Genetically- Modified Foods and Ingredients Essay Example for Free

Genetically- Modified Foods and Ingredients Essay Visiting a supermarket has become a usual experience of each one of us. We have to read all the labels that warn us against genetically-modified ingredients and its expiry date. I, try myself to calm down that epidemic services take control over dangerous products. Yet, I have my doubts in eating my favorite snack, French fries that is done in a fast food. The cumulative effect of genetically-modified foods is particularly dangerous for sensitive populations, including kids, elderly people and people who have indigestion people and even us, whose normal healthy living people. I have studies literature on genetically-modified ingredients, trying to be objective in my judgment. Genetically-modified ingredients advance the modern biology achievements. These products and ingredients strengthen the resistance to herbicides and improve nutritional food contents. Genetically-modified (GM) foods production lessens time-consuming than conventional breeding. Molecular Biologists have not discovered yet how harmful GM products and ingredients are but they claim that GM foods may be environmentally hazardous. Only allergy was recognized as negative effect of GM foods. We, cannot break out from the GM products, since two-thirds of genetically modified crops are corn, cotton, soybeans, potatoes even the fruits we eat. This is just a sign that we should be well inform on what is going in our world especially in our foods that can affect our living. We cannot escape from this advancement in our modern world but we, people, can prevent this to have real healthy living life style.

Produsage and Participatory Culture

Produsage and Participatory Culture M024610021 – Grà ©goire Lesene Second Response Essay for The Audience in Media and Communications course Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation – Axel Bruns Summary: In Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation, Dr. Axel Bruns defines the concept of produsage, coined by the scholar himself after the terms â€Å"production† and â€Å"usage† (Wikipedia), so as to characterize today’s user led content environments. According to Bruns, produsage is â€Å"the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement.† (Bruns 2). This notion is linked with the emergence of the so-called â€Å"social software† and â€Å"Web 2.0† environments, and illustrates the phenomenon of users or consumers playing the roles of producers in various virtual settings such as social networking (with sites such as Facebook, Myspace or LinkedIn), knowledge management (Wikipedia or Google Earth), creative practice (Flickr, YouTube or ccMixter), multi-user online gaming (as gamers are being more and more involved in the development of games, with the example of The Sims, where 90% of the game’s content being made by consumers rather than the developer Maxis), citizen journalism (Indymedia or Slashdot, having an impact on political processes in several countries (Bruns 3)), collaborative filtering (Amazon’s recommendations or Google’s PageRank) and open source software development (Linux or LibreOffice). The author informs us the phenomenon of users being involved in content creation is far from being new, as the term â€Å"prosumer† was already coined four decades ago by American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler so as to describe â€Å"more informed, more involved consumer of goods who would need to be addressed by allowing for a greater customisability and individualisability of products† (Bruns 3). The concept of â€Å"pro-am† was also approached by Charles Leadbeater to describe a â€Å"joint effort of producers and consumers in developing new and improved commercial goods.† (Bruns 3). It is mentioned by the author that the above-mentioned models sustain however a traditional industrial production chain, as the split into three parts is still present (producer, distributor and consumer). Author Alex Bruns states the concept of produsage can be defined following four characteristics, which are: 1) shifts from producers to wide communities of participants, 2) flowing movement between produsers’ roles, 3) unfinished products that are subjects to constant evolutions and modifications, 4) produsers recognize and value authorship and merit while forbidding unauthorized commercial usage so as to promote constant improvement of products. Detailing commercial approaches of the produsage (i.e.: crowdsourcing), scholar Bruns points out the possible issues of this model, among which the problem of legal concept of copyright which needs to be reconsidered (Bruns 7), and states that if such a trend keeps on working, it should be considered as a fundamental paradigm change with deep involvements. Evaluation: Based on â€Å"the affordances of the technosocial framework of the networked environments† (Snurb 1), produsage allows amateurs and professionals alike to work hand in hand in order to create and share information or products with the rest of the world. This collaboration brings several benefits, among which the sharing of knowledge, such as website Wikipedia.org, which allows anyone free access and content to an Internet encyclopedia. In this era of â€Å"participatory culture†, time and money are less of an obstacle than it used to be. For instance number one’s global crowdfunding platform Kickstarter enables individuals to bring a project to life, using public fundraising to bring projects such as video games, music albums, inventions, movies etc. to completion if minimum funding goals are attained. Using the example of the video game industry, where traditionally large publishing companies have an impact on the original ideas and visions of video game developers, rendering at times a piece of work unfinished or oftentimes bugged that necessitates patching afterwards (with for instance the example of computer game Fallout 2, which was rendered fully playable due to an unofficial patching by fans), crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter nowadays allow developers to fully conceive their work of art the way they want it to be without any boundaries. Therefore in such cases, the intervention of the public, the involvement of consumers in the production of contents is seen as beneficial, as constraints of the past are now overcome. Although produsage appear to have a positive impact in certain areas, the concept has its limitations in some fields, among which in the domain of education. As media expert and MIT Professor Henry Jenkins states, there is â€Å"a huge gap between what you can do when you’ve got unlimited access to broadband in your home and what you can do when your only access is through the public library, where there are often time limits on how long you can work, when there are already federally mandated filters blocking access to certain sites, when there are limits on your ability to store and upload material, and so forth.† (Jenkins 1). Two other deficiencies of the concept of participatory culture are also pointed out by Henry Jenkins, what he calls the â€Å"transparency problem† and the â€Å"ethics challenge†. For Jenkins, the â€Å"transparency problem† is the issue young people are confronted with while learning as media change perceptions of the world. As a matter of fact, we cannot deny that our ability to elucidate the veracity of certain information is at times challenged due to the tremendous amount of information available. The other issue named the â€Å"ethics challenge† is defined as â€Å"the breakdown of traditional forms of professional training and socialization that might prepare young people for their increasingly public roles as media makers and community participants.† (Norris 1). Taking the rise of citizen journalism to illustrate this point, almost everyone can pretend to be a journalist to date, while this career is traditionally tied with a certain education, rules and techniques. Elaboration: Following the reading of this journal along with various articles linked with the concepts of produsage and participatory culture, we have learnt the involvement of produsers is beneficial and detrimental at the same time. The goal of produsers is to provide freely to individuals without any form of rewards. However the risk might occurs that companies may take advantage of such contents to benefit themselves. Subsequently we cannot help but wonder about the continuity on the long-term of such practices, as eventually contributors might be tempted to earn something in return for their hardwork. Produsage content is nowadays undeniably part of our daily lives and it is somewhat difficult to imagine how we would be able to do without this amount of accessible knowledge to us. Because of produsage, we can have access to unlimited forms of learning such as YouTube tutorials for instance, and Wikipedia has become a student’s staple for dealing with assignment or as a decent if not reliable source of knowledge for plenty of individuals (despite the fact we fundamentally know such affirmations on this website should be treated with caution). Therefore did produsage and participatory culture help us broaden our criticism, view and understanding of our daily surroundings or did they simply worsen these skills? As online communities seem to favor more and more virtual realities such as the game The Sims, does produsage create loneliness and antisocial, reclusive living habits, far away from real human contact? References: Bruns, A., (2007). Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation.Proceedings Creativity Cognition. 6 (1), pp.1-7 Bruns, A., (2008). The Future Is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread Produsage. Fibreculture Journal. 11 (1), pp.1-10 Wikipedia (n.d.). Produsage. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Produsage. [Last Accessed 28 November 2014]. Open Source (n.d.). What is open source?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source. [Last Accessed 28 November 2014]. Snurb (2007). Produsage: A Working Definition. [ONLINE] Available at: http://produsage.org/produsage. [Last Accessed 28 November 2014]. Jenkins, H. (2006). MySpace and the Participation Gap. [ONLINE] Available at: http://henryjenkins.org/2006/06/myspace_and_the_participation.html. [Last Accessed 28 November 2014]. Norris, A (2012). Review of Jenkins work on Participatory Cultures. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.hastac.org/blogs/aaminahm/2012/08/11/review-jenkins-work-participatory-cultures. [Last Accessed 28 November 2014].

Secure Encounter-based Mobile Social Networks

Secure Encounter-based Mobile Social Networks ABSTRACT: Encounter-based social networks and encounter-based systems link users who share a location at the same time, as opposed to the traditional social network paradigm of linking users who have an offline friendship. This new approach presents challenges that are fundamentally different from those tackled by previous social network designs. In this paper, we explore the functional and security requirements for these new systems, such as availability, security, and privacy, and present several design options for building secure encounter-based social networks. To highlight these challenges we examine one recently proposed encounter-based social network design and compare it to a set of idealized security and functionality requirements. We show that it is vulnerable to several attacks, including impersonation, collusion, and privacy breaching, even though it was designed specifically for security. Mindful of the possible pitfalls, we construct a flexible framework for secure encounter-base d social networks, which can be used to construct networks that offer different security, privacy, and availability guarantees. We describe two example constructions derived from this framework, and consider each in terms of the ideal requirements. Some of our new designs fulfill more requirements in terms of system security,reliability, and privacy than previous work. We also evaluate real-world performance of one of our designs by implementing a proof-of-concept iPhone application called MeetUp. Experiments highlight the potential of our system and hint at the deployability of our designs on a large scale EXISTING SYSTEM: Early work assumed that the parties could communicate over a public but authenticated channel or, equivalently, assumed a passive adversary. This assumption was relaxed in later work, which considered an active adversary who could modify all messages sent between the two parties.In the Traditional Social network site present a dra-matically different set of challenges, not the least of which are security and privacy of users and authenticity of the other party in a conversation. Guarantees that are trivial in traditional social networks, such as authenticity (ensuring one is com-municating with the desired person), become open problems in encounter-based networks. Additionally, requirements like anonymity—a feature that is not needed in most traditional online social networks based on prior face-to-face contact— need to be considered in encounter-based networks. This is desirable because users would expect information about people they happen to meet to stay private. Fu rthermore, since people do not automatically place their trust in others simply based on presence in the same location, it is also desirable to reveal the minimum amount of information required for future secure communication. Sharing detailed personal information is not the primary goal of encounter-based networks, but can of course be easily implemented if both users agree upon the successful verified encounter.. PROPOSED SYSTEM: In proposed system we consider fundamental requirements for encounter-based social networks. We note that in addition to basic functionality like high availability, scalability, and robustness to failure, these systems should provide several security guarantees, including privacy in the form of unlinkability of users sharing an encounter, confidentiality of data exchanged among encounter participants, and authentication of both users in a two-party conversation. We construct a flexible frame-work for secure encounter-based social networks, which can be used to construct networks that offer different security, privacy , and availability guarantees. We describe two example constructions derived from this framework, and consider each in terms of the ideal requirements. Some of our new designs fulfill more requirements in terms of system security, reliability, and privacy than previous work. The first experience of interaction you want to provide an incoming user are the updates and responses about his activity in the system. This keeps the user updated about what’s going on in here. Although encounter-based systems appear very analogous to existing social networks, they present a considerably different set of challenges, out of which are security and privacy of users and authenticity of the other party in a conversation are important. Assurances that are trivial in traditional social networks, such as authenticity (ensuring one is communicating with the desired person), become unwrapped problems in encounter-based networks. Additionally, requirements like obscurity—a feature that is not needed in most usual online social networks based on prior face-to-face contact—need to be considered in encounter-based networks. This is desirable because users would look forward for information about people they happen to meet to stay private. Also, since people do not automatically place their faith in others simply based on presence in the same location, it is also desirable to disclose the minimum amount of information required for future secure communication . Sharing complete personal information is not the primary goal of encounter-based networks, but can of-course be easily put into practice if both users agree upon the successful verified encounter. we consider basic requirements for encounter-based social networks in addition to basic functionality like high availability, scalability, privacy security. We propose specific design architecture for encounter-based social network. In this architecture suggest two possible implementation, each conspicuous a balance between performance and security. To highlights of challenges it was designed for specifically secure centralized server. ARCHITECTURE: MODULES: Privacy or unlink ability. The privacy of two parties sharing an encounter must be protected, even from others in the vicinity who may also participate in simultaneous encounters. In this case, privacy means that an external adversary (even one taking part in the encounter or colluding with a â€Å"bulletin board† or rendezvous server to be used in latter phase) who is not one of the two users of interest should not be able to conclusively determine that two users have made a connection. Authenticity Meaning that when two users decide to make a connection, they should be assured that messages indeed originate from each other. Confidentiality Meaning that information exchanged between two users should be accessible only to them. Availability. As such, the infrastructure to exchange encounter information should be accessible most of the time. The unavailability of individual users should not affect the availability of other users. Since the time at which encounter parties check for potential encounters associated with their activities could be arbitrary, the encounter-based social network is more sensitive to availability than conventional social networks. Scalability. With typical social networks being large in size, any potential social network design, including those based on encounters, should scale to support a large number of simultaneous users. This requires minimizing dependence on a centralized entity.

Essay --

During the Elizabethan era, many great works were created. Many of these great works were made by none other than William Shakespeare. His plays were exquisitely made in a formal type of language that even people of the late 1500’s didn’t speak like. Besides his success as a playwright, Shakespeare also found great success as a poet and actor. Some of his most famous works, such as Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet, led him to, by many, being called the greatest writer of all time. If you are familiar with this great man and the famous works that he created, then maybe this paper will show you just why he is regarded as the greatest writer of all time. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s more famous works and it has a very unique script of characters in it. The main character, Hamlet, is the Prince of Denmark. His father was the King of Denmark before his tragic death. Throughout the play, Hamlet shows his detestation towards his mother’s excessive sexuality and his hatred towards his uncle and the present king, Claudius. Though it may not seem like it at times, Hamlet is actually a very brilliant man who studied at the University of Wittenberg. Sometimes he is very quick tempered and impulsive, but most of the time he thinks through things before doing them. Claudius is the uncle of Hamlet, who took the throne after his brother was killed. Claudius is very cautious and is always calculating the effects of his actions. Most of the time Claudius seems to be very inhuman and only driven by the lust for more power and sex. Very seldom does he show his side of guilt for things he has done and his deep affection for Gertrud e. Gertrude is the present wife of Claudius and mother of Hamlet. She is also the Queen of Denmark.... ... appear to be the people wanting him to be in power. Around this time Calphurnia has a dream about Caesar having a bunch of holes in him and there is blood flowing out of him like a fountain. She obviously interprets this as a bad omen for Caesar and is concerned. This and other occurrences such as fire raining down from the sky and his priests not being able to find a heart in a sacrificed animal lead to him wanting to stay home. But, Decius tells Caesar that his dreams mean he is going to save Rome. Caesar is motivated and decides that fate will have its way no matter what. He decides to go the the Capital anyways, against his wife’s wishes. On the way to the Capital, Caesar runs into Artemidorus who tries to give him a letter warning him of the conspirators. Caesar doesn’t take the letter and Artemidorus knows that the fates are on the side of the conspirators.

Argumentative Essay: The Appalling Lack of Gun Control in the United States :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

There is an appalling, despicable lack of gun control in the United States. In my opinion the manner in which the issue of gun control is approached in this country is bordering on criminal negligence in and of itself. The insanity surrounding this controversial issue is taking the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights in the United States constitution way too far. I ask myself this question, could the Founding Fathers of this amazing country have possibly envisioned a world in which teenagers could casually walk into a classroom, pull out a loaded pistol and cold bloodily murder their teachers and fellow classmates? I think not. I would posit that these fine men, these symbols of American liberty and democracy would turn in their graves if they could see how their words, their intentions, were manipulated and grossly misinterpreted, to serve the purposes of those who pretend to be protecting the rights of their fellow American Citizens. On the contrary, it is my belief that t hey, the politicians, are recklessly endangering those whose rights they claim to be protecting. The Government needs to take a hard, honest look at the tragic loss of life that occurs in this country due to gun shootings, both intentional and accidental. The government needs to assume responsibility for this outrageous situation and realize that gun control in the United States needs to be Federally regulated, sooner rather than later. Wherein lies the difficulty in subjecting citizens to more stringent gun control measures? What possible reasons could politicians have for opposing safety measures such as the mandatory registration of firearms, five day waiting periods, gun licensing for owners, permits to purchase and permits to carry guns as well as mandatory background checks? If you want to carry a firearm, I feel that all of the afore mentioned requirements, at the very least, should be instituted in every single state. For heavens sake, it is more difficult to enroll your child in school than it is to buy and own a gun in this country. Does that seem logical? Not to me. The reason being that as this controversy plays out, as the NRA (National Rifle Association), the various politicians and the many interest groups squabble aimlessly back and forth with each other, more innocent people are losing their lives everyday, no in fact, every minute!

Moralitys Biological Nature Essay example -- Biology Essays Research

Morality's Biological Nature: Implications for the Attribution of "Good" and "Evil". "A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones. . . . If he acts for the good of others, he will receive the approbation of his fellow men and gain the love of those with whom he lives." - Charles Darwin In my last paper "Serial Killers: Just trying to feel normal, it's not my fault" (4) I addressed the question as to whether biology can make us murderers. In my paper I catalogued multiple instances in which biology seems to consistently differ between 'normal' people and individuals who have been dubbed the most immoral, inhuman and evil predators of society. Though I found many biological differences between the normal brain and the murderer's brain, it was not necessarily explained that 'morality' is a common, biologically based aspect of human behavior. The nature of my prior paper was to ascertain whether there is a difference in our brain from that of a killer, but in this paper I explore the biological function of 'morality' and its natural occurrence in the catalogue of human behaviors. Discussing 'morality' as a phenomenon that is inherent in humans will then allow the further exploration of the implications of deviation from this 'norm'. Can these individuals be labeled as 'evil' and be held accountable for their behavior? As the former paper posed implications pertaining to the 'accountability' of a murderer, this paper proposes that these individuals have strayed from the underlying... ...CA/Mail/xmcamail.1997_11.dir/0086.html 3)Brain: The neurobiology of morals. , A small, applicable article. http://www.nature.com/news/1999/991021/full/991021-6.html;jsessionid=DC80A23979EBD5D46DCA819DFA12AC26 4)Serial Killers: Just trying to feel normal, it's not my fault, My last paper. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Solano.html 5) Origins of Human Mind Revisited, A short article that touched upon some new ideas. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/brainyapes980511.html 6) To the objectives for Good Natured., Commentary upon de Waal's book from a college class. http://mlabar.swu.edu/Animal%20Behavior/Comments%20on%20Good%20Natured.htm 7) The Impact of Psychological Research on Christian Beliefs and Practices , A source of challenges, insights and reminders. http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/cis/jeeves/lecture3.html

Reconstruction after the Civil War Essay

Black political activity during the Reconstruction after the Civil War came from the experience of after war slavery or what was called servitude. A strong sense of community grew out of shared racial oppression and contributed to the formation of a political stand for the black freedman. Even though this formation was important it really did not become very strong after the Civil War. Emancipation was confusing to most blacks and the wartime disorder didn’t help the uncertain situation. Freedmen moved very cautiously to explore what changes were happening in their lives. They were more interested in individual measures to enhance their freedom and avoided becoming politically active. One of the freedmen’s first desires was to leave anything having to do with slavery behind. They wanted to define their new status different than the slavery they had known. What many blacks did first after becoming free was to leave the plantation that had enslaved them. Some looked for family and other headed for towns and cities, but most wanted to leave. Autonomy was a key issue that arose out of emancipation. At first the freedmen hoped their needs would be met by the federal government. Inspired by wartime confiscation of planters land, and the promise of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the former slaves waited for their â€Å"forty acres and a mule†. The Freedmen’s Bureau was a temporary agency set up to aid the former slaves by providing relief, education, legal help, and assistance in gaining land or employment and came from the Reconstruction period. The problem of how to reconstruct the Union after the South’s military defeat was won of the most difficult challenges faced by American policymakers. The Constitution didn’t provide any guidelines. The farmers had not anticipated a division of the country into warring sections. Emancipation was a major force for the Northern war aims, but the problem became larger when questions arose on how far the federal government should go to secure freedom and civil rights for former slaves. The debate that followed led to a major political crisis. Advocates of a minimal Reconstruction policy favored quick restoration of the Union with no protection for the freed slaves beyond the prohibition of slavery. Proponents of a more radical policy wanted readmission of the southern states to be dependent on guarantees that loyal men would displace the Confederate higher ups in position of power and that blacks would gain some of the basic rights of American citizenship. The White House wanted the lesser approach and congress endorsed the more radical approach of Reconstruction (Divine, Breen, Fredrickson & Williams, 1987, p. 457). The tension between the President and Congress on how to reconstruct the Union began during the war. Lincoln never had a plan for bringing the states back together, but he did take some initiatives that indicated a more lenient and forgiving policy towards Southerners who gave up the struggle and denounced slavery. Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in 1863 that offered a full pardon to all Southerners, except certain classes of Confederate leaders, who would take an oath of allegiance to the union and acknowledge the legality of emancipation (Fitzgerald, 1989, p. 11). This policy was meant to shorten the war. The President hoped that granting pardon and political recognition to oath-taking minorities would weaken the southern cause by making it easy for disillusioned confederates to switch sides. But Congress was unhappy with the President’s reconstruction experiments and in 1864 refused to seat the Unionists elected to the House and Senate from Louisiana and Arkansas. A minority of congressional Republicans, who were strong anti-slavery radicals, wanted protection for black rights as a precondition for the readmission of the southern states. These Republican militants were upset because Lincoln had not insisted that the constitution creators provide for black suffrage. The dominate view in Congress was that the southern states had definitely forfeited their place in the Union and that it was up to Congress to decide when and how they would be readmitted. Congress passed a Reconstruction bill of its own in 1864. The Wade-Davis bill which required that fifty percent of the voters must take an oath of future loyalty before the restoration process could begin (Divine Breen, Fredrickson & Williams, 1987 p. 452). Those who would swear that they had never willingly supported the Confederacy could vote in an election for delegates to a constitutional convention. The bill did not require black suffrage, but it did give federal courts the power to enforce emancipation, but Lincoln used a pocket veto and refused to sign. Congress and the President remained stalled on the Reconstruction issue for the rest of the war. But during the last months in office Lincoln showed some desire to compromise. He showed much interest in getting the governments in Louisiana and Arkansas that he started, with the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in 1863, to gaining full recognition but Lincoln was warming up to the ideal of including black suffrage in all of this. Sadly Mr. Lincoln died before anyone knew the outcome of the struggle between congress and this man. Andrew Johnson’s attempt at reconstruction also put him on the defensive with Congress creating the most serious crisis in the history of relations between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. During the war Johnson endorsed Lincoln’s emancipation policy and carried it into effect. He viewed it primarily as a means of destroying the power of the planter class rather than as recognition of black humanity (Divine Breen, Fredrickson & Williams, 1987). Johnson’s presidency was a huge surprise and really wasn’t suppose to happen considering that he was a southern Democrat and a fervent white supremacist. But the root of the problem was that he disagreed with the majority of Congress on what Reconstruction was supposed to accomplish. A believer of the Democratic states’ rights he wanted to restore the prewar feral system as quickly as possible, with the only changes being that states would no longer have the right to legalize slavery or to secede. Many Republican’s believed that if the old southern ruling class were to gain power they would devise a plan to subjugate blacks. Emancipation had removed the three-fifths clause of the constitution that counted slaves as only three-fifth of a person now they were to be counted in determining representation. Congress favored a Reconstruction policy that would give the federal government authority to limit the role of ex-confederates and provide protection for black citizenship (Fitzgerald, 1989, p. 48). The disagreement between the President and Congress became irreconcilable in early 1866 when Johnson vetoed two bills that had passed with overwhelming Republican support (Fitzgerald, 1989, 81). The first was to extend the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the second was a civil rights bill meant to nullify the black codes and guarantee to the freedmen full and equal benefit of all laws and security of self and property as the white had. Johnson was successful at blocking the Freedmen’s bureau bill but later a modified version did pass. The Civil Rights Act won the two-thirds majority needed to override the president’s veto. The main fact was that recovery would not happen or even begin until a new labor system replaced slavery. It was widely assumed in both the North and South that southern prosperity would continue to depend on cotton and that the plantation was the most efficient way for producing the crop. But rebuilding the plantation economy was hindered by lack of capital, the belief of southern whites that blacks would work only if forced, and by the freedmen’s resistance to labor conditions that were still basically slavery (Divine, Breen, Fitzgerald & Williams, 1987). Blacks wanted to be small independent farmers rather than plantation laborers and they believed that the federal government would help them to attain their dreams. General Sherman, who had huge numbers of black fugitives follow his army on a famous march, issued an order in 1865 that set aside the islands and coastal areas of Georgia and South Carolina for only black occupancy on forty acre plots. The Freedmen’s Bureau was given control of hundreds of thousands of acres of abandoned or confiscated land and authorized to make forty acre grants to black settlers for a three year period. After that they would have the option to buy at low prices. Over forty thousand black farmers worked on three hundred thousand acres of land they thought were going to be theirs (Berlin, 1976, p. 141). But the dream of forty acres and a mule the government promised was not going to happen. President Johnson pardoned the owners of most of the land assigned to the ex-slaves by Sherman and the Freedmen’s Bureau and along with the failure of congress to propose an effective program of land confiscation and redistribution the land blacks could not gain title to the land they had been working. The ex-slaves even without land and in poverty still were reluctant to settle down and commit their selves to wage labor for their former masters. They were hoping for something better and some still expecting grants of land while others were just trying to increase their bargaining power. The most common form of agricultural employment in 1866 was contract labor. Under this system workers would commit themselves for a year in return for fixed wages that the bulk of would be paid after harvest. Many planters were inclined to make hard bargains, abuse their workers or cheat them at the end of the year. The Freedmen’s Bureau took the role of reviewing the contracts and enforcing them. Buy the bureau officials had differing notions of what it meant to protect blacks from exploitation. Some stood up strongly for the rights of the freedmen; others served as allies of the planters, rounding up available workers, coercing them to sign contracts for low wages, and keeping them in line (Fitzgerald, 1989, p. 138). After 1867 the bureau’s influence was fading and a new arrangement come from direct negotiations between planters and freedmen. Unhappy with gang labor and constant white supervision, blacks demanded sharecropper’s status. This meant that they wanted the right to work a small piece of land independently in return for a fixed share of the crop produced on it and that was usually half. With the shortage of labor this gave the freedmen enough leverage to force this arrangement on those planters who were unwilling. But many landowners found it to their advantage because it did not require much capital and forced the tenants to share the risks of crop failure or a fall in cotton prices. Blacks at first viewed sharecropping as a step up from wage labor and a direction towards land ownership, but in reality it was just a new kind of slavery (Fitzgerald, 1989, p. 140). Croppers had to live on credit until their cotton was sold, and planters or merchants seized the chance to give them at high prices and huge rates of interest. Creditors were entitled to deduct what was owned to them out of the tenant’s share of the crop and this left most sharecroppers with no net profit at the end of the year, some with debt that had to be worked off the next year (Fitzgerald, 1989, p. 141). Blacks moving to cities and towns found themselves living in an increasingly segregated society. The Black Codes of 1865 attempted to require separation of the races in public places but most of the codes were set aside by federal authorities as violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, but that was defeated by private initiatives and community pressures. In some cities blacks successfully resisted forced separation on streetcars by appealing to the military during the brief period when it exercised authority or by organizing boycotts. But they found it almost impossible to gain admittance to most hotels, restaurants, and other privately owned establishments that catered to whites. When black supported Republican governments came to power in 1868, some of them passed civil rights acts requiring equal access to public facilities, but little efforts were made to enforce the legislation (Berlin, 1976, p. 249). Some forms of racial separation were not openly discriminatory and blacks accepted or even endorsed them. Freedmen who had belonged to white churches as slaves welcomed the chance to join all black denominations which gave freedom from white dominance and a more congenial style of worship. The first schools for ex-slaves were all black institutions established by the Freedmen’s Bureau and various northern missionary societies (Berlin, 1976, p. 285). Blacks had been denied any education at all after the war and blacks viewed separate schooling as an opportunity rather than as a form of discrimination. The Freedmen’s Bureau was a government agency that was to give assistance and protection to the Southern ex-slave after the Civil war. It gave assistance to the relief of the needy of both white and black. Its main job was to improve labor relations, administering justice and developing a black educational system. The Bureau influence though suffered in the North and was mortally damaged in the South by corruption, especially those that were connected with promising Republican control of the black vote. These excesses strengthened resistance to black suffrage and encouraged secret organizations like the Ku Klux Klan (Sehat, 2007). The bureau was established under the War Department and was suppose to exist for one year after the war. It was strengthened and its life extended in 1866 when Johnson attempted to veto. Its Director was a Christian general by the name of Oliver O. Howard and functioned through ten districts. Each had an assistant commissioner with the power to control all individuals that were refugees and freedmen. The Freedmen’s Bureau became the strongest single instrument of Reconstruction. Even though it was ended in 1869 its educational activities were extended to 1872 and its soldiers’ bounty payments till 1872 and had an expenditure of about $20,000,000 (Divine Breen Fredrickson & Williams, 1987). Reconstruction failed because it was inadequately motivated, conceived and enforced. But the causes of this failure remain in shadow. Some explain it in terms of an underlying racism that prevented white Republicans from identifying fully with the cause of the black equality. Others use the clash between the class interests of those in charge of implementing and managing Reconstruction and the poor people of the South who were supposed to benefit. But the basic issue raised by Reconstruction was how to achieve racial equality in America and that was not resolved during that era and is still in conflict even today. Reference: Berlin, I. (1976). Slaves without masters. New York: Vintage Books Divine, R. A. , Breen, T. H. , Fredrickson, G. M. and Williams, R. H. (1987). America past and present, 2nd. Ed. Illinois: Scott , Foresman and Company. Fitzgerald, M. W. (1989). The union league movement in the deep south. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Gibson, G. J. (1957). Lincoln’s League: The league movement during the Civil War. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Illinois. Sehat, D. ( 2007, May). The civilizing mission of Booker T. Washington. Journal of Southern History, 73(2), 323-362.