US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1650

On February 18 2015 11:27 Millitron wrote:

Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.

I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.

Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.

I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.

On February 18 2015 11:20 GreenHorizons wrote:





Source

I thought manifest destiny was bullshit every time I heard it. This sounds a lot more accurate than what I was taught.

On February 18 2015 11:31 Nyxisto wrote:


You do know what history class means right? Usually it's about stuff that happened many years ago. And how you could even use the term 'white guilt' given the actual history of the US just astonishes me.

On February 18 2015 11:27 Millitron wrote:

Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.

I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.

On February 18 2015 11:31 Chewbacca. wrote:

Who learned that Manifest Destiny was about us spreading democracy and technology...? Although I didn't learn about it as us being racist bigots either, but more of us just wanting to expand for resources/territory..

On February 18 2015 11:40 GreenHorizons wrote:


Probably hard for you to imagine but particularly for young black/native/female students it's kind of hard to square the "freedom loving" forefathers and all the blind pro America propaganda with the fact that if those kids were around back then the forefathers would of thought that they were property/subhuman.

Hard to love and revere someone who would of thought you were practically worthless because of your color or gender. Hearing how great of people they were and how they were/are celebrated and things like "manifest destiny' being painted as a positive experience is also hard to reconcile with the fact that for native and black students they are learning about the systematic extermination and subjugation of their ancestors in this country.

So while they deal with finding out many of the most revered people in their home country systematically oppressed, murdered, and enslaved their ancestors, we have people worried about it pushing "white guilt"...

On February 18 2015 11:42 Nyxisto wrote:
Given the challenges African-Americans face today in the country I think the topic is more relevant than ever. That racism is a thing of the past is completely delusional.

On February 18 2015 11:27 Millitron wrote:

Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.

I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.


Except for the fact that those events did not involve anyone alive today. It's like making the Italians feel bad that Caeser starved all the civilians of Alesia to death, or making the Israeli's feel bad that the Hebrews butchered every last Canaanite.

On February 18 2015 11:51 Millitron wrote:

If those student's can't separate the founding fathers personal lives from their philosophies, they shouldn't be in AP history. A good idea is a good idea no matter who says it.

What this course probably certainly doesn't cover is that Native Americans fought each other constantly, and black people were the ones selling slaves. The slave trade had been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years before Europeans ever showed up in West Africa. Practically everyone back then would be considered monsters by modern standards.

Native Americans were mostly wiped out by disease. Even if Europeans had treated them like royalty, they still would've been decimated because nobody at the time had any idea about germ theory.

Last, do you really believe America could've become the thriving superpower it is today if it weren't for westward expansion?

On February 18 2015 11:51 Millitron wrote:

If those student's can't separate the founding fathers personal lives from their philosophies, they shouldn't be in AP history. A good idea is a good idea no matter who says it.

What this course probably doesn't cover is that Native Americans fought each other constantly, and black people were the ones selling slaves. The slave trade had been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years before Europeans ever showed up in West Africa. Practically everyone back then would be considered monsters by modern standards.

Native Americans were mostly wiped out by disease. Even if Europeans had treated them like royalty, they still would've been decimated because nobody at the time had any idea about germ theory.

Last, do you really believe America could've become the thriving superpower it is today if it weren't for westward expansion?


Keep making them feel like victims and it never will be a thing of the past.

Attorney General Eric Holder called Tuesday for a moratorium on the death penalty pending a Supreme Court decision on the use of lethal injection drugs in Oklahoma.

Speaking at a luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Holder, noting that he was speaking in a personal capacity and not as a member of the administration, said the "inevitable" possibility of executing an innocent individual is what makes him oppose capital punishment.

"Our system of justice is the best in the world. It is comprised of men and women who do the best they can, get it right more often than not, substantially more right than wrong," Holder said. "There's always the possibility that mistakes will be made ... It's for that reason that I am opposed to the death penalty."

He continued: "I think fundamental questions about the death penalty need to be asked. And among them, the Supreme Court's determination as to whether or not lethal injection is consistent with our Constitution is one that ought to occur. From my perspective, I think a moratorium until the Supreme Court made that determination would be appropriate."

Holder clarified that his personal views on the matter are not part of an ongoing Justice Department review of state execution practices.

Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to review a case brought by death row inmates accusing the state of Oklahoma of violating the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The case came after Oklahoma botched the execution of inmate Clayton Lockett, who was seen writhing and clenching his teeth after being administered a lethal three-drug combination. Lockett ultimately died 43 minutes after he was administered the drugs.

Holder, who is retiring pending the confirmation of his nominated successor Loretta Lynch, has long been personally opposed to the death penalty.

Residents of a West Virginia county started picking up the pieces Tuesday after an oil tanker train derailment and fire forced more than a hundred people from their homes and threatened water supplies for thousands, raising new alarm among environmental activists over the rail transport of crude oil through their state.

Many have taken shelter in local schools or hotels near the town of Boomer, and are relying on free bottled water from the water utility. CSX, the rail company involved, issued a statement saying it is working with the Red Cross to provide shelter for some 125 people amid frigid temperatures and a fresh foot of snow.

With fears of oil seeping into the adjacent Kanawha River, water authorities shut off an intake plant near the derailment, disrupting the lives of everyone on the water system near the smoky crash site. After testing on Tuesday found no detectable trace of oil in the river, public health officials and the utility, West Virginia American Water (WVAW), started turning the intake plant back on — but it will be several days before water service returns to normal.

The crash sent one person to a hospital with breathing trouble, but the blaze resulted in no deaths despite sending a massive fireball over the Kanawha River at about 1:30 p.m. EST, around 30 miles southeast of the state capital, Charleston.

At least 20 tankers were “involved” in fires, CSX said Tuesday, and state environmental officials and the rail company decided to let the fires burn themselves out. “At this point there are still small fires burning, so responders can’t go down to there,” said Kelley Gillenwater, a spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). “We can’t get to the actual derailment to assess the immediate impact.”

Gillenwater said the DEP remains dedicated to preventing the pollution of water supplies, pointing to its proposal for strong chemical storage safety laws. Her department, however, has nothing to do with overseeing what travels through the state via rail, she said.

According to CSX, the 109-car train was carrying Bakken shale crude oil from North Dakota to Yorktown, Virginia.

“We don’t have the jurisdiction to regulate that transportation,” Gillenwater said, adding that the DEP will be conducting further tests of the river's water and watching out for a telltale "sheen" of oil.

Gillenwater wasn't certain of who is responsible for environmental safety on the state's railroads, but pointed to the Department of Transportation as the likely authority. The West Virginia DOT web site says it controls the State Rail Authority, which oversees freight rail. The DOT was not available for comment Tuesday night.

After the fire burns out, DEP officials will examine how much oil has spilled onto the soil and remove contaminated dirt that could pollute groundwater, Gillenwater said.

On February 18 2015 12:25 coverpunch wrote:
For anyone who wants to debate this topic, I would urge you first to read the two source documents in question and how the curricula differ.

AP US History curriculum for the 2014-2015 school year

Oklahoma state bill with curriculum outline in section B

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenceless, and in diabolical intent this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select.

On February 18 2015 13:26 GreenHorizons wrote:



Thanks for those, spurred me to read Frederick Douglass' Independence Day speech which just blew my mind. That guy should have his own national holiday.

He is an American hero in most every sense of the word. Who knows how long it would of taken America to wise up had he not bootstrapped his way into the conversation.

It's words like his which eventually helped me square those things I mentioned before.

I don't know how he could walk with balls so huge....



The Oklahoma list is just a bunch of documents that must be included. But it's not really a curriculum. I don't know how someone could use it "instead" of one?

On February 18 2015 13:43 coverpunch wrote:

I think it is a pedagogical difference in how this state rep wants history to be taught. The AP curriculum is in line with the Common Core in that it is a technique-driven pedagogy, where the state rep wants to go back to the old fashioned way of teaching history by referring to facts and milestones. The AP curriculum is quite obviously progressive in nature for the facts and themes that it does want to include, while the state rep wants US history to be basically a collection of America's greatest hits.

They're not diametrically opposed to each other but it's quite clear they're not on the same page, and both want students to walk away from the class concluding very different things about US history. You could have the AP curriculum incorporate those documents into its curriculum and still complete its own goals, but it would dilute the fact that the current curriculum is weighted towards trends in minority history and away from the Great Men view of history.

I find it somewhat unsettling that very few presidents are named explicitly in the curriculum (briefly scanning, only Washington, Lincoln, FDR, LBJ, Reagan, and W Bush). Abigail Adams is mentioned but not her husband or her son, even though both were president. The oppression of minorities in wartime is given far heavier weight than actual casualties fighting the wars or their progression, and no mention is given of the experience of US soldiers in war. But I suppose you could chalk this last point up to the fact that a US history class is necessarily a class about domestic US history and the experiences at home. It's also strange to see more female and black heroes of history mentioned than white men who helped shape US politics.

On February 18 2015 14:15 GreenHorizons wrote:


I'm not sure what is included on the OK list that isn't included in the other curriculum? It's not like the curriculum is exclusive? If some president or the experience of the soldier in war is a good way to teach something they are welcome to do it?

I'm not sure how much time there is to actually analyze/understand what all those words mean (from the OK list) as opposed to just remembering the names and dates and maybe a hint at what it was actually about or the context it emerged from.

How/where are you gathering that black/female heroes are/would be mentioned more than white men (as if every facet of American life isn't already plastered with them)?

On February 18 2015 14:34 coverpunch wrote:

Hence my saying they're not diametrically opposed. The AP curriculum does not explicitly mention many of the documents and major milestones that the OK state bill does, but it could be included in a textbook. It's unclear how exhaustive the AP curriculum document is. The bill also doesn't say more than "the appropriate grade-level study", which is pretty vague.

The AP curriculum explicitly mentions more black and female heroes than it does white men (or at least it's very close) in the framework. But overall it mentions very few people by name and seems to prefer looking at broader trends when possible. Actual textbooks could be and probably are very different.