Tag: American History

GOP–Where It All Began

There are many opinions running around the internet on the GOP….most of it is all about the party for the last 15 or so years…..but how many have nay damn idea where it all began and why?

That’s right….you are in for some knowledge….I know that is a bad word these days of idiots….there is no such things as bad knowledge just morons that cannot find the time to pull their heads of of their asses to learn something.

The year is 1854…..the place was Ripon, Wisconsin…..

Trying times spawn new forces. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 divided the country at the 36° 30′ parallel between the pro-slavery, agrarian South and anti-slavery, industrial North, creating an uneasy peace which lasted for three decades. This peace was shattered in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Settlers would decide if their state would be free or slave. Northern leaders such as Horace Greeley, Salmon Chase and Charles Sumner could not sit back and watch the flood of pro-slavery settlers cross the parallel. A new party was needed.

Where was the party born? Following the publication of the “Appeal of Independent Democrats” in major newspapers, spontaneous demonstrations occurred. In early 1854, the first proto-Republican Party meeting took place in Ripon, Wisconsin. On July 6, 1854 on the outskirts of Jackson, Michigan upwards of 10,000 people turned out for a mass meeting “Under the Oaks.” This led to the first organizing convention in Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856.

The gavel fell to open the party’s first nominating convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 17, 1856, announcing the birth of the Republican Party as a unified political force.

The Republican Party name was christened in an editorial written by New York newspaper magnate Horace Greeley. Greeley printed in June 1854: “We should not care much whether those thus united (against slavery) were designated ‘Whig,’ ‘Free Democrat’ or something else; though we think some simple name like ‘Republican’ would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery.”

https://www.ushistory.org/gop/origins.htm

In the beginning the GOP was not all that bad….as late as 1956 their platform was something that even a hard Leftist like me could have supported.

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Wounded Knee–50 Years On

Yep a little slice of American history that most young people have NO idea ever occurred.

50 years ago last month the Native Americans started their protest at Wounded Knee, the site of a US cavalry massacre of American natives….

The 1973 Siege at Wounded Knee is the longest “civil unrest” in the history of the US Marshal Service. For 71 days, the American Indian Movement (AIM) and members of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) nation were under siege in a violent standoff with the FBI and US Marshals equipped with high powered rifles and armored personnel carriers.  Two people were killed, over two dozen wounded.  At stake, sovereignty and self-determination guaranteed through treaty rights.

Fifty years have passed but for American Indians the struggle for recognition of the nation-to-nation treaties continues to be seen as survival.  At the end of February, young Indian leaders joined older activists to gather at Wounded Knee to commemorate the violent events that began on February 27, 1973, and renew their call for self-determination and recognition of their treaties.

For older Wounded Knee veterans, this Fiftieth Anniversary year is a time for a ritual passing on of the struggle.  “You are the seventh generation. It’s your time to stand up and protect your water, defend your land,” proclaimed Vic Camp, son of Wounded Knee AIM leader Carter Camp, “Remember your treaty rights, protect those treaties . . .  we have to remind the United States government that this is our land.”

Bill Means, a veteran of the 1973 siege urged people to be clear on the purpose, “Remember, we came here for the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty. We didn’t come here just to raise hell. We had to make a statement, to tell the world that Indians are still alive, that this is still our land, and the Black Hills are not for sale!”

For the Lakota this fight for self-determination, the preservation of their nation and its land, were the central demands of the siege at Wounded Knee.  It was a fight for survival. During the negotiations in 1973 the local Oglala leaders were frustrated with the Justice Department’s refusal to grasp the central issue of the Treaty.  Gladys Bissonette, a revered Oglala elder admonished the Government negotiators, “In the past there were a lot of violations of the sacred treaties . . . This is real. We’re not playing here. So all you people that go back to Washington, think real good, because our lives are at stake. It concerns our children’s children, the unborn.”

Much has been written about the aftermath of the 1973 siege, including the murders of 60 AIM sympathizers and activists in the following year, known as the Reign of Terror, carried out by a local vigilante group self-titled “Goons” (Guardians of the Oglala Nation). U.S. District Court Judge Fred Nichols viewed this as the FBI colluding with vigilantes to target AIM sympathizers. The continued imprisonment of Leonard Peltier despite universal calls for clemency – even by the prosecutor – demonstrates the truth of the FBI’s intent to eliminate Indian activists even at the cost of truth.

Siege at Wounded Knee 50 Years Later: the Fight for Self-Determination Continues

I remember those days and thinking ahead…..the Native Americans are still trying to gain some sort of respect from this government and the nation at large….slow go and little has changed…..they still do not get the respect they deserve from either the government or the nation at large.

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The Lead Up To The Civil War

Since there are so many right wing dullards that are trying to re-write our history I thought I would join the debate to try and help clarify the events that lead up to the American Civil War….there are more things that lead to the outbreak of war other than the firing on Ft. Sumter….9 to be exact.

After the American Revolution, a divide between the North and South began to widen. Industrialized northern states gradually passed laws freeing enslaved people, while southern states became increasingly committed to slavery. Many southerners came to view slavery as a linchpin of their agricultural economy, and as a justifiable social and political institution.

Throughout the first half of the 1800s, the nation struggled to manage the clash between these two incompatible viewpoints, working out deals such as the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which sought to balance the number of new free and slave states and drew a line through the nation’s western territories, with freedom to the north and slavery to the south. But in the last decade before war broke out, the conflict gained momentum and intensity. 

“Throughout the 1850s, a series of events increased sectionalism, emboldened southern secessionists, and deepened northern resolve to defend the Union and end slavery,” explains Jason Phillips, the Eberly Family Professor of Civil War Studies at West Virginia University, and author of the 2018 book Looming Civil War: How Nineteenth Century Americans Imagined the Future. “Many of these crises revolved around politics, but economic, social and cultural factors also contributed to the war’s origins.”

Here are nine events from the 1850s to the early 1860s that historians view as critical in the march toward the American Civil War.

https://www.history.com/news/civil-war-causes-issues

This illustrates that there were complex issues that lead to the outbreak of war than the simplistic whitewash that the era gets in history classes these days.

I will do my part to correct the misconceptions….now we all need to do our part and learn our history….all of it….the good, the bad and the ugly.

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It Was All About State’s Rights

College of Political Knowledge

American Civil War 

I enjoy history and I try to bring it to my readers for those that are not exposed to it.

State’s Rights is what was taught to me here in the South about the reason for the American Civil War…..and I read that at least in Arkansas that this lie (myth) is still being taught to the children of that state.

I have tried to educate my readers about this in 2020……

https://lobotero.com/2020/04/16/that-confederate-narrative/

But since that post was about as popular as a turd in a punch bowl I feel I need to help fight the lie that is still being taught…..

An argument presented by apologists for the secession of the states which formed the Confederacy is that they did so to defend the rights of states as they were defined in the Constitution. The issue of states’ rights, rather than slavery, was the true cause of the war. They argue the Union violated the Constitution by threatening the practice of slavery in the South. At the time of secession, there were no bills in Congress to eliminate slavery. Lincoln announced, repeatedly and in clear terms, he had no intention of emancipating the slaves. Still, the Southern states, led by South Carolina, perceived the newly elected President as a threat. They voted for secession rather than accepting the results of the election of 1860. In their Declaration of the Immediate Causes, they made clear their primary reason for secession was the protection of slavery within their borders.

As other slave states followed suit they bound together, forming a central government they named the Confederate States of America. They created the Constitution of the Confederate States, which established a federal government. It denied the individual states the right to establish tariffs, print money, and import slaves from any foreign country. It also specified, “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed”. The Confederacy denied, through its Constitution, the rights of its member states to decide the issue of slavery at the state level, making slavery a federally protected institution. Those arguing the war was fought over states’ rights ignore this inconvenient fact. They also ignore another over the same issue, largely prevalent before secession. The southern states tried to deny states’ rights of their Northern neighbors before the war.

State’s Rights is just a cloaked excuse to try and paint the institution of slavery as something noble.

But do not take my word for it here are a few of the declarations of cessation from Southern States….read their words and know….

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states

My state of Mississippi is in there and after reading their declaration there can be NO doubt why they felt the need for the actions….(that is if you bother to read the declarations)

There are so many myths about the American Civil War and I will try and break the cycle of ignorance.

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Civil Rights In The Middle

It is black history month and the perfect time for a little history lesson on the now famous Civil Rights Act….

There was more going on with this act than we are taught in our primary schools.

On August 7, 1957, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson voted yea on the first civil rights bill passed by Congress in 82 years. He was joined by 71 of his Senate colleagues, including 43 Republicans and 28 Democrats, 4 of them liberals from the South like Johnson himself. One month later, on September 9, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law.

As majority leader, Johnson arguably did more than anyone else to ensure the passage of a civil rights act in 1957. He cajoled skittish progressives, most of them Northerners, into compromising with the Democratic Party’s powerful Southern voting bloc. Then, over bourbon and cigars, he convinced the Old Guard Democratic Southerners that they ought to give a bit on civil rights while one of their own was in charge, as legislative action on race relations could not be postponed indefinitely.

Limited in its scope and effectiveness, particularly when compared with legislation passed in the 1960s, the 1957 bill walked a treacherous tightrope that “was going to disappoint both the opponents of civil rights and the proponents of civil rights,” says Bruce Schulman, a historian at Boston University. The future president’s efforts were “totally based in the calculation of what was achievable” rather than ideal.

When defending his choice to support the bill on the Senate floor, Johnson admitted that it did “not pretend to solve all the problems of human relations.” Still, he said, “I cannot follow the logic of those who say that because we cannot solve all the problems, we should not try to solve any of them.” Instead, the majority leader stalwartly held the middle, resolute in his conviction that a symbolic victory, however weak, was superior to a total ideological defeat.

This political pragmatism defined Johnson’s lengthy career. As a sectional politician with national ambitions, he was a virtuoso of the art of the possible. Johnson considered the preservation of his political future the best opportunity to help the greatest number of people. By doing only what was feasible and, above all else, looking out for himself, he would make a better future for his “fellow Americans.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/to-fight-for-civil-rights-lyndon-b-johnson-settled-for-the-middle-ground-180981482/

I am not so sure that the middle was the best place to fight for real civil rights.

Why?

I believe that it made it too easy to lessen the impact over time….and so it has.

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A Rigged Election?

It is Sunday and the news is just about as boring as we can get….so why not us this time to learn something about our election process….and yes it is one of my infamous history lessons.

We all remember the drama around the 2020 election….and the spill over continues 2 years later.

But then there are still those that bring up the 2000 election when Gore lost out to GW Bush in a split decision….all that history, right?

Well believe it or not those were not the only two elections with accusations and problems…..

In the 2016 presidential election, one candidate is warning about voter fraud, while another proclaims Russians are interfering. It’s not the first time contenders have alleged some form of a “rigged” election.

In my book, “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections,” I write about some of the most controversial presidential elections that left large segments of the population believing their president was selected instead of elected. In two elections, the aftermath nearly led to mass violence.

Tuesday in the Rose Garden, President Barack Obama dismissed concerns of fraud this year.

“I have never seen in my lifetime, or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections process before votes have even taken place. It’s unprecedented,” Obama said.

“There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they are so decentralized and the number of votes that are cast,” the president added. “There is no evidence that has happened in the past, or instances that will happen this year.”

While such complaints have been rare before votes were cast, they were very prominent in certain post-presidential elections, as was evidence that votes weren’t always counted properly.

Here are excerpts from the book.

Rigged Election? Past Presidential Contests Sowed Doubt and Nearly Led to Violence

In a closing note….the GOP has leveled many accusations of vote tampering….but so far most of those arrested for voter fraud have been Republicans…..here is the latest….

The wife of an Iowa Republican who ran for Congress in 2020 was arrested Thursday and accused of casting 23 fraudulent votes for her husband.

In an 11-page indictment, prosecutors say Kim Phuong Taylor “visited numerous households within the Vietnamese community in Woodbury County” where she collected absentee ballots for people who were not present at the time. Taylor, who was born in Vietnam, then filled out and cast those ballots herself, the indictment alleges, “causing the casting of votes in the names of residents who had no knowledge of and had not consented to the casting of their ballots.”

Taylor is also accused of signing voter-registration forms on behalf of residents who were not present. In all, prosecutors charged her with 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting. Each charge carries a maximum five-year prison sentence.

The goal, prosecutors allege, was to get her husband, the Republican politician Jeremy Taylor, elected to public office.

https://www.businessinsider.com/wife-of-iowa-republican-accused-of-casting-23-fraudulent-votes-2023-1

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“We The People…”

This is from the “Learn Some Damn History” files…….

Most Americans pretend to know the Constitution but the truth is they know very little about the most important document in the world…..the best they can muster is 2 or 3 of the amendments….there are over 20 contained in the Constitution.

Let’s take a historic look at the document that established this country…..

For instance where did the opening of “We the people…” originate?

Was it Jefferson? Maybe Franklin? How about John Adams?

None of those people came up with the opening…..

Then who?

There are lots of famous Founding Fathers who receive deserved acclaim for the work they did to shape the United States of America. Just think of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams — even Alexander Hamilton had a Tony-winning musical made about him.

But there are plenty of other politicians who made real contributions at the Constitutional Convention, yet aren’t as well remembered. Gouverneur Morris is one such founding father. Haven’t heard of him? You’re not alone: This politician and lawyer from Pennsylvania isn’t necessarily well covered in most U.S. history textbooks. But that doesn’t make his work any less important. Morris was integral to the creation of the Constitution as we know it today. Sometimes called the Penman of the Constitution, Morris was the editor and shaper of the Constitution from its rough draft to its final, polished form, according to the Constitution Center.

Among the lines he revised? The most well-known of all: that starting preamble, “We the People of the United States.”

A New York native, Gouverneur Morris was a pretty smart cookie (via Yahoo! News). He graduated college at only 16 years old, and later became a lawyer and constitutional delegate. Morris’s life wasn’t necessarily easy; he faced multiple health problems during his life, including a deformed right arm due to a childhood accident (via Penn Today). He used a peg leg after his left leg was irreparably damaged and then amputated after a run-in with a carriage (via the Constitution Center). Later in his life, Morris wrote that he also experienced gout.

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/944429/the-phrase-we-the-people-came-from-this-forgotten-founding-father/

An interesting founder that history tries to forget….in the vain of Thomas Paine….forgotten or ignored?

If you think the Constitution is the special document that it is then you should learn all there is to know about it.

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Racism, Policing, Politics, Violence….Oh My

We all have seen the tellie with the hatred, violence, deaths and the political situations…..

It seems to be getting worse with each passing week…..but can we point a finger at a point in our history where this was made possible?

Yes we can.

And yes the old professor will give you a history lesson to help explain the situations making the news these days.

Republican attempts to gain political support by promoting racist fear and hatred, reflexively siding with police in confrontations with African Americans and denouncing Black Lives Matter demonstrations are a prominent feature of our political landscape. But they’re also nothing new. In many ways, the battle lines of 2022 can be seen forming in 1964. A letter published 58 years ago this week in the New York Times can help explain the underlying issues, both then and now.

As President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2, 1964, he called upon Americans to “close the springs of racial poison.” Two weeks later, on the same night that Sen. Barry Goldwater accepted the Republican presidential nomination with an explicit endorsement of extremism, a 15-year-old African American was shot and killed in Harlem by a New York City police officer. The incident began after the white superintendent of a group of apartments turned a hose on a group of Black kids who often sat on the steps to the buildings. According to them, the superintendent shouted at them, “Dirty n***ers, I’ll wash you clean.” They responded by throwing bottles and garbage-can lids at the super, who retreated inside one of the buildings. A boy not involved in the original incident, James Powell, pursued him, and when Powell exited the building he was shot and killed by an off-duty policeman. 

That led to an almost immediate confrontation between neighborhood young people and police. Over the following days, these clashes escalated into the first major urban “riot,” or “uprising,” of the 1960s. (Those two nouns were used by different sides to describe the same phenomena, the former by most white people, the latter by Black people and, as the decade went on, a growing number of whites on the left.)

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/21/racism-policing-and-violence-how-america-in-2022-was-shaped-by-1964/

Our troubles these days are a direct link to the 1964 Act signed by Pres. Johnson…..and the beat goes on.

Can this country recover from 1964 or will this finally drive a nail in the coffin of the republic?

You can make a difference…..or will you continue to be a by-stander and watch this country destroy itself?

It is your choice….choose wisely!

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A Lesson In Bad Foreign Policy

As long as foreign policy is the topic of the day here on IST…..a little history to close out my posts.

My readers know that I truly enjoy our history, well all history….and today is the day that our most begotten war was started….the year was 1812, 18 June to be exact.

I have taught American foreign policy from pre-revolution until today and this war was one that was a bad idea.

But check it out for yourself….

The 210th anniversary of America’s declaration of the War of 1812 against Great Britain, which falls on June 18, will not inspire much in the way of celebration or commemoration. It had, at most, a minor impact on American and world history. Yet that distant conflict is worth remembering, if only as a cautionary example: it stands as the most misbegotten war the United States has ever fought.

It was an offshoot of the great conflict between Great Britain and France that grew out of the French Revolution of 1789 and ended with the defeat of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In what came to be known as the Napoleonic Wars, Britain sought to use its maritime supremacy to stop other countries’ trade with France. The United States declared itself neutral and claimed the commercial rights that international law accorded to countries with that status during wartime. This led to a conflict with Great Britain over just what those neutral trading rights were. The Americans embraced an expansive definition, which afforded wide latitude for profitable trade. The British insisted on more restrictive terms and began seizing and searching American ships in the Caribbean and confiscating cargo that they regarded as contraband. President George Washington sent the Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay to London to negotiate with the British government on the issue, where he reached a compromise agreement. In 1795 the Congress reluctantly ratified what became known as Jay’s Treaty.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/2022/06/14/revisiting_americas_most_misbegotten_war_837198.html

The US has had many misbegotten wars but 1812 was our very first one.

I do hope my reader has learned a wee bit about our history to better understand today’s world.

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Education–What’s It Good For?

It use to be that in our schools we were taught civics…..learning how the government was formed and works was how one became a solid member of our great society….well those days are gone…..these days it is more important teach revisionism and pure horse manure than the workings of a good government.

I am proud that most of my historic schooling was taught all aspects of our history, (not completely but better than the crap they pass off as history these days) our students should be taught all aspects of our history, the good, the bad and the ugly.

We have two opposing thoughts on our great society…..

The fight today is not about what we want to achieve but, rather, how best to achieve it. Both sides claim to want a society in which people can live fulfilling lives. Both claim to adhere to the vision outlined in the Declaration of Independence and supported by our Constitution. Yet neither side has any sense of common ground on which to move forward.

Put generally, one side envisions improving our society through a highly involved federal government that provides greater support and greater regulation meant to benefit everyone. The other side believes that traditional American ideals of individual freedom, limited government, and free markets will lead to a better life for all.

Those who want to restrict government power and reach are depicted as greedy and without compassion for the disenfranchised and less fortunate. Those who desire larger government aid and controls are seen as ignorant of history and human nature. One side is judged heartless; the other, brainless. These polarizing caricatures quash any desire for a real understanding of how we as one nation can move forward.

https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2022/02/16/teaching_unbiased_american_history_110701.html

I think that Howard Zinn’s book should be taught in our schools, The People’s History of the United States….

Then there is the historian Maj. Danny Sjursen (Ret)…..his great series….”American History for Truthdiggers” is also a great look at our history….

This is his series…..

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10; Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15; Part 16; Part 17; Part 18; Part 19; Part 20; Part 21; Part 22; Part 23; Part 24; Part 25; Part 26; Part 27; Part 28; Part 29; Part 30; Part 31; Part 32; Part 33; Part 34; Part 35; Part 36; Part 37.

This is the final part of the series…..

Below is the 38th and last installment of the “American History for Truthdiggers” series, a pull-no-punches appraisal of our shared, if flawed, past. The author of the series, Danny Sjursen, who retired recently as a major in the U.S. Army, served military tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and taught the nation’s checkered, often inspiring past when he was an assistant professor of history at West Point. 

American History for Truthdiggers: A Once, Always and Future Empire

There should be a standard for teaching history….instead we have 1000s of school districts that try and control the history our students learn.

My question is….what are these revisionists afraid of our students learning?

Like the 16 GOPers that voted against teaching a sad part of our history…..

More than a dozen House Republicans on Wednesday voted against legislation to promote public education about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The bipartisan bill was authored by Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and passed handily by a vote of 406-16. All of the no votes came from Republicans, including several members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

The Republicans who registered their opposition were Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Michael Cloud (Texas), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Bob Good (Va.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Andy Harris (Md.), Clay Higgins (La.), Trey Hollingsworth (Ind.), Doug LaMalfa (Calif.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Mary Miller (Ill.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.), Chip Roy (Texas) and Van Taylor (Texas).

(thehill.com)

What are these spineless freaks afraid of in education?

Now I read that FOX News has declared war on teachers……

From Tucker Carlson to Laura Ingraham to Mark Levin, Fox News propagandists have declared war on public school teachers. The dangerous attacks follow the right’s misleading claims – fueled by Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” legislation – about children inappropriately being taught about sex, homosexuality, bisexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity starting as early as kindergarten.

Last month, just days after Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ spokesperson Christina Pushaw charged that anyone who opposed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was “probably” a “groomer” – essentially, a pedophile, pedophile enabler, or pedophile supporter, Fox News propagandist Laura Ingraham jumped into action.

“When did our public schools, any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals?” Ingraham asked, as Media Matters reported. The chyron was less ambiguous: “Liberals are sexually grooming elementary students.”

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/fox-news/

Any thoughts?

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