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 Our Phantasmagoric Agenda! #8 Nov 10

Diderot died in 1784 on eve of French Revolution

1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads the Coup of 18 Brumaire ending the Directory government, and becoming one of its three Consuls (Consulate Government).

1851 – Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.

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.

Below–Roosevelt portrayed in the comedy “Arsenic and Old Lace”

1935 – The Congress of Industrial Organizations is founded in Atlantic City, New Jersey, by eight trade unions belonging to the American Federation of Labor.

Counterfeit Unionism in the Empire  

Counterfeit Unionism in the Empire

1960 – Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Company, the first non-Ford to serve in that post. A month later, he resigned to join the administration of newly elected John F. Kennedy.

1965 – A Catholic Worker Movement member, Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.

1989 – Fall of the Berlin Wall. East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel to West Berlin.

https://youtu.be/6mnKJpvTntk

Above, not a happy times movie

Our Agenda #8 (at the end the class, more than 1/2 way done–keep up!)

1. What is up?

a. Great college opportunity: 

What is Semester at Sea?

On average, each voyage travels:

• 10-12 destinations
• 4 continents
• 20,000-25,000 nautical miles
• 100-105 days

b.

Queen Offers to Restore British Rule Over United States

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/queen-offers-to-restore-british-rule-over-united-states?mbid=social_facebook

c. Election! Again! Oh NO! 

Between the Occasional Calms of Democracy: Stratfor

https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/between-occasional-calms-democracy?utm_campaign=LL_Content_Digest&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=37247044&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9O6A_A-2fY7pavARfJiUvQZBBCXkLU_RGZrf2N2wPc1qdcB3ewnwGwY0itceB67asRxmgcWEy3284iOez6-_OnRmBHFg&_hsmi=37246354

2. Reminder: what is capitalism via the IWW and Professor Ollman and Gibson too!

3. You should have read Sun Tzu. Discussion! How to deal with this 2000 year old philosopher of war?

4. Prof Devine through chapter 9 (American Story) (capitalism and slavery……

5. College Advice from Gibson:

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. Attend class! Five minutes early–at least!
*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.”

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Our Phantasmagoric Agenda! #7 Nov 8

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”  (Fields as MaCawber in “David Copperfield”)

November 7th is more fun than the 8th

On November 7th, 1917 (new calendar) the Bolshevik Party of Russia led by Vladimir Illych Lenin completed the second phase of the Russian Revolution.

Below, clip from movie “Reds”

Above, James Layfayette, enslaved by the Armistad family in Virginia, served as a spy for US ally Marquis de Lafayette. James Lafayette infiltrated the British camps under Cornwallis and provided key information which assisted the Americans in the final defeat of the British at Yorktown. About 5000 slaves fought on the side of the Americans. Numbers on how many people escaped to the British side are, I believe, uncertain.

1837 – In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time.

1919 – The first Palmer Raid is conducted on the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists are arrested in twenty-three different U.S. cities.

1912

A Fight for Free Speech in San Diego

The radical interaction between the working members of a community and the owners of production and capital in modern times have been, in the words of one historian, a streak that “runs through the fabric of American history like a color through a plaid: sometimes dim, sometimes bold, but always a part of the design.” Indeed the Free Speech Fight in San Diego that was waged throughout most of 1912 by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was one of this streak’s boldest moments, and yet stands alone in its bitter excess and consequences, causing one to question its place in the larger quilted design of labor conflict. The events of 1912 in San Diego demonstrate more than a fight for free speech, however. They indicate the power of big business leaders in their ability to overcome labor in vying for public sympathy, which both forces demanded for their respective plights. In utilizing the press which they owned, capital was able to mobilize citizens against the IWW, who were eager to address the issue themselves as Wobblie tactics in jail and court overcrowding left the city essentially powerless.  …

On March fourth the San Diego Evening Tribune lambasted the protesters; “Hanging is none too good for them and they would be much better dead; for they are absolutely useless in the human economy; they are the waster material of creation and should be drained off in the sewer of oblivion there to rot in cold obstruction like any other excrement.” The following day the paper clearly demanded that someone take action. 

https://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/DJones2005

1944 – Soviet spy Richard Sorge, a half-Russian, half-German World War I veteran, is hanged by his Japanese captors along with 34 of his ring.

1973 – The United States Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon‘s veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.

2000 – Controversial US presidential election that is later resolved in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Case.

2004 – Iraq War: The interim government of Iraq calls for a 60-day “state of emergency” as U.S. forces storm the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

Our Phantasmagoric Agenda #7 (About 1/2 way done!!!)

1. What’s UP?

Electoral Spectacle:

https://youtu.be/nYvF1FtoZu4

Having won the 1964 election against the “War Hawk” Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson quickly escalated the war on Vietnam which lead to the death of around 3 million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians and nearly 60,000 American troops with, perhaps, 300,000 sick (agent Orange, etc) and wounded.

NY Times (11/6) Hillary Clinton has an 84% chance to win.  

ISIS counter-attacks in Mosul as fierce fighting rages

ISIL fighters launched ferocious counter-attacks on Saturday in territory Iraqi special forces captured in Mosul’s eastern edges, highlighting the tough battle ahead as troops push into densely populated neighbourhoods.

Fighters from the armed group emerged from deeper in the city to target Iraqi soldiers with mortars and suicide car bombs. They also attacked the southern edge of the Gogjali district, which Iraqi forces declared “liberated” earlier this week, pushing back some gains.

Street battles continued with both sides firing mortar rounds and automatic weapons at each other’s positions, while Iraqi troops also responded with artillery.

Clashes were most intense in the al-Bakr neighbourhood. Sniper duels played out from rooftops in the mostly residential areas, where the majority of buildings are two stories high.

Lieutenant-Colonel Saad Alwan, from Iraq’s counter-terrorism unit, told Al Jazeera the street battles were ferocious.

“We’re facing fierce resistance, they’re digging trenches and using car bombs,” Alwan said.  www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/isil-counter-attacks-mosul-fierce-fighting-rages-161105194328137.html

Just to be fair and balanced:

Above a parody of the Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymous Bosch

2. Professor Devine–Chapter 8–Growing Capital, Empire and a More Powerful Central Government (remember–EXCEPT FOR SLAVERY)

Part Two: The Interlude as Contradictions Build in Empire, Nationalism, and Democracy

The US Constitution (remember “economic interpretation”) was ratified when a ninth state. New Hampshire, ratified it on June 21, 1788.

The Constitution underlined the conservative side of what was otherwise a radical, fairly egalitarian, revolution (as in citizens vs monarchs and tyrants).

The struggle for power: Thomas Jefferson (backed French Revolution) below

Federalist Madison below (favored aristocracy and slave owner)

Alexander Hamilton below (favored aristocracy and a privately held national bank, somewhat like today’s Federal Reserve–backed slavers’ constitution)

We are witnessing the early stages of capitalism rooted in US slavery and British textiles.

So, what is capitalism?

Review: How things change…..

below, famous image of the French revolution.

Back to the ground: The French Revolution (remember Lafayette and Paine)

Leaders of the French Revolution wrote and adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man:

Article I – Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good.

Article II – The goal of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression.

Article III – The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual can exert authority which does not emanate expressly from it.

Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.

Article V – The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order.

Article VI – The law is the expression of the general will. All the citizens have the right of contributing personally or through their representatives to its formation. It must be the same for all, either that it protects, or that it punishes. All the citizens, being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities, places and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents.

 

George Washington declared US neutrality. France declared war on Britain, sought to involve US via ambassador Genet–who failed.

The young empire was moving west. Mad Anthony Wayne, a top officer in the revolution, was assigned by Washington as a key Indian fighter. He is heroized all over Michigan and the mid-west.

Whiskey Rebellion—western Pa–Hamilton’s excise tax on whiskey, farmers etc raised a militia to not pay. 15,000 US troops go after them. They vanish. Washington blames Republicans. Jefferson claims the rebellion was Hamilton’s plot to kill Republicans with Army. He opposed standing army. 

Washington’s farewell address…written by Hamilton

*built Federalism, nationalism.

*Opposed forming political parties and sectionalism.

*Urged a balanced federal budget.

*Take advantage of geographic isolation and avoid foreign entanglements.

*Set tradition of two terms…Washington had rejected titles like “His Exalted Majesty,” still so common, in favor of “President of the United States.” Some presidents, like Reagan, sought to raise the level of formality for the presidency, while others, like Carter, rejected formalities.

Crushing Dissent for National Security–
*1798 Army formed. Washington is General. Demands Hamilton as #2. Only Federalists became officers. Jefferson opposes standing army.
*1798–Alien and Sedition Acts. To silence Republicans.

*Alien Enemies Act give prez wartime powers to expel. Remains in power, slightly revised, today.
*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.

Real repression followed. Federalists arrest 17 people. Matthew Lyon jailed. Elected to congress.

Compare this to today’s Patriot Act and NDAA.

Adams dodged war with France, cost him re-election

1800–Jefferson/Burr tied in Electoral College, resolved in 1804 when EC casts separate ballots. Federalists shift support to Jefferson.

1800—no riots, no coup—-“extremism is dangerous to democracy” What was the revo if not extreme?????????

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Our Phantasmagoric Agenda! #6 Nov 3

Be Sure to SIGN In!

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

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” Desmond Tutu

November 2 (just more interesting than Nov 3!)

Notice! SWC has a food pantry on main campus: Room 554. Don’t go hungry!   http://www.swccd.edu/index.aspx?page=3653

1917 – The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparation and carrying out the Russian Revolution, holds its first meeting.

Below, Lenin–Trotsky erased from photo by Joe Stalin, Soviet Dictator

above, Leon Trotsky (aka “the Pen) led the revolutionary Red Army during the Russian Revolution, murdered in Mexico on Stalin’s orders.

above, airbrushed image of Joe Stalin with hammer and cycle representing the unity of workers and peasants.

1963 – South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.

1965 – Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.

https://youtu.be/Ev2dEqrN4i0

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.

Whoever Wins–It’s Perpetual War and your side is losing Here’s Why

by Rich Gibson

October 2016

http://richgibson.com/suntzu.htm

Our Agenda

1. What IS Up?  The Spider and the Fly–a classic!

a. Bill Clinton, the Marc Rich pardon, Eric Holder, and the FBI

b. Election soon to be OVER!!! Meanwhile, Engels on the State from ‘Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State’:
“The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it “the reality of the ethical idea,” “the image and reality of reason,” as Hegel maintains (Grunlinken der Philosophie des Rechts, § 257 and § 360). Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms and classes with conflicting economic interests might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power seemingly standing above society that would alleviate the conflict, and keep it within the bounds of “order” ; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state.”

above Engels (left) and Marx

Remember: For all that follows–“except for SLAVERY”

2. Run-up to the American Revolution and the Revo!

Incidents and Acts that Inflamed the Colonialists

(Quantity into Quality–then a Leap!)

Boston Massacre and the battles of Lexington and Concord (local militias grow)

Molasses and Sugar Taxes: massive tax evasion in colony (whisky!)

*Tea Act–tax on tea

*Stamp Act–tax on all documents

*Quartering Act–must house British Troops

*Impressment–forced into service of the British military, usually Navy

*Coercive Acts–(aka “Intolerable Acts) 1774  –Administration of Justice Act, was aimed at protecting British officials charged with capital offenses during law enforcement by allowing them to go to England or another colony for trial. The fourth Coercive Act included new arrangements for housing British troops in occupied American dwellings, thus reviving the indignation that surrounded the earlier Quartering Act, which had been allowed to expire in 1770.

Note Today’s US’ Status of Forces Agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_forces_agreement

*Corrupt British Tax officials

After French and Indian War, Brits demanded Americans not move beyond the Appalachians. (George Washington owned land beyond the Appalachians)

Enlightenment Ideology vs Tyranny (Monarchs) tied to the promise of FREEDOM and EQUALITY (a la Chalmers Johnson “On Revolution)

Declaration of Independence! Read it ALL!

This man read it!See how the US press portrayed him

Declaration of Independence for Vietnam: (1945–end of WWII)

“All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of the French Revolution made in 1791 also states: All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.
Those are undeniable truths.
Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice.
In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty.

They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, Center, and South of Vietnam in order to destroy our national unity and prevent our people from being united.
They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slaughtered our patriots; they have drowned our uprisings in bloodbaths.
They have fettered public opinion; they have practiced obscurantism against our people.
To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.
In the field of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people and devastated our land.
They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolized the issuing of bank notes and the export trade.”

US’ Revolutionary Grand Strategy-Split from England–self government )by a new ruling class per Zinn)

Strategy–mobilize masses of people behind the ideas and promises of the revo (Zinn believes this was an elites’ trick)

Tactics: various forms of guerrilla war (Sun Tzu or Indian Warfare) matched by occasional frontal war–persevere!

Organizations of the revolutionaries: Sons of Liberty–Committees of Correspondence–Continental Army-Later a Fleet.

Key Battles of the Revolution (see Devine and Zinn too!)

Christmas 1776–Valley Forge–Washington crosses the Delaware River and attacks Hessian mercenaries–boosting revolutionary morale throughout the 13 colonies–proofs the Redcoats could be defeated.

The Swamp Fox General Francis Marion fought a guerrilla war (Americans wrongly call him the father of guerrilla war) with an integrated (enslaved people, Indians, freed men, white peasants) in the Carolinas for much of the revolution. While Washington was stalled around New York, Marion kept up the fight! Marion was instrumental in keeping the unity of the northern and southern colonies.

Battle of Saratoga (September-October 1777) Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne lost to American forces convincing the French the revolution could win–and they entered the war.

October 19 1781: Cornwallis Surrenders at Yorktown

Skirmishing continued but in effect the British empire was defeated

Articles of Confederation (1781 ratified): a loose alliance of the states with:

*No national tax system

*difficult to raise army to repress local rebels

*difficult to conduct national affairs

*No executive branch but departments of war, finance

*States issue own currency–rely on hard money (gold, silver, etc)

*Soldiers from Continental Army not being paid $ due–rebellious

James Madison + Alexander Hamilton write the Federalist Papers–there is too much democracy–seeks powerful central government. How shall we prevent rule of the majority? (Part 10) 

Madison below

Shays Rebellion, vs debt, foreclosures, taxes, defeated.

“The uprising in Massachusetts began in the summer of 1786. The rebels tried to capture the federal arsenal at Springfield and harassed leading merchants, lawyers, and supporters of the state government. The state militia, commanded by Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, crushed the rebels in several engagements in the winter of 1787. Shays and the other principal figures of the rebellion fled first to Rhode Island and then to Vermont.”

The Slavers’ Constitution and the Beard Interpretation:

Philadelphia Convention 1787–held in secrecy. 3/5 compromise to keep national unity
return fugitive slaves.
25 of 55 framers owned slaves

3 Branches of US Government (typically “Checks and balances”)

Electoral College to make sure voters got it right.

Bill of Rights. Result of antifederalist work.

Federalists, rich—antifeds poor.

Life, liberty and ——PROPERTY

Huge propaganda campaign to ratify:
States ratify by 1790

BILL OF RIGHTS

Devine, “people had learned that they are sovereign” Huh????

We are witnessing the birth of modern capitalism and empire (born in slave-produced cotton and English mills)

Remember –EXCEPT for SLAVERY

So, What is Capitalism?

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Be Sure to SIGN IN!!!!

Our Phantasmagoric Agenda!  #5 November 1

“If voting mattered; they wouldn’t let us do it.” Director of the National Education Association’s PAC to me.

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. ~African Proverb

November 1

1765 – The British Parliament enacts the Stamp Act on the Thirteen Colonies in order to help pay for British military operations in North America.

1800 – John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).

1894 – Thomas Edison films American sharpshooter Annie Oakley, which is instrumental in her hiring by Buffalo Bill for his Wild West Show.

1941 – American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.

1950 – Pope Pius XII claims papal infallibility when he formally defines the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. (Before he became Pope, XII negotiated the “Concordat” with Mussolini, the Italian fascist.

Below, Mussolini before

Below, Mussolini after

1973 – Watergate scandal: Leon Jaworski is appointed as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.

Agenda 5 (almost 1/3 done)

1. More on What is Racism (reminder).

a. Innate inferiority–sub-species

b. Indelible difference—cannot change

c. linked to power and control–that is–divide and rule for profits (racism is born alongside early capitalism although it has origins in the Spanish Inquisition).

d. Institutionalized in law (vs. intermarriage, etc), social structures (education, housing, etc.) customs (the “curse of Ham in Genesis contradicted by Christian equality before god.

e. Out group cannot hold public posts (slavery through Jim Crow)

f.  Racism means death: “white men with 16 or more years of schooling can expect to live an average of 14 years longer than black men with fewer than 12 years of education.(For white and black women with the same educational differences, that gap was 10 years.)”

g. Crestwood, Mich!

2.  What IS UP??? Pay attention! Thoreau: “To be awake is to be alive.”

a.  Election! What about ME?

OMG Hillary! Pardoned? Precedent? Impeached?

b. Gowdy at 59 seconds

Clinton top advisor, Kissinger, said on CSPAN, “This looks like the run-up to World War 1.”

c. Huge Ballot in CA means long lines at booths!

d. You cannot make this up. Bloomberg news: “With the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul barely begun, the US and its allies say they need to move within weeks on the other remaining Islamic State stronghold, Raqqa in Syria. The trouble is that no one can agree on who should do the actual fighting.”

3.  What was the Enlightenment? Criticize everything. Ask to-the-root questions. Know yourself. Engage, then see.

Link below, the War on Science (15 mins to 25)

https://www.c-span.org/video/?411578-1/war-science

4. What is a revolution? Check out Chalmers Johnson linked on the syllabus. Or here:  http://richgibson.com/johnsonquotes.htm

Below, Jefferson’s slave and paramour, Sally Hemmings

3. Chapter 4 and 5 in American Story -quarreling with Professor Devine.

Below, Sons of Liberty

1st Row: Samuel Adams • Benedict Arnold • John Hancock • Patrick Henry • James Otis, Jr. 2nd Row: Paul Revere • James Swan • Alexander McDougall • Benjamin Rush • Charles Thomson 3rd Row: Joseph Warren • Marinus Willett • Oliver Wolcott • Christopher Gadsden • Haym Salomon Not Pictured: Hercules Mulligan

Below, famous image of the Boston Massacre of 1768

Below, famous image of battle of Lexington and Concord–1775–Washington still refused to declare split

Below, Hessian mercenary–why Americans were taught to hate mercs

Below, SAIC in San Diego

Below, Titan Corp, San Diego

Below, Abu Ghraib prisoner, gratis Titan and CIA and U.S. Army

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Our Phantasmagoric Agenda!  #4 October 27th

Be Sure to SIGN IN!!!!

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

October 27th

2014 – Britain withdraws from Afghanistan after the end of Operation Herrick which started on June 20, 2002 after 12 years four months and seven days.

October 26

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.

1881 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona.

http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/intra/professional/student_work/west_web3/chriss1.htm

1944 – World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends with an overwhelming American victory.

1955 – Ngô Đình Diệm declares himself Premier of South Vietnam.

1967 – Mohammad Reza Pahlavi crowns himself Emperor of Iran and then crowns his wife Farah Empress of Iran.

2001 – The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law. Chalmers Johnson on elements of the Patriot Act which essentially abolished the Bill of Rights, followed by the National Defense Security Act:  http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chalmers_Johnson/Sorrows_Empire_TSOE.html

003 – The Cedar Fire, the second-largest fire in California history, kills 15 people, consumes 250,000 acres (1,000 km²), and destroys 2,200 homes around San Diego.

Notes on Hellfire October 2003

By Rich Gibson
San Diego State University  http://richgibson.com/Fire2003.htm

Agenda 4

1. What IS Up? Pay attention! Tom Hayden is dead-again..

The Chicago Seven (Bobby Seale, chained and gagged in court, made 8)

The Wars on Vietnam

by Rich Gibson   http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/12/the-wars-on-vietnam/

NYC cops take a full page ad defending a “good shoot.”NYTimes wants to bring back bracero program!!!! NO! Gitmo suit fails because he’s not in Gitmo anymore!

NYTimes Wants to Restart the Bracero Program

Where can you NOT vote?

2. Meet Howard Zinn

2.  Chapter 1 in Zinn, People’s History USA.

3.   Chapter 3 in American Story

4.   Chapter 4 in People’s History

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Our Phantasmagoric Agenda!  #3 October 25th

Be Sure to SIGN IN!!!!

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

History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up. ~Voltaire

Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this, – that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. (Hegel)

October 24

1917 – Bolshevik Red Guards began takeover of buildings in Russia, among the first events associated with the October Revolution.

1929 – “Black Thursday” stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday (October 29),the Great Crash, or the Stock Market Crash of 1929, began on October 24, 1929 (“Black Thursday”), and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its aftereffects.The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries (only WWII ended it) WIKI

Lewis Corey:The Decline of American Capitalism

(1934)

If you read the first chapter of this book, you will understand why the Great Depression of 1929 happened.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/corey/1934/decline/

Louis C. Fraina as he appeared in a grainy Bureau of Investigation identification photo.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/photographs/tp/greatdepressionpictures.htm

1975 – In Iceland, 90% of women take part in a national strike, refusing to work in protest of gaps in gender equality.

1990 – Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti reveals to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian “stay-behind” clandestine paramilitary NATO army, which was implicated in false flag terrorist attacks implicating communists and anarchists as part of the strategy of tension from the late 1960s to early 1980s.

2008 – “Bloody Friday” saw many of the world’s stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.

The Great Financial Crisis—Three Years On

Why financial crises, one after the other???? Discussion

Agenda 3

1.     What’s up? Philippines! Detroit schools and reform. The total U.S. budgetary cost of war since 2001 is $4.79 trillion, Tom Hayden is dead.

2. Discuss  Gibson’s Lie Spotters Manual at: http://www.richgibson.com/liespotter.htm

Discuss these links demonstrating my own method of analyzing how things change.

a.    http://www.richgibson.com/diamatoutline.html and

b.     http://www.richgibson.com/scedialectical4.htm

c. we will do the “Master/Slave” exercise on the syllabus

2. 5  Chapter 1 in American Story.

3.   Chapter 2 in American Story.

4. Please read this brief selection on empire http://richgibson.com/twinbirths.html 

By the end of this day, your topic for your first paper should be submitted and approved!!! (fast class, eh?)

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Class Two- Our Phantasmagoric Agenda! Oct. 2oth

Be Sure to SIGN IN!!!!

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

“Money is the Devil’s Dung.” Pope Francis: Head of the Billions of the Vatican Bank

 “History is a prophet who looks back,” Eduardo Galeano

October 19th

1944 – United States forces land in the Philippines.

1950 – The People’s Republic of China joins the Korean War by sending thousands of troops across the Yalu River to fight United Nations forces.es land in the Philippines.

1960 – Cold War: The United States government imposes a near-total trade embargo against Cuba.

1973 – President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.

October 2oth

1935 – The Long March, a mammoth retreat undertaken by the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party a year prior, ends.

MEETING 2 – 10/20

1.     What is up? Mosul! Philippines! Saudis and ISIS. Oh No! The debate! Awful! Let’s ask a radical to the root, question: “Why have government?” What does history say?

2. Why have school? What is the social context? What of school “reform.” This is a demonstration of how I think, seeking the root of things, and the contradictions within.

2. 5  Discussion of syllabus.

3.     Chalmers Johnson (San Diegan author of the great Nemesis trilogy) says that Americans are so unaware of history they cannot connect cause and effect. Is that true? Why, or why not? Proof? What is our social context today?

4.  Please Review Questions for Criticism at: http://www.richgibson.com/QUESTCRI.html  (Save this).

5.    Read my synopsis of Carr’s, “What is History?” at http://richgibson.com/compromisehistory.htm and This key synopsis by me, here: http://richgibson.com/HistoryIs.pdf 

So, really, what is history?

6.     Read Gibson’s Lie Spotters Manual at: http://www.richgibson.com/liespotter.htm

             7.   Read these links demonstrating my own method of analyzing how things change.

a.    http://www.richgibson.com/diamatoutline.html and

b.     http://www.richgibson.com/scedialectical4.htm

c. Watch Plato’s Cave  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTWwY8Ok5I0

            8.    We will work through the Master/Slave exercise here: http://richgibson.com/masterslave.htm

Class One

Why Are Things as they Are?

“We make our own history but not

in circumstances we chose” (Gibson)

Sign in! Sign In! Sign In!

October 7th

15th Anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan. How’s that going? “No nation gains from protracted war.” Sun Tzu

Below, the lone British soldier escapes Afghanistan: 1800’s

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!
Rudyard Kipling  http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/young_british_soldier.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dJf5rO0-BM

October 15th

50th Anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bcubkt6BwY

October 17th–Today

1777 – American Revolutionary War: British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga, New York.

We will ask, soon, “What is a revolution?” How do they win or lose?

1781 – American Revolutionary War: British General Charles, Earl Cornwallis surrenders at the Siege of Yorktown.

1943 – The Holocaust: Sobibór extermination camp is closed. We will discuss: ” What is fascism?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4R53qvwbag

1979 – Mother Teresa is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. (Made Saint, September 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65JxnUW7Wk4

October 18

1860 – The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention of Peking with the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.

1945 – The USSR‘s nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

MEETING 1 – 10/17

1.     Introductions.

a.     Questions:  Who are you? Why are you here?  From? Why take this class? What were you taught about history? How was it taught? Why? What do you remember most clearly? Why?  What are you curious about?

b.     Who is this professor anyway? Credentials.  Dr Rich Gibson, Emeritus Professor, SDSU. Lecturer, SWC. Why I’m here and what I’m curious about.

2.    Why have school–a demonstration of critical, dialectical, thinking: contradictions in the real world.

*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?

3.    What is history?  What are the motive forces of history?

4.     How our class will work? Note the syllabus! Read it! Follow it! We will discuss it in Class #2.

5. Next class: What IS up? What history is going on now?

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