Showing posts with label American history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American history. Show all posts

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Michael Parenti on "Political Liberties and Economic Democracy"


Bread line, Louisville, Kentucky, 1937. Photo by Margaret
Bourke-White. All Graphics: click to enlarge.


New World Notes News
Vol. 2 No. 48 -- December 8, 2009

This week in New World Notes, radio program #92, Tuesday, December 8:

Michael Parenti on
"Political Liberties and
Economic Democracy"

Workers' Summary

The best parts of Parenti's lecture and Q&A at the University of Hartford on November 4 are here. Parenti argues that improvements in public policy--and in living conditions for the non-rich--resulted from struggle from "below," not from the goodness of the governing elites' hearts. Average citizens fought for greater political liberties as tools to compel concrete improvements in their lives.

This program includes fine parts on airport security, Saddam Hussein, the Maine anti-gay-marriage referendum, and Parenti's forthcoming book on organized religion, God and His Demons.

Egypt, 21st Century

Notes

www.michaelparenti.org

The first 20 or so minutes of Parenti's lecture--on the dislike of democracy by the Framers of our Constitution--with parallels drawn to the Classical world--are not included in this installment of NWN. This omitted segment is intellectually substantial and well worth hearing when you're in the mood for some serious history & political science. Some later parts are snipped as well. I've made a complete, uncut, unedited recording of the entire presentation and Q&A (1h, 12m) available for anyone who cares to hear same. The introduction is by University of Hartford President Walter Harrison.

Recorded live by moi.

Free subscription to weekly New World Notes email newsletter upon request. (Subscribers list is totally confidential.) The newsletter essentially duplicates the weekly blog entry--but some people like the weekly reminder.

Dr. Michael Parenti (plaid shirt)

Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut dates on WWUH shown:

  • December 15 -- Afghanistan: Won't Get Fooled Again!
  • December 22 -- Christmas Special ... including reflections on the sack of Fallujah (5th anniversary) and the sack of Gaza (1st anniversary)

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

"Freedom of Speech" by Norman Rockwell. No comment.



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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Things They Don't Tell You!



New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 16 -- April 28, 2009


This week in New World Notes, #61 -- April 28 & May 1:

As a school subject, American History is unique in one respect. The more you've studied it, the dumber you are--that is, the less about the subject you know correctly. So states James W. Loewen, a professor of sociology at UVM, citing a pile of published research studies. Even odder, UVM stands for University of VerMont (some say). The state university here in Connecticut tried something similar once, UCNIC--University of ConNectICut--but it didn't catch on. The NIC sounded too Soviet (cf. Sputnik, peacenik).

Some claim that the M in UVM stands for at Montpelier. As Daffy Duck used to say, this is a canard. Some (see first Comment to this blog entry) go so far as to claim UVM stands for
Universitas Viridis Montis. If my Latin serves, this means either "The most virile Mountie in the Universe"--obviously a Canadian TV contest-show for beefcake fans--or else "University of the Green Mountains." Take your pick. IMHO, one makes as much sense as the other.

But I digress.

Top: James W. Loewen. (All photos: click to enlarge.)
Bottom: Note contents of bucket.

A new edition of James Loewen's study of school American History courses and textbooks is out--Lies My Teacher Told Me--and in a radio interview Loewen tells funny, interesting, and occasionally depressing stories of what he discovered in researching the book.

American History courses present every character as a spotless hero (save possibly Lee Harvey Oswald); show Progress as always in action; say nothing negative about any public figure; take care not to offend any potential purchaser; won't touch sex, religion, or social class with a 10-foot pole; and seem more interested in turning students into flag-waving patriots than into well-informed, critical-thinking adults.

Think of the textbooks you once used. Which subject had textbooks with a grandiose title? Let's see. . . . There was Principles of Chemistry. Algebra I. Introduction to English Literature. Basic Spanish. And--with the red, white, & blue cover depicting the waving flag--Triumph of the American People. That would be the History textbook, right?

Loewen notes that no Chemistry textbook is named Triumph of the Molecule.


Michael Parenti (top), George Carlin (bottom)


Loewen's indictment of how we teach history is terrific. But he stops short of considering seriously why the books and courses are the way they are. In Michael Parenti’s useful terms, Loewen constructs a liberal complaint, not a radical analysis. So the installment supplements Loewen’s talk with a few recorded words by Parenti and by George Carlin. Each of this pair argues that mediocre, flag-waving public education serves the economic and political interests of certain powerful elites.

History Counts

The Loewen interview is snipped from a recent installment of a very interesting radio program, History Counts. It’s produced in Connecticut by Ken MacDermotRoe and broadcast twice a month by community alternative radio station WPKN, in Bridgeport. You can catch WPKN’s broadcasts on the Internet (http://www.wpkn.org/). Even more conveniently, you can listen to History Counts at any time online or download a free copy in .mp3 format. The blog you're now reading has a link to History Counts's Web page near the top of the gray sidebar.

Too sexually explicit for textbooks? Sex, religion, and
social class are the three taboo topics in American History
texts. (Photo: "V-J Day" by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1945)


Song played: Chumbawamba, Her Majesty

Coming soon:

  • May 5 (Tuesday): Kent State Remembered
  • May 12: Energy Disaster Anniversaries: Three-Mile Island (1979), Exxon Valdez (1989)


NB: Lego photos by Balakov. More of them--plus the original photographs--here: http://www.yatzer.com/1083_classic_photographs_re-created_with_lego_bricks

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern) . . .






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