Political Science 5 - Western Political Thought provides an overall perspective of major political movements of history from the rising of Egyptian, Greek and Roman Empires to Fascism and Communism as seen by great political thinkers from Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Marx, and Lenin. Students will analyze the most important ideas and theories that have been developed from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present day. Students will learn that the American Founding Fathers designed a viable representative government by first dedicating themselves to careful study of the political philosophy of Europeans, with particular attention given to British political thinkers from the 16th and 17th century. The founding fathers focused primarily on the natural rights of man, which in turn varied according to the individual philosopher studied. Over the course of their study, the founding fathers openly discussed their opinions with one another so as to properly bring forth differing views in order to prudently construct a government that would protect individual liberty, as well as determine what was required of government to protect civil liberties. The class is taught from the perspective of industry professionals with knowledge of how classical and modern political continues to influence American government. Students will learn of multiple career options relating to the field of political science.

1. West Coast American Leadership Academy
Political Science 5 – Western Political Thought
Spring 2016 / Fall 2016 – Power Point 7

2. 1. American Military Power
2. Meridel Le Sueuer
3. Agee & Evans
4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
5. Post World War II America
6. Betty Friedan
7. William Whyte
8. J.C. Holmes
Course Lecture Topics

3. American Military Power
The United States possesses the
most advanced military hardware
known to man. Here is a sample
of our overwhelming firepower.
Students will be asked the
following question following this
video presentation: What
prevents the United States from
utilizing its full military capacity?

4. Ultimate Power

5. Meridel Le Sueuer (1)
• Meridel Le Sueur was the daughter of socialist feminist
parents, Marion Wharton and Alfred Le Sueur.
• Raised in the Midwestern U.S. surrounded by radical
farmers, populists and the IWW.
• Wanting to pursue her literary talents she moved to the
East Coast where lived with Emma Goldman and was
friendly with literary figures like John Reed and Edna St.
Vincent Millay.
• Le Sueuer's first article was published in 1927. She
continued to write widely-acclaimed journalism and
experimental fiction into her 90s.

6. Meridel Le Sueuer (2)
• She incorporated political themes into her poetry and
fictional writings as well as reportage on labor struggles,
the plight of Indians, farm and rural people, the poor during
the Depression, and women's issues.
• A member of the Communist Party, during the McCarthy-
era 1950s, she was blacklisted but wrote prolifically,
stashing work in her home.

7. • This book is a Depression-era classic of famous
photographs and text that examines the live of the rural
poor. Poverty in the rural areas is as devastating as poverty
in the city.
• Sharecroppers are also known as “tenant farmers." One
should be aware of the special conditions that result from
seasonal patterns of work and production in an agrarian
(peasant) society; also, the workers’ dependency on an
almost feudal economic system.
Agee & Evans – Let Us Now Praise
Famous Men & Women (1)

8. Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their
generations giving counsel by their understanding, and
proclaiming prophecies;leaders of the people in their deliberations
and in understanding of learning for the people,
wise in their words of instruction; those who composed musical
tunes, and set forth verses in writing; rich men furnished with
resources, living peaceably in their habitations -- all these were
honored in their generations, and were the glory of their times..
The LORD apportioned to them great glory, his majesty from the
beginning. There were those who ruled in their kingdoms, and
were men renowned for their power, There are some of them who
have left a name, so that men declare their praise. And there are
some who have no memorial, who have perished as though they
had not lived; they have become as though they had not been
born, and so have their children after them. Ecclesiasticus 44:1-9
Agee & Evans – Let Us Now Praise
Famous Men & Women (2)

9. • Before entering the War, FDR urged support for countries
that had come under attack by the Axis military. Congress
passed the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed Americans to
extend loans of “military supplies” to any country that was
threatened by aggression and whose national defense
could be interpreted as “vital to the defense of the United
States.”
• The “Four Freedoms” were part of the President’s annual
address to Congress.
• An expression of fundamental human and political rights,
perhaps indicative of what would arise in the form of a
United Nations document after the war. It is also indicative
of an ongoing international movement that promotes an
understanding of “universal” human rights.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“The Four Freedoms”

10. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“I Hate War Speech (1)”
• On October 6, 1937 in Chicago, President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt warns of a steadily-increasing
danger of armed conflict menacing the United
States, without naming any nation as responsible.
• President Roosevelt finds a threat in present attacks
from the air on civilians, and ships attacked and
sunk by submarines in time of peace and without
cause or notice.
• Gravely, President Roosevelt asserts that if such
things can happen in other parts of the world,
America cannot feel secure for long.

11. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“I Hate War Speech” (2)
Universal Newsreel presents
the President's speech as a
historic document, and gives
with it a dramatic view of
incidents of aggression which
called forth Mr. Roosevelt's
impassioned warning." scenes
of parade outdoors, sound of
FDR speaking outdoors under
tent, silent scenes of war
inserted into FDR's speech,
FDR says, “I Hate War."

12. I Hate War

13. Post World War II America (1)
• America after the War was “victorious,” not only as a military
power. It had come away from WW II with its economy
bolstered by war production, unlike its European allies who
had suffered destruction of their infrastructures.
• An “American era” that reflected a certain degree of
chauvinism that had come with victory and infected the
American mentality; but America’s role and success in the
war also reflected the definite reality of the U.S. as having
become the “preeminent military and economic power in the
world” (T&S, 1376).
• By 1955 the U.S. was producing half of the world’s goods.
America had entered an era of prosperity.

14. Post World War Ii America (2)
• The “Cold War” had begun immediately after the War with
the emergence of two great Communist powers: the
Soviet Union and The Peoples Republic of China who
would challenge America’s hegemony as a world leader.
An ideological battle ensued between the forces of
democratic capitalism and totalitarian communism. This
led to a certain “cold war mentality” among Americans that
led to the “witch hunts” of Joe McCarthy and the Un-
American Activities Committee.
• When General Eisenhower was elected to the presidency
in 1952, the nation returned to an era of conservative
republicanism.

15. Betty Friedan
The Feminine Mystique
DISCUSSION: What do you gather from Friedan’s conclusion?
If I am right, the problem that has no name stirring in the
minds of so many American women today is not a matter of
loss of femininity or too much education, or the demands of
domesticity. It is far more important than anyone recognizes. It
is the key to these other new and old problems which have
been torturing women and their husbands and children, and
puzzling their doctors and educators for years. It may well be
the key to our future as a nation and a culture. We can no
longer ignore that voice within women that says: "I want
something more than my husband and my children and my
home."

16. W.H. Whyte, Jr.
The Organization Man (1)
• By the mid-1950s, white-collar (salaried) workers
outnumbered blue-collar (hourly-wage) workers for the first
time in American history” (T&S, 1439). Before 1929: 31% vs.
the 1950s: 60%.
• This parallels the rise of large corporations that displaced or
acquired through mergers smaller enterprises. “The
traditional notion of the hardworking, strong-minded
individual advancing by dint of competitive ability and
creative initiative gave way to the concept of a new
managerial personality and an ethic of corporate
cooperation and achievement (T&S, 1440).”

17. W.H. Whyte, Jr.
The Organization Man (2)
• Whyte’s book examined the rise of the “organization man”
as it countered the old Protestant work ethic and the rugged
individualism of earlier American centuries (Turner’s “frontier
thesis”). It was replaced by a groupthink type of individual
who shunned individualism as tended to conform to the
status quo. Refer also to De Toqueville.

18. J.C. Holmes
Nothing More To Declare (1)
• The Beat Generation is the name given to a group of artists,
writers and social bohemians who rebelled against the
conformity of the post-War years and chose to live an open
and free existence that was anti-materialistic and which
sought mystical enlightenment.
• The Beats were part of a general rebellion at the time that
was also reflected in other forms of rebellion in response to
the alienation of youth.

19. J.C. Holmes
Nothing More To Declare (2)
• In many respects they hark back to the Transcendentalists
of the 1830s in their attention to eastern mysticism and
spirituality, individualism, romantic inclinations.
• I’ve included by own review of a series of books about the
Beat generation that offers its own perspective as the Beats
continued to influence a new generation of 1960s’ youth.