David Graeber and David Wengrow https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/ The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of ‘agricultural revolution’ remains so persistent, and argue that there is a whole lot more we can learn from our ancestors. Quite independently, archaeological evidence …
False Facts from History Class
False fact: Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. Reality: By now you probably know that everything you were taught about Columbus is unreliable. For example, contrary to what you learned in school, the explorer did not discover America when he landed there in 1492; the land had previously been inhabited for centuries by Native Americans. Plus, many scholars believe that other explorers …
Intentionally igniting racial anxiety to get or maintain political dominance
Excerpt from Charles M. Blow, NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/03/opinion/youngkin-virginia-race.htmlf …the frenzy around critical race theory is just the latest in a long line of manufactured outrages meant to tap into this same fear, and the strategy has proved depressingly effective. There was the fear of “race-mixing” among children — including the notion that Black boys might begin dating white girls following the …
Democratic Vistas, the union of the ideal and the actual: Rorty proposes that “we build our philosophical reflections around our political hopes: around the project of fashioning institutions and customs which will make human life, finite and mortal life, more beautiful.”
Chris Lehmann August 18, 2021 The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/163297/richard-rortys-warning-authoritarianism-pragmatism-book-review Richard Rorty’s Warning Against Authoritarianism: After Trump’s election, Rorty’s prophecy of social collapse went viral. His final book is perhaps the clearest account of his political thinking. “Dewey’s God, his symbol of what he called ‘the union of the ideal and the actual,’” Rorty writes, “was the United States of America …
An Equity-Based Primer on Paying to Pollute
Nuts, Bolts, and Pitfalls of Carbon Pricing While carbon pricing and emissions trading schemes have been a part of climate policy discussions for decades, the concept has gained popularity in recent years. The term usually refers to two common policy mechanisms, “cap and trade” and a “carbon tax,” which are market-based measures that create a carbon market by putting a …
‘We were partially liberated and then re-enslaved. We have to fight again on old battlefields but our confidence is greater, our vision is clearer and our ultimate victory surer’ – MLK. Voter Suppression Then and Now
Dr. Martin L. King Jr. on What W. E. B. Du Bois Taught Us “We were partially liberated and then re-enslaved. We have to fight again on old battlefields but our confidence is greater, our vision is clearer and our ultimate victory surer because of the contributions a militant, passionate Black giant left behind him. — Dr. Martin L. King …
Juneteenth Is about freedom, snuffed out by the reactionary forces of property and white supremacy. Not only were promises of land overturned, ‘simply acting free was grounds for white retaliation’
By Dale Kretz, Jacobin, 19 June 21 Today, as we celebrate Juneteenth, we should remember not only the struggle against chattel slavery but the struggle for radical freedom during Reconstruction — snuffed out by the reactionary forces of property and white supremacy. t’s a funny thing how folks always want to know about the War,” mused Felix Haywood about that …
Rethinking Education: Latinx and Black Family Homeschool Educators Enjoy Greater Control Over Curricula
The pandemic created a new, more diverse, more connected crop of homeschoolers. They could help shape what learning looks like for everyone. IT’S EASY TO homeschool in Texas. A cursory search leads to a step-by-step guide for withdrawing your kid from the school system. Plug a few bits of information into a templated letter, send to a district administrator, and voila! …
The Eternal Fantasy of a Racially Virtuous America: How partisans on all sides overlook the brutal legacies of white supremacy
SOURCE IMAGERY, INCLUDING “THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER” LYRICS: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (X4) “The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us … history is literally present in all that we do.”—James Baldwin, 1965 In the weeks since the storming of the U.S. Capitol by a lie-emboldened mob of Trump-branded insurrectionists, many political leaders and mainstream pundits across …
Michael Harrington
Harrington thought that “the vocation of a radical.. is to walk a perilous tightrope.. to be true to the socialist vision of a new society…constantly develop and extend its content…and…bring” it “into contact with actual movements fighting…to gain some little increment of dignity or even just a piece of bread.” May 15, 2021 by Common Dreams Michael Harrington by Tom …