Manifesto

Mateo Plata

Dean Patterson/Sierra Melcher

Comparative Gov/English 12

May 4, 2014

I’m going to Change the World Manifesto

            I have studied at Colegio Panamericano for about 14 years. 14 years of lessons, experiences, and anecdotes that I will carry for the rest of my life. Studying at Colegio Panamericano is a privilege because not many people can get in and afford the costs of the school. Being so close to graduation has helped me to realize that now is the time that I am going to be facing the real world and the world is going through a crisis.

            Poverty is a global issue that has been going on and on for centuries. It breaks my heart when I see a kid or a grandmother asking for money in the street. That is something that has always affected me and it is frustrating that almost nobody cares. The past few weeks I have been seeing movies with my social studies teacher Miss. Sierra Melcher, about things that are happening in the world. I have been thinking of how can I address this issue and start helping people that have economical and healthy issues.

            Cooking has been something that always got my attention. I always volunteer to help my mom or my grandma in the kitchen and I still do it now a days. It has been so important for me that, I want to study culinary arts. In my school, the teachers have always told us that we need to share. Each year the school has being creating campaigns called “Caring and Sharing” which basically asks for the students to bring products in order to help poor people. When I graduate I want to keep sharing the things I have with people that need my help and the help of others.

            Food is something that everyone in the world needs to survive. Many of the families that are poor do not have money to buy food and to maintain their children. They are forced to consume whatever they can get. The food they take is causing many diseases and if they cannot afford food, the also cannot afford health insurance. In my country, as in other countries, there are shelters for homeless people that provide them with a roof and meals in order to help them. This has become a kind of solution for people and families that live in the streets.

            My family has always told me that I should be blessed with the life I have and that I should do something to help change the world. My plan for the future is to become a great chef and to help people by providing them with food to as many people as I can. Colombia is a country that has many regions in extreme cases of poverty and malnutrition. I would like to go to those areas and help the people living in there. Maybe I am not going to solve the global issue but I Think this will be a good start. People say that you should follow your dreams and do the things that passionate you and for me, cooking is the thing that I love and if can apply my knowledge to other people in the world, I am going to do that as long as I am able to. That would be my legacy to my children (if I get to have children) and to the generations that are coming behind me.

Light Bulb Conspiracy Post

The last movie we saw in class was called " The lightbulb Conspiracy". It talked about an issue unknown for many people and that issue is planned obsolescence. Basically what this means is that companies are creating products in order for the products to damage in a short period of time to mame people buy more and more. The movie provided me a new kind of knowledge about companies like Apple. I thought that apple was the best company but according to the movie, it appears to be not. All of the wastes are sent to third world countries and that is one reason that is affecting the enviromment. The movie gave me lots of lessons and advices about technology now a days.

My cellphone brand is Samsung. In the year and a half that my father bought it to me I have purchased like 3 batteries. My charger also was damaged after a year. Until now, I believed that it was a normal thing that happened to everyone but apparently not. With the movie now I am thinking that maybe all that was planned by companies in order for me to buy and buy. I am not the only one that has been a victim of the system. Many people have been suffering the same destiny. The worst thing is that most of the people do not know about it. That was what i got from the movie. Now, I am going to be more careful when buying stuff.

Four Horsemen Post

We saw a movie in class called "  Four Horsemen ". The movie talks about how the american system is collapsing and How this problem is going to Affect the Future of Their country and the world. The movie is great Because many important people that know about the topic and explain Their point of view give about it. The economic problem Is that the system has changed and has created a huge Difference between rich and poor people. I remember one thing That Mr. Satish Kumar, one of the experts involved in.. That is the film, and I have it says That is incredible That there is a lot of money but Also lots of poverty. It is ironic That Creates more money making more poverty. The movie talks about the four horses are going to change That the future. This situation Could Affect me in a long term because i want to work in the U.S. but who knows if That is going to be possible. That is one problem Concerning That is me. It is good to see movies like this because sometimes the knowledge we have of a country could be really small and by movies like this, we really see how a country really works. It "opens our eyes" in a way that we actually know how is the world functioning and what things we are going to be facing in our future. That would be the value of the movie for me.

Colombian Monetary System

The Colombian Monetary System is built up by a director an many people creating a board of executives. It has three basic goals: reaching levels of interest, capital, and reaching monetary standards. The three objectives are the ones that the Banco Central de Colombia tries to reach everyday. The institution similar to the FED would be this institution because it is separate from the Colombian government. In the system the policies that govern would be monetary policies such as loans. The objective of the system is to find stability in prices and in exportation and importation with other countries. The benefit of the central bank for people is that by loans they provide homes for the people that is unemployed or poor.

The risk is that all the factors and the objectives are directly proportional so when inflation happens, everything is altered at the same kind of rate most of the times. The monetary unit of the country is the peso and it has a different value than the US dollar. That would be the structure, the policies and the way that the Colombian monetary system functions.

Link of the webpage:

http://www.banrep.gov.co/docum/ftp/borra097.pdf

Citation:

Banco de Colombia.  N.P., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2014

Fractional Reserve Banking System

We saw a movie in class called "Zeitgeist Addendum" and it talked about many aspects of the US economy. One interesting part we saw was the one about the creation of money. They say that the federal reserve banking system is the system in charge of the creation of money. The process is basically an exchange of  bonds and notes between the US government and the federal reserve. The government gives the amount they want in bonds and the reserve gives the same amount but in notes. Then this note are placed in a bank and just like that money is created.

One Interesting fact that is mention in the movie is that only 3% of the US government money is physical leaving the 97%  of their money in a computer. Also most of their transactions are virtual so it is really weird to know that their money is maybe on a file and that file may contain lots and lots of millions of dollars. In my opinion I think that this method is safe because the money cannot be stolen that easy because it is not physical. Basically they apply loans as the way of getting money constantly. The movie also states that if loans did not existed, then there will be no money at all in the world.

Link to the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbvCxMfcKv4

Al Jazeera News Post

In Bangkok a protestant was shot to dead and four people were wounded by the police for doing anti government protests. The cause of the protest is for the prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to resign in order for them to have a new government. The protestant group that was attacked are called the Network of students and people for the reform of Thailand.

The Situation In Thailand has been like this through the last 5 months. The people are tired of their government so they are protesting in order to create a anti corruption type of government. They say that the prime minister is ruling unfairly and that is why they decided to go out and protest. It has been violent responses from part of the government leaving deaths and wounded people. Nobody knows when is it gonna end.

Link to the full article:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2014/04/cloneofkilled-bangkok-protest-shooting-201441922-20144119521751472.html
Citation of The Article:

"One Killed in Bangkok Protest Shooting." - Asia-Pacific. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.

Relation between the movies about Race, Economic Hitman, and Food Inc.

Over the past three weeks we have been seeing one movie per week in Social Studies class. Each week we approach to a different topic but what is interesting is that all the topics we talked about could relate to each other. They were movies about race, economy, and food business involving mostly the United States of America. It is simply incredible what can a country do behind their citizens and the world's "back" and not get caught.

The last movie we saw was about Food Corporations and how they are
manipulating the US market without their citizens knowing it. They manipulate food production with chemicals and then sell the food to the people. The relation between the movies would be that :

In the movie about food they show that Mexican or Latinos are the one getting arrested because of the corporations bad management so this shows that Latinos because of their color, are always put into horrible jobs.

Another one would be that in both Economic Hitman movie and the food corporation movie if the corporations did not like something the basically "fix it" using methods that are illegal and not appropriate.

This would be relationships between the movies that we have been seeing in the past few weeks in class.

Citation of the Images:

"Eat to Beat." Self Content. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014. ( food)

"How Many Major Races Are There in the World?" World Mysteries Blog RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014. ( race)

"Dogma and Squeaky Wheels Money Bag – IcPurple.org." IcPurpleorg Money Bag Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014. ( money bag)

Ukraine

Web Citation:
 "Ukraine Crisis: Is This Cold War Two?" BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.

Information:
The situation in ukraine has gotten worst each day. Presidents of the Us and countries in Europe have began to discuss if a sanction needs to be put on Russia. They believe that these events could possibly lead to a Cold War number 2. The countries are waiting on the Russians possible moves in order for them to began evaluating the possibilities to start a war or not.  The problem is that many of the countires relay on Russians products and that would be a problem if they decide to turn against it. There is a concern because givinf the fact that Russia is next to Ukraine, Russian troops might be settling in the country and the reasons of the settlement are unknown. Statistics say that if a war occured, Russia would be left more affected than USA and this calms a little bit the governement of  Barack Obama.

Economic Hitman

Movie Citation :

Zeitgeist: Addendum. Dir. Peter Joseph. Zeitgeist The Movie. N.p., 2 Oct. 2008. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.

Information:

Recently in class we have been talking about a new topic and that topic was : Economic Hitman. Personally, had never heard about that term until Miss. Sierra showed it to us in class. It was
surprising for me that the U.S. Had  these people that were the ones in charge of doing their dirty job
and also why many countries hate USA. A consequence the the Economic Hitmans for Colombia would be that the  Panama canal was removed away from us. In the movie we saw in class called Zeitgeist Addendum  a hitman talked about the strategy the US used to remove the canal from Colombia. The movie basically showed that if the US corporations do not like something , by corrupting, they can change their minds and transform situation to their benefit.

The number of countries looking for the Air Malaysia Airplane gets bigger

14 to 25 countries are the one involved in searching the Malaysian flight that disappeared the past March 8th,2014. There were 239 passengers in the flight. there has been recent investigation that says that the plane was manually course changed by someone in the plane. The Malaysian police among other are investigating the pilots families to see if there might be a sign of a terrorist attack. There are no signs of the flight and it has been really hard because the place where the plane was last tracked is in the middle of the Indian ocean. According to CNN: "As the search area grows bigger, authorities are also increasing their scrutiny of the pilots, searching their homes in the quest for clues. That includes a flight simulator from the captain's home". This means that the captain or someone could manipulate the destiny from his house. This is interest to me because it is really bizarre and creepy that some airplane just vanished from the world just like that. It is creepy for me to think that how is the feeling of a passenger that was in that flight and where are they? 

The news i found it in CNN. Here is the link:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/

The citation of the article:

Almasy Steve, Clancy Jim, and Carter Chelsea." Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 search grow as pilots face            increased scrutiny". CNN. March 16,2014 http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/malaysia-             airlines-plane/

What is my race?

It is really hard to determine what race are people from. We saw a documentary in class that talked and explained race. The conclusion of the documentary is basically that race is a myth created by people based on skin color and physical traits. The documentary showed that throughout the years there has 3 races: black,white, and caucasian or "latino". White colored people have always being considered the best and black colored people the worst. In colombia racism is not seeing as much as in other countries.

I am not sure of what race I am because I am not white or black so it is very hard for me to classify myself. Most colombians have the same brown skin color and we call that race "trigueno" or "moreno" but those are colombian terms that we use. My race do not gave me privileges in the world; my parents effort did. I am blessed to share some benefits that other people unfortunately cannot afford and I thank God every day for that. Here in Colombia there is not a classification between races like in other countries. We are all colombians no matter if we are white, black or "morenitos".I've found a web page that said: There is a race division in our country and that is the place of birth. In places like Santa Marta, Cartagena, Barranquilla, and all the coast part of the country the population is black or dark skinned people. In places where there is cold weather like Bogota most people are white. The link to the web page is right here:

http://countrystudies.us/colombia/37.htm

The citation to the web page is right here:

"Colombia - RACE AND ETHNICITY." Colombia - RACE AND ETHNICITY. N.p., n.d.Web. 16 Mar. 2014.

5 Colombian citizens killed in the border between Colombia and Venezuela

The webpage El País posted an article last Friday March 7th, 2014 of five Colombian  bodies founded near the Tachira river between the border of Colombia and Venezuela. One of them survive and was the one that informed the authorities of both countries. The minister of defense, Juan Carlos Pinzón, claims that the case must be solved immediately. The relatives of the victims claimed that they asked for help in Venezuela but got no response so, they were forced to find the bodies themselves. The survivor stated that the victims got attacked approximately at 2:00 am by people fully armed. The identities of the murderers remains unknown. There are hypothesis that the victims were supporting the revolutionary movement in Venezuela so that might got them killed. For more details here it is the full article link:

http://www.elpais.com.co/elpais/judicial/noticias/asesinan-cinco-colombianos-rio-tachira-frontera-con-venezuela

Israelí Apartheid Wall

I've founded a web page called '' Stop The Wall". In this web page there is a lot of information about the middle east crisis and the things people are doing to stop the problem. You can find things like how to become part of the protest in a non violent way, how to be involved in campaigns to help palestinians, Tours that activists are doing throughout the world seeking for help and much more.

The article that I read about involves an activist that made a tour throughout south America. His name is Jamal Juma and he has been going from place to place telling that what Israel is doing is not right and must be stopped. He also claims that some people are lots of words but no action. He encourags people to help him and Help Palestine to stop the settlements of Israeali people in Palestine territory. There has been recent negotiations but Palestine people always seem to los in the outcome of negotiations. Jamal Juma says that their country is losing and that he needs all the help possible.

Concerning about the wall, it has 34 checkpoints in which Israeli people control Palestinian activites and their territory. The wall occupies lots of palestinian territory and has caused the destruction of houses and poverty in Palestine. Here is the link to the whole article:

http://www.stopthewall.org/2014/02/18/critical-times-interview-jamal-juma-stop-wall

Here is the Citation:

"Critical Times: Interview with Jamal Juma of "Stop the Wall"" Welcome. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.

Interesting link

Here is a link that explains how the opposition is organized and their leaders, purpose, etc.
http://www.ibtimes.com/venezuelans-are-rioting-against-president-nicolas-maduro-people-are-dying-1555262

Venezuela

Venezuela now a day is like a constant riot for the people living in there. The opposition is not backing up and the chavistas are not backing up either. The citizens are the ones suffering the most harm. In some places the food is missing, toilet paper, water and regular supplies are missing.In
Caracas, the capital, is where most of the riots are going on.What is shocking to me is that. Maduro thinks nothing is going on; he said that people should enjoy the carnival and " party". It is shocking that people still supports a guy like that. How many peaceful protest would be needed in order for their government to change? That is a good question. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/03/large-protests-venezuela-despite-carnival-201432225927873999.html

Citation : "Large Protests in Venezuela despite Carnival." - Americas. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014

Article founded in Aljazeera webpage

The web page Aljazeera posted an article about how Israeli police has closed Jerusalem because of the ultra orthodox. Jews that refuse to get into the army. When I read the article I learned that they did not wanna go to the army because they felt that they could lose power and I understand that. It is unfair that if they refuse to go, they are going to be forced to pay fines and that is not fair. Closing the gates of Jerusalem was an attack to their religion and that obviously made the jews to revolt.

I think that lately protesting is the only way to make  a statement in many countries. Obligating people to do things such as going to the army is not a solution but a creation of a bigger problem of discrimination in Israel and that should really stop. We are all equal and should be treated like that.

Citation: "Israel's Ultra-Orthodox Protest Draft Bill." - Middle East. N.p., n.d. www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/03/israel-ultra-orthodox-protest-draft-bill-201432143645860809.html. 02 Mar. 2014

Reason that started the conflict

I think that the conflict with the refugees began because of a political disagreement. Injustice and inequality are reasons that created the conflict. Now a days many countries are facing same issues like Ukraine and Venezuela. People simply got tired of a corrupted government and want to fight for whats right and for equality. That is a reason of why the conflict began in Syria and in those 2 countries also; they want equality.
 I made a poem for this:

In this world
no one is safe
nobody knows what could happen tomorrow
money is more important than family
and injustices are seen every single day

We need to fight for what's right
fight for our families,children,and equality
because if we get tired we lost
and losing is not an option
what we do today could change what our kids could face tomorrow
never give up and never lose hope.

Refugees

Alice su wrote an article that talked about refugees in Sudan and Syria. She wrote the article in a way that when people got to  read it they would feel chills running through their bodies. As a reader you can really feel the awful situation that is going on for the refugees and it makes you question about what is going on in the world. She talks about another global conflict that is discrimination and racism. The article was written to create in the reader a sense of reflection and an impulse in trying to help the refugees.

Information about me

My name is Mateo Plata, I am 17 years old and I live in Bucaramanga. I have studied at Colegio Panamericano for about 14 years. In my free time  I like to hang out with my friends, play tennis, and play videogames.