The Road to Being a Leader

In order to become a great leader you have to do some great following. Like following the footsteps and paths of great leaders that have come before. Because honestly, without them, the new generation of leaders coming up wouldn't even have a clue.

The summer after I graduated from high school I did work as an inspector for a civil engineering company constructing foundations for high-rise buildings. I was the inspector on the site. My job was to watch this big rig(pile driver) knock this 60-120ft piece of steel into the earth and count how many times it hit it per foot until it reached a certain capacity. I had the to tell construction workers who were 30 years my senior when they could stop working. Surely this was all new to me and I was obviously uncomfortable with the situation, but my boss knew that I was a leader and had the capabilities to get necessary objectives accomplished.

For the first month none of the workers would listen to a word that I said. I would have to get my boss on the phone to make sure they did the work that was expected of them. After three months of battling with the workers it was the end of the summer. As I was getting ready to head off to college the foreman took off his hard-hat, shook my hand, and said, "A true leader never demands respect. He earns it. And you've done a hell of a job of that here, son."

No matter what, there are always going to be obstacles and road blocks on your way to greatness. The only thing you have to do is get through them.

"There's only one road to true greatness: Through the school of the hard knocks"

Albert Einstein

Rahsheid White

Cause and Effects of The 2000 Presidential Election

The 2000 U.S. presidential election has probably had and will have the greatest influence over the rest of the 21st century. Even though it’s still considered a conspiracy theory, the 2000 Presidential election is suspected to have been stolen or fixed by the Bush administration. There were reports of Florida officials putting up road blocks on certain roads so that minority voters couldn’t make it to the polls. There were also reports of inaccurate ballot counts, defective and/or erroneous electronic voting machines, and other unscrupulous tactics use in the efforts to advocate Bush’s election. The outcome of this election set the stage of the foreign relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world for decades to come.

On the other hand, if Al Gore was elected. I believe there would have been a larger focus on the production, manufacturing, and commercial marketing of renewable energy. Therefore, we wouldn’t have had to invade Iraq for the purpose of putting an end to a ruthless dictator’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction or as many others believe, to steal their oil. The Bush administration’s initial reasoning for the declaration of the war was to fight terrorism. But still to this day, we have not found any weapons of mass destruction or even Osama Bin Laden, for that matter.

Another theory that is being entertained by scientists is that, Hurricane Katrina was a product of global warming. And if we had vigorously engaged green energy resources the way we’ve engaged all of these countries into this senseless war, Hurricane Katrina could have possibly been prevented. If that is the case, being that we are the largest consuming country of carbon producing fossil fuels in the world. We would have no one else to blame but ourselves.
To sum it all up, global temperatures are climbing, ocean levels are rising, and unnecessary U.S. and coalition troops are dying. We also cannot forget the hundreds of thousands of lives that were wiped out by natural disasters in the past few years. There would be less international conflicts and more of a balanced harmony throughout the world, if George Bush had not stolen the 2000 presidential election.

The Real World

It is said that the schooling that we endure for at least 12 years of our life, is there to help us prepare for college. Then after that if we're academically, athletically, or financially fortunate enough to get into college. Those four years of college are there to prepare for the real world. I always had a problem with this theory. Because depending where you go to school, your surroundings may be nothing like the "real world." What is the real world???

There are many different interpretations of the real world a.k.a. reality. The bottom line is: Most people's reality in based on their financial income. If you're broke and have no money to eat then your reality is hunger and poverty. If you're barely making ends meets, but still working over 40hrs a weeks then your reality is struggling. If you're wealthy and have no financial worries, then your reality is comfortable.

I believe everyone in this real world is aspiring to achieve the latter of these realities. And if they're not, then that means they've already given up on themselves. I do not believe in being defeated by any system because every system has loopholes that were put there by the very same people who created the system.

The only problem is that some people have been in poverty so long that they've become comfortable with that situation and don't aspire for anything more. This is probably the saddest reality we have in our country. Also, the lack of education keeps it that way. Programs like No Child Left Behind are keeping it that way. Please people... aspire for more. Don't be content with mediocre. The time is now!!!

Rahsheid White

Poverty in the U.S. and World

The class system that makes up our international population consists of these 5 categories. The condescending wealthy, the pretentious, upper-class rich, the working poor, the welfare poor, and the malnurished poverty stricken. Notice, there is no more middle class. All of those jobs are have been outsourced thanks to the condescending wealthy people. The best way to reform welfare is to have it reward employment . Which would subsidize the working poor instead of paying them not to work. Then, that will bring us one step close to eliminating poverty.
Right now, we are importing all the cheap, mediocre, and unsafe goods manufactured by these Third World countries and using free trade to legitimize the transactions while our government and these major corporations are capitalizing on us and them. Sending the lower paying jobs oversees may help those countries and the global economy as a whole. At the same time, it will increase the amount of people for whom it makes more economical sense in the U.S., to go on welfare or join the unemployment line, instead of working. If we are the consumers, then we need to either demand quality merchandise or stop buying these unsafe and cheaply made products.

It’s similar to the problem of the rising povert y happening in Iraq. The Iraqi government knows that it lacks the economic stabilty, and now, resources to assess the current dilemma. Due to the mentalty, “The Americans will take care of it." The post-war reconstruction and economic progression they are trynig to attain, remains stagnant. Why does it always have to be America that helps the poor worldwide everytime? China and India are growing at 9 percent annually. China's economy is increasing thanks to corporations like Wal-Mart by getting a majority of its cheap goods made there. In addition with a large number of U.S., I.T. and telecom companies(AT&T and Microsoft) sending their technical support phone line jobs and phone sales jobs to India; where the people there work for cheap. India has a population of over a billion people and the U.S. employs about 10% of that. That’s 100,000,000 people. Just imagine what even half that number would do for the American economy and the sprit of the nation as a whole.

Why can't their own governments handle that job? Why don’t their own governments find another country to handle their public services and to donate charity? It comes back to the mentality that America owes the world and it is expected to be the world's welfare office, police dept., insurance agency and emergency rescue service without receiving any compensation back in respect, gratitude, or even money for doing so. But I feel that is probably due to the America’s past transgressions to humanity. For example: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those are just two obvious reasons why the U.S. government, even now, feels obligated to make an attempt to contribute so much to world aide. If the world wants an American president to handle global poverty, then they should do it the democratic way and elect him as the World President.

John Edwards' presidential candidacy is based on the theme that he is the hero of the poor. When in reality, Edwards is no friend of the poor, and his policies would actually end up making poverty worse. He speaks of the elimination of poverty as a moral ideal, and he portrays himself as the candidate most compassionate and most committed to the ideal.
The working-class American earning a union wage or even on unemployment compensation can hardly be considered poor by world standards. Poor people in America are rich on an international scale. Which is why liberal activists stress redistribution in the United States, but never worldwide. In any global redistribution, even poor Americans would have to contribute so that the really poor people in Asia, Africa, and India would benefit.

The greatest travesty to the effotrs of eliminating world poverty would be restricting free trade. Here is feasibly one of the greatest anti-poverty programs ever constituted. For scores the U.S. has tried to help millions of poverty stricken people in under-devleoped countries through foreign aid. Which inturn worked against them because it didn't reduce dependency while continuously adding to their own national deficit. Then the U.S. tried loans through the International Monetary Fund. Loans proved to be inadequate because the poor countries didn't supply enough of the other countries’ demands. This consequently hindered their ability to pay back the loans and put them further in debt. So they took out new loans so that they could make the interest payments on the old loans.

Now, with free trade, we have millions of people in countries like India, Thailand and China making shoes and shirts and providing services that are highly demanded on the world market today. Hundereds of millions of people who were in dire poverty. have through their own productive labor been raised into the working class. Think of what that means in terms of reducing poverty on a global level. There is no other poverty-reducing measure better than global free trade. It helps the poor man eat and that is the ultimate goal that we are trying accomplish.

By: Rahsheid White