POLS170 Group 2

After the recent discussion and threats of the new variant of COVID-19 and our class discussions, I have decided to write my blog post on World Health. There has recently been a lot of discussion and debate over another round of lockdowns and closing borders, versus vaccinations and booster shots being able to protect against this new variant. To inform myself more on the new strain, named Omicron, I read the New York Times Article Omicron: What is Known - and Still Unknown .  This article put forth a discussion on the intense research of the new covid variant first identified in southern Africa. The World Health Organization, or WHO, has deemed Omicron a "variant of concern" which has caused scientists and public health officials to urge all to get vaccinated. Health officials see getting vaccinated as the strongest possibility for protection against this strain with, "unusually high number of mutations that have the potential to make the virus more transmissible and le...

The current global pandemic has sparked more conversation around the importance of global health and how to both support and maintain it. Global health is a broad and daunting issue that cannot be solved simply. Despite it being “global,” global health is not global with much of its representation coming from the North. This flaw does not allow for developing states in the South to get representation in different policies and procedures that will benefit its people. The article “Silenced Voices in Global Health” from Think Global Health, bring up the importance of representing diverse groups of marginalized populations in global health. One point mentioned, which I am aware is obvious, is that “A person can belong to an underrepresented population but still be highly privileged,” but I have rarely ever thought about it in terms of representation. They highlighted this by comparing a “a woman from the global South from civil society may have been raised in New York, networked with the g...

For my fourth blog post, I wanted to write about a particular article that we read for class, followed by a discussion we had in class regarding NGO's. NGO's, or Non-Governmental Organizations, are groups that are founded with the intention to help groups of people outside of that government body. The issues they tackle include human rights violations, poverty, environment, and other injustices. This is all well and good, when the NGO's are honest and are helping those who want to be helped. However, after our discussion in class, and the article by Sebastian Mallaby, I am far more skeptical about the general concept of NGO's than I was prior to learning more. The Mallaby article brings to light how NGO's can be harmful through their "framing" tactics, which we also discussed in class. Framing can be a useful tool to present information to make it more accessible to the average reader. Rather than confront an audience with an overload of facts and data, fr...

 In our recent readings and discussions regarding the concept of global justice, I found the September 2019 bombing in Syria (against ISIS) to be an interesting point of dispute. This situation relates to the discussion of just war versus unjust war. I would argue that the U.S. frequently acts against "Just War". In a sense, more often than not in our history, we have seen the U.S. take much more severe retaliations to offenses against our homeland or our troops abroad. Referencing back to the idea of the September 2019 bombing, in tandem with other retaliations in history, such as the dropping of atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima have shown to be drastically increased levels of destruction in reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. These completely destroyed the cities, taking numerous casualties in the process, whereas Pearl Harbor was more concentrated on a military base. Relating to the concept of Anticipatory war, the United States have engaged in pre-emption more ...

  I wrote a paper earlier in the year on the question of Has War Declined and spent a large part of the essay discussing nuclear powers and the rise of mutually assured destruction. I wanted to revisit some of the points I made in that essay while drawing upon the readings that came after the paper was submitted. I had briefly touched on the power that globalization has had upon the modern political scene.  Organizations such as the IMF, World Bank and various trade organizations have increased their influence in developing nations through the funding of first world countries. When these multinational groups and organizations come together they create alliances between countries that if left alone might develop a sense of hostility towards each other.   Another aspect I wish I had touched on is the perception of war by the general public. Following Vietnam the American public has adopted a rather negative view and opinion in regards to US involvement overseas. The av...

Harrison Gold POLS170 Blog 4   Why did President Trump withdraw from the Paris Accord?   In early November, I watched President Obama address the International Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. He referred to President Trump’s administration, pertaining to their attitude and policies on global warming, as “four years of active hostility”. Like most people, I kept thinking, “why would a US President, with complete access to overwhelming scientific evidence regarding the dangers of global warning, virtually deny its perils and create policies which ignore the imminent danger that global warming has on the Unites States, as well as the rest of the world.  It is clear that the United States is one of the biggest contributors to global warming, yet this President Trump was, for the most part, ignoring science and not creating policies to combat this serious problem that the science community has been warning us about for many years.   Presidents have a very...