When I saw I was assigned to the group studying Germany's Social Democratic Party, I thought to myself, that I knew nothing about the party. The first thing I did was Google it and came across the political party on Wikipedia. Right away it informed me that the SPD is a social-democratic political party in Germany. It also is one of the two major political parties in Germany and is led by chairman Sigmar Gabriel. This was the brief information that I looked at on Wikipedia. I then ventured to Britannica.com to view more information on the SPD of Germany. This site informed me that the SPD is the oldest political party in Germany. Sadly, this is about as much as I learned until I had to sign up for a free 7 day trial and decided to look elsewhere. I then waited until my group met up to learn more about the SPD and to see what topic I was assigned to talk about.
My group was very prompt and we all wanted to be given a good grade on the presentation. Within my group, I was assigned to look at the SPD's political platforms. I went searching on the internet to find more about the party's platforms. I liked how the present aim of the SPD is towards the working class. I came across a site with the article, Where Do They Stand, that said in 2003, former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, made very unpopular cuts to welfare. This costed the SPD's status of Germany's largest party to CDU. I did not agree with how the chancellor had made unfair cuts to welfare. It also stated that the SPD was looking to decommission all of Germany's nuclear power stations by 2020. I thought this could be good, especially concerning the environment. It was hard to find sites that talked about the political platform for the SPD that was currently updated. For most of the stuff that I read on the SPD, I can agree with a good amount and see why they would make certain decisions based upon other articles I have read.
All together, Germany's Social Democratic Party was very interesting to learn about. I had not even heard about them prior to taking German 110 but then I had not known much about Germany either. Like any political party there is stuff that I agree on and then a few things I might not entirely see eye-to-eye with. The SPD party I could see eye-to-eye on a few topics. This was an interesting topic and I had a very good group that knew how to evenly divide the work and was going to be hard workers to learn more about the SPD to inform the class on Wednesday when we will present our Powerpoint.
Here is a link to our group presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1igAFBeu2S4hYtyugOA9J9WwstRHz3OybNAXFBhe1Oz0/present#slide=id.p
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Germany
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/where-do-they-stand-a-quick-guide-to-germany-s-political-parties-a-651388.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551135/Social-Democratic-Party-of-Germany-SPD
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
North Rhine-Westphalia
- Capital Düsseldorf
- Located in Western Germany, bordering Belgium and the Netherlands.
- Population total was 17,845,154 as of 2010.
- This makes the North Rhine-Westphalia the most populous state of Germany.
- North Rhine-Westphalia can claim that it has the most foreign direct investments than any other state in Germany.
- Rhine-Ruhr region is the primary mining and energy-producing area in Germany.
- Heavy industry has been the staple for the state's economy.
- Chemical, textiles, glass, heavy machinery, electrical equipment, precision instruments, and beer are all produced in Rhine-Ruhr.
- In the southern part of the Rhine-Ruhr region, in the Berg area, iron and metallurgical textiles and industries play a huge role.
- The North Rhine-Westphalia has business deals within Germany and other companies abroad.
- It contains 30 out of Germany's 80 largest cities.
- Some small cities in the state include: Bielefeld, Bonn, and Münster.
- Outside of the Ruhr, much of the state's land is committed to gardens, orchards, and commercial farmland.
- The state was created in 1946 by the process of the former Prussian providence of Westphalia and the northern part of the Prussian Rhine providence. Then the former state of the Lippe was incorporated in 1947.
- GamesCon is hosted in Cologne. GamesCon is the largest video game convention in the world.
- North Rhine-Westphalia is home to 14 universities and 50 partly post graduate colleges.
- North Rhine-Westphalia has hosted the 1974 and 2006 FIFA World Cups and the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.
Sources:
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