All Quiet on the Western Front Chapter 4

Summary:

The chapter starts out with the company being assigned to spread more barbed wire fences across the front.  The company is dropped off in the evening and not to be picked up until the following morning.  While they are putting up more barbed wire fencing, Kat is instructing to all of the new soldiers how to decipher between the different kinds of shells and how to take cover from them.  Kat predicts that there will be a bombardment tonight due to the fact that the English started shelling an hour earlier than usual.  Once they finish putting up the fence and are laying around trying to sleep waiting for the trucks to come pick them up, they realize that Kat’s prediction was right, and shells start falling in every location.  The company seeks cover to hide from the shells.  The trucks finally make it to pick them up, but when they are on their way back a few shells land really close to them and they are forced to take cover in a cemetery.  They are all instructed to put their gas masks on to protect themselves from the gas bombs being dropped.  One soldier who Paul had helped out earlier has taken a hit to his hip, and it is very clear that he will die from this wound.  Kat and Paul contemplate shooting him so that the pain from his wound doesn’t make him suffer for longer than he has to, but other soldiers come by so they decide not to.

Substantial Meaning:

 

This chapter kind of sets the tone for the rest of the book, as a company they are forced to endure, even with loss of life among the company.  One of the more important pieces of text from the chapter though is a small aside that Paul has with the reader.  In this he talks about how important the earth is with the soldier.  He says that the earth is there for him every time he drops to the ground for cover and that every time he asks for shelter he receives it.  Another important idea that Paul talks about is how at the front, the soldiers turn into “Human Animals” where instincts rule their actions.  He says that they are a saving grace for the ones who obey them without hesitation.  In many instances, the soldiers dropped to the ground to avoid a shell that they weren’t even aware was coming, they just did it on instincts.  What Paul says he is extremely important as to showing how the war affects the soldiers.  At the front, the ones who survive are the ones who do not act on emotion, but on instincts instead.  This tears the soldiers into two directions at once, because how could one ignore all the sources of emotion that are around them such as death and injury? The effects of this are seen throughout the rest of the book.

Presentation Review

• The task our group had was to present information on Chapter 4 of All Quiet on The Western Front to the class.
• My group consisted of myself, Talimatou (Tyler) Peniata and Robert Olson.
• The way we completed this task was combining our work and research that we did on our own and met once outside of class to compile our final presentation.
• Suggestions? I feel the process was pretty simple, research the chapter, and present on it. No suggestions.

Feb. 19th Thesis Statements Response

The thesis statements were definitely a reoccurring theme and I agree with how the novel All Quiet on The Western Front was one of the most accurate depictions of war to this date. The description used by Erich Remarque was very accurate and anyone who has read the novel speaks about how real the novel is depicts how inhumane the battles and war truly were. Most novels wrote on war try and discuss or justify how whoever it is that is being described as patriotic and great war stories but Remarque chose to describe war as realistic as he could and not worry about what people thought and that is why this novel is so successful and highly praised.

I agree with the Realities of War thesis statement and I appreciated how Remarque wrote with description and took detail and even over did it. In the novel there was such realness and not much censorship to it about how limbs would be blown off and the poisonous gas and the overall inhumanity in War. The thing that many people forget about all these wars with all the numbers and stats is that all these numbers were once real people. Patriotic and young men that were going into war with a positive look on it and those who did survive were and are forever changed from there experiences. This novel does a wonderful job of telling war and describing it as what it truly is.

The Pirate Party (Piratenpartei Deutschland)

History

The Pirate Party was founded in September 10th, 2006 in Berlin, Germany. The party is currently headquartered in Berlin as well. The German Pirate Party is in agreement with the Swedish Pirate Party and is in partnership with the Pirate Parties International. In August of 2012 there were 35,000 members. The parties current Party Leader is Thorsten Worth.

Notable Joining Members

• February 2009, The City Councillor of Strausberg, Jens Knoblich joined the Pirate Party Germany.
• June 2009, Bundestag member, Jorg Tauss left the SPD and joined the Pirate Party.
• August 2009, Herbert Rusche, one of the founding members of the German Green Party and in the 1980s, the first openly homosexual member of parliament in Germany, joined the Pirate Party.

Ideology

Begin clip.

The party supports the preservation of current civil rights in telephony and on the Internet; in particular, it opposes the European data retention policies.

The party favors the civil right to information privacy and reforms of copyright, education, genetic patents  and drug policy.

In particular, it promotes an enhanced transparency of government by implementing open source governance  and providing for APIs to allow for electronic inspection and monitoring of government operations by the citizen.

The Pirate Party also supports an unconditional basic income for citizens and direct democracy. End clip.

According to political theorist Oskar Niedermayer, the party sees itself as part of an international movement to shape the digital revolution and transition into a information society. With their focus on freedom in the net and their fight against government regulations. The group has caught the attention especially of the younger generation. The network policy was the core identity of the party, it is now more than just an advocacy party of digital natives. The Pirate Party characterizes itself as a social-liberal-progressive.

Notable Election Results

2009 German Federal Election

In the 2009 German Federal Election pm September 27, 2009, the Pirates received 845,904 votes which was only 2.0% of the vote. Needing 5.0% to secure any seats in the Bundestag they fell short. However, this was still the best result among parties that did not meet the 5.0% threshold. Also noted among first-time male voters, the party received 13.0%.

2009 European Parliament Election

In the 2009 European Parliament Election The Pirate Party received 229,117 votes which was 0.9% of the vote. Needing at least 5.0% of the vote they did not earn any seats.

German State Elections

(Note: To gain seats you need to recieve 5.0% of the vote or more)

• 2009 Saxony State Election the Pirates received 1.9% of the vote.
• 2009 Schleswig-Holstein State Election the Pirates received 1.8% of the vote.
• 2009 Hesse State Election the Pirates only received 0.5% of the vote.
• 2010 North Rhine-Westphalia State Election the Pirates received 1.5% of the vote.
• 2011 Hamburg State Elections the Pirates received 2.1% of the vote.
• 2011 Baden-Wurttemberg State Election the Pirates received 2.1% of the vote.
• 2011 Saxony-Anhalt State Election the Pirates received 1.4% of the vote.
• 2011 Rhineland-Palatinate State Election the Pirates received 1.6% of the vote.
• 2011 Berlin State Election the Pirates received 8.9% of the vote and managed to gain 15 seats in the State Parliament.
• 2012 Saarland State Election the Pirates received 7.4% of the vote and gained 4 seats in the State Parliament.
• 2012 Schleswig-Holstein State Election the Pirates received 8.2% of the vote and gained 6 seats in the State Parliament.
• 2012 North Rhine-Westphalia State Election the Pirates received 7.8% of the vote and gained 20 seats in the State Parliament.
• 2013 Lower Saxony State Election the Pirates only received 2.1% of the vote.
• 2013 Bavaria State Election the Pirates only received 2.0% of the vote.

Number of Members

Decline in Numbers and Polls

Begin clip. After those successful state elections, the party was able to score up to 13% in nationwide polls. However, after a lengthy array of scandals and internal disputes which were handled unprofessionally and picked up by the media, the party lost the trust of voters and entered a steady decline in polls. End clip.

At the 2013 German Federal Elections the Pirate Party suffered a major defeat where it was only able to achieve 2.2% of the votes, leading to the resignation of party leader Bernd Schlomer. The Pirate Party has often been criticized as well for the lack of women in the Pirate Party. At the height of the parties popularity they had over 35,000 members.

Past Party Leaders

 Bernd Schlomer, Sebastian Nerz, Dirk Hillbrecht, Chrstof Leng, and Jens Seipenbusch.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_Germany

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Piraten_de_ew_2009.svg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mitgliederentwicklung_Piratenpartei_Deutschland.png

Presentation Review

• The task our group had was to present information to the class and educate them on the German Pirate Party.
• My group consisted of myself Talimatou (Tyler) Peniata, Brianne Stamer, Nicole Hughes, Natahaniel Kleene, Brian Richter and Sam Chung.
• To complete this task our group split up the research Brianne and I had to present on Basic History and Ideology of the group. Sam and Nathaniel presented on how the Pirate Party has done in past and recent elections and Brian and Nicole presented on information of number of members and rise and decline of the party. Our group presented our information right off of this blog post.
• Suggestions? The only thing I thought was tricky is that there was no rubric for us to know what exactly to present on it was nice though at the same time that we could use our discretion and present on what we found interesting.