Modern History (1800 – present)

Got something to say about the past? Say it here!
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

How Rosa Parks Helped Spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott
by Jennifer Rosenberg
Updated September 01, 2019

https://www.thoughtco.com/rosa-parks-re ... gregation.

Introduction:
(ThoughtCo.) On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African-American seamstress, refused to give up her seat to a white man while riding on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. For doing this, Parks was arrested and fined for breaking the laws of segregation. Rosa Parks' refusal to leave her seat sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and is considered the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Conclusion:
The one-day boycott of the buses in Montgomery was so successful that it turned into a 381-day boycott, now called the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Montgomery Bus Boycott ended when the Supreme Court ruled that the bus segregation laws in Alabama were unconstitutional.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

Modern-day Culture Wars are Playing Out on Historic Tours of Slaveholding Plantations
by Kelley Fanto Deetz
December 6, 2021

https://theconversation.com/modern-day- ... ons-170617

Introduction:
(The Conversation) Located on nearly 2,000 acres along the banks of the Potomac River, Stratford Hall Plantation is the birthplace of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and the home of four generations of the Lee family, including two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee.

It was also the home of hundreds of enslaved Africans and African Americans. From sunup to sundown, they worked in the fields and in the Great House. Until fairly recently, the stories of these enslaved Africans and of their brothers and sisters toiling at plantations across the Southern U.S. were absent from any discussions during modern-day tours of plantations such as Stratford Hall.

Even now, with new tours and an exhibition highlighting enslaved Africans and African Americans who lived at Stratford Hall, discussions during plantation tours among visitors can often turn into visceral debates over whose history should be told or ignored.

These tensions are part of an ever-growing work of criticism directed at sites that continue to omit the history of the enslaved community. Of the 600 plantations scattered throughout the South, only one, the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, focuses entirely on the experiences of the enslaved.

As a public historian and the director of collections and visitor engagement at Stratford Hall, I can attest that visitors have vastly different expectations when they visit this historic landmark. Their questions reflect their own interpretations, curiosities and political biases, often to the detriment of obtaining a richer education on every aspect of plantation life – the good, the bad and the ugly.
caltrek's comment: When I lived in Virginia a couple of years or so back, I actually visited the Stratford Hall Plantation. I had wanted to visit Jefferson's Monticello. I offered to drive my in-laws to Monticello if they would assist in the navigation. They agreed, but insisted that they would do the driving. When we got in their car, the driver suggested we go to Stratford Hall instead, as it was the closer destination. To avoid an argument, I reluctantly agreed without complaint.

The docent on duty that day (not Ms Deetz) did a pretty good job of showing us around. The cited article brings back memories of that visit. The only complaint I would make about the tour was when the question came up: how did all adopt to the freeing of the slaves?

The docent was completely silent on that issue. Later, I explained to my sister-in-law that the South shifted to a share-cropper system after the Civil War. Later, I learned that many Blacks came to own their own farmland with such ownership peeking in about 1920. Subsequently, that ownership dropped off and then dwindled too almost nothing. A recent article in The Nation indicates that while Department of Agriculture programs were in theory available to all small farmers in the twentieth century, racist practices of exclusion by Department of Agriculture personnel prevented Blacks from getting their fair share of assistance. So, they lost their land at far greater rate than White farmers. Another example of systemic racism in the history of the United States.

Edit: Since I mentioned The Nation here is a link to that article (see below). I am not sure, but I hope that you will not encounter a pay wall. (I subscribe to The Nation)

https://www.thenation.com/article/socie ... ford-debt/

Here are some bottom-line numbers as reported in the article:

Extract:
(The Nation) The government’s reversal on its promise to give millions of newly emancipated Black folks 40 acres and a mule stood in contrast to its land-giveaway policies for white citizens. The Homestead Act of 1862 took some 270 million acres of territory that had been taken from Native Americans—10 percent of all US public lands—and reallocated it in 160-acre parcels to 1.6 million Americans, almost all native or foreign-born whites, the ancestors of roughly 45 million living American adults who continue to reap generational wealth from that land grab. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 also put free and low-cost public lands into the hands of an overwhelmingly white cohort of owners. Despite being denied these sorts of government handouts, emancipated Black farmers had acquired 3 million acres by 1875, a figure that would rise to 12 million by 1900. Land ownership by Black farmers reached its peak in 1910, when they owned between 15 million and 19 million acres.
Last edited by caltrek on Fri Dec 10, 2021 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

The Nobel Peace Prize and Other Nobel Prizes

https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/nobel-p ... e/history/

Introduction:
(The Nobel Peace Prize.org - History) When the Swedish businessman Alfred Nobel passed away in 1896, he left behind what was then one of the world’s largest private fortunes. In his last will Nobel declared that the whole of his remaining fortune of 31, 5 million Swedish crowns was to be invested in safe securities and should constitute a fund "the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind"

Will

The will specified in which fields the prizes should be awarded – physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature and peace – and which criteria the respective prize committees should apply when choosing their prize recipients. According to the will the Nobel Peace Prize was to be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

Norwegian Nobel Committee

Alfred Nobel’s will declared that the Nobel Peace Prize was to be awarded by a committee of five persons selected by the Norwegian Storting (parliament). The Storting accepted the assignment in April 1897, and the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting was set up in August of the same year. Read more about the Norwegian Nobel Committee (as it is now known) here.

Nobel Foundation

In Sweden, however, Nobel's will triggered a lengthy legal battle with parts of the Nobel family. It was not until this conflict had been resolved, and financial matters had been satisfactorily arranged through the establishment of the Nobel Foundation in Sweden in 1900, that the Norwegian Nobel Committee and the other prize-awarding bodies could begin their work.

First award

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901. The Peace Prize for that year was shared between the Frenchman Frédéric Passy and the Swiss Jean Henry Dunant.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

Abrams v. United States

In Abrams v. United States, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the 1918 Amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917, which made it a criminal offense to urge the curtailment of production of the materials necessary to wage the war against Germany with intent to hinder the progress of the war. This was the so-called Sedition Act of 1918. The defendants were charged and convicted of inciting resistance to the war effort and urging curtailment of production of essential war material and were sentenced to ten and twenty years in prison. Writing in dissent, Justice Oliver Wendell Homes sought to uphold the “free trade of ideas”*:
Persecution for the expression of opinion seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care wholeheartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas – that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_v._United_States
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

To Be or Not to Be? Ukraine’s Minsk Process
by Gwendolyn Sasse
March 2, 2016

https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/62939

Introduction:
(Carnegie Institute) A little over a year after the Minsk II accord was signed in February 2015, it is all too apparent that the agreement aimed at ending the war in eastern Ukraine is not working. Nevertheless, Western governments, the EU, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) keep reiterating that Minsk needs to be fulfilled. Since the deadline for the implementation of Minsk II passed at the end of December 2015, it is unclear what this means in practice. A concrete though ultimately unachievable set of security and political measures has been replaced by a vague reference to an end goal. Ukrainian and Russian politicians routinely blame each other for violating the agreement.

It is easy to see why nobody wants to officially abandon the Minsk process. The framework was difficult enough to establish in the first place, and a renegotiation of its principles would increase instability on the ground. But a peace process also needs structure and clear signposts, otherwise it becomes a process for the sake of a process. The key challenge is to carry forward the spirit of Minsk through a more targeted approach and shed some of the baggage that the process has acquired along the way.

The sequencing envisaged by Minsk II started with a full ceasefire on February 15, 2015, the pullout within two weeks of heavy weaponry from a security zone separating the warring sides, and an exchange of prisoners. These steps were to be followed immediately by a dialogue on the modalities of local elections in Ukraine and a law on special local governance measures in particular districts of the eastern oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

Will the U.S. Go to War Over Taiwan?
Lindsay Morgan interviews James Lee
October 29, 2021

https://igcc.ucsd.edu/news-events/news/ ... aiwan.html

Introduction:
(Q):Tensions have been rising in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has ramped up political and military pressure on Taipei, and the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, whose party platform favors independence, has rebuked Beijing’s efforts to undermine democracy. Can you bring us up to speed on what’s happening in Taiwan—how did we get to where we are today?

(A) I'll answer the second question first, because it provides context for what's happening today. The Taiwan question originated from the inconclusive resolution of the Chinese civil war, where the former government of China, and the party and military loyal to it, the Republic of China, moved to Taiwan in 1949. Throughout the Cold War, the Republic of China insisted that it was still the legitimate and sole legal government of China. The People's Republic of China also insisted that it was the sole legal government of China. So, during the Cold War you had these two rival Chinese governments, one in Beijing and one in Taipei, both insisting that they had the sole legal right to represent China. That's how the Taiwan question originated.

The United States was on the side of the Republic of China and interposed the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait after the outbreak of the Korean War to ensure that Taiwan would not be invaded by communist forces from mainland China. Fast forward to the present day. Taiwan is still governed separately from mainland China, and though Taiwan has never declared independence formally, over time there has been a gradual and persistent shift in the consensus in Taiwan, away from the idea that Taiwan still represents the sole legal government of China. Right now there is a debate in Taiwan about whether or not Taiwan should adhere to what is known as the One-China Principle, which is the idea that Taiwan and mainland China are both part of one China. The current government in Taiwan does not accept that view. And it's been because of that refusal to accept the One-China Principle that Beijing has been ratcheting up its maneuvers around Taiwan. The intention is to send very aggressive signals warning Taiwan not to declare formal independence.

(Q)You talked about ratcheting up tensions. Can you give some examples of what's been happening?

(A) Beijing has been sending warplanes into Taiwan's ADIZ [air defense identification zone] and they've been crossing over in record numbers. Chinese warplanes have been crossing into the southwest of Taiwan's ADIZ, crossing over the de facto median line between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

Below is an admittedly pro-Western source. A rebuttal would be most interesting.

'A Gift to Posterity': Four Men Who Risked the Wrath of Stalin to Photograph the Holodomor
by Dmytro Dzhulay and Coilin O'Connor

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-holodom ... 35172.html

Introduction:
(Radio Free Europe) If the Bolsheviks had got their way, the story of the Holodomor might never have been told.

Intent on ruthlessly presenting an idealized portrait of the Soviet Union at home and abroad, the U.S.S.R.'s bureaucracy did its utmost to stifle news of the devastating man-made famine orchestrated by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin that killed some 4 million Ukrainians in 1932-33. Communist authorities forced peasants in Ukraine to join collective farms by requisitioning their grain and other food products.

Even when the world finally got wind of what was happening, Moscow relentlessly strived to play down the situation, issuing wholesale denials while making every effort to ensure that photographic evidence of the tragedy was either suppressed or destroyed.

Nonetheless, a handful of photographers managed to defy the Soviet authorities by capturing the horrors of the Holodomor on film.

Some of these images were surreptitiously taken by foreigners, most notably Alexander Wienerberger, James Abbe, and Whiting Williams. Their work was subsequently published in the West and was seen as an important visual corroboration of this human tragedy, which had been brought to wider attention by whistle-blowers such as Gareth Jones and Ewald Ammende.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

Here is the Wikipedia take on the Holodomor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Introduction:
The Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомо́р, romanized: Holodomór, IPA: [ɦolodoˈmɔr];[2] derived from морити голодом, moryty holodom, 'to kill by starvation'),[a][3][4][5] also known as the Terror-Famine[6][7][8] or the Great Famine,[9] was a famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It was a large part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933. The term Holodomor emphasises the famine's man-made and allegedly intentional aspects such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs and restriction of population movement. As part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country, millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.[10] Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine[11] and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.[12]
Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials varied greatly.[13] A United Nations joint statement signed by 25 countries in 2003 declared that 7–10 million perished.[14] Current scholarship estimates a range of 4 to 7 million victims,[15] with more precise estimates ranging from 3.3[16] to 5 million.[17] According to the findings of the Court of Appeal of Kyiv in 2010, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 10 million, with 3.9 million direct famine deaths, and a further 6.1 million birth deficits.[18]
Whether the Holodomor was genocide is still the subject of academic debate, as are the causes of the famine and intentionality of the deaths.[19][20][21] Some scholars believe that the famine was planned by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement.[10][22] Others suggest that the man-made famine was a consequence of Soviet industrialisation.[23][24][25]
Etymology
Holodomor literally translated from Ukrainian means "death by hunger", "killing by hunger, killing by starvation",[26] or sometimes "murder by hunger or starvation."[24]
[2], etc. For footnotes, see article linked above quote box.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

This article (see below) argues that not only was there a famine that struck Ukraine, but that Western sources were actually complicit in helping to cover up that famine, as opposed to using it for propaganda purposes:

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/view ... c_sas_etds
January 3, 2020
(City University of New York)
Abstract
This paper discusses how the Holodomor (Ukrainian Genocide of 1932-1933) was effectively
covered up by Stalin with the help of compliant actors in the West. A confluence of media,
political, and economic interests in the West was critical in successfully covering up Stalin's
crimes against the Ukrainian people.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by caltrek »

Devdutt Pattanaik Believes that the British Moved India from Caste-based to Religion-based Ecosystem Which Changed Everything Drastically
December 24, 2021

https://indianexpress.com/article/books ... k-7688705/

Introduction:
(The Indian Express) It was the British who moved India from its age-old caste based system to religion ecosystem and “suddenly the world changes drastically”, mythologist and author Devdutt Pattanaik said in a conversation with The Indian Express Executive Director Anant Goenka Friday.

Pattanaik, whose new book Eden looks at Jewish, Christian and Islamic Lore from an Indian lens, added: “The British come and say no, no, don’t look at caste, don’t look at vocation, look at religion. That’s the key differentiator”.

Talking about how monotheistic religions emerged differently from Indian thinking he explained: “In the Eden model, you need a prophet to tell you what to do. The Indian model says everything has to change (with time).” This “idea of impermanence”, according to him, allows Indians to adapt very rapidly and this is a good idea to tell the world.

It is sad that we are continuously using colonial frameworks to explain ourselves, he said. “I see some smart people talking about multiple tools…it’s almost like we are discovering it. This was always there in India. It’s there in Jainism, Buddhism, it’s there in Hinduism.”

While we are now wired to think that there can only be one idea, Pattanaik said that’s not the way life works. “The left brain likes linear thinking and likes one idea that’s like a bigger decision. The right brain looks at perspective, and has larger pictures. Indian thought tilts towards the right, it talks about perspective.”
Last edited by caltrek on Sun Jan 30, 2022 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
Post Reply