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Ed Webb

Modern art was CIA 'weapon' - World, News - The Independent - 6 views

www.independent.co.uk/...rt-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

CIA ColdWar history art politics US USA UK

shared by Ed Webb on 23 Nov 10 - Cached
  • The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.
  • in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.
  • The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Initially, more open attempts were made to support the new American art. In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled "Advancing American Art", with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert. But the show caused outrage at home, prompting Truman to make his Hottentot remark and one bitter congressman to declare: "I am just a dumb American who pays taxes for this kind of trash." The tour had to be cancelled.
  • This philistinism, combined with Joseph McCarthy's hysterical denunciations of all that was avant-garde or unorthodox, was deeply embarrassing. It discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy. It also prevented the US government from consolidating the shift in cultural supremacy from Paris to New York since the 1930s.
  • If any official institution was in a position to celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that made up the New York School, it was the CIA.
  • Moscow in those days was very vicious in its denunciation of any kind of non-conformity to its own very rigid patterns. And so one could quite adequately and accurately reason that anything they criticised that much and that heavy- handedly was worth support one way or another
  • As president of what he called "Mummy's museum", Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism (which he called "free enterprise painting"). His museum was contracted to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to organise and curate most of its important art shows. The museum was also linked to the CIA by several other bridges. William Paley, the president of CBS broadcasting and a founding father of the CIA, sat on the members' board of the museum's International Programme. John Hay Whitney, who had served in the agency's wartime predecessor, the OSS, was its chairman. And Tom Braden, first chief of the CIA's International Organisations Division, was executive secretary of the museum in 1949.
  • "It was very difficult to get Congress to go along with some of the things we wanted to do - send art abroad, send symphonies abroad, publish magazines abroad. That's one of the reasons it had to be done covertly. It had to be a secret. In order to encourage openness we had to be secret."
  • Would Abstract Expressionism have been the dominant art movement of the post-war years without this patronage? The answer is probably yes. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that when you look at an Abstract Expressionist painting you are being duped by the CIA. But look where this art ended up: in the marble halls of banks, in airports, in city halls, boardrooms and great galleries. For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded.
David Hilton

Is History history? - 35 views

I am creating a site you and your students might enjoy and perhaps add to. ahaafoundation.org is an online course in the history of art around the world. You can jump in anywhere. I would love to f...

history philosophy pedagogy teaching education social studies

started by David Hilton on 23 Dec 09 8 follow-ups, last by David Hilton on 13 Jan 10
Javier E

A Teacher Made a Hitler Joke in the Classroom. It Tore the School Apart. - The New York... - 4 views

www.nytimes.com/...ol-ben-frisch-hitler-joke.html

Quaker joke teacher firing trigger anti-sleep anti-Semitism

shared by Javier E on 17 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • The concepts of “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings,” hotly debated on college campuses for years, are now reaching high schools too
  • the question of what high school students should be exposed to, and protected from, feels murkier in 2018. Today’s high school students are more precocious, more politically engaged, more tuned in to their gender identities and nascent sexuality. They are already flooded with uncensored, unedited information, 24 hours a day: What would a safe space even look like for a 16-year-old with an iPhone?
  • At exclusive private schools like Friends, the question is further complicated by the involvement of wealthy parents. As these schools have grown more expensive — Friends costs nearly $50,000 a year — administrators have found themselves trying to balance their own institutional values with the demands of parents who are in a sense high-paying customers. Teachers are increasingly caught between the two.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • The job of high school teachers is to impart knowledge and deliver measurable results, which requires finding a way to reach, and ideally even inspire, their students.
  • “How would you keep the attention of 15 teenagers and bond with them?” one Friends teacher texted me, insisting on anonymity because of a school policy that discourages teachers from speaking to the media without permission. “You MUST joke and be yourself and connect with them on their terms. It’s the only way to be good at this.”
  • Any teacher who spends three decades in the classroom, speaking extemporaneously for hours on end to a roomful of teenagers, is going to have awkward moments. Frisch might have had more of them, and they may have been a bit more awkward. But that was how he connected, and it was perhaps a way of connecting that is no longer possible. “Everybody knew this guy was off — weird behavior, quirky,” said one parent who, fearing retribution against her child, insisted on anonymity. “Maybe in the ’70s that would have been O.K., but not when you’re paying $45,000 a year in tuition.”
  • There aren’t enough seats in the historically more desirable uptown institutions — Spence, Dalton, Trinity — to meet demand; and for families who live in neighborhoods like the Village, TriBeCa or Battery Park, Friends is a much more convenient option. Friends now sees itself as a competitor to these schools, and in some respects, it has become indistinguishable from them.
  • Even before Frisch’s termination, there was a feeling among some in the Friends community — parents, teachers and especially alumni — that in its race to keep pace with a changing city, the school was losing touch with the Quaker ethos that had long distinguished it.
  • The school’s Quaker identity calls for it to be faithful to its progressive tradition, but in the new age of identity politics, it is not always easy to know what the right stance on a particular issue should be. Just a few months before the Frisch incident, some 20 parents had raised questions about the scheduled speaking engagement of a visiting scholar, Dave Zirin, a sportswriter for the Nation magazine and a Friends alumnus who had been critical of Israel in his writings. In 2012, there were heated objections to a musical performance in the meetinghouse by Gilad Atzmon, an Israel-born saxophonist and self-described “proud, self-hating Jew” who has written that Palestinians were “brutally ethnically cleansed” and suggested that if Israel starts a nuclear war with Iran, “some may be bold enough to argue that Hitler might have been right after all.” The Harvard Law School professor emeritus and noted gadfly Alan Dershowitz publicly criticized Friends — and Lauder personally — for refusing to cancel the appearance.
  • Lauder did not consider the “Heil Hitler” episode a close call. “Personally, I was appalled,” he told me. “I couldn’t imagine, even as a joke — and I grew up watching ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ — that in a class that had nothing to do with history or World War II or Nazism or teaching German language that an incident like that could happen.” I asked Lauder why he felt he needed to go so far as to fire Frisch. “One of our pledges is to make all of our students feel safe,” he replied. “And that is something that I take very, very seriously.”
  • That no one has accused Frisch of being an anti-Semite was beside the point: His invocation of the Nazi salute in a classroom full of high school students, regardless of his intentions, was enough to end his career. On today’s campus, words and symbols can be seen as a form of violence; to many people, engaging in a public debate about the nuances of their power is to tolerate their use.
  • Frisch, who first learned about the claims after his termination, denied ever having told a student to kill himself and said that he had no memory of the inappropriate touching that had been described.
  • we spoke at length about the “Heil Hitler.” Frisch said he was embarrassed, both by the fact that he had made the gesture in the first place and by his subsequent failure to recognize the seriousness of such a lapse in judgment. But he was also surprised by the school’s reaction to it. “I trusted while I was at Friends that because of my long-term commitment to the school, that as I need to change to meet the changing dynamics of the classroom, the school would help me learn and provide the support I needed to make those changes,” he told me.
  • The dynamics of the classroom are changing. These changes are partly specific to the hothouse environment of the campus in 2018. But they also connect to something much bigger. High schools have become genuinely unsafe: The “Heil Hitler” salute happened on the very same day as the Parkland massacre. And beyond the confines of the campus, a crude, violent bigotry that had long seemed part of the distant past has suddenly resurfaced, with neo-Nazis literally marching in the streets. The question now is what do we want our response to this new world to be
  • During the 12 days that he spent in limbo between his suspension and termination, Frisch, in the spirit of the Quaker commitment to reconciliation, drafted a letter of apology to his students that he was never allowed to send. Among other things, he planned to say that he was worried about the rise of anti-Semitism and that he was still learning lessons from his mistake. “You think about things like Charlottesville,” he told me. “Now, we don’t make jokes like this.”
Aaron Shaw

Popular: Did Marie-Antoinette really say "Let them eat cake"? - 10 views

garethrussellpopular.blogspot.com/...antoinette-really-say-let.html

France history revolution memory propaganda Jacobinism royalty class

shared by Aaron Shaw on 30 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • in fact, Marie-Antoinette was a generous patron of charity and other members of the royal family were often embarrassed or irritated by her habit of bursting into tears when she heard of the plight of the suffering poor. There's also a problem with dates. During Louis the Sixteenth's time as king, there was only one case of bread shortages in Paris and that was shortly after his coronation. Marie-Antoinette was eighteen at the time and when she heard about the people's unhappiness at the food situation, she wrote a letter about it back to her mother in Austria, in which she said, "We are more obliged than ever to work for the people's happiness. The King seems to understand this truth; as for myself, I know that in my whole life (even if I live for a hundred years) I shall never forget". Marie-Antoinette's personality therefore seems to have been the exact opposite of someone who would joke about the starving poor.
  • The story of a princess joking "let them eat cake" had actually been told many years before Marie-Antoinette ever arrived in France, as a young princess of fourteen in 1770. Her brother-in-law, the Count of Provence, who hated her, later said that he heard the story as a child, long before his brother ever married Marie-Antoinette. The count claimed that the version he heard was that the woman who made the comment had been his great-great-great grandmother, Maria-Teresa of Spain, who advised peasants to eat pie crust (or brioche) during bread shortages. A French socialite, the Countess of Boigne, said she'd heard that it had been Louis the Sixteenth's bitter aunt, Princess Victoria, and the great philosopher, Rousseau, wrote that he had heard the "let them eat cake" story about an anonymous great princess. Rousseau wrote this story in 1737 - eighteen years before Marie-Antoinette was even born!
    • Aaron Shaw
      Aaron Shaw on 01 May 12
       
      This is quite interesting. Many of my AP Euro students enjoy thinking it was the queen. This will give them something to "chew" on, and allow for a teachable moment. As another great Philosophe suggested we should accept nothing as truth except our own existance.
  • Others think that because the French Revolution was able to dress itself up as the force that brought freedom and equality to Europe, it had to justify its many acts of violence and terror. Executing Marie-Antoinette at the age of thirty-seven and leaving her two children as shivering, heart-broken orphans in the terrifying Temple prison, suggested that the Revolution was a lot more complicated than its supporters like to claim. However, if Marie-Antoinette is painted as stupid, deluded, out-of-touch, spoiled and selfish, then we're likely to feel a lot less pity when it comes to studying her death. If that was the republicans' intention, then they did a very good job. Two hundred years later and the poor woman is still stuck with a terrible reputation, and a catchphrase, that she certainly doesn't deserve.
  • Ed Webb on 01 May 12
     
    As a student and teacher of, among other things, propaganda and censorship, I think this is a great example for students to play with in thinking about how 'truth' gets established, politically and historically. In discussing nationalism I often talk about the importance of political myth in establishing identities, and here is a powerful example of a myth that became hegemonic.
HistoryGrl14 .

Internet History Sourcebooks - 8 views

www.fordham.edu/...aztecs1.asp

primary source primary sources exploration world history

shared by HistoryGrl14 . on 20 Oct 13 - No Cached
David Hilton liked it
  • HistoryGrl14 . on 20 Oct 13
     
    "A Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico In 1519 Hernan Cortés sailed from Cuba, landed in Mexico and made his way to the Aztec capital. Miguel Leon­Portilla, a Mexican anthropologist, gathered accounts by the Aztecs, some of which were written shortly after the conquest. Speeches of Motecuhzoma and Cortés When Motecuhzoma [Montezuma] had given necklaces to each one, Cortés asked him: "Are you Motecuhzoma? Are you the king? Is it true that you are the king Motecuhzoma?" And the king said: "Yes, I am Motecuhzoma." Then he stood up to welcome Cortés; he came forward, bowed his head low and addressed him in these words: "Our lord, you are weary. The journey has tired you, but now you have arrived on the earth. You have come to your city, Mexico. You have come here to sit on your throne, to sit under its canopy. "The kings who have gone before, your representatives, guarded it and preserved it for your coming. The kings Itzcoatl, Motecuhzoma the Elder, Axayacatl, Tizoc and Ahuitzol ruled for you in the City of Mexico. The people were protected by their swords and sheltered by their shields. "Do the kings know the destiny of those they left behind, their posterity? If only they are watching! If only they can see what I see! "No, it is not a dream. I am not walking in my sleep. I am not seeing you in my dreams.... I have seen you at last! I have met you face to face! I was in agony for five days, for ten days, with my eyes fixed on the Region of the Mystery. And now you have come out of the clouds and mists to sit on your throne again. "This was foretold by the kings who governed your city, and now it has taken place. You have come back to us; you have come down from the sky. Rest now, and take possession of your royal houses. Welcome to your land, my lords! " When Motecuhzoma had finished, La Malinche translated his address into Spanish so that the Captain could understand it. Cortés replied in his str
Aaron Shaw

Wikiwog - The Enlightenment - 13 views

wikiwog.wikispaces.com/The+Enlightenment

enlightenment history TheEnlightenment

shared by Aaron Shaw on 14 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Aaron Shaw on 14 Jan 11
     
    "The Enlightenment was the period of time during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked by the increased use of reason to answer philosophical questions. It was characteristic of the people during this time to remain skeptical of the truths that previous generations had believed in. They believed that it was their job to "enlighten the masses" in order to improve society. As an enlightened society, it would be much easier to prevent poverty and oppression in society. Enlightenment philosophers also believed that once society was engaged in reason and knowledge it would only be a short time before humanity as a whole would make great progress."
Deven Black

Civil War Poetry And Music - zZounds.com - 5 views

www.zzounds.com/edu--civilwarmusic

Poetry music music_history Civil_War American_history c19th america

shared by Deven Black on 07 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Deven Black on 07 Oct 09
     
    "Millions of Americans fought and died during the Civil War, and the legacy of the Civil War remains in the poetry and music left behind. Music was used extensively during the Civil War as a means of inspiring loyalty among the troops, and as a source of inspiration and motivation during marching. Poetry was written to encourage unity, to document the experiences of soldiers, and to share women's place in the war. Bands on both sides would frequently borrow songs and lyrics from the other side, using them as parodies. One such tune was "Dixie", though the song was created some period of time before the Civil War, it gained in popularity during this time. "Dixie" originally tells the story of a freed black slave yearning to return home to the simple life of the plantation, both the North and South however, created their own wartime versions. "The Battle Cry of Freedom" and "Home Sweet Home" also featured both Union and Confederate versions. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The Southern Cross," were poems that were later set to music."
Mr Maher

Illuminating Reno's Divorce Industry | Reno Divorce History - 2 views

renodivorcehistory.org

US History II USII Unit 5: Great Depression digitization

shared by Mr Maher on 02 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Mr Maher on 02 Jan 17
     
    Our students know that divorce is part of life, yet it is not a part of their history courses, it is rarely, if ever mentioned. Divorce has a history all of it's own, and many, many American's lives were shaped by it. In the early 1900s, the ability to obtain a legal divorce was difficult and in some instances, required relocation to a jurisdiction that offered liberal divorce laws. Although Las Vegas, Nevada might be known for quick marriages, it was in Reno, Nevada that legal divorces were available to residents who there for only six weeks. This online exhibit organized by Special Collections at the University of Nevada, Reno, Libraries, presents documents from the city's heyday as the divorce capital of the United States.
  • Mr Maher on 02 Jan 17
     
    Our students know that divorce is part of life, yet it is not a part of their history courses, it is rarely, if ever mentioned. Divorce has a history all of it's own, and many, many American's lives were shaped by it. In the early 1900s, the ability to obtain a legal divorce was difficult and in some instances, required relocation to a jurisdiction that offered liberal divorce laws. Although Las Vegas, Nevada might be known for quick marriages, it was in Reno, Nevada that legal divorces were available to residents who there for only six weeks. This online exhibit organized by Special Collections at the University of Nevada, Reno, Libraries, presents documents from the city's heyday as the divorce capital of the United States.
HistoryGrl14 .

Internet History Sourcebooks - 5 views

www.fordham.edu/...1542newlawsindies.asp

primary source primary sources exploration world history

shared by HistoryGrl14 . on 20 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • HistoryGrl14 . on 20 Oct 13
     
    "The New Laws of the Indies, 1542 The Laws and ordinances newly made by His Majesty for the government of the Indies and good treatment and preservation of the Indians created a set of pro-Indian laws - so pro-Indian that they some had to be revoked in Mexico and in Peru due to settler opposition. where the viceroy was killed when he attempted to enforce them. The conflict was between "feudalists" who favored the encomienda system because it maintained society as in the Old World, and the more centralizing "regalists" who wanted to preserve royal power in Spain;s new Empire. Eventually the encomienda was allowed to continue. Charles by the divine clemency Emperor ever august, King of Germany. . . . To the Most Illustrious Prince Don Philip our very dear and very beloved grandson and son, and to the Infantes our grandsons and sons, and to the President, and those of our Council of the Indies, and to our Viceroys, Presidents and Auditors of our Audiencias and royal Chanceries of our said Indies, Islands and Continent of the Ocean Sea; to our Governors, Alcaldes mayores and our other Authorities thereof, and to all the Councils, magistrates, regidores, knights, esquires, officers, and commoners of all the cities, towns, and villages of our said Indies, Islands, and Tierra-firme of the Ocean Sea, discovered and to be discovered; and to any other persons, captains, discoverers, settlers, and inhabitants dwelling in and being natives thereof, of whatever state, quality, condition and pre-eminence they may be. . . . Know ye, That having for many years had will and intention as leisure to occupy ourselves with the affairs of the Indies, on account of their great importance, as well in that touching the service of God our Lord and increase of his holy Catholic faith, as in the preservation of the natives of those parts, and the good government and preservation of their persons; and although we have endeavoured
Aaron Shaw

Raphael Renaissance Painter Biography - 6 views

raphaelbiography.com

painter raphael renaissance history Italy

shared by Aaron Shaw on 16 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Aaron Shaw on 16 Sep 10
     
    "Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino was born either on April 6 or March 28 of 1483 and died on April 6, 1520. Today he is known simply as Raphael. He was an architect and Italian painter of the High Renaissance. He was celebrated for the grace and the perfection of his drawings and of his paintings."
spoutnik ogik

The Holocaust by bullets - Shoah Memorial - Paris - 10 views

www.memorialdelashoah.org/...en_index.htm

holocaust history germany russia documents c20th

shared by spoutnik ogik on 24 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • spoutnik ogik on 24 Nov 10
     
    Between 1941 and 1944, almost one and a half million Ukrainian Jews were assassinated when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The immense majority was killed by Einsatzgruppen firing squads (mobile execution units in the East), Waffen SS units, the German police and local collaborators. Only a small minority was assassinated after having been deported to extermination camps. Since 2004, Father Patrick Desbois and the Yahad-In Unum research team regularly travel across the regions of Ukraine, intent on identifying and assessing every site in eastern and western Ukraine in which Jews were exterminated by mobile Nazi units during World War II.The exhibition at the Shoah Memorial, from the 20th of June, 2007 to the 6th of January, 2008, presents their ongoing research. By reconstituting the assassins' procedural methods, it provides one with a better understanding of how the genocide of Eastern European Jews was actually put into practice. It has finally become possible to preserve and respect the victims' burial places
Kay Cunningham

The National Archives | DocumentsOnline | Poor Law Union and Workhouse records - 0 views

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...workhouse.asp

Archives documents history

shared by Kay Cunningham on 24 Mar 10 - Cached
David Hilton liked it
  • Kay Cunningham on 24 Mar 10
     
    'The Poor Law Amendment Act was introduced in 1834, centralising the poor relief administrative system. Previously, poor relief had been largely the responsibility of the parish. Expenditure had risen during the Napoleonic Wars and local rate payers and authorities decided that looking after paupers was too costly. When the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed, parishes were grouped into 'unions', managed by boards of guardians who were elected by their constituent parish ratepayers. The new poor law unions were to report to the Poor Law Commissioners, based in Somerset House in London.'
Kay Cunningham

The ARTFL Encyclopédie | ARTFL Encyclopédie Project - 7 views

encyclopedie.uchicago.edu

encyclopedias Diderot France digital_books

shared by Kay Cunningham on 22 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Kay Cunningham on 22 Apr 10
     
    'The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de lettres was published under the direction of Diderot and d'Alembert, with 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of plates between 1751 and 1772. Containing 72,000 articles written by more than 140 contributors, the Encyclopédie was a massive reference work for the arts and sciences, as well as a machine de guerre which served to propagate the ideas of the French Enlightenment. The impact of the Encyclopédie was enormous. Through its attempt to classify learning and to open all domains of human activity to its readers, the Encyclopédie gave expression to many of the most important intellectual and social developments of its time.'
Aaron Shaw

JOHN LOCKE - 7 views

history.wisc.edu/...john_locke.htm

john locke history TheEnlightenment England America

shared by Aaron Shaw on 14 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Aaron Shaw on 14 Jan 11
     
    " John Locke was one of the most important and influential philosophers ever. The French Enlightenment drew heavily on his ideas, as did the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution. bullet John Locke was born in 1632 into a well-to-do Somerset family. He was educated at the prestigious Westminster School, London, and in 1652 went on to university at Christ Church, Oxford."
Aaron Palm

Gus Hall (1910-2000): Stalinist operative and decades-long leader of Communist Party USA - 2 views

www.wsws.org/...hall-n06.shtml

hall gus Communist Party Revisionist History Democrat Unions modern america

shared by Aaron Palm on 11 Jul 10 - Cached
David Hilton liked it
  • The Stalinist apparatus in the Kremlin was able to carry out its taming of the American party in large measure by appropriating the mantle of the Russian Revolution. At the same time it exploited ideological and political weaknesses within the American party and the US labor movement in general, weaknesses that took the form of national provincialism and indifference to theory.
  • By the time of the Great Depression, which brought new political opportunities and challenges in the US and elsewhere, the Stalinist grip on the American CP was complete.
  • Equating Stalinism with Marxism, this group saw the crisis of the bureaucracy as proof that the building of a Marxist party in the working class was impossible.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Earl Browder, general secretary of the party during this period, dubbed communism “twentieth century Americanism.” The party devoted itself to fervent support of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and gave even more enthusiastic support to Stalin's purges and the counterrevolutionary terror
  • 1956 and 1958 the majority of CP members, increasingly demoralized and lacking any clear analysis of the upheavals taking place within the Soviet bloc, simply left the party.
    • Aaron Palm
      Aaron Palm on 11 Jul 10
       
      The new leadership of the Communist Party in 1958 found that bringing Communism to the US working class was impossible (It had been tied to Stalin who was hated by all in America.)  So they decided to get their way by workign within the exisiting political structure.  They became staunch supporters of the Democratic Party and the Unions to make their initiatives reality.  
  • They remained unswerving in their support for the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucracy. Millions of American workers, students and youth found themselves well to the left of the misnamed Communist Party during the 1960s and 1970s. The CPUSA, or what remained of it, could always be relied upon—in the struggle for civil rights, the movement against the war in Vietnam, and upsurges of working class militancy—to prop up the AFL-CIO and the Democrats in the White House, Congress and state and local office.
  • The CP, in fact, has supported every Democratic candidate for US President from Roosevelt to Gore, with the single exception of the 1948 race,
  • The Stalinists barely complained of the AFL-CIO's record of corruption, strike-breaking and anti-immigrant chauvinism, and avidly backed its support for the Democratic Party representatives of big business. All they wanted was the opportunity to serve the American trade union bureaucracy as they had before the Cold War. Hall would often hark back to the days when the “center-left” alliance of Stalinists and labor bureaucrats worked in tandem for Roosevelt.
Ed Webb

Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes | UK news | The Guardian - 8 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...troyed-records-colonial-crimes

UK Britain empire history archives secrecy

shared by Ed Webb on 18 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • The documents show that colonial officials were instructed to separate those papers to be left in place after independence – usually known as "Legacy files" – from those that were to be selected for destruction or removal to the UK. In many colonies, these were described as watch files, and stamped with a red letter W.
  • The documents show that colonial officials were instructed to separate those papers to be left in place after independence – usually known as "Legacy files" – from those that were to be selected for destruction or removal to the UK. In many colonies, these were described as watch files, and stamped with a red letter W.
  • As independence grew closer, large caches of files were removed from colonial ministries to governors' offices, where new safes were installed.In Uganda, the process was codenamed Operation Legacy. In Kenya, a vetting process, described as "a thorough purge", was overseen by colonial Special Branch officers.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Clear instructions were issued that no Africans were to be involved: only an individual who was "a servant of the Kenya government who is a British subject of European descent" could participate in the purge.
  • Many of the watch files ended up at Hanslope Park. They came from 37 different former colonies, and filled 200 metres of shelving. But it is becoming clear that much of the most damning material was probably destroyed. Officials in some colonies, such as Kenya, were told that there should be a presumption in favour of disposal of documents rather than removal to the UK – "emphasis is placed upon destruction" – and that no trace of either the documents or their incineration should remain.
  • Lisa M Lane on 23 Apr 12
     
    They say this was one of the major differences between the British and French handling of withdrawal from empire - not only criminal records, but historical and legal documents of many kinds.
Matt Esterman

National Curriculum - 38 views

In Year 11 students have to complete a research assignment that is mandated by the syllabus, however at our school we basically gave them the list of personalities they could study. I was pushing f...

national curriculum history study research

started by Matt Esterman on 30 May 09 6 follow-ups, last by Matt Esterman on 05 Jul 09
Ed Webb

U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba - ABC News - 0 views

abcnews.go.com/...story

US USA military Cuba history conspiracy rightwing communism paranoia ColdWar

shared by Ed Webb on 14 Oct 12 - No Cached
David Hilton liked it
  • In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.
  • plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities
  • to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • "The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here this is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but that nobody else wants."
  • neither the American public, nor the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to drive out Castro. Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military — not democratic — control over the island nation after the invasion.
  • a time when there was distrust in the military leadership about their civilian leadership, with leaders in the Kennedy administration viewed as too liberal, insufficiently experienced and soft on communism. At the same time, however, there real were concerns in American society about their military overstepping its bounds
  • reports U.S. military leaders had encouraged their subordinates to vote conservative during the election
  • One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base — an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.
  • Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had ordered all Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of Pigs destroyed, says Bamford. But somehow, these remained.
tcornett

War & Expansion: Crash Course US History #17 - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

History TEKS Social Studies TEKS 7C TEKS 7B Mexican-American War Gold Rush 49ers James K. Polk Texas Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Compromise of 1850 Slavery

shared by tcornett on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • tcornett on 05 Apr 16
     
    In which John Green teaches you about the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s, and the expansion of the United States into the western end of North America. In this episode of Crash Course, US territory finally reaches from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean. After Oregon was secured from the UK and the southwest was ceded by Mexico, that is. Famous Americans abound in this episode, including James K Polk (Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump), Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, and Winfield Scott. You'll also learn about the California Gold Rush of 1848, and California's admission as a state, which necessitated the Compromise of 1850. Once more slavery is a crucial issue. Something is going to have to be done about slavery, I think. Maybe it will come to a head next week.
edutopia .org

Encouraging Students to Find an Audience When They Write | Edutopia - 9 views

www.edutopia.org/...udience-strategy-elena-aguilar

asia primary sources writing cambodia america english write voice teach student

shared by edutopia .org on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • edutopia .org on 09 Dec 11
     
    "He's arguing with the men who ran the camp, the one in Cambodia. He was 14 when the Khmer Rouge took over and he went to prison camp. His whole family was killed, more than 60 people. He never tells us what happened to him there, but we hear everything when he's out in the street shouting. I can't get it out of my mind sometimes."
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