23. Post war america

1991- Rodney King and the LA riots.

• for LA riots were responsible Black Panthers who used a violent way in the fight with racism (those people came from areas which faced a huge socio-economic problems)

• Muhamed Ali (American professional boxer, activist one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century and as one of the greatest boxers of all time)

• 1995 OJ Simpson – footballer and movie star

• 2000s police shootings and the Black Lives Matter movement.

• 2012, the shooting of Trayvon Martin

• African Americans today make up 14 percent of the US population (about 45 million people).

• during 2009 we witnessed something called Birtherism with the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama for the US president

• Obama wasn’t born in the USA but on Hawaii, what many people used as an argument why he can’t be a president

• the truth is that he is the only president who was born outside the contiguous 48 states

• this event was tremendously important for the whole society

• the first time in history when the president of the US had a black skin

• today is the situation in the USA incomprehensibly better than before 50 years but the roots of racism are still seen there

McCarthyism

• practice of making accusation of subversion (převrat) or treason without proper evidence

• term refers to US senator Joseph McCarthy

• period known as Second Red Scare

• characterized by political repression and a campaign spreading fear of communists

Cold War

• following World War II (1939-45), the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union became engaged in a series of largely political and economic clashes known as the Cold War

• the intense rivalry between the two superpowers raised concerns in the United States that Communists and leftist sympathizers inside America might actively work as Soviet spies and pose a threat to U.S. security

• the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had long carried out espionage activities inside America with the aid of U.S. citizens, particularly during World War II

• as apprehension about Soviet influence grew as the Cold War heated up, U.S. leaders decided to take actions

• on March 21, 1947, President Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) issued Executive Order 9835, also known as the Loyalty Order, which mandated that all federal employees be analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to the government

• Truman’s loyalty program was a startling development for a country that prized the concepts of personal liberty and freedom of political organization

• yet it was only one of many questionable activities that occurred during the period of anticommunist hysteria known as the Red Scare

Vietnam

WHY DID AMERICA FIRST GET INVOLVED IN VIETNAM?

• attempt to prevent the spread of communism - THE DOMINO THEORY (the belief that if one country fell to communism, it was likely that the neighbouring one would also fall – similar to a row of dominoes falling over)

• this had happened in Eastern Europe after 1945.

VIETNAMESE INDEPENDENCE