Blog 4 History

Center design of the 6th U.S. Colored Troops regimental flag. The top motto reads, “Freedom for all”. From the Library of Congress Collection.

Very interesting recordings it sounds like are being released by the Nixon Presidential Library. As the movie Frost/Nixon identified, Nixon was a complex man. It stands to reason that we don’t really learn about a President until many years after their leaving office. It will be interesting how our most contemporary Presidents will be judged in years to come: Obama, Bush W., Clinton, Bush H., ect. In these tapes Nixon discusses Roe V. Wade, Equal Rights, and getting more women involved in politics, sort of:

Nixon is heard on a muffled tape recording telling his special counsel that abortion is necessary in some cases – including instances of multiracial pregnancy.

Speaking to Charles Colson after the January 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, the president said: “I admit, there are times when abortions are necessary, I know that.” He gave “a black and a white” as an example.

“Or rape,” Colson offered. “Or rape,” Nixon agreed.

The records show Nixon seemingly resigned to the likelihood of South Vietnam’s eventual collapse even as he strong-armed its president, Nguyen Van Thieu, to accept a settlement that would extricate the U.S. from the massively unpopular war.

He told his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, he’d do anything to get Thieu to accede, “cut off his head if necessary.”

Nixon historian Luke A. Nichter said the circumstances surrounding Nixon’s acceptance of a flawed peace-deal will probably be what scholars note from the latest disclosures.

“Producing the Vietnam peace agreement took the administration to the emotional brink,” he said. “At the very moment of triumph after finally ending combat operations in Southeast Asia, that process caused deep and lasting fissures among the top ranks in the White House.”

To read more…

…when New Hampshire became the 9th state to ratified it. The 55 writers of the U.S. Constitution consisted of: 26 Episcopalians, 11 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 2 Quakers and 1 Deist – Dr. Franklin, who called for prayer during the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787: “I therefore beg leave to move – that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning.” The Journal of the U.S. House of Representatives, March 27, 1854, recorded the unanimous vote of the 33rd Congress to print Congressman James Meacham’s report, which stated: “At the adoption of the Constitution, we believe every State – certainly 10 of the 13 – provided as regularly for the support of the Church as for the support of the Government…Down to the Revolution, every colony did sustain religion in some form. It was deemed peculiarly proper that the religion of liberty should be upheld by a free people.” Congressman Meacham concluded: “Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle.”

Looks and sounds like a very Christian Nation at least for a while after its founding…

I have been taking notes from a great book that I have decided will be (along with my A.P. textbook) the cornerstone of my teaching of the American Colonial period in my Advanced Placement class. Alan Taylor’s book American Colonies: The Settling of North America (The Penguin History of the United States, Volume1) (Hist of the USA) is in my opinion exceptional. He goes into sufficient detail, intertwines interesting tidbits and details, but most important is even keel and straightforward for the most part. For example, when Taylor discusses something controversial like pre-1492 Indian population, he talks about the “low-counters” and “high-counters” and discusses how scholarship on the topic has evolved and then comes to a very scholarly opinion. Very good!

The book is broken up into parts, first he starts with some pre-Colombian information and then moves into the first encounters with Europeans. He finishes with the establishment of America and its pre-Empire beginnings. The narrative is engaging and most importantly a lot of great material and well researched. I highly recommend it!

The Treasury announced Thursday a record $104 billion worth of bond auctions for next week, part of its herculean efforts to finance a rescue of the world’s largest economy.

The sales will exceed the previous record of $101 billion set in auctions that took place in the last week of April and consist of two-year, five-year and seven-year securities. That record was matched by another $101 billion week in May.

Though next week’s total was broadly in line with expectations, worries about supply have weighed on the U.S. government bond market, which will see a mammoth $2 trillion worth of new debt issued this year.

To read the bloody rest…

Two Japanese guys currently in custody in Italy!!! …

This would be funny if it wasn’t so scary; and telling all at once…

Two men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors.

Note: there are no hard facts involving this report yet, but we will see.

UPDATE: United States Treasury announces that these bonds were fakes, thank God.

But, it’s a strange case. They were exceptional fakes from the reports. You don’t just print these out from a computer. So the questions arise: Who are these people? Are they stupid? Makes no sense. Why did it take 10 days to declare them as fake when all bonds come with serial numbers?  These weren’t just million bonds or something, but billions of dollars in bonds. The purchaser would check them out, hands down. Are there other countries involved trying to devalue our currency even more? Is there an economic war coming in the near future?

UPDATE 6.21.08: “… late last week American officials confirmed that the notes were forgeries. The men, it appeared, were nothing more than ambitious scamsters. But many remain unconvinced. And whether fake or otherwise, the story underlines one important point about the world economy at the moment: that the tension and paranoia surrounding the fate of the US dollar has hit a new high. It went to the heart of the big question: will the central bankers in Japan, China and elsewhere continue to support the greenback even in the wake of the worst financial crisis in modern history, or will they abandon it as America’s economic hegemony dissipates?” To read more…

In honor of its anniversary, here are some useless facts:

• James Madison was the only president to face enemy gunfire while in office.
  When the British invaded and burned Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812, Madison
  took command of a battery of artillery, exercising his authority as commander-in-chief.
• Even when the British attacking forces were nearing the White House, Dolly Madison refused to leave until she could take with her a portrait of George Washington.
• The Battle of the Brass: The battle of Bladensburg in August 1814 was the only battle in American history where the President, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of State were all present. The Americans lost.
• The British army in Canada lived largely on American beef smuggled openly across the borders of New York and Vermont.

Do you have any to add?

Contrary to claims that government-imposed “universal health care” would solve America’s health care problems, it would in fact destroy American medicine and countless lives along with it.

More government is not the answer to health care or anything else.  My sister works very high up in a Chicago hospital and my conversations with her about the government regulations that exist now that drive costs up would OPEN YOUR EYES. The government is a major reason why health care costs are so out of control. When nurses have to spend 50% of their paid time doing paperwork that is demanded by government regulations (imposed on hospitals and insurance companies already) you have workers who are only half as efficient, hospitals have to charge more to make up.  I could go on. Most Americans are so uninformed on issues such as the economy and health care that they have no clue.  We all know there is a problem, but we have some who think that the government is the answer, and some who don’t. I am always in favor of the private sector, though I am a humble school teacher who will never be rich. It is a fallacy that there are uninsured people in this country. Anyone, without health care can walk into an emergency room and they have to be treated. They will be treated.  There are factual cases where uninsured people have received open heart surgery that costs six-figures.  What this issue is about is not health care, but politics….  yeah I know, call me crazy. Anyway, here’s an article that you can choose to read or not, but one that hits the nail on the head and did so almost two years ago: Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care”.

PS – I do not deny that we need some regulation of the private sector. But what we have now and what we are beginning to see is crossing the line in my opinion.

… I attended the first funeral of a student of mine. This is only my third year of teaching. His name is Nathan. I received the call yesterday from my principle, who informed me. I was ashamed to discover that I did not really know Nate. He was a student of mine last year, and I only recall him being a very polite and introspective young man. He missed a significant amount of time as well, and I could recall him coming to see me to make up his missed work. See, I did not know Nate, I only thought I did. Nate suffered from a significant asthema problem that nearly took his life two times before he was my student. It was so bad his parents sent him away to relatives where the environment would allow him to heal. I can remember vividly that day last year when Nate came to see me to make up work he had missed. He was vividly sick, his nose red, his eyes puffy, his face flushed. I work in at a public school and work with a lot of different kids and sometimes, well, I guess I will learn I do not always read them correctly.

I had to attend the funeral of a former student in order to learn about him, this was incredibly difficult. I did not know Nate though he was a student in my class for about 8 weeks. At his wake I heard from his friends and family and realized I could not have been more wrong about someone.

I am filled with a lot of emotion, some very petty. Why did I not know this young man and why did it take something so tragic to finally know him? I don’t know if I will ever know the answer. Perhaps I am a bad teacher? I could make excuses, I had a lot of students and Nate missed some time and was not there, I don’t know.

This is all new for me.All I can say is that I witnessed a very beautiful and passionate ceremony today, and that I got to know a former student for the first time, and sadly, for the last.

C

Over at Kevin’s blog, as he has many times, there is some interesting discussion going on concerning the Confederate Flag and how it is displayed in public.  The issue centers around memory, how it is being celebrated, the flag’s meaning, and why it is displayed. I am overtly simplifying here the discussion there.

Anyway, just for kicks I did some google searching for “Confederate Flag” and came across some interesting images of the Southern symbol. Some I selected as they were funny, others not so funny.

What is the flag’s meaning and how important is that when considering its display?  If it is used as in a message of hate, obviously that is rude. If it used as a symbol of the Lost Cause myth, than that is ignorant. However it is used should that even be a determining factor? Anyway, consider each of these below and if you want chime in on what you think the meaning for each is, please do.