Category: Professor's Classroom

Are You A ‘Cultural Marxist’?

To begin with the term ‘Marxist’ ought to send the more ignorant among us into some form of stroke mode…..but this is about culture more than the man…..but your IQ needs to be larger than your shoe size to differentiate.

Before we tackle this subject maybe a little background would help…..

1930s: originally denoting a theory that the oppression of the working class is effected through social and cultural means, developed by the Frankfurt School of social theorists.

(among some right-wing thinkers) a radical political ideology said to be promoted by left-wing activists with the aim of undermining or subverting western social and cultural institutions, ultimately resulting in the imposition of a progressive agenda on society.

Yes it is bullshit but that is what right wingers do best….spread manure.

Now for the meat of this post.

“Not to disparage David Bowie,” Alan Bennett remarked in 2016, “but if even a fraction of the tributes being paid to him and his influence were true, we would never have had a Conservative government.” Not to disparage Theodor Adorno, Jürgen Habermas and the other members of the Frankfurt School, but if they’d been one-millionth as potent as their detractors maintain, we would have had no Margaret Thatcher, no Ronald Reagan, no Liz Truss and no Donald Trump.

Yet, to hear some on the American far-Right tell it, “critical theory” – the Frankfurt School’s mash-up of Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche’s proto-existentialism – is responsible for everything that has gone wrong since the Second World War. Spoilt children, promiscuous teenagers, student radicals, transsexuals, rock ’n’ roll – each is the by-product of what the conservative activist Andrew Breitbart described as the Frankfurt ideology’s “adolescent rebellion against all rules and norms”.

What a load of claptrap, says the British historian AJA Woods. In The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy, he depicts a cult of wealthy American cranks and crackpots who kid each other that a few highbrow German-Jewish aesthetes managed to wreck Western civilisation. Certainly, the truth is more mundane: critical theory was just a logical extension of the highly moral form of literary criticism invented in Victorian England by Matthew Arnold at Oxford and carried on into the 20th century by F R Leavis at Cambridge.

Like Leavis and Arnold, the Frankfurters abhorred the rise of industrial capitalism. Unlike Leavis and Arnold, the Frankfurters were openly ideological. They were, to be precise, materialist Hegelians: they believed that, by melding their respective skill sets – philosophy, sociology, psychology, aesthetics – they could mint an entirely new and holistic explanation of history and society, premised on empirical grounds.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/review-cultural-marxism-conspiracy-frankfurt-school-woods/

If you are interested this may be a good piece for you…..

https://ammo.com/articles/cultural-marxism-gramsci-how-disciples-of-gramscian-marxism-subverted-america

It is all so much smoke screen for mental midgets that flock to the likes of Donny and his brand of fascism…..belittle the opposition…..it works for them.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

From Utopian Dreams To Zombie Incrementalism

My regulars know that I am not a fan of the Democratic Party or Dems in general.  In my opinion they are nothing more than the other side of the conservative coin.

The only Dems I have any respect for are those that are of a different party but caucus with the Dems….

But what went wrong?

The Democratic Party once imagined itself as the engine of meaningful American transformation. First FDR revamped the relationship between the government and the people, then, in 1944, in his “Second Bill of Rights,” he proposed economic guarantees that would have rewritten the country’s legal and economic foundations. This would have entailed a huge structural change as the role of government would have moved further from a mere defender of freedoms to a guarantor of economic well-being.

Every American was to have the right to a job, the right to housing, the right to medical care, the right to education and the right to protection from economic fear. FDR stated that people in economic need could not fully participate in a democracy and we needed economic reform to ensure everyone had the economic security to participate in democratic governance and move the country in a humane direction.

But the Second Bill of Rights died with Roosevelt, so Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society then attempted to attack poverty, racial segregation/injustice and inequality at their structural roots, closely following many of Roosevelt’s proposals. The Great Society was however, hampered by congressional resistance, the budgetary and political drain of Vietnam and white backlash to civil rights.

There were victories, however: the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which sent federal funding into public schools serving low‑income children; Head Start; the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act enforcement mechanisms, which dismantled Jim Crow; the Higher Education Act, which opened college access to working‑class students through grants and loans; the creation of public broadcasting; the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities and major environmental laws like the Clean Air and Water Quality Acts.

Yet, despite these victories, we did not see real structural change because the Great Society was only allowed to alter the symptoms of American inequality without changing the underlying power arrangements that produced those symptoms. It expanded services but did not redistribute power and it created programs for the poor but left the economic order that manufactured poverty fully intact. The result was apparent progress without real transformation and reforms that improved lives while leaving the basic mechanisms of injustice standing.

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-the-democratic-party-has-become-from-utopian-dreams-to-zombie-incrementalism/

At one time the Dems were considered the “Left”….and in some less informed circles they still refer to them as the Left…but they are far from any representation of a true Left ideology.

Why?

Many years ago they abandoned the class struggle…..the working class.

That tradition began with a sharp diagnosis. Karl Marx argued that capitalism rests on a class relationship in which those who own the means of production extract surplus value from those who own only their labor power. One did not have to accept the inevitability of revolution to accept the centrality of class, and Bernstein did not. He kept the analysis and changed the method, betting that universal suffrage could be turned into economic democracy.

That bet defined what the old left stood for. It was not merely taxing the rich and redistributing the proceeds, the liberal project of John Stuart Mill and later John Maynard Keynes, but democratizing economic decision making itself. The New Deal and the Great Society were humane achievements, yet they were state capitalism for the benefit of the many and left the boardroom intact. The democratic socialist asked a harder question: who decides what gets built, where capital flows, and whose work disappears?

Put most simply, the socialist project was about extending democracy into the economy. We accept that the people should govern the state, that no king or boss may rule a polity by private right. The socialist asked why the same principle stops at the factory gate, why the firm that shapes a person’s waking life should remain a little monarchy exempt from the democratic rule we demand everywhere else.

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-is-wrong-with-the-american-left-the-abandonment-of-class/

We need a true Left in this country…..what we have now is just two corrupt parties that are for sale….the people meant absolutely nothing the the Congress as a whole.

We need a Left Party!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Here Is What The Deal Has To Say

The country, well those interested in foreign affairs, have been waiting for some sort of story about the wording of the deal between US and Iran….and we wait….

Wait no longer the Old Professor has the wording for you….

1. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.

2. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.

3. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent.

4. Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States Lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.

5. Upon signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume, taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.

6. The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, While ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.

7. The United States commits to ending, on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran, including resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary.

8. The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues, including Iran’s nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement; the final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article.

9. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that, pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo: Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the United States will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region.

10. The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.

11. The United States undertakes that, in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available. These funds, whether held in the master account or transferred, will be used for any final beneficiary payment determined by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will be fully available for use. The United States undertakes to issue all necessary permits and licenses on this basis.

12. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that an implementation mechanism will be established to oversee the successful implementation of and future commitment to the Final Agreement.

13. Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and upon receipt of assurances regarding the commencement of implementation of Articles 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this Memorandum of Understanding, and the continued implementation of these steps, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States will enter into negotiations for a Final Agreement solely with respect to the remaining Articles.

14. The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council.

This really was not that hard to locate so I do not know why Donny and the media was dragging their feet.

If I am not mistaken most of the points covered have been recovered before…..so what did we need to start killing civilians for a couple of months ago?

This agreement is a joke!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What We Do Not Know Constitutionally

AS we near the first step to our independence it comes to light that we know very little about the US Constitution…..

These are the 10 most common mistakes….

The phrase “it’s unconstitutional” gets thrown around in American political life the way people invoke “the rules” in an argument they’re losing: with great confidence and very little specificity. Most Americans have a working sense of what the Constitution does. It protects rights, limits government, sets up three branches. But the gap between that general outline and what the document actually says, and crucially what it doesn’t say, is wider than most people realize.

10 Things Most Americans Get Wrong About the Constitution

Now you know.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Historically Ignorant President

Our brainless Donny has a full schedule of ‘celebrations’ for our 250th anniversary….a UFC cage match. a street race, a county fair, etc etc etc…..all the mind numbing crap and little about what this country went through in that 250 years.

But what can we expect from a historically ignorant president?

Last week, Donald Trump’s rolling assault on the physical landscape of the capital set its sights on yet another historical landmark. The fountain in the World War II memorial, Trump declared, looked “in pretty bad shape on the bottom,” in need of a makeover “duplicating” that for the nearby Reflecting Pool, though “maybe with a slightly different color … a lighter blue.”

But as we head toward Trump-led celebrations of our country’s semiquincentennial featuring a UFC cage fight in a 5,000-person arena thrown up on the White House lawn, we need to recognize that his onslaught against our history has also extended far beyond the physical.

Not long ago, two watchdog groups sued the Trump administration over the White House’s internal guidance that email exchanges between executive branch officials could be peremptorily deleted, escaping preservation for the historical record. A blatant violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the memo leaned on a Justice  Department move declaring this act itself unconstitutional. While this time, a court then ruled in favor of the watchdogs, this administration’s efforts to vanish its own public record advance its sweeping campaign to expunge realities as well as richness from American history, to reduce it to tales of untethered “heroes” that will drain its democratic lifeblood.

In April, the Organization of American Historians convened its annual conference in Philadelphia. New York Times reporter Jennifer Schuessler described the tone of this gathering of American historians as “anxious.” This attendee felt a more widespread emotional undercurrent: anger. That feeling has been stirred far more by the Trump administration’s designs on American history than by other worries reported by Schuessler, including historians’ “declining authority” as growing numbers of Americans take up history telling via TikTok, YouTube, and other media that are available to everyone.

I, along with many other historians, am far less bothered by TikTok history than by the sheer scope and brazenness of this top-down White House–led assault on history.

https://newrepublic.com/article/211170/trump-250-commemorating-history-ignorant-president

As a political historian I am disgusted with the gaudy display of insensitivity shown by this idiot that claims to be a ‘stable genius’ and yet he cannot see past the infantile cheap tricks he calls ‘celebrations’.

Anything to say?

Something to think about../..this is how the 1876 celebrations went….

In the summer of 1876, the United States was preparing for its 100th birthday with patriotic celebrations. In its first century, the country had grown from 13 states to 37, with Colorado poised to become the 38th state weeks after July 4.

But while Americans felt proud, many were also worried. “The country was filled with anxiety for the future,”

https://www.history.com/articles/american-centennial-1876-celebrations

A little history goes a long way.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Rep. Massie Is The Only Hero To Tackle The USS Liberty

This is a video of a speech given on the House floor by Rep. Massie…watch the speech and learn something.

Thomas Massie: June 8, 2026 Speech in Congress Blows Up 1967 U.S.S. Liberty Crime Scandal.

It is about damn time that the US demand Israel stand up and take responsibility for killing and injuring American sailors.

Israel has gotten a free ride for over 50 years and now is time for them to be held accountable for their actions on the day.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

D-Day Remembrance

Today is the anniversary of the assault on Nazi Europe…the beginning of the end (so to speak)….

I will forgo my usual News Dump to re-post this story from 6 years ago….I try to remember those that did all they could to end the tyranny that had afflicted the world.

Not to worry the ‘Dump’ will return next Saturday.

Please take some time and read this from a few years ago….and remember our sacrifices to beat the ‘Hun’…..

D-Day Remembrance

Not many of the veterans of that day left for us to honor….soon there will be none….but we should make it a national holiday to honor those that participated and some gave their all to end the cancer that had grew in Europe.

Please take a few moments and remember those brave souls….

Thank you for your time and attention…..I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Few “Founding” Myths

As with all history there myths that get passed around so much that soon become a fact….but in reality they are still a myth no matter how many times they are uttered.

As a political Historian I feel it necessary to corr4eect a bunch of the myths that we have lived with for generations.

10 myths that we all know and have heard…..

  • The Declaration of Independence wasn’t signed on July 4, 1776. Though the Declaration was adopted by Congress on July 4, the document wasn’t signed by most of the delegates until August 2.
  • Thomas Jefferson didn’t sign the Constitution. Though Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence, he missed the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia because he was serving as the United States’ envoy in Paris at the time.
  • Neither did John Adams. Like Jefferson, Adams was away from the United States at the time it was signed. He was in London serving as the United States minister to Great Britain.
  • The Founding Fathers didn’t originally want the turkey as the United States’ national symbol. The debate over the Great Seal began in 1776 and lasted six years, involving ideas about religious and mythical scenes. The turkey was not a close contender.
  • The Liberty Bell probably didn’t ring after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Historians say it’s unlikely the bell rung because the steeple that housed the bill was rotted at the time. It’s also unlikely it cracked that day.
  • There weren’t originally 13 colonies. Until 1776, Delaware was legally considered a lower county of the colony of Pennsylvania. It left to become an independent state in 1776.
  • There’s no proof Betsy Ross created the the first American flag. According to National Geographic, the only evidence Ross played any part in designing or sewing the American flag that made its debut in 1777 is testimony from her family. Likewise, there’s no proof Ross didn’t create the flag, and several reasons she may have done so.
  • Neither the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper. They were both written on parchment, though some early drafts of the documents could have been written on the widely-used hemp.
  • Most of the Founders who signed the Declaration of Independence didn’t sign the Constitution. Only six signed both: George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, George Read,James Wilson and Roger Sherman.
  • The Constitution doesn’t say “All Men Are Created Equal.” That language is contained within the Declaration of Independence; the original Constitution included provisions such as the Three-Fifths Clause, which counted each enslaved person as three-fifths of a person to determine representation in Congress.

That will do for now….

Class Dismissed

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Should We Divide Into Two?

SCOTUS has done its part in dividing this nation….

On April 29, the Supreme Court delivered a devastating blow to the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). As bad as it was, the decision fit with a long line of cases in which the conservative- dominated Court has turned a blind eye to the lived realities of racism in the United States.

https://thefulcrum.us/rule-of-law/supreme-court-vra-gerrymandering-unraveling-democracy1

The political divide in our beloved country is making it impossible for it to ever return to the unity of yesteryear.

There are some that think we should just stop all this back and forth and divide the country into Blue States and Red States and become two separate entities.

I never thought I’d say this. I agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Not on policy, certainly not on her rhetoric, but on her suggestion that Americans might be happier if we split into two separate nations — one red, one blue.

It may sound unthinkable to many. But let’s be honest, America has never been as united as its name suggests. The Articles of Confederation established an unworkable loose alliance of sovereign states, and it took the Constitutional Convention’s compromises — on slavery, representation, and federal power — to hold our young nation together, eventually leading to the Civil War, still our bloodiest conflict.

Post-Reconstruction, the divides persisted. The agrarian populism of the Midwest clashing with Eastern industrialism, the isolationist heartland versus coastal internationalism during the World Wars. The 20th century was marked by furious battles over civil rights, voting, and gender equality. From the beginning, we have been — and continue to be — a nation at odds with itself.

This divide feels even more permanent and deep than ever before. A country of 330 million people — stretching from New England villages to Mid-Atlantic cities to Texas oil towns to Montana ranches to California tech hubs to the glaciers of Alaska — is forced to act as if one set of laws, one political culture, and one vision of morality can workably apply to everyone. The result is endless frustration — with the whiplash of government swinging from left to right, Democrat to Republican, and back again every few years. One administration builds, the next tears down, and ordinary citizens are left angry, exhausted, and embittered.

A peaceful separation into two sovereign countries could offer a much healthier and happier path forward. Imagine a “Red America” and a “Blue America,” each free to pursue its own vision of health care, education, social policy, and regulation — without constantly trying to override the other.

But separation need not mean isolation. We could model our post-split relationship on the European Union: two sovereign nations bound by a cooperative framework that preserves the best of our shared history. The U.S. dollar — as a continued common currency — would stabilize economies and facilitate trade, avoiding the pitfalls of monetary divergence. Joint defense through a mutual security pact — perhaps an evolved NATO-like alliance — would safeguard against external threats, with shared military assets and intelligence.

https://wegotthiscovered.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-is-threatening-donald-trump-publicly-with-a-revolution-his-next-move-might-be-the-one-that-finally-breaks-maga/

My take is that this nation can heal but it will take lots of work….work that the population is not prepared to do….so maybe the separation is necessary for the nation to heal.

I am not sure just yet….but I would like to see what others think of this idea.

Please join the conversation.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

From Debs To The DSA

As we count down to our next election and then the next general we should start looking beyond the silliness that is this two party system that has actually given this country nothing but grief.

Just have to throw some light on the Left in this country from late 19th century and into the 20th….yes it is a boring history lesson but a lesson that should be taught and learned….there is so much we can do as Americans and we need to be reminded of our strenth and power.

Eugene Debs….a tireless fighter for worker rights and unions….jailed several times for his work and even ran for president from prison….actually he ran for president 5 times starting in 1904 through 1920 and each time he got over 3% of the vote.  He was a tireless antiwar spokeman which got him arrested again for his opposition to American involvement in WW1….his voice lead the way for countless others, like myself, to see the problems and protest for a better nation.

Much of U.S. political commentary today oozes with pessimism: red-blue tribalism, the government shutdown, the alt-right … the list of fracture points is long. But for revolutionary socialists—those of us who believe an equitable world is possible if working people rise up and end capitalism—the picture is not all bad. A historic strike wave of teachers rolled across many regions of the country last spring, followed by the recent L.A. teachers’ revolt. Class struggle remains on the agenda, and many want an alternative to capitalism.

Given the increased interest in socialism, it’s worth defining the S-word: Does it refer to European Social Democracy (a la Sweden), the early Soviet Union, Cuba or something else entirely? Many people believe that socialism is foreign to the United States, a view that only reinforces the bourgeois status quo. In reality, socialist politics has a rich tradition in the U.S. and has influenced, as well as led, a variety of social movements. Today’s generation of radicals have the challenge of rescuing the best elements of the American socialist tradition from oblivion so we can effectively learn from the past and prepare for tomorrow.

When Bernie Sanders identified himself as a democratic socialist, Google searches for “socialism” spiked. Millions want to understand the legacy of socialist politics—what was achieved and what failed. In the United States, the Democratic Socialists of America has become the greatest beneficiary of renewed interest in socialism, with membership surging beyond 50,000. As a multitendency organization, the DSA has certain commonalities with the old U.S. Socialist Party (SP), the first anticapitalist party with real influence on American soil.

Most radicals today recognize the important achievements of the SP in the first decades of the 20th century. It led historic strikes, elected hundreds of its members to local and national offices and developed an array of newspapers—in a word, it made socialism relevant to American workers. That Eugene V. Debs, the SP’s most notable public figure, gained about a million votes for president while sitting in a jail cell for opposing World War I is proof positive that the Socialist Party is worth learning from.

https://www.leftvoice.org/from-debs-to-the-dsa-rescuing-americas-revolutionary-tradition/

The argument will be that the US is not going to embrace socialism…..and that is true only because of the distorted visions that the centrist want to present as facts.

Eighty-four percent of independent voters told pollsters last fall that “the United States is in a political crisis.” Democrats and Republicans flip back and forth on these kinds of questions depending on which team won the most recent election. But unaffiliated voters, the largest part of the electorate, are deeply concerned in ways that can’t be soothed by the next swing of the pendulum. Indeed, each “vibe shift” further convinces them that the system is see-sawing out of control.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5873079-american-dissatisfaction-political-system/

All this leaves open for a new way of politics….but will the American have enough energy to find the alternative?

AS it is today I do not think they will….they are too set ion their ways to change…..but as the society deteriorates all things are possible…..and now is the time to start the search for a better tomorrow.

Will we?

Or will we just pick ‘not the other guy”?

What will it be?

Change or more of the same?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”