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--you must have a "wonder stick" to find the answers to all these obscure questions. Actually it is a medal given to me by a friend. I affixed it to my iMac and try to fool visitors--I usually fail despite the fact that it covers the Apple logo perfectly. Kudos again!
No just that things like this are fun for me; esoteric factoids are not worth much but really cool none-the-less. The medal on the Mac is a terrfic gag, your friends are missing the boat if they don't think it's funny.
To what movie do you refer? Is Lee still alive? I though Clint killed him!
It was just a hamburger. Lee died in Dec of 89; heart attack. Another under-appreciated talent.
Good ideas. I didn't have the tenth graders read the Manifesto but did a lesson based on the 10 point program at the end. It was an eye opener for them. 😮
Wally: Your administrators are to be lauded and you are a brave fellow. Kudos!You will better be able to defeat your enemy if you know what he is all about--e.g. ULTRA
Personally, I think The Communist Manifesto at least should be required reading in American schools with a strong suggestion to read Das Kapital. I agree that Kapital is fairly dense readfing but the Manifesto is not too bad and for all the looniness of his ideas he does a fairly decent job of summing up his program in it.But then, I think 1984, and Animal Farm should be required reading too.
There are places in this country where if you tried to teach the tenants of Communism you would run the riskof being fired. This is probably less true now than when I went to High School. We were taught almost nothing about the beliefs of "the adversary" except that it was bad, un-American and we would probably be drafted toprovide a shield against Communist ambitions to challenge our hegemony.Also: Many people think George Orwell was a Communist just as many people think our President is not a citizen, ossibly a muslim and perhaps the anti-Christ. I read most of Orwell's books and find his prose tobe lucid and thought provoking. Years ago there was a TV program with Jan Sterling and Edmund O'Brienin a teleplay of 1984. Scared the living daylights out of me, but I did go and get the book which was even better if less scary.
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, leader of Cheka, later called GPU... ultimately the KGB. [to be played by Lee Van Cleef in the movie... ;D]
Double A plus good--note his Goat like beard--a fierce revolutionary he. The Lubyanka prison was his denand a blot on the escutcheon of mankind. Wally--you must have a "wonder stick" to find the answers to all these obscure questions. Actually it is a medal given to me by a friend. I affixed it to my iMac and try to fool visitors--I usually fail despite the fact that it covers the Apple logo perfectly. Kudos again!To what movie do you refer? Is Lee still alive? I though Clint killed him!
I would tend to agree that if we get the VAT the income tax will remain. The people will get poorer while the government appropriates the capital to itself, to mangle Marx a little. It's actually kind of a reverse Marxism. Marx thought the redistirbution of wealth would happen naturally when one day everyone got infected with the "fairness" bug or the "fairness" fairy sprinkled magic dust on everybody.
What an unusual and poetic way of describing his thoughts. I agree. Being a bit unworldly, never really having a job and lacking capital, he was convinced that man was perfectible and in his own self interest would agreethat a classless society would not only be fair, but less dangerous, more benign and do away with all thepesky rules imposed by government. I found it strange that when I first read in him--not too much as he is really dense as you know--he made no provision, once the dictatorship of the Proletariat had withered away, for any police force to nudge the miscreant members of his brave new society back into line if there was pushing or shoving in line or lust in the dust on the farm. As was mentioned previously, perhaps he spent too much time in the British Museum and not enough in the slums of London examining the raw material for his workers paradise here on earth.
Wally:Wart teaching is good.What is the difference between a democracy and a mobocracy?You live in California. Was legislation by proposition or referendum a good idea--direct democracy!?
Looks more like an iLenin.
Close--but no cigar--a contemporary of Lenin and a compatriot--an ethnic Pole. There is a square named for him in the center of Moscow and his first name is FELIX (Happy in Latin)--any guesses now?
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... in 1776 We the People consisted of those free, white, property owning males who supported the revolt against the legally constituted government of Great Britain.
Yes basically the same We that called the shots. I made the point in another thread earlier that the AmRev was more evolutionary (some call it a Civil War) than revolutionary as the movers and shakers of the colonies were the movers and shakers (mostly) for independence and again (mostly) the ones that formed the government.
As I recall that would be abut 1/3 of the population--am I correct?
That jives with the numbers I've seen and gave to the kids in the lesson. 1/3 against the split with Britain and 1/3 just wanted to be left alone.
I have no problem with them denying votes to slaves and women. To advocate that at the time would have you sent to some asylum for the insane.
Perhaps but it was considered by some or at least the possibility that it would be addressed later.
I guess the problem is that we have a minority of a minority deciding to revolt--a non democratic method of setting up a nation based on liberty and democracy.
That is, however, the case. The majority knew little as the media sources took weeks to get news of anything out. We are thinking like 21st century folks again when we forget that and that fully 1/3 of the population didn't really care who was in charge as long as they were left to their lives.
In 1787 they then proposed a document that clearly was based on fear of the mob (the people?), and so constructed the government to guarantee that the will of THE PEOPLE could be tamed and altered by having an electoral college and election of Senators by State Legislatures. Did this come up in your classes?
Yes. Why wouldn't it? The founders were products of the Enlightenment and as such realized that the people must have a role in their own governance but at that point it was to be limited, indeed, to protect from a mobocracy.I taught about the warts too. I wouldn't have been doing my job otherwise.
We (free, white, property owning, of age, males), at the time, were going to make the rules for all; those not in our group would be given certain protections and rights under the Constitution. This was pretty liberal at the time... turn Enlightenment thought, as far as it went (not as far perhaps as it should have but good for the time. Never meaning to obfuscatate, my qualifiactions seem reasonable as it is wobbly point (some bring up) when we continued to have slaves and disallow votes to women.
So in 1776 We the People consisted of those free, white, property owning males who supported the revolt against the legally constituted government of Great Britain. As I recall that would be abut 1/3 of the population--am I correct? I have no problem with them denying votes to slaves and women. To advocate that at the time would have you sent to some asylum for the insane. I guess the problem is that we have a minority of a minority deciding to revolt--a non democratic method of setting up a nation based on libertyand democracy. In 1787 they then proposed a document that clearly was based on fear of the mob (the people?), and so constructed the government to guarantee that the will of THE PEOPLE could be tamed andaltered by having an electoral college and election of Senators by State Legislatures. Did this come up in your classes?
We.edit: Sorry I read "are" for "were"; at the time it would have been free, white, property owning men, of a certain age. The implication, though, that we must assume is that those not blessed with those traits would be under an umbrella provided in the larger document. Not perfect (then or now) but the way it looks to me... based on the document as a whole, coupled with the liberal (in correct usage here) nature of our motivations at the time.
What on earth does this mean in plain English? Obfuscation is not usually your wont!
As with the recent thread on the Bill of Rights, this series of posts will follow the same basic line; that is, a step by step look at the Constituion... article by article, with a brief synopsis of each including commentary based on the lessons (and the text mentioned in the previous thread) I used with my 8th grade history classes. In some cases readers here will note that points may seem over-simplified... please remember that the lessons were for kids in the 13-15 age group and that many citizens (outside of this forum) function at a level not to much higher... regardless of true educational level. 😮As before, the short posts will be presented here and the longer or more inviolved ones attached as .pdf's.Thank you in advance for the opportunity to provide this material.The Preamble: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.While most sources indicate that the Preamble is little more than an introduction to the Constitution, setting forth the purpose of the larger document, it does something much more important. The Preamble states, in fairly clear terms, that the powers vested in the government by the in the Constitution come from ?We the people??. The Federalist view was that it also explained the rights we had, making a separate Bill of Rights unnecessary. The Preamble is silent, really, on the powers the government will be granted or forbidden by the Constitution, it does, however, lay out the purposes for which we have established our government.Coming soon: Article 1 The Legislative Branch
In your view just who were "the people"?
So why lead? Any theories?
That's a good question. Seems somewhat odd that it would have been merely because of status because funeral stele that marked tombs were where displays of power or prestige would have been communicated; not with the underground coffin. Also, the lead coffin looked like a wrapped burrito of sorts, hardly something aesthetically-pleasing. So really I don't know why lead was used.
POSSIBILITIES: Lead is easily worked and formed into various shapes including sheets and curved surfaces. Water pipes in Rome were often made of lead--lots of people know how to work it. The Italian name for lead is piumbo--akin the plumber! Lead is not expensive compared to bronze, silver or gold Lead in relatively inert--no rust and minimum oxidation--lasts a long timeJust ruminating.
So why lead? Any theories?
That's a good question. Seems somewhat odd that it would have been merely because of status because funeral stele that marked tombs were where displays of power or prestige would have been communicated; not with the underground coffin. Also, the lead coffin looked like a wrapped burrito of sorts, hardly something aesthetically-pleasing. So really I don't know why lead was used.
POSSIBILITIES: Lead is easily worked and formed into various shapes including sheets and curved surfaces. Water pipes in Rome were often made of lead--lots of people know how to work it. The Italian name for lead is piombo--akin the plumber! Lead is not expensive compared to bronze, silver or gold Lead in relatively inert--no rust and minimum oxidation--lasts a long timeJust ruminating.
