USA (Linguistic Culture), страница 8

In the previous centuries people who wanted to hand in petition or to discuss some project went to Washington, to the Capitol and there met the Congressmen from their states. The tradition is still alive, only today it is big corporations, social organizations, foreign diplomats, etc. who try to influence law – making in their favor. This is done with the help of lobbyists who arrange meetings with Congressmen, and through bribery and persuasion make them vote for measures favorable to the group they represent. Practically lobbyist (backstage influencing of legislation) has become legal, it means, that the passing of a bill can be prevented if it does not suit the interests of a definite group of Big Business.

The delicate art of influencing legislation has moved a great distance from the days when votes were bought with black cases full of money. Today’s successful lobbyists are more likely to be smooth professionals. But if lobbying techniques have grown complicated, the name of the phenomenon is still the same: special interest. Lobbyists may call themselves legislative counsels or Washington representatives, but they are still hired to sell their client’s special interests.

Although a 1946 law requires all lobbyists to register with the clerks of both chambers of Congress, and to give annual reports of the money used for this or that bill, the most effective lobbyists seldom do. They try to remain, if possible, invisible. They do not even like to call themselves lobbyists. But more and more people realize that legislation is shaped as much by both the hidden influences and by the public debates.

The third branch of government is the Judiciary branch. The judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, makes sure that laws are constitutional. Nine Supreme Court judges are appointed for life.

In addition to the Supreme Court, there are also twelve courts of appeal and ninety-one district courts. Congress has the power to fix the number of judges sitting on the Court, but it cannot change the powers given to the Supreme Court by the Constitution itself. The Supreme Court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. They are nominated by the President but must be approved by the Senate. Once approved, they hold office as Supreme Court Justices for life. A decision of the Supreme Court cannot be appealed to any other court. Neither the President nor Congress can change their decisions.

The Supreme Court has direct jurisdiction in only two kinds of cases: those involving foreign diplomats and those in which a state is a party. All other cases, which reach the Court, are appeals from lower courts. Most of the cases involve the interpretation of the Constitution. The Supreme Court also has the “power of judicial review”, that is, it has the right to declare laws and actions of the federal, state, and local governments unconstitutional. While not stated in the Constitution, this power was established over time.

Federalism: State and Local Governments.

Although Federal Laws apply to all citizens wherever they live, each of the fifty USA states also has its own Constitution and three branches of the Government: Executive, with a governor, a legislative assembly, and a judiciary. Each state has its own state police and its own criminal laws. The same is true with marriage and divorce laws, driving laws and licenses, alcohol laws, voting procedures. In turn, each city has its own police force that it hires, trains, controls, and organizes. Neither the President nor the governor of a state has direct power over it. Police departments of counties are often called “sheriffs’ departments”. Sheriffs are usually elected, but state and city police officials are not.

All education at any level is the concern of the states. The local communities have the real control at the public school level. They control administration of the schools, the school board officials, and their local community taxes largely support the schools.

A great many of the most hotly debated questions, which in other countries are decided at the national level, are in America settled by the individual states and communities. Among these are, for example, laws about drug use, capital punishment, abortion, and homosexuality.

Most states and some cities have their own income taxes. Many cities and counties also have their own laws saying who may not own a gun. Many airports, some of them international, are owned and controlled by cities or counties and have their own airport police.

Among the areas under the local concern there are also the opening and closing hours for stores, street and road repair, or architectural laws and other regulations. E.g., some local community or a school board might determine that a certain novel should not be in their school library. The same is true of films But another village, a few miles down the road, might accept both.

A connecting thread that runs all the way through governments in the U.S. is the “accountability” of politicians, officials, agencies, and governmental groups. This means that information and records on crimes, fires, marriages and divorces, court cases, property taxes, etc. are public information. It means, for example, that when a small town needs to build a school or buy a new police car, how much it will cost will be in the local newspaper. In some cities, meetings of the city council are carried live on radio. As a rule, politicians in the U.S. at any level pay considerable attention to public opinion. This “grass roots” character of American life can also be seen in town meetings or at the public hearings of local school boards. Neighborhoods, communities, and states have a strong pride in their ability to deal with their problems themselves without “Those fools in Washington” who always try to interfere in their local and private matters and spend their tax money.

The traditional American distrust of a too powerful central government has kept the controversy between federal, states’ and local rights over the years.

Afro-Americans after the World War II

World War II paved the way for change in the he area of civil rights. In 1946 president Truman created a President’s Committee to investigate the status of civil rights in America and recommend their improvements. In 1947 the committee called for changes in lynch laws, voting laws, for elimination of discrimination in the armed forces and in the federal civil service through the creation of the Fair Employment board. A lot of cases were passed to the Supreme Court. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of children in public schools on the basis of race as unconstitutional. After the decision had been given, the question appeared how the nation, and particularly the Southern population, would respond to it

Under President D. Eisenhower desegregation made progress. But in the Deep South resistance to it began even to harden. White Citizen’s groups were created, and the Ku Klux Klan was revived. In 1956 nineteen Southern senators issued a “Manifesto” against “forced integration”. Economic reprisals were taken against blacks and the progressive organizations were under constant fire. The first open official resistance occurred in Little Rock (Arkansas), when the school board approved of a plan to admit a few black students to central High all-white school. The night before the opening of the school the governor of Arkansas appeared on television to announce that he was strongly against the plan. In 1963 President Kennedy had to dispatch regular army troops to Oxford, Mississippi, to put down a riot when black James Meredith tried to be enrolled as a university student. “It ought to be possible for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed by troops”,- the president commented. By 1964 only 1.17% of all black students were attending schools with white pupils. Schools for black students were usually much inferior to schools in middle-class neighborhoods.

On December 1, 1955 black woman Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Alabama and sat down in the free whites-only section, as she was very much tired. Whites and the bus driver began to threaten her, but she did not move. Her arrest proved to be the catalyst for a new black protest movement. Under the leadership of Baptist clergyman Martin Luther King, Montgomery blacks formed the Improvement Association, boycotted the bus lines, and referred their case to the state court and then to the Supreme Court. Seventy-five percent of the black population walked to work. Both the District court and Supreme Court ruled that segregated busing was unconstitutional. The movement propelled King into a position of national prominence and led to the organization of a regional group called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or SCLC, a group of one hundred southern clergymen of the beliefs that churches and church leaders must assume civil rights. From the beginning its emphasis was on nonviolence, and its guiding light was Dr. Martin Luther King. The organization was active in the areas of voter registration, protests, and citizenship. Although SCLC preached nonviolence, blacks were beaten, set upon by police dogs, and hit with water from high-pressure water hoses. Still the brutal treatment of black demonstrators shown by national television little by little stirred the nation’s conscience. More and more whites became convinced that it was time for the blacks to achieve equality.

Martin Luther King was primarily responsible for the March on Washington in 1963 for Jobs and Freedom – the largest civil rights rally in American history. Over 250000 blacks and whites gathered to ask the president for a federal fair employment practice. They also demanded new civil rights legislation. The protests of the 1950s, the March on Washington, Birmingham, and the consciences of white Americans climaxed in a monumental Civil Rights Act in 1964, claiming the discrimination based on race or sex in all public facilities and in all areas of interstate commerce as illegal. The Voting Rights Act abolished the number of discriminating devices and provided protection for persons seeking the right to vote.

From 1965 to 1968 King’s direction was a much more northerly one. He became involved in peace movements against the Vietnamese War and in better housing conditions for blacks in northern ghettos. King’s leadership cannot be overestimated. He was the driving force of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the apostle of nonviolent protest. He viewed the world in terms of a brotherhood of people and accomplished so much more than black leaders before him. King never lived to see whether his “dream” would be realized. . His life was cut short by his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee

Black Americans began to play a much greater role in American society. The black middle class has appeared. The struggle was long and hard, but blacks have gained more positions of power and prestige than ever before in politics, in the media, in police, in justice, in education, in sports and offer a lot of promise. The slogan “black is beautiful” today has taken on a new meaning In Virginia, Douglas Wilder became the nation’s first elected black governor. When the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, there were only 300 black elected officials, now there are more than 7000.Emanuel Cleaver was elected mayor of Kansas City – a city where only one of four votes is black. General Colin Powell rose to prominence during the Gulf War and was invited to Bush administration later to the position of State Secretary. He was changed by black woman Conzolesa Right. The climax – the election of the first black President Barack Obama at the end of 1908.Barack Obama’s trip to Moscow in June, 2009 was an impressive diplomatic performance to shift the orientation of U.S.-Russia relations fro the past to the future.

. The American Indian Today

During World War II approximately 25 thousand Indians served in the armed forces, the majority as enlisted men in the army. Many were awarded for bravery. Because of increased contact with the white world, some Indians preferred the white man’s ways and were assimilated. Many others returned to the reservations. Those who remained in white society lived in two worlds with two cultures.

After World War 11 under the Eisenhower administration in 1953 some measures were taken to accelerate assimilation and destroy remaining Indian culture, which provided a real threat to the tribes. So-called “relocation” policy was implemented. Many Indians were screened, and those judged best suited to survive in the cities were chosen in the reservations.” Relocation Centers” exist in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Phoenix, and Minneapolis. Some Indians were successfully relocated and started to live in the white urban world. Others returned to the reservations or remained jobless and homeless in the city.

However, not all postwar policies were so disastrous. In 1946 an Indian Claims Commission was established to make amendments for breaking of some 400 treaties made in colonial days. It gave permission to the Indian, whose number is now about two million, to sue the government for adjusted compensation for lands or other properties taken from them as the result of broken treaties. Under President Kennedy the government perused new programs of education, vocational training, housing, and economic development. The health of the Indian people was taken over by the US Public Health Service.

Under President Johnson the Indian R. Bennett was made Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The anti-poverty program of the Office of Economic Opportunity made it possible for Indians to administer their own programs on a limited basis.