomenon; the way things changed due to collisions. Within the dialectic is the thesis (the original situation)<-> anti-thesis (developing contradiction): higher synthesis (Capitalism). The Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, another philosopher at the time, believed that the change in quantity, in any given situation, lead to a different kind of reality. He thought that history was a process that the world was most likely going to turn into in a point in time; a physical reality. In relation to Marx’s dialectic process in Capitalism, it was believed that Capitalism was a process that helped others become socialists. The “division of labor necessarily draws after it greater division of labor, the employment of machinery greater employment of machinery, work upon a large scale work upon a still greater scale” (Marx). In Capitalism, it was also a process that showed how the owners got richer while the worker of the company remained poor.

The division of labor, within the capital, also defines Marx’s Primitive Accumulation of the Capital. The Primitive Accumulation of the Capital is “a small percentage of the population obtained possession of the necessary resources to start businesses which employ people and gain profit” (Wikipedia). The process in which the capital creates businesses/companies is through the laborers. Capitalism also seeks for “competition by restlessly introducing further subdivision of labor and new machines, which, though more expensive, enable him to produce more cheaply, instead of waiting until the new machines shall have been rendered obsolete by competition” (Marx). Marx felt that overall; capitalism was fundamentally irrational for workers. In order for the owners to obtain the machinery, land, farms, etc. to make the commodity, the owner had enslave and create genocide, by exploiting people who were and are still willing to alienate him/her self to work for the capital. In Capitalism, one is capable of alienating his/her self by selling the time and energy to make money. Workers who are easy to sell his/her labor-power, “their ability to work” (Ollman), to capitalism are known as ‘Proletarian’. An example that used to take place, and still exists today is prostitution. Women who seek for money use their own body as the product of their own ‘company’ are known as prostitutes. They sell their body by having sex with men (or women), and get paid in return of their ‘deeds’ that were made. In relation to capitalism, laborers sell their selves to the capital by “[maintaining] the total of his wages for a given time by performing more labor, either by working a great number of hours, or by accomplishing more in the same number of hours” (Marx). Regardless of how great or little the pay is for a large amount of hours worked, laborers are more willing to sacrifice what they would normally do at home, or maybe school, to make money and provide for his/her family.

That’s where Marx’s Labor Theory of Value comes into play. Marx thought that “the value of a commodity can be objectively measured by the average number of labor hours required to produce that commodity” (Prychitko). The value of a commodity, within the capital, and how the commodity is produced is all reliant to the workers and how they are the source of all wealth. The workers within the capital are responsible for making the market/commodity, while the owners of the company are making most of the profit.


“His labor theory of value, however, is primarily concerned with the more basic problem of why goods have prices of any kind. Only in capitalism does the distribution of what is produced take place through the medium of markets and prices” (Ollman).
According the comic above, the artist tried to portray the perspective of the laborers who spent, and still spend, most of their time trying to make a living that is being invested to formulate the capital. At this point in time, workers are unaware of their dedication to the capital and how he/she is being abused. According to Marx “Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks. The time during which the laborer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labor-power he has purchased of him” (Marx). The term used for ‘sucking living labor’ out of workers was known as Vampirization. While a worker is in the process of making a commodity, the capital is already extracting from the workers labor-power.

In order to take away capitalism, a revolution must occur.

In my own opinion, I can understand Marx’s concern towards Capitalism and how it is not fair towards laborers who are innocently trying to provide for his/her self and family. Based on this week’s class lecture, one can agree that America’s past centuries of enslaving Africans and Indians, in the West, enriched capitalism to continue to provide jobs for proletarian workers. The dialectic between the slaves and America, and even before that with the Indians, collided by creating a higher synthesis which is known as capitalism today. Because of the people who still continue to work, others who are possibly in the same position are also willing to work for the capital. However, as ‘irrational’ capitalism may be, one can also agree that society can’t live with it, and cannot live without it. To imagine, how would society turn out to be if Capitalism no longer existed? I mean it would stop the exploitation of workers within the company, but how else are workers supposed to work in order to make money? Capitalism and the working class is just one big cycle to how the American society is supposed to function.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_accumulation_of_capital

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch09.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Marxism.html

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/what_is_marxism.php

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm

Sunday, January 11, 2009

AWOL - Big Essay Draft 2

Is the American way of life fragile or sturdy? Most Americans find their way of living non-negotiable. “Americans don't seem to find anything wrong with them. It seems that the American public agrees. Our way of life is so special, so unique, so satisfying that it must be protected at all costs” (www.faulkingtruth.com). Protecting the American way of life has been evident for the past centuries when ‘America’ was The average American feels that their way of living is supposedly the ‘right’ way of living and that every person should live in that particular way. Of course the average American can also agree that the American way of life is to also strive to be successful and to make money; a positive way of living by benefiting one’s self.

A way that Americans strive to be successful to make money is through capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system that involves laborers who help produce and sell the supply that is within the ‘free market’. Three main parts of capitalism is the land, labor and the capital. The land represents the natural world; everything one would use to make stuff—out of raw materials. Labor is the all of the work necessary to produce and sell the product. Capital is the money or tools used to make profit. Supply and Demand play a role in which supply is produced by the laborers, land and capital and is sold for any price, meanwhile the amount of supply stays the same. Demand is the amount of products purchased by the consumer, at all prices. The process of supply and demand is the profit motive to invest money through private ownership where goods and services are distributed.

A person familiar with the hip-hop culture is a Hispanic teen who explains that the American way of life involves three things, “Money, power and respect.” In his opinion, he finds that having respect by gaining a ‘title’ in society, or among friends, will help one survive for being known for what they do. Similar to Capitalism, Money and power are alike in ways that the more power one has, the more money he/she receives for having that kind of power. The Hispanic teen adds that it is some what of a privilege to have the power, the ability, to do something he/she is good at and get paid for it, and it is likely that after one gets paid, it is priority to provide for others whether it is for family or friends, before one’s self. In most cases, in society, money does buy happiness, only when it involves food, shelter and education—a good aspect about the American way of life. Within Capitalism, companies are only ‘happy’ when they find a way to make profit/power by adjusting the company’s supply and demand.

However, in the process of making profit through Capitalism—or any given situation, competition does occur. Competition creates an opportunity, for most companies, to expand and make money. Globalization, a comparative advantage, is a process that allows companies to expand their businesses to other countries by trading across seas to make more profit compared to what they would usually make in the states. To a certain extent, competition has its downfall towards American businesses because it gives American citizens less opportunity to having a job. Although Capitalism may benefit most monopolies, in some way it creates a disadvantage towards others companies below monopolies when trying to make money.

EBay is an example of capitalism and how little and big companies work. Within EBay, there are sellers who are, I would say, have the most bidders and least amount of bidders-more demand than other 'companies', which plays a big role on how successful a person can be with selling their product. All of what people actually do to the product is cause inflation by constantly raising the price in the matter of hours. In any given situation of buying and selling, one can agree with the phrase, 'time is money'.

My 'EBay experience' was rather annoying than it was ‘fun’. This was the first time I used EBay to bid on an item that I could have possibly wanted. At first I didn't know what to bid on, so for the hell of it, I bid on a pair of ballerina flats that were $19.99 (plus shipping).

I started to bid on the item on Monday of last week. The bid was coming to a quick end, in about two hours. At first the shoes were auctioned for $5.99. At the time I bid higher just in case someone were to outbid me. LITERALLY, one minute later, I was out-bidded by a random user. I bidded again, 2 dollars higher than the previous bidder, and once again I was outbidded by the same user. I honestly was not going to wait around to hope that I hopefully won the bid, so I stopped trying to out-bid the user and went looking for the same pair, for just $19.99. I was the first bidder, and the auction was going to last two days later.

To my surprise, after the two days, I won the bid. At the time I did not use any strategy to try to win a bid. I asked Tyler Scrima what he does to win bids, since he has been buying and selling off of EBay since the 8th grade. He told me to wait till the very last minute to place a bid, however when I tried doing that, previously, somebody was still out-bidding me. It was annoying to the extent where I had to try to out-bid other people to get this one item. But after realizing that it is a website where people actually bid or buy items for cheap, which explained to me why people spend a great amount of time trying to find bargains--not that it is a bad thing of course.

On the day after Thanksgiving, most Americans consider that day as a holiday known as "Black Friday". During that time of year, most chain stores, such as Wal-Mart, sell their products for more than 50% off. On that day, shoppers are obligated to buy whatever they can get, even if they do not exactly 'need' that product. What's frustrating about black Friday is that after buying so many things, shoppers put themselves in a position where they have to pay all these bills after maxing out their credit cards. In the end, most of them are wondering where their money had gone. It comes to show how materialistic Americans have come to be.

With my experience on Black Friday, my family and I spent our time in the Poconos, where we actually did not shop for anything. We live in Reeders, PA which is a five minute drive from the outlet, and 15 minute drive from the mall. Because I had a basketball tournament that same day, my parents actually drove all the way from PA to NY to make it to the game in the Bronx. My cousin also tagged along because she was staying i New York City for the next two weeks. While I was playing in my basketball game, my family toured the city, visiting the Empire State Building.

In regards to 'Buy Nothing Day', if people were to actually follow up on that day, the economy would shift in terms supply & demand. Even though Americans are aware of the consequences for buying an excessive amount of products, people are still go about their way to do something that affects them in a negative way-which in my opinion is ridiculous.

On the day of Black Friday, a man who went by the name Jdimytai Damour was killed while working at his job in Wal-Mart. In the morning of Black Friday, Damour and other workers were assigned to barricade the Wal-Mart doors, until the store opened-which was at 5:00am. Witnesses say that "he was bum-rushed by 200 people" (NY Daily News) which unfortunately lead to his death an hour later when he arrived in the hospital.

It is more pathetic than it is outrageous that the people who were involved with the shopping spree were selfish enough to not realize that they were running over a man. It is explainable that if only one person to stop, and try to help him, then that same person would have been ran over as well--however, that would not be the case if everybody realized what was really going on below their feet.

Shoppers "took the door off the hinges", "Chant[ed] 'push the doors in", and when Wal-Mart employees tried to close down the store, after the death of Damour, shoppers were yelling, "I've been on line since Friday morning!"

The American way of life, based off this incident, shows how much concern Americans have over saving a little over $100 than a life of a person. "Whats funny about this is that they bum-rushed into the store, took the door off the hinges, and in the end did not steal anything" (Ben Sherry)-- which is ironic because that is usually something a robber would do when trying to steal something from a store. The anticipation and the rush of Black Friday show how fiend people are to get 'material items' such like your flat screen TV, or laptops and such--Not even realizing they had killed a person in the past 24 hours.

Monday, January 5, 2009

AWOL - Big Essay Draft 1

Is the American way of life fragile or sturdy? Most Americans find their way of living non-negotiable. The average American feels that their way of living is supposedly the ‘right’ way of living and that every person should live that one particular way. Of course the average American can also agree that the American way of life is to also strive to be successful and to make money; a positive way of living by benefiting one’s self. However, it is often that people view the American way of life negatively as well.

A way that Americans strive to be successful to make money is through capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system that involves laborers who help produce and sell the supply that is within the ‘free market’. Three main parts of capitalism is the land, labor and the capital. The land represents the natural world; everything one would use to make stuff—out of raw materials. Labor is the all of the work necessary to produce and sell the product. Capital is the money or tools used to make profit. Supply and Demand play a role in which supply is produced by the laborers, land and capital and is sold for any price, meanwhile the amount of supply stays the same. Demand is the amount of products purchased by the consumer, at all prices. The process of supply and demand is the profit motive to invest money through private ownership where goods and services are distributed.

A person familiar with the hip-hop culture is a Hispanic teen who explains that the American way of life involves three things, “Money, power and respect.” In his opinion, he finds that having respect by gaining a ‘title’ in society, or among friends, will help one survive for being known for what they do. Similar to Capitalism, Money and power are alike in ways that the more power one has, the more money he/she receives for having that kind of power. The Hispanic teen adds that it is some what of a privilege to have the power, the ability, to do something he/she is good at and get paid for it, and it is likely that after one gets paid, it is priority to provide for others whether it is for family or friends, before one’s self. In most cases, in society, money does buy happiness, only when it involves food, shelter and education—a good aspect about the American way of life. Within Capitalism, companies are only ‘happy’ when they find a way to make profit/power by adjusting the company’s supply and demand.

However, in the process of making profit through Capitalism—or any given situation, competition does occur. Competition creates an opportunity, for most companies, to expand and make money. Globalization, a comparative advantage, is a process that allows companies to expand their businesses to other countries by trading across seas to make more profit compared to what they would usually make in the states. To a certain extent, competition has its downfall towards American businesses because it gives American citizens less opportunity to having a job. Although Capitalism may benefit most monopolies, in some way it creates a disadvantage towards others companies below monopolies when trying to make money.

EBay is an example of capitalism and how little and big companies work. Within EBay, there are sellers who are, I would say, have the most bidders and least amount of bidders-more demand than other 'companies', which plays a big role on how successful a person can be with selling their product. All of what people actually do to the product is cause inflation by constantly raising the price in the matter of hours. In any given situation of buying and selling, one can agree with the phrase, 'time is money'.

On the 28th of November, Black Friday was a day when Americans across the country made it a priority to buy products for a low price. Every year Americans buy these items to fulfill their needs, in replacement of their 1 or 2-year-old items they have at home.

In 2008, on Black Friday, a man who went by the name Jdimytai Damour was killed while working at his job in Wal-Mart. In the morning of Black Friday, Damour and other workers were assigned to barricade the Wal-Mart doors, until the store opened-which was at 5:00am. Witnesses say that "he was bum-rushed by 200 people" (NY Daily News) which unfortunately lead to his death an hour later when he arrived in the hospital.

It is more pathetic than it is outrageous that the people who were involved with the shopping spree were selfish enough to not realize that they were running over a man. It is explainable that if only one person to stop, and try to help him, then that same person would have been ran over as well--however, that would not be the case if everybody realized what was really going on below their feet.

Shoppers "took the door off the hinges", "Chant[ed] 'push the doors in", and when Wal-Mart employees tried to close down the store, after the death of Damour, shoppers were yelling, "I've been on line since Friday morning!"

The American way of life, based off this incident, shows how much concern Americans have over saving a little over $100 than a life of a person. "Whats funny about this is that they bum-rushed into the store, took the door off the hinges, and in the end did not steal anything" (Ben Sherry)-- which is ironic because that is usually something a robber would do when trying to steal something from a store. The anticipation and the rush of Black Friday show how fiend people are to get 'material items' such like your flat screen TV, or laptops and such--Not even realizing they had killed a person in the past 24 hours.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

AWOL - Winter Holiday Assignment

Today is January 1, 2009 and this Winter Break has been like any other winter break for the past 17 years of my life.

On December 24th, Christmas eve, my family and i traveled to my mom's side of the family in Nanuet, NY and stayed there til 1:30 in the morning to open Christmas Presents at midnight. On Christmas day, my family then traveled to Dumont, NJ where the my dad's side of the family lives and celebrated the rest of Christmas there, until we had to travel back to Nanuet, NY to my mom's side once more for a Christmas dinner.

Between my mom and dad's side of the family, I feel both sides have their similarities in terms of having a tradition, but both are different on how Christmas was actually celebrated.

Christmas Eve:
On my mom's side, we arrived at the Estrada [mom's maiden name] house around 9 PM. While we wait for Christmas morning, 12 o'clock midnight, the family socializes by catching up on what they have missed through out the whole year, any recent news, etc etc. At 12 AM, my uncle usually announces all the gift, reading out who gave what to who, but because he did not attend Christmas with the Estrada's and instead at his fiances house, I was chosen by my aunts and uncles to read out the presents. It was kind of weird because i remember having to be the one to watch the gifts being announced after so long, and this Christmas i got to do it.

Christmas Day:
On my dad's side, we arrived at the Dionisio [dad's last name] house around 1 PM where the whole family prayed before we ate. The cousins took care of the nieces and nephews, playing around with them, the aunts got together to talk about gossip while most of the men in the family, my uncles and older cousins, got together to watch a boxing match that took place two weeks before Christmas, Pacquio (a Filipino Boxer) Vs. Del La Hoya (a Mexican Boxer). Within the Dionisio family, a lot of the members have pride for being a Filipino, and because Pacquio is a Filipino, the were proud that he won the boxing match , 8 out of 12 rounds.
Aside from boxing, the day continued and it was time to give out presents. But before we do that, every year it was tradition to a small sermon of Jesus' birth the scriptures from The Bible. After every passage that was read, we sang a couple of verses to songs that matched up with the specific passage from The Bible. The small sermon lasted for about thirty minutes. Towards the end my cousin said a prayer and then gifts were handed out. After all of the gifts, all of the younger cousins get envelopes--each cousins gets between 3-6 envelopes from aunts and uncles filled with money. Its not surprise for my sister to get money on Christmas though, family members have stopped giving us actual gifts since middle school.

The two traditions that are taken place on Christmas, I feel, is not similar yet, not too different from the American Way of Life, just because most families actually celebrate Christmas just to get gifts. They sometimes forget that its also about spending time with the family. Though Christmas is all about 'sales' and having to BUY something for another person, most families do follow up on the same tradition on having a family get-together. But in my opinion I don't think it sounds familiar, at least between my friends, to have a small sermon at home before opening gifts. I mean going to church is one thing, but its another to have a small sermon in a house hold--not that there is anything wrong with it, its a way of reminding us why Christmas is celebrated, because of the birth of Christ.

Now, this follows-up on a question--do people actually understand WHY Christmas is celebrated? Has Christmas only been celebrated for the material things? Majority of America is Christian, or in a general overview 'believes in Jesus', but do families realize why they put a star on the top of the tree? or the fact that there are PRESENTS that take part on Christmas day?

Enough talk about Christmas...

On to New Years Day. So today New Years was pretty lame for me because I did not get to celebrate it the traditional way-- going out with family/friends and having the number '2009' hat on my head with a mini blow horn. While everybody in NYC partied, hung out at times Square, got together with other family/friends, I was stuck in the Poconos finishing my college apps that are due on New Years Day. Surprisingly, I finished the applications at 11:58 PM on the dot, on New Years Eve. That was when I quickly ran into the living room where my mom, dad and sister were, yelling the countdown of New Years while watching the ball drop down in Times Square. After that I went back into my room and slowly fell asleep. This year I was actually mad that I did not get to spend New Years with anybody else but my family. It has been 'tradition' since i was a baby to spend it with the Estrada family, but because everybody moved up north, New Years was no longer celebrated with the Estrada's, and instead with our individual family. This year I wanted to break tradition, but unfortunately couldn't. On New Years, most Americans actually celebrate New Years by going out and having fun with other family & friends--This year i was unable to be a part of that American way of living.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

AWOL - Election Response

I HONESTLY do not mean to sound like an ass in this entry...

----------------------------------

On November 4th, 2008 History was actually made when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States for the Next four years. It did not surprise me, then again, it did at the same time only because I thought the same thing that happened years ago with Al Gore and then four years later with Kerry would happen AGAIN with McCain, since both Bush and McCain are both republican.

Not to offend those who support Obama, but I feel that this year's election has gone way out of hand. Of course there weren't any riots of such against each candidate however, I feel that ever since Obama was recognized, he's been some kind of icon where his face is on every wall, every t-shirt, pin, bag, pencil, you name it. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but in my perspective, i feel that it has been some kind of popularity contest where everybody is only voting for the person who everybody is voting for.

I knew two republicans in our school, even during Bush's eight years of presidency, they both still supported him---I mean they seriously supported the guy. And ever since Obama came along they had surprisingly switched sides, and support Obama. I guess its a good thing, but from what I see, I think they only did that because 99.99% of their friends are Obama supporters. They could have still supported McCain... he hasn't done anything quite as dramatic as Bush, but he still is a republican, yet they still changed their Vote for Obama.

"For many of these Americans, the explanation was rather simple... the news media, completely enamored with Obama, simply refused to do their job."
(http://www.howobamagotelected.com/)

Regardless of who was going to win, it should not have been a popularity contest--people can agree that they did have some similar changes they wanted to make, but its all about who is going to ACTUALLY make that change and clean up all the mess that Bush has made for the past eight years? Either Obama or McCain would struggle to try to fix that up, but because the U.S. is already messed up, I assume that Obama [in this case] is just going to leave things the way they already are and just tweak things up--just a bit.

The race has not only been some kind of popularity contest, but as wel
Bottom line, Its great that Barack Obama is President-elect, but I do not think that people had the right reasons for voting for him, majority of the people at least.

Friday, December 19, 2008

AWOL - Ebay

My 'Ebay experience' was actually annoying. This was the first time I used the site to bid on something. At first I didn't know what to bid on, so for the hell of it, I bid on a pair of ballerina flats that were $19.99 (plus shipping).

I started to bid on the item on monday of last week. The bid was coming to a quick end, in about two hours. At first the shoes were being bid for $5.99-i bid higher, just in case someone were to overcome that bid. LITERALLY, one mintue later, I was out-bidded by some random person. I bidded again, 2 dollars higher than the previous bidder, and once again I was outbidded by the same person. I honestly was not going to wait around to hope that I win the bid, so I stopped trying to out-bid the person and went looking for the same pair, for just $19.99. I was the first bidder, and the aunction was going to last two days later.

To my surprise, after the two days, I won the bid. At the time I did not use any stategy to try to win a bid. I asked Tyler what he does to win bids, since he's been buying and selling off of Ebay since 8th grade. He told me to wait til the very last minute to place a bid, however when I tried doing that, somebody was still out-bidding me. It was annoying to the extent where I had to try to out-bid other people to get this one item. But after realizing that its a website where people actually get items for cheap, it hit explained to me why people spend some much time trying to find bargins--not that its a bad thing of course.

In my opinion, Ebay is one big analogy of capitalism and how little and big comapanies work. Within Ebay, there are sellers who are, I would say, have the most bidders and least amount of bidders-more demand than other 'companies', which plays a big role on how successful a person can be with selling their product. All of what people actually do to the product is cause inflation by constantly raising the price in the matter of hours. In any given situation of buying and selling, one can agree with the phrase, 'time is money'.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

AWOL - Constituion Assignment Part A

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America."

The purpose of the constitution is to create a "stable and just society", which is clearly stated in the Preamble. The goals listed in the Preamble are:
-> ESTABLISH justice
-> INSURE domestic tranquillity
-> PROVIDE for the common defence
-> PROMOTE the general welfare
-> SECURE the blessings of Liberty
-> DO ORDAIN & establish this Constitution

In the Preamble, the statement explains that the people of America; the U.S. citizens, came forth to put together a set of rules known as the U.S. Constitution which was created "for the people and by the people". The Preamble goes in depth about the suppositions made in the constitution such like establishing justice: making everything fair through the court of law. The constitution helps maintain peace within the American community and to also support those who decide to go to war. It benefits for what the government can provide; a republic and not a monarchy. These decisions are made by the separation of powers: The Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches. Through the three branches, they are given checks & balances where they set up mechanisms to restrict each branch of what they can do.
->In the Legislative Branch, the Congress is split up into two groups: the house of representatives which include 435 members, and the senate, 100 members. The Congress has a total of 535 members who are responsible for the people and have the power to make laws, control money, declare war, ratify treaties and Amend the constitution.
->The Executive Branch, which includes the President and Vice-President, is responsible for giving a State of the Union address; judgment to the congress. He/She has the power to grant pardons for offences against the United States, appoint treaties, and veto.
->The Judicial Branch involves the Supreme Court which contains 9 judges. The court has the responsibility to declare a law constitutional or unconstitutional by using the judicial review as their weapon. They have the power to "declare the punishment of treason" where the court can estimate the charge of a convict.

I felt frustrated while reading the Preamble and the three articles of the U.S. constitution, due to the fact that it was written in old engllish. While taking notes, I always caught myself looking back at the blue text. I always did that to get a better understanding of the different branches and how they functioned.

Questions:
How can we support other parts of the word during war when our own country is already a wreck? Where does "insuring domestic tranquillity" come in?

How can the United States citizens benefit the constitution if they are constantly accused of doing something unlawful?

Why is it important to have 435 members in the House of Representatives?

In the next ten years, will the President(s) actually establish, insure, provide, promote, and secure of the citizens for America-in a more different way to what our current President has done for us?

How often is a bill made? Why can't the U.S. Citizens vote/veto a law?