SWC Agenda – HIS 100

Class four, History 100

Rich Gibson, PhD. Pennsylvania State University

Emeritus Professor, SDSU

Professor, SWC

Our Phantasmagoric Agenda

Why are things as they are? We make our own history, but not in circumstances we chose.

“Shams and delusions are esteemed for the soundest truth, but reality is fabulous.” Henry David Thoreau

September 2

1864 – American Civil War: Union forces enter Atlanta, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city, ending the Atlanta Campaign.

1901 – Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” at the Minnesota State Fair.

1945 – World War II: Combat ends in the Pacific Theater: The Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Below is Fat Man

The Secretive Manhattan project built the Abombs. What famous scientist was not allowed in. And who was?

1945 – Vietnam declares its independence, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

Above are Ho Chi Minh and General Giap along with OSS (became the CIA) officers during WWII. Ho and Giap were US allies fighting the Japanese and their Vichy French allies. After the war, Ho wrote a “Declaration of Independence” for Vietnam, modeled after Jefferson’s. The US promised the Viet Minh elections, and the US knew the VM would win overwhelmingly, but the US betrayed Ho and Gap and joined with the French and went to war against the VM. The US lost, ran away, completely defeated, in 1975. Why did the US betray the VM?

Our Phantasmagoric Agenda 4

1. NYTimes! New Yorker! More!
2. Questions about the syllabus? Concluding “why have school?”  School segregation https://edbuild.org/content/23-billion
   

   a. What cannot be taught in most US schools?

   b. What of resistance in schools–from students, teachers, the public?

   c. More on the social context of school.

   3. Introducing Howard Zinn

   4. How to think

   a. Spotting Lies

   b. How do things change (and things DO change) in the material world.

   5. The Master/slave allegory.

Class Three, History 100

Rich Gibson, PhD. Pennsylvania State University

Emeritus Professor, SDSU

Professor, SWC

Our Phantasmagoric Agenda

Why are things as they are? We make our own history, but not in circumstances we chose.

“We can comprehend and change the world.” (Gibson)

“History does not erase grievances but lays them about like landmines.” Marx 

MEETING 3

August 31:

1864 – During the American Civil War, Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta. Sherman, Grant, Lincoln and Self-freed slaves were key to winning the Civil War.

1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector. Edison, a close friend of Henry Ford (Nazi) was a stone cold racist.

2006 – Edvard Munch‘s famous painting The Scream,(Human Anxiety) stolen on August 22, 2004, is recovered in a raid by Norwegian police.

What is UP

1.The Chicano Moratorium of 1970 (the mass march and actions largely forgotten.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-28/chicano-moratorium-coronavirus-inspiration-change

2. Questions about the syllabus?

3. Fast review: What is History?

4. Why have school? (an exercise in critical, to the root, thinking–studying contradictions in the real world–we all have experience with school).

a. Why is school there?

b. What are the main things going on in school?

c. What are the main things going on in society?

d. What of resistance?

Meet Chalmers Johnson, author of the “Nemesis” Trilogy, who says Americans know so little history, they can’t connect cause and effect.

Pending Questions

Why Have Government? What is the History of governments?

What is capitalism?

Imperialism?

Socialism?

Communism?

Fascism?

Racism? History?

Ponzi scheme?

How shall we treat religion?

How to do college and where to go