A much discussed and relevant book for today updated in 1998.
Professor Schlesinger, a great liberal historian in the 20th Century, would be appalled by what is going in the country today. He remarks that the history of this country over the years has been one of inclusion rather than segregation. He would be shocked by how the Republican Party has become openly a white supremacy party. He would be incredulous by how this country elected someone as inept and unqualified as Trump.
"America is continually struggling for its soul."
-Gunner Myrdal, P. 33
Gunner Myrdal proclaimed the "American Creed" in the 40's. P. 33
The country began with an anglo-centric focus. This cannot be denied and must be recognized as a starting point. P. 34
Today we have forgotten the racial politics of anti-Irishness and anti-catholicism. P. 35
The Know-Nothings have a different shape today: the Republican Party. P. 36
"The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of the mind and the heart; Americanism is not, and it never has been, a matter of race and ancestry. A good American is one who is loyal to this country and to our creed of liberty and democracy." P. 43
Tocqueville say racial exclusion as deeply ingrained in the American character. P. 44
Racism is the irremediable flaw in the American system and the US doomed Native Americans to extinction. P. 44
Concise history of American racism. P. 44-45
The American "solvent" is partly a myth. P. 45
Schlesinger would be at shocked how racial politics has arisen in this country. Academic liberals in the 20th Century were lulled to sleep.
A cult of ethnicity is a sign of declining faith in the future. P. 47
Since the 60's "ethnic" has come to mean non-Anglo minorities. P. 48
"The ethnic upsurge began as a gesture of protest against the Anglocentric culture. It became a cult, and today it threatens to become a counter-revolution against the original theory of American as one people, a common culture, a single nation. P. 49
The present can recreate the past. P. 52
There is no such thing as "pure history." P. 53
History is a weapon. P. 57
History is an argument without end. P. 63
Frederick Jackson Turner and the Beards tragically downplayed slavery in American history. The Beards credited blacks only with the invention of ragtime. How can this racism from prominent historians be overlooked??? Add Samuel Eliot Morrison and Henry Steele Commager. Much of American historiography is morally reprehensible. P. 64
The pluralistic nature of American history has only recently been recognized. P. 71
The dominance of the Euro-Anglican perspective cannot be changed. P. 74
History is a weapon. P. 77
Multiculturalism arises out of a reading to Anglo-Europeancentrism. At what point does it mutate into ethnocentrism of its own? This seems to be the issue for Schlesinger. P. 80
Can we defend Western Civ and also be multiculturalists?
When does obsession with differences threaten an overarching idea of American nationality? P. 81
Fascination with Egypt does not intrigue me. P 85
There is no single African culture. P. 92
Strengthen and perpetuate separate racial subcultures or a common American culture? Somehow there has to be room for both. P. 95
Ralph Ellison: You don't write out of your skin. You write out of your imagination. P. 97
Is history therapy? P. 98
Black ethnocentrism. P. 100
The teaching of ethnic pride and self-esteem leaves certain things in the closet. P. 101
Textbook genocide. P. 102
Let us teach ethnic history, but as history only not to satisfy grievances. P. 104
Speak standard English. P. 107
Who can blame blacks for always being suspicious of white motives? P. 116
The dream of integration ends with scorn for assimilation. P. 117
The cult of ethnicity has reversed American history. P. 117
The perils of ethnocentrism. P. 122
The sactifiction of the group threatens the idea of a coherent society. P. 123
Common ideals of the common good, the ideals of democracy, and dedication to human rights are what's held American together. P. 123
Our ideals should transcend our differences. P. 124
Will changing immigration trends endanger Eurocentrism eventually? P. 126
"No one likes to be a No-Nothing." The author didn't live to see today's Republican Party. P. 127
The Eurocentric focus historically in American historiography is a matter of historical facts. P. 128
Multiculturalism yes; ethnoseparatism no. P. 128
Defending the traditional literary canon. P. 131
The sins of the West are no worse than the sins of Asia, the Middle East, or of Africa. P. 132
There is no escape from the fact that the country was founded principally on European ideas. P. 133
Afrocentrists have no right to lay guilt trips on Western Civilization. P. 133
The US has been a multiethnic experiment from the start says the author. Certainly not anymore I say. One political party is seeking to dissolve the melting pot. P. 135
A single nation from diverse origins is under attack. P. 142
The author would have to agree if he were living today that race relations are getting worse.
A common culture that is multicultural, which is the source of our issues. P. 144
Can we renew common ideals? P. 145
Can we affirm diversity yet also affirm agreed upon ideals? P. 147
"Recently multiculturalism has emerged not alone as a word but as an ideology and a mystique. In its mild form, it calls attention to neglected groups, themes, and viewpoints and redresses a shameful imbalance in the treatment of minorities both in the actualities of life and in the judgements of history. it does this within the concept of a shared culture.
However, multiculturalism also assumes a militant form in which it opposes the idea of a common culture, rejects the goals of assimilation and integration, and celebrates the immutability of diverse and separate ethnic and racial communities. Extreme separationists, while often flourishing the multicultural flag, in fact rush beyond true multiculturalism into ethnocentrism, the belief in the superior virtue of their own ethnic group." P. 150
Monoculturalism will turn oust greater crowds than multiculturalism. P. 163
Monoculturalists are white supremacists. P. 163
Rightwing political correctness catches kids before they are old enough to think for themselves. P. 164
Good bibliography. P 167-179
Friday, August 31, 2018
Clearly Fascist
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Thursday, August 30, 2018
The Trumpian Winter is Coming
Advisers worry that President Trump has neither the staff nor the strategy to protect himself if Democrats take over the House, which would empower them to shower the administration with subpoenas or even pursue impeachment charges.
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Hope to see this One
Glenn Close Grabs the Limelight in “The Wife”
In “The Wife,” adapted from a novel by Meg Wolitzer, Glenn Close shows how much can be expressed through containment, through choosing what not to reveal.
There’s a scene halfway through “The Wife,” a new film directed by Björn Runge and starring Glenn Close, that I felt like I had lived. Close plays Joan Castleman, the wife of an esteemed novelist, Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). It’s 1992, and she’s in a bar talking to Nathaniel, a nosy literary biographer played by Christian Slater. Her husband is about to receive the Nobel Prize, and Nathaniel has followed the couple all the way to Stockholm to curry favor with them, or perhaps just to root around for the truth.
The truth, he suspects, is that Joe isn’t the literary giant he purports to be—that Joan, in fact, is the genius of the family, and that her role in Joe’s career has amounted to far more than smiling at events and reminding him when to take his medication. As Nathaniel prods over cocktails, Joan fixes a practiced yet warm poker face and fends him off with evasions like “Aren’t you the psychiatrist?” She’s used to people being interested in her husband, but less so in her. She describes herself as “shy,” as someone with very little of interest to say. Nathaniel doesn’t buy it, but he isn’t getting anywhere, either.
When I interviewed Close at last year’s New Yorker Festival, I found myself in a similar position. I wanted to know more about Close’s strange childhood. She was raised in a stone cottage in Greenwich, Connecticut, the daughter of a prominent surgeon. When she was seven, her parents enrolled the family in a conservative religious group called the Moral Re-Armament, which Close has described as a cultlike organization that dictated what she did, wore, and thought. As a teen-ager, she sang with the M.R.A.-affiliated group Up with People, until finally breaking away to study acting at the College of William & Mary. “I think what actually saved me more than anything,” she has said, “was my desire to be an actress.”
Onstage, I nervously broached the topic, reading a quotation in which Close had said that the M.R.A. had made her feel guilty about any “unnatural desire.” “Well, maybe I should say any natural desire,” she interjected. But she quickly put up her defenses. Did having to modify her behavior prepare her at all for being an actress? “That’s . . . a lot to answer,” she said. “You’re totally pulled up from what your roots were and what you loved, and your family is, you know, pulled apart, and these things are imposed on you. And, for a child with the kind of imagination that I had, I of course wanted to be good soldier. And the group became my parent in a way. And it’s very, very destructive.” I asked about Up with People—did she enjoy the performing aspect of it?—and she said that anyone who craved the spotlight was sent to the back, because you weren’t supposed to express individuality. Then she politely but efficiently said that it was too difficult a subject, and that she didn’t remember much anyway.
Close has been such a constant presence in our onscreen lives that it’s easy to forget how little we know about her. She has never fostered much of a celebrity persona, preferring to shape-shift into a remarkable range of characters, tacking between maternal (“The World According to Garp”) and scary (“Fatal Attraction”), between meek (“Albert Nobbs”) and imposing (“Damages”), between casual (“The Big Chill”) and comically high-strung (“101 Dalmatians”). You get the sense that she grabs each character like a fur coat in winter and holds onto it for dear life. The release of “The Wife” has come with chatter that Close may finally win an Oscar, after being nominated six times. There are several reasons for the Oscar talk, one being that publicists are working hard at it. (The “It’s her turn” narrative is time-tested.) But there’s also a sense that Close, like Joan Castleman, hasn’t been given her proper due.
The echoes don’t end there. Like Joan, Close also describes herself as shy, and she has obscured parts of herself—likely, the parts that give her emotional fuel—without ever making her audiences feel unwelcome. In “The Wife,” adapted by Jane Anderson from a novel by Meg Wolitzer, Close shows how much can be expressed through containment, through choosing what not to reveal. Joan begins the film as her husband’s happy-enough helpmate, guiding him through cocktail parties and jumping on the bed when he gets the news from Stockholm. (I thought of Torvald, in “A Doll’s House,” calling Nora “my little squirrel.”) The Nobel Prize begins to crack her reserve, as the desire for recognition dawns on her. She asks Joe not to thank her in his speech, because she doesn’t want to be thought of as the “long-suffering wife.” When he thanks her anyway, with glowing gratitude, she explodes. It’s too much, and far too little.
As a feminist parable, “The Wife” has plenty to say about the ways in which women are expected to be self-effacing, while men are taught to bask in achievement—even ones that aren’t entirely theirs. Flashbacks reveal Joan’s entrée into writing, as Joe’s student at Smith, and the reasons she felt she could never succeed as a “woman author.” The flashback scenes are fine, if on the nose, and the film’s conclusion is too eventful to be believed. But it doesn’t give us quite what we’re expecting, either, instead letting Close play Joan’s ambiguity, her cleverness, and, finally, her will. “The Wife” is the story of a woman’s relationship with attention, and the power in being able to choose when and why to be visible—or invisible. For more than three decades, Close has found a way to be both at once.
Monday, August 27, 2018
At McCain's Request
Speakers at events in Washington honoring Sen. John McCain will include former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Rick Davis said.
About Senator McCain
Senator McCain is an authentic American hero and a man of principle. However, I must add that he was a typical partisan plutocratic Republican in his principles more than he was a so-called "maverick," but at least unlike today's Republicans, he had principles, and, as far as I know, he didn't cowtow to the hollow religious right like today's Republicans. He is touted as a reader, and I like that. They say he liked Hemingway and identified with Robert Jordan. Though Hemingway is not popular in certain circles today, I like him also. Perhaps this is what McCain and I have in common. The bell is tolling.
Saturday, August 25, 2018
William Ebensten - Today's ISMs, 6th - (Book Review)
Winter quarter of 1973 I was beginning my final year of college taking a course in political theory. The text was "Today's ISMS" written by William Ebenstein, a famous political scientist. In perusing the book again, I notice that the book cost me $3 new and in the back of the book I wrote "Final Exam HC 2222 3/14/73 3:40 pm." HC is Haley Center. That's all I remember but by golly I did read the book because I see my notes all throughout. Some of us DID read the textbook back then!
This book is as relevant today as it was then. The biggest difference is that Communism as a threat to Democracy is all but vanished. Back then Fascism was a distant threat. History has reversed itself. Fascism is the greatest threat to Democracy now.
Interpretations of history:
1) Divine providence.
2) Political: Kings, Emperors, legislators, soldiers as decisive forces in history and so historical writing was about the records of kings, wars, and peace treaties.
3) The hero interpretation. The Great Man theory.
4) ideas as the main driver in history.
5) Marx introduced the economic interpretation of history.
The truth is that all of these views are necessary to understand the complexity of history.
P. 3-4
Where conflicts are primarily economic compromise can be easy. Where conflicts involve religion, values, and individual liberty, compromise can be more difficult.
P. 8
Our scientific knowledge grow faster than our social wisdom. P. 9
Marx emphasizes that all of history is a history of class struggles. P. 11
Statement on "Jacksonian Democracy." P. 12
Principles of Fascism (even though there is no standard summary of fascism)
1. Distrust of reason.
2. Denial of basic human equality
3. Code of behavior based on lies and violence.
4. Government by elite.
5. Totalitarianism.
6. Racism and imperialism.
7. Opposition to international law and order.
P. 132
Fascists only know enemies, not opponents. P. 134
In the context of the partition of Germany at the end of World War 2, the four powers agreed on the democratization of Germany. The problem is that the Western powers had a different definition of democracy than the Soviet Union.
For the Western nations, democracy meant free elections; a free press; freedom of political association; freedom of religion, thought, and speech; equality before the law; the right to choose one's job; the right to form free trade unions; the right to move freely within one's country, go abroad temporarily, or emigrate permanently.
Above all, freedom from fear. Citizens should not fear unwarranted intrusion by the government, particularly a secret police.
Still a good summary of our democracy. P. 159
The revolution in communication media has produced the problem of "sensory overload." The individual is so bombarded by sensations, enticements, threats, and packaged bits of information and misinformation that demand immediate response or satisfaction---and such instant reactions are basically incompatible with the slow and plodding methods of critical rationalism. P. 165
"By the same token written constitutions are not necessarily a protection (against fascism).
Even in the United States, the written Constitution is, in itself, no last line of defense of political democracy.
The lessons of our political historical experience is simple: the strength of a democracy is never greater than the will of the people to uphold it." P. 176
Where agreement on fundamentals is lacking, political democracy suffers from stresses and strains that may prove fatal. A democratic constitution assumes, but cannot in itself create,the will to maintain democratic institutions. P. 176
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Impeachment Time Though Not Likely with Republicans in Charge
"Lanny Davis, Cohen Attorney, Says Michael Cohen will tell Robert Mueller of a "Conspiracy to Collude" With Russia That Trump Participated In, which conspiracy Involved Him having ((Advance Knowledge)) of Russian hacking of the DNC."
IF THIS PLAYS OUT, it means Trump’s Presidency is not only illegitimate but criminal.
It means a Presidential election was compromised by the most insidious criminal conspiracy in American History.
It means Trump is a traitor and Putin determined the outcome. The impeachment bar has been reached and crossed.
It means a Presidential election was compromised by the most insidious criminal conspiracy in American History.
It means Trump is a traitor and Putin determined the outcome. The impeachment bar has been reached and crossed.
What Now?
When a lawyer tells prosecutors that his client directed him to commit a crime and pleads guilty to related crimes himself, an indictment of the client is very likely to follow.
The nation is about to find out whether there is an exception to that general rule when the client is the president of the United States.
What a Day Yesterday
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, pleaded guilty to eight violations of banking, tax and campaign finance laws.
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