Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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John Oliver - US History (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter The Gator
- Start date
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
moleculo
Footballguy
that's not really the point here, is it? AFAIK, no one is advocating we should have done anything different in 1776 or even 1788. The point is we need to acknowlege that this country has, in fact, been racist since day one. If we can do that, maybe it's a little easier to accept that racism persists today.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
-OZ-
Footballguy
Hell, I think, though I could be wrong, the only continent that didn't have slavery was Antarctica.
El Floppo
Footballguy
moleculo
Footballguy
I know the British Empire did. Pretty sure France. No idea about the various German or Scandinavian states. Russia probably did, as did China & Japan.
ETA: Germans for sure used slave labor in the 1940's...regardless of where they were in 1790, they don't get a pass here.
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Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
well played
tri-man 47
Footballguy
Slightly related, but when my son was in 3rd grade, he needed to learn all the state capitals by the end of the school year. Over Labor Day weekend, we started making connections - 4 capitals and states starting with the same letter (DD, HH, II, OO); Bismarck, Pierre, and Lincoln protecting Helena from the Cheyennes; Vermont/Montpelier; Topeka/Kansas; several NBA cities; several men around the lady (Frankfurt, Charleston, Harrisburg, Trenton, Albany ..and Annapolis); a few presidents (Madison, Jackson, Lincoln); and a handful of nearby midwest states to our Chicago base ...that covered more than half the list. He had the list down by the end of the long weekend. Just gotta make the stuff come alive! (I'm an accounting professor, and those are different stories).rcam said:
-OZ-
Footballguy
When Martin tested penguins' color vision, he discovered that they do not see red. They do see violet, blue and green. Even though they spend much of their life on land, their eyes are adapted to the underwater world, where they hunt. They may even see into the ultraviolet region of the spectrum, where people are blind.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
Everything they see is black and white. And a little bit of yellow, depending on the species.
When Martin tested penguins' color vision, he discovered that they do not see red. They do see violet, blue and green. Even though they spend much of their life on land, their eyes are adapted to the underwater world, where they hunt. They may even see into the ultraviolet region of the spectrum, where people are blind.
moleculo
Footballguy
One other thing - the US has probably done more to racially integrate than any other country on the planet. that doesn't mean we are done - remember, we continually strive for a MORE perfect Union. But, as much trouble as we still have, other places struggle too. Most of Western Europe struggles with Turkish and Syrian immigrants and refugees. England has people making racist cheers during soccer games. China has the Uighurs (which I know about now thanks to last week's John Oliver).
Saying that USA still has race problems doesn't mean we aren't the greatest country in the history of the world.
Saying that USA still has race problems doesn't mean we aren't the greatest country in the history of the world.
El Floppo
Footballguy
Joe Summer
Footballguy
I'm getting tired of people saying [fact that makes me uncomfortable], when the truth is [fact that makes me feel better].
-OZ-
Footballguy
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
neat
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BobbyLayne
Footballguy
board
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BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Not germane to this excellent discussion but funny update fm Mr Martin (who’s actually 81 now.):
I am amused and thankful.... I was out running this a.m. (this amuses me as I must look even more pathetic than I think I look...wobbly little old guy trying to jog.). Running hills. Got stopped by a sheriff’s deputy, who asked if I was okay. Someone had called it in that they thought I was in trouble. Nope, doing as fine as ever. Chatted for a bit and we both went on our way...he much faster than I. I do appreciate whoever called it in and the officer...thank you for checking on me. I may actually need it someday.
Gawain
Footballguy
Manifest Destiny.
The desire and the ability to "Go West, young man" stretched across race and sex since the inception of the country. Hard scrabble farmers moving to the Smoky Mountains and splitting Tennessee from North Carolina and stretching across the Great Lakes as they chased Clinton's Ditch.
The promise that led freedmen to move to places like Tulsa, OK and Deerfield, CO helped by the Homestead Act. Alger and the myth of the American Dream.
The terrible destruction of the Native American population.
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Pretty solid choice. Under that umbrella:
- Missouri Compromise of 1820
- failed Wilmot Proviso of 1846
- The Compromise of 1850
- Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854
Nat Turner's Rebellion, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott v. Sanford, Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry, Lincoln's election.
You may or may not recall all of the details but I'd venture to say almost everyone is at least familiar with those 11 events.
Maybe you could make a case we already have a race-centric history of the U.S. being taught in schools, but the debate is over the perspective from which it is viewed/presented.
-OZ-
Footballguy
Those events are taught, but overall I know my education wasn't race-centric. I don't know if it should be, but I do think my teachers tended to gloss over our mistakes and emphasized the greatness of America.
I'm on board with the greatness, but like I try to teach my kids, we only become great by learning from mistakes.
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Well I think my kids (21 & 11) got a much more balanced view on the American genocide that occurred as we realized our manifest destiny. It was mostly friendly Injuns & benevolent pale faces when I was school.
The Gator
Footballguy
The Gator
Footballguy
Found this NYT article from 1995:
Teaching Nazi Past to German Youth
partial excerpt:
In the effort to escape the Nazis' centralization of power, the authorities of the various federal states took responsibility for postwar education, so there is no single standardized curriculum for teaching modern German history. But in 1991, the federal Government's educational-monitoring agency urged that the Nazis be subject to an "intensive and thorough treatment" in schools and that "the memory of the Holocaust is kept alive."
In West Germany during the first postwar decades, Mr. Wilms said, history books were written by Nazi-era teachers, and the urge to repress the past was widespread.
The new text seems to offer a fuller picture. And the chapter on the Nazi era and the Holocaust, taught to 16-year-olds, enjoins them to ask: "Who knew what? Who participated and who kept their distance and in what ways were people's dealings and convictions affected by the National Socialist system of dominance?"
The answers seem to offer a broad indictment: "Membership of the Nazi Party promised influence, professional security, a career." While those who said later that they had joined simply to protect themselves and their families, the school book tells young Germans, the reality was that by joining the party, Germans "strengthened the party and the dominance of the Nazis."
No effort is made to discount the Holocaust or the role played in it by individual Germans, the Nazi regime or German industry. Part of the chapter chronicles the chemical giant I. G. Farben's establishment of a branch called I. G. Auschwitz, near the death camp in German-occupied Poland -- a factory making artificial rubber that used camp inmates as laborers and sent them to the gas chambers when they weakened.
"Every student in Germany must tackle this theme," Mr. Wilms said. "No one can say they didn't know."
They are taught that the Nazis came to power on the wings of economic collapse and humiliation at Germany's defeat in the First World War. They are taught about Hitler's race laws. They are taught that their forebears killed six million Jews. But they also learn that this was history, with a European and a German context, not personal guilt.
"We cannot do anything about it -- it was our grandparents that did it," said Barbara Schuler, a 16-year-old student at Konrad Adenauer High School, in suburb of Bad Godesberg. "But we should not forget it."
In West Germany during the first postwar decades, Mr. Wilms said, history books were written by Nazi-era teachers, and the urge to repress the past was widespread.
The new text seems to offer a fuller picture. And the chapter on the Nazi era and the Holocaust, taught to 16-year-olds, enjoins them to ask: "Who knew what? Who participated and who kept their distance and in what ways were people's dealings and convictions affected by the National Socialist system of dominance?"
The answers seem to offer a broad indictment: "Membership of the Nazi Party promised influence, professional security, a career." While those who said later that they had joined simply to protect themselves and their families, the school book tells young Germans, the reality was that by joining the party, Germans "strengthened the party and the dominance of the Nazis."
No effort is made to discount the Holocaust or the role played in it by individual Germans, the Nazi regime or German industry. Part of the chapter chronicles the chemical giant I. G. Farben's establishment of a branch called I. G. Auschwitz, near the death camp in German-occupied Poland -- a factory making artificial rubber that used camp inmates as laborers and sent them to the gas chambers when they weakened.
"Every student in Germany must tackle this theme," Mr. Wilms said. "No one can say they didn't know."
They are taught that the Nazis came to power on the wings of economic collapse and humiliation at Germany's defeat in the First World War. They are taught about Hitler's race laws. They are taught that their forebears killed six million Jews. But they also learn that this was history, with a European and a German context, not personal guilt.
"We cannot do anything about it -- it was our grandparents that did it," said Barbara Schuler, a 16-year-old student at Konrad Adenauer High School, in suburb of Bad Godesberg. "But we should not forget it."
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
A whole lot better than the Japanese have taught their following generations.
Rape of Nanjing? What's that?
https://podbay.fm/podcast/994593429/e/1593032400
Here is a podcast that is a piece of American history about which I was clueless. Phillip Goodrich has written a book entitled Sommersett.
It ties Franklin, Quakers, and slavery without which there would have been no revolutionary war. I found it fascinating, have yet to read the book.
Here is a podcast that is a piece of American history about which I was clueless. Phillip Goodrich has written a book entitled Sommersett.
It ties Franklin, Quakers, and slavery without which there would have been no revolutionary war. I found it fascinating, have yet to read the book.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
AAABatteries
Footballguy
![[scooter]](/data/avatars/m/22/22287.jpg?1659477690){kind=avatar}
[scooter]
Footballguy
First, I hope that Germany teaches more than just one chapter on the entire Nazi era.
Second, maybe my "Whitewashed History!" alarm is being a little too sensitive, but doesn't it kind of seem like the Germans are teaching their own history in a way that invites students to reshape and soften their past? For example:
- asking students to ponder "Who knew what?" could lead some to conclude that much of the country must not have known about the horrible mistreatment of the Jews.
- placing the blame on the "National Socialist system" (instead of, you know, the Nazis) allows German students to feel better about their past. "It wasn't my ancestors' fault -- it was the system's fault!"
- describing Nazism as "dominance" is a form of backhanded exceptionalism, no?
Bracie Smathers
Footballguy
El Floppo
Footballguy
feel like he needs some new schtick.
the timing, the basic approach to jokes... have all been the same for a loooong time. and I like some of the absurd tangents he brings in- but something new needed. and as I said- his "YEAH" after a main point made in a video clip... really done with that.
El Floppo
Footballguy
Bracie Smathers
Footballguy
El Floppo
Footballguy
as a crutch for the comedy?
this isn't a straight up news show... you must know that?
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
i agree with the others that Oliver's an empirically funny guy, but this is a weird time to be funny, Oliver's stunts & polemics have had an actual effect on people's lives (not just the political dialogue) and this all has made him preachier than he'd like to be on occasion. I agree with most of what he said this last show, but didnt find much funny there
Bracie Smathers
Footballguy
I mentioned over a half dozen English/UK comics who are funny. Comedy isn't beauty but funny is in the eye of the beholder and I'd say making another comic cry from a gag rates empirically funny.
- Sean Lock making James Corden cry uncontrollably from laughter
- Sean Lock making Jimmy Carr cry from uncontrollably laughing
- Jimmy Carr makes an entire panel break uncontrollably
Bracie Smathers
Footballguy
Bob Hope wasn't funny, he got Pavlovian timed laugh response to terrible and unfunny jokes. Oliver isn't funny. Jon Stewart was funny, Stephen Colbert was funny because he'd break character and came up with hysterical stuff. Oliver and Riggle were not and are not funny. Telling me earnestly how they are funny doesn't make it so.
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Bracie Smathers
Footballguy
I'll take John Oliver's word for it. John Oliver Stand-up Comedy - I am not Funny, Maybe Jewish & Definitely a Smirf
