Blog 4 History

First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama (Fourth Edition)
Betty Caroli

From the press release:

Dr. Betty Boyd Caroli, historian and biographer of first ladies in the United States, will speak at Manhattan College on Saturday, March 28 at 1:00 p.m. in the Capalbo Room of De La Salle Hall. The event, part of Manhattan’s celebration of Women’s History Month, is free and open to the public.

Caroli is the author of numerous books, including First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Laura Bush, The Roosevelt Women and Inside the White House: America’s Most Famous Home. She was among a select group of historians invited to meet with former first lady Laura Bush in 2008, and frequently appears on national television and the BBC to discuss the role of presidents’ wives in American politics. Caroli has been a guest on the Today Show, The O’Reilly Factor, PBS’s NewsHour and C-SPAN’s Booknotes.

I thumbed through it and will hopefully provide an in-depth review later. Lots of candidates for the most important First Ladies (not a part of the Author’s objective as far as I could tell), but for my money it would be Abigail Adams. When I show a few of the episodes of the John Adams mini-series my students are stunned at her importance and influence on Adams. I have read their letters (John and Abigail) and she was indeed his equal intellectually. She was the first influential First Lady in terms of her influence on the President.

Caroli has written numerous times about First Ladies and another book I have read and highly recommend:

Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World by Malcolm Potts

Malcolm Potts explores the questions concerning the biological connections of actions such as war and sex. Potts has a broad background in working with various organizations world wide including war-torn and Third world countries. As a scientist and obstetrician, Potts has worked with governments and aid organizations globally, and in the trenches with women who have been raped and brutalized in the course of war. Combining their own experience with scientific findings in primatology, genetics and anthropology, Potts and Hayden explain war’s pivotal position in the human experience and how men in particular evolved under conditions that favored gang behavior, rape and organized aggression. Drawing on these new insights, they propose a rational plan for making warfare less frequent and less brutal in the future.[Quoted freely from the publisher's website.]

Potts believes t hat warlike behavior (warfare and terrorism) requires a “special sort of violence in men” and he calls it “team aggression.” When one shifts through some of the constant political rhetoric, there is an interesting analysis of the biological nature of aggression. Women, for the most part, do not fall into the definition of team aggression and have often, according to the authors, been the target of sexual and physical aggression by men. We fight over limited resources such as oil. We need to reduce the need for conflict by reducing the need for such limited resources.

However, the book is significantly flawed in my opinion. For example, in the final chapter the authors attempt to produce a scenario where we can overcome our predisposition for group aggression (reminds me of the Group Think mentality I use when discussing the horrors of Nazi death camps.) The authors suggestion for “containing” war and terrorism is simplified to a bullet list of actions:

• Empower women with education and opportunities.
• Increase the number of women in parliaments and legislatures.
• Enable women to have the means to manage whether and when to have a child.
• Help people prevent unintended pregnancies.
• Ensure Universal secular, scientific education.
• Encourage knowledge of history and an understanding of our evolution from other animals.
• Develop and maintain a free media.
• Avoid supplying weapons to potential enemies.

An interesting list. Where to begin. The author’s vast experiences abroad (he worked with rape victims in war torn countries) has clearly impacted his objectivity, and who can blame him. However, the first bullet point applies to only those third world and war torn countries, as do most of these points. Where in the United States are women not empowered to educate themselves, manage their child production, ect. Also, the complete absence of Christianity and religion, instead we are encouraged to teach an “understanding of our evolution from other animals…” Now how does this help us? How do I as a teacher make this work? I have no clue! I know, they have data, research, ect.

The authors do clearly acknowledge that soldiers and warriors are also made by their environment. I also agree with knowing our history, so long as it is not presented within the framework of Progressivism or Social Justice. The Press is also key, it was meant to be an entity that help the government accountable, and clearly today that is questionable. Finally, avoid sending weapons to our potential enemies, now that is one that makes complete sense.

All and all I am dumbfounded they sent me this book. I didn’t care for the consistent political punditry and the book comes off as theoretical fantasy that will never be and could never be! The authors utterly fail to prove to this reviewer that they have offered any kind of path to a “safer world”!

This is some funny stuff. Any of these Museums sound like fun but who pays for this, please tell not tax payer money? I have to agree with the author that these “are just plain pointless.” If you have seen or visited any strange Museums post a comment, would love to get a laugh! From the article:

1. The Museum of Bad Art: The justification for this one was thin at best when it launched in the early 1990s, but at this point, it’s safe to say that the Internet’s a much better repository of terrible and useless art. Why not use this building to showcase, you know, good stuff?
2. The Museum of Menstruation and Women’s Health: Case in point: This website is devoted to the history of menstruation, for those who just can’t live another month without knowing what tampons were like in the 1940s. Totally random and completely unnecessary.
3. The Washington Banana Museum: It’s a museum. About bananas. Any money you spend getting here is money you deserved to lose.
4. Frank and Jane Clement Brick Museum: It’s literally rooms filled with old bricks. And just in case you want to pop in on a lark, it’s “by appointment only.” I guess brick fans are hardcore people.
5. The Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum: If you’ve ever wanted to see dead roaches posed in a variety of scenes and costumes, this is the place. Seriously, though: How is there a demand for this kind of thing?
6. Leila’s Hair Museum: Started by a former hairdresser, this Missouri museum is devoted to hair, and features rows and rows of hair wreaths in frames. More than a little creepy.
7. The Hammer Museum: I refuse to believe there are enough different types of hammer — you know, a stick with a weight on the end — to justify the existence of an entire museum dedicated to their history. There are more than 1,500 hammers on display at Alaska’s Hammer Museum, which is 1,499 more than you need to know about.
8. The Giant Shoe Museum: It’s not a giant museum of shoes; it’s a museum of giant shoes. Dedicated to oversized footwear, this oddball museum in Washington ranks as one of the most superfluous in the country.
9. Kansas Barbed Wire Museum: I am sure that the proprietors of this barbed wire museum are wonderful people, but there is no more unnecessary field trip for local schools than a day spent looking at old hunks of twisted metal.
10. National Mustard Museum: This Wisconsin museum has been around for a quarter century, during which time nothing about mustard has changed at all. It’s still yellow and made for hot dogs. That’s it.
11. Bergstrom-Mahler Museum: Don’t let the vaguely normal name fool you: This museum is devoted to paperweights of all shapes and sizes. Pretty? Sure, if that’s your thing. But a museum dedicated to hunks of glass and metal used on coffee tables is a bit much.

[Source]

A People at War
Civilians and Soldiers in America’s Civil War
Carol Sheriff and Scott Reynolds Nelson
384 pages; Paperback

Editorial Review - Library Journal vol. 132

In a crowded field of books on the Civil War era, Nelson (Steel Drivin’ Man ) and Sheriff (The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817–1862 ), historians at the College of William and Mary, give us something new—an engaging, informed portrait of two peoples at war, with an emphasis on how common soldiers and noncombatants adjusted to and were changed by the war. The authors spend more time in recruiting halls, military camps, hospitals, and prisons than in battle to observe what moved men to war and some to flee it, as well as how the physical and emotional demands of living away from home affected their sense of self and their national identity. At the same time, they discuss how the war came home to civilians, with the raids of armies and partisans, the demands of mobilization, the death and dismemberment of soldiers, the erosion of slavery, and the promise of freedom. They are especially good at linking the experience of, and expectations about, the war with Americans’ ambitions and interests in the West. Their vivid descriptions of disease and destruction will remind readers that war was hell even as it was also an instrument of social change. The new social historians’ interest in “the people” gets its full due in this readable, reliable, and remarkably relevant book. Highly recommended for university and large public libraries.—Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph’s Univ., Philadelphia

When the Missouri Compromise was signed in 1820, the distance of railroads in the United States did not even equal a mile.[p.31] A telling piece of data that jumped out at me while reading Scott Reynolds Nelson and Carol Sheriff’s A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America’s Civil War, 1854-1877, and more specifically their chapter “The Road to Bleeding Kansas.” [A chapter I plan on handing out to my AP Students as a supplemental reading.]

The western expansion of the United States is something that has to be presented in detail as a causation (one of several) of the Civil War. The railroad explosion after 1820, though mainly impacting the North, opened up Western United States and caused the expansion of not just the population and economy but of the legal organization of the new territories into states. These new states placed pressure on a growing desire by some in the North to limit slavery’s expansion and some in the South to expand. As the country expanded, so too did the differences between too societies and their view of slavery as an institution of labor.

When looking at the factors that led to the outbreak of war, the caricature of a “Industrial North” and a “Slave South” as a main cause of the war, does “not hold up” as the authors note. [p.11] And I do agree that it is too simplistic to simply say that “slavery” caused the Civil War. Of course, as a general and significant cause, it was indeed the driving force. No slavery, no internal conflict over expansion, tariffs, ect. No threats and eventual declarations of secession. But that declaration does not help us understand the Civil War and the series of events that led up to that main event.

Nelson and Sheriff present what really feels like as a series of essays dealing with various aspects of the Civil War but all related to the theme of “a people at war.” The book goes to ground level and presents views from such aspects of the “people” including blacks and women. Social history is nothing new, and as the authors recognized, the publishing of American Civil War books has led to the extinction of many trees. So, to answer the authors in their Introduction, I would say their book is a nice addition to scholarship, though in the end it didn’t feel like anything special.

Nonetheless, the book is broken up nicely into both chronological and thematic aspects taking the narrative from the causes of war to Reconstruction, and I find it very useful as a teacher.

-Chris

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy” — Benjamin Franklin

This short essay will show how the principles of the American Revolution spawned a new era in American society as seen through the prism of the manufacturing and consumption of alcohol in North America. Additionally, how those Enlighten concepts of the Revolution impacted the society.

By analyzing the American Revolution’s impact on alcohol distilleries, the change in consumption habits of Americans, and the evolution of law in regard to alcohol, we can see how the Revolution radically altered American society after the war. More specifically, we can see how the radicalism of the Revolution in terms of how it changed the social structures of the family and the community, its enlightened concepts of freedom and authority, is expressed in the changes within the distillery industry and American consumption habits.

The post-American Revolutionary period saw sweeping changes in society and on multiple levels. As historian Gordon S. Wood noted, in the years after the Revolution “what remained of the traditional social hierarchy virtually collapsed.” The generation that spawned the Revolution, Wood also noted, “hoped to destroy the bonds holding together the older monarchical society – kinship, patriarchy, and patronage” and replace them with the enlightened ideals of “virtue” and a “disinterested public leadership.” In their attempt to transform American society, the Founders did succeed in creating the “most egalitarian, most materialistic, most individualistic” society in the Western world. These ideas of social and political liberalism would impact all aspects of society.

Amid this egalitarian and individualistic society emerged a reliance on the virtue of the individual and the relaxing of stringent Colonial laws on alcohol production and consumption. As we know, when the Pilgrims arrived in 1620 they consumed alcohol, specifically beer, on a daily basis and no laws existed to its consumption and production. However, it did not take long before the government of American Colonies, such as in Massachusetts, began heavily regulating and taxing the manufacturing and consumption of alcohol.

In their effort to radically create their utopia, Puritans themselves eventually attempted to halt the consumption of spirits. Much like a modern totalitarian state, Puritan communities were heavily regulated so that every aspect of life was controlled, including the use of “fire water.”

CHRONOLOGY OF THE AMERICAN BREWING INDUSTRY

1587 Virginia colonists brew ale using corn.
1607 First shipment of beer arrives in the Virginia colony from England.
1609 American “Help Wanted” advertisements appear in London seeking brewers for the Virginia Colony.
1612 Adrian Block & Hans Christiansen establish the first known brewery in the New World on the southern tip of New Amsterdam (Manhattan).
1614 The first non-native American is born in New Amsterdam, (perhaps the first non-native American male born in the New World) in Block & Christiansen’s brewhouse. Jean Vigne grows up to become the first brewer horn in the New World.
1620 Pilgrims arrive in Plymouth in the Colony of Massachusetts aboard the Mayflower. Beer is extremely short on board ship and the seamen force the passengers ashore to ensure that they will have sufficient beer for their return trip to England.
1632 The West India Company builds a brewery on Brewers Street in New Amsterdam led by Governor Van Twiller.
1633 Peter Ninuit establishes a brewery at Market Field on Manhattan Island.
1634 Samuel Cole is the first to be licensed in Boston to operate a tavern.
1637 First authoritatively recorded brewery in the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the control of Captain Sedgwick.
1639 Sergeant Bauleton is placed in charge of a brewhouse in Providence, Rhode Island.
1670 Samuel Wentworth of Portsmouth obtains the first license to brew beer in New Hampshire.
1683 William Penn’s colony erects a brewery at Peonshury near Bristol, Pennsylvania.
1683 William Frampton erects the first brewery in Philadelphia on Front Street between Walnut and Spruce at the Dock Street Creek.
1734 Mary Lisle, the first known “brewster” in America, takes over her late fathers Edinburgh Brewhouse in Philadelphia, which she operates until 1751.
1738 Major William Horton builds the first brewery in the deep south at Jekyll Island, Georgia.
1754 George Washington enters a beer recipe in his notebook.
1762 The Theory and Practice of Brewing by Michael Combrune is published. This is the first attempt to establish rules and principles for the art of brewing.
1765 The British Army builds a brewery at Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh, PA). The first brewery west of the Allegheny mountains.
1765 A brewery is built in the French colonial settlement of Kaskaskia in what is now Illinois. It is the first brewery outside the 13 colonies.
1772 A mixture of dark to light malts called “Porter” is concocted in England. Exports begin to America but it fails to gain popularity.
1774 Robert Smith begins a modest ale brewing venture at Saint John & Noble Streets in Philadelphia. Through relocations and buy outs, the Robert Smith brand will survive until 1986 – 212 years.
1774 The Single Brothers Brewery and Distillery opens in the Noravian religious settlement of Salem, North Carolina.
1775 Revolutionary War measures by Congress include rationing to each soldier one quart of Spruce Beer or Cider per man per day.
1789 George Washington presents his “buy American” policy indicating he will only drink porter made in America.
1789 Massachusetts passes an Act encouraging the manufacture and consumption of beer and ale.

(source)

Government, as it would do often, intervened in not just the consumption of alcohol but also its production including taxation. For example, in 1677 a Massachusetts’s court “established a regulation according to which beer might only be prepared from good barley malt.” Not producing beer with such quality would result in fines. Beer brewing, the type of barley used, the process of brewing beer, the locations for selling beer, and the quality of the beer itself, was all regulated by laws. People could be fined, flogged, and imprisoned for violations. Not to mention, taxes levied on beer brewing and consumption began in earnest and as a result of this government regulation, eventually the brewing and consumption of beer would come to a near halt by the outbreak of the American Revolution. Americans drank rum and tea in much high quantities than beer in 1700s because of regulation and taxes.

But all this would change with the Revolution. Though Americans were still devout Christians, they clung to the ideals of the Enlightenment and the philosophies of Natural Law, individual freedom and virtue. These ideas impacted the distilling industry and the private consumption of alcohol in America. Gordon S. Wood acknowledged that the “Revolution became a full scale assault on dependency” on patronage, radically restructured the family hierarchy, and just as important the role of government.

The idea of government regulating things such as the quality of the barley used in brewing, the location of beer breweries, as well as declaring how many pints of beer was legal to consume, would have seemed overbearing by the generation of Americans after 1776. Post Revolution Americans favored limited government and Natural Law, and at the very most would have allowed state and local governments to handle such issues, and with the consent of the people. It would not be until the radical era of Progressive Liberalism in the early Twentieth Century when government officials once again intervened in pre-Revolution ways with legislation such as the Eighteenth Amendment.

The spirit of the American Revolution led to government actually enacting legislation to promote alcohol consumption. None other than Thomas Jefferson and James Madison “were [both] decidedly in favor of the promotion of beer-brewing…” Additionally, in almost every United States Congress during the “two decades after the adoption of the Constitution, measures were considered and adopted which were intended to promote beer-brewing…” Also, the number of distilleries boomed during the decades after the Revolution, “reaching a peak of 20,000 by 1830,” by comparison the number never exceeded 5,000 during the 1700s.

By 1809 consumption of liquor amounted to, on average, a little over 23 quarts a year per person. Up from 10-15 during the Colonial era. The increased consumption of alcohol was due to decreased regulation and enforcement of laws, the ease of taxation, and the growth of American beliefs in individualism and freedom. With this new found freedom, Americans by the 1830s were on average consuming five gallons of liquor per year. This also led to the creation of our Republican government, but as we know it also led to the ease in regulation of things such as the consumption of alcohol and it also led to other developments unintended, but in hindsight not surprising.

By the 1820s American Society seemed to be “coming apart,” as virtually every state saw an increase in “murder, suicide, theft,” and alcoholism. Some have argued that the “burden” and “expectations” of the new American Republic led to an increase of anti-social behaviors when perhaps the opposite is true? Consider that the new found freedoms, the loss of patronage and the withering of stringent religious and government controls threatened to turn their country into a “nation of drunkards,” according to the Delaware Moral Society in 1815. It was not the burden of freedom, but freedom itself that led to self-indulgence.

The America that exited the 1700s was a youthful, confident, and somewhat naive nation that had a lot of figuring out to do and would struggle with the meaning and nature of revolutionary ideas. What is also evident is that the production and consumption of alcohol, the evolution of legal restrictions or lack thereof, gives us, though somewhat limited, an insight into those Revolution ideas and their impact on American society.

[footnotes withheld, image credit]

Just following up on my last post concerning Social Justice and its impact (and potential impact) in public schools. On what is one of the more important T4SJ (teaching 4 social justice) websites (here OH AND THERE IS ONE — AND MORE –IN CALIFORNIA HERE) is a breakdown on their proposed curriculum. But just as importantly, on the right hand side of this page (linked above) is a listing of “Upcoming Events!” and right there is the US Social Forum (where they proudly claim, Another Education is Possible at the US Social Forum!) that some people seem to think would never, ever, on any significant level, be a part of any legit educator’s summer training schedule.

The curriculum suggested for a T4SJ educator has already been covered here, and it centers around A Plan Book for Social Justice Teachers.

This plan book offers space for daily planning, neat quotes to share with your students, and points of emphasis on a daily basis.

• Weekly planning pages packed with important social justice birthdays and historical events
• References to online lesson plans and resources related to those dates
• Tips from social justice teachers across the country
• Inspirational quotes to share with students
• Thought-provoking essential questions to spark classroom discussions on critical issues
• Reproducible social justice awards for students

The “List of Resources” by themes is very interesting (link). Some excellent topics and ones any teacher should use in balance with what some might call, I don’t know, traditional historical resources. You know, the Constitution, George Washington, Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, World War 2, ect.

T4SJ, however, is not interested in balance or objectivity and this is my main problem with the movement.

What I pointed out the other day I will admit is a very radical meeting of T4SJ proponents. Traditional Social Justice teachers focus on inequality and racism, which are important themes. Only for them, they teach that EVERYWHERE and EVERYTHING (White related) is about racism and injustice. They educate kids about White Privilege, as titled here “Teaching Against White Privilege and Other Atrocities” (This is from a list of Conferences presentations by one of T4SJ’s most important advocates). I know what they think “White Privilege” is as I sat in a seminar once. I refuse to teach it and “other atrocities,” enough said!

These educators agree with this statement made by one of their own: “Howard Zinn saw no contradiction between teaching and activism. In fact, for him they were inseparable.” (source). Meaning, your job as a teacher is not about education, it is about activism and indoctrination. That is also a big reason why I loath most aspects of T4SJ.

Now am I saying that T4SJ educators are radicals who hope that one day we can, for example, replace Capitalism with Marxism or Socialism? I sure hope not, but the US Social Forum doesn’t help T4SJ’s case.

Here is another interesting resource for T4SJ educators and proponents. (Note: I just love the hammer and sickle logo, you know like Stalin and the Communists used. Do they know that under Communism more people have been murdered than there were by the National Socialists — Nazis?)

We have Environment Justice, Human Justice, ect., and it all sounds great, who would not want justice? Great, but I am for “Equal Justice.” What do I mean by Equal Justice, I mean the complete opposite of T4SJ. Instead of explaining it here for you, I will point you to a lecture by Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice. Dr. Sowell is an African-American professor of economics and author of a lot of books, and frankly is a lot smarter than I. Cosmic Justice addresses, in a unique way, the proponents of Social Justice.

Hope this helps some of you who can’t seem to wrap your head around my point. If not, I am sorry I do not know what more I can do for you.

The government wants to regulate and in some instances start taxing blogs and other websites. Great! More government cuz you know it does such a good job regulating and taxing and dealing with oil spills and hurricanes…. yea, more government can’t wait for government run health care! But I digress.

Read these news stories:

FCC set to reconsider broadband regulations

High-Speed Internet Rules Might Prove Costly

New Bill Gives Presidnet ‘Kill Switch’ To Shut Down The Internet

FTC floats Online News tax

Now I am sure that the government knows best and is doing what is best for us. I’m sure they are only looking out for our best interests and have no political agenda…. you know now that we’re in an era of “transparency” and “change we can believe in…”

I receive from various Social Justice sites alerts about conferences and literature, and today I got an invitation as an education to the US Social Forum which is taking place later this month in Detroit, Michigan. The event at first sounds like a great opportunity. From the home page of the site:

The US Social Forum will provide a space to build relationships, learn from each other’s experiences, and share analysis of the problems our communities face. It will help develop leadership, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world.

Another World is Possible. Another US is Necessary!

Sounds great. So I began to look at the programs/workshops offered, I’ll share some with you:

Marx vs. Keynes -Marx vs. Keynes: What is a way out of today’s economic crisis? Is it possible to break with capitalist value production?

This interactive workshop will have two brief (20 minute maximum) presentations on the nature of the present economic crisis of capitalism, which has sent many economists back to the 1930s for guidance for today’s reality. What is similar and what is different about today’s crisis? After financial markets were saved from a 1930s style collapse, the “Great Recession” persists with an effective unemployment rate of over 20 percent among an outraged population in the real economy where we as workers earn a living and support our families. The only alternative put forward by some to the failed policies of the past, monetarism and tax cutting, has been a Keynesian return to 1930s style government intervention in the economy including massive deficit spending. Can this work today? Can it be said to have worked then when it was WWII that finally ended the Great Depression? As against these two orthodoxies, what is Marx’s concept of a general crisis of capitalism and the inter-relation between the ‘Falling Rate of Profit’ and ‘Under-Consumption’? What direction does Marx’s approach lead to in this crisis? What is Marx’s concept of a break with capitalist crisis-prone value production?

Read the above carefully, is that an accurate historical analysis of the Great Depression and Keynesian economics?

A World in Crisis: The Case for Socialism – Socialism has re-entered the political debate–but how do we get there?

Marxism for the 21st Century: Capitalist Crisis, Socialist Solutions – Workshop on current crisis/Marxist thought: reoccurring crises of capitalism, eco-socialist solutions, “neo-left” collaboration with Obama.

Interesting that the above workshop mentions President Obama.

WTF is Socialism Anyway???: The Campus as a Battleground of Class Struggle – “Socialism” is used to describe everything from bailouts to Nazis. YDS will gladly clarify, presenting a history of socialism and describing campus organizing.

This one above, I think, really reflects the kind of people this conference is presented by and those who would attend. I’m sure this workshop will also be historically accurate. You know, I wonder how they will explain the National Socialists party in Germany in the 1930s?

Why Capitalism is Organized Crime & Socialism is the Alternative – Join us in a discussion about why it is only socialism that can solve the ills of capitalist society and bring about a different world.

Look what capitalism is being compared to. Simply mind-boggling!

21st Century Socialism: What It Is and How To Get It – A discussion of the interconnection of democratic and socialist tasks in the current situation, radical structural reform, strategic paths, and a vision for a new socialism.

Sounds like “Fundamental Change” and “change we can believe in!”

The “War on Terror” & the “War on People of Color”: Muslim, Arab, South Asians Build Movement as Black & Brown U.S. Struggle – In the post 9/11 ‘War on Terror’, Muslims, Arab, South Asians join African American, Latino, Native American voices in building a common history of U.S. structural racism and strategizing a unified struggle for justice.

Speechless.

Our Schools, Our Future: Transforming Education through Grassroots Organizing and Winning Youth & Parent-led Educational Equity Campaigns – Does your school feel like a business more than an education center? Do you see racial tracking, high disappearance, high dropout rates and low college-going rates in your school? Do students and parents feel powerless over the decision-making process of your school system? If you say yes to any of these questions, YOU need to be at this workshop! Schools act like labor training centers for a racially and economically stratified society, where the power is held by the few, at the expense of the masses. It is no question that the current education system is the foundation that holds together systems of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. The question is how do we transform it? In this workshop, you will learn how youth and parents in the Bay Area, California have take significant strides towards educational change within their school systems.

This is called teaching for Social Justice and it is not about truth or honesty, it is about radicalism, indoctrination, and propaganda in our schools. And we wonder why our public schools are failing us? There is little learning going on and instead, lots of indoctrination.

Capitalism is killing us. Fight for SOCIALISM! A collaborative conversation in 2 parts – A conversation on Reform, Revolution and Socialism in the Era of Low-Wage Capitalism; Multi-media, spoken word and open roundtable dialogue with and for revolutionary thinkers/fighters, young leaders and some with decades of experience on paths to united action for reviving the fight for socialism in the U.S. Organization representatives and individuals invited.

They are teaching educators about radicalism and revolution, and they in turn will teach the children!

FINALLY my two favorites as I am clearly a Fascists according to these fine folks!

A Strategy to Counter the Tea Party Fascists - we will discuss a psychologically and spiritually informed alternative to the growth of the Tea Party movement and its resonance with sectors of the American public who might become the base for a future American fascism. We start with an assumption that is often doubted in the Left: that there are real human needs that right-wing movements address, albeit linking those needs to racist, sexist, homophobic, and militarist solutions. Those needs are both economic needs and spiritual needs. Our task is in part to acknowledge the reality of those needs but to help people understand that they could better be addressed by challenging the global capitalist system in which those needs are rooted.

Glenn Beck’s Nightmare: What it Will take to Build a Movement for 21st Century Socialism – Glenn Beck and other right-wing pundits have drummed up the fear of a socialist takeover of U.S. society.

Drummed up! Have they looked at the workshops they are offering? Glenn Beck doesn’t need to work very hard if this is one of his goals. These folks will help make anyone’s job easier if they are concerned about socialism taking over in this country.

This is just more data that our educational system is being hijacked by a movement that seeks to do nothing more than fundamentally change this country into something it was never intended to be!

Go ahead, anyone, defend this, please… help me out here!

Please post your comments if you have some useful input!!

[Note Civil War soldiers referred to what we know as land mines as either "land torpedoes" or "sub-terra" shells or mines.]

Fellow reader Drew Armstrong notified me of an “unknown object” that was found near Palatka, Florida, and the St. John’s River. The object appears to from the Civil War era and at first guess I was thinking a sub-terra torpedo such as the ones I investigated during my research of the Battle of Fort Blakely. However, after some research I am fairly positive it is a sea Torpedo. First, after careful study it seems to fit the description I found in the Official Records. Also, this area of the St. John’s River did see some naval action. For example:

In March 1864 Palatka, Florida, was described by a US Naval Commander as nothing more than “a village on the west bank of the St. Johns fifty miles south of Jacksonville—is occupied by four Federal regiments supported by several gunboats. No opposition is encountered. The Federal troops fortify their position.”

Here’s a description of an event that took place about the same time as the above log entry:

In March, 1864, the gun-boats in Florida, under the command of Commander George B. Balch, were participating in the expedition up the St. John’s River. When the Federal troops landed, they threw up such heavy intrenchments that it was not likely the Confederates could make much impression on them. The Confederates of that region, however, did not propose to allow their native State to be invaded without making a stubborn resistance, and left no means untried to annoy the military positions whenever there was an opportunity of doing so. But the gun-boats were generally at hand with their heavy guns and bursting shells, and the Southerners were usually discomfited.

General Gordon landed at Jacksonville on the 9th of May, and assumed command of the district of Florida; and, in view of the long line of river to be kept open, objected to any reduction of the naval force in the St. John’s River, in which Commander Balch concurred with him.

The activity of the Confederates in this quarter, as elsewhere, was very marked ; for, though they yielded up all the forts along the coast, they seemed determined to resist any further entrance of Federal troops into the interior of the State, and they tried to confine the Navy as much as possible to the lower part of the St. John’s River.

Notwithstanding the vigilance of the naval commanders, the Confederates succeeded in planting torpedoes in the river in the channel. On May 10th, the steamer “Harriet A. Weed” ran into two of these torpedoes, which exploded at the same moment and completely destroyed the vessel, sinking her in less than one “minute’s time, with five men killed and ten badly wounded.

The naval force employed in the St. John’s River, under Commander Balch, was composed of the “Pawnee,” “Mahaska” and “Norwich.” off Jacksonville, and the “Ottawa ” at Palatka. With such a small force it would have been impossible to prevent the enemy from practicing their system of torpedo warfare, which they had found to be so effective wherever the Federal gunboats were employed.

On about the last of March, the transport “Maple-leaf” offered another success for the Confederates, and was blown up by a torpedo, fifteen miles above Jacksonville— this being the highway to Palatka and above, where Federal troops were being constantly transported. The duty on the river became very hazardous, for a severe torpedo warfare was carried on in small boats during dark nights by the Confederate torpedo corps, which first made its appearance on the Mississippi in 1862.

The above operations in Florida of the Army and Navy lasted from March 6th to April 16th. when orders were received from the War Department for the troops to be sent North, in consequence of which the gun-boats were withdrawn ; but while employed with the Army, Commander Balch, Lieutenant – Commander S. Livingston Breese, of the ” Ottawa,” and the commanders of the “Mahaska” and “Norwich ” performed good and gallant service.

Drew had the photos analyzed by historians at James Madison University and their shockingly incorrect analysis can be viewed here . According to them, it can’t be a sub-terra shell as the Confederates stopped using them in 1862!! Wow. Anyway…

Here are the images of the potential Civil War Torpedo (click to enlarge):

As those of you who have been visiting here for the last, what, 4 years note that the emphasis has changed from the “American Civil War” to United States history in general. As you also may know for several years now I have been placing my Civil War focus over at SoldierStudies.org which is a database of Civil War letters and now a news blog. I encourage you to check it out and bookmark it!

Civil War Voices Blog

Latest posts:

Battle of Fredericksburg Letter
Henry Frank Babcock, Company I, of the 122nd New York Infantry, to his parents, written during the Battle of Fredericksburg. Letter reads, On the Field of Battle, Sunday, Dec 14/62 Dear Parents, I take this chance to answer your kind favors of which I received yesterday. Our mail was brought to us on the field as we lay flat [...]

Confederate 3rd Virginia Cavalry Soldier’s Letter!
Cockletown July 13th, 1861 My Little Darling, I have just finished reading your dear sweet letter the second time. I received it last night about dusk. You cannot imagine how happy it made me. It came just at the right time. I had just returned to our camp after being absent on another scout ever since the evening before [...]

New 20th Maine Letters Found
From Ebay: A small and interesting group of 20th Maine Civil War letters from Private Henry C Simonds of 20th ME Regt Company C to his wife Lizzie Simonds of North Turner & Wilton, Maine Today it’s highly unusual to uncover anything of substance related to the 20th Maine Volunteers . The 20th Maine is of course [...]

Surgeon General of the State of Massachusetts
With the idea of improving our collection of Civil War Surgeons comes John G. Perry of Boston, Mass. John G. Perry of Boston, Mass., entered Harvard College in 1858, bearing with him a very youthful attachment; and in the undoubting judgment of youth, he and I, but boy and girl, in light-hearted gayety strolled one evening [...]

New Soldier: Chauncey Holcomb
Sergeant Chauncey Holcomb wrote letters while in Company F, 27th Massachusetts. November 23rd, 1861 at camp he wrote: We went to the African Church too. Meeting was very much entertainment to hear the old negro talk and sing. When we got home the boys had supper all ready. They had invited in Uncle Frank and some [...]

New Soldier: Henry H. Hitchcock
Of the New York 12th Infantry. June 1, 1861, he writes: Things look very warlike here. Down town you see nothing but soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. I see that the Volunteer force now amounts to 300,000. This is beside the regular army and the impression seems to be that the president will call for [...]