Dans cet article, je vous propose quelques points importants du programme de civilisation anglaise en prépa ECG. Il fait écho à un article déjà publié donc n’hésitez pas à le lire en complément de celui-ci. Ils vous permettront de briller aux concours car en effet, il ne faut pas oublier que la civilisation peut être chronophage, elle est pourtant essentielle tant pour les écrits que pour les oraux. Voici quelques exemples sur des thèmes importants du programme :
Guns regulation
Trump pulled the US out of the Arms Trade Treaty which was a United Nation (UN) resolution Obama signed in 2013 to prevent the use of arms for war crimes and human rights abuses. The National Rifle Association (NRA) hates the UN Arms Trade Treaty because they think it will lead to gun control in the US.
The NRA is obsessed with the “Knotted Gun” which is a universal symbol for non-violence. Why ? Every time is the same objection : infringement on the constitutional freedom of American gun owners.
The easier it is for people in other countries to buy guns, the better it is for American gun makers who want to do business in those places to sell it so the NRA has been influencing gun policy around the world
After the deadly mosque shooting in New Zealand which took the lives of 50 innocent people, it took only six days for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to announce a nationwide ban on all semi-automatic weapons.
The Policing System
All killings put a spotlight on the ways police often target and terrorize communities of colour. But we have to think about what happened the past five years: “I can’t breathe”; Kaepernick; BLM…
This problem is much bigger than individual bad coops. The training is one of the big parts of the problem: a police officer has to stay on their guard all the time because they don’t know if the man in front of them have a gun or not. It’s mean that you have to act before him. Moreover, after they’re trained, cops get to play by a completely different set of rules than everyone else. For instance, it’s almost impossible to sue a cop in the US.
Global obesity
32% of Americans are overweight and 40% are obese. When you are obese, your chances of having a stroke are 64% higher.
Most of human history was a fight against starvation but today for the first time ever, more people are overfed than underfed. Free trade aimed to promote peace and prosperity but developed American’s junk food all over the world: the US now exports its diet to every corner of the world. It’s for that reason the Samoan government banned all turkey tail imports in 2007 (93% of the population was overweight due to these). US farmers hated the ban on turkey tails so the WTO blocked Samoa’s membership until it agreed to lift the ban on turkey tails. If you raise taxes on American products to limit them, US response could be a disaster for national economy.
The News Industry
Nowadays, the news is unwatchable: every time it’s about memes, commentary of other people’s commentary but that’s not news. That’s gossip. Local papers could change the way we consume news. They only make up 25% of the US’ media outlets but they produce almost half of all original reporting and it’s not only about local stories, but also some of national importance as the Jeffrey Epstein case, which was brought by the Miami Herald.
Since 2004, newspaper revenues have dropped more than 57% and even the paper that took down Epstein is going under.
Having local newspapers is a living necessity: at Bell in California, there was no newspapers since the early 2000s. In 2005, city officials created a ballot measure that eliminated their own salary caps. Nobody knew there was a vote because there wasn’t a local paper. The measure passed and the police chief went from making over $200.000 to over $450.000 and the city manager went from making $300.000 to $800.000. Those were the highest salaries for any public official in the country at any level of the government including the president.
Drug Pricing
In America, prescription drug prices are skyrocketing and nearly half of the country takes prescription drugs. One tablet of Daraprim used to cost $13.50 but the drug maker, Martin Shkreli increased the price to $750 (a rise over 5000%) and it was 100% legal. Daraprim is used to treat an unusual disease so some people can no longer treat themselves.
Maybe the best example of how crazy drug pricing has become is insulin, a drug that millions of people with diabetes need to survive. Insulin wasn’t discovered by pharma companies.
It was developed in 1921 by a team of Canadian researchers (Banting and Best) who realized how important insulin would be for the world and they sold the insulin patent to the University of Toronto for just a dollar each.
In 1996, one common type of insulin cost $21. Now that exact same insulin costs $295. In the US alone, 7m diabetics need insulin injections just to survive. Untreated diabetes can have serious consequences like nerve damage, kidney failure and even death.
