11-29

We all know that the 1920's were good times.  There were parties and jazz and it was fairly layed back and relaxed.  There was lots of spending and buying on credit and it ulitmatly led to the depression.  My question is... Did all of the develops in arts, media and technology lead to massive spending and ultimatly the depression?  The development of jazz and new kinds of music made people very relaxed and not worried about their financial situations.  Also new forms of entertainment such as color movies and Broadway Musicals could have taken some cash out of peoples pocketts.  New procucts such as eastman film give people new things to buy.  Could all of this new spending have been "gateway spending" and help people to want to buy on credit leading to the crash and the depression.

While reading several questions came to my mind about the league of nations.  First of all why didn't the powers join? what were the factors that made nations such as the U.S. think that it was a bad idea to join? All of the ideas behind the formation of the league of nations seem like they are positive i don't understand what negatives there are about the league of nations.  It could possibly be due to nationalism and desire to become more self sufficient.  Because Americans in general did not want to become involved in another war like that did they think that staying out of the league of Nations would keep them out of international affairs in Europe and European conflict? Also i wanted to know why it only worked for the smaller nations.  Why didn't the smaller nations successes work as a precedent and show the larger nations.  even if the larger nations were sceptical of diplomacy, why didn't they see that diplomacy actually worked. 

I read Night by Elie Wiesel.  I found that while i knew a lot about the general facts of the Holocaust i didn't know many of the details of what really happened.  I knew it was bad but Night helped me realize how bad it really was.  It made me think of the full extent of the war and how evil and sadistic people can be.  I don't understand how there can be so many people out there that were willing to sacrifice human life.  Its like an army of psychopaths.  while i can understand how several people would follow Hitlers plans i don't see how thousands of people would be able to murder people and children without feeling guilt and regret.  One passage in the book that made me feel this way was when Eliezer and his father saw babies being burnt by the truckload.  Who would do that? its sick and twisted.  I don't see how Hitler was able to find an army full of people who would follow through with this.  its like all the Nazis were brainwashed into committing these atrocities.  All together night made me think of how large scale this war was and gave me insight into the more defined details.