"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." --George Orwell

"In our first two weeks, you have read several articles, seen several videos and been engaged in several discussions related to the concept of academic leadership. At this point, and in your own words, what does the concept mean to you? What subjects or interests do you have a sophisticated, intellectual understanding of that you may want to turn into a major academic project in this class? How do people sometimes abuse academic knowledge to manipulate others? How would you feel if someone used your work to manipulate others (as Jared Diamond claims Mitt Romney has)? How can creating academically sophisticated, intellectual leaders help prevent such people from taking advantage of others the way they do? How can this create a stronger democratic society?"

The first two weeks of Academic Leadership were very interesting. First I didn't know  what this subject is about and I was a bit worried, that I couldn't understand it, but after the first two classes I began to understand it because there were explanations in many ways. We watched videos and read articles about it. Academic Leadership means to me, that it is a subject where we can learn to talk to each other in a group, for example discussing problems or discussing other things like our future. 

I am not sure yet, which topic I would like to talk about. There are many topics I would like to choose, but if I have to choose a topic now, I would take Hip - Hop. I'm listening to Hip - Hop since I was 8 years old. My older sister listend to it the whole time, so I began to listen to it, too. When I grew up, I was more and more interested in Hip - Hop. I didn't just listen to it, I began to research facts about it and began to dress me like that. So I know a lot about this topic and I would love to work with it. 

To answer the last questions it has to be an example that I think everybody mentioned. Religion. There are many 
people, who use their Academic knowledge to manipulate other people.  A good example is Scientology. They have a lot  of churches all over the world and the leaders have an academic knowledge, which they use to manipulate other people. They only talk to the people, but they have a strategy to convince them to do everything they want.
 If someone would use my knowledge to do something bad, I would feel very angry because this person is using your knowledge, which you could use for something good, for something that could hurt people.