Post Civil War America

Not infrequently, whether on blogs or in other arenas where people discuss political history, the immediate post-Civil War period comes up. People are interested in the period right after the war, say late 1865 and 1866, before Reconstruction policy had fully formed. People often wonder whether other alternatives to the disaster of Reconstruction were possible. See for example the recent post on Lawyers Guns Money about the possible hanging of Confederate leaders like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. I think it might be useful to think about what the possibilities for post-Civil War America looked like given the political and social climate of the time.

My feelings are that it is highly unlikely that a profoundly different result would have occurred even if Andrew Johnson was not president and an aggressive Reconstruction policy had been immediately implemented in the South. Let's exam what I believe to be a best case scenario. Let's say that Lincoln doesn't name Johnson VP in 1864. But remember, Lincoln almost lost that election. Nearly 1/2 of the North voted for Democrat George McClellan and his policy of a peaceful settlement with the South that would let them go on their way. He named Johnson because he wanted to project an image of national unity and reconciliation. So even if he doesn't name Johnson, he still would have named at the best a fairly conservative Republican, probably from a border state like Kentucky or Maryland. It is unlikely I suppose that such VP X when he becomes President X, would have been as obstructionist to the Congress as Johnson was or have allowed the Confederate states back in so easily that Georgia could send Confederate VP Alexander Stephens to the Senate immediately after the war. Evidence suggests that the South was willing to capitulate to northern demands immediately after the war. So perhaps the Black Codes would never have been implemented, nor the KKK formed. Maybe the freed slaves really do get their 40 acres and a mule. Maybe large numbers are even moved to the Great Plains, perhaps west Texas, Kansas, or even the Indian Territory, what later became Oklahoma.

But remember that there was tremendous hostility to blacks in the North. There were states that had laws before the Civil War that barred free blacks from living there. There was tremendous and often violent hostility among the white working class to black competition for jobs. Even the Republican Party, which worked so hard to free the slaves, did so more out of a free labor ideology than compassion for the plight of blacks in America. These were the same people who soon after the war subscribed to ideas of Social Darwinism and opposition to any government intervention to help immigrant labor in northern factories. With the exception of some of the radicals, Republicans opposed slavery because they believed that labor should be freely contracted with employers as opposed to coerced. Thus once the slaves were free, they were on their own and the government had only a minimal duty to assist them. In addition, Abraham Lincoln had to repeatedly stress that he did not believe in social integration and mixing, something that I do not believe was lip service. The vast majority of northerners wanted nothing to do with blacks, even as they fought for the freedom of slaves.

So by the 1880s and 1890s, I don't think that conditions for African-Americans in this country would have turned out all that differently if Johnson had not become president. It's still unlikely that the South would not have started implementing Jim Crow legislation. There's no evidence suggesting that a different course in the first years of Reconstruction would have changed the opinion of the white working class toward blacks. Early trade unions had strict racial segregation and this remained until after World War II. Even if the KKK had not started, plenty of anti-black violence still would have occurred. The KKK was torn apart by arrests of its leaders by 1871 and that certainly didn't stop lynchings. There's not much reason to feel that stronger implementation of Reconstruction immediately after the war would have made much difference here either.

One might disagree with this assessment and it is quite negative. But given the political and social realities of the time, I just have trouble believing that the historical struggles of African-Americans would have turned out any different with a more vigorous implementation of Reconstruction after the war.

Tourism, Culture, and Environment

I'm always very interested to see what people have to say about tourism. Yesterday I heard two stories on the BBC about tourism (Thank you, Sirius). The first was about a guy who visited as many of the world's major sites and cultures as he could in 5 months. He discussed the major threats to cultural sites and indigenous peoples, including how tourism changes people by giving them access to western culture and thereby threatening traditional values. The interviewer asked whether he was engaging in cultural imperialism through saying that these cultures shouldn't change (would you ever see an American ask this question). He readily answered yes. I think this exchange brings up some important points. First of all, it most definitely is cultural imperialism to romanticize and fetishize traditional cultures and deny them the right to change when they discover western technologies and values. Many westerners seem to believe that people develop a culture in a certain way because they like it that way. They like shooting game with poison darts instead of guns. They like making clay pots instead of buying prefabricated pots. They would rather wear traditional clothes that are difficult to make than wear western clothes.

There is no evidence to support any of these points. Of course many indigenous peoples have fought against incursions onto their land. But that's often what these fights are about--land. Culture plays a secondary role. Indigenous peoples might resent alcohol or disease that are introduced, but to the best of my knowledge there has never been a complete rejection by a people of western culture, though Tecumseh based much of his program around trying to do this. People like guns, horses, Disneyland, etc. And they have every right to like it.

Is it sad that traditional cultures change? Well, maybe. The loss of languages is extremely unfortunate as is the loss of traditional customs. I've seen this first hand in Indonesia and it's kind of a bummer and very weird to witness first hand. But if women gain more rights within societies, is it a bad thing? Would we deny women the right to control their own bodies in order to keep a romanticized view of culture intact? Perhaps many would, but I would not.

Much of the literature on tourism and culture change talks about a homogenizing world culture based on western, and particularly, American values. But it's not that simple. People will integrate the western cultural artifacts that they choose to adopt into their own cultures. Alcohol was quickly adapted in Native American ceremonies for example. Just because the world sees Mickey Mouse and Michael Jordan doesn't mean that they will interpret them in the same way that we in America do. Just because they see highlights of Jordan or Shaq doesn't mean that they will reject their culture. Perhaps basketball will become integrated into their traditional culture. Native Americans today live in a mix of traditional and western culture and there's little reason to believe that this will happen differently in other places.

I think the most important point here is that we shouldn't see cultural change as a bad thing. People choose to change and there is no way we can deny them that right. If, as has happened with an indigenous group in southern Mexico, people want to integrate Pepsi into their religious rituals, so be it so long as it is their choice. To deny them that choice is a form of imperialism on par with those actively advertising Coke and Disney in Guatemala.

One of the other threats to our cultural relics and indigenous peoples is environmental change and this often is exacerbated by tourism. There's no question this is true. How many beaches in Thailand or Mexico have been completely overrun by developments that serve to destroy what their guests came to love? All too many. The second story on the BBC was how the rampant building of golf courses in the Algarve of southern Portugal use an insane amount of water that is now not available to farmers who desperately need it as the area is suffering through a severe drought. Portuguese officials see tourism as the key to economic growth in the southern part of their country and their probably right. This brings up many difficult questions including if what farmers are growing in the Algarve is a unique product that could not be produced cheaper elsewhere, issues of local farming and local food products versus global food production, and whether a government should subsidize farming in a place where the resources are not there to sustain them through droughts. There is no easy answer to any of these questions. Tourism is used as a double-edged sword when it comes to the environment. While tourism is blamed for causing many environmental problems as in the example above, it is also blamed for keeping people from using the land through environmental protections that local people don't want.

How many national parks are established in developing nations to cater to ecotourism and then local people go in and invade them because they want the land? Hundreds. These are nations with serious problems, including too many people living off the land, government and global policies that help ensure poverty, poor agricultural practices, etc. While I often support the rights of local people over their governments and the forces that oppress them, in the case of tropical forests, there are greater global concerns. We need these trees to process the immense amount of carbon dioxide we have put into the atmosphere. With such weak and indifferent governments, ecotourism may be the only way to save a small percentage of this rain forest. One example that I know fairly well is Pico Bonito National Park on the Atlantic Coast of Honduras. People have made incursions in many parts of the park as they desperately search for land. But enough ecotourism is happening there that a great deal of the park will not be deforested anytime in the near future. This park is becoming the last refuge in the area for many animals, including the wild parrots and toucans that we saw. Take away the ecotourism and you take away the only incentive for the boundaries of these parks to be respected and for these forests to be saved.

Oh The Irony

I suppose I should't find joy in Alan Keyes' daughter publicly announcing that she's a lesbian, but I do anyway. I wonder if Alan accused her of being a selfish hedonist.

Dean, Hillary, JFK, and the Democratic Party

Now that Howard Dean is the head of the DNC, I'd like to express my frustration. Not because I hate Dean. Nor because I am convinced that he will be a poor chair. Rather, I am deeply frustrated that Democrats picked the ultimate Republican straw man to be their head. This would be OK except for one small thing.

HOWARD DEAN IS NOT A PROGRESSIVE POLITICIAN!!!

It would be one thing if this was Paul Wellstone and the left was somehow taking back the party. But Dean is to the right of Kerry on many issues and so many progressive Democrats were grumbling that they were voting Nader in 2008 because Kerry wasn't progressive enough and we lost anyway. So why should we give the Republicans a golden opportunity for a politician well to the right of me and many progressive Democrats who I count as friends? It makes absolutely no sense.

Related to this is the movement for Hillary for president in 2008. This is the same thing as with Dean. Hillary is not particularly progressive, especially after the demise of the health care plan in 1993. But she is hated by Republicans and distrusted by many moderate voters. So why would we give the Republicans such a golden opportunity? Why would we hand them their ultimate candidate to run against?

A better question for me is why would someone support Hillary Clinton for president?

I think one trend among many Democrats for a long time is to overlook actual policy and be taken by someone's image. Neither Dean nor Hillary are very progressive, yet they are beloved by many who are far more progressive than they. The best analogy I can see for this is Baby Boomers' fascination with John F. Kennedy and the whole Kennedy family. Kennedy, along with Reagan, are the most overrated presidents of the 20th century. What did JFK actually do? Yet he is still beloved by many Democrats even today. On the other hand, Lyndon Johnson, who was never much liked or trusted in his time and is not generally remembered fondly today, did much more for the liberal cause than JFK ever considered. Facts such as the Kennedy's chummy relationship with Joe McCarthy and Johnson's pushing through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are often ignored by the general Democrat when thinking about these presidents. They love Kennedy and LBJ got us into Vietnam so he was bad. Never mind that JFK had the same policy toward Vietnam as Johnson.

Thus so many Democrats continue to be blinded by image over policy. Dean is a symbol of opposition to the war and attacking Bush so he is idolized despite his moderate to right policies on many issues including the environment. Hillary is a strong woman so she is idolized, despite her questionable financial dealings and rightward-trending politics. We are so blinded that we just gave the Republicans their ultimate DNC chair and may give them their ultimate Democratic candidate for president. Sad state the Democratic party is in today.

GITMO torture

This story of an Australian citizen held and tortured for over three years at Guantanamo and other prisons of American allies is not surprising at this point but is extremely disturbing. What's more disturbing is the lack of outrage over torture, culminating in Senate confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. When did our country became so hardened and cruel? Or has it always been this way?

The Cicero of Oklahoma

Here's a lovely quote I've run across by the Cicero of Oklahoma, Senator Tom Coburn:

"And I thought I would just share with you what science says today about slicone breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows...In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier." — Senator Tom Coburn, R-OK

Now that's what I call a U.S. Senator!!!

Old-Timey Baseball

In the spirit of recent baseball debates about the scientific method of people like Billy Beane and Bill James versus the old-time scouts, I thought I'd share an article that I just came across in the Bandon (OR) Recorder from April 14, 1904 lamenting the passing of old-time baseball. Like 80% of newspapers 100 years ago, this was reprinted from another paper, in this case the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.

The article begins, "Time will not turn back in its flight, but the mind can travel back to the days before baseball was so well known and before it had become so scientific." Among the ways which the game had become too scientific: baseballs were standardized instead of the old days when you wound a pair of socks around a hard center like a bullet; there were now 4 bases instead of 6 or 7, depending on whatever the players in the game wanted; and when you wanted to throw someone out you literally threw the ball at them and if you hit them they were out.

Social Security

Check out this new CNN/McPaper/Gallup poll that shows that over 2/3 of adults think the wealthy should pay more to protect social security. Hello!!! It's absurd that payroll taxes for social security are capped at $90,000. Why shouldn't Bill Gates and Paul Allen pay 1000 times what I do for social security. If you took the cap off of payroll taxes, or even if you capped it at say $500,000, what would the numbers look like for how long social security will remain solvent?

If there is a problem with social security, which there's not, this is the obvious solution.

If the Bush administration is composed of smart politicans as opposed to the ideologues that I think they are, they will drop the social security right now. Just let it die. I don't think they will though since they are driven by the desire to peel American history back to 1890.

Geography of Death

As you may remember, in December I posted on the unusual number of dead soldiers in Iraq from Kirkland, WA. There's nothing new on that front, but I thought it would be interesting to post the cities who lead in war dead. I'm not sure what can be gleaned from this, but it's interesting enough I think.

Here's the list from December 8 when I did this for the first time.

1. New York City, 15
2. Los Angeles, 14
3. Houston, 13
4. San Antonio and Portland, 7
6. El Paso, Buffalo, and Phoenix, 6
9. Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Tampa, San Diego, and Tucson, 5

Here's the list as of today.

1. New York City, 20
2. Houston, 15
3. Los Angeles, 14
4. Phoenix and San Antonio, 8
6. San Diego, Buffalo, Portland, and Fort Worth, 7
10. Tucson and El Paso, 6

Nothing huge there I guess. Probably the most remarkable number is that 13 soldiers have died from Louisiana since December 1. Lousiana now has 32 dead. This is over twice as many as Minnesota or Connecticut and approximately as many as Indiana, New Jersey, or North Carolina, all significantly larger states. Perhaps we are starting to see poorer states starting to take more casualties. Or maybe it's just really unlucky to be from Louisiana.

More Quarters

I almost feel like apologizing after subjecting people to the bad state jokes from yesterday. The real point of wanting to parody the quarters is to make fun of how states (and people of course) misrepresent themselves to the world. In addition, bringing up those tricky bits of history that makes all the state boosters feel uncomfortable is a good thing too. So rather than keep turning out 5 a day, here's a few of the better ideas I have for these quarters if states wanted to give a truer representation of themselves and their people to the world.

Idaho--a picture of Randy Weaver
Oregon or Washington--a spotted owl nailed to a tree by a logger
New Mexico--a scene of random, meaningless, and violent crime
North Dakota--a blank quarter to represent the topography of the state
Alabama--a picture of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham blowing up
Mississippi--Parchman Farm
South Carolina--a lynching
Tennessee--a picture of three generations, with the grandfather being a monkey
Montana--Unabomber shack
Colorado--a Sand Creek Massacre scene with Chivington impaling a child or something like that
Ohio--the Cuyahoga River on fire
Minnesota--someone with their head in their hands and the line, "Our favorite pastime is depression"
Oklahoma--some white guys forcing Indians to sign away their oil rights
Louisiana--Huey Long taking a bribe
Maryland--a proud looking picture of Spiro Agnew

You get the point. This is what I call representation of a state.

Quarter Redesigns--1999

I have been amused for over 5 years now at the quarter redesigns. I like the idea and have liked many of the quarters. But it's funny to see how states try to present themselves to the nation. I thought I might try some alternative designs. I guess Conan O'Brien has been doing this for a long time. But I'd like to think that mine are funnier. Or at least one or two of them will be.

Here's the 1999 states:

Delaware
A question mark with the line, "We don't know why we exist either."

Pennsylvania
A picture of James Buchanan with the line, "America's Worst President"

New Jersey
A picture of an urban wasteland with the line "America's sewer for over 100 years"

Georgia
A screaming Zell Miller with the words "Wisdom Justice Moderation"
The words are from an actual finalist for the Georgia quarter. Zell wasn't on there though.

Connecticut
A suburban home, a tough urban street, and a farm all mixed up.
The line: "We've lost our identity. Could you help us?"

OK, these weren't that funny. I haven't lived in the northeast so it's hard. Could you come up with Pennsylvania or Connecticut jokes? But bear with me. The quarters for the West and South will be both more funny and more brutal. I hope. I do like the Georgia one though.

Bush's Agricultural Policy

You may be wondering why Bush is coming out against agricultural subsidies, thus alienating some of his core constituencies, especially in the cotton and soybean states of the South. What is the political capital he would gain out of this?

I think the answer is that this is a presidency rather unconcerned with traditional notions of politics. Like everything else over the last 4+ years, this attack against subsidies comes out of ideology. In the first term, Bush put into motion the first two parts of the radical Republican agenda: eviscerating the tax code and a neoconservative foreign policy. Now that they have been reelected, it's time to focus on the third and most difficult task: turning domestic policy back to the Gilded Age. The Social Security "reform" is part of this. Although there is no crisis in Social Security, one has been invented because the ultimate goal of this administration is to get government out of our economic lives, regardless of the consequences. Social Security was part of the New Deal safety net. Agricultural subsidies were too. In order to raise prices during the Great Depression, one of the first acts of the Roosevelt administration was to create the Agricultural Adjustment Agency (AAA). This established such policies as paying for farmers to plow under their fields which turned into more direct forms of subsidies.

For this ideologically driven administration, AAA was a bad thing and its remnants must be eliminated. This is the core of Bush attacking agricultural subsidies. If Bush is successful with blowing up Social Security and to a lesser extent with this new agricultural policies, you can expect further repeals of New Deal and even Progressive legislation. Among the possible ideas brewing in the right-wing "think"tanks are privatizing National Park sites and eliminating the minimum wage.

I can already see the Worker Freedom Act in Congress that will allow workers to "negotiate" their wage with their employer without government interference.

Viva Nuevo Mexico (III)

I haven't had any good New Mexico stories for awhile but recently we were talking to a friend of ours who is getting married and is looking for a cool place to do it. She decided to check out the Santa Fe Opera just north of town. The price to be married there--a mere $10,000 "donation." Oh is that all. You wouldn't like a right arm as well. Of course, what this means is that not only are all but the rich excluded from being married there but essentially all but the white are too. Of course the liberal opera people would be horrified to be accused of even unintentional racism. But what is Santa Fe if not a historical Disneyland fantasy for rich white people. This in the same town that spends less per capita on public school students and has a higher teacher/student ration than Charleston, WV.

Meanwhile in Albuquerque today I saw a guy pull out his prosthetic leg when the donation he was begging for wasn't enough.

Food Thoughts

A couple of food thoughts/rants:

1. It was great to see Ming Tsai beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America in Battle Duck. If my memory serves me correctly, duck is very tasty.

2. What the hell is deal with the people who watch Emeril? If he puts a damn clove of garlic in a dish, they cheer like he just scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl. And if he uses some chiles, holy shit there might be a riot going on. Are there really people in the world still afraid of a clove of garlic? Is using a lot of black pepper really a sign of bravery? I think Emeril's audience are the people I was referring to last month in my discussion of food hating in America. I think there are millions of people in America who are just beginning to realize that food can be tasty and are amazed but somewhat delighted that a chef like Emeril would dare to use such exotic and edgy ingredients like garlic and jalapenos. Emeril himself is a ham and a schmuck, but whatever. I do wonder what in the hell NBC was thinking in giving him a sitcom. I assume at least one person lost their job over that. But if a major network is actually going to pay people to come up with a show like that, I should move to Hollywood. How much worse are my ideas?

3. The Food Channel has been running these commercials by the ranch dressing lobby that try to get us to use ranch for everything. Anyone ever wanted to try ranch bread? Yum, Yum, Yum!!! I mean, do we really need to coat all of our food in a mayonnaise-based dressing? I don't mind ranch in certain situations, but ranch freaking bread? Hey, here's some other ideas for you. Ranch on pasta anyone? How about a ranch burrito? Would you care for a ranch margarita to go with that?

These kind of rants are part of my campaign to become the next Andy Rooney. Do you ever wonder why people eat aerosol cheese...

Great Flashback Quote

"United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting." (New York Times, September 4, 1967)

Bobo Strikes Again

David Brooks puts another whopper of an editorial in today's New York Times. He compares the Iraqi voters to Whittaker Chambers, saying that both "have spent their lives in hell and cannot have been unaffected by it." This is a simply idiotic metaphor. To argue that a communist in America before and during World War II has lived through the same type of experience as an Iraqi under 25 years of Saddam Hussein and 2 years of American invasion and terrorism shows simply no understanding of the American communist movement. This isn't surprising. I don't expect any kind of subtlety from Brooks.

What's truly laughable is that he goes on to criticize Democratic senators for not supporting the war. So is Ted Kennedy Brooks' Alger Hiss? Does he really believe that opposition to this war is comparable to spying for the Soviet Union? For that matter, he puts Brent Scowcroft on the same level as Kennedy. Brooks didn't come out and directly make this comparison. But the analogy is clear.

UPDATE (2/2/05) This is a highly edited version of this post. I wrote it in a great hurry last night and sort of left out half a sentence. Whoops!!

Schwarzkopf Trivia

I just found out some fascinating trivia about the father of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, H. Norman Schwazkopf. The senior Schwarzkopf was a colonel in the New Jersey state police in 1934 when migrant farmworkers in New Jersey went on strike. Schwarzkopf played an active role in getting rid of these people after the strike. When the owner of the Seabrook farm refused to rehire his black laborers after the strike ended, the good Colonel ordered all "agitators" out of the area within 24 hours or face forcible removal, a threat followed up on with all due force.

Says a bit about the politics of his son, don't you think?

From Mary Hahamovitch's The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870-1945. University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Montana Hate-Crime Legislation

Montana is a very interesting state and one I think bears watching over the next decade. And I'm not just saying because I have many friends from there or because I do research there. Long one of America's most conservative states, it has begun to trend Democratic, particularly in the last election when a Democratic governor was elected and a referendum to allow cyanide leaching for mining was rejected. Now you have the Montana legislature seeking to expand the state's hate-crime legislation to include gays, the disabled, and gender.

Maybe not surprisingly in such a rapidly changing state, you now have the odd combination of a fairly conservative legislature looking to expand hate-crime legislation and the editors of the Missoulian, the main paper in the state's liberal bastion of Missoula arguing against the idea of hate-crime legislation at all.

Here's the text of the editorial:

Do you suppose someone beaten bloody by a complete stranger feels less victimized than, say, a naturalized citizen who is beaten bloody by a complete stranger? Neither do we. Should it be less of a crime to murder a person of color than a white person? Of course not. Then can you explain why, under Montana law, it's a worse crime to murder a person of color than it is to murder some races than it is others? Neither can we. Don't think the line in the Montana Constitution that guarantees "No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws" means what it says - that we're all equal in the eyes of the law? So do we. Montana legislators once again are debating expanding the state's "hate crime" statute. As it now reads, the law allows judges to impose tougher sentences on criminals who victimize people based on race, creed, religion, color and national origin. Now lawmakers are talking about adding gender, disability and sexual orientation to the list of special victims against whom crimes are to be considered worse than the crimes committed against other Montanans.... All of the offenses covered by the hate-crime statute already are against the law. If that doesn't deter offenders, making them against two laws won't either. This is feel-good legislation that, because it reneges on the constitutional guarantee of equal protection, shouldn't make anyone feel very good.

This is via Orcinus. He used to work at the Missoulian and wrote a wicked letter tearing there ideas apart. Check it out. I won't spend the time tearing it apart myself unless a reader happens to agree with the editorial or wants me to go into it. I will say however that there is a funny correlation between the enforcement of civil rights legislation in the South and the decline of lynching. So to say that there is no deterrant doesn't make very much sense. Also, this editorial ignores the historical legacy of racism and oppression in this nation and the world. But see, now I'm starting to go into it. Must stop now.

Indoctrinating Students

Lawyers Guns Money recently posted on a terrible Book TV special where someone actually claimed that every female college student was indoctrinated with the ideas of Judith Butler. And I thought, well hell, I do that. So I thought I'd put my syllabus for my introductory history course on the blog to show just how brainwashing students work. So here it is:

HISTORY 161, HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
In this course we will learn how to hate America, your parents, apple pie, the flag, the modern world, and God. The goal of this course is to turn you all from God-loving Americans into drug-taking, homosexual atheists. Any dissent in this course will automatically ensure you of an F in the course. We will learn how to hate America by reading other God-hating commies.

Week 1. Readings--Thomas Paine, Common Sense
The goal of this week is to prepare you for bloody revolution
Your assignment is to write an essay discussing your plans to prepare for the revolution against America.

Week 2. Readings--Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
The goal of this week is to teach you to reject God.
Your assignment is to desecrate a local church. Urinate in the holy water, have sex on the altar, use a statue of the Virgin Mary to pleasure yourself. Inventiveness is highly encouraged.

Week 3. Readings--Karl Marx, Kapital
The goal of this week is to teach you to understand the heart of the capitalist beast and to show why capitalism is doomed.
Your assignment is to write a 200 word essay summarizing the key argument of the book.

Week 4. Readings--Prince Kropotkin, His Thoughts and Works
The goal of this week is to show why all government is evil and should be destroyed.
Your assignment is to blow up a symbol of capitalism. Or just blow up whatever you can find.

Week 5. Readings--V.I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?
The goal of this week is to teach you how to instigate a revolution
Your assignment is to preach the oncoming revolution on the streets, to your parents, or in your church.

Week 6. Readings, Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis, An Introduction
The goal of this week is to show how the US controls the world and oppresses all people of color.
Your assignment is to pick one country and show how a revolution will end American dominance over it.

Week 7. Readings, Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
The goal of this week is to show why white people hate everyone in the Third World.
Your assignment is to write a paper on why America should celebrate the birthdays of leaders like Patrice Lumumba, Robert Mugabe, and Julius Nyrere instead of racists George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Week 8. Readings, Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The goal of this week is to discuss why the "Man", meaning all of us whiteys, continue to screw the black population of the world.
Your assignment is to kill a white person. If it's yourself, you will get a posthumous "A" for the course since I won't have to grade any more of your work.

Week 9. Readings, Mao Tse-Tung, The Little Red Book
The goal of this week is to find out how to create a radical revolutionary culture.
Your assignments are to form small groups and self-criticize as well as to denounce elders in public. If you can force your parents, teacher, or a minister to their knees and to cry, you get extra credit. But no extra credit for only one. They must be on their knees and crying. If you denounce me, you get double the extra credit.

Week 10. Readings--Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism
The goal of this week is to teach you that Israel is the antichrist and should be destroyed with as much violence as possible.
Your assignment is to pick a group of people and find out how the Jews have screwed them over. It's very important that you don't engage in any anti-Semitic violence this week. If you've learned anything so far, it's that you must work within the movement and that individual action will result in the fall of the revolutionary movement. Not to mention that it will lead to a 1/3 grade deduction at the end of the semester. If you need a reinforcement of this, watch I Am Cuba

Week 11. Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
The goal of this week is to show you how white capitalist culture has destroyed the environment.
Your assignment is to chop down a billboard.

Week 12. Readings--James Scott, Seeing Like A State
The goal of this week is to show how capitalism has screwed up the world and how Scott is a counter-revolutionary rightist for claiming that communist nations caused the same problems to people and the environment as capitalist movements. See, critical reading is encouraged in college.
Your assignment is to find the plans for a high-modernist structure, preferably a dam. We will discuss how to destroy it in class.

Week 13. Readings--Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference
The goal for this week is for you to be able to tell your parents and other authority how stupid they are because they don't understand deconstructionism.
Your assignment is to deconstruct your relationship with your parents.

Week 14. Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History
The goal for this week is for you to understand why women are better than men.
Your assignment depends on your gender. If you are female, you must dominate and humiliate a male. If you are a male you must be dominated or humiliated by a female.

Week 15. Readings--Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinities
The goal of this week is show that acting within established gender norms is evil and oppresses the world.
Your assignment is to cross-dress for a week. Experimental sex is encouraged.

Week 16. Readings--Judith Butler, The Judith Butler Reader
The goal of this week is to learn a language that people in red states can't understand as well as to reinforce your new status as homosexuals.
Your assignment is to film yourself having sex with at least one other person of your gender. More than 1 is encouraged. If you're particularly shy, a goat will suffice.

Final Project
The final will be to start a violent, yet racially, gender, and sexually tolerant revolution. We will begin the revolution at the designated time for your final exam as listed in the schedule of classes. Blue books are not required for this final.


Do any readers have similar syllabi? I am always looking for more effective ways to indoctrinate my students.

Reforming the AFL-CIO

Some of you have maybe already seen this, but here's the link to the New York Times long piece on SEIU president Andy Stern and his ideas to blow up the AFL-CIO and start a new labor organization. There are legitimate criticisms of the article here and here. But I feel that Stern is on the right track to try and do something about labor's increasing irrelevance in America.

Stern's basic argument is that the union movement as presently constructed in America has not made any adjustments to a post-industrial economy and therefore is obsolete. He suggests that the 58 present unions that make up the AFL-CIO be reduced to 20 and that each one focus on a particular area of the modern economy, i.e. service economy, teachers, etc. Right now there are many unions who are trying to survive by picking up locals here and there that have nothing to do with the core of the union. He also suggests that unions make a more concerted effort to become an international labor movement as a necessary response to globalization. Multinational corporations have different attitudes toward unions in different countries and it is necessary to build alliances with labor unions throughout the world so that unions in countries where organized labor is more accepted can put pressure on the companies for the workers is less advantaged places. Stern equivocates over the issue of organizing workers in Third World countries where American jobs have gone to and this is understandable. How can you justify to American workers organizing workers who have their former jobs? But I think this is a problem with a solution. After all, all workers deserve a high standard of living. And if a company knows you are going to organize wherever they move, they are less likely to move in the first place.

What's really impressive about Stern is not his ideas per se. These have their merits and their faults. Rather, what's impressive is his attempts to bring the progressive movement into the age of globalization. He is moving away from the 1930s and 1960s organizing eras that both labor and the Democratic party and most of the Left for that matter is stuck in, and proposing new solutions to new problems. We need more visionary thinkers like Stern throughout the country to try and move a new progressive platform forward.