Class 15 US History Pre-1877 (end of Reconstruction)
Sign in! Sign in!! Sign in!!!
Why are things as they are? People make their own histories, but not in circumstances they choose.
We can understand and change the world. How we think sets up what we do and what we do matters. (me).
December 9th 1835 – Texas Revolution: The Texian Army captures San Antonio, Texas.
1872 In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first African-American governor of a U.S. state. (reconstruction)
1937 Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking – Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing (Nanking).
1946 – The “Subsequent Nuremberg trials” begin with the “Doctors’ trial“, prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia.
1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
Our Phantasmagoric (sadly last) agenda
Portfolios Due Midnight December 12th
1. What IS up?
a. Common core omits anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-Xenophobia but it’s “States Rights!”
b. NYTimes on Saudis and Jihadists http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/12/08/is-saudi-arabia-a-unique-generator-of-extremism/jihadism-is-not-saudia-arabias-fault
Oil prices remain low–Saudis keep prices down http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/07/opec-plan-kill-us-shale-oil-price-down-seven-year-low
c. In San Diego: War Means Work! Ships!
d. Dow to merge with Dupont (napalm marries DDT)
e. Obama, who deported more people than any other president, makes speech honoring anniversary of the 13th Amendment (on wrong day—it was Dec. 6, 1865) and honors Harriet Tubman, omits John Brown.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/12/09/obama-denounces-religious-bigotry-speech-celebrating-end-slavery/77041314/
2. End of Civil War, Reconstruction…
Langston Hughes: “Emancipation”, 1865, “sighted through the telescope of dreams, looms larger, so much larger, so it seems, than truth can be. But turn the telescope around, look through the larger end, and wonder why, what was so large becomes so small again.”
…and fond farewells.
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14
History supplies little beyond a list of those who have accommodated themselves with the property of others. ~Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary
December 7th 1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
1941 – World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
1949 – Chinese Civil War: The Government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan.
1975 – Indonesian invasion of East Timor: The invasion begins
1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
Our Phantasmagoric and Next to Last Agenda!
1. What IS Up???
a. Big anti-terrorist/peace march in Dearborn, Mich
http://m.clickondetroit.com/news/peace-march-held-in-dearborn-against-terrorism/36813462
b. Obama and “ISIL”
c. The Southwest College SUN, award winning paper..sued
2. The runup to the civil war and the war itself
John Brown’s speech at the end of his trial: “
“Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case), had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.
This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to “remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.”
I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!”
Hanged Dec 2 1859
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Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects. ~Herodotus, The History of Herodotus
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/265/the-sounds-of-resistance-the-role-of-music-in-south-africas-anti-apartheid-movement
https://youtu.be/OLJSz-wzOHI
December 2 1823 – Monroe Doctrine: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President James Monroe proclaims American neutrality in future European conflicts, and warns European powers not to interfere in the Americas.
1845 – Manifest Destiny: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President James K. Polk proposes that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
1859 – Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
1954 – Cold War: The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to censure Joseph McCarthy for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute”.
2001 – Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda (Dec 2)
Catch UP!
Please return borrowed books on Monday
Portfolios Due Midnight December 12! (see the syllabus)
1. What IS Up?
2. US through around 1850
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12
― Confucius
November 30 1782 – American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).
1995 – Official end of Operation Desert Storm.
1999 – In Seattle, United States, demonstrations against a World Trade Organization meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.
Catch Up! Catch Up! Catch Up!
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda
1. What is up??? France on Lockdown as climate summit begins. WWIII rising alongside world wide fascist movements of all sorts.
2. Review: What have we done so far??
a. Historiography (social relations….)
b. Development of capital (what is capitalism?) and empire (what is imperialism?)
c. via, in the main, slavery’s roots.
d.. Revolution, or not, in the US (Declaration of Independence)
e. Counter-revolution and the Constitution (review/review)
f. The empire moves west (what is imperialism?): Lewis and Clark, Louisiana Purchase, Indian wars expand
g. Development of the State and Institutions (bank, schools, etc.)
h. Anti-slavery: abolitionists of all kinds
2. Examining contradictions in the material world
a. democracy/capitalism; empire/freedom; more?
3. War of !812 (and Internal Enemies): Regionalism deepens.
Presidents who owned slaves
* George Washington
* Thomas Jefferson
* James Madison
* Andrew Jackson
* James Polk
* Zachary Taylor
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November 25 1783 – American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Missionary Ridge: At Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant break the Siege of Chattanooga by routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg.
1936 – In Berlin, Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, agreeing to consult on measures “to safeguard their common interests” in the case of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union against either nation.
1986 – Iran–Contra affair: U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
r Phantasmagoric Agenda 11
1. Devine through Chapter 12—-CATCH UP!
2. Paper Topics Due Monday
Class 10 cancelled–illness
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
November 18 1926 – George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”
1938 – Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
1961 – United States President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.
1978 – In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder–suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.
1993 – In the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is approved by the House of Representatives.
1993 – In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution, expanding voting rights and ending white minority rule.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p5qeGWKlFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvJHfYEEpGE
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda
1. Fast What IS up?
2. French Revolution FAST
3. Vietnam
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Catch Up!
History is a vast early warning system. ~Norman Cousins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNAp0igLZIs
November 17:
1777 – American Revolutionary War: After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.
1806 – Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. (It is later named Pikes Peak.)
1864 – American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burns Atlanta, Georgia and starts Sherman’s March to the Sea.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a decisive Allied victory.
1943 – The Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps“.
Our Phantamagoric Agenda
1. What is up??
a. Paris–who, what, when, where, how, WHY? What to do? What would Sun Tzu say? Obama? What is next for Europe? The USA? NATO? Britain? France? Middle East? Don’t forget AF/Pak and China!
b. What is fascism?
2. The French Revolution for beginners! Nationalism + Class War!
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SECULAR TRADITION
1789: French Revolution
1789 & 1809: France marches on Rome
1905: Law on separation of church and state
1937: Schools instructed to keep religious signs out
1989: School ban on religious signs ruled illegal
1994: Ministers say schools can ban “ostentatious” signs
2004: MPs vote in support of ban on religious symbols in schools
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3. Class discussion, in groups, your papers. What is your next topic?
Advice about colleges and universities
*Get scholarships! Grades suck, but grades matter. What would Kim Philby do?
*Select the best possible school–with the best reputation–schools are Not equal (UC vs CSU vs CC)
*Determine to finish from the outset. Don’t just stick your toe in.
*Find a mentor–fast–get help with right classes and schedule. Visit profs during office hours.
*Stay away from frats/sororities and 7 day a week parties.
*Make an effort to connect with and learn from people from different backgrounds. Make friends!
*Pick classes with care–ask your mentor–other students–don’t count on RateMyProf.
*Read the syllabus! Follow it. Keep up.
*Sit in front if you can stand it.
*Use writing centers. If they suck and always only use formulas, get Ken Macrorie’s I Search Paper online.
*Proofread. Don’t just spell check. Get someone else to proof too.
*Create a disciplined schedule that includes exercise at least 30 minutes a day 4 days a week.
Don’t be discouraged by crappy classes, bad profs. If someone is stealing your education–steal it back. You are responsible for your own education.
Don’t be suckered by bad, for-profit colleges (Corinthean, etc.) as you will get a worthless degree and lots of debt.
A fine prof who is a friend adds: eat right and sleep. And become a serious person. That is, some of the best things in life aren’t fun or entertaining. Finally, I would say that even though all colleges aren’t alike, what you get out of them is to a large extent, much larger than an 18 year old would usually expect, up to you. There are many incredibly intelligent people even in crappy schools. Be serious about finding them.
Wednesday. Vietnam Wars. Also, please bring an anonymous class evaluation. How am I doing with my responsibilities as a prof? How are you doing as a student. On the whole, do you understand the processes of history?
Pending ?s and issues:
Why is oil (or rubber) so important? Done sufficiently?
How shall we treat religion? Done sufficiently?
What is nationalism? Done sufficiently?
What is racism?
What is democracy? A republic?
What is feudalism?
What is capitalism?
What is imperialism?
What/Why revolutions?
Why all the financial crises?
Why the Taliban, AQ, IS?
What is the strategy of guerrilla war, or the “Fabian approach,” or the “war of the flea.”
Whither China?
What of the USSR and Russia?
Vietnam?
What is socialism?
Communism?
Fascism?
Why have government?
How to go to college, and pick one?
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7
“The South believed an educated Negro to be a dangerous Negro. And the South was not wholly wrong; for education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
November 9 1851 – Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape…abolitionist and Methodist minister from New York state who was twice convicted in Kentucky of aiding the escape of slaves, and served a total of 19 years in prison. Fairbank is believed to have aided the escape of 47 slaves.
1887 – The United States receives rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
1906 – Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. He did so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.
1917 – Joseph Stalin enters the provisional government of Bolshevik Russia.
1921 – The Italian National Fascist Party comes into existence.
1935 – The Congress of Industrial Organizations is founded in Atlantic City, New Jersey, by eight trade unions belonging to the American Federation of Labor.
1937 – Japanese troops take control of Shanghai, China.
1960 – Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Co., the first non-Ford to serve in that post. A month later, he resigned to join the administration of newly elected John F. Kennedy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSqnK_9WRA
Archangel Michael paron Saint of the 82nd Airborne
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda (no class Wednesday)
1. What IS up??? U. Missouri, Prezzi forced to resign–by football team; 900,000 Vets waiting in the VA’s backlog and 300,000 may have died waiting (CSM); the labor-force participation rate remains at its 38-year low, with just 62.4% of American civilians over the age of 16 either working or looking for work (Business Insider)…Putin and the downed plan in Egypt…more?
Examining Contradictions
Capitalism (property) vs Democracy
Empire vs Liberty
What is the Main Contradiction?
Adams: Key Question–Who Will do the Work?
2. Noting the radicalism of the American Revolution–or not.
3. The Articles of Confederation become the Constitution of 1787/88 (why have government?–answers in history?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL43IEiRxSs
Who wrote the Constitution and what do the branches of government do?
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/static/publication/roc2/sla2roc2.pdf
Hamilton vs Jefferson and the national bank (today the Federal Reserve, as we will see) http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/lesson_plans/pdfs/unit3_4.pdf
4. French Revolution and the Washington Presidency
Washington Farewell Address of 1796 :
(a) No Kings or monarchs
(b) Two terms –22nd amendment (F. Roosevelt)
(c) Stay out of permanent alliances, i.e. European Wars,
(d) Beware of Two Party system (Jefferson vs Hamilton), love of party over country
(e) Avoid standing military “avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
(f) Don’t let local interests (north/southeast/west) dominate national interests as all trade, etc., is linked.
Still…who will do the work? Everything nearly makes sense–but for SLAVERY.
5. 1798–Alien and Sedition Acts. To silence Republicans.
Alien Enemies Act give prez wartime powers to expel.
Alien Law–expel by exec decree
Naturalization Law—14 years for Naturalization, keep Irish from voting Republican.
Sedition Law—no criticism of government. Libel, fines, jail. Franklin’s grandson jailed.
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6
“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. ”
― Michael Crichton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9EJE1ad36Q
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L0e3_6_0nw
http://www.venganza.org/about/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNb6SxXcD7g
November 4 1952 – The United States government establishes the National Security Agency, or NSA.
1956 – Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
1970 – Salvador Allende takes office as President of Chile, the first Marxist to become president of a Latin American country through open elections.
1979 – Iran hostage crisis: A mob of Iranians, mostly students, overruns the US embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages (53 of whom are American).
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda Class 6 (1/3 done!)
Catch Up!
1. What is UP? Taliban, AQ. ISIS (aka IS, ISIL, Daesh)
Blame Kipling, Lawrence, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Iran, Zbig, Carter, Reagan, Opus Dei, Pakistan ISI, empire, capital, greed, hubris, sheer stupidity and much more.
below Rudyard Kipling
From his poem, “The Young British Soldier”
If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!
zbigniew brzezinski
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2. The Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, the Articles of Confederation, and maybe the US Constitution.
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5
History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. ~Winston Churchill
https://youtu.be/ljVVFKjN0Dc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOYuhLNwh3A
November 2, 1917 – The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” with the clear understanding “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities”.
1967 – Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and “The Wise Men” conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.
November 3, 1783 – The American Continental Army is disbanded.
1957 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter orbit, a dog named Laika.
1979 – Greensboro massacre: Five members of the Communist Workers Party are shot dead and seven are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis during a “Death to the Klan” rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States.
1986 – Iran–Contra affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been secretly selling weapons to Iran in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda Class 5 (1/3 done!)
Catch Up!
1. What is UP? In the consumerist Sparta, Americans Spent $7 Billion on Halloween.
Andrew Young and John Lewis Opposed BLM below.
No need to post the school-child body slam video–its nearly 50 years, or 300 years, on.
The Alan Lomax Sound Archive Now Online: Features 17,000 Blues & Folk Recordings
www.openculture.com/2012/03/the_alan_lomax_music_archive_now_online.html
Arresting Oaxaca Teacher unionists http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-arrests-4-members-teachers-union-oaxaca-state-162110075.html
2. Picking up from where we left off from Class 4–the ontology of social being. Questions about where capitalism comes from or what it is?
3. What is racism and why does it persist?
Below: www.businessinsider.com/huge-black-white-gap-in-life-expectancy-in-us-2014-8
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery/resources/facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery
4. Prof Devine Chapters 4 and 5 in American Story
5. What is a revolution, why do people make them–and what causes them to win? (Revolutions that lose are insurrections).
6. Remember the highly educational videos the night before Thanksgiving!
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Authors unknown – a number of versions©1700s
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
[Seventeenth century protest against English enclosures]
Sometimes history judges people–no reset!
Lynndie England: “England held the rank of Specialist while serving in Iraq. Along with other soldiers, she was found guilty of inflicting sexual, physical and psychological abuse on Iraqi prisoners of war….She was paroled on March 1, 2007, after serving 521 days…
“…In 2013, following her release, she stated that she did not regret her actions. “Their (Iraqis’) lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” she said. “They weren’t innocent. They’re trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”…..
“No officers have gone to trial, though several received administrative punishment.” (wiki)
Sy Hersh on Abu Ghraib http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib
October 28
Wiki: “1492 – Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba on his first voyage to the New World.” NOT!!! Wiki! Problem!
1775 – American Revolutionary War: A British proclamation forbids residents from leaving Boston.
1962 – End of Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.
1964 – Vietnam War: U.S. officials deny any involvement in bombing North Vietnam.
2005 – Plame affair: Lewis Libby, Vice-president Dick Cheney‘s chief of staff, is indicted in the Valerie Plame case. Libby resigns later that day.
https://vid.me/SzO/who-killed-vincent-chin-1987
Pending ?s and issues:
Why is oil (or rubber) so important? Done sufficiently?
How shall we treat religion? Done sufficiently?
What is nationalism? Done sufficiently?
What is racism?
What is democracy? A republic?
What is feudalism?
What is capitalism?
What is imperialism?
What/Why revolutions?
Federalism?
Why all the financial crises?
Why the Taliban, AQ, IS?
What is the strategy of guerrilla war, or the “Fabian approach,” or the “war of the flea.”
Whither China?
What of the USSR and Russia?
Vietnam?
What is socialism?
Communism?
Fascism?
Why have government?
What is Terrorism?
How to go to college, and pick one?
Who Rules San Diego?
What of resistance? Occupy. Anti-tuition hike. Anti-war. Unions.
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda 4
1. What is UP???
What is up #2–No, no fly zone in Syria. US raids. Arming Kurds. Senator Lindsay Graham: “That is a half-assed strategy.” What is the US” grand strategy?
What’s up #3: Detroit on lockdown! It’s Halloween.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTWwY8Ok5I0
Agenda item #2–review–what is imperialism via Rosa Luxemburg, Williams, Johnson, Lenin.
“ABC for Baby Patriots” 19th Century Britain
“C is for colonies, rightly we boast
That of all the great nations,
Britain has most”
Brit Lugard: “Rule through and by the natives.”
Ozymandias
Percy Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.
Agenda item #3–What is capitalism? via our fond friend, Henry Ford. Well, also Karl Marx.
https://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/what_is_marxism.php
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3
Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. ~African Proverb
“Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.”
Line from British poem
Class Three, 26 October (1/5 done at end!)
October 26
1774 – The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia.
1775 – King George III of Great Britain goes before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion, and authorized a military response to quell the American Revolution.
1776 – Benjamin Franklin departs from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution.
1967 – Mohammad Reza Pahlavi crowns himself Emperor of Iran and then crowns his wife Farah Empress of Iran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvM0x3I_7LY
1947 – Hillary Rodham Clinton, American lawyer and politician, 44th First Lady of the United States born!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwXU-_r19w4
If you wish to watch a video of early America where the details are mostly correct, but the standpoint utterly wrong, watch this http://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us/videos
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda
1. What IS up? What key issues must we address (list below)? Farm work/factory work. Truckers in LA strike docks. UAW Sellout at FCA and Government Motors. Ford is next. Israel/Palestine and the Salem Witches. How shall we treat religion?
1.5– Questions about the syllabus (note the “resources I check” link) and “thanksgiving”
2. The Master/Slave contradiction continued (from syllabus)
3. What is feudalism?
4. The invasions of the Americas: Spain vs the rest of Europe. What is imperialism? See Luxemburg (German Marxist) linked to syllabus.
5. Conquest; The Aztecs and mezo-America (why so easy? Strengths and Weaknesses of both sides? examining contradictions…)
6. The Spanish inquisition (See also “The Grand Inquisitor”, Dostoyevsky). How to treat Religion?
7. US into the early 1700’s.
Pending ?s and issues:
Why is oil (or rubber) so important? Done sufficiently?
How shall we treat religion? Done sufficiently?
What is racism?
What is democracy?
What is feudalism?
What is capitalism?
What is imperialism?
Why all the financial crises?
Why the Taliban, AQ, IS?
What is the strategy of guerrilla war, or the “Fabian approach,” or the “war of the flea.”
Whither China?
What of the USSR and Russia?
Vietnam?
What is socialism?
Communism?
Fascism?
Why have government?
What is Terrorism?
How to go to college, and pick one?
What of resistance? Ocuppy. Anti-tuition hike. Anti-war. Unions.
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Class Two October 21
Why are things as they are? People make their own histories, but not in circumstances they choose.
“History does not erase grievances but lays them about like Landmines.” Marx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nH5iPgNkoY
October 20 2011 Ghadaffi Assassinated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmxIcJJd_ss
October 21 1097 – First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch.
October 21 1944 – World War II: The first kamikaze attack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E93P_meu5aU
1957 – Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
1967 – Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, D.C. and seized the Pentagon.
The Vietnam Wars 1954-1980 and Beyond
http://www.richgibson.com/vietnam/
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the Communist nation.
October 23, 1983 US invades Grenada
The Last Prisoners of the Cold War Are Black: The Grenada 17
http://richgibson.com/GrenadaSpeech.htm
Commissioner Winston Courtney, Grenada, Richmond Hill Prison
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda Class TWO
1. What IS up? Quick today. Lots to do. Refugee/migrant crisis! Why? Who is burning black churches near Ferguson? CIA Director hacked! IS releases new execution videos. Where’s Chapo? Where are the 43 students of Mexico? Putin meets Assad in Kremlin.
2. Recap “Why Have School?”
Examining contradictions–seeking the material base.
Regimented Curriculum and High Stakes Tests to Promote Equality?
School reform absent social and economic reform?
What about the Jeffersonian ideas of citizens in a democracy?
What democracy? What does it mean?
Real or false hope?
What, really, is the education agenda?
Extension, not an assignment but an offering: Why have school?
Students and Teachers! The Unasked Question: Why Have School?
3. Review of the syllabus….I expect you to have read the links….Questions?
4. What is History? Why bother?
5. Spotting lies and how to think!
6. Plato’s Cave.
7. The Masters and the Slaves
Pending Issues
Why is oil (or rubber) so important?
How shall we treat religion?
What is racism?
What is democracy?
What is feudalism?
What is capitalism?
What is imperialism?
Why all the financial crises?
Why the Taliban, AQ, IS?
What is the strategy of guerrilla war, or the “Fabian approach,” or the “war of the flea.”
Whither China?
What of the USSR and Russia?
Vietnam?
What is socialism?
Communism?
Fascism?
Why have government?
How to go to college, and pick one?
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Class 1
Why Are things as they are? People make their own histories, but not in circumstances they chose. “We can comprehend and change the world.” (Gibson)
October 19th 1781 – At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’ sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau.
1812 – Napoleon Bonaparte retreats from Moscow.
1950 – The People’s Republic of China joins the Korean War by sending thousands of troops across the Yalu River to fight United Nations (really US) forces.
2003 – Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65JxnUW7Wk4
2005 – Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmlaPQOtDbQ
Our Phantasmagoric Agenda
1. What’s up? Very brief today but more on Wednesday.
2. Introductions: Gibson; Students, Gibson again
* Gibson, PhD Penn State, MA Labor History, Wayne State, MSW Wayne State, Emeritus Professor San Diego State—Lecturer SWC.
*Students: Who are you? From where? Last school? Why take this class? Curious About?
*Gibson Part Two: Curious about—and then beautiful Detroit to San Diego
3. Why have school? An exercise in examining contradictions and finding a material base.
*What are the main things going on in school ?
*What are the main things going on in society?
*What might your answers have to do with each other?
4. Quick look at the syllabus and how to find it.
We will review it in detail on Wednesday. Two key points: This class moves very, very fast. Don’t fall behind. It will be nearly impossible to catch up. Review the plan on the syllabus, make a schedule and keep it.
Secondly, you are responsible for your own education. If someone stole your education, steal it back. Note that you have reading assignments: links on the syllabus!
Students and Teachers! The Unasked Question: Why Have School?