Rationale

For my online textbook project, I decided to focus around issues I thought directly impacted Americans’ lives. I believe that, although political battles and foreign affairs certainly impact // America //, they do not influence the wellbeing of its inhabitants. Therefore, I decided that the environment and the BP oil spill, religion’s influence, gay rights, Youtube, and immigrant rights would be the best decision for the textbook.  America’s relationship with the environment has been focused on for the past three decades. Unfortunately, in the 1980s and 90s, it became an issue in the back of most American’s minds, but reemerged in the mid half of the first decade of the 21st century as global warming became more of obvious problem. President Obama made the environment a priority in his campaign. However, recently a horrible accident impacted the stability of one of our most important oceanic resources: the BP oil spill. I included this because this is an event that will continue to impact our country for years to come.  In the past five years, there has been an enormous growing amount of tension with illegal immigration. It is a very polarizing issue, and one that we will be forced to address with a firm policy soon. Recently, Arizona’s new immigration law has been causing a lot of controversy: as of this year, police officers are now allowed to ask for the papers of anybody they suspect to be an illegal immigrant. This is majorly influencing our relationship with all foreigners in our nation, both legal and not.  For the past 3000 years, religion has dominated our society and the rules of each nation at their founding. Our Founding Fathers outlined a strict “separation of church and state” policy in the framing of the Constitution; despite this, religion still plays a key part in our culture and politics. When Kansas introduced the teaching of intelligent design into their science curriculum, there was both approval and outrage in the minds of Americans. Similarly, a religious extremism example burst onto the scene during the recent mosque-building-at-Ground-Zero controversy when a Florida preacher threatened to burn hundreds of Qur’ans if the plans went through. Kansas and the Terry Jones incidents prove that religion is a huge part of America.  Arguably, gay Americans is the most persecuted minority in our country. I chose to focus on the struggle for gay rights in America because in the next five years some serious decisions will need to be made on the status of gays. When California finally passed the right for gays to marry, thousands of couples flocked to their respective city halls to be joined in matrimony. Several months later, however, the new bill was revoked by Governor Arnold Swartzenneger, a ruling that sparked rage and feelings of injustice across the country. Even though a year later, Prop 8 was revoked, Swartzenneger’s decision proves the intensity of the controversy surrounding the issue.  Youtube is possibly the biggest cultural phenomenon that ever happened to the world in the decade. Celebrities have been born and news has been spread more quickly than it ever has in history. Youtube has exploded extremely fast in its five years in life and is the third most accessed site, behind Google and Facebook. I selected Youtube because I believe that it is one the largest influencers on America’s changing culture.  All of my choices were made very deliberately. I wished to select topics and issues of a more domestic nature because I believe that those have the biggest and most direct impact of American’s lives. 