In his death Che has been a key inspiration to communist, nationalist, anarchist, and revolutionaries of all types. Through Guerrilla Warfare Che has given inspiration to countless warriors against oppression, whether they’ve put his words into action or have just held them in the hearts, Che has been the spiritual leader of revolution for over fifty years and will be for many years to come. Like Marion, Giap, Gelayev, and Mao, Che showed that the classic style of conventional warfare, with its seemingly endless supplies, political pawnbroking, and a-typical tactics could be defeated by bands of men, and women, whose dedication far outweighed there abilities, and could defeat and cripple the most powerful of adversaries. These ideas and practices that Che epitomized give testament to the legacy and to the man Che Guevara was.

In my opinion, I’m not so sure a man like Che could have realized his potential as he did had he lived in a post-Cold War world. The romanticism and passion Che expressed for revolution long out lived most of the revolutions of the 1960′s. This old-vanguard style of intellectual militancy, now a days, would sadly be lumped into our post-modern newspeak “War on Terror”. Today’s political-economic-military climate would have not given Che justice as a man of the people and would have simply made him into a tug of terror. Che’s death marked the end of classical revolutionary types, but like I’ve said before has been the catalyst in which all revolutionaries, peaceful or militant aspire to: total revolution – no peace for them until we have peace for ourselves.

When the semester started I was thinking I wanted to write about how folkways music (work-songs, hoolies, spirituals, and English ballads) transitioned into the blues and the social and cultural changes that caused the switch, but as I’ve mentioned in class primary sourcing on such a topic is very hard to come by due to education levels and would leave me to speculate, at least for this project, rather than make educated realizations and be able to tell the story accurately from a first hand account. Of late I have been focusing on the year 1919, which was critical and pivotal year for post-war America and which involves the first red scare and dozens of race riots known as the “Red Summer”. On a side note: Knoxville even experienced a race riot during this time.

Immediately after I had answered Dr. Black’s question, I realized how a lot of what we know in popular culture as “Southern Pride” comes from around this time. The question as well as may “current” topic have afforded me the opportunity to tackle my long held curiosity of race relations, southern culture and the rise of Southern pride movements. As a student of sociology and history this a great opportunity to understand the mindset and reasoning behind groups like the Klowns and the long held ideas of a southern rebellious nature that is present in East Tennessee.

I wrote this in hoping, because it’s a freebie week that some of you could comment on the types of topics you are hopefully going to be tackling over the course of this honors history program.

I don’t know if anyone keeps up with the conflict between Russia and Chechnya rebels from the Northern Caucasus Mountains, but as many of you my have heard this week, there was a dual suicide bombing in Moscow on Monday. I believe it was the largest suicide bomber attack on the Russian capital yet by the separatist and has reawakened dormant fears of a little war that clearly has long arms. I’ve always been interested in the reasons conflict grows and goes so far as to cause individuals to be caught up into a movement so violent that they would kill crowds on subways, buses and trains by detonating an explosive on their person, and with all the speculation and fear mongering I rarely here “experts” talk about the mindset and psychology of suicide bombers and the reasons they kill themselves, other than the simple answer of jihad. Most people who utter the phrase jihad know very little about the historical importance of this type of movement and application of force. These Mujihadeen fighters are not well-funded Al-Qeada mercenaries, these are holy warriors in the truest since of the term, and for them it is honorable to sacrifice oneself in battle. The Japanese Bushido Code would be a good comparison.

The war in Chechnya has been raging for almost two decades with over 100000 people dead and countless other casualties. To see how someone from a family that has been fighting for territory and survival would be willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause they see as just is very forth telling about the mindset present in the individuals. I’ve read some literature on the subject and from what I’ve gathered the sacrificial nature of suicide attacks and the mindset of the attackers has become that of necessity instead of religious furfer. If there is no peace for us, there will be no peace for them mentality. For almost a generation Chechnya youth have lived and grown up in a climate of rage against the Russians. This has sowed deep rifts in the way fighters on both sides view the conflict and how human life can become so cheap. Many of these suicide bombings are in retaliation against Russian imperialist aggression in the Northern Caucasus.

I was in a bit of a fenzy as I wrote my last post and may have not cover all the dichotomous pairs as I should have … here I go.

Tikoff presents “Not All Orphans are Ophans” as a I come to see it as a etic approach to the study of ophanages due to the idea that these institutions were training grounds for 17th and 18th century elitist occupations. The use of orphanages in this way relies heavily on external criteria (institutional) need for filling these occupations as an empire expands and grows. I forgot to touch on earlier on the “assumptions” part of the “Emperor’s Mirror”. As Jed mentioned, the conscious of institutions working together was a major theme throughout Tikoff’s piece and as I stated prior this idea is well established with the etic and social forces aspects as the driving nature of the orphanages in Seville. The piece on orphanages is  assuredly stochastic because of  the different outcomes in life styles and occupancy of these orphans can not be completely dictated or expected.  The institutionalization of the orphanages and its occupants can not guarantee an outcome of complacency. As I’ve come to believe it if something is conscientious in nature it must be materialist also because of the driving forces that occupy the roles need to make society move forward, for good or for bad, the materialistic impression that Tikoff’s piece relies on over and over shows how these institutions were built to be a driving force in themselves for a macro-sector of society in Seville.

As for the work you do: bravo, truly.  But I’ve been to several of these “core group” meetings and not heard one thing about the gravest problem facing our nation on a daily basis or an attempt at even approaching the subject: the wars. This is the root of most of the problems facing this county. From budget cuts to lives lost, yet this “core group” with all of it’s progressive (what ever that means) ideals doesn’t blink an eye when Obama sends 30,000 more troops to the meat grinder. Funny thing I guess they just don’t care. They start to moan and groan about whatever issue they feel like band-wagoning this week to the next.  I would watch who you assume doesn’t take action around these parts, I feel as if since you haven’t seen certain individuals, such as myself, at “core-group” rallies you think that they must not care. By the time I was a senior in h.s. I was actively protesting the War in Iraq in Washington, and the School of the America’s in GA. And since then have been involved in protest at the World Bank & IMF in Washington, ORNL, United Mountain Defense, anti-Klan and Neo-Nazi rallies in Tennessee,North Carolina and Georgia, and Wal-Mart’s use of land space in Chattanooga (notice certain localities, Appalachia mean’s the world to me!).

Anyways most of these “progressive” types  only concern themselves when they get to college anyway, and they become  so disillusioned by the time they leave or  their so wrapped up in their old boring neo-New-Left tactics that they just give-up. I’d probably get involved but your tactics are boring and non-confrontational (I’m not talking about violence) take a note from your Berkley brother and sisters, occupy something, make business stop, whatever you have to do to send a message. Is the “core-group” worried that they might get arrested or not receive a letter of recommendation because they were seen staging a sit-in in Dr. Chi’s office? Get out of the UC and off of Cumberland Ave. and go straight to the admin and tell them why your concerned. Believe me, the man on the street could care less about University budget cuts, but you do, so use your head, a 100 person protest doesn’t matter but news that 100 students occupied the Chancellors office for 24 hrs on a Monday gets people thinking and once you get people thinking you my have some new support in the way of people actually getting involved.

Oh, its the very notion that anyone is discussing any type of politics in this climate of theft, alienation, and fear that what should be disgusting.

This weeks post…

The use and application of dichotomous approach types is allowing me to understand the type of research a particular historian is training to map out for the readers. The use of these dichotomies is important in not only examining a piece of historical work, but it also gives insight on what type of research can affect the style and importance  the paper that I’m trying to write. I write this post admitting the understanding of certain dichotomies is a bit vague for me on certain pairs, but hopefully my current grasp will suffice.

“Not all orphans really are” by Valentina Tikoff is an illustration of the life of children in orphanages during 17th and 18th centuries in Seville, Spain. Tikoff’s use of Seville, a major embarkation point for Spain’s imperial conquests , although she covered three centuries, shows a particularist approach to orphanages at the time. I believe if it had been nomothetic she would have covered a broader range of geographical location within the long 18th century. Since particularism encompasses the geographical concern of Tikoff’s piece time can be deduced as a diachronic interpretation to the forces that drove the orphanages from the early 17th century to the early 19th century. I don’t believe there was much qualitative research able to be extracted from her use of orphanage records as she presented them, because she was looking to describe the life’s of orphans within the system. The greatest use of a particular within a diatomic pair would have come for the personal influence vs. social forces. From what I gathered the driving of Spanish societies imperialist and Catholic notions led to many more orphans than we would have seen other wise. Also the use of orphanages as a type of preparatory institution was a major tail-tale sign of how society affected the use of orphanages and the Spanish’s want to “blossom” these young people rather than just integrate back into society showed that social-forces rather than personal influence was a cause behind the effect.

Reagan’s book was the highlight read and struck me as a very engaging and dynamic piece of original history. It represented an untold part of American, medical, and legal history that I haven’t really thought about but assumed was a dark reality of American social secrets. In a way Reagan approved my assumptions by showing how the established governing medical board American Medical Association and the media of the day stamped out any real debate on the matter of performing abortions, but she did allow for realization that the reality of performing abortions was against all physician moral code, nor was it a strictly religious endeavor to deter the efforts of women’s rights. See went on to show that abortion participants were often persuaded by female associates to have these abortions performed. I must disagree with some of my fellow classmates stance on the use of death certificates as a definitive representation of abortions during this time other than who dead during these times and possibly acquiring a social demographic of the ladies who are deceased. Quantitatively there are only assumptions to the data plucked from the death certificates.

Rossinov wrote about a subject that I am fimialar with, the New Left, but presented, at least in chapter one, a pylosophical origins of the New Left which I must say I had really read about but had been subconsciously aware of due to the roots in black church groups of the mid-1950′s. I am a huge fan of music of 1960′s Texas like the 13th Floor Elevators and Josephus so Rossinov’s book built in my mind a foundational roadmap that would lead to the cultural revolution which occured in the mid-60′s. The idea he presented was the search for the common spirit, a common manhood,  a common acceptance, to so that the disauliemnt of life in the mid to late 50′s Texas brought about a hunger for a search for a commonplace which was so vital to the civil rights movement, youth movement, anti-war and dozens of other movements that searched for that common thread. Sadly Rossinov also showed that the commonplace mentality would led to the break-up of the New Left due to gains accquired in rights by 1964, and the split of ideologies that occured during the late-60′s and early-70′s.

During this weeks class discussion, one in which I think a lot of us really enjoyed, Jon Wiener’s Historians in Trouble focused on unprofessional malfeasance inside the realm of history. Parts of the book read like a poor attempt by some bad apples in the profession to exercise their value deficiencies as a power display. These members of the neo-con thought police unscrupulously used their expertise and connections to not only avoid due punishment, but were given prestige by power political forces in the face of obvious wrong doing. While other parts of the book seemed as if the individuals involved were less concerned about the truth of the historical record and more concerned with falsifying facts to support their bias beliefs.

One area that we touched on in class that the book whispered about was the lack of administration oversight in dealing with the problems of wrong doing. While not specifically dealt with in Wiener’s book the idea that administrations will harbor individuals not only accused of academic fraud, but the lack of concern for personal and professional protection some administrations displayed towards their student body. In an academic world fueled by money from special interest groups there’s little wonder of why administrations seemly turn a blind-eye towards the people involved in these scandals. Money vs. truth. Sadly truth pays the tab. “Integrity of the historical record” words to live by not words to manipulate. The historians in Weiner’s book lost focus of this pivotal reality. Every wrong actions can call into question the “integrity of the historical” record by no longer placing the focus on productive scholarship and healthy academic debate, but a reliance on the prestige of an individuals or an institution to clear-up wrong doing and cases that we saw simply swept the dirt under the rug without giving a second thought. What’s nice about real history is that these wrong doings are on record so that in future instances of academic fraud or unprofessional behavior, the community can and should take swift actions as to avoid these instances that call integrity into question.

Speaking of official doctrine, the supreme court, as we highlighted in class, has apparently said that corporations, since they have the same legal rights as individuals are afforded the same rights of free-speech under the US Constitution in matters of campaign financing. Hum? Corporations who are green-lighted by a highly militaristic government. Seems like fascism to me, but I maybe wrong because I don’t hold a PhD in poly sci from Harvard.  I think it might actually take someone without a PhD in poly sci to see that!!! I’m honestly vary concerned about this new ruling. Not only because it alienates the individual voter even more from participating in Democrazy (see Peter Colliers book Wars, Guns, and Votes) but on the simpler, much more elementary side: IT GIVES CORPORATIONS THE SAME RIGHTS AS PEOPLE ! (which the Supreme Court already gave away in the last two centuries of stellar judgment) But has deemed in necessary to now give corporations free speech. Ludicrous. I don’t know if were supposed to express personal opinion on the blogs this much, but to be honest this judgeship makes me sick, worried, and pretty pissed off.

Friere’s text “Pedagogy of The Oppressed” touched at the heart of some ideas I’ve had about our current educational system, but wasn’t really able to nail down as clearly as Friere did. Friere showed that natural curiosity is being thrown from the train in order to make room for a domination policy that has been present in education since big biz began to stick its dirty little fingers in all the educational pies. Can people learn if curiosity is deemed dangerous because only new idea should stem from the banking model. And if indeed they are new ideas not regurgitated facts or technology given a new coat of paint, they should not deviant from the model as to disrupt the order of Things.

I bought Iggers book “Historiography in the 20th Century” today and read a few chapters. I’m quite intrigued as to the original centralization of academics around the State during the early 19th century, apparently any challenge other was a “violation of the historical spirit”. It took the fun lovin’ French to encompass the nature of historical acquirement and get the Germans from being so German about things. I did like however that Ranke, in the search for history to be more scientific and acurate, threw out all secondary account of the history of  the Italian Wars. This seems like a major challenegd he faced as a founding father of modern historical research.